One Saturday Afternoon It was the Summer of 1965. I was twelve years old and living with my parents in Las Cruces, New Mexico. We lived in a small, quiet neighborhood at 2165 Turrentine. Our yellow three-bedroom house sat on the corner of an intersection I grew to love. My fondest memory of living on Turrentine was that of eating my Root Beer popsicle -- and it was always Root Beer -- on the edge of the sidewalk on a hot summer day and not caring if it dripped on my brand new blue jeans, the jeans my mother had bought at Bassett Shopping Center in El Paso only to find out days later that I had already torn them. At the time I was in the sixth grade and a tomboy. Kathy DeVillez, a neighborhood friend, lived with her parents and siblings behind my parent's home on Monte Vista. A dirty blonde with a natural-looking tan, Kathy had a prominent overbite and seldom stayed clean. Her Wrangler jeans were always torn and muddy, and her hair never seemed to be combed. Mrs. DeVillez always commented on how clean I was, how my lustrous, naturally curly black hair reminded her of Sophia Loren. How ironic she didn't know the real me. I was just as much a tomboy as her daughter and she didn't even know it. I didn't have the heart to tell her that at the age of seven I loved to throw dirt in my hair. It was an easy task. I would grab a handful of dirt in both hands, release my fingers in mid-air and stand under the falling particles. A few years older than me, Kathy was a dog lover. 'Farah', her first dog, a Doberman Pinscher, was old and fat when I first met her. Barely getting around the DeVillez's backyard, I remember her as quiet, calm and sweet, her paws brushing against that long sidewalk to her pen, the sound of her toenails flicking against the cement on the sidewalk surrounded by tall grape vines, entangled in each other, reaching tall into the sky. A couple of years earlier Kathy's father, Mr. DeVillez, an engineer at White Sands Missile Range, had bought her a new Doberman for a mere $200. 'Nassau' was the name Kathy selected for her new dog, purchased from Mr. and Mrs. Deere, a childless couple living on El Paseo Road. One summer afternoon in June, Kathy and I, in our T-shirts, jeans and tennis shoes, walked a couple of miles to the campus of New Mexico State University. We were just two girls exploring the University and looking for an adventure on a boring Saturday afternoon. On the way, crossing University Avenue, we found a stray dog, a German Shepherd mix. He was cute and seemed to want to follow us. Walking through the bull pasture to get to the Ag Building, Kathy was 200 feet ahead of me, I was behind with 'Shep,' the name we had given the stray dog. Not paying attention and standing in the middle of the pasture, I looked up and was suddenly face-to-face with a Hereford bull. We stared at each other for what seemed a few seconds. I was frozen and realized the danger I was in. Without warning the bull charged me. His head was down and I was his intended target. I ran towards the fence, looked back and noticed 'Shep' running in the bull's direction, diverting his attention away from me. It worked! 'Shep' ran in the path of the bull, confusing the animal by running in a doughnut motion and making it possible for me to escape. Scrambling to the fence, I was out of breath and relieved. I had escaped the bull's wrath. From a distance Kathy could see what was going on. She watched in amazement. "Teresa, Shep saved your life!" Forging ahead, we then walked to the hog barn laughing at our first dangerous experience. Not seeing a pig in sight, we noticed a pen with five hedge hogs. I thought they were disgusting. Snorting and dirty, the quills on their back moved in the air as they sniffed our shoes. We moved next to the dairy, just 200 yards away. All I can remember was the stench, the mixture of strawberry milk gone sour. I have no idea why there was a strawberry smell, but the stink was overwhelming. And to top that, there was that familiar unpleasant odor of feces. The cows were mooing and we were snooping in a maintenance barn hoping to find more adventure. The first sound we heard was cats meowing -- lots of cats -- wild cats roaming the barn, not an uncommon occurrence since milk was in the vicinity. Kathy picked up a burlap sack and had it in her mind to capture one of them. The cat not only meowed fiercely and struggled, but seemed to have a strong moan to her cries. I didn't know what Kathy had in mind by capturing this cat, but it was clear she was proud of her prize. We walked back in the direction of the Ag Building, not knowing what to do with the wild animal. Kathy had an idea. "We'll let the cat loose in the building and see what happens," she said. The front door was open but the building appeared quiet. As Kathy and I roamed the halls, the cat continued to cry in the burlap sack, her moans getting louder and louder. Standing in the lobby on the first floor, Kathy opened the bag and let the cat loose. A minute later we heard women's voices. "Damn! Somebody saw us"!, Kathy said. Running up the stairs to the third floor, Kathy and I dashed into the ladies restroom, where we thought it would be safe to hide. Inside the stalls, we stood on top of the toilet seats. Moments later two women walked in, and we were absolutely scared! We would be discovered, our parents would be called and that would be the end of our Saturday afternoons at NMSU. I remember feeling a pang of fear in my chest; my heart was pounding a mile a minute. Kathy and I listened as the two women talked about us. It was obvious they witnessed the release of the cat on the first floor. "Did you see those girls?", one woman said. "They let a cat loose on the first floor! Can you imagine?" I rolled my eyes and imagined Kathy was doing the same. "Who let them in this building?" We listened as they continued to talk to each other, wondering who we were, where we were and why we had let a cat loose in the Ag Building. Hoping they wouldn't discover us in the stalls, Kathy and I were shaking in fright, still clinging to the side of the metal walls, our feet firmly gripped on the toilet seats. After a few minutes the two women left and we were free to leave. We wondered what would bring women to the Ag Building on a Saturday, so we decided to investigate. Tiptoeing our way out of the bathroom, Kathy and I walked down to the first floor and heard women's voices coming from the auditorium on the first floor. We walked closer. It was a long, dark hallway to the auditorium. The floors were freshly waxed. A long row of pictures were neatly displayed on the right wall. It wasn't hard to notice them. They were past presidents of the College of Agriculture & Home Economics. Coffee, tea and lemon slices was set up on a table in the hallway in front of the double doors of the auditorium. I took a quick peek inside. The room was enormous, rows and rows of wooden chairs, with women everywhere. I was amazed. A huge stage sat in front of the seats and Ann Landers stood on this stage, a large podium in front of her. Every woman in the room waited silently in her seat, wondering what the famous guest speaker would be saying on this Saturday afternoon. At the time I had a vague idea who Ann Landers was and remembered her picture and column in the local newspaper, the Las Cruces Sun News. But it wasn't until I noticed the steel easel with her picture in front of the double doors, next to the table of coffee, tea and lemons, that I knew for sure. Without having to think, my friend and I read each other's mind. Picking up as many lemon slices as possible, Kathy and I dashed out the back door as Ann Landers continued to mesmerize the women in the auditorium. Probably later the women would realize half of their lemon slices were missing. Sitting outside on the steps of the Ag Building, Kathy and I enjoyed our lemons and laughed. It was now 4:00, and the end of another Saturday afternoon. In loving memory of Ann Landers who died on June 22, 2002. [Back to Terre's Place] Background Set by Bannerz~R~Us