Category Archives: Uncategorized

I did a bit of a double take this week while driving down University Avenue when I spotted a service van on the road next to me. Emblazoned on the side of the blue van were the words “Organs Cleaning.” If you poke around on internet search engines, you can find lots of other signsContinue reading “Hope it wasn’t headed to a hospital…”

There’s a line in one of my favorite Lyle Lovett songs entitled “White Frieghtliner Blues,” that goes like this: “Well New Mexico ain’t bad, people there, they treat you kind.” The song was written by Townes van Zandt, a Texas native who Bob Dylan once called the greatest singer of his generation. Van Zandt wasContinue reading “A little less friendly…”

Last week, I hosted an annual party for a Boy Scout (now known as Scouting America) troop at our neighborhood swimming pool. I am an adult member of the group, Troop 66, which was originally founded at our church almost 125 years ago by the legendary southern New Mexico Missionary Hunter “Preacher” Lewis. I joinedContinue reading “Looking like a nerd…”

In 1927, a 13-year-old orphan of Aleut-Russian descent, came up with the design for the Alaska state flag. The simple design featuring the big dipper and the north star in gold on a dark blue flag, was submitted by Benny Benson to the Alaska Department of the American Legion, which had conducted a design contestContinue reading “A horror story that only Hollywood could make up…”

In 2017, someone accidentally flew the Nebraska state flag upside down at the capitol in Lincoln for 10 days before someone noticed the error. It’s understandable. It’s a busy state seal placed over a dark blue background that looks like state flags from several other states that seems to have been designed around the sameContinue reading “Homely would be a generous description…”

Frequent reading of the Albuquerque Journal’s “Business Outlook” section provides fodder for my brain to turn the mundane into a blog. For example, there’s always the Restaurant Inspections section which provides some cringeworthy details of why certain eateries have been shut down. Consider these: “Person in charge unable to provide records…” “Unlabeled spray bottles containingContinue reading “Um, I thought that was already invented…”

Remind me in the future to always check first with my good friend Jim Libbin, retired Acting Dean of the New Mexico State University Department of Agriculture, Consumer and Environmental Sciences before I post anything agricultural related. He thankfully called me out on the errors I made in post earlier this week regarding New Mexico’sContinue reading “Moo (less)…”

By just one place, New Mexico missed being in the top ten among states of something I never quite thought about. While browsing the internet this morning, this surprising statistic showed up unexpectedly on Instagram. So according to this non-sourced post on Instagram, New Mexico is 11th in the nation for the number of cattleContinue reading “Moo…”

My wife recently suggested that before I write anything historical about New Mexico in my blog posts that I should check first with our very good friend Cheryl, a retired librarian at New Mexico State University and a great researcher and diligent fact checker. I mention this because of a recent blog about the bigContinue reading “Meeting in the middle revisited…”

I’ve always said that you can tell a true long-time New Mexico resident by the fact that they stand outside to watch when it’s raining. We’re getting some rain this morning, a bit of an anomaly for the first week of June — at least four weeks before the usual summer monsoon rains start. WhileContinue reading “Maybe people in New Mexico stayed mostly inside in 1941…”