Roswell, home of the 1947 UFO incident. Home of the bleeding picture of Jesus. Home of the guy who escaped from law enforcement last year and tried to disguise himself by wearing a skirt, carrying a pink purse and forgetting to shave his red beard.

Last week, we had a report of another memorable Roswell incident. In this case, a reporter for an Albuquerque TV station was arrested for impersonating a police officer on at least four occasions last year between March and June. He was also suspended from his job.

Arrest warrants said the suspect arrived at crime scenes in his look-alike unmarked police unit which sported flashing lights, a blaring siren and a dash camera which recorded his nefarious activities. At one incident, he was wearing a badge, carrying a pistol and wearing tactical gear, which he said was required at his job as a security officer. In another incident, another law enforcement official mistook him for a real policeman and asked him to direct traffic. In a third incident, he chased down a suspected drunk driver, pinned his car in his driveway and called for real police assistance to arrest the man. At that point, the cops were onto his ruse.

After his arrest, police recovered the dashboard camera which provided some very incriminating evidence. One video clip, which he entitled “En route to a shooting,” showed him racing to the crime scene with siren blaring and red lights flashing while running four stop signs and a traffic light.

If aliens ever show up near Roswell again, it’s too bad this guy won’t be there to record the incident. He’d probably have no trouble getting through police and security barriers for some great video.

In 2012, a woman was displeased with only placing fifth in the highly competitive Miss Texas contest and moved to New Mexico to enter the Miss New Mexico contest.

Apparently, fifth best from Texas was good enough for first place in the Land of Enchantment and she was selected as Miss New Mexico.

Perhaps thinking that the New Mexico title wasn’t prestigious enough for her, she then moved to New Orleans and entered as a contestant in the Miss Louisiana contest. However, when scouring her somewhat checkered contestant past, contest authorities discovered that she was too old to compete for the Louisiana title.

Undeterred, she then entered the Miss Louisiana USA contest, which she won.

As an aside, stories about her beauty contest odyssey also noted that her boyfriend owned a chain of Cajun restaurants called “Slap Ya Momma.”

I’m glad Miss Fifth Best from Texas ultimately decided New Mexico wasn’t good enough for her. We deserve better. And we certainly don’t want a restaurant with a name that would have to be translated to “Abofetear a tu Madre.”

Several years ago, my wife and I made a quick day trip to fly fish on the Rio Penasco, a spring-fed stream between Cloudcroft and Artesia which always produces surprising results in place where you might not expect it. Fishing on the private section of water requires membership in the Mesilla Valley Fly Fishers, which is a great organization for promoting fly fishing and conserving the few but spectacular cold water fisheries in southern New Mexico. Check it out below.

mvff.org

On our trip from Las Cruces, we passed through the village of Mayhill, where we often stop at the only convenience store and gas station east of Cloudcroft.

We stopped for snacks and some water but took time to look at the store’s latest tacky souvenir offerings. Two things caught our eye. First was a keychain made from a real rattlesnake head, preserved for eternity when dipped into heavy clear plastic. And the second (for the easily offended, I did not make this up) were a pair of earrings with a merchandise tag noting that their unusual shape was because they were made from the penis of raccoons.

I report this not for purposes of shocking anyone with uncomfortable discussions of things prurient, but to remind us that New Mexico is always offering up the unexpected.

I will always remember the time I purchased a kitchen magnet at a roadside stop near Socorro with the shape of New Mexico and the words “Arizona” emblazoned on it. And to add insult to injury, there was an image of a suguaro cactus on the item.

A man from Chaparral, in southern Dona Ana County, checked himself in to a hospital in El Paso this week, claiming to have overdosed on methamphetamine. He received treatment, but when he saw security approaching him, he bolted and ran for the parking lot.

There he spotted a 10-wheel fuel tanker truck idling with the driver waiting inside. He yanked the driver out of the cab of the tanker and them proceeded to speed off — well maybe lumber off is the more appropriate description.

The man led El Paso police on a chase along Interstate 10, crossing into New Mexico, but not heading towards his home on the opposite side of the Franklin Mountains. New Mexico State Police placed “stopsticks” in the roadway to rip oven the truck’s tires and bring the vehicle to a halt near Las Cruces. Police then arrested the man they described as being “out of it” but nonetheless compliant.

In addition to the $40,000 cost of the truck and its 10 now-flat tires, Police said the vehicle’s tank contained about 500 gallons of fuel worth $5,000 and the truck was carrying about $4,000 in special refueling equipment. Police had to close the Interstate briefly as a result of the incident.

Because he transported a vehicle across state lines, the suspect is now facing federal charges.

This incident raises several questions in my mind. First, why was a fuel tanker in the parking lot of a hospital? And second, how did the suspect get to the hospital in the first place? And if he drove himself there, why not use his own vehicle or something else faster and less visible than a large lumbering fuel tanker for the escape. And finally and perhaps most important, what was he going to do with all that fuel if he had succeeded in his escape? If convicted for his caper, he’ll have 10 years to think about that in federal prison.

Some of you may remember the 2014 World Cup soccer match when professional footballer Luis Suarez, representing his home nation of Uruguay, bit the shoulder of an Italian player. It turns out that Suarez, actually a very talented player, had bitten opponents at least two other times in his professional career.

The 2014 bite seen round the world prompted one great joke which was “What’s for lunch? — Italian!”

Okay, that was tacky. But a year later, a woman in Albuquerque must have had some inspiration from Suarez when, during a fight with her boyfriend, nipped off a chunk of his ear.

When police arrived to the scene of the fracas, the woman presented officers with the chunk of her boyfriend’s ear. Perhaps it was in hopes that the court might view her retrieval of the severed part as a conciliatory gesture to receive a milder sentence. Or maybe she didn’t have enough Tabasco sauce to make it a meal. Okay, that was tacky too. I’ll try to write something more uplifting next time.

The Los Alamos National Laboratory is a high tech, super secure research facility located in the foothills of the Jemez Mountains. It was so secret that during World War II, when it was working on the Manhattan Project to perfect the atomic bomb, mail and equipment deliveries to the lab were addressed to a single post office box in nearby Santa Fe. The first time I visited the secret city with my parents in the late 1950s, I remember having to go through a heavily guarded check point where we were all carefully scrutinized.

The main residential and commercial parts of the city are now open to all, but the research facilities and laboratories are all guarded by high-tech security measures and are strictly off-limits for regular visitors.

So it was surprising that in 2005 Lab security forces discovered an Amarillo man had been living in a cave in one of the deep rugged canyons which thread through the high security part of the laboratory property. When questioned, the man admitted he had been living there for the last four years. In his time there, he had managed to upgrade his cave with a glass door, heater, solar generator, satellite radio, mattress and other accoutrements, including equipment to set up and operate his own website.

Keeping in the spirit of his surrounding scientific environment, security forces said his website explained his “Single Big Bang/Single Expanding Universe/Finite Cosmos” physics theory.

And no, they didn’t offer him a job after his arrest for trespassing.

During the 2010 New Mexico election campaign for governor, Republican candidate and Dona Ana County District Attorney Susana Martinez and Democrat candidate Lt. Gov. Diane Denish engaged in several contentious debates.

During one, Denish was attempting to accuse Martinez of giving large pay raises to her staff. She meant to say the Republican candidiate gave big fat bonuses to her staff. Instead she said they had received “big fat boners.”

Denish ultimately lost the race to the Republican, but it’s not clear whether her slip of the lip had anything to do with it.

In 2005, the New Mexico State Fair Commission was faced with a difficult decision. It seems that many people had begun to complain that the annual fall exposition had become to long and cumbersome.

The commission decided to go into special session to discuss how they might cut some of the days out of the 17-day event.

After a day long session, they had a solution — they decided to add an extra day to the event and make it run for a marathon 18 days.

Which just goes to show — well, I don’t know what.

I’m known by my family, friends and neighbors for being fastidious about keeping my vehicles well maintained and showroom clean. I can see my neighbors rolling their eyes when I’m outside on a 42 degree morning, washing my cars or pickup. I even wash off the inside of my wheel wells and scrub dirt off the visible sections of my exhaust pipes. I know — it’s on the edge of obsessive compulsive behavior

But I did get some reinforcement for my habit last year when my cardiologist confirmed that washing cars was a good cardiovascular activity to help me recover from my heart surgery. I felt renewed justification for my aberrant behavior.

My 2012 GMC Sierra pickup is a bit too long to fit into my garage and besides I already have it filled with my vintage 1975 BMW 2002 and my wife’s vehicle. So the pickup sits outside and gets washed even more frequently than my other cars.

Lately, I’ve been parking it under some branches of a Russian olive tree at the side of my house so it gets a little protection from the damaging UV rays in our high desert environment. But in addition to being a good spot for the pickup, it’s also a great spot for nesting white winged doves, who locals like to refer to as the “rats of the sky.”

And like rats, they poop everywhere — including on the hood of my pickup. GRRRR.

Several years ago, enraged by the amount of bird poop on my outdoor picnic table, I bought one of those plastic owls that are supposed to scare away birds and other critters. Mine is now so old that its formerly scary giant yellow eyes now have cataracts. But in some parts of the yard it has worked pretty well.

So when an unexpectedly large amount of bird pickup pooping started a couple of weeks ago, I thought maybe it was time to move the owl from “guarding” my outdoor picnic table to a spot near my truck. The first place I located it was near our trash bins, but it didn’t seem to work very well, judging by the volume of “stuff” left behind. I moved it to the base of the tree and suddenly, no more dove dung.

Then the collection of crap came back with a vengance. So this time, I thought I would place the own directly on top of my hood, just inches away from where I figured this one outlaw dove was spending the night.

The next morning I found this:

My plastic owl might have literally scared the s*** out of the dove, or it just didn’t give a s*** about its presence — I’m sure of the latter. At any rate, the pooping continues.

My brother once told me that when he lived in Philadelphia, pigeon poop at city hall had become a huge problem, mostly for defiling the statue of William Penn which graced the dome of the dignified historic structure. Various methods were tried to eradicate or relocate the pigeons. One involved feeding the birds seed that had been infused with tranquilizers. That didn’t work out well for the people walking near city hall when a drunken pigeon would suddenly fall out of the sky on their head or splat on the sidewalk in front of them. The next method — and my brother swore this was true — was to record the yowls of a cat being hung upside down in a cage and then blasting its shrieks on loudspeakers at full volume around city hall at various times during the day. The problem with this was that the usual rhythm of downtown streets would be stunningly interrupted with the cringe inducing yowl of a tortured cat, followed by an immense fluttering of pigeons which would then defecate on everything and anyone as they fluttered to safety.

I’m not sure my neighbors — already probably annoyed by my frequent car washing regimen — would go for that. The alternatives, I suppose, are daily washes for my truck, cutting down the tree, building a third bay on my garage or tethering a real owl to the tree. None of these seem to be practical, so I’ll await your suggestions.

In the meantime s*** happens.

Many times over the years, I’ve escorted new visitors to Las Cruces on a tour of the campus of New Mexico State University to show off our great land grant institution. The campus gets new improvements constantly, and there’s always something interesting to see that I haven’t noticed before.

One stop I always try to make is to look at the animals on campus that are part of the College of Agriculture, Consumer and Environmental Sciences. As I understand it from the former acting Dean of the college and a good friend, NMSU is one of only two land grant colleges which still has live animals for research purposes on campus.

One group of animals I always try to spot on my tours are the cannulated cows. Cannulated cows, for the uninitiated, are bovines with surgically implanted portholes on their sides that can be used for research into diets of the animals. In addition to the ability to peer into their stomachs, you can also reach inside them to retrieve specimens of what they’re munching on. I think I’ll pass on that opportunity.

New Mexico State University has had a herd — or fleet — of these porthole cows for many years. Usually they’re kept in pens that don’t provide public glimpses of the critters but occasionally they are out wandering around some of the lush pastures on the western edge of the campus.

There is some controversy from animal rights groups about this technique, but as far as I could tell, these animals are treated well and don’t seem to notice that they have these odd devices attached to them. When I took this photo, the cows seemed to want to come up an introduce themselves to me, hoping that I might have a nice bunch of grass or hay to offer.

A quick search on the internet shows the procedure to create cannulated cows has been around since the early 1920s, mostly on campuses of agricultural schools where research is conducted to determine best diets for both dairy and beef cattle.

So when you bite into that next flavorful cut of beef or sip some wholesome milk, you can thank one of these bovines for giving up some of its dignity for your enhanced eating or drinking experience.

You might remember a few years ago when several cities around New Mexico started using mobile vans to capture photos of speeding vehicles. Those caught on camera faced a fine and traffic citation.

In one incident eight years ago, a Santa Fe resident became so enraged at having “big brother” watching the streets all the time that he approached one of the vans at night, wearing only his nightgown, and blasted several rounds from a pistol at it. It was all captured on video, but we don’t know if the device calculated how fast the bullets were whizzing by. And in Rio Rancho, three of the vans were torched before the program was cancelled.

Well, Santa Fe has now decided to re-introduce the vans to target speeders at random locations around the city.

As city Deputy Chief Ben Valdez explained:

“We can put a device out there and it doesn’t need to go for a lunch break.”

While the “speed vans” were reintroduced with a promise of reducing speeding, it was also clear that city revenue enhancement was also a priority. According to city officials, drivers who get busted by one of the units will have to pay fine of about $50, but the incident won’t go on their record. So if you have the cash, it appears you can just keep speeding and avoid any other consequences.

And just think of how much money the city will be saving by not having to shell out the salary for a traffic cop — and not paying for his or her lunch.

My wife, dog Chester and I recently embarked on another one of our Sunday trips around the Las Cruces area to escape the monotony of COVID-19 seclusion. This time, we ventured to Picacho Peak on the northwest side of our city.

We weren’t ready to scale the 4,959 mountain that I always believed to be an extinct volcano. Instead, we chose to walk around the southwest and western perimeter, and some of our walk was in a canyon filled with colorful rocks resulting from the ancient lava flow — not actually a volcano. According to various sources, the lava flow occurred somewhere between nine and 35 million years ago — not exactly a precise time estimate.

What was most interesting to me was the amazingly blue rocks that were scattered in the canyon. Upon further investigation, I learned that they were rhyolite, a rock that forms when certain volcanic flows reach and cool at the surface.

Although the day we walked was overcast and somewhat dark, the blue rocks and strata were an unexpected burst of color. I can’t imagine how much more spectacular they would be after a summertime thundershower when they are wet and glossy and the sun breaks through the clouds to highlight their color. I have a couple more pictures of the blue rocks below, but these photos don’t show them to be as colorful as they were in person.

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I did a little more digging to find out about blue rhyolite rocks (not all are blue) and discovered that in some circles, blue ones are believed to be good for a positive mental outlook. As one website breathlessly proclaimed:

“It (blue rhyolite) is a magical stone for people who struggle with esteem, self worth issues, and depression, guiding them towards their joyous potential.“

Well. I’m not sure about that, but I have to say I felt better after seeing them as part of the spectacular desert landscape so near our home. Maybe next year, knowing that abundant seams of blue rhyolite are nearby, my wife, Chester and I will be filled with enough “self worth” to attempt to hike up to the top of Picacho Peak.

In a recent post, I quoted the late cartoonist Walt Kelly about never lacking sources for stories in his clever cartoon “Pogo.”

“I came to understand that if I were looking for comic material, I would never have to look long,” he said. “The news of the day would be enough.”

I’ve taken that a bit further in that I have found a lot of material for blogs in the want-ad or legals section of the daily newspaper.

Consider, for example, something I stumbled upon last week. It was in the legals section of the Albuquerque Journal want ads, announcing that the contents of various storage units would be auctioned off because the renter had abandoned the property or failed to pay rent.

In Unit #B100, these items were listed for auction:

“Boxes, clothes, stuffed animal, TOILET SEAT, personal pictures.”

It didn’t say the toilet seat was new or used, although I suspect the later. And why would that be enough of a treasure to stash away in hopes that someday it might become a family heirloom?

Well, maybe my next door neighbor and I should bid on it. You see, several years ago a toilet seat mysteriously appeared on top of the rock wall between our two homes and has become known as the “Table of Friendship.” (I can neither confirm nor deny my involvement in its appearance). It has been the gathering point for me and the world’s best next door neighbor to discuss various events of the day, share food we’ve grilled or smoked in our back yards and a holding place for lubricating drinks while we solve the world’s and our neighborhood’s issues.

As you can tell by these photos, exposure to the elements has not been kind to this once proud solid oak fixture, and it is clearly past time to replace it. Even my application of duct tape has not been able to save it from the embarrassment of aging.

So next time my neighbor appears at this sadly deteriorating display of tackiness, perhaps we’ll initiate a discussions about making a bid. I think a few more rounds of drinks might be in order, however. We have time. There’s no rain or snow in the forecast.

We are fortunate to live in a critter-diverse part of town. Even though the street in front of our house looks hopelessly suburban, walk just a few blocks any direction from here and you’ll find open fields, pecan orchards, onion and chile plots, alfalfa patches and horse pasture. Because of the open space nearby, we get lots of animals living in and passing though the area.

We have regular visits from foxes, coyotes, raccoons, skunks (lots of ’em), large pack rats, ground squirrels and we harbor a fine crop of lizards to keep bugs out of the garden. My neighbor and I even witnessed a pack of javelinas trotting down the center of our street early one morning a couple of years ago. Birders like this area of town for all its variety of visitors. Although we’re oblivious to most of what flutters around here, we have noted nesting hawk and owl families and a large colony of turkey vultures that congregate in some tall trees southwest of us each summer. And of course we have an oversupply of birds we know as “rats of the sky” — white winged doves.

When flying my balloon over this area of the Mesilla Valley, it was always interesting to note various wild animals that would scurry out of hiding when I would engage the blast valve on my burner.

One fall morning when I was cruising at a fairly low altitude, I spooked a fox out of its hiding place in a tangle of mulberry trees. The fox scampered into a nearby field of corn that had not yet been harvested. As I flew closer, I was able to spot the fox’s distinct reddish brown coloring in the patch of yellow gold stalks.

Seconds later, I spooked up another animal, this time a plump cottontail rabbit that urgently hopped — you guessed it — right into the middle of the field where the fox was waiting. I was expecting to see a twirl of dust above the corn patch and floating puffs of bunny fur as I flew overhead, but I needed to stay focused on flying the aircraft, so I kept my attention on the flight path ahead.

I’m sure the fox was quite irritated when I first scared him out of hiding. However, I’ll bet he thanked me after brunch that day.