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Excerpts from Abe Peña's  popular publications

All material used with the kind permission of the author, given to me personally.

from VILLAGERS

"Old Juan Rey

Challenging an individual to a foot race can be a most interesting experience. People using canes, crutches, walkers, wheelchairs, etc. will usually take up your challenge with a smile. One told me, “On one condition, downhill!”

I used a walking stick for about 10 years. At first, I felt a little self-conscious using a cane. It reminded me of old Juan Rey Chávez, a cripple in the village of San Mateo, New Mexico, who walked funny using a crooked cane made from scrub oak. As youngsters, we imitated him. “Juan Rey, wherever you are, forgive us.” God only knows, there may be some youngsters out there imitating me today.

Old Juan Rey played the accordion, and my brother Bennie remembers when he accompanied funeral processions. “He usually sat on a bier and played alabados while the casket was quietly lowered into the grave. He was most emotional when it was an 'Angelito.' A child being buried.”

Before I started using a cane, I seldom noticed other canes. As my legs kept getting weaker, I started using a walker, and, in our new handicap-equipped home, I use a power chair to get around.

I have noticed that most lame people seem to have an inner strength that gives strength to others. Most have learned to live with pain, and simply ignore it. I carry a pocket full of Advils. One lady told me, “I have learned that pain is painful, but pain doesn't kill.”

By now, you are probably wondering, “What is Abe Peña's problem? Why doesn't he get a knee or a hip replacement on get on with it?”

I wish it was as simple as that. My problem is the spinal cord. It has thinned down to a thread in the thoracic area, and messages barely get through. It all started at age 13 when a horse I was riding on the Peña Ranch stumbled while running, and I spread-eagled as he rolled, striking me in the back with the high cantle of the old saddle.

I recall lying numb for several minutes before I got some sensation back to my arms and legs. The doctors believe the blow on the spinal cord was such that cysts started slowly growing on the cord at that time.

In 1974, at age 48 while I was serving with the Peace Corps in Costa Rica, my left leg started to go numb. Neurosurgeons in Albuquerque, after several dye tests (before CAT Scans or MRIs), found a tumor the size of a pecan growing on the spinal cord in the thoracic area.
Neurosurgeons who have operated four times in the past 27 years and removed other cysts have concluded that the problem is the result of the fall from the horse. Recent MRIs show continued thinning of the spinal cord, with some scar tissue. One Doctor said what the rest, including the Mayo Clinic, were thinking, “There's nothing we can do to regenerate spinal cord cells... yet, but maybe stem cells have a future in the future.” My left leg is numb and I have to keep telling it what to do, because the nerves that control it are no longer functioning. At times, I have to look for the leg to give it instruction before I start trying to get up or start walking.

There are some positives to my health problem. To write, you have to sit. I am sitting quite a lot these days. I finished this book. It follows Memories of Cíbola. I'm also working on a book telling of our family's experiences in Central and South America.

I hope to write for a long time and continue to tell the story of our villages and pueblos in northwestern New Mexico.

A lady shopping at Wal-Mart in Grants told me recently, “I read and clip all of your stories, and I hope you keep writing more stories.” I told her, “I promise to keep writing my stories if you promise to keep reading them.” She promised she would.”