I learned last Friday of the death of my brother-in-law, Buzz Murrell, 91, of Cochiti Lake, NM.

He had suffered a severe stroke 16 months ago, showed some recovery for a while, but in recent months had continued to go downhill.

I know he loved my sister very much and saved her from a dark place after the end of her first marriage. She loved him very much as well and it showed through her attentive care for him during the months following his stroke.

They would have been married 25 years later this year, although they had known eachother for about 61 years. She first met him when she worked one summer at Sierra Blanca ski area (now Ski Apache) selling tickets for the gondola ride. He was the general manager of the ski area, one of many careers he had during his lifetime. He was married at the time and she was still in high school, getting ready for college, but I think there was an underlying attraction that was never explored until she stumbled across him years later when they were both living in Santa Fe. He had since divorced and my sister was trying to rebuild her life after her recent difficult divorce. I can recall how excited my sister was when she told me she had re-connected with him. They eventually married here in Las Cruces and began their life in northern New Mexico.

They especially enjoyed southern Colorado and took many trips there during the summer months over the past years, staying for weeks in their camper and enjoying the San Juan mountains. They were avid birdwatchers and loved their golden retrievers, Molly and Daisy. He also made great fried chicken.

He had many careers in his life, working for major banks, as manager of a ski area, a financial advisor for a real estate company and as a finance/accounting instructor.

Buzz was born at a ranch outside Kenna, New Mexico, a hiccup in the road between Roswell and Portales. It’s now considered a ghost town. The ranch was called the “High Lonesome,” a made for TV name of a remote place on the high plains of southeastern New Mexico. He also spent many years in the Roswell area, graduating from schools there.

One of Buzz’s memories that I found interesting was the attention that a Roswell Little League Team received when it won the Little League World Series in 1956. He witnessed the scrappy local team board a train in Roswell to travel to Williamsport, PA, to participate in the tournament as the clear underdogs. To everyone’s amazement, they won. (I’m working on a story about this event that I hope to share with you in the future.)

There was another sad death last Friday. Sy, a Goldendoodle who was our Goldendoodle Chester’s best friend and (almost clone) had to be put down because his health had deteriorated so much. He was about 11 years old. (Chester is six now.) Sy was the first dog Chester met after we brought him home as a puppy, and he instantly and permanently bonded with the older dog.

When Sy was younger, I would take him to his owner’s home around the corner from us and watch the two dogs wrestle. They looked so much alike that you couldn’t tell which dog was which as they whirled and tumbled in the enthusiastic play that went on until they both had to stop from exhaustion. I loved watching their wrestling matches — it was just pure joy for the dogs and the humans who witnessed it. Sy hadn’t been able to play like that for the past two or three years, but Chester still tried to goad him into a wrestling match when we would stop by the house.

Now, when we walk Chester by Sy’s house, he looks longingly for his friend and seems confused about why he can’t see or smell him nearby.

Be sure to hug the people (and dogs) you love.

(if their event gets approved by the Olympic Committee)

You’ve probably never heard of the South America Republic of El Guacador. It’s so tiny it doesn’t appear on most maps — but mostly because the government officials couldn’t afford enough Guacos (the national currency) to bribe cartographers to include the country in their maps.

The country is most known for its avocado production and the avocados are prized ingredients in the national food — you guessed it — guacamole.

(A little known New Mexico connection is the use of a special variety of chile grown in Hatch instead of jalapenos for El Guacador’s prized guacamole recipe. A unique variety was originally named “GuacaHatchee.” However, an attorney for the town of Waxahachie, Texas, claimed the name was too similar to his town’s name and filed an injunction forcing the chile producer to drop the moniker They settled on the disturbingly mundane name “Chile Verde Muy Caliente” instead.)

Two years ago, following the 2022 Winter Olympics in China, Horencio “El Chunko” Hinojosa, the portly prime minister/dictator of the tiny nation, decided he would put his country on the map by entering the Olympics and competing in the bobsled, like Jamaica had done years earlier. They acquired the original Jamaican bobsled and refurbished it, using buckets of fiberglass, discarded rails from the nations’ only six-mile long railroad and suspension springs from their only remaining military vehicle, a 1964 Toyota Tacoma pickup.

They planned to train on Mount Chamberinocosta, an inactive volcano which received snowfall on its northern flanks only two or three times per year. That was working out well because the mountain had received extra snowfall this winter season — which of course is the summer season for those of us in the northern hemisphere.

But while training had begun, El Chunko’s top lieutentant noticed that the 2024 Olympics planned in Paris were actually summer games — putting a major dent in the small nation’s plan for bobsled Olympic glory in a wintertime discipline.

It was time to rethink the El Guacador Olympic plan and find a sport in which they could be competitive.

They thought of crew racing, but when they tried to float a racing shell in Lake Toxicata — the small lake in the center of the crater of Mount Chamberinocosta — it burst into flames and then disintegrated because of the toxic residue in the water from previous volcanic eruptions. They next considered swimming, but if they practiced in Lake Toxicata, they would have to wear two-inch thick rubber swimsuits to protect them from the ravages of the water. Water polo wasn’t much better as the ball would explode seconds after being introduced to the water in the lake.

Fearing failure, El Cunko asked the best minds in his country to come up with a solution.

“Why not resurrect one of the Olympic games that had once been featured in the summer games but was abandoned,” suggested his top lieutenant. “We will have to petition the International Olympic Committee to add the event to this summer’s games.”

“Brilliant,” replied El Chunko who immediately assigned a team from his staff to research what games might have been played years ago in the Olympics.

Surprisingly, they found three possible games that ironically had been played in the 1900 Paris Olympics. They were croquette, live pigeon shooting and pistol shooting (You can look up this information on line if you don’t believe me.)

Croquette was voted out because the one and only time it was played in the Olympics, only one person showed up and paid to watch the event.

Pigeon shooting (yes — really) was quickly dismissed because the pigeon was the revered national bird of El Guacador. It was also feared that if pigeon shooters practiced their skills near the famous avocado orchards, the fruit would be tainted by splattered pigeon parts, feathers and the ensuing flying pigeon poop.

So it has come down to pistol shooting, which in a way, perfectly suited the country. The avocado cartel in El Guacador was extremely protective of the nation’s famous crop and lieutenants were skilled in using pistols to put down any attempt to steal the prized fruit or muscle in on their turf.

As your every focused reporter, I am following the appeal by the Republic of El Guacador to the International Olympic Committee to add pistol shooting to the 2024 games in Paris. If added, the event would likely be held right before closing ceremonies in a far way rural location so as not to create panic during the closing moments of what has been an otherwise spectacular event.

Stay tuned for more details.

(And remember, dear readers, that when I began writing my blog several years ago, I said I might occasionally stretch the truth to make a good story. And there is always a kernel of truth somewhere in what I write.)

If you grew up in the rural west or central United States in the 1960s, you probably listened to Oklahoma City radio station KOMA at night. It was the only source many of us early Boomers had for current rock and roll music.

I thought of the station last week as a result of a humorous incident involving a traffic stop which netted me warnings for three alleged violations of New Mexico traffic and motor vehicle codes. And also let me state clearly that I my following blog does not intend to discount the efforts of our dedicated law enforcement officers.

At some point during the 1960s, KOMA led a campaign to nudge the Oklahoma Legislature to repeal an outdated law which prohibited the installation and use of commercial radios in private vehicles. The law was apparently implemented when automobile manufacturers began installing new-fangled radios in cars. Lawmakers in Oklahoma feared that drivers would become distracted while driving if they tuned into and listened to a radio station.

While listening to my favorite rock and roll tunes during the 1960s in the evenings on the 50,000 watt AM station, I remember hearing the pleas by that radio station to repeal the outdated and seldom enforced law. The campaign was a success and the law was repealed. Now, ironically, legislators are now urging car makers to NOT eliminate AM radios from automobiles. And I suspect that the lawmakers who crafted the anti-radio law would be rolling over in their graves if they knew about cell phones, texting and electronic touch screens in today’s cars.

In my opinion, one of the three citations for my alleged driving infractions could clearly be the focus of a repeal or at least a clarifying amendment.

Here’s the story. I was pulled over by a Sheriff’s Deputy for allegedly pulling out in front of his official vehicle from a convenience store. He said I was driving too slowly and failed to yield to traffic. I think he was going way too fast. The fact that he only gave me a warning for failure to yield makes me think he was not paying attention or knew he was going too fast, but that’s not the point of this story.

The point is that he also wrote me a citation for having a license plate frame surrounding my New Mexico license plate. The frame promotes the University of Nebraska Huskers. I’ve had it on my truck for years since my Nebraska born farm girl wife loves the Huskers and follows them diligently. I’m a fan of Husker football too and am proud to display the frame.

The officer cited me for violating New Mexico traffic statute 66-3-18 (you can look it up online) that says license plates “shall be maintained free from foreign material.” Okay, what about almost every car dealership that puts a license plate frame on your new vehicle promoting their business? How about dog lovers who display those cute black and white license plate frames with puppy dog tracks around the edges? How about one that says “Baby on Board?” How about frames that proclaim owners of the vehicles are alumni of other colleges and schools? What about a simple decorative black, chrome or chain-link license plate frames?

All illegal, according to the deputy who stopped me.

And what about the auto parts stores in New Mexico that have an entire rack of license plate frames for sale? Are they going to be charged for selling illegal materials?

And I wonder if the words saying license plates should be “maintained free from foreign material” were really meant to be interpreted that way? What if you just had mud or bird poop (clearly foreign material) accidentally splattered on your license plates and couldn’t wash it off before you got stopped by the sheriff? And is something surrounding a license plate the same as something on the plate?

Now here’s the rub. When the deputy was writing my citation for an illegal license plate frame, I noticed that there was a University of Alabama baseball cap perched on the top of the dashboard of his official sheriff’s unit.

I decided to see if there was a state law prohibiting obstruction of vision out of a vehicle and I found this — New Mexico Statute 66-7-357 — you can look it up online.

“No person shall drive a vehicle when it so loaded… as to obstruct the view of the driver to the front or sides of the vehicle…”

I interpret that to mean the Alabama cap was “loaded” onto the dashboard of the police vehicle and resulted in a condition which could “obstruct the view of the driver.” A clear danger to driving, don’t you think? What about the proverbial “plastic Jesus” on the dash, a set of rosary beads, a graduation tassel or a handicapped parking tag hanging from the rear-view mirror? Those can “obstruct the view” but I doubt anyone is ever cited for that.

Or digging even deeper into that dark world of conspiracy theories, was the officer so enraged that I was supporting a football program other than the University of Alabama Crimson Tide that he felt compelled to give me a citation on a questionable statute? Okay, that’s really a stretch.

But wait — there’s more. I also received a citation for — wait for it — failing to sign my car registration form, which was properly up to date and placed in my truck’s glove compartment at the time of the stop. You can check on that law online as well — New Mexico Statute 66-3-13.

What is interesting is that I was stopped at a routine DWI checkpoint earlier this year (no I was not arrested for DWI) and the officer who did that stop looked at my registration and license plate and did not cite me for having “foreign material” on my license plate and did not cite me for failing to sign my registration form.

At the end of my stop last week, I signed my registration form in the presence of the deputy while I also signed the THREE citations he gave me. I am not planning to remove the license plate frames on any of my three vehicles.

Every year, it seems like merchandisers rush toward Christmas even earlier, hoping they won’t miss out on the shoppers who really really like to get a jump on the holidays. I fear the next early Christmas sale at Hobby Lobby will be on Dec. 26, 2024, when it will be promoted as “Get ready for the 2025 Christmas Holiday season.”

I found something almost as surprising during an early July visit to our new Michael’s store in Las Cruces. Look at the photos below and you’ll see that they were already promoting stuff for Halloween. I mean really, the fireworks smell in the air from July the Fourth was still lingering in the neighborhood.

I’m not sure what to say about this. Maybe I should go back to the store and see if they already have a display up for Easter — or maybe Christmas 2025.

When the word “wilderness” is mentioned, I suspect most people visualize a towering range of snow-capped mountains, unending lush conifer forests, broad meadows with rushing rivers flowing through them and waterfalls tumbling from cliffs into a valley below.

In the Gila Wilderness of southwestern New Mexico, you don’t get much of that. It’s a place many people understandably might not love. On the north facing side of deep canyons, there are spruce and fir forests while cactus, scrub cedar and stunted pinon grow on the opposing south facing slopes. You can go from a valley filled with tall ponderosa pines and grassy meadows to a high Sonoran desert in just a few miles. Rock formations bordering on the grotesque are everywhere. It’s a hard but spectacular place.

In simple terms, the Gila can be described best as a place with incredible contrast.

My wife, daughter and two grandchildren spent three days in the Gila country last week, a visit which helped me appreciate it even more than the first time I saw it. The Gila Wilderness itself turned 100 this year, established in 1924 through the efforts of Aldo Leopold. Despite seemingly more traditionally magnificent potential wilderness areas, the Gila was the first such designation in the United States.

Leopold, a pioneering and visionary ecologist who was assistant district forester for the Southwestern national forests, saw the great beauty in the contrasts of the Gila country and persuaded the fledgling U.S. Forest Service to designate the area as a wilderness in the early 1920s. His vision helped inspire the 1964 Wilderness Act that now preserves the wildness of more than 109 million acres of federal public lands throughout the United States.

In the heart of the almost 560,000 acres of wilderness is the Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument, which we visited on our trip. It is where the Mogollon culture of the Puebloan people built rock homes in south-facing caves along one of the canyons leading into the west fork of the Gila River. First believed to have been occupied in the late 1200s, the dwellings were abandoned a mere 30 years later.

Our trip included one night of overnight camping, which my wife and I used to do a lot when we were first married. I have to admit it’s gotten a bit harder as I’ve aged and my first few hours in the camper tent in the bed of our pickup were not comfortable. But as the night wore on, I enjoyed being able to peek out and see the incredible display of stars overhead and smell the fragrant ponderosa pine forest.

All in all, it was a great experience. Cooking dinner outdoors with a (safe) campfire crackling nearby always makes for a memorable evening. Hikes with grandkids were fun as they learned about the wilderness and the cliff dwellings. Our only real disappointment was not being able to help the two youngsters catch a fish, but we’re working on that for next time we go out. exploring with them

In the meantime, I hope you’ll be able to enjoy a trip to the Gila country soon. I worry about it because it is so fragile now that climate change has diminished the amount of rainfall replenishing the forest each year. Two huge forest fires have ravaged parts of the wilderness, including a tiny creek that I thought was the most spectacular place I’ve ever fished for trout.

Knowing that there is an unspoiled place like this so close to where I live always makes me feel good.

We just completed our annual Fourth of July sacrifice of more than $200 in fireworks for the benefit of our grandchildren and some visitors from a state where such shenanigans aren’t allowed.

The finale was a device called “Kooky Caterpillar,” which shot crackling sparks of vivid colors out of various orifices, whistled loudly and concluded its death dance with two red glowing eyes. I think it cost us $20 and the entire display lasted for 45 seconds. But the giggles and laughs from our grandchildren and visitors was worth it.

It made me wonder about what Fourth of July Celebrations were like in our town decades ago, so I looked up “Fourth of July” celebrations in Las Cruces on Newspapers.com.

Most entries were rather mundane, proclaiming that Independence Day activities would feature large displays of fireworks and that there was an upcoming election of a “Fourth of July Queen” in Mesilla.

But one article from the July 3, 1940, edition of the Las Cruces Sun-News caught my attention. The headline was “Blue Army Will Defend Cruces In 4th Battle.”

“Las Cruces will be defended by approximately 800 troops of the Blue army under the command of Col. Allen Fletcher against the Fourth of July blitzkrieg of an opposing army attacking on his flank at 9 a.m. tomorrow,” according to the lead paragraph in the story.

It appears that the battle was a mock attack staged to help prepare R.O.T.C. students from “State College” (Now New Mexico State University) for wartime duties as the nation began engaging in World War II.

The article said the students “have a special reason for putting up a hard fight, even though they fall in the tactics.” I interpreted that to mean that the students were pre-designated to be on the losing end of the mock battle.

The opposing and presumptive winning “army” was under the command of Col Cleveland C. Gee, an R.O.T.C. instructor from Fort Logan, Colorado. Fort Logan was an army base just southwest of Denver which was closed following World War II.

The article notes that the troops from Fort Logan had been spending several days in training at Fort Bullis in Texas, while the local boys trained at the “Dona Ana Target Range.”

The story said that the majority of the “fighting” would take place on the south end of downtown Las Cruces on Main Street.

Citizens were warned to keep their distance from the mock battle, since there would be guns fired with blanks.

“There are no balls,” Col Fletcher told the Sun-News. “But there is a wad. No one could be badly injured, but could be painfully hurt if a wad were to strike them.”

The article said smoke bombs were to be used during the mock battle, and Col Fletcher warned that “if a black smoke suddenly appears, there is no reason to call out the fire department.”

I suspect the smoke from our single “Kooky Caterpillar” was significantly more intense than that what was disbursed in downtown Las Cruces on the Fourth of July, 1940.

Things continue to improve in the Ruidoso area following the two devastating fires earlier this month. Police have now confirmed that they have now located everyone who was feared missing. The fires are largely contained and rains continue to dampen the area. Stories of kind gestures in the aftermath of the fire are starting to surface.

There was one story about a guy who had stayed during the fire and was checking on neighbors’ homes and feeding flocks of chickens while the owners were awaiting word that they could return to the village.

My own barber in Las Cruces took a day off and volunteered his heavy duty pickup truck and trailer to haul supplies from distribution centers in Mescalero and at the Inn of the Mountain Gods to various locations in Ruidoso.

“I heard what was going on and just wanted to do something to help,” he said. “I saw on social media that there was a call for large pickup trucks and trailers to haul needed supplies to residents and first responders. When I got to Ruidoso, there was a lot of confusion about where to go and what to load up and miscommunication between agencies, but we got it worked out and got things delivered.”

And police said that despite rumors and fears, there has been no evidence of looting in the area after the fire.

Well, except for one case. It seems that one man who somehow missed or defied the orders to evacuate the town on June 17 was wandering around and looking for someplace he could stay protected from the fire.

He stumbled upon a deserted house and went inside for shelter. He not only found a safe place to be during the fire, but also discovered the owners had left a case of wine in the house.

The man, who police described only as a “Texan,” managed to drink most of the 12 bottles of wine in the case — likely justifying it as helping him ease the fear of being left alone and surrounded by fire.

State Police were able to identify the suspect, capture him and charge him with “tresspass… and larceny” of items valued at $250 or less. That works out to be a little over $20 per bottle of wine, which in my experience as a low-budget oenophile sounded like pretty good stuff. I confess to have sampled some bottles of “Two Buck Chuck” from Trader Joe’s and described it to friends with the less than enthusiastic recommendation of “not that bad.” Hopefully the “Texan” found a little more enjoyment in what he sampled.

The situation in Ruidoso continues to unfold as residents have finally been allowed to return to see if their homes, businesses and favorite places in the mountain community have been destroyed in the devastating fires. At this point, there is good containment of both the South Fork and Salt fires, but officials still estimate more than 1,400 structures have been lost. And the number of people still missing is around 30.

I’ve received lots of comments on the blog that I wrote about the disaster last week. I’ve heard from several people with ties to my old home town, including one person who I haven’t heard from since we were in high school.

I’ve heard from the two teachers who I helped set up the Trout in the Classroom project at White Mountain Elementary this spring, and thankfully their homes were spared. But they worry, as I do, about the children in their classes and how many of those lost their homes. The teachers also confirmed that many of their fellow staff members have lost their homes as well.

I’ve done quite a bit of reflecting on this catastrophe and a couple of things have occurred to me.

First is how fortunate I was to grow up in a place like Ruidoso. It was a story book town for a kid, with many adventures to be had in the forests surrounding us, a close-knit community of like-minded people and a generally positive view about life. I’ve regaled you with memories of some of my adventures and misadventures I had in Ruidoso while growing up, and the fire has brought back many more — thinking about the places and people there. I think anyone who has grown up in a small town appreciates the things in that kind of environment that shaped them, and in my case, the spectacular mountain setting that I enjoyed.

The other thing is why it often takes something like this to remind me — particularly as I get older — that I need to stay in touch with people I have known over the years. I mentioned the person from my high school days who I hadn’t heard from in years.

It turns out he kept a letter that I wrote him 61 years ago when he had transferred from Ruidoso High School to the New Mexico Military Institute in Roswell. He scanned it and sent it to me in an e-mail. We shared some funny stories about things we’d done in high school, and he told me that he is suffering from what appears to be a terminal case of prostate cancer. I was touched by the fact that he had kept the letter and could find it.

My letter to him mentions some other friends who were attending NMMI and some other activities we did that I didn’t remember, like bushwhacking our own ski trails through the woods at the Sierra Blanca ski resort (now Ski Apache.)

I wish I had kept in better touch with him over the years. I wish I had kept in better touch with other friends of the years. I’ll promise myself to start doing that, but I fear I will probably backslide and then feel regret the next time someone who was once close to me has died or another disaster has triggered memories.

If you read this and think I’ve forgotten you, send me an email — we’ll catch up.

Growing up in the southern New Mexico resort community of Ruidoso, my father always said he feared that some day there would be a catastrophic forest fire that raced through the canyon and destroyed much of the community.

As you’ve probably been reading or hearing on electronic media, that very thing seems to have happened this week with devastating results.

As I write this, the extent of the damage is not completely known. And to make matters worse, the area was pounded by heavy rain and hail today, likely triggering flooding from runoff which normally would have been held back by vegetation.

Winston Churchill is credited with the phrase “sum of all fears” and in this case forest fires and heavy rain and hail seem to have combined to create that apocalyptic situation.

As my readers may recall, I’ve spent quite a bit of time in Ruidoso in the last several months working on a Trout in the Classroom project for the third graders at White Mountain Elementary. The project helps students learn about the importance of clean, cold water fisheries and the environment and give them an appreciation for nature in general and trout in particular.

I fear that most of those tiny fish we put in the Rio Ruidoso in early May are now gone because of this catastrophe — likely suffocating from mud and ash washed into the river and unable to survive a raging torrent of water.

But that’s only a minor concern. I think about the kids who were so excited to participate in the program. Who knows how many of them have lost their homes? Who knows how many of them will have to move somewhere else because their parents will lose their jobs because of the collapse of the tourist industry or the loss of their parents’ business? Who knows what kinds of nightmares they will experience after witnessing the giant smoke and flame-filled clouds racing toward them

And I worry about the teachers — two in particular — who I worked with so closely to set up the Trout in the Classroom program. At least one of them had to evacuate and I’m not sure about the other one. I texted both of them when the story broke and said I was thinking of them and hoping for the best. I think they still don’t know if their home survived. And in the long run, I suspect many families will move out of Ruidoso when their work and home is gone, meaning enrollment in the schools will likely decline. Will the decline in enrollment mean some layoffs in the school system? I hope my two favorite teachers survive — they are the type of teachers you want your kids to have.

Will an expected significant decline in summer visitors mean many of the small businesses that barely make it in Ruidoso have to close? Will the waiters, people who clean hotel rooms, shop attendants, mechanics, etc. have to relocate to find a new job?

I worry about the many friends we have who have vacation cabins or second homes in the Ruidoso area, many of whom looked forward to being in cool Ruidoso during the hot summer months here. And I think of the many people who looked forward to retirement in Ruidoso, wondering if their homes were spared and what kind of place the Village of Ruidoso will be like in the coming years.

It’s all very frightening and I wish all of them all the best and keep them in my prayers.

Ruidoso was a wonderful place to grow up as a kid. I think it shaped me in my generally positive outlook on life. I hope none of that goes away for those who experienced this tragedy, and that things can return to as near as normal soon.

The Albuquerque Journal’s Business Outlook section this week had a story about young kids — mostly teenagers on summer break — getting their first paying job.

There was a lot of focus about Dion’s Pizza, which has always made an effort to hire teenagers for work in their statewide franchises (including two here in Las Cruces.) I love to go into Dion’s and be greeted by the energetic, enthusiastic smiling teenagers wearing their bright red caps and aprons with yellow lettering. I figure for most of them, it’s a pretty good job — learning how to deal with customers in a busy environment. Both of my children did their time in the food service business while in high school and I think it was a good experience for them and taught them some valuable life lessons.

The story in the journal made me think back to my first serious summer employment when I was growing up in Ruidoso.

Of course I had work experience on my father’s newspaper from middle school on. I delivered papers to local businesses on publishing day, poured molten lead pigs for Linotype machines, occasionally set type, operated an engraving machine and did other tasks. The pay wasn’t good, but I did it because it was “family” and I learned a lot.

My first real job was at a small amusement park that set up for the summer months in mid-town Ruidoso. The rides included a carousel, small Ferris wheel, some bumper cars and a small train which operated on a track encircling the park.

My job was to operate the carousel. The work involved making sure everyone from the previous ride got off the contraption, that new riders were seated safely and that they got a certain number of revolutions when I started it up. It was a pretty simple job, but at that age, my mind drifted frequently and I sometimes lost count of how many revolutions the carousel made. Often, I became immersed in wondering how the contraption worked with all its rotating parts.

The owner of the amusement park soon noticed that I had a less than optimal focus on counting revolutions and concluded that I just wasn’t up to the task. He gave me a pink slip and my wages due. However, two days later, he called me back to work because he had forgotten that the busy Labor Day weekend was coming up and he needed more staff. Tail tucked between my legs, I agreed to return and finished up my job that weekend. I suppose I could have asked for a pay increase since I knew he was desperate, but I was pretty sure that strategy wouldn’t go well for me.

I also remember that one of the people I gave a ride to on the carousel was the super-stud quarterback of the high school football team. He seemed shocked and then embarrassed to see me operating the kiddy ride, knowing that I could blow his cool image.

“Please don’t tell anyone — especially the coach and my girlfriend — that I was here,” I remember him pleading.

I kept his secret, and when I joined the football team as a sophomore a couple of years later, he always treated me well.

I guess there are many morals to this story — mostly don’t get caught where you don’t want to be seen. And that’s especially true these days when everyone has a camera in their phone.

For reasons that probably won’t interest anyone, I have rejoined the Boy Scouts of America (soon to be renamed Scouting America) as an adult member of troop 66 in Las Cruces.

In order to join, I had to pay dues and various entry fees of more than $100 and take a course called “Youth Protection Training,” which is a good thing these days.

The whole process made me think back about my son’s experiences in scouting and my own Boy Scout memories in Ruidoso years ago.

My son was in Cub Scouts in elementary school when he competed in the “Pinewood Derby,” a gravity powered model car race in which vehicles made from blocks of pine wood must use certain components and weigh a specific amount.

My son Tyler and I purchased a kit and not knowing exactly what was in store, put together a green and red racer that basically looked like a wedge-shaped potato on wheels. We accidentally managed to get the weight exactly right by pouring some lead solder in holes we had drilled in the body of the vehicle and then attached the plastic wheels with nails as axles. The wheels looked a bit wonky and out of alignment, but we figured we’d give it a go.

Before the official race, Tyler lubed up the wheels with powdered graphite, most of which got on his face, making him look like an NFL player before a SuperBowl game.

On the race course, which was about a 10-foot ramp at a 20 degree angle, Tyler’s car zipped down fast and won every heat. On the championship round, his car smoked the competition by an eyelash to win.

We felt we had conjured up the perfect balance of wood, plastic and lead and decided that for next year’s race, we would make an even faster car that would win each heat by huge margins.

It wasn’t to be. We crafted a new silver and red car, festooned it with a spoiler and fancy lead weights that looked like a tuned exhaust system from a Formula 1 car. It looked like the fastest car among the competition. But when it rolled down the ramp, it performed like a Ford Pinto instead of a Ferrari. We didn’t even win the first heat, as I recall.

My recollections of scouting are somewhat foggy, given the many years that have passed since the time I joined Troop 59 in Ruidoso. (Our cheer ended with the incredibly imaginative words “Troop 5-9 — that’s mine.”)

I remember parts of my first overnight camping excursion on the middle fork of the Rio Ruidoso on the Mescalero Apache Reservation. As expected, the older scouts made sure we knew they were in charge. They made us stay up far past our bedtime on a legendary “Snipe Hunt” in which we waved flashlights in front of open pillowcases urging the imaginary birds to run inside so we could capture them. Having heard rumors about such things, we neophytes concluded it was a ruse and quickly gave up.

The worst thing about the trip was that someone squirted something truly putrid in my canteen which I had left outside my tent overnight. When I awakened in the morning, I took an unsuspecting sip and quickly spit it out, gagging afterwards. I have an opinion on what was put in my canteen, but I could never confirm my suspicions. The experience made me always keep my source of water close by my sleeping bag during camping excursions.

What I also remember vividly is when one of our assistant Scout Masters attempted to play the bugle at one of our troop meetings. The adult assistant, Elmer Pirelli, was widely known as the town drunk. He had lost a one or two front teeth over the years from excessive drinking or in bar fights. As a former trumpet player, I can tell you that your front teeth are a necessary for producing nice sounds from the musical instrument.

That fact that he was missing important teeth didn’t seem to deter Elmer. He placed the trumpet on his lips, inflated his cheeks and then blew through the mouthpiece, producing a flatulent sound like a sputtering Cushman motor scooter without a muffler.

I’m not sure what tune he was attempting to play, but it certainly didn’t sound like taps that we hoped would end his bugling career.

During World War II, Britons dubbed the German VI rocket that terrorized London as the “Doodlebug.” It alerted residents of its approach with an annoying pulsing buzzing sound from its primitive rocket motor, then became silent when the engine quit over the city and then after a few moments exploded when it crashed randomly around London.

Well, this post is not about that rocket, but about a real bug that I believe has its largest population base in the world just a short walk from our house.

It’s more commonly known as the “ant lion” or “antlion” and its scientific name is Myrmeleontiformia, (you can click on the name for a Wikipedia link to learn more about it.)

Its sole purpose in life is to catch other small insects in a cleverly crafted pit in loose sand or dirt, attack them with its formidable jaws, inject them with poison and then suck the juice out of them. Sometimes, they can kill insects larger than themselves. On their journey to create the “insect pit of death,” the bugs leave a crazy wandering pattern on the ground looking like someone’s mindless doodling with a pen on paper — hence the name “doodlebug.” For the longest time, I thought earthworms were leaving the meandering paths, but after some research discovered they were created by these weird bugs.

Just down the street and around the corner from our house, there is one section of dirt bordering the roadway where there are literally hundreds of the bug traps left by the ant lions. Below are a couple of photos I took recently of the doodlebug-infested landscape:

I’m not sure why the population of ant lions has chosen this particular spot for their home. It’s probably the fine sand that provides the slippery slope that their victims can’t escape from when they fall into the traps.

As I’ve mentioned before, our neighborhood has been home to lots of wildlife over the years — raccoons, skunks, squirrels, javelinas, foxes, owls, wild turkeys, coyotes, etc. I guess there is just something about Mesilla Park that appeals to critters.

I’m happy the ant lions seem to like it here and take care of capturing otherwise undesirable ants, spiders (and maybe scorpions), but I’m especially happy that they’re not large enough to create traps that humans can fall into and have their blood sucked out.

Anyone who’s been in New Mexico for a while knows about the burning of Zozobra, the effigy portraying gloom and doom that is torched every year around Labor Day during the Santa Fe Fiesta.

The burning of Zozbra began in 1924 when Santa Fe artist Will Shuster decided to have a private Fiesta party in which the ceremonial burning of an effigy would rid his guests of any chance of bad luck in the coming year. Schuster and a friend came up with the word Zozobra for the effigy, which is based on the Spanish verb Zozobrar, meaning “to worry.” The roots of the ceremony can be traced back to Easter Holy Week traditions in some Native American communities of Arizona and Mexico, in which an effigy of Judas was led around villages on a donkey and ultimately set on fire.

I once interviewed legendary State Historian Myra Ellen Jenkins about the New Mexico tradition and enjoyed her colorful description of such events in the state’s past.

“There were communities that would goof around with a ceremony every year and set little statues on fire to make sure there was good luck from the coming year,” I think I recall her telling me. “And I think they had some libations with the ceremony which made them feel even more optimistic about the future.”

The burning of Zozobra — now a 50-foot tall effigy that isset on fire every year around Labor Day at Santa Fe’s Fort Marcy Park — now has a new twist.

The cities of Santa Fe and Albuquerque announced this week that they have authorized construction of a 135-foot tall hot air balloon in the shape of Zozobra that will fly this year’s Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta.

Naturally, in keeping with tradition, I wondered whether the balloon will be set on fire after each flight — an expensive proposition given that the balloon is estimated to cost about $300,000 to construct. And of course, hot air balloons already have fires on board to heat air inside them and make them buoyant, so torching them immediately upon landing would be easy.

This made me think about a Federal Aviation Administration regulation, Part 830.5, which defines what constitutes an aircraft incident or accident which must be immediately reported to the National Transportation Safety Board.

It says the operator of an aircraft must notify NTSB in the event of several occurrences, including: “(4) in-flight fire,” and “(5) Aircraft collision in flight.”

Well, duh, you kind of have to have an in-flight fire to keep a hot air balloon aloft. And if you’ve even seen the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta, you’ll frequently notice balloons gently bumping into eachother during mass ascensions, which I guess counts as an “in-flight collision.”

In my experience in flying a hot air balloon, I’ve always had an “in-flight fire” and I’ve had numerous occasions at Fiesta where other balloons bumped into me or I bumped into them during a flight without any consequences. I’ve never reported any of these incidents to the NTSB — maybe I should have.

This Labor Day weekend, maybe I should burn a miniature version of Zozobra so I won’t have to worry about reporting myself to the feds.