Why the Hate?

I was talking to a friend of mine who related something that made me decide to delay a discussion of THE BISTI BUSINES in order to cover something that is both amazing and frightening. In order to do so, I’d like to speak in his voice:

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A post by my nephew, who lives in east Texas, on my Facebook page caught my attention the other day. The gist of the item was that he didn’t care where Obama was born; his concern was where he lived right now. Okay, that’s his honest opinion, and he’s entitled to it.

Simply to give another view and perhaps provide a gentle chiding, I commented that apparently the President was living in the house where 51% of the American public wanted him.

I was totally unprepared for the vitriol that came back at me. Not from my nephew, but others who had “liked” his post. The absolute hate was like a slap in the face. Fool, idiot, and stupid were some of the milder epitaphs. How can a reasonable, inoffensive comment draw such hatred?

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My friend’s question is a legitimate one. The easy answer is racial bigotry or a deterioration of common etiquette promoted by the anonymity of social media or a combination of many things. You can come up with a dozen answers of your own.

 

But I believe it’s prompted by fear. The world is changing, and that is frightening for all of us. But some are less prepared for it than others. Just as Israel is facing the problem of remaining a Jewish state while holding to its democratic heritage, we are confronting the reality of demographics. Many feel their privileged positions threatened. Rather than reaching out to build new relationships to deal with what is coming, too many of us are retreating into a siege mentality. That's a shame…worse, a possible tragedy.

Not a deep assessment of the problem…just my superficial thoughts.

 

Next week: We’ll get to Farmington as it is seen in THE BISTI BUSINESS.

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

The Rio Grande Gorge (or The Rio Grande Rift)



The Rio Grande Rift

On page 31 of THE BISTI BUSINESS, BJ Vinson views the Rio Grande Gorge from a Cessna airplane and notes that “over the eons, gravity and friction and the sheer power of water molecules have carved a deep crevasse through the hard basalt of the Taos Plateau.”

He is only partially correct. While it is true that friction and gravity and water have done their part in creating this spectacular phenomenon of nature, the valley appeared first, and the river came second. The Rio Grande Rift isn’t just any old canyon holding a river, but rather a separation of the earth’s crust caused by faulting and volcanic action when the North American and Pacific Plates rubbed noses millions of years ago. The rift encompasses 160,000 square miles from central Colorado almost to the Big Bend country in Texas. The Taos Plateau, which is a part of the rift system, makes up a portion of the San Luis Basin created by this geologic activity.

Grabens, depressed blocks of land bordered by parallel faults, formed when rock was pulled apart by tectonic forces, thereby creating the rift. Collapsing stone, volcanic lava, and ash partially filled the grabens (German for ditch or trench), leaving what we now know as the Rio Grande Rift. The canyon reaches depths of 800 feet somewhere below the Taos Bridge. Some of the earliest Pueblos may have experienced earthquakes as the rift developed. Very ancient ones, such as the Clovis people probably witnessed active volcanoes some 10,000 to 12,000 years ago. This geologic activity forced gold and silver and many other valuable metals and minerals to the surface throughout the area.

The Rio Grande Gorge as Viewed from the Taos Bridge

The gorge is the site of many ancient petroglyphs. At the bottom of the Gorge, the shores of the Rio Grande are dotted with hot springs and aboriginal ruins. The Gorge has Class II to Class V white water rapids managed by the Bureau of Land Management. In New Mexico, the river has two main sections for rafting near Taos: The Taos Box and the Racecourse Run. The Box is a dramatic, deep canyon run famous for it is big Class IV rapids. The Racecourse Run is better suited for first-time rafters and families.

 

 

 

According to www.discovernewmexico.com, some of the best places to view the Rio Grande Rift are as follow:

·         The Overlook on NM Highway 68 about eight miles south of the Ranchos de Taos post office

·         The Rio Grande Gorge Bridge on US Highway 64 about thirteen miles northwest of Taos

·         The Wild Rivers Recreation Area about thirty-five miles north of Taos

This is magnificent country well worth a visit. While you’re at it, stop for a dip in one of the hot springs at Ojo Caliente.

Next week:The Farmington area as seen in THE BISTI BUSINESS.

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

The Mighty Rio Grande (or Rio del Norte or Rio Bravo, or…)

One river, a myriad of names:

·         Big River to the Keresan, Tewa, and Tiwa peoples (in their own tongues)

·         Female River to the Navajo in their own tongue (South denotes “female” to the Dine)

·         Rio Bravo del Norte to the Spanish and Mexicans, meaning the “Wild” or “Brave River of the North

·         Rio del Norte, or the North River to the Spanish to denote the upper reaches of the river

·         Rio Grande, or Big River on the north side of the Mexican border in modern times

·         Rio Grande River to many Anglos



The Rio Grande at Albuquerque
during International
Balloon Fiesta

To say the Rio Grande River is to revel in redundancy. Translated into English, the three words say the Big River River. However one calls it, the Rio Grande is the fourth or fifth longest river in North America and the 20^th longest in the world. It rises as a snow-fed stream in the Rockies in Hinsdale County in southern Colorado. Just under 1,900 miles downstream, it empties into the Gulf of New Mexico. A portion of the river serves as the border between the United States and Mexico (more specifically, the great state of Texas on one side and the Mexican states of Chihuahua, Coahuila, Nuevo León, and Tamaulipas on the other). Shifts in the channel have led to border disputes between the two nations from time to time, and some of the more unstable areas have been converted into canals. A century-old dispute over the location of the border at El Paso, Texas wasn’t settled until 1968 when the water was diverted into just such a channel.

Cochiti Dam on the Rio Grande

The Rio Grande was declared a Wild and Scenic River, which it truly was until dams were constructed for irrigation, flood control, and river flow purposes. Elephant Butte Dam (1916) and Caballo Dam (1938) create large reservoirs in New Mexico. Amistad and Falcon Dams downstream do the same in Texas. With the addition of the Cochiti, Abiquiu, Galisteo, and Jemez Canyon Dams in New Mexico, the Rio is truly a dammed river. Only two portions of it remain a wild and scenic: The chasm country around Taos, New Mexico and the Big Bend area in Texas.

A source of drinking, irrigation, and recreational water for many competing societal and cultural groups (in both Mexico and the United States), the Rio Grande is over-appropriated. Translation: People demand more water from the river than there is water in the river.

European accounts of the river begin with a survey expedition sent by the Spanish crown in 1519. The famous (or infamous, depending upon your viewpoint) explorer, Francisco Vasquez de Coronado journeyed up the Rio Bravo in 1540 in search of rumored riches but encountered only various Pueblo Indian communities in the Middle Rio Grande Valley. Americans Zebulon Pike (1807) and John C. Fremont (1848-49) explored the upper Rio Grande Area. Long before any of these Interlopers appeared on the scene, the river’s nurturing banks were home to a host of Aboriginal peoples.

In Chapter 5 of The Bisti Business, our intrepid hero, BJ Vinson, learns from GPS readings that the bright orange Porsche Boxter he’s been hunting is in Taos. He charter’s Jim Gray’s Cessna Skycatcher for the 132-mile trip north (less than that as the crow—or Cessna—flies). As is often the case in New Mexico in August, weather hangs off to the west, threatening to ground them. Jim is an ex-military fixed wing and helicopter pilot who got out of the service and went into the flying business for himself.

As they take off from Albuquerque’s Double Eagle Airport, the Rio Grande becomes visible almost immediately. Allow me to cite a few paragraphs from the book as BJ looks down from an eagle’s viewpoint on the river:

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BJ: “It’s really amazing how the Rio Grande changes character. In Albuquerque, it roams around in a broad channel made for a bigger river.”

JIM: “You can blame that on the dams. When the Rio Grande was declared a wild and scenic river, it flooded regularly. Then they put in all the dams. The way I look at it, they put an end to the flooding all right, but the river and the Bosque are paying the price. They’re both slowly dying.” The Bosque was a 200-mile swath of cottonwood forest lining both banks of the Rio.

Above Santa Fe, the water flowing beneath the plane picked up energy, shimmering in the sunlight as it rushed over rocks on its fall from the high country. The farther north we traveled, the wilder the river became. Soon it was white water rafting country. A few miles below Taos, the true might and determination of the river became apparent as it raced down long boulder gardens to spill out of the black volcanic canyons of the Taos Box. From above, the river appeared to sink, but in reality, the terrain rose on its climb north toward Colorado.

Over the eons, gravity and friction and the sheer power of water molecules had carved a deep crevasse through the hard basalt of the Taos Plateau. The Rio Grande Gorge Bridge spanned that spectacular canyon ten miles west-northwest of Taos. We circled over the awesome 500-foot cantilevered steel and concrete marvel of modern engineering as we lined up for a landing at the town’s small strip.

*** 

The Taos Bridge
over the Rio Grande Gorge

I hope that gives the reader a pretty good picture of the mighty Rio Grande, at least the portion flowing through New Mexico.

Next week: Maybe some more from THE BISTI BUSINESS.

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

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