Albuquerque's Environmental Story
Albuquerque's Environmental StoryErnie Pyle, the noted journalist, wrote an article in January, 1942, for New Mexico Magazine as a response to a question often asked him: "With the whole of the United States to select from, why did you choose Albuquerque for your home?"
Pyle replied,
". . . And here are the things we like about living in Albuquerque.... We like it because our front yard stretches as far as you can see, and because old Mt. Taylor, 65 miles away, is like a framed picture in our front window. We like it because when we look to the westward we look clear over and above the city of Albuquerque and on beyond, it seems, halfway to the Pacific Ocean.
We like it because you can cash a check in Albuquerque without being grilled as though you were a criminal. And because after your second trip to a filling station the gas-pumper calls you by name. We like it because people are friendly and interested in you, and yet they leave you alone.... And we like it here because you can do almost anything you want to, within reason. In four months I haven't been out of overalls more than half a dozen times.
We like it because we can have Navajo rugs in our house, and pinon and juniper bushes in our yard, and western pictures on our knotty pine walls. We like it because you can take a Sunday afternoon spin into the mountains and see deer and wild turkey, and because I have a workbench where I make crude little end tables and such stuff for our house.
We like it because you aren't constantly covered with smoke and soot, and because the days are warm and the nights are cool.... We like it because we can see scores of miles in any direction from our house, and yet we can drive downtown in seven minutes.... We like it out here because we seem to go to bed early and get up early--and certainly out here he who does not see the dawn at least once a week is missing perhaps the loveliest thing the desert has in its Horn of Plenty....
We like it here because no more than half our friends who write us can spell Albuquerque. We like it here because there aren't any street cars, and because you see lots of men on Central Avenue in cowboy boots. We like it because you can see Indians making silver jewelry, and you can see sheepskins Lying over a vacant lot downtown drying in the sun.... We like it because Albuquerque is still small enough that you always see somebody you know when you go downtown. We like it because the whole tempo of life is slower than in the big cities....
We like Albuquerque because, in spite of the great comfortable sense of isolation you feel here, still you do not suffer from over-isolation. For people here too, live lives that are complete and full....
We like it here because we're on top of the world, in a way; and because we are not stifled and smothered and hemmed in by buildings and trees and traffic and people. We like it because the sky is so bright and you can see so much of it. And because out here you actually see the clouds and the stars and the storms, instead of just reading about them in the newspapers. They become a genuine part of your daily life, and half the entire horizon is yours in one glance just for the looking, and the distance sort of gets into your soul and makes you feel that you too are big inside."
(Reprint permission from New Mexico Magazine)
The
nostalgic among us relate to Pyle's answer with a sense of loss - if we are
old timers - and perhaps a sense of sadness mixed with confusion if we came
here recently. Most of us can identify with his love for this place, and can
still experience some of the pleasure he expressed. However, more than a half
century has gone by since Ernie Pyle wrote this love letter to his adopted home.
In that period Albuquerque evolved from a small town to a burgeoning city.
(Image courtesy of RT Graphics, Rio Rancho, NM)
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