50PlusCycling

It sucks to be just about anything in Albuquerque. I’m a third-generation native of the city, my great-grandmother owned much of what is the residential area around the downtown area today. Albuquerque has imitated many of the less well-thought-out policies enacted in other cities around the country, and these have increased drug addiction, homelessness, crime, and violence. This is in addition to a situation where gang violence has been an issue for generations. And then there is the rampant public corruption, terrible public schools (New Mexico finally edged out Mississippi to take the title of America’s worst public schools), and arguably the most poorly-trained and poorly-led police departments in America.

I enlisted in the Army to escape this “wretched hive of scum and villainy,” and have never looked back.