I was hoping to write more often.  Wait, that’s what I should be doing here.  Anyway, what I was meaning to say was that I was hoping to stretch blogging about the Farmington Visitor Guide for some time longer, but there isn’t much past page 34 that really gets my mind working.  The guide goes on to talk about the Native American culture of the area, a subject of which I had little use then and in the time since my education on the matter has been lacking.  There’s still much of the local Native American culture of the area I now reside in that I should know better.  After that, the guide talks about Arts and Entertainment, followed by a calendar of events.  The one movie I saw in Farmington was Ghostbusters, which should count for something.  Other than that, my entertainment was watching the Los Angeles newscast and the independent channel that had old Battlestar Galactica reruns on.  I never heard much about events, except for one parade I skipped going to that didn’t appeal to me, as I’ve never really been a big parade fan.  By looking at the calendar of events, I’d guess the parade tied in with the San Juan County Fair (mainly because that was the only parade listed for August).

Part of my entertainment also involved walking to school.  My mom gave me rides to school most days, even though I lived in town and within ten minutes walking distance from school.  In Farmington, the three days I went to school involved me walking every time.  It was a really weird experience at the Farmington school.  I went from my own desk in a class of thirteen to sitting at a long table, with kids all around me (one of three tables in the room).  I don’t remember my teacher’s name, but he had a beard and seemed like a very nice person.  The only thing he’d planned on assigning that I took some umbrage with was collecting insect specimens.  I’ve never been a fan of getting my hands dirty, much less touching insects.  My awkward moments were at lunch and recess.  Lunch wasn’t bad, but I remember that recess was brief and went by pretty slowly, as I didn’t know anyone, and no one seemed to be in a hurry to get to know me.  Part of it was my overpowering shyness, and part of it was being the new kid, so I hold no ill will towards the school or the students.  My fondest memory of the school was the one day of gym.  I don’t remember what the game was called, nor do I remember the exact rules, but I know I wasn’t horrible at it, and since nobody knew I was not athletically gifted, I didn’t do too bad.  The main thing I remember was throwing a bunch of nerf footballs back and forth, and that the gym teacher was very encouraging.

I’ve written about the gas station and the grocery store, but other than that I don’t remember much about Farmington.  I remember my mom trying to find a good doctor, because I was often sick as a child.  I remember going somewhere to talk to a phone company, and a few other car trips that had a purpose of some kind, but one that is lost to my hazy childhood memories.  I’ve never really thought of what my mom did while I was in school those three days.  She went from tending a house to a one-bedroom apartment, and she hasn’t worked very much in her life.  She came from the stay-at-home mom era, and now she was staying home in a town that she didn’t know, with a lot less to do, with no garden, lawn or real cleaning to do that wouldn’t take a short bit of time.  It makes the set up for this next part make a bit more sense, and leads me to believe that staying would have been a bad idea.

It was a Thursday night, and I walked into the kitchen and saw a glass of apple juice on the ktichen island.  “Apple juice for me?  Thanks mom” I said, but she was doing dishes and didn’t hear me.  I was a thirsty young lad, so I downed the apple juice with a big gulp.  The problem was that it wasn’t apple juice.  It was straight whiskey.  It was all I could do to not gag and throw up everywhere.  The whiskey came right back up and all of it went back into the glass.  I retreated to our bathroom and did my best to not throw up.  I was suddenly very tired and my stomach was all kinds of not right, so I went to bed, a fact that surprised my mom a great deal (I was never one to willingly go to bed on time).  She kept me home from school Friday, and I never saw the next seven days coming.  After leaving my only home, leaving behind my small class, and a state I’d grown to love quite a bit, I had been coming to terms with living in this far away place, and I was starting to like it.

Seven days later I was back in Veblen, not to leave until college.