E-mail Story
Print Friendly
Send E-mail
Reprint story
Speakup and View Comments
Saturday, July 04, 2009
Don't Shoot for the Sky
By Joline Gutierrez Krueger
Journal Staff Writer
Somewhere in the distance — you hope in the distance — you hear it.
What was that, you ask. A car backfiring? A metal trash can plummeting from a rooftop? Someone texting too close to a gasoline pump?
It's Fourth of July, so you then deduce that it must be a firecracker or a bottle rocket or one of those sparkling, shooting things that are illegal but are set off anyway during this festive, noisy, lawless time of year.
You would then be partly right: Shooting is involved.
And it's illegal. And it's deadly.
The sound of gunfire is the sound of freedom, yes? It seems some folks like blasting bullets high into the heavens, using guns like confetti cannons in which the confetti is measured by the caliber.
They like to think that happy ammo on the Fourth of July and New Year's Eve falls to the ground with gentle thuds like piñons from the trees.
They don't like to think of what happened to Alyssa Boldin, who, on the Fourth of July in 2005, was just shy of turning 1 when, outside her grandmother's home in Westgate Heights, a party projectile penetrated her skull, ripped open a vein and burrowed into bone. They don't like to think of the 9-year-old boy who, on the Fourth of July in 2001, was struck in the shoulder by fun gunfire while playing in his yard near 98th Street and Central.
They don't like to think of Frank Peña, who 40 years ago this Fourth of July, was barbecuing outside his home on Camino de Bosque NW when he crumpled to the ground with a bullet in his brain.
It's in Peña's memory that we repeat what should be the obvious: What goes up does come down, and at speeds of 300 to 700 feet per second — fast enough to slice through a skull like butter — from two miles away.
I was reminded of Frank by his nephew, Charles Peña, who 40 years later still chokes up when he speaks of the untimely death of the man who became his father figure during his lonely boyhood days.
Charles spent the first 13 years of his life at Albuquerque's former St. Anthony's Home for Boys with four of his siblings, a last resort for the parents who could not afford to take care of them. When he turned 13, he was turned over to his grandparents.
It was Uncle Frankie, a young man with a new family of his own, who brought a sense of family and fatherhood to Charles' life.
"He was my protector," Charles says. "He took me swimming in the ditches. He took us to car racing. He took us camping. He got me my first job. He was really a good man. I still miss him."
Charles was at work that July 4, 1969, when he received a call from his brother, John.
"He told me Frankie had a heart attack," he says. "Turns out he didn't have that."
Frank's wife, Corine Peña, recalls that it was still early and light in the evening when she went inside to put pants on the couple's youngest daughters, Audry Ann, 3, and Kimberly, 2 months, to protect their legs from the spray of sparklers.
Frank, an affable man who worked at Sandia National Laboratories and ran his own contracting business, was outside joking with his in-laws and teasing his older children, Greg, 9, and Vange, 8, when he collapsed steps away from his son.
"Greg was right next to his dad, standing right next to him," Corine says. "What a horrible thing to see your father go down like that. It could have been Greg."
Blood poured from Frank's head, but family members attributed that to his hitting the concrete hard when he fell. An X-ray revealed a .30-06 cartridge, big enough to bring down an elk, plunged deep into his brain behind his nose.
He died at the hospital. He was 33.
"My children were so young," Corine says. "One day they had their dad, and the next they didn't."
Authorities called it a freak accident, the result of someone firing a rifle into the air somewhere, never realizing what they had done when the bullet came down.
No one was ever charged. No one ever came forward.
"Obviously, whoever shot that gun didn't have a conscience over what they had done or how they hurt a family," Corine says.
After her husband's death, she worked and raised their children on her own without ever having to resort to a baby sitter.
"My children have turned out to be exceptionally good citizens," she says. "They have been my life."
Charles turned out pretty well himself. He retired young from Safeway, ran a restaurant, served on the board of directors for Westland Development.
"Uncle Frankie," he says, "was a pretty good role model."
Come July 4, he goes camping to get away, still traumatized by the sounds that boom in the distance across the city.
Celebratory gunfire is one of those weird traditions we New Mexicans have, like cockfighting, drunken driving and playing in arroyos as flash floods approach.
There's no harm in putting an end to this tradition — but there is in keeping it up.
Because things always come down. Badly.
UpFront is a daily front-page opinion column. You can reach Joline at 823-3603, jkrueger@abqjournal.com or follow her on Twitter @jolinegkg.
| We do not publish all comments, and we do not publish comments immediately. |
|
|
