Me in approx 1978, Pecos Mountains New Mexico. Our nearest neighbor, 5 miles distant, was a crazy old goat herder named Pete who walked around in cut-off shorts, cowboy boots, a .38 in a shoulder holster and not much else. There was a huge cliff with a creek below it and scrubby forest all over the hills which I explored, filling up my pockets with stones and bones while my father built someone a house. This might have been the happiest time of my life.
