There was a sad story in the Albuquerque Journal last week about a young man from the Boston area who had died from ingesting too much capsicum in chile extract from participating in a “One Chip Challenge” that was circulating on social media.

The story noted that the young man had a congenital heart defect which made it more difficult for his body to process the intense hot flavor of the chile extract.

Reading the story made me think back to our daughter’s science fair project during middle school involving the effects of hot chile on humans. (I’m proud to say that both of our kids made it to the state science fair at New Mexico Tech with their projects. They didn’t get top state honors since those usually went to the sons or daughters of rocket scientists whose projects were so sophisticated and esoteric that it made my brain hurt when I tried to understand them.)

My son’s winning project involved predicting the time frame for deterioration of adobe bricks exposed to the outdoors. He had another project in which he tried to determine whether Seasonal Affective Disorder affected the behavior of mice kept in a dark closest. (I’ll save that story for a later time.)

Our daughter first tried an experiment to determine how quickly different colors or hot air balloon fabric deteriorated when exposed to constant sunlight and UV rays. She got an honorable mention at the local fair but did not advance to the state event . But her real “contribution to science” was an 8th grade project entitled “Chile Heat.”

In the project, she asked almost 50 neighbors, work associates and other individuals to taste some really hot green chile and determine whether it might instantly raise their body temperature. Her thought was that a dose of hot chile or its extract might help raise a person’s body temperature if they had been exposed to extreme cold.

The results were pretty impressive. Almost 84% of the participants showed an immediate increase in body temperature of about 1 degree after eating the hot green chile. Many of the participants (including me) had intensely watery eyes, red faces and at least a couple experienced severe hiccups.

I know from experience that you can get a pretty severe reaction to hot chile. I once ate a raw chile pepper that was so hot I thought I was going to choke and pass out. Another time, my wife and I peeled so much hot green chile that our hands began to burn. The pain was so intense that we called the state poison control center for help. Their only advice was to stick our hands in ice water for as long as we could stand it to numb the pain. I wore contact lenses at the time and I couldn’t insert them in my eyes for a week afterwards because of the continued burning sensation transferred from my fingers to the contacts and my eyes.

Chile does have its beneficial effects on humans. According to an article in “MedicalNewsToday,” capsicum, including capsaicin, “may help reduce pain and lower the risk of metabolic syndrome and cancer. Research also implies it may reduce the risk of death, as well as fight bacterial infections that are resistant to antibiotics.”

But as much as most New Mexicans love their chile, we have to realize there may be a limit to how much we can tolerate the really hot stuff.

One thing I think New Mexican can ever get enough of is the aroma of roasting green chile. After all, the New Mexico Legislature in 2023 declared it as “the official state scent.” I think that’s a lot more appealing than the smell of crude oil in Texas or feedlots in Nebraska.

I’m easily entertained by people watching at airports when I’m waiting for a plane. I wonder why people are traveling, what their lives might be like and who they might vote for in the upcoming elections. (Actually, I don’t think you can guess that by mere appearance, given my experience as a voter registration clerk in two previous elections.)

So while waiting for my flight out of Austin this week, I noticed a couple across from me, clearly trying to look affluent and cool and hide their age with excessive black coloration of their hair that seemed to conflict with the many creases in their faces. (Yes, I have those age lines too, but my hair is what it is — brown with more and more touches of gray).

On the lap of the man was a tiny dog, a terrier of some sort, with a pink topknot bow apparently indicating its female gender. I doubt the dog weighed more than five pounds and was well behaved. It never made a yip or a bark and only got excited when the man fed it a tiny bit of Amy’s Ice Cream.

As the couple’s flight was called to board for Kansas City, the woman picked up her medium sized and oh-so-fashionable black leather purse and unzipped it. I suspected she was checking for last minute flight necessities before boarding.

But what happened was not what I expected. The woman scooped up the pup from her husband’s lap and placed it (gently) in her purse. Then she zipped it completely shut and walked toward the boarding line.

The dog never made a noise — not a whimper, yip or a bark.

As far as I could tell, the purse was not made specially for carrying around a small dog. I saw no vent holes or screens where the dog could peek out.

I can’t imagine anything more terrifying for a dog — being zipped into a complete dark case with little or no air circulation and no way of seeing out. And on top of that, I’m sure the high-pitched whine of the jet’s engines and the extremely rough ride we all experienced getting out of Austin that day was even more frightening for the dog.

I love all dogs, even though I’m partial to full sized ones like our pooch Chester. I like it when they are around, but I think there is a limit to that. I see more and more people traveling on planes with their pets these days. These owners must like showing off their dogs or proving how cool they are by traveling with them. (Service animal owners excepted). However, I suspect most dogs (or cats) would much prefer just to be left at home in their familiar places while they are temporarily cared for by someone hired by their owners.

I could not imagine treating an animal like that small dog was treated this week.

Maybe next time I see something like this at an airport, I should rush over and grab the animal’s container from its owner then free it. But of course, that would be terrifying for the animal as well and I would end up in jail. I can just hope people like this dog’s owners will display good common sense in the future.

__________________________

On another topic and speaking of elections, I will start another round of volunteering as an election clerk tomorrow. I work as a same day registration clerk for the two weeks prior to the June 4 New Mexico primary and then on election day doing that same job and working as a “Machine Judge” — essentially the No. 2 person at the polls.

Because of these duties, my blogs may be a bit sparse in the next couple of weeks. But I’ll have lots of time to think about what I hope will be entertaining topics to write about.

And as always, if you have any comments or questions, please forward them to to me at my email address at patrick@aero.cordero.com

My wife and I have become fans of the “Father Brown” mystery series on Brit Box. A meddling Catholic priest in the mythical town of Kembleford in the Cotswold region of England is an amateur sleuth who always manages to upstage the local police in their investigations of murders in the otherwise tranquil British countryside.

One of the characters in the series is Lady Felicia, a woman of nobility who is shuttled around in her classic Rolls Royce by her chauffeur, Sid, who also occasionally assists Fr. Brown in his investigations.

And while Sid may have a guaranteed job during the time period of this series, a recent article I read showed more and more Rolls Royce drivers are choosing to drive their own luxury sedans rather than having a chauffeur at the wheel. That means that more and more Rolls Royce chauffeurs may be looking for new work these days.

I once read an excerpt from a Rolls Royce owners’ manual which had a separate section on driving tips for chauffeurs. One of those tips suggested that upon coming to a stop, the chauffer should slowly decrease pressure on the brake pedal so that the passengers do not experience a lurch forward at the final point of stopping. (I actually try to practice that myself, although I’m certain no one has noticed.)

And speaking of cars eliminating jobs, I spotted a related article in my last edition of the “Roundel,” the BMW owners group magazine.

In that article, it said the BMW is currently experimenting with a self driving feature that allows certain high-end Bimmers to valet park themselves. It apparently only works at locations that have the proper technology to guide the driverless car to an appropriate parking spot. Here’s what the article said:

“Cars that can park themselves once you have found a spot are becoming increasingly common, but BMW takes this to a whole new level with the Remote Valet Parking Assistant. The feature has been integrated in a research version of the electric BMW i3, and combines information from laser sensors with digital plans of multi-story car parks to navigate.

The driver can just get out and activate the parking assistant on a smartwatch, for example. The sensors let the car recognize the structural features of the car park and avoid any obstacles that appear unexpectedly, such as incorrectly parked vehicles. Once the car has arrived at the parking space, it locks itself.”

So if you’ve been nervous about tossing the keys of your $165,000 BMW M8 Competition convertible to an overly testosteroned 20-something valet parking attendant, fear no more — Remote Valet Assistant Parking will do the parking for you.

But if you pull up to that fancy restaurant in a ratted out 1996 Chevy Malibu, you’re on your own to park it. The valet parking attendendant has been replaced by BMW.

Imagine you come to self awareness and realize you are a rainbow trout in a 55-gallon glass prison cell. You constantly bump up against the clear walls that surround you and you endure the endless sound of buzzing machines pumping water. Each day, at least 100 scary animals, mostly small humans, peer at you quizzically through the glass. A larger human occasionally dips testing things into the water, but you’re not sure if she’s trying to help or catch you.

You’d consider swimming so fast that you could leap out of the tank, but who knows what fate might await you once you escaped.

But today, one of the larger human animals dipped you out of the glass prison and put you and your other 12 brothers and sisters in a white round object filled with water. Next you went on a scary rumbling ride in a thing that looked like a giant yellow dragonfly, then were scooped out into a smaller white round object and then … suddenly released in a clear, cold river in the mountains. You are now free to live your life with other members of the Oncorhynchus mykiss in the Rio Ruidoso.

Yes, the White Mountain Elementary Trout In the Classroom fish were freed today into the waters of the Rio Ruidoso.

Okay, enough of the drama. If you’ve been following my blog, you know that I’ve been helping the third grade classes at White Mountain Elementary with Trout Unlimited’s “Trout In the Classroom” program to help young students learn about the importance of clean cold waters by raising trout in their classes and releasing them into the wild.

Today’s event culminated more than three months of raising trout from eggs to fry in the third grade classroom of Michelle Thurston at White Mountain Elementary. Assisted by “Trout Queen” teacher Rachel Lutterman and four other third grade teachers, the fruits of their semester-long effort were achieved today in a grand release party on the river. (You can read my earlier posts on this project by clicking on the blog section and scrolling down.)

The 125-plus third grade students who were bused to the park enjoyed the day by going on a nature scavenger hunt, checking water quality on the river and learning about fly fishing and casting from my wife and me. Then they all gathered around as we released each of the 13 fish into the waters of the Rio Ruidoso. And then to celebrate, they managed to munch down 35 boxes of pizza provided by Trout Unlimited and other donors.

I had the honor of releasing “The Big Kahuna,” the largest of the small trout that were raised in the tank at the school. He was in a large plastic bucket with 12 of his brothers and sisters when teacher Rachel Lutterman scooped him into a small paper cup. I took him to the bank of the river with scores of third graders looking on as I loudly announced: “The release of the Big Kahuna.” Then I kneeled down and let him slip out of the cup into the river. It was followed by a big cheer, one of the best I’ve ever experienced.

It was a happy moment but also sad. One of the teachers actually shed a tear because she will miss them swimming around the tank in the classroom and worried about their survival.

The teachers were so enthusiastic about the program that they are planning to do it again next fall. They put an incredible amount of work into this project and parents should be proud to have their kids in these classes. I hope it all goes well next time around and that the Big Kahuna can be a mentor to the new fish that will be released sometime in December.

Stay tuned!

Imagine that you’re cruising down Interstate 10 in southern New Mexico. It’s getting close to lunchtime and your Tesla’s charge is getting low. On your car’s navigation screen, a Tesla charging location pops up on the next exit in Las Cruces. You take the exit and there it is — “The Roasted Rooster” with about a dozen Tesla charging ports just waiting for your electrified ride and your growling tummy.

What could be more convenient — a charge and a chicken and waffle combo while you wait.

But wait — what’s this next door? The “Baked Chicken Farm?”

Look closely at the image above and you’ll see that it’s not another chicken-based eatery. It is a marijuana dispensary and a “farmware” outlet.

Tempted as I was to explore what might be considered “farmware,” I didn’t care to be seen venturing into a marijuana dispensary to determine if they sold overalls. I’ll just have to speculate that they sell farmer-type clothing or maybe other farming accoutrements.

I’m wondering what kind of person might venture into this place. I guess if you are an overall-wearing uber/urban cowboy/farmer who drives one of the weird Telsa Cybertrucks, loves chicken and waffles and likes to stay buzzed on weed, you’ve made it to the promised land.

But if you’re the typical southern New Mexico farmer/cowboy, driving a Ford F250 Super Duty in your wranglers, sipping a Coors light and craving a green chile cheeseburger for lunch, I doubt that this is your kind of place.

However, I do have to hand it to the owner of this facility for offering something truly unique in terms of cross marketing and especially for giving me some fodder for my blog.

Warning: This blog may be as close to a political statement as I have made in my four years of writing at Aero-Cordero.com. You are welcome to click out if you don’t want to read it.

If you try to get information about how to contact a local newsroom of the Ruidoso News — the newspaper that my father owned in the town of Ruidoso for about 20 years — you’re out of luck. The newspaper that he fostered and grew into a significant contributor to growth, success and political integrity of the Village of Ruidoso from the early 1950s to the 1970s, doesn’t seem to care about news any more.

I tried last week to send the newspaper a story about the “Trout In the Classroom” project that I have been working on for several months at White Mountain Elementary in Ruidoso. (See previous blogs for more details). I had no success in finding a local number or even an office address for the Ruidoso News.

If you look up Ruidoso News online you can find a website and an 800 phone number. Both give you options on how get a new subscription, what to do if you’ve missed getting a paper or who to contact if you want to buy advertising. But nowhere is there a local phone number or information about contacting the organization about a local news item.

I mean, isn’t the purpose of a newspaper to gather and distribute news?

Frustrated, I called the Ruidoso of Chamber of Commerce to see if they had a local phone number for the Ruidoso News, now owned by the USA Today network.

“No, we don’t have one. I don’t think they even have an office here any more,” said the person at the Chamber of Commerce.

I called the 800 number for subscriptions and finally was able to speak to a human. I said I wasn’t interested in a subscription, but wanted to know how to get in touch with the newspaper’s editorial staff. After a long wait on hold, I was told “I don’t have a local number for the news operation. I think they’re changing the number.”

Again, a newspaper without the ability to gather news does not make sense to me.

Most people don’t have time to attend every meeting of city council, school board, county commission or other government agency activity. That’s the job of the press — to be there if we can’t. If there’s no one looking over the shoulders of the city council, school board, the county commission or a government agency, they can get away with things that are not in the best interest of the citizens. A report by a group trying to foster local news reporting says there are now more than 200 counties in the United States that do not have newspapers and more than 1,500 with only once source of news. And in my opinion, there are many, many more counties which have a poor excuse for a local newspaper.

Here’s a website by Northwestern University that you may want to look at which shows how dire the situation is:

https://localnewsinitiative.northwestern.edu/projects/state-of-local-news/2023/report

And here’s a map of local news outlets in New Mexico. The yellow shows counties with no local news outlet, the gray show counties which have only one local news outlet and the blue shows counties with two or more more local news outlets.

Some political figures these days have called the media “the enemy of the people.” All politicians, left or right, have probably criticized the media at one time or another as being biased against them. As a former journalist, I got heat from several political figures because I didn’t write a story the way they wanted me to — but I wrote the truth. I was once accused of “faulty reporting” because I did not report on one political figure lambasting another at a public hearing. I instead wrote about a report that was released at that same hearing praising advances in women’s sports programs at state universities.

Journalists for legitimate news outlets make mistakes (as I have done), but I truly believe they all do their best to bring the truth to the people.

The phrase “don’t shoot the messenger,” is something any journalist knows. It has been around forever, beginning as far back as the 3rd and 5th century in Chinese dynasties of those eras. As you know, the phrase relates to blaming bearer of bad (or accurate) news for things that have gone wrong. Even Shakespeare referred to the phrase in his plays “Henry the IV” and “Antony and Cleopatra.” The press is often that messenger who gets shot.

Our local daily newspaper, also a member of the USA today network, is a sad example of what it used to be. It appears that it makes most of its money from obituaries of local citizens, then fills much the rest of pages with newswire copy that is at least two days old.

We had a fatal shooting just two blocks from our house two weeks ago. We’ve never seen a story about that incident in the local paper. I think that would have been important for me to know about. My wife’s friend told her about two local high schools whose athletic teams had won state competitions recently. There was nothing about it in the local daily newspaper — again, something I think our community would have liked to know.

There is good news in that we have a strong local weekly newspaper, where we consistently learn more about what is going around Las Cruces than in the USA today publication. Additionally, a former journalist for the local daily has started an online newspaper which you can reach through Facebook.

The bottom line is that you must support good local journalism to keep everyone informed and to keep political figures and government agencies in line.

But the problem is this: Many people these days don’t support local journalism. Neither my son nor daughter subscribe to their local newspapers. I don’t criticize them — their peers don’t value local journalism either. I suspect many of you who read this don’t subscribe to a local newspaper or follow another local news outlet. If newspapers or other local outlets don’t have subscribers, they will fail and we will have no one to look out for our interests. The other problem is that many newspapers are now owned by large corporations, whose focus seems to be more on the bottom line than in actually serving the community with needed news.

These days, many people rely on the internet, television or radio for their news, often choosing to read, watch or listen only to sites or programs which support their point of view.

I’ve made it a point to listen to and read other clearly biased viewpoints on both sides of issues, both conservative and liberal. I want to know what people are thinking and I struggle to learn why they think the way they do. Hearing what they say — on both sides — is often deeply upsetting to me and I fear that bias has spread the seeds of doubt and conspiracy theories.

I’ll close my rant with this statement from Thomas Jefferson:

“If I had to choose between government and a free press, I would choose a free press.”

As my father is rolling over in his grave from the demise of his once great local newspaper, I hope you, my readers, will support good local journalism.

You may recall my earlier high-level journalistic investigations into the smuggling of Mexican bologna into the state. This was prompted by stories that the processed meat from Mexico was being transported across the state’s southern border inside spare tires, beneath car seats and intermingled with underwear in suitcases.

Well now the smuggling game has taken a new an ugly twist.

A recent article in the Albuquerque Journal edition says a woman tried to sneak a supply of the illegal drug fentanyl across the southern New Mexico border inside a hamburger.

I don’t think the burger looks very appetizing to begin with, even without the baggie of fentanyl stuffed in the middle.

It also looks like there was green chile added to the burger. Somehow, I think a splash of hot Hatch green chile and fentanyl would make an especially toxic mix.

What concerns me, however, is that it looked like this burger was part of a combo deal which included the drink to the left of the burger. I wonder if they tested the drink to see if it was laced with LSD.

You may recall that last fall, we traveled to Corona, NM, watched the sun’s corona emerge from the edges of an annular eclipse and drank a Corona beer to celebrate. And on the way back, our good friends who rode with us to experience the astronomical phenomena started coming down with a case of the Coronavirus. (Four Coronas.) Luckily, both my wife and I did not catch the virus, even though were cooped up in the same car with our friends for several hours.

That eclipse was an annular “ring of fire” eclipse, where the sun’s outer edges peaked out around the sides of the moon’s disk. It was an impressive experience and it got really cold when it peaked, but it didn’t get all that dark.

Fast forward to earlier this week, when we traveled to Austin to witness a total eclipse with our daughter and grandchildren.

Despite intermittent cloud cover, we were able to experience totality. It got so dark that street lights turned on, birds and insects stopped chirping and churring and it got quite a bit colder.

However, it was far from completely quiet. We went to our granddaughter’s elementary school to witness the event on the playground with about 450 kindergarten through fifth grade students and many of their parents.

It was a cacophony of kids laughing, shrieking and generally talking as loud as they could outdoors. When the approaching eclipse would peek out momentarily from behind a cloud, the kids would cheer “YAY” at the top of their lungs. When the sun slid back behind a cloud, waves of “BOO” would erupt from the crowd. The video below gives you a sample of what it was like.

And below is a picture when totality occurred at 1:34 p.m. At that time, the sun was pretty much obscured by the clouds, but you can see how dark it was. (My iPhone did its best to make the picture bright, so this photo is artificially enhanced.)

My wife, daughter and I wore the t-shirts we had created for the eclipse in Corona last fall, and I chose to wear some really goofy-looking welding glasses — all in hopes of providing maximum embarrassment to our granddaughter. (I actually think she found it funny.)

Our grandson Hayes, who was at a different school that day, got to see the totality when the clouds parted at just the right moment. His viewing outfit, as shown below, was even more unusual than mine.

It was a great experience and I’m glad we had the opportunity to see the eclipse. The next one will be in 2026, but you’ll have to travel to Greenland, Iceland or Spain to catch it. I think I’ll just stay home, wear my t-shirt, drink a Corona and hope no one nearby has the Coronavirus.

In the late 1970s, General Motors was caught in the act of putting Chevrolet V8 motors into other models in the GM lineup — Oldsmobile in particular. The swap was discovered when a Chicago man went to the dealership and was told by his mechanic that a part that had been ordered for his Olds “Rocket V8” wouldn’t fit, but that a similar part for a Chevy V8 would.

The matter ended up in a lawsuit and in the end General Motors agreed to pay purchasers of Chevrolet-engine Oldsmobiles prior to April 10, 1977 refunds of $550, while those who purchased one afterward got nothing. Furthermore, there would be no punitive damages assessed against GM. Total settlement cost to GM: $8.2 million.

In fact, engine swapping between brands at Ford and Chrysler had been going on for some time as well, but it didn’t raise the rumble that the GM motor swap did.

I remember years later buying various GM vehicles that had a disclaimer that engines might be supplied by “various General Motors” divisions.

The reason I mention this is that I discovered a parts swapping incident involving my body earlier this week.

As some may recall I had an aortic heart valve replacement four and one-half years ago to fix a murmur that I’d apparently had since birth. The procedure went well, and at my last echo cardiogram, I was told that my new heart valve was doing so well that I no longer needed annual ECGs — I could wait three to five years before I should get another one.

But during the discussion of my results, my doctor casually mentioned that he thought I had received a “bovine” heart valve in the procedure.

Whoa! I had been told when I scheduled the surgery that I would likely get a valve from a pig. I envisioned it would come fresh right before a festive Cinco de Mayo pig roast in Dona Ana, where the remnants of the swine were ultimately turned into chicharrónes.

So the doctor double checked, and sure enough, I had been given a heart valve from a cow. He told me that cow heart valves were a bit more durable than ones from a pig, and that it should last me several years before I might have to have it replaced again.

So instead of finding out that I got a cheapo Chevy engine in my Olds, I guess I got a Cowdillac engine. (It’s okay, you can groan).

While the Coronavirus has claimed an estimated 7 million lives around the world since it first appeared in early 2020, it was nothing compared to the plague epidemic which gripped Europe and northern Africa from 1346 to 1353. Estimates are that between 25 and 50 million people died during the plague, also known as the “Black Death.” Half of the population of Paris is said to have perished during the pandemic.

I mention this because the Albuquerque Journal reported last month that the state had recorded its first fatal case of bubonic plague this year. It was the first death from the plague in New Mexico since 2020.

As a reporter for United Press International in Santa Fe, I wrote many stories about plague cases in the state during the 1970s.

The disease is endemic in New Mexico, usually spread from fleas from an infected animal that a human comes in contact with or from fleas on a pet that has been exposed to an infected animal. The bite of an inflected flea is what normally transmits the disease to a human.

In Europe, much of the disease was spread as the pneumonic form, which could be transmitted through the air by humans breathing or coughing on another human.

In New Mexico, largely because of our arid climate, the organism which causes the disease has been around forever. Cases usually increase during the warmer summer months when humans (and their pets) venture outdoors. If you live in an area of the state where the plague is common, you can reduce your chance of getting the plague if you avoid any dead wild animals and keep your pets treated for fleas.

One summer when I was a reporter in Santa Fe, there was an unusual uptick in the number of plague cases. In fact, entomologists determined that a dog named “Snoopy,” owned by then New Mexico Gov. David F. Cargo, carried infected fleas and the governor’s mansion had to be disinfected for the insect.

I also remember that the high number of cases had caught the attention of a foreign country — I think it was somewhere in the Middle east — and it banned visitors from New Mexico for a period of time.

The good news is that these cases are pretty rare, and because they occur on a fairly regular basis in our state, doctors in New Mexico are more likely to pick up on plague symptoms and know how to diagnose and treat patients.

There is no lack of wild critters roaming through our neighborhood — skunks, foxes, raccoons, squirrels, pack rats, coyotes — so we’ve been careful about giving our dog a regular treatment to keep fleas at bay.

Which reminds me that it’s time today to force Chester to gulp down a large chunk of medicine which he really dislikes and is no fun for me either. When my hands recover from being bathed in slimy dog slobber, I’ll start writing my next blog.

The headline below appeared in the 1966 Albuquerque Journal following the November general election.

For years, New Mexico’s Rio Arriba County has been tagged as the election irregularity poster child, most notably during the tenure of long-time political boss Emilio Naranjo.

Naranjo, who died in 2008 at the age of 92, was a true political patron who at one time or another served as the county’s Democratic Party Chairman, County Manager, County Sheriff and many years as State Senator. His leadership was frequently surrounded by controversy, especially involving voting practices in the northern New Mexico county.

 What made me think of Naranjo was an article in this week’s Albuquerque Journal, which said that New Mexico’s elections are “conducted more reliably than any other state in the nation.” That is according to The Elections Performance Index, a project of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology that attempts to measure efficiency and purity of election administration in each state.

I’m proud to say that I might have been part of that “reliability” since I have served as a volunteer election clerk for the last general and last special election in Dona Ana County. I’ve signed up again to work the upcoming primary election in June. My experience has been that everything is above board and I’ve seen no evidence of election irregularity.

That apparently always wasn’t the case in the state, particularly in Rio Arriba County.

I did a search on Newspapers.com for “Rio Arriba County election irregularities” and came up with what seemed to be an endless supply of articles on the subject.

In 1906, an article in the Santa Fe New Mexican said that the final voting tally for a Congressional race for the Territory of New Mexico could not be completed because results from Rio Arriba County were not yet available. (Lincoln County, another political bad boy of that era, also had not submitted its final tally.)

The article noted that the results from Rio Arriba would determine the outcome of the Congressional race, but “for inexplicable reasons, results from that county have not come in any reliable form…”

Two stories from the 1976 general election caught my eye. One quoted New Mexico Chief of Police Martin Vigil saying that 15 additional State Police officers had been assigned to watch for irregularities at voting locations in Rio Arriba County. After the election, there was this lead in an Albuquerque Journal story:

“Rio Arriba County ballots were impounded — as usual — in the general election Tuesday.”

Another article in the Albuquerque Journal following a general election said a voting machine in Chimayo had an inoperative lever for a candidate who was not supported by the Naranjo camp.

But voting irregularities were not unique to Rio Arriba County in New Mexico. I worked in a peripheral role during a campaign in Dona Ana County the early 1980s and remember hearing conversations about “walking around money” that was paid by some political figures to get out the vote for certain candidates — fortunately not the one I was supporting.

Are things finally on the up and up in Rio Arriba County? As recently as 2002, it appears that might not have been the case. An Albuquerque Journal editorial noted that 360 absentee voting ballots had been submitted in Rio Arriba County for the upcoming primary election, compared to just 100 Bernalillo County with 13 times as many residents.

Even if shady things are still going on in Rio Arriba County elections (which the MIT report seems to refute) the good thing is that I don’t think the county has enough votes to impact a national election.

Digging through Newspapers.com this week, I found a newspaper from a town I had never heard of before in southern New Mexico. The town, now considered a ghost town with nothing much to show for it, was called Robinson.

Its site is located north of the remote Sierra County town of Winston and is also near a more famous New Mexico ghost town, Chloride. This region was an active mining area in the 1880s but most of the mines collapsed after the “Silver Panic of 1893” when the metal’s prices plummeted.

The newspaper in Robinson, known as the Range (after the Black Range mountains), was eventually moved to Chloride, but apparently failed during the silver mining collapse.

The website Ghosttowns.com says the town was founded in 1882 as a proposed terminal for the Santa Fe Railroad. Unfortunately, the railroad veered much further east and bypassed the Black Range area entirely and by 1888, all of the buildings were town down. The town’s name may have come from the chief railroad engineer who failed to deliver the promised rail route though the area.

Reading through the newspapers of this era often produce interesting stories that are written in a folksy and often heavily opinionated style.

One article in the Oct. 26, 1888, edition of the Range reported the death of a pig owned by a local butcher.

“J.M. Smith took a shot in (sic) one of the butcher’s pigs, the other day, not to kill it but just to scare it out of his yard. The gun was loaded with shot and the range was long, so of course the wounds would hurt nothing even if the shot hit, so Smith supposed, but he was evidently mistaken, for no sooner was his gun off than the hog’s life vanished. Smith is a dead shot.”

Another article reported that there were now “thirty-one ladies resident(s) in Chloride which is more than has ever lived here before, at the same time.”

And finally, the editor chimed in on the recent surge of territorial newspapers clamoring for New Mexico statehood.

“…the Range would like to know what good would be accomplished by having this a state. Nobody could be benefitted except the politicians and their pleasure would be the public’s pain.”

“The chief recommendation of the territory of New Mexico today is its lack of politics,” the editor concluded.

This morning, as I was finishing up my morning walk with our dog Chester, he made an abrupt stop just as we were entering our front door. He was peering upwards at something on the parapet wall of the house and was fixated on whatever it was.

Following his clue, I looked up and there was an adult roadrunner staring down at me and Chester. It wasn’t moving much, knowing that it was pretty safe and that neither Chester nor I could jump up and grab it. After a few moments, Chester began barking at it, but it did not seem to faze the bird.

We live in the valley area of Las Cruces/Mesilla, and roadrunners usually stick to the desert areas where they can munch on lizards and small mammals. You occasionally spot them in town, but it’s a bit unusual. I even had one wandering around a home we owned in the middle of Albuquerque, miles from where you’d expect to see one.

I had heard that sighting a roadrunner is a sign of good luck, so I’m happy this bird decided that the top of my house was a good place to perch.

I looked online for some information about roadrunner legends and found several interesting things.

I found this on the “Native Languages of the Americas” website:

“The Hopi and other Pueblo tribes believed that roadrunners were medicine birds and could protect against evil spirits. Their unusual X-shaped footprints are used as sacred symbols to ward off evil in many Pueblo tribes– partially because they invoke the protective power of the roadrunners themselves, and partially because the X shape of the tracks conceals which direction the bird is headed (thus throwing malignant spirits off-track.) Stylized roadrunner tracks have been found in the rock art of ancestral Southwestern tribes like the Anasazi and Mogollon cultures, as well. Roadrunner feathers were traditionally used to decorate Pueblo cradleboards as spiritual protection for the baby. In Mexican Indian tribes, it was considered good luck to see a roadrunner. In some Mexican tribes, the bird was considered sacred and never killed, but most Mexican Indians used the meat of the roadrunner as a folk remedy to cure illness or to boost stamina and strength.”

I had previously heard the story about the unique X-shape of a roadrunner’s tracks and how it confused anything that was trying to track it. I learned that the bird’s walking appendages are “zygodactyl feet, with four toes. Two toes point forward and two toes point backward.” I don’t think, however, that I would be inclined to eat one to “boost (my) stamina and strength.”

Another site, Symbolicmystic.com, said the birds are known for “speed and agility,” “protection and fearlessness,” and “resourcefulness.”

“In conclusion, the spiritual significance of roadrunners is both diverse and profound. Whether they symbolize speed, protection, resourcefulness, or hope, these captivating birds inspire and guide those who encounter them. By understanding and appreciating their deeper meaning, people can find strength and wisdom from these incredible creatures.”

That may be a little too deep for me, but I’m always glad to see one because they are so interesting to observe, particularly how the feathers on the top of their heads raise up and down as they are contemplating running down a road to escape.

And I hope this week finds a roadrunner on your roof as well.