Flashback to 1986, Laguna Pueblo, the iconic view from Interstate 40, New Mexico. I’ve revisited Laguna Pueblo twice in the last two months. Each time reiterates the experience I had the first time I visited Laguna Pueblo in 1986. I was looking back in time, much like visitors had, over the centuries past. The view from the freeway is pretty much unchanged with the terraced housing and mission church of Saint Joseph dominated by Mount Taylor, a stratovolcano, named in 1849 after then president Zachary Taylor. In the village today, there is a “round-about”, sidewalks, some street lighting and a new administration building. The charm and friendly nature of the people I met there thirty years ago, was exemplified on these last few visits by the local priest sitting in a pew, with his bare feet resting on the earthen floor. He regaled us with many stories in the cool, slightly moist, air of the cavernous mission church. His voice rose softly, echoing around the interior, and off the walls of the building as if summoning up the ghosts from the past to bare witness to his tales. Thanks for looking. G
