Great to be back — again

Hello, hello, hello. Here is a triple please-welcome-me-back-to-your-newspaper greeting because three seems to be the magic number for my debut column today.

Actually it’s my third debut.

So yours truly, a native Portalesano, is back. Once again, I will share with you some of my slices and splices of life, sometimes on the wacky, sometimes on the spicy and sometimes on the simplistic and spiritual side.

So what is up with the number three? Well, it has been three years since I last wrote for Clovis Media Inc. I signed off in January of 2012 when I moved to Hobbs.

Hobbs is home now, where I am a teacher, but I consider myself one of the two or three goober gulch grouches who will always know that home is in that place full of nuts ... I mean in that place of wonderful people who are proud of our Valencia peanuts.

Yes home is that place where we are unremorsefully fanatical about our peanut butter milkshakes.

Three is also a special number today, because, as I said, this is really my third newspaper debut.

I started writing a column for Clovis/Portales when I first moved back to Portales from Abilene, Texas, in 2002, following a seven-year absence.

I wrote until 2008, and then I took a year-long break. However, the ink in my blood didn’t dry and so I started writing again and continued until 2012. This is my third time.

Finally, three is significant because this summer my Portales High School graduating class of 1985 celebrates the big 3-0.

Hard to believe it has been three decades since I walked across that slick Home of the Rams gym floor to begin the first day of the rest of my life.

The reunion will be during Heritage Days in June. While I’m never too hard to find, if you’re from the PHS Class of ’85 and have not been found, please step out now, like at one of those meetings when they say, “If you can’t hear me in the back, raise your hand.”

It is great to be back.

Helena Rodriguez is a Portales native. Contact her at:

[email protected]