SHOWING RESPECT
FOR OUR COMMON PAST

The Very Large Array, a high-tech radio telescope observatory on the western plains of New Mexico, is less than twenty miles from Kelly, an abandoned mining town. (What separates them is a stretch of road heavily-traveled by the New Mexico State Police, and on which it's not a good idea to speed -- a lesson I learned the hard way.) Ignoring the known laws of time and space, the future and the past seem to coexist very well in New Mexico. As a friend of mine once said to me after I had shown him pictures of the state, "I knew New Mexico was part of the United States, but I had no idea it was not part of this world."

Think of what that world must have been like for the miners and homesteaders who lived in old towns and mining camps in New Mexico. Although they would probably have a hard time envisioning the world we know today, it's relatively easy for us to envision theirs. We have books full of information about how they lived, and the added luxury of being able to step into their world, if even for a brief time, by visiting the places where they lived and worked. And although they may not still be around, we should still consider ourselves guests there, and act accordingly.

An adage tells us "Take only photographs, and leave only footprints." Please heed. Remember that people lived, loved, worked, died and moved on in the very spot on which you may now be standing. If I knew that people were going to be looking through my house 100 years from now (hopefully after I clean it up), I would want them to be respectful of my warm feelings for the place. Whatever has been left behind for us to admire is there because nobody passing that way before has destroyed it. Don't be the weak link in the chain.

New Mexicans, I believe, share a special affinity with their past. We are where we came from. Whether you are native, adopted, or just visiting, keep this affinity in mind. And, like Hippocrates, do no harm.