New Mexicans have continued to contribute to the Centennial Letters Project, which now has a home in the window of our front lobby. When you visit, you can read letters that others have contributed and pick up some postcards to leave at your school, library or business to prompt more writers.

We like sharing bits and pieces of the letters with you on this blog, so here are a few of our more recent writers.

Sharon in Santa Fe told us about some of the great outdoor experiences she and her husband have had …

…We moved into an adobe house without electricity above Cochiti Pueblo in 1965. sadly, that area with historic Civilian Conservation Corps-built adobes and magnificent views over the Caja del Rio was burned and flooded in New Mexico’s largest wildfire last summer. We have lived in several small villages and had some exciting adventures. I have cooked on wood stoves, ironed with flat irons, pumped water, backpacked extensively in the Pecos Wilderness, raised three children, taught remedial reading, and met many fascinating people of various backgrounds. My husband Mike had an interesting career with the Forest Service, almost entirely on the Santa Fe National Forest. He fought over 200 wildfires in ten states, managed the recreation lands, marked timber sales, and his favorite, designed and built trails. He retired early and started his own business, Pecos Baldy Enterprises. He has designed and built many trails in Northern New Mexico and southern Colorado. …

We have always loved hiking. Mike designed and built the Dale Ball Trail System in the foothills. I hope it is still being used. Maybe our children will have scattered our ashes by our favorite part of the trail. …

Paul in Rio Rancho recalled some of the good times of his childhood in Hurley, New Mexico …..

… I grew up in Hurley, New Mexico, which is a copper-mining town about 15 miles southeast of Silver City. My father was William Earl Morton, and he worked for Kennecott Copper Corporation in Hurley as a refinery tapper for some 28 years. …

Growing up in Hurley was a bit “different.” It was a small town, and still is, of about 3 to 5 thousand people. What made it different growing up was that Hurley was a “company town”—totally owned and operated by Kennecott Copper Corporation, and surrounded by a barbed wire fence no less. There was a 500 ft. smokestack as part of the refinery, which became quite a local landmark. I can still hear the company whistles signaling start of shift, lunchtime, quitting time, etc. …

I can still remember playing stick ball and steal-the-bacon on the streets close to my home. It was a good town for kids, quiet with a very low crime rate. There was a swimming pool, tennis courts, clubhouse with a small bowling alley and library. The town was clean and well maintained. Being a company town, many of the houses looked the same with only a few different styles and sizes available. …

On December 1, 1055, the entire town of Hurley was sold to a developer (John W. Galbreath) and the houses sold to either the occupants or realtors seeking rental homes. My parents eventually owned their own home at 212 Aztec Street in Hurley. …

Michael in Los Alamos brought us back to the earth — and the economy — of today ….

…Last May I graduated with a Master’s degree from UNM. I have been looking for a real job ever since. Work has been hard to find, and I was forced to move back to my parents’ home. It used to be an anomaly for someone in their thirties like myself to move back into the home of their youth. Now it seems more common. Unfortunately the best work I have found of late is as an extra in a movie that is being filmed here. It is kind of funny, spending so much time and energy in getting a graduate degree only to get a job whose only qualification is the ability to grow lots of facial hair (the movie’s a Western).

Lately I have been looking for work out of state. I would love to be able to stay here, but I am not sure I can afford to do so. If I leave I will probably be drawn back again. There is so much I would miss, but I would likely come back just to smell the ponderosa trees after a summer rain. …

I hope that we have done enough to ensure that they (the ponderosas) and the rest of the amazing landscape of New Mexico remain to be enjoyed. I also hope that you will do what it takes to ensure that it remains for those that come one hundred years after you.

Smile, breath deeply, be happy, and take care of yourself.

We recently received a lovely stack of hand-written letters from fifth-grade students at Piñon Elementary School in Santa Fe. Their teacher had read about our Centennial Letters Project and the effort to collect the thoughts of New Mexicans on this 100th anniversary of statehood — our gift to the historians who will one day document our bicentennial.

Wrote their teacher:”We have had fun trying to imaging what schools will be like in 100 years. We hope there won’t be budget problems and overcrowding in the classrooms like we have now. My hope for the future is that we will all be using clean, renewable energy, that all children will have enough to eat and live in safe homes.  … I know that by being a teacher, I am reaching out to the future and touching lives, hopefully in positive ways. My students learn daily how to resolve conflicts peacefully along with their math, reading, science, and history. I think you (the New Mexicans of 2112) will have very unusual technology from what we use today, but I think 10 and 11 year olds will be very much the same.”

We couldn’t resist sharing some of those 10 and 11 year olds’ thoughts with you. As you’ll see, their young lives are not always easy, but their optimistic outlooks are heartening.

Wrote one: … I live in a cream and tan colored trailer. There are three bedrooms, two bathrooms, one bar, one living room, and one kitchen. … I have a small play room outside. Mostly old people and gangsters live in my neighborhood. There are some kids but they don’t come outside. The park is old and destroyed, so no one can play there. We have lots of goatheads or stickers. …

Another told us of her future hopes and described her absolutely favorite place to eat: … I want to be a fashion designer or an actress. I also really want to become Miss America and Miss Universe. My favorite place to eat at is Golden Corral. They have all sorts of food there. It is a huge buffet that has everything! From Italian to Chinese to steak and mini-hamburgers. Golden Corral even has a huge chocolate fountain. …

One boy spoke of his roots in another nation, one that in 2012 is enduring difficult times that we all hope are resolved by 2112: I am a child of immigrant parents. Life in Mexico is very, very, very, very, very difficult because you don’t live in good conditions. There aren’t a lot of jobs. You can work and barely get paid well. …

On the upside, one girl described life as a fifth-grader in such enthusiastic terms that she kind of makes us want to go back to elementary school: I go to PINON school. I like it there because you learn a lot like Math, Reading, and Spelling. I like homework because you never stop learning, even when you are out of school. I have loved all of my teachers since kindergarten to fifth grade. … I think fifth grade is a great experience. I have to say fifth grade is like being in a place made out of rainbows, and every color in the rainbow means peace. You learn and never stop learning. You can be a smart person thanks to fifth grade.

Want to add your thoughts to our growing stack of letters? Jot down a little or a lot and send them (yes, via snail mail, we’re a history museum, we like old-fashioned things) to this address: