Sloan: Living in state of disenchantment

Last week, I made my first visit to Ruidoso since 2004. The scenery had not changed, but I had.

The forested mountains were as high, the cabins as secluded, and the shops dotting the undulating streets as charmingly eclectic. But the enchantment had dimmed.

Wendel Sloan

While strolling among families and spring breakers, I wondered how many were preoccupied with the future?

Despite the beauty, was the ugliness of life — past, present and future and sometimes committed by us — seeping into their consciousness?

The children seemed genuinely excited, but were the outwardly upbeat adults also living in the moment?

One 30ish man wearing dark glasses with a white cane was on a street corner selling jewelry from a hand-held case. Were the shiny, happy people reflected in his glasses also reflected in him?

At the ski resort, where friends and I had gone to watch beginners take icy falls, a father inquired about half-day ski-lift prices. When told they were $49 for adults, $42 for teenagers and $35 for children, he walked away.

As we returned to our car near his modest vehicle, his youngest child was throwing a tantrum.

The father seemed pained to disappoint his children.

At a late-night breakfast at Denny’s, our waiter asked if we noticed his resemblance to John Candy.

He was the same age, 43, as when Candy died. He was surprisingly funny, and spoke English, Spanish and Korean — learned from the 28-year-old Korean girlfriend he showed us on his cell phone.

Adopting Candy’s mannerisms, he seemed happy as he performed for us.

At Wendell’s Restaurant in the Inn of the Mountain Gods, a San Antonio real estate title worker with three daughters, seemingly happily married to a competing title worker back home, slammed down beer after beer.

During my brief stay in the casino, before smoke and losing drove me out, I saw solo people from their 20s to their 80s glued to neon machines.

I imagine they were hoping, like me, one lucky pull would change everything.

Contact Wendel Sloan at [email protected]