During my almost 35 years of flying hot air balloons, I gave hundreds of rides, many of them to first timers. I periodically meet someone who tells me how thrilled they were with the ride they took with me years ago.

And to my embarrassment, I honestly don’t remember a lot of those rides and the people I gave them to.

That happened last week when a woman at our church told me how much she enjoyed a ride I gave her in 1985, which included a dip in the Rio Grande as we floated up the valley on a spring day. I of course knew her, but I had completely forgotten about the ride I gave her.

She said it was wonderful, but that when I dipped into the river, water seeped in the bottom of the basket and got her shoes and feet wet.

I asked if she remembered when I gave her the ride. She said she knew it was 1985 and thought it was in April, when a mutual friend of hers had asked if I could give rides to a group of visiting teachers from England.

I looked in my first pilot log book (I’ve filled up three over my career) for the month of April 1985, and there it was. My notation said I launched from the old school in Mesilla and flew north up the valley and landed on a river levy after we crossed over the Rio Grande. I did a total of four takeoffs and landings that day and noted that the last one was a “water landing.” I did not note the names of any of the passengers, only to say the flight was “with English school teachers.”

I’ve looked at several other flight entries and discovered that I was not very good at identifying who I gave rides to. On some days, I would make up to five takeoffs and landings, meaning I had flown at least 10 people on that day.

I wish I had been a little more diligent when filling out my pilot logbook at the end of each flight and had written down the names of everyone I flew. I’ve flown a few semi-important people in my flying career — former Dallas Cowboy Bob Lilly, the New Mexico State Fair Queen (I was afraid my burner was going to set her cowboy hat on fire), a president of New Mexico State University and some big-wigs from Wells Fargo. Those people’s names I noted in my logbook. But I as a reflect back over the years, everyone I flew was important and I should have recorded their names.

Notorious American criminal Willie Sutton, who managed to steal more than $2 million in his lifetime, was once asked why he consistently robbed banks.

“Because that’s where the money is,” he replied in an obvious statement of fact.

So when the banks aren’t open, what do you do if youre in need of a cash stash?

Last month, police in Las Cruces arrested a man who apparently figured out an alternative.

The suspect robbed a Subway fast food joint, saying he needed the money to pay for a motel room. He casually walked into the facility, tossed a bag to the casher and told her, “You know what to do” while brandishing a pistol.

He fled the scene with his bag of money and police were quickly alerted. Once his getaway car was spotted, a chase ensued but ended abruptly when he crashed into a KFC franchise in another part of town.

Police also questioned the man about his motive for robbing a fast food restaurant.

He replied that it was Sunday and “banks weren’t open.” The next best alternative? A nearby fast food franchise.

It was a bad outcome for two fast food franchises in town that Sunday, but I’m sure the local banks were glad they were not on a seven day per week schedule.

And just like Willie Sutton when asked about where to get money, the suspect was simply stating the obvious.

Last summer, I wrote about the case of some missing crematorium ashes in Albuquerque. Apparently, a member of the family had been tasked with transporting the ashes to a memorial service where Uncle Vern’s ashes were to be tossed into the Rio Grande on the
Central Ave. bridge. However, when Cousin Louie’s 74 Nova wouldn’t start that morning, he hopped on a cross-town bus to get to the memorial at the river.

The bus route wasn’t direct, so there was a change of coaches along the way. And that’s when the usually reliable Cousin Louie lost his focus left the ashes on the bench where he had been waiting for his connecting ride.

Police eventually found the missing urn, fearing at first it was some kind of “toxic waste” and were a bit queasy about opening it to see what was inside. I’m sure Uncle Vern wouldn’t have liked being identified as “toxic waste.”

Fast forward to earlier this month, when a commercial rocket at Spaceport America was carrying a number of payloads, including the “cremains” of a deceased former astronaut who apparently wanted his ashes blasted into space.

Well. Uncle Vern, you may be glad to know that other deceased individuals have suffered the indignity of failure to get to get to their final resting place.

Shortly after liftoff, the UP Aerospace rocket used for the Celestis memorial spaceflight encountered engine difficulties and the rocket tumbled to ground. It was not described as an explosion, but what I saw on TV sure like one. Maybe it was a “rapid unscheduled disassembly” like the recent Space-Ex rocket explosion was euphemistically described.

UP Aerospace officials say they were able to recover the payload after the crash, apparently including the “cremains” on board.

There was no mention of a second attempt to send the ashes into space. Maybe when the rocket engineers were heading back home, they just tossed the urn with the cremains into the Rio Grande below Elephant Butte. And maybe they’ve intermingled with Uncle Vern’s ashes by now.

A photo posted on the Clovis Fire Department’s web page shows one of those old “fire horse” “wagons that used a steam engine to power the pump that sprayed water on fires during the city’s early years.

You’ve probably seen pictures of one of these wagons in operation, spewing black smoke from an on-board boiler while careening down a street to douse a fire. A quick check on the Internet shows they were used for about 60 years, from the late 1860s to the 1920s. I always thought these contraptions would be a fire hazard themselves if they tipped over during a mad dash to a fire.

But just because the Clovis Fire Department doesn’t use these machines any more doesn’t mean that they still can’t start fires with a fire truck.

A story in the April 22, 2023 edition of the Albuquerque Journal says a Clovis Fire Department Truck was responsible for sparking “multiple fires” as it was driven from the airport to the main fire station office for “hose testing.”

It appears that one of the vehicle’s “outrigger plates” — used to stablize the truck while in operation — was scraping along the highway on its route, generating sparks which touched off brush fires adjacent to the road. The outrigger plate apparently malfunctioned and dropped to the pavement while the truck was moving.

“The operator of the fire truck was not aware of the equipment failure and as a result, continued down the road causing multiple fires,” a department spokesman said.

Fires started by the sparks moved quickly in the springtime winds and threatened nearby horse stables, barns and homes. By the time the fires were extinguished with the help of several other fire department units, three unoccupied buildings had been scorched.

The Clovis Fire Department’s website says its mission is to: “Prevent Harm, be Professional, use Resources Wisely.” I think in this incident, they failed pretty badly on all of those goals.

As we age, remembrances get bigger, smaller, grander or just plain forgotten over time.

So it was with my recollection of my first trip to Whitewater Creek in the Gila Wilderness in the mid 1990s. I walked down a trail called “Gold Dust” to a section of water above the touristy Catwalk trail. I remember the hike as being rather long and hot, but the reward for the effort was great. I remember saying something in my fishing journal to the effect that i had “caught more fish in about two hours than I have ever caught.” All of them were tiny 6-inch rainbow/Gila hybrids who would instantly attack any fly you put on the water. I returned every one of them to the creek.

Fast forward to May 1, 2023. Margo, Chester our dog and I decided to try the same trail to the middle section of Whitewater Creek that had provided so many great memories before the Whitewater-Baldy fire 11 years ago virtually destroyed the watershed. Native Gila trout have now been planted all along the creek, but I have yet to catch one. So this was the day I was going to do it.

We got started on the Gold Dust trail about 9:45 and it was already hot. I quickly realized how much longer the trail was than I had remembered it 11 years ago. I also thought we had not brought enough water. When we turned a corner to view what looked like another two miles of trail, I became convinced we should turn back. Chester, who was thrilled to running around outdoors and covered three times as much territory as we did, was panting like an old steam locomotive and starting to limp — but still eager to go.

When we were almost back to our truck, two young athletic women who were stationed at Fort Bliss in El Paso, overtook us and said that while the creek was beautiful when they finally reached it, we were smart to give up the trek before the trail got incredibly steep during the last half mile. So we turned back, defeated.

Along the trail, I was amazed at the spectacular variety of wild flowers growing in dry rocky soil along the trail. Some of the flowers I spotted are shown in photos below.

And when we finally got back to the truck, Chester was limping even more. It turns out that he had run so much that he formed blisters on the middle pad of his two front legs and the skin was peeling off. We took him to the vet Monday and the doctor diagnosed the injury as “too much fun” and handed us a $135 bill for the visit. Below is a picture of Chester with his two wrapped front legs. He’s pretty much recovered by the time you will read this.

So in the end, no fish were terrorized because we never cast a fly on the water, no flowers were picked and only Chester seems to have been temporarily inconvenienced. Hope you enjoy the video and some pictures:

As the United Press International political editor and state capitol bureau chief for seven years during the 1970s, I covered three governors during that time.

The first was David F. “Lonesome Dave” Cargo, a Republican who was often seen as a loner in his own party and in the state in general. I was only on the job for about six months while he was the governor.

The next governor I reported on for four years was Bruce King, a master politician who was liked by just about everyone. His folksy attitude and unique twang when he spoke made many people believe he was not as sharp as smoother talking political figures. Not so. He had a gift for bringing people together and negotiating things that were right for the long term benefit of the state. And he could remember just about anyone’s name after meeting them just once. He assembled a talented support team and named some impressive people to various leadership positions in his administration. He was also teamed up with the best First Lady I’ve ever known in New Mexico, Alice. In her obituary, the Albuquerque Journal described her as a “sturdy ranch woman” who knew how to connect with people as well as her husband did and made countless friends in all corners of the state.

Jerry Apodaca was the last governor I covered. Sadly, his death was announced last week. He had apparently been suffering from cancer and died at his home in Santa Fe.

Apodaca was one of the youngest governors elected in the state at the time and the first Hispanic governor in the modern history of New Mexico. He was charismatic, approachable, visionary and surrounded himself with a great team of advisors and department heads who were part of new cabinet system to help him govern the state.

I first met him when he was elected to the New Mexico Senate from Las Cruces during Bruce King’s first term as governor. I was covering the Senate at the time and we quickly became friends. He would often approach me to talk as I ventured on the floor of the Senate during breaks in the action. He one of several younger outgoing members of the Senate on both sides of the isle who came to be known as the “young turks” and who filled many more leadership roles in state government in coming years.

He was a strong advocate for educational and minority issues. The last time I saw him in person was when he was guest speaker at the annual Martin Luther King breakfast at New Mexico State University in the 1990s. He gave a powerful speech that I recall prompted a standing ovation.

I had two adventures with him during his time as governor. On one, he was promoting tourism in the state and we went on a whitewater rafting trip down the Rio Grande Gorge. It was a spring day when the runoff was high in the river, and the water was really, really cold. I recall him shivering when he took off his soaked shirt, then realized cameras were on him and quickly sucked his mid-40s gut back in.

Another time, I snuck off work mid-week to go skiing and also found him playing hooky on the slopes of Santa Fe Ski Basin. For some reason, one of his ski boots had broken a hinge and I helped him patch it up for the rest of the day with some duct tape we found in the Ski Patrol shed. We rode up the lift several times that day, talking about many different topics.

When the time came for me to accept a transfer to Cheyenne, Wyo., to become state editor for United Press International, Apodaca issued a governor’s proclamation declaring Nov. 26, 1976 as “Pat Lamb Day in New Mexico.” After several years, the ink on his signature had faded away, but a colleague at work in Las Cruces was his cousin and arranged for him to sign it again. It’s still on my wall in my “office” here at home. A photo of it, which is somewhat difficult to read, is attached below:

I believe I’ve mentioned that our neighborhood has become quite a menagerie in recent years. We’ve spotted racoons, foxes, skunks, coyotes, various species of lizards, frogs, an occasional harmless snake, a flock of Guinea hens and even a pack of javelinas.

Last week, we added a new critter to the list of nature sightings in the neighborhood. A turkey was trotting through our front yard during an early morning jaunt on its way from somewhere to somewhere else. Luckily our dog, Chester, didn’t see it or he might have tried to bust through our front window to chase it.

Two neighbors who saw the bird — both of whom said they had hunted turkeys — weighed in on whether it was wild or domestic. I got two differing opinions. A woman whose yard the bird had invaded said it was definitely domestic, while a guy across the street from me said it was definitely wild.

I’ve seen lots of wild turkeys in both the Gila and Lincoln National Forests, but never in the Organ Mountains east of here. If it was wild, it had to travel a very long way to get here.

There’s also a small farm about a half mile from our house near Mesilla which has been keeping several domestic turkeys in a pen next to a ditch road that we frequent on our walks. The birds there looked nothing like this skinny critter.

The bird eventually disappeared, but it was having difficulty deciding what direction to go. When I first spotted it, the turkey was pacing back and forth along the fence shown in the picture above. I drove home to get my camera and returned five minutes later, it was still pacing along the same fence, looking as confused as ever.

These are not smart birds, I concluded. I’m glad Benjamin Franklin didn’t succeed in having a turkey as our national bird.

My good friend David and I went fly fishing last week on private water in the Sacramento Mountains. It was the first time he had been fishing since he had heart surgery last fall and he managed to catch a nice fat rainbow to make his trip extra special. I caught only a couple of chubs, although the week before on that same stretch of water, I managed to catch three nice trout.

The place we fish is not that spectacular for its scenery, but it’s a good place to goclose to home that usually awards good results. However, it has one unusual feature that takes some adjustment.

The person who owns the property runs a ranch that has been in his family for years. During that time, I don’t think they’ve every thrown anything major away. There are at least 30 broken down and abandoned vehicles — at least 11 of them 1980s vintage Ford F-150s. There are several tractors and other bits of farm equipment rusting away in a field near his barn. Old refrigerators, washing machines, water heaters and other domestic appliance carcasses litter an area near his house. There’s also an abandoned 53-foot trailer from some former trucking company which appears to have had a large heavy tree or telephone pole smash down on about midway on its roof.

However, there’s probably some valuable stuff out there. I noticed several late 1940s-early 50s Chevy trucks whose bodies were in relatively good condition. These old trucks with what I always thought were classic lines have become popular with collectors who restore them. There’s even a five-window cab on one of them, something that’s especially collectable.

There’s an abandoned Jeep Station Wagon from the late 50s-early 60s, similar to two that my father owned. I can write an entire blog about the adventures I had with that type of vehicle, which maybe I’ll do some day.

There’s also this 59 Chevy two-door sedan, complete with the “cat eye” trail lights. If you look closely, you can see where a tree or shrub once grew up between the rear bumper and the body of the vehicle.

I don’t want to call out the person who owns the ranch. He’s a good guy and we’re lucky to have access to his section of the river. His ranch is miles away from any reasonably sized town, and I’m sure he doesn’t have affordable access to a service which could pick up and haul off much of this stuff. However, I think that several of the older vehicles on the property could provide some trim pieces or body panels that would be useful for restoration projects.

Some car restoration expert might find a visit to the ranch interesting and profitable for the owner.

Last week’s spectacular explosion of Elon Musk’s SpaceX rocket was described by company officials as a “rapid unscheduled disassembly.”

Wow, what a creative way to explain a disaster.

But Musk apparently saw the failure as a way to learn more about how to prevent a future multi-million dollar fireworks display. It was Thomas Edison, who said after thousands of failed attemps to create a light bulb:“I know of over 3,000 ways [that] a light bulb does not work.” It also helps to have a good wordsmith at hand when things go wrong.

It made me think of some euphemistic and creative ways we might describe things in New Mexico — for example:

“Rapid horizontal displacement of dirt and sand” — a New Mexico spring windstorm

“Intentional obfuscation of vector change intention in a vehicular mode” — failure to use a turn signal in your New Mexico car or truck.

“Exponential production of hot air” — no, not the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta, but the New Mexico Legislature in session.

“Intense downward vertical dissemination of water accompanied by high voltage electrical discharges” — a New Mexico monsoon season thunderstorm.

“Invasion of non-native species with distinctive dialect and lack of taste” — Texas tourists visiting Santa Fe, Taos, Ruidoso, etc.

“Hand crafted accoutrements made from native sand, brown paper and religious candles to celebrate festive occasion” — Christmas luminarias.

“Ubiquitous mood alteration centers” — cannabis dispensaries around New Mexico.

“Capsicum infused edible pod with genetic color transition over time. Also know for triggering whimsical state legislation” — red and green chile.

“Rolling seed disbursement plant mechanism” — tumbleweed.

“Foreign nation celebration observed in New Mexico involving mass consumption of tequila but having nothing to do with mayonnaise” — Cinco de Mayo.

If you think of others, I’ll include them in a future post.

Yesterday at our church, St. James’ Episcopal, a group of ten persons showed up unexpectedly. They were sitting on a rock wall while we were preparing for our monthly Vestry (church board) meeting. The group, consisting of six children and four adults, were migrants/refugees from Venezuela. Their only possessions were carried in paper Wal-Mart shopping totes.

Luckily, we have a member of our church board who speaks fluent Spanish and we were able to find out where they came from and what they needed.

They simply needed a place to stay while they awaited what they hoped would be a more permanent home somewhere, possibly in the United States.

They told us they had been in a “military camp” on the border where they had been treated badly. It was not clear if the “camp” was in the United States or Mexico. They said they had been told that there might be temporary room for them at the Holy Cross Retreat south of Las Cruces, but they had no transportation to get there.

Two of our church members and I helped load them up in two SUVs and drove them the relatively short distance to Holy Cross.

When we got there, we were told by officials at the facility that there was no room for the families and that they could not stay there. I made a call to the Las Cruces Community of Hope and was told that they had no accommodations for the ten, but that they could provide them someplace to be for the day and get two full meals.

We loaded them up in the SUVs again and drove to the Community of Hope. After some discussions with officials at that facility, there was glimmer of hope that some other agency in Las Cruces might be able to give them shelter temporarily. We left them there and they all thanked us for our efforts. I had forgotten my money clip that morning, so I regrettably had no cash to give them.

I’m not sure what happened to them. I hope they found a safe place to shelter for the night.

This is the second time I’ve dealt with immigrants/refugees from Venezuela who came to our church for help.

Venezuela is in a terrible place now, with a corrupt government, decimated economy and mass exodus of its citizens looking for a better life, not just to the United States but throughout South and Central America and the Carribean. I read that more than 90 percent of the country’s citizens are in poverty.

It occurred to me what tremendous courage and love of family these people had to travel thousands of miles to somewhere where their future was uncertain, while holding hope that a better future awaited them than if they had stayed in their own country. It also makes me angry that someone likely took money from them to “ship” them to America and sold them a “bill of goods” about what they could expect.

I won’t get into the politics of what is happening at our border except to say what my good friend Jim said the other night regarding the furious national debate surrounding gun control.

“We need to have a conversation about it, not just yell at each other,” he said.

The same is true immigration policies, I think. We need to do something other than have the President, Governor of Texas, Vice President, and various members of Congress on both sides of the aisle travel to El Paso to stage photo ops and then return to their offices and start yelling at the other side. And it’s not, as one of my cynical friends once suggested, just a matter of “who’s going to pay for it.”

I woke up this morning when our dog Chester hopped onto my side of the bed as he often does to demand a round of tummy rubs and ear scratches. It occurred to me as I was petting him that his life is so much better than the 10 people we tried to help yesterday — especially the six children. He has indoor warm shelter, a safe place to be, a constant supply of food and water, many places to lounge, a big yard to play in and lots of personal attention.

We need to pray for these people and others like them who showed up at our church yesterday. And we also need to pray for our political leaders to come together to find a way to address this issue — not just by yelling at each other.

I was once asked where I would eat my last three meals — breakfast, lunch and dinner — if I had one day left on the planet. My choice for breakfast was Andre’s in Aspen, where my wife and I used to go each fall when we were newlyweds. It was a prototype of the “fern bar” look with great breakfast food, including my favorite — vein clogging eggs benedict. My choice for dinner was some restaurant in Durango, Colorado, which I suspect is no longer open. I remember it for interesting architecture and a great steak, which was high on my then unsophisticated epicurian preferences at the time.

And for lunch? A Lota Burger with green chile and cheese, preferably from one of the older outlets with a well-seasoned griddle. Yeah, I know — pretty lame.

But the last time I went to Lota Burger, I was severely disappointed. The Lota Burger had been shrunk to the size of the smaller Itsa Burger. The Itsa Burger was still the same size as it has been for years but maybe now with a miniscule sized beef patty. (And to top off the disappointing experience, the green chile was just plain hot — not flavorful.)

We’ve noticed lots of things recently that have been “shrinksized.” A certain candy bar I like that now costs close to a dollar has been shrunk to what is euphemistically called a “fun size.” I think the only person who thinks it’s fun is the bean counter at the candy factory who can squeeze more profit out of less and less. Toilet paper rolls which might last only one pass through the bathroom. A “family picnic” size of corn chips about the size of a napkin that might feed a family of ants.

So when my wife opened a package of flour tortillas last week, we discovered this:

Here it is in comparison to a regular “burrito size” tortilla:

We’re fairly hopeful that this was just a manufacturing error. Or maybe it was just a bonus gift from the Albuquerque Tortilla Factory.

At any rate, it made me wonder about the famous “Holy Tortilla of Artesia” from 1977. If you’ll recall, a woman in her kitchen found what she said looked like the image of Jesus on a tortilla she had made for her husband:

I was a reporter for United Press International in Albuquerque at the time and remember writing stories about the tortilla. When I saw pictures of it, I thought the image looked a little more like John Lennon, who of course at one time said the Beatles were more popular than Jesus Christ. (I did not express that opinion in any of my news stories, however.)

My concern is whether the canvas upon which holy (and other) images can appear has been shrunk so much, will we be able to recognize what we’re supposed to be seeing?

I know that’s a lot to ponder on a windy Tuesday afternoon in New Mexico, but I await your comments.

The Albuquerque Journal last week reported that city officials admitted that a section of Third Street in the city’s downtown area had been transmogrified with errant lane stripes. The city said a routine paint job to delineate lanes on the road had been botched and ended up creating angle parking spaces on the road.

The city’s Municipal Development Director Pat Montoya noticed the errant stripes when driving in the area.

“You’re driving southbound and, all of a sudden, there’s no place to go,” he said.

The city immediately blamed the striping contractor and said proper striping would be painted late last week.

But oops, it turns out there wasn’t an error after all. A few days after the initial report of the error, the city retracted its original story and said that angle parking spaces were planned all along. Apparently, not everyone got the memo.

It reminded me of a story when I was growing up in my small town of Ruidoso. A short section of Sudderth Drive (the city’s main drag) had been repaved, but the contract apparently did not include a striping job.

City officials took pity on a guy who everyone knew as the town drunk and offered him a simple job of paining a white stripe down the center of the short section of paving. Thrilled at having been thrown a bone to make a few bucks to keep his liquor cabinet full, the guy hatched a plan to attach a spray can of white paint to the front of his old Jeep and trigger it remotely as he drove down the center of the road.

The probability of him being intoxicatged when he did the paint job, along with a very loose front suspension his Jeep resulted in a white line that looked like the route a skier might take through a giant slalom course on the slopes. The result looked something like the picture below. (Actually, as I recall, it was worse.)

Our rambunctious goldendoodle, Chester, discovered another way to amuse us last week. I had just mowed our back yard and because I had let my tall fescue grow too high. When I mowed, there was a lot of bright green mulch scattered about in certain areas.

Chester has rolled in some awful stuff in the past — the carcass of some dead animal at a school playground, stinky cat poop along our walks and other underdetermined obnoxiously odiferous things.

So when Chester spotted the large clumps of green mulch left behind when I did my overdue mowing job, he dived right in and started rolling around in it before I could stop him. He relished in the task. The result is below:

Yes, his face was a subtle, but still obvious shade of green. He also got it on his back when he rolled over the clumps of grass.

Now I have no problems with people dying their hair. Our good friend Gloria in Santa Fe often surprises us with interesting shades of purple hair. And I once helped my middle-school-aged daughter and a friend dye their youthful locks with a sticky red Kool-Aid mixture in our bathroom sink. It washed out pretty quickly, but I’m not sure the parents of our daughter’s friend appreciated my efforts to emulate hairstylist “Mr. Gigi.”

(I do, however, object to suggestions that I dye my hair to keep it dark. I’ve never dyed it. I attribute my hair color to good hair genes. I do have an increasing number of gray hairs working in, and I’m fine with that. End of rant.)

By the time you read this, Chester’s green tint will be largely gone. However, he still smells like a freshly mowed lawn — which is not bad and WAAAAY better than other things he has rolled around on.

You’ve probably been reading or hearing a lot lately about the New Mexico Legislature’s designation of roasting green and red chile as the official aroma of our state. The legislation drew criticism from some who said our lawmakers needed to focus on more important issues than the odiferous offering that seems to be unique in our state every fall.

At any rate, the legislation has been signed into law by our governor, joining such things as the bolo tie as the official state neckware, the tarantula wasp as the official state insect and “red or green” as the official state question.

I had suggested other states adopt an official state aroma. For Texas, it could be the smell of West Texas sweet crude wafting across the Permian Basin. For Nebraska, the earthy notes of feedlots. For New York, the unmistakable odor of a subway. I was disappointed that I had no takers.

Undaunted, I have decided to offer our lawmakers another list of suggested “official” state items or experiences to be considered at the next session of the legislature. Here goes:

The official state dog: A cross between a Chihuahua and a Pit Bull.

The official building material: Adobe bricks.

The official noxious weed: Tumbleweed.

The official weather phenomina: Howling spring winds.

The official car repair kit: Bailing wire, duct tape, WD-40 Vice Grips and a hammer.

The official home repair kit: Bailing wire, duct tape, WD-40, Vice Grips and a hammer

The official dwelling: Mobile home with old tires on the roof.

The official traffic sign: Orange barrel

Official car: Lowrider

Official truck: Old Ford F-150 with multiple dents, fading paint and mismatched aftermarket wheels.

The official medical malady: Springtime allergies.

The official state hamburger: It used to be Lota Burger until they started making the Lota Burger and the Itsa Burger the same size.

The official front yard decoration: Gravel, weeds and rusting ’82 Camaro on blocks.

The official state Christmas decoration: A paper lunch sack filled with sand and a candle.

And the official small business: Either a Mexican food restaurant or a marijuana dispensary. Wait — I’ve just come up with something brilliant. A combination of the two!!! I think I’ll start a chain: