1960 Fajardo Go-Kart

Times are hard, not just for me but for everyone. Everyone's being faced with an acceleration of energy and yet I find myself just feeling worn out since the beginning of January when this new administration in the United States came into power. Exhausted. I look at my artwork that needs to be finished and I just don't feel the inspiration that I've had my whole life. I feel a hopelessness that I have never felt. I feel like so many of our lives have been turned upside down. Just one example, thousands of National Park Workers were fired for absolutely no reason. Well, the reason is to give billionaires tax breaks. Then Medicaid, Medicare and Social have been in the news all day, every day because they are on the chopping block. 73 million people in the USA depend on Social Security. I worked my whole life at jobs that collected money for social security and here I am at 69 waking up every morning to see what kind of mess our country is in today.

About 3 days ago I decided there's nothing I can do. I'm not in good enough health to go march. I don't have a job so I can't strike so I am just going to stop reading about it. I don't watch the news. It's springtime and I am beginning to garden again. 

I opened Facebook yesterday and the first photo that came up was Trump and Musk in front of the White House doing a commercial for Tesla cars. It is so ridiculous that the President of the United States spends his time either trying to make himself or his investors more money. As if money was the answer. I ask myself daily why he would want to be a world leader when it is obvious that he cares about nobody but himself. For some reason it reminded me of when I was 6 years old and my dad helped my brothers build a go-kart. We took photos of it in the front yard.

Phillip 12 years old
Gilbert 11 years old

Agnes,
Nita 9 years old and
Christina 6 years old

Agnes,
Christina 6 years old,
Nita 9 years old

I always write about my ancestors and where they lived in New Mexico, but I never about where I was born and raised. After my parents got married, they moved to Amarillo and built a house on Garfield Street. They lived next to my grandpa Doroteo Fajardo who was a widower who worked for the railroad. In approximately 1951, my parents bought a house on Magnolia Street, in the new neighborhood of Hamlet. The neighborhood was so new that it was still being built around them so we lived in that house until I was almost 2 and then we bought a new larger house down the street. I lived in that house until I turned 18, except for the one school year that I went to live with my grandma in Puerto de Luna New Mexico.

Hamlet was a child's paradise. I knew kids on almost every block of the neighborhood who I went to school with. Thompson Park, the largest park in Amarillo (about 600 acres) was about 4 blocks away and there was a zoo, swimming pool, a fishing lake, picnic spots, and amusement park within the park.