ONE COLD, LONELY, AND SNOWY NIGHT

Saga of a Strange Trek

by Wylie Dougherty, Guest Writer

Just a week before Christmas, on December 18, 1964, a Friday night, in my 4^th month of the new job as Field Rep for the NM Credit Union League, I was to drive from Alamogordo back home to Albuquerque.  It started to snow and snow and snow some more. 

Up US 54 to Carrizozo and headed West on US 380 across the badlands toward the Rio Grande and Socorro, I found one set of tracks in the deepening snow, so I followed them.  I was very glad that the tracks didn't run off into one of the many canyons along the way, as I am sure I would have followed them right into a canyon, those tracks were the only guide I had.  You've all had that urge, just like an old horse headed back to the barn, I had to get home.

Well, the tracks finally got me to US 85 (before the days of Interstate 25) and I gladly turned North.  As I came up over this hill, an 18 wheeler with Christmas lights lit up all over the back-end was stopped in my lane.  Panic—I jammed on the brakes on this old 60 Ford 4 door, and the lights and semi were gone!!  My eyes couldn't believe what I thought I saw, it was gone, I was hallucinating from being hypnotized by the tracks in the snow coming from Carrizozo.

Well, when I got into Socorro, I called a friend and shooting buddy, who was Captain of our NM National Guard Rifle team, asked him for a cup of coffee, told him my strange story of the ghost truck, spent some time decompressing, then hit the road to Albuquerque.  The rest of the trip was memorable only because when I got to Belen, the roads were iced and near impassable.  But being the old horse headed for the barn, I put my right wheels off the road, crunching ice and snow, not many cars out in this nasty weather.  Got home about midnight and sat there wall-eyed for a couple of hours before I could sleep.  The reason I remember the date is it's my youngest Sister's birthday, just a week before Christmas.

Since both the CU League and our family were poor, I couldn't really afford an overnight stay along the way. God Bless both our ignorance and good luck.

Wylie Dougherty, CHS Class of '53

4-9-13

for Mil's Place