When I was beginning my career in journalism, newspapers had copy desks. They were filled with sage older writers who had migrated from the thrill of being a beat reporter to the seemingly mundane task of reviewing every article that was to go in the paper, writing a headline for it and them assembling the stories for each page of the publication.

These were talented guys — Millard Hunsley, James Abar, Jim Smith, Bill Bogle and others — who sat around a U-shaped desk to review every sentence and word printed in the newspaper. They were sticklers for proper spelling, sentence structure, general readability and compliance with the Associated Press or United Press International stylebooks. I learned a lot from these men about writing that has served me well through the years. And I feared when they would send a story back to me for clarification, correction or — in one case — a note that just rejected my story as “lousy.”

Writing a headline for each story was an important element of their job. Even today, when something odd or exciting happens to me, I immediately write a headline in my mind for the story about whatever happened. For example:

• “Unfocused Mesilla Park Man Trips While Walking Dog; Fall Smashes Prized Neighborhood Flower Garden.”
• “Propane Tank on Outdoor Grill Catches Fire; Owner Placed It Too Close To Burning Coals”
• Flames Almost Torch Owner’s Home; Embarrassing Fire Department Call Made

I bring this up because of two glaring errors I spotted in Albuquerque Journal and Las Cruces Sun-News headlines this week.

In the first incident, the front page of the Sun-News announced that “Freshman claim state speech and debate title.” The adjoining picture showed two different people who won the separate awards. So it clearly should have read “FreshMEN claim…” In the second incident, the Albuquerque Journal headline announced the eruption of a new volcano in “Ireland.” Well, sorry, Journal, the volcano was in ICELAND.

The problem isn’t really the fault of most newspapers who no longer have the money or resources for a real copy desk . It’s really a symptom of fewer and fewer people reading newspapers these days and a squeeze for more profits from newspaper owners. As a result, you, the reader, often get poorly edited copy and we all suffer the loss of well written, grammatically and factually correct newspaper stories. 

My recommendation to everyone is that you read a reliable mainstream newspaper every day and not rely so much on online sources for your news. 

Okay, that’s my rant for the day.

About six months ago, I wrote about a guy in Clovis who was standing naked on a street corner and ranting about various injustices when city police stopped and tried to diffuse the situation. The naked perp managed to jump into a still-running police unit and streak (pun intended) off to the hospital, where he turned himself in. This happened about six years ago

Well, Omaha, Nebraska, seems to have had a similar incident just last week.

Police responded to reports of a naked man running along a downtown street and damaging vehicles. When they arrived, they spotted him on top of a semitrailer truck.

Confronted, he leaped off the truck to jump into a waiting police cruiser and sped away, crashing into several other cars and objects before his arrest.

I have to believe it had something to do with New Mexico. I’ve written several blog posts in the last year of naked people doing strange things in our state. From a rugby player I knew who stripped naked in the back of a pickup truck to wave at passers by on I-10 to a naked man who confronted traffic control cameras in Santa Fe, I think New Mexico just invokes this kind of weirdness. I believe the freedom of our wide open spaces invokes the need to strip down to basics and just let it go. I think the guy in Omaha must have passed through the Land of Enchantment at some time in his past and was infected by our lust for the au natural.

So far, I’ve been able to keep my wits — and my clothes — about me. Except for the time I participated in a Zulu War Dance ritual after scoring a “try” in a rugby match. But that’s another story for another time.

In the last few years, I have started reading obituaries in the Albuquerque Journal about people I’ve never met. I’m mostly interested in what people did during their lives and if they are not native New Mexico residents, how and why they ended up here. I feel that by reading these obituaries, I am in some small way honoring them for their accomplishments in life.

Last week, when searching through the obituaries, I found one for a man whose family noted that he was “a typewriter repairman most of his adult life…” It was an honest profession and he retired from it about the time it no longer became relevant. That was perfect timing.

When I drive through the town of Espanola, I am often amused by the sign painted on the side of a downtown building which proudly announces the name of the business inside as “Espanola Typewriter Repair.” I suspect the business ceased to exist many years ago and no one has taken the opportunity to paint over the sign. I imagine most people don’t even think about typewriters any more until they see that sign.

I’ve pounded out what I think must have been thousands of stories over the years on typewriters. I’m proud to say I still have one — an Underwood with a hefty metal frame and elite type face. It still works — qwerty keyboard and all — but I wonder if I can still find a ribbon for it.

It makes one think about what things we use and do frequently in our lives today that will no longer be relevant in about 20 years. In my case, I hope writing will still be relevant as long as I can do it and I can find someone who cares enough to read about what I wrote.

In 2005, workers at the Albuquerque Zoo discovered something rather gruesome outside the cage of the resident Jaguar. It was a human finger, severed no doubt by the bite of the “panthera onca” in the cage.

No one came forward to claim the severed digit, maybe because they were too embarrassed that they really didn’t believe the “DO NOT STICK YOUR FINGERS IN THE CAGE OR FEED THE ANIMALS” sign. Or perhaps the Jaguar might have had more for its snack than just a finger. The critter wasn’t interested in discussing the matter.

When I looked up information about Jaguars, the largest cat in the Western Hemisphere, I found this frightening entry: “They’ll eat almost anything.” You have been warned.

I’m very proud to say that my wife (and three nephews) have retained possession of a family farm in central Nebraska that was homesteaded by her pioneering great great grandfather. It’s nothing that will ever make us rich, but it is a great source of pride to be able to hang onto a piece of land with so much history, filled with the hopes and dreams of those who worked the Platte River Valley homestead for so many years. Besides, we recently learned that Bill Gates has been buying up farms in Nebraska, so it’s a hot property these days.

For legal reasons, the property is set up as the “(My wife’s maiden name) Family Farm,” with my wife listed as the principal contact for the operation, even though it is farmed now under a contract arrangement with local farmers.

So we were rather amused last week when this piece of targeted direct mail arrived in our mailbox, addressed to Margo Lamb of the “Lamb Family Farm.”

It seems that Whataburger is soliciting businesses in our area in Las Cruces to give free food coupons to their employees as a reward. “Please put these coupons in your break room or where your team can share them,” the direct mail piece suggests. Of course, to get a free Whataburger, “Honey Butter Chicken Biscuit,” milkshake or “Breakfast on a Bun,” you have to buy a bunch of other food items that you probably don’t want. It also says you can order some “made to order appreciation” for your business team.

Well, let’s put this in perspective.

For starters, There are no Whataburger franchises in Nebraska. The closest ones are in Amarillo, TX, or Stillwater, OK, about 475 miles away from the farm in central Nebraska. Secondly, the “Lamb Family Farm” really has no employees, although I guess you might consider my wife as one, even though she receives no compensation for monitoring the legal affairs of the property. And then there’s the issue of the non-existent “Break Room.” Maybe the cab of a John Deere tractor?

But what is kind of creepy is how this direct mail program seemed to come up with enough personal data to know that my wife was involved in a family farming operation. Of course, they got the name of the operation wrong and assumed the farm was just out our back door somewhere in the Mesilla Valley.

I think I may give them a call to see if they can send up a box of burgers and fries for a TGIF “team” celebration 977 miles away in the next couple of weeks. In the meantime, I guess we could enjoy some of the 16 different coupons

However, if you’re trying to reach potential customers in Nebraska with fast food, I think they’d actually prefer a Runza (look it up) to a Whataburger.

When my parents first began operating the Ruidoso News in the early 1950s, we did not have a large enough press to print the newspaper in our home town. The closest place with a broadsheet press for printing newspapers was in Alamogordo. Our staff would “make up” the lead type pages of local news and advertising on large metal frames called trucks, then load them into the trunk of our car and drive them 45 miles to Alamogordo for printing every Thursday.

Often, I would accompany my father to watch the newspaper being printed on the press of the Alamogordo Daily News. One time, I chose to stay home in Ruidoso with friends to see an exciting new science fiction movie while my parents drove to Alamogordo with the print ready pages.

The movie was called “Them” and the plot was this: After the testing of the first atomic bomb near Alamogordo in 1945, common ants living at White Sands National Monument were exposed to radiation and mutated into giants insects the size of elephants. Naturally, they began creating a giant colony underground in the sand dunes and began terrorizing the nearby town of Alamogordo. The military finally was able to finish off the adult ants in the colony with napalm guns, but not before the critters had munched down several brave soldiers and scientists. However, the last scene of the movie showed a deep dark corner of the ant tunnels in which eggs for a new wave of the mutant ants were beginning to hatch.

Needless to say, I was most anxious for my parents to get home that evening. It really did enter my 8-10 year old brain that they might have been intercepted and turned into dinner by the mutant pogonomyrmex barbatus species (common red harvester ants).

Strange things do inhabit White Sands National Monument. Take for example the fact that in 2018 Ozzy Osborne was wandering around there to star in an episode of some video production. I don’t think it involved ants.

However, while he was waiting in his trailer for the cue for him to go on the set, the manager of the Alamogordo Chamber of Commerce stopped by and casually asked him if he would consider being a member of the organization.

Ozzie, surprisingly, said yes.

I’m not certain whether Ozzie kept up his membership in the Alamogordo Chamber of Commerce. Come to think of it, I haven’t seen Ozzie in the last couple of years on the tube. Maybe “Them” got him.

New Mexico has had its share of notorious UFO incidents over the years, beginning with the famous Roswell incident in 1947 in which an unidentified object crashed on a remote ranch northwest of the city. Air Force officials in Roswell first declared it was an extraterrestrial object, but later recanted the story to say it was just a weather balloon.

Similar sightings have been recorded in New Mexico in Socorro and Aztec.

Last week an American Airlines pilot spotted a fast moving tube-shaped object whizzing by his San Diego-bound flight over northeastern New Mexico near Clayton.

“Do you have any targets up here,” the incredulous pilot asked air traffic control after the object flew by. “We just had something go right over the top of us. I hate to say this, but it looked like a long cylindrical object that almost looked like a cruise missile type of thing moving really fast right over the top of us.”

He got no confirmation from air traffic control but the matter has been referred to various federal agencies for further investigation — of course they aren’t commenting. And as expected, it has lit up UFO conspiracy internet search sites.

Here’s my theory on the UFO sighting. On the same day that the UFO incident happened, Union County in northeastern New Mexico was declared as having the safest rating possible for COVID-19 spread in the state. It had earned the squeaky clean “turqoise” level for having fewer than eight COVID-19 cases per 100,000 residents of the county. (Trust me, Union County has nowhere near 100,000 residents.) Yep, the little green men just wanted the safest place on the planet to avoid getting a nasty human infection.

I say welcome back, guys.

During my years as a journalist reporting on the New Mexico Legislature, there was an oft told joke around the capitol that many of the lawmakers were elected to their posts simply because local constituents just wanted them out of town for a month or two.

I had great respect for many of the legislators on both sides of the aisle who did their jobs well and had the best interests of the citizens of New Mexico in mind. There were, however, a few oddballs that fit the joke.

Last week, someone must have taken the joke a bit more seriously. It seems that an Albuquerque TV station discovered that the emergency exits inside the Roundhouse had been locked from the inside during business hours. With the capitol already on lockdown because of pandemic protocols, it became even more difficult for lawmakers to make a quick getaway.

Once the incident was reported, the locked exits were quickly unlocked so certain legislators could return home to annoy their constituents.

During the pandemic, my wife and I have relied on curbside delivery to pick up basic grocery items from a nearby Wal-Mart. The experience has been pretty good for the most part — the store occasionally substitutes items or is out of stock of other things, but we get most of what we want without having to go into a store.

Last week, we had a bit of a humorous incident involving an order which included two heads of iceberg lettuce. Instead of getting two heads of lettuce, we got this:

Yep, that’s a cabbage on the right. It didn’t have a wrapper which said “ICEBERG lettuce” like the one on the left. Kind of hard to miss that, we thought.

Oh well, we will have to update our menu. Instead of regular salads in the next couple of weeks, I guess we’ll have coleslaw. And of course, St. Patrick’s Day is just around the corner, so corned beef and cabbage is definitely a possibility.

But next time you order a red onion from Wal-Mart, remember, you might get a beet or a red potato instead.

Two posts I recently wrote discussed an incident in which a Taos woman sued the local McDonald’s for injuries she suffered when a toilet paper dispenser detached from the wall of her stall and struck her in the head. She claimed she merely tugged on the roll of toilet tissue when the device turned into a flying projectile.

The suit was ultimately dismissed. I noted in my blog that a previous lawsuit against McDonald’s involving a spilled cup of hot coffee resulted in a large settlement and consumer warnings on coffee cups about the dangers of hot beverages. I concluded that we probably would not be seeing similar warnings about the dangers of flying toilet paper dispensers.

However, it may be time to reconsider. A long-time friend, business colleague and someone I consider to be my career mentor (he taught me the value of patience, remaining calm and putting things into proper perspective) mentioned a similar incident that occurred at our place of business many years ago. It seems that a renter in our building sought damages for a similar injury he claimed happened in a common bathroom. It turned out that in this case, there was a modest settlement. My friend noted that our business “wound up paying something just to get rid of it (the nuisance suit),” my friend noted.

So maybe we do need consumer warnings on toilet paper dispensers. In the interest of protecting citizens from themselves, I am proposing the following consumer alert to be posted on all toilet paper dispensers in public buildings:

Northern New Mexico experienced demonstrations last year focusing on statues memorializing early Spanish explorers who had brutalized Native American people in the Southwest. Several statues and memorials were removed or torn down by angry protestors.

In Santa Fe, city administrators feared that a statue in Cathedral Park memorializing Diego de Vargas would be vandalized, so they ordered it removed and taken to a safe and secure place. De Vargas was the Spaniard who led the reconquest of New Mexico following the Pueblo Revolt of 1680.

When a former city council member inquired recently about the whereabouts of the statue, he learned that instead of being in a “safe and secure location,” it had merely been dropped off in the back lot of the company that the city had hired to remove it.

“The city never told them (the moving company) where to take it,” lamented Ron Trujillo, a former city council member and head of a historical committee which for years had re-enacted De Vargas’ re-entry to the city. (That celebration has also been put on hold.)

City mayor Alan Webber said he had been told that the statue was removed to a secure location on city property, but now admits he was mislead.

The current location of the statue is not known, although it was apparently easy enough for a “courtesy” photographer to find and share a photo of it with the Albuquerque Journal. The city has promised it will soon be whisked away to a true “safe and secure” location, hopefully covered up to avoid prying eyes more pigeon droppings.

(With apologies to Daivid Letterman. And bear with me, this post might be a bit long and philosophical… )

Many years ago, my father, who prided himself for his knowledge of New Mexico history, told me that when the territory was being considered for statehood, there was consideration given to calling it “Lincoln” instead of New Mexico. After all, the notorious town of Lincoln, located in Lincoln County, seems to have had some considerable significance in the history of the territory. And another of America’s great presidents, George Washington, had a state named after him — so why not Albuquerque, Lincoln, or Las Cruces, Lincoln, or Lincoln, Lincoln.

I’ve done some research and I can’t seem to find any evidence of consideration of the name Lincoln. I do think at one time I remember reading that the name “Montezuma” was considered for the state’s name. I could not find any information on that either. A good friend and a well-respected New Mexico historian who has published several books about the history of our state, also said he was not aware of the name “Lincoln” being considered. He said that perhaps had heard about the consideration of Montezuma as the state’s moniker.

I looked in a book we’ve relied on for years to accompany us along our New Mexico journeys for some additional clues. It’s called New Mexico Place Names, a 1965 publication compiled by T.M. Pearce using materials collected by the 1936 and 1940 New Mexico Writer’s Project. (I note that it was revised in 1969 and re-released by the University of New Mexico Press — its original publisher — and renamed The Place Names of New Mexico by Robert Julyan.) The original version makes no mention of whether the name “Lincoln” was ever considered and notes that the name “New Mexico” — at the time “Nuevo Mexico” — was first used by Spanish explorer Don Francisco de Ibarra in 1562.

The historic town of Lincoln and Lincoln County were indeed named after President Lincoln. The New Mexico Place Names even notes that a rock structure near the present day town of Lincoln resembles the profile of President Lincoln. (Having grown up in Lincoln County and explored most of it, I can’t recall seeing that rock structure, but I’ll be sure to look for it the next time I’m in the vicinity.)

I’m not sure where my father picked up the notion that “Lincoln” was considered for a state name, but it has always left me wondering about whether the state’s name has had an influence on its development over the years.

So here’s my point and a question to you. How different would New Mexico’s fortunes have been if it had been named something else?

I need to be careful here because I do not intend to be disparaging in any way to the Republic of Mexico and its wonderful residents and culture. However, I think it is safe to say that most Americans tend to have a more pejorative view of Mexico than, say, Canada. In fact, much of the upper Midwest was called “New Canada” following the 1803 Louisiana Purchase. Maybe North Dakota or Minnesota could have ended up being called the state of “New Canada.”

If you look at the map below, part of what is now New Mexico was part of the Louisiana Purchase — so who knows, we might have ended up as “New Canada.”

So here is New Mexico, perhaps seen in the prejudicial mind’s eye of many who think of us as just an extension of a country with less ambition, progress and future like the bordering nation to our south.

Consider Arizona, with many of the attributes of New Mexico had when it became a territory. It had similar geography, a sparse population, an arid climate, rugged terrain, not much water, a large native population, lack of cultural amenities and lots of bad guys roaming around. Yet Arizona, compared to New Mexico, has been more of a success story in terms of its progress.

I know that New Mexico offers much more than Arizona in terms of natural resources, scenic beauty, artistic offerings and climate. And the influence of the Mexican/Hispanic and Native American cultures have blessed this state with a uniqueness that Arizona does not seem to embrace to the extent we do.

And of course, we’re always being confused with our neighbor to the south. Readers of the New Mexico Magazine always turn to the “One of our 50 is Missing” section for humorous instances of ignorant confusion about our existence. (I’ve been subjected to these kinds of insults myself over the years. As I mentioned in an earlier blog, I once found a kitchen magnet with the outline of the state of New Mexico decorated with a saguaro cactus and the words “Arizona” overlaid on it.)

But New Mexico always seems to end up at or near the bottom of the “worst” lists. Why? I’m sure many will blame political influences, cultural reasons, actions of the early explorers in colonizing the region, secular and non-secular influences, bad karma, etc. But is it that, or is part of it just the name we’ve been given? I ask that you focus JUST on our name and not look for blame elsewhere.

I’m always sad that we can’t do better for our children and education, that we can’t make an improvement in our poverty rate and lament that our economy is not as good as surrounding states. Yet somehow, I guess I’m glad New Mexico is always a little off the radar screen so we can enjoy the things that others don’t see in us. I’m always proud to say I’m from New Mexico, despite its warts, but I don’t want it to be discovered any more than it already has been. Maybe a lot of other people feel that way too, and in a way, we’re all partially responsible for our situation.

I’d sincerely appreciate your thoughts on this question about how our state’s name may or may not have influenced others about the stature of our state. Again — just focus on our state’s name. And again, I hope I haven’t offended anyone.

And by the way, I’ve always wondered if my life might have been different if I had been  Patrick Wolf instead of Patrick Lamb. 

A good friend who faithfully reads my blog and is probably the most thorough fact checker I’ve ever known discovered some additional details about a blog I posted earlier this week. That story regarded a woman who sued a Taos McDonald’s for assault by a toilet paper dispenser.

The woman claimed she was injured when she tugged on a toilet paper roll in the dispensing mechanism in her stall at the McDonald’s in Taos and it detached from the wall and struck her head.

Not so fast, responded the courts to her claim. My fact checker discovered a judgment in her claim in 2017, noting it was “dismiss(ed)/decided by dispositive motion/dismiss(ed) by judge/party” — which I think means it was tossed out of court for being a bit too frivolous.

So why wasn’t the hot coffee suit against McDonald’s in Albuquerque that I mentioned in my blog dismissed way back in 1994 as being too frivolous? The court ruling in that product liability case was for $2.86 million in damages to the woman who claimed she had been burned by hot coffee spilled after she was served at a drive-up window. The amount was eventually reduced to $860,000 and a final settlement, not disclosed, was made after that. The case became a “poster boy” for tort reform after the settlement.

Several years after the case had been resolved, I had an opportunity to discuss the outcome with an attorney friend who had been involved in the litigation. He told me that the judge made his decision because McDonald’s was so cavalier about responding to the suit which it considered to be frivolous. (As an aside, the judge in the case was someone who I knew in college. I have a great story about him I may share at a later date.)

So now, when you now get coffee at McDonald’s, I think you still see some words of caution about dangers of hot liquids on the cup. So far, I have seen no such disclosures on toilet paper dispensers.