Hard to fathom I got the first of my three divorces fifty years ago now. Ironically it paralleled Watergate and Nixon leaving office. 1974 was definitely a watershed year for the country politically, culturally, and me personally. And that coincidence was not lost on me, and I adjusted my life accordingly. Whatever semblance to a linear life experience I had planned melted in the Summer of '74.

Pocahontas, my nickname for my first wife, and I were barely married for two years. Don't get offended, PC folk, she called me much worse and threw knives. The straw that broke the camel's back was me not wanting children, though there were many other issues. We were way too young, and I was chasing the romantic fantasy of marrying an American Indian princess, the gold standard in those hippie years. Plus, that is what she was selling and that was a hot product in the much more ethnically challenged, white bread Santa Cruz of the 70's. I blame it on seeing 'Jeremiah Johnson', that Hollywood blockbuster about a mountain man and his squaw surviving in the wilderness with just a gun and basic hair styling products. I wanted to be Jeremiah, and she wanted to be Mary Tyler Moore. It was destined to fail.

One of the moments I will never forget is laying on the floor of our empty rental house after she had moved out. I can perfectly picture a warm sun radiating through the windows on my skin and the rush of the newly opened possibilities of freedom flooding my brain. In retrospect it was a wise move. I would have made the worst father possible and never had a desire to spawn. She remarried to a very successful man and did have children.

One huge thing that I did get out of the deal was my introduction to New Mexico. We had spent quite a bit of time with her relatives on the Mescalero Apache Reservation and I fell in love with the land. In fact, that became one of our issues. I wanted to move to New Mexico, and she was quite happy in California. I could not blame her really. A beautiful Native American woman had some currency in Santa Cruz that vanished fast in New Mexico. She had a sweet job working in a high-end jewelry store and modeled turquoise pieces in jewelry shows. She made more than I did for sure.

Another moment crystalized in my mind forever is going into the St. Joseph Apache Mission Church on the Mescalero Reservation at the age of 69 a few years back. It is the most beautiful church I have ever seen, and I had not been in it since I was 19, exactly 50 years ago. That was an incredibly moving experience, like coming full circle. Thanks for finally getting me here, Pocahontas, even if we took the long trail of tears.