Annmarie Throckmorton, M.A.
- Oct 3, 2018

Excluded At Mesa Verde

Summer temperature had reached well into the 90s on the day that my family toured the ancestral home of the Puebloans at Mesa Verde, Colorado. I was eleven years old and this archeological site was highly interesting to me. I had been looking forward to seeing it for our entire drive across Kansas to Colorado. When we got there my parents ordered me to stay in the car. I pointed out that this was probably my only chance in life to see the ruins at Mesa Verde, but my mother just snarled, “Stay in the car and keep the windows up.” No one would give me a reason for my exclusion as they trudged off together to see Mesa Verde in the heat. I stayed in the car as ordered but as soon as they rounded the bend into the desert I opened the windows, or I would have suffered heat stroke. To this day I do not know why my family would not let me see Mesa Verde. They did not appear to have enjoyed it. I would have. Shortly after this my sister Carla became very ill with a high temperature and hallucinations. She was frightening, chopping her hands at me, claiming that she was "cutting bread". My parents cut our vacation short to take her home.