I Can’t Remember Her Walk



Betty

Caught in an invisible envelope between the anniversary of my late wife’s death (February 12) and her birthday (March 13), I am firmly in the grip of nostalgia. Aside from the more intimate memories, there are things such as her voice, her laugh, and countless little mannerisms. Betty was a natural redhead with a temper to match. I remember telling our two boys many times: “You know your mother. She has to vent.” She would react to things quickly, and then the moment would be forgotten. Me, I have to stew over perceived slights and wrongs, which means I hold onto them longer.

Betty was shy around strangers, which made the social events required of my work literally hell for her. But she soldiered on and did her part. We soon got a reputation as the last to arrive at a gathering and the first to leave. She had one great redeeming quality (from my perspective), she could roll up her sleeves and dive into the innards of a washing machine or a toaster or virtually any household appliance to make repairs…something I wouldn’t even attempt. It was a testimony to her skill that when she died, our washing machine was an old Montgomery Ward model for which they no longer made replacement parts. The matching dryer died while she was in the hospital, but I am still using the washer. When it goes bad, I’ll just shoot it in the head and get a replacement.

My wife never looked more attractive, more alive than when she carried our two sons. Pregnancy did something to her—for her—that nothing else in life did. She shone…she glowed. She was so alive. She was also quite often nauseous. When we went grocery shopping she would stand in the soap department, where she could tolerate the aromas, and send me to other sections of the store to fetch items on her list.

Betty’s red hair, as I’ve said, was natural. The strands were like fine, glittering copper wires catching the sunlight and reflecting it back. She did not indulge herself lavishly, but she did enjoy going to the hairdresser occasionally. She had a favorite whom she reluctantly abandoned because the woman continually asked what she used to tint her hair. Betty could never convince her she did not—and never had—used dyes or tints.

She was a good sport. Always tolerant of my inability to do anything constructive with my hands, she was willing to pitch in to help. When I couldn’t get the plug out of the swamp cooler on the roof, she obligingly sucked on the end of a hose to start the water draining…and ended up with a mouthful of a foul, sediment laden soup from the bottom of the cooler. When I ineptly tried to fix a leaky faucet and lost a wad of bubblegum down the pipe (please don’t ask), she hovered over the pipe ready to snatch the gum as I cleverly lifted it on a cushion of water. Well, I screwed the goose on that one, too. She ended up with another dousing. At least this time it was clean water. To this day, if you draw from the cold water tap in that house, it is flavored by a piece of used bubblegum.

As I was sitting in the parking lot of a big box store the other day waiting for a friend and observing passersby, I began to notice that the way some of them walked reminded me of one of my sons or this friend or that acquaintance. Then it came to me that while I recalled so many things about Betty, I couldn’t remember her walk.

And that made me sad.

Next week: I’ll be over my bout of nostalgia, so maybe we’ll get back to some of the scenery in THE BISTI BUSINESS.

New posts are published at 6:00 a.m. each Thursday.

Final Lap of the Turquoise Trail National Scenic Byway

Black Bear - New Mexico's State Animal

Before we take NM14 north out of Madrid on the final leg of our journey up the Turquoise trail, let’s examine the countryside we’re traveling. This scenic byway begins in the high Chihuahuan Desert, travels hills and mountains and valleys, bypassing 10,600-foot Sandia Peak, the more modest San Pedro and Ortiz Mountains, and ends up in the southern part of Santa Fe. Vegetation includes piñon, juniper, mountain mahogany, chamisa (or chamizo, if you prefer), various types of oak, Apache plume, ash, ponderosa pine, aspen, cottonwood, and white fir, among other fauna.

Mountain Lion

Wildlife includes bear, coyote, mountain lion, mule deer, antelope, fox, and a host of other smaller critters. I once had to stop my car on the road to Sandia Peak to allow a big black bear sow and her cub to cross the road. More than once, I’ve rounded a curve and come upon two or three mule deer browsing roadside. I recall scrambling for my car while the biggest coyote I’ve ever seen ran in the other direction to get away from the scary biped he’d happened upon. With a wide variety of bird life—including raptors such as owls, hawks, and eagles—this is a birdwatcher’s paradise.

Golden Eagle

Cerrillos (or more properly Los Cerrillos), which means “Little Hills” in Spanish, is the site of one of the oldest documented mining districts in the US. As early as 900 AD, Pueblo Indians mined the hills around Cerrillos—formed from ancient volcanoes—for blue-green turquoise. There is even a type of turquoise named after the town. Stones from this area have found their way to Chaco Canyon, the crown jewels of Spain, Chichen Itza, Mexico and, indeed, throughout the world.

Disdainng the beautiful chalchihuitl, or Sky Stone, the Spanish appropriated the natives as labor for their gold and silver mining activities. The El Real de Los Cerrillos camp was formed to support these activities, but lasted only about a year. The mining continued in the area until the Pueblo Revolt in 1680. Just as in Madrid to the south, activities began again when the Spaniards took control of the area once again.

Antonio Simoni Store
Cerrillos, NM

After New Mexico became a US territory, the area, now under Anglo control, experienced a resurgence of gold, silver, and lead mining. From its humble beginnings as a mining camp, Cerrillos blossomed into a town of over 2,000 souls and boasted 21 saloons, 5 brothels, 4 hotels, and more than one newspaper. The town was once under consideration to be the site of the capitol of New Mexico.

The railroad arrived in 1880. The notorious Billy the Kid was supposedly one of its passengers. In 1879 it brought a man named Major D. C. Hyde, who was president of a gold and silver mining company. Major Hyde began promoting turquoise, and even though he vanished from the area under mysterious circumstances the following year, Tiffany & Co. and other New York jewelry companies began marketing turquoise as a gemstone, Tiffany even acquired property at Turquoise Hill. The boom in mining the sky stone lasted until the 1900s.
 

Cerrillos Today

The town’s fortunes declined in tandem with the diminishing mining activity. Today, the community sits among large cottonwood trees, a quiet town with the charm and simplicity and washboard dirt streets of the 1800s. Because of this bucolic, Old West feel, the town is often used for filming movies and commercials, notably Young Guns and Young Guns II, portions of which were shot on Front Street. Today’s visitors can enjoy local art galleries, antique shops, a Turquoise mining museum, and a petting zoo. Horseback riding is available. You can visit Mary’s Bar, the hanging tree, or attend mass at St. Joseph’s Catholic Church on Sundays.

The Cerrillos Mining District is now the Cerrillos Hills State Park (only we Anglos would tack “Hills” onto a word that means hills) of about 1,100 acres marked with trails that tell the story of the mining along the Turquoise Trail.

Next, it’s North to Alaska—well to Santa Fe. On the way, we pass the Lone Butte/San Marcos area. Archaeologists say the Galisteo Basin had a very large Pueblo Indian population in the 14^th and 15^th Centuries. Yet when Don Diego de Vargas returned to New Mexico in 1692 after the Revolt, the basin was practically deserted. Galisteo village was founded 15 years later to take advantage of good grazing land. The formations around the area called the “Garden of the Gods" are easily seen from space. This is now a residential and service area for the Turquoise Trail. The San Marcos Café and Feed Store with its yard full of chickens and peacocks is a good place for a meal or a snack. Ranches in the area have been used as sites for numerous movies and seasonal music festivals.

Just north of here, the Trail ends in a meeting with historic Route 66 and Santa Fe.

 

Next week: Shall remain a mystery to you…as well as to me (at the present).

New posts are published at 6:00 a.m. each Thursday.

Along the Turquoise Trail Scenic Byway to Madrid

A little over halfway to Santa Fe (about twenty-seven miles shy of the city of Sacred Faith), we enter the ghost town of Madrid. I know it’s going to grate on you Spanish language purists, but the locals call it MAD-rid, not Ma-DRID, so just bite your tongue and live with it. These days, however, you’re more apt to meet a funky artist or craftsman than a phantom.

Madrid Anthracite Coal Breaker Circa 1935

First, a little background. Archaeologists tell us the area known as the Turquoise Trail has been inhabited for a millennia and a half. For most of that time, natives mined these hills for a sacred blue stone they considered a symbol of health, happiness, and protection. They called it chalichihuitl. We call it turquoise. According to Turquoisetrail.org, over 50,000 pieces of this beautiful stone was found by archaeologists in a single burial site at nearby Chaco Canyon.

 

When the Spaniards arrived mid Sixteenth Century, they were more interested in gold and silver in the San Pedro Mountains than in sky blue rocks, no matter how stunning. They forced the natives to labor in their mines until the Pueblo Revolt of 1680 got them kicked out. Spain reconquered the area in 1693 and mining resumed, although Spanish settlers also began to farm and ranch. So from an early age, this area has been mined. The noble metals played out quickly, but the discovery of both hard and soft coal in 1835 altered the future of Madrid.

The town was founded in 1869, but things didn’t really begin to jive until the 1880s with the advent of coal mining. By 1892, production from “Coal Gulch” was sufficient to induce the Santa Fe Railroad to build a six and a half-mile spur to the town. In 1906 all coal production in the area was consolidated at Madrid, which was by now a “company town.” Production on the thirty square miles of rich black seams reached its peak in 1928 with the shipment of over 180,000 tons (or 250,000, depending upon your source) on coal cars.

 

Old Coal Town Museum

Eventually, natural gas became more popular for heating homes, resulting in a falling demand for coal. In 1954, coal operations ceased and almost all of the residents moved away. Soon, Madrid was considered a ghost town. In the early 1970s, Joe Huber, the owner of the entire town site began renting or selling a few of the old company houses to artists and craftsmen. As more “counter culture” individualists moved to Madrid, the town took on new life.

Some fun facts about Madrid:

· The first illuminated baseball park west of the Mississippi was built here in 1922 as the home of the Madrid Miners, a farm team for the Brooklyn Dodgers.

· The Brooklyn Dodgers played in the park in 1934.

· During its heyday, Madrid was larger in population than Albuquerque, and afforded its citizens paved streets and unlimited electricity for their homes (provided by the mine’s power plant).

· The Mineshaft Tavern, which boasted the longest bar in the state, burned down on Christmas Day in 1944. It was rebuilt with the bar intact.

· In 1954, the Wall Street Journal listed the entire town for sale for $250,000. No takers.

· The Miner’s Amusement Hall, the Catholic Church, the Coal Mining Museum, and many of the wooden company houses have been restored, but some of the old houses are in their original and uncertain state on the outskirts of town.

· The town has an annual Christmas lighting display (originally started in the 1920s) which draws many visitors from throughout the state.

· The “Congested Area Ahead” signs generally warn against weekend pedestrians darting across the highway to get from one artisan’s house to another craftsman’s shop rather than motor traffic.



Restored Miner's Cabins

The place is not only a ghost town, but also a “Ghost” town. The cemetery, the church, and the Mine Shaft Tavern appear to be haunted. The spirit of La Llorna has been reported wandering the arroyos of the town. Some people believe the Weeping Woman haunts many places in the southwest. A silent, spectral cowboy occasionally escorts a well-dressed Spanish woman (equally ephemeral) right down the middle of Main Street.

Madrid seems to have it all: crumbling shacks, restored buildings, a famous tavern where glasses fall to the floor for no reason, a horde of talented artists and craftsmen, a long history, and…ghosts. Real live—well, maybe that’s not the right word—ghosts. What more could you ask?

Next week: The final lap of the Turquoise Trail

New posts are published at 6:00 a.m. each Thursday.

A Drive Up the Turquoise Trail National Scenic Byway

Near the beginning of THE BISTI BUSINESS, BJ and his former partner at the Albuquerque Police Department, Lt. Gene Enriquez, quiz the staff at the Sheraton Hotel on Louisiana and Menaul NE about two registered guests, Lando Alfano and Dana Norville. BJ has been hired to find Lando, his client’s missing son. During the questioning, a blushing clerk—clearly smitten by the two handsome young men—recalled they had asked about the Turquoise Trail. This scenic back road is an interesting bit of New Mexico landscape, so I thought we’d take a look at it.

Map of The Turquoise Trail National Scenic Byway

The sixty-five mile stretch of New Mexico 14 from Tijeras (Scissors in Spanish) to Santa Fe, New Mexico acquired the name of the Turquoise Trail as a result of a contest sponsored by the Albuquerque Chamber of in 1953. On June 15, 2000, it was designated a National Scenic Byway. The paved mountain road is an easy day trip from Albuquerque to Santa Fe. And a return trip via the faster Interstate-25 leaves more time to explore interesting places.

Our word trip today, however, won’t make it any farther than the old mining town of Golden.

We begin our journey on eastbound Interestate-40 (which parallels historic Route 66) and exit at a small village in Tijeras Canyon, which bisects the Sandia and Manzano Mountain ranges. Actually, BJ and an Albuquerque police sergeant take this same route on a race for Sandia Peak near the climax of THE ZOZOBRA INCIDENT.

The village of Tijeras, which had a 2000 census population of four hundred plus souls, is said to have been settled in 1819 when Albuquerque residents moved into the area. But excavations of the ruins of the San Antonio and Tijeras Pueblos confirm the area has been inhabited since the Thirteenth Century, first by Native Americans and later by the Spanish. This is the gateway to the Turquoise Trail from the southern end.

NM14 takes you north over a constantly changing landscape of mountains and meadows and high desert and distant buttes through some pretty historic New Mexico locales. We first pass through Cedar Crest, which seems to be a long series of highway strip malls and reach Sandia Park where NM536 will take you to the 10,678-foot Sandia Crest. If we were to turn left here, we’d find the Tinkertown Museum filled with miniature carved figures and animated dioramas and all sorts of western memorabilia. The owner, Ross Ward, has spent four decades carving and collecting what was originally a traveling exhibit to county fairs and carnivals in the ‘60s and ‘70s. It now takes up 22 rooms crammed with wonders of the circus and the west, including a thirty-five foot antique wooden sailboat that braved a ten-year voyage around the world. The collection was once featured on Good Morning America, and the Dalai Lama is said to have visited it.

But we bypass the Sandia Peak Scenic Byway and continue north to whiz through the little community of San Antonio (one of at least two villages sharing that name in the state). Beyond San Antonio is the Paako Ridge Golf Course, rated one of the top fifty public courses in the country. The course and the upscale bedroom community that has grown up around it both take their name from the nearby Paako Pueblo ruins. Little of the pueblo remains to be seen today, but there are often university archaeological teams and researchers digging around the area.

A few miles farther a dirt track labeled Road 57A, which later becomes Road 22 (go figure), cuts directly west, crosses the San Felipe Pueblo lands, and rejoins I-25. I mention the road because it played a part in THE ZOZOBRA INCIDENT when BJ is drawn off I-25 by a column of black smoke right after someone has tried to kill him.

We are now approaching the site of the first gold rush west of the Mississippi. In 1825, years before the California and Colorado gold rushes, placer gold was discovered on Tuerto Creek near the Ortiz Mountains. In the late 1820s, a town called Golden grew up near two mining camps named El Real de San Francisco and Placer del Tuerto.

Officially established in 1879, Golden absorbed both mining camps and became the center of a new gold mining district. It boasted several saloons, commercial ventures, a school, and even a stock exchange. The Postal Service opened an office in 1880. Alas, the gold failed and the town dwindled until there was only one general store. Ranching picked up a part of the slack, but in 1928 the post office closed and the town was declared a ghost town. Today, it has a few residents living in restored or newly-constructed homes. I am told the San Francisco Catholic Church (circa 1830) still celebrates mass on the first Sunday of each month.

We’ll halt here for the time being and hope we can find one of the many bed-and-breakfast places that have sprung up along the Turquoise Trail.

Next week: More of the Turquoise Trail: onward to Madrid.

New posts are published at 6:00 a.m. each Thursday.

Thoughtlessness...and Its Consequences

Alas, I once again feel the need to delay getting back to the New Mexico landscape as encountered in  The Bisti Business. Something occurred the other day that brought another subject more urgently to mind.

I recently did something quite thoughtless, which offended someone whose friendship I treasure. These careless moments may have ended the relationship or perhaps altered it in some manner. Or maybe the friendship is strong enough to survive my carelessness. Only time will tell. In any case, I sincerely regret my witless actions and consider how much they might cost. I have hurt someone's feelings on a deep level. I have alienated a strong, supportive companion. I have possibly deprived the wronged party in some manner, as well, because I like to believe I bring something to the relationship. One careless minute...three potentially drastic consequences.

This moment of personal crisis and loss made me stop and consider how much thoughtlessness plays a meaningful part in our lives. It is the subject--and often the motivating factor--of literature for as long as there has been literature. It appears in essays and poetry and prose. An internet search of "thoughtlessness in literature" provides a staggering list of books. It plays a significant part in Anne Bronte's The Tenant of Wildfell Hall; Fydor Dostoyevsky's Poor Folk; Melville's Moby Dick; Wells's War of the Worlds; and Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island. The list goes on and on, including books by Tolstoy, Austen, Dickens, Cooper, Verne, Defoe, Wilde, Hawthorne, Washington Irving, and a host of others.

Such acts of carelessness show up--far too often--not only in myself but also in my writing, The consequences of thoughtlessness in The Zozobra Incident and The Bisti Business may have more dramatic and bloody consequences, but they are much easier to handle than in real life.

Let us all resolve to hold onto our wits more closely, to think before acting or speaking, to be more considerate to others. I invite any of you to provide examples of such inconsiderate behavior and the consequences it had for you.

Thanks for listening to me whine.

Don

Next Week: I'll try--really try--to get back to New Mexico as pictured in The Bisti Business

New Posts are published at 6:00 a.m. on Thursday

Joycelyn…the Mysterious “J”

I want to take a little more time out from visiting some of the great New Mexico locales highlighted in THE BISTI BUSINESS to talk a little about the “J” who sometimes appears in my blog posts. She accompanied me on the trip to Valles Caldera, which was the subject of three posts in November 2012. 

I met Joycelyn Campbell in a writing class at what was then the Albuquerque Technical-Vocational Institute (now Central New Mexico College) in 2007. At the end of the class, the Instructor, Ruth Brown Jimenez, offered to meet with some of us on a regular basis to discuss our work. Once the group of three former students and our instructor was up and going, Ruth dropped out and left the rest of us to continue. Thus, a critique group was born. The group expanded, contracted, and eventually was left with two…Joycelyn and me. For those who wonder why I refer to her as “J” both in writing and to her face, let me simply say she is quick to correct anyone who calls her Jocelyn (as opposed to Joycelyn), so to avoid unforced errors, she instantly became J to me. Fortunately, she does not object to being referred to as an initial because her companion of thirty years was a man who went by R.C.

J is a woman of many skills. In the first place, she knows her own mind, which is not true of many of us. She is a better writer than I am, as well as a better critiquer (have I coined a word here?), so I get the better end of the bargain in that department. She is experienced in many different fields, including time as a substance abuse counselor and more importantly (to me, at any rate), she has been employed for a number of years in a private investigator’s office. Therefore, when BJ Vinson wanders off the field, she is quick to rein him back in.

These days, J prefers to devote her writing skills to blogging, and your experience will be enriched if you will check out the following:

           www.ninepaths.com which explores the “Highways and Byways of the Enneagram”

           www.givemeadaisy.com which she uses to explore creativity with the key words: Read * Write * Look * Listen * Create

           www.farthertogo.com promoting “meaning in midlife and beyond.”

           www.youcouldbeblogging.com– her commercial “hands-on help to get your Blogger or WordPress blog up and running” site.

J is responsible for what I consider to be the attractive and professional look of this Don Travis blog site. I highly recommend her to anyone who needs professional assistance in setting up either a web site or a blog.

Please, please check out some of her blogs so I can share this talented, creative, and interesting woman (I would say lady, but she would take offense) with my readers.

Next week: Back to THE BISTI BUSINESS. That's a promise.

New posts are published at 6:00 a.m. each Thursday.

Juxtaposition Abounds

A funny little incident occurred the other day that made me depart from my intention of taking a look at another of the interesting New Mexico sites described in THE BISTI BUSINESS and write this instead.

Every Monday, I co-host (it would be presumptuous to say co-teach) a writing class at the Bear Canyon Senior Center here in Albuquerque. In this and other such classes, we emphasize good writing must contain conflict to test the mettle of a story's characters. Conflict...stress...struggle. Without some element of friction, your story simply lies there, not going much of anywhere. In fact, the story line, itself, might become a struggle for the reader. It may prove so boring he or she casts the book aside and forgets about it. And tension is required , not only in mysteries, which I write, but also across the broad spectrum of literature.

But let's look specifically at mysteries. Whether it is Tony Hillerman's Navajo Cops, Lt. Joe Leaphorn and Officer Jim Chee;  James Lee Burke's New Iberia Deputy Sheriff Dave Robicheaux; J. A. Janice's Sheriff Joanna Brady; Stuart Woods's lawyer, Stone Barrington; or my private investigator, BJ Vinson, each and every one is mired in conflict. More often than not our heroes are battling evil. Occasionally, it is good versus evil, but more often it's Good versus Evil. Sometimes they are engaged in an internal struggle with these same elements we all have inside us. Burke's flawed hero fights that sort of war a lot. But let's face it, confrontation is a lot more exciting when the hero or heroine is seeking to put an end to the wicked machinations of nogoodniks. In mysteries, such friction can range from pitched battles of wit and will to outright bloodshed. And we all like a little bloodshed (not too graphic) in our lives...preferably between the pages of a good book.

Have you ever noticed how good and evil can sometimes blur the edges so that one almost bleeds into the other. How sometimes the hero or heroine will do something a little off-center that runs the risk of crossing an ethical line? Yet, the reader recognizes what our protagonists are doing is in the pursuit of the greater good and give them a pass.

Have you ever had a friend--or a relative--who (probably in your younger days) led you down the "trouble path" farther than you were usually willing to go? Come on, we all have had such an influence in our lives at one time or the other. I call that the juxtaposition of good and evil. It abounds everywhere, sometimes recognized, often not.

The incident I mentioned brought this home to me anew when I booted up my computer the other day. My system told me I had two spam messages. I always take a look at such messages to make sure emails from friends and associates haven't accidently ended up there. When I opened the spam folder this is what I saw:

            -Why Wait to Have an Affair with a Cheating Housewife
            -Join Christian Singles

Read that any way you wish, but to me, it says that juxtaposition abounds in everyday life.


NEXT WEEK: I'll try to get back to THE BISTI BUSINESS.

NEW POSTS ARE PUBLISHED AT 6:00 A.M. EACH THURSDAY

The Great Divide in New Mexico

In Chapter 3 of THE BISTI BUSINES, BJ Vinson heads west out of Albuquerque on his way to the Continental Divide in search of the younger son of his new client, a Napa Valley, California wine mogul. Lando Alfano and his traveling companion, Dana Norville, have dropped off the radar while on a sightseeing trip through New Mexico. 

Guided by a cryptic note BJ finds in the boys’ Albuquerque hotel room, he’s going to The Continental Divide Bar at Chesty Westy’s Truck Stop just off Interstate 40. The Continental Divide is a fact of life, but both Chesty’s Truck Stop and the Continental Divide Bar, an Eagle type gay establishment, are figments of the writer’s imagination.  

The Continental Divide of the Americas, or the Great Divide, is the principal hydrological demarcation that separates the watershed draining into the Pacific and Arctic Oceans from those draining into the Atlantic, the Gulf of Mexico, and the Caribbean Sea. It begins at Cape Prince of Wales, Alaska (which is the westernmost point on the mainland of the Americas, in case you didn’t already know that) and zigzags south into Canada, crosses into the United States in northwestern Montana to ride the Rockies through New Mexico into Old Mexico, and continues into South America where it follows the Andes and ultimately ends in southern Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego. 

Our intrepid PI climbs steadily up Nine Mile Hill and thence eastward to cross the Rio (River) Puerco (Pig), which is usually dry. He passes through Laguna Pueblo, (KAWAIK in native Keresan) which has been occupied continuously for at least 800 years. Laguna tradition has it they have lived there for the last 2,000 years. The pueblo is actually made up of three villages: Sky City or Old Acoma, a former stronghold atop an almost unreachable mesa, Acomita, and McCarty’s. Laguna is Spanish for lake, so called because of a lake on the pueblo. 

I-40 then skirts Cubero, an old trading post and passes south of 11,305-foot Mt. Taylor, the highest point in the San Mateo (St. Matthew) Mountains. This is one of four peaks sacred to the Navajo, who call it Tsoodzil, or Turquoise Mountain. Born in volcanic violence eons and eons ago, scientists speculate the peak once stood 16,000 to 18,000 feet tall before a series of Mt. St. Helens-type explosions reduced it to its present picayune size. 

BJ then drives through Grants, the County Seat of Cibola County, a town of about 9,000 souls. It was born as a railroad camp in 1880 when three Canadian brothers named Grant landed a contract to build a section of railroad. It was originally called Grant’s Camp, then Grants Station, and finally just Grants. In the 1980s it was dubbed the Uranium Capital of the World. 

Seven miles beyond Grants, BJ’s Chevy Impala skirts the long-abandoned hamlet of Bluewater, now marked by empty hulk of the Bluewater Motel. At Prewitt, he might have detoured to nearby Bluewater Lake State Park had he been interested in doing so. Shortly before reaching Thoreau (pronounced “Thru-ru” by locals) and its Navajo Co-op Store, he arrives at his destination…Chesty Westy’s. 

BJ lunches on excellent home-made Southern-fried chicken in Tia Maria’s Diner at the truck stop before crossing the arroyo to the huge gay bar known as the Continental Divide Bar. There he meets the manager, a mountainous black man named Sweetie, who looks like a bearded Old Testament patriarch in over-sized bib overalls. Sweetie tells BJ he doesn’t belong in the bar because he has a waistline; the Continental is a bear place. But BJ learns the two California men had been there. People remembered them because they had danced in their skivvies to the enjoyment of the crowd. The two young men had left the next day badly hung-over and nursing paper cuts in private places from all the money the bears stuffed down their briefs in appreciation of their inexpert yet enthusiastic performance. 

Then the case turns slightly ominous when BJ learns someone else has been asking about the two men. Or was it merely a case of curiosity about the bright orange Porsche Boxter that Lando Alfano drives?

Next week: More from THE BISTI BUSINESS.

New posts are published at 6:00 a.m. each Thursday.

I Just Wanted a Simple Plug-in Lamp

PROLOGUE

I do not do things mechanical well. I have not mastered most of the electronic devices many people take for granted. And I recently learned I don’t even plug in lamps very well. Let me explain.

I have a very small space in which to work on my novels, novellas, and short stories, and proper lighting is a bit of a problem. For years, I’ve had a wall-mounted, plug-in lamp with a moveable elbow that adjusts back and forth so I can have light whether I’m slouching (as I am now) or sitting at the desk with proper posture (well, I’m doing that now, although it won’t last very long).

Some time back, I switched all my light bulbs from nice, soft, energy-intensive incandescent bulbs to those ugly, twisted luminescent, energy-saving monstrosities. The problem was, I had a three-way socket in the lamp, but a bulb that worked only at one setting. So for a couple of years, I’ve had to twist the thing-a-ma-jig that turns on the light three times before it came on. A year ago, it started requiring four turns. Why? I don’t know. Perhaps the lamp developed a fourth setting.

Then a month ago, I had to turn the switch six times before it lit. Well, you can guess the rest. Last week it didn’t matter how many times I turned the switch…no light. I tried the bulb in another lamp to make sure it wasn’t the problem. It worked fine. Ergo, the lamp was shot.

CHAPTER 1

Too bad. I liked my lamp. It had served me faithfully for a long time. I had created and sold sixty short stories, a novella, and five novels by the light of that lamp. Now I had a problem, I had a deadline on another novel, so I couldn’t afford to go maudlin over a brass lamp I’d bought it for $20 from one of the big box stores. Man up, Don, and go spend another $20.

Yeah, right. I went to Lowe’s where I thought I’d bought the lamp years ago. Couldn’t find another one like it. The closest I came was a somewhat similar one that cost a heck of a lot more than my original $20. So I bit the $42 bullet…and then took a bigger bite. I paid $10 for a big, ugly, twisted three-way bulb. Problem solved.

CHAPTER 2

Another thing I don’t do well is follow written instructions for assembling things. Anything at all. After I pulled everything from the box and tore open all the little pouches holding screws and bolts and other mysterious things, I noticed something sort of odd about one of the instructions. “TURN OFF ALL POWER TO THIS AREA BEFORE PROCEEDING.” Really? Just to plug in a lamp. Another thing, why did I need electrical tape to wall-mount a lamp and plug it in? And why didn’t my lamp have a cord?

Aw, crap! The store had sold me a lamp to be wired into a wall circuit. Didn’t the clerk know I just wanted to plug it into a socket? Come to think of it, I probably didn’t tell him.

CHAPTER 3

I did what I should have done in the first place: I took a minute to think about my problem. Then I got out my phone book (yep, I still use them…they’re not electronic) and found a couple of retail lamp shops that also advertised repair work. I phoned the closest one, and a very nice woman asked some intelligent questions and said that while the shop had some new lamps similar to what I described for around $200, she suggested I bring mine to the shop for a simple socket change at a cost of $14.75 plus tax. When she added the repair could probably be done while I waited, I thought this was precisely the way to solve my problem.

I collected the useless new lamp I’d bought, found the receipt from Lowes, and raced over on San Pedro NE near Coronado Mall to the lamp retail and repair shop. I sensed a problem when I entered. There were a number of customers in the small shop, and they were all looking at $200 lamps, not a $14.75 repair job. Nonetheless, the woman who’d talked to me on the telephone took my lamp into the back to see what she could do.

Moments later, she reappeared, saying the lamp could be repaired, but it was a more difficult job than she had anticipated. The price would be the same, but she couldn’t promise my lamp before the day after tomorrow. Still under the spell of spending $14.75 plus tax versus $42, I told her to write it up.

CHAPTER 4

I had no sooner pulled out of the shop’s parking lot than I came face to face with the reality that I wouldn’t be able to work on my novel for the better part of three days. How could I live with that? Conclusion: I couldn’t.

I headed straight for Wal-Marts, Targets, and a couple of other places in a vain hunt for an acceptable substitute before thinking of Home Depot. Maybe they had a lamp like my old one for $25.00 or so (to allow for inflation). Well, they had one (with a pewter finish rather than brass), but it came to $37.00, including tax. In my panicked mode, I bought the lamp.

After pulling out of their parking lot, I faced up to the fact that I had two lamps plus my original waiting to be repaired. And at this point, I had $93.75 invested in replacing a $20 lamp.

So I set out to correct the situation. Lowes accepted my return and gave me back $42. Then I raced home and dialed the repair shop. The same woman accepted the fact I’d sort of “found” a lamp (okay, so I lied to the nice lady and said a neighbor had given me one he wasn’t using) and agreed to tear up the repair order. Another $14.75 recouped. Now I was down to one lamp at a cost of $37 plus a big, expensive bulb. I glanced at my watch. And it had only taken me six hours to do it.

EPILOGUE

The woman at the lamp repair shop agreed to fix my old lamp at her expense and donate it to a charity provided I would bring in the rest of it (shade, wall mounts, etc.). Feeling very noble, I took them in the very next day.

However, the experience reminded me of another personal failing. I don’t repack boxes very efficiently. When I had returned everything to Lowes, it required the box the lamp came in plus a plastic bag filled with things I couldn’t stuff back in it.

I really miss my late wife. She could fix everything from broken dishwashers to balky dryers. Me, I just look at them and call a repair man. She would probably have popped out the old socket and sent me to the store for a $5 replacement. Of course, I would have come home with the wrong one and had to make two more return trips to get the proper one.

Think I’ll stick to writing.

Next week: Maybe we’ll take a look at some of the New Mexico locations featured in THE BISTI BUSINESS.

New posts are published at 6:00 a.m. each Thursday.

How Men Fold Fitted Sheets

Perhaps I shouldn’t presume to speak for all men. I’m merely one guy who is admittedly deficient in the hand-eye coordination and motor skills required to perform complicated maneuvers, such as—folding fitted sheets. You women may assume I simply wad them up and toss them into the linen drawer, but this is a serious subject, and I am addressing it seriously.

The sheets in question are the first fifteen hundred thread-count, pure Egyptian cotton queen-sized linens I’ve ever owned. I’m not exactly certain what a fifteen hundred thread-count is, nor am I sure if Egyptian cotton is any better than say—Mississippi cotton. Such superiority could be fact-based or simply a matter of snobbery. Do Egyptians brag about their fifteen hundred thread-count, pure New Mexican cotton sheets?

My late wife taught me to launder new items before using them for the first time. In fact, all of my husbandly lore was acquired after I met Betty. It is nothing short of a miracle I survived my college years and my army service ignorant of such crucial information. Within six months of my wife’s passing, I had this housekeeping thing whipped. I could feed myself utilizing only a refrigerator, a freezer, and a microwave. I had acquired a passing acquaintance with a vacuum cleaner, a dishwasher, and a dust rag. However, my confidence slipped a notch when I discovered I’d been doing laundry with fabric softener instead of detergent for the past thirty days. Okay, my clothes were a little dingy but, man, were they soft. A few buttons fell off and a seam disintegrated on a jacket, but I’m not aware of any cause/effect relationship there.

At any rate, after removing my new sheets from the dryer, I buried my face in the still-warm bedding and inhaled the aroma of lilacs. Actually, it was only Resolve Spray & Wash stain remover. I folded the incredibly soft, ivory-hued top sheet and the four—count them four—fancy pillow slips. I hadn’t known Egyptians slept with one pillow at the head and another at the foot. It must be one of those different cultures/different customs things. As I placed these folded items into the bureau, I felt a bit ashamed. The only other things in there were common, ordinary bed sheets, not royal linens tracing their lineage back to the Pharaohs.

Next, I tackled the dreaded fitted sheet. After nestling two corners—one into the other—as I’d seen Betty do, I did the same with the other end pieces. Next, I grasped the four corners—now made two—and flapped the sheet to smooth it out. It settled gracefully across the plain white, plebeian mattress cover, but when I let go of the corners, it wadded up like last year’s discarded Christmas wrapping.

I repeated the procedure and brought all the form-fitted ends into one another, expecting to achieve a neat rectangle. Not so. That springy, stretchy cord sewn into the hem puckered into a pale imitation of a prune. Where the hell did their elastic come from? Not Egypt. It seemed more Teutonic in its tenacity.

Maybe the springy band needed stretching. I did the nesting thing again and pulled the opposing corners apart as far as my arms would reach. Anxious to see if this had accomplished the desired effect, I let go with one hand. The corners shot past my head and hit the lamp on the bed table. I grabbed it in time to avert disaster, but now my clean sheet lay in a heap on the floor. No big deal. My carpet wasn’t due for its semi-annual vacuuming for another couple of months.

The elastic was just too strong. It needed more stretching than the width of my arms. I may lack motor skills, but I do have a brain and the ability to think. I hooked one set of nested corners over the bedroom doorknob and held the other in my hand. I slowly backed across the room, pulling the elastic tighter and tighter in a celebration of the triumph of mind over matter. That up-tight cord was going to relax its grip enough to make the sheet behave.

At that moment, the fifteen hundred thread-count, pure Egyptian cotton fitted corners slipped off the brass knob and caught me flush in the left eye. The one I’d been babying ever since cataract surgery.

My respect for Egyptian nobility considerably diminished, I blinked hard a couple of times and tackled the sheet again. Ignoring the wrinkled hemlines, I folded them inward to bury their obscene ugliness beneath the ivory expanse of the unpuckered side.

By the time I laid the blessed thing in the drawer atop its companion pieces, the entire folding process had taken only twenty-five minutes. But you know, the damned sheet did sort of look as if I’d wadded it up and thrown it in the drawer.

Next Week: Don't have any idea yet...my mind hasn't caught up with my ambitions

New Posts published each Thursday at 6 a.m.