A roadside shrine south of Clovis, New Mexico...
A tribute to a fellow who lost his life when his motorcycle went off the road.
Someone takes the time to maintain it, cut the grass around it...
I was 10 years old when I saw my first real-live dead people…my great aunt Winnie and uncle Les. There they were in the funeral parlor, the life knocked out of them after being rammed from behind on the interstate by a drunk driver. The collision caused them to lose control of their car, fly off the pavement, rocketing into a wide median down a hill and slamming into a tree.
Years afterward I would travel I-81 in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia and think of them, wondering where it was exactly that it all happened. I'd look into the median and wonder which tree they rammed. There was no roadside memorial like we see so often here in The Great American Southwest.
I really didn’t start seeing “homemade” roadside memorials until I moved to New Mexico. At one point the state of Texas was kicking around the idea of doing away with roadside memorials. They wanted to replace the home-grown-sometimes-plastic-flower-garlanded crosses and such with homogenized, pasteurized, clean and correct signs. A family or friend who lost a loved one and wanted that spot remembered would pay the government of the Lone Star State $100 to have a sign erected. Now if they did what I saw in the Bahamas in 1969 that may be one thing, but to just put a small sign up, well that’s just kind of sterile and unfeeling unlike the sentiment and art that goes into a homemade shrine.
I don't know if this is the way they still do it in that island nation, but back in 1969 you'd pass these black and white signs marking where someone was killed in a traffic accident: drunk driver, accident, pedestrian hit by a car. The reason I remember these things is because the sign was a skull and crossbones with the person's name, date they were killed and the cause of their death.
I prefer the home-made memorials
I don’t know the history of roadside memorials but I’d bet my chips that they’re a Mexican or Mexican-American tradition. Some folks in other parts of the country may have picked up on this but they are most prevalent in Mexico and the American Southwest. It’s part of our regionalism. Many are works of art. I suppose the idea is you see the memorial…you remember the people…and maybe, just maybe, you remember to use caution on that stretch of highway.
They say…
Wait…
You might wonder who “They” are…the people folks are referring to when they say, “Well, you know what THEY say…..”
These are two old women who live in a well-appointed cave in Vietnam, the entrance is up on the side of a cliff with a terrace. Crowds await their every pronouncement. So every now and then they pop out on their terrace and make statements about various things about life. Then the crowd goes “Ooooo” and “Aaah” and folks say, “Well, you know what They say…”
Anyway…
They say that when a person experiences a quick, unexpected death the spirit lingers on Earth, not knowing they have died...and they missed their cue to head for The Light. This is one belief in the origin of ghosts.
So I wonder if one of the reasons people started putting up roadside memorials is to serve as notice to the departed that, “Yeah, um, you’re dead.”
Some of the roadside memorials that stand out in my mind: there's the one on highway 467 in Roosevelt County to remember the young, hardworking ENMU student who was hit head on by a drunk driver just a few days before her 20th birthday. I think of the tragedy of it and wonder why people still think it’s okay to be drunk, get behind the wheel and hit the highway.
There's a memorial on US 70 in Chaves County between Kenna and Roswell. It's in remembrance of three family members from Amarillo who died in 1999 when their pickup crossed the center line and slammed into an 18-wheeler just days before the two lane stretch of highway was opened up to the four lanes it is now.
Flash hundreds of miles away to an intersection on the outskirts of Douglas, Arizona. There are three crosses in a row with the name "Romero" spelled out in white painted stones. I don't know the circumstances of the accident so I make an assumption: three members of the Romero family died there. I think of what a blow that must've been to the family.
South of Sierra Vista, Arizona there's a pretty white cross with a little girl's picture in the center. Sometimes there are toys around it. This was the 9 year old who was on the way to the dentist with her mother when they were sideswiped by a pickup. Only the child died. No one else.
North of Sierra Vista there's a memorial to a former co-worker of mine who was ejected from his passenger seat when the driver fell asleep at the wheel, went flying off the pavement and slammed into a hillside. I think of him, his talent and I remember it’s good to wear a seat belt because he didn’t.
Driving in Mexico you can tell how treacherous a stretch of road is by the number of memorials along the way. This is the case along a stretch of Mexican Federal Highway 2 a few miles east of Cananea, Sonora.
It’s a stretch of two-lane highway that curves and winds through some low hills. There are roadside memorials all along the way. I’m serious, probably about every 300 feet there’s a memorial. I would hope that all those homemade shrines would warn folks that it isn’t exactly a safe stretch of blacktop.
To tell you the truth the first roadside memorial that pops in my mind when the shrines cross my thoughts is one that was a few miles west of Bisbee, Arizona. Folks erected small crosses and a wood and glass box with a photo in it to remember a mother and child hit head-on by a drunk driver who did time in an Arizona prison for what he did. He and a friend had been drinking and driving all that day in October 1994 when he crossed the center line and killed the young woman and her daughter. He told the court that he lost control when the driver's seat collapsed. The jury didn’t buy his story.
Roadside memorials…
Some of them are elaborate.
Some are simple.
But all roadside memorials tell the silent
stories of people who are gone and the folks who miss them.
-30-
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