In 2012, a sheriff’s deputy in Luna County spotted a battered vintage Honda Civic driving erratically and carrying four passengers — one of them rather unusual looking.

He stopped the very small car and found two men in the front seat and another man in the back seat. The man in the back seat was clutching a 220-pound calf in an already cramped space.

The sheriff’s deputy promptly arrested the three men for suspicion of cattle rustling. I’m assuming the calf was released on its own recognizance and hopefully returned to its rightful owner in an appropriate and cow-dignified ride — something like a three-quarter ton a Ford F-250.

Assuming the already marginal Honda Civic was seized during the arrest, I’m sure the cost of cleaning up the interior far outweighed its value. And speaking of weight, I’m sure its springs were shot too.

No, I’m not that old — well almost. Read on.

In the late 1960s, New Mexico became a hot spot for “hippie” dropouts, most of them ending up in communes near Taos and Santa Fe. As you might expect, many of these people had interesting stories about why they joined the counter culture and moved to the Land of Enchantment.

As a journalist during that time, I wrote several stories for United Press International about the communes and the people who lived in them, including one about a character who lived in a commune near Placitas north of Albuquerque. He claimed to be Ulysses S. Grant, re-incarnated.

This self proclaimed Grant, after having fought in the Civil War and served as President of the United States in the 1800s, said he had come back from the spiritual world to run for Governor of New Mexico. So being a journalist whose job was to provide coverage of all things political, I drove to Placitas with my college roommate at the time to interview the candidate. He met me outside his adobe and wood hut, one of several in the compound, introduced me to his wife and then agreed to be interviewed. He had long hair, a scraggly beard, a twinkle in his blue eyes (as if hiding a secret we had already guessed) and wore blue and yellow-striped U.S Cavalry pants of the Civil War era.

The interview took place as he walked though the pinon and juniper sprinkled landscape of the Sandia foothills. At one point, he decided he needed to relieve himself, stopped in the middle of his conversation and took a leak in a large open space where anyone could see him. I politely stood behind, understanding that his moment was staged for shock value.

I don’t recall a lot of his political platform, except that he vowed that the state would build no more roads under his administration as governor.

“We already have enough roads,” he declared.

When I tried to dig into his “real” past and where he had come from, I got nowhere. Several people who seemed to know about him suggested he had been a professor of history at some Midwestern liberal arts college and left when his views became a little too radical for the school to tolerate.

We concluded the interview, and then he announced that he was not going to be able to do much campaigning in the future because his horse “Blue” had contracted the flu and couldn’t travel very far. As expected, his candidacy never made much of an impact other than generating the occasional headline about oddball things in New Mexico.

I wrote the story, forgot about him and then several weeks later he unexpectedly showed up at our apartment in Old Town Albuquerque. How he got there wasn’t clear, since Blue wasn’t anywhere to be seen. My roommate (who was a bit of a pot-head and had arranged for the visit unbeknownst to me) drove the General around Albuquerque in his spiffy Triumph Spitfire sports car. When he came back from the tour, he announced that my roommate’s ride was “way cooler than Blue” and wished that he had that kind of transportation during the Civil War. I went to bed, a little bit worried. They stayed up late and I think they smoked pot together, which is what I believed was the main reason for the visit. When I got up next morning, he and the elusive Blue were gone. My roommate, still snoring in his bed, missed yet another class.

About a year later, police reported that “Grant” was being sought as a suspect for a murder in his compound. It seems someone else in the commune had been involved in a romantic incident with his wife, and in the heat of an argument with his wife’s suitor, fatal shots were fired.

Grant disappeared and as far as I know, has neither been seen again in New Mexico nor arrested for the shooting. Someone speculated that he shaved off his beard, trimmed his hair, put on a tweed jacket, whipped out his PhD to return to the academic world. Maybe he found a fixer like the guy in Breaking Bad who could send anyone into permanent obscurity.

In the 1970s when I was Santa Fe Bureau Chief and State Political Editor for United Press International, I covered eight sessions of the New Mexico Legislature. I met and wrote about many colorful characters and incidents during that time.

One of those that stands out occurred when the Senate was debating a proposed law to ban certain pornographic materials and in the course of that debate, began sliding down the slippery slope of defining what exactly constituted pornography.

A long-time Democratic Senator from San Miguel County (Las Vegas) stepped up to introduce an amendment to correct what he considered to be a typographical flaw in the proposed legislation. The lawmaker, Junio (not Junior) Lopez, was probably keen on correcting spelling errors since his name had probably been misspelled many times by those who thought there should be an “r” at the end of his unusual moniker.

One section of the bill said pornography could clearly be detected if any photograph or artwork showed “pubic” hair. Lopez proposed an amendment to correct the spelling to “public.”

When a fellow lawmaker pointed out that the word “pubic” was indeed the word that was intended, a somewhat embarrassed Junio withdrew his amendment to the sounds of muffled snickering in the senate gallery and on the floor of the Senate.

I can’t recall what finally happened to the proposed legislation, but I know the lawmakers did “get the L” out of the bill. In retrospect, maybe Junio was just trying to make sure that “public pubic hair” was something most of us didn’t want to see.

My WordPress program, which I use to create my website and post blogs, does not have an easy way to go back to read earlier blogs. You can do it, but it’s a cumbersome process. You have to go to the oldest blog that shows on the blog page, open it, then click on the “previous post” link to see the blog that was posted previously. Then to get to one from a few weeks or months back, you have to keep repeating the process. As I said, very cumbersome. I am working with WordPress to see how I can make this easier, but so far, I have not been able to figure it out.

In the meantime, I’ve attached links on this page to some of the blogs which received the most response so you can look at them again or for the first time if you’re new to my website and blogs. Let me know if you have any comment at:

patrick@aero-cordero.com

Previous Posts:

https://wordpress.com/post/aero-cordero.com/261

https://wordpress.com/post/aero-cordero.com/267

https://wordpress.com/post/aero-cordero.com/9

https://wordpress.com/post/aero-cordero.com/322

https://wordpress.com/post/aero-cordero.com/427

https://wordpress.com/post/aero-cordero.com/416

https://wordpress.com/post/aero-cordero.com/488

https://wordpress.com/post/aero-cordero.com/512

https://wordpress.com/post/aero-cordero.com/613

https://wordpress.com/post/aero-cordero.com/805

Some of you may remember a blog I wrote a few weeks ago about a good friend of ours who stunningly discovered she was dead, even though she felt very much alive and looked just fine to us during a Zoom meeting. It turns out that an online ancestry search listed her as having kicked the bucket in 2011. Luckily for all of us, we’ve confirmed that she is still breathing, ambulatory and in good spirits. The mystery of why she ended up in the “reduction in population” column is still unresolved.

Well, perhaps this happens a lot more than we thought. A recent article in the Albuquerque Journal says a woman riding a bicycle along city streets last week was struck and believed killed. An officer investigating the incident even went to far as to check the “deceased” box for condition of the victim on the official report he filled out about the accident.

It turns out that the woman was rushed to a local hospital in critical condition — maybe proclaiming “I’m not dead”* on her ambulance ride there — and this week was listed as “recovering.”

If you read between the lines of the Albuquerque Police Department response, it suggests they may have told several people that she had died before determining she was actually still with us.

“Due to an error in the report, we would like to extend our apologies to the family and hope she makes a full recovery,” a police representative sheepishly announced.

As far as I know, our good friend still has not received a similar apology from the ancestry site which said she had expired. I’m glad she and the bicycle rider are still with us.

*See the Monty Python and the Holy Grail clip in my previous blog below: https://wordpress.com/post/aero-cordero.com/805

About a month ago, residents of our quiet neighborhood learned that the city was planning to cut down a large number of trees growing along an iconic street that is a beautiful gateway to the area. The trees overhang the street, forming a canopy that is especially refreshing in the hot summer and spectacularly colorful in the fall.

After residents heard about the plan and complained, the city hastily put together a Zoom presentation (leaving little time for citizen input) justifying their decision to start cutting by the end of this month. The trees, they explained, were dangerous, rat infested and interfered with utility lines and a small irrigation canal along the street. My suspicion is that the utility company’s desire to reduce its maintenance costs had more to do with this than citizen complaints. It was interesting that representatives of El Paso Electric were in attendance during the Zoom meeting, but remained silent during the presentation.

Before the residents were invited to the presentation, we noticed a small number of trees marked with ribbons and later spray-painted with orange dots on the trunks. At first, we assumed these trees would be the ones that would be cut down — again, working from no previous information about the project and hearing rampant rumors about its scope. The dots and ribbons, as finally explained, were showing only the trees that would be saved. By my best estimate, I suspect that about three-quarters of the trees along this stretch of Conway would be felled by axe or chain saw.

The city has now backed off a bit, vowing only to initially cut down the dangerous or dead trees along the route. I’m okay with that — there are some that clearly need to be removed or pruned back. But there are lots that are not marked — meaning they likely will be cut down eventually — that look healthy and valuable to the landscape of this neighborhood. We are now told there will be a first phase and a second phase of tree removal. We will have the opportunity to provide “input” on phase two, as I understand it from city officials.

So here’s my thought. What if neighbors bought a can of spray paint and spritzed an orange dot on the trunk of each and every tree along the street? Now please understand, I am not condoning this activity and do not plan to participate in something like that. However, it makes you wonder what might happen. At the most, it will just serve to confuse and slow down the process. At the least, I hope it would give the city a chance to reflect about the process in which it was not entirely forthcoming about the plan to perform an “agent orange” tree removal in a very lovely neighborhood.

In the meantime, I can tell you where to buy cans of orange spray paint.

Last year, an Albuquerque Fire Department commander saw someone “unofficial” jump into his “official” SUV command vehicle and drive away in a hurry as if — well you guessed it — he was rushing to a fire.

Police were summoned to track down the vehicle when they heard reports of a red SUV blasting through the city with lights flashing and siren wailing. Police eventually spotted it weaving through traffic, although most motorists probably thought it was the real deal and gave the vehicle a wide berth as it zipped by. Police gave chase, which I’m sure confused observers who wondered why cops were after the fire department — departmental jealousy over who had the loudest siren perhaps?

As the chase ensued, the Fire Department vehicle nicked several other vehicles en route, then turned into a cul-de-sac.

Realizing he was done for, the perpetrator emerged from the vehicle to surrender, only to offer one last act of defiance. He turned around facing away from the police with hands in the air, as if signaling defeat. But then at the last minute he dropped his pants and mooned the cops who were “on his tail.”

Okay, I confess that was a really bad pun, but hey, you didn’t have to pay anything to read this. “:^) Have a great day and keep your mask (and your pants) on.

Several years ago in our neighborhood, police showed up early one morning at a house just up the street to arrest an individual who had been involved in a crime. I don’t remember exactly what the crime was, but the perpetrator escaped the scene in a vehicle which left no doubt about where he could be found.

It seems that during the crime — whether it was a car accident in which the driver left the scene or a shooting — one of the escape vehicle’s tires was compromised and flew off the rim as it sped away.

The driver continued his escape and made it back to his home, only to find police waiting for him the next morning.

The car’s wheel, it seems, had carved a deep gouge in the pavement all the way from where the tire flew off the rim near the crime scene to the perp’s house. And sure enough, when police inspected the car, one tire was missing and its rim had been transmogrified into a pavement-gouging instrument of destruction and an irrefutable clue. It was much better than a set of fingerprints for solving the case.

If you look today, I think you can still see traces of the car’s route in the asphalt on our street. And we’re relieved to know that this guy doesn’t live in our neighborhood any more.

A Democratic candidate for a New Mexico House of Representatives seat in the Santa Fe area ‘fessed up that he had starred in two porno movies in the 1980s. He said he was a starving college student at the time and needed the money. Besides, he said, it was a “different environment” at that time. So why was it okay to do porn flicks In the 80s but not now”?

Oh yeah, I guess if you’re running for office.

My driver’s license was up for renewal this year, and now that I need to have a “New Mexico Real ID” license, I decided to get the complicated process moving early so I would not miss the appropriate deadline. Enter the Social Security Administration to waylay my plan.

When I was 11 or 12 years old, I proudly got my Social Security card, dipping my toe into the rising waters of adulthood and enthusiastically embracing my first civic duty. My full name is Glenn Patrick Lamb, but at the time, everyone just called me Pat Lamb, so that’s what I put on my application. It served me well until in recent years, the spelling of your full legal name must match various documents perfectly or you won’t get boarded on an airplane, get a driver’s license, be able to use a credit card or maybe even get into heaven (although in my case that’s certainly not assured.)

I first went to the Motor Vehicle Department to see if my existing Social Security card with the name “Pat Lamb” would pass muster as a required document for a New Mexico Real ID license. Of course no one at that office could use common sense and good judgement to allow my plan for driver’s license renewal to proceed. I was told, in no uncertain terms, that only the Social Security Administration could resolve the problem by issuing a new Social Security card with my full legal name.

I first drove to the local Social Security office for help. Oops, it’s closed because of COVID-19. After suffering through multiple pages of completely useless information on the Social Security website, I finally discovered a phone number where I might be able to discover how to get a new card. After a hold of about 40 minutes while a repetitive elevator music loop planted a permanent ear-worm in my brain, a human answered. I was told to fill out a form SS5, directed where to find and send it and was assured my problem would be resolved in time for me to meet my driver’s license expiration date. I needed to have at least two documents showing my full legal name accompanying the SS5 form. Thanks to my wife’s always reliable librarian brain for keeping track of things, I was able to submit an original and photo copy of my birth certificate and my current passport. I also included my old Social Security card showing my current number and what I felt was a well composed letter pleading my case. All of these documents contained the correct spelling of my full legal name.

On Monday, well within the promised time frame, I received my new card — only to discover my first name was misspelled. On the card, it proclaimed my name as Glen (not Glenn) Patrick Lamb. Remember, the only reason the Social Security Administration got this application was to correct my name. You’d think they could have successfully accomplished that one simple task.

So I called Social Security back. After another 40 minutes of waiting on the phone — a new ear worm infection from another grating loop song– I was finally told that they were sorry about the mistake, but I would have to resubmit everything again. I could try to plead my case with the local office, they said. I was told that even though the office is closed to the public, I might be able to get in for an urgent matter because the staff was still working behind closed doors. Um, well, if that was the case, why were there no cars in the employee parking lot when I went to the local office the first time? I was given a “secret” local phone number to try to arrange an “urgent” meeting, but when I called, I learned, again by recording, that the local office was closed due to COVID-19 (duh). The woman who finally answered confirmed no one was actually working inside the building and there wasn’t anything they could do to expedite my application.

I dropped another $4.50 certified letter in the mail, containing the only documents that may prove I exist, and for a second time, continue to hold my breath for a good outcome.

If all this goes badly, I guess I will just go rogue, not having any identification of my existence and no legal right to operate a motor vehicle as I travel the state’s highways. As far as I know, I’m still certified to fly a hot air balloon, so I guess in a pinch, I could use that mode of transportation — if the wind is blowing in the right direction to where I need to go.

Reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated.

— Mark Twain

There is a scene in the movie “Monty Python and the Holy Grail” in which England has been devastated by the bubonic plague and carts are being rolled down streets to pick up bodies claimed by the disease. As the person pulling the body-laden cart calls out “bring out your dead,” one pitiful soul ready to be dumped on the pile of corpses announces that “I’m not dead… I’m getting better.” Nevertheless, a person assisting with the cart ignores his multiple petitions for mercy and promptly whacks him on the head with a club to silence him. (Yes, I know it’s a really sophomoric movie, but it’s pretty darned funny, even after watching it many times. A clip of the scene is attached below.)

I mention this because a very good friend of ours recently announced to us on a live Zoom meeting that she was dead. You might say that announcement was kind of a stunner. She looked pretty alive and animated to us and others watching on our home computers. Dumbfounded, we waited for an explanation.

It turns out she had been doing online research on the genealogy of her family when she came across a family tree in which she was listed as having died in 2011. For being in the grave for nine years, she looked pretty good to us. We’re fairly certain she’s not a zombie either.

We still haven’t seen her in person, thanks to COVID-19 precautions. However, I’m fairly certain she’s doing just fine, which we all are exceedingly grateful to know.

I guess the moral of this experience is not to believe everything you see on the Internet. Well, except of course my blogs.

Stay safe and also stay alive, my friends.

Starting today, the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta 2021 would have kicked off with the “Albuquerque Aloft” event, where pilots take their balloons to elementary schools around the Albuquerque metro area to demonstrate them for kids. Then the next morning would begin nine days of pure chaos, excitement, thrills, happiness, disappointment and in the end, exhaustion. I wasn’t able to fly in last year’s event because I was still recovering from my heart surgery, but I had planned to participate this fall.

This year, because of COVID-19, the event was cancelled. There will be a few local balloons flying around the city during the next week to honor the huge event, but it won’t be the same. As much as I sometimes dreaded it — the planning, scheduling, concern about weather and shrinking landing sites, always being on top of your game for passengers, crew and Fiesta officials, etc. — I will miss it.

The main thing I miss is just the “feeling” of the event. That feeling is comprised of many elements. The smells of vendor-row food and freshly cut wet grass on a chilly early morning on Fiesta Field, the angle of the sun on fall mornings, the darkening blue sky and turning leaves that say winter is just around the corner, the indescribable thrill when you launch from a field packed with thousands of cheering spectators, the satisfaction and adrenalin rush you get after every safe flight, the fun at your post-flight tailgate, seeing old friend and meeting new ones, etc.

Three of my most memorable things from Fiesta are:

–Flying the American flag off the field at daybreak while the Star Spangled banner is being sung over the PA system and a crowd of thousands below you is respectfully hushed until the song is over.

–Flying over the Rio Grande on a very cold morning when the river is still warm and steam and mist rise off the water and ducks and geese scoot below you, complaining with quacks and honks about you invading their airspace.

–And the smell of Cocoa Puffs. Yes, the cereal. General Mills has a cereal factory immediately south of Fiesta Field. When you reach a certain altitude as you drift southward, the smell that comes from the manufacturing of the cereal (which I can never remember eating myself) fills the air around you at 500 feet above the ground. I know that’s strange, but it’s part of the mix of sensations that I’ll miss this year.

Let’s all hope it’s back to normal next year, when I think I’ll give it another try to sniff Cocoa Puffs in the sky.

I have changed the e-mail address you can use to contact me through this website. The new address is:

patrick@aero-cordero.com

While I’m flattered that I have a few souls who look periodically at my website and my blog, it’s been interesting to see that some vistors have come from China, India, Nigeria and France. I suspect these views are from nefarious people who hope I’m going to accidentally drop my Social Security number, bank account and credit card number somewhere in my posts. Or maybe they just want to know what a normal, boring American is thinking these days.

At any rate, if you worry about any of your information being compromised by leaving a message on my site, I am assured by the well-established company which hosts it, WordPress, that your comments are seen only by me and nothing you have sent can be compromised.

Thanks for reading and please send me your thoughts about anything I write. I’m not fishing for compliments — just want to know what you think and if I’ve offended anyone.

You’ve probably seen the artwork somewhere before — on a wall behind a bar in a back country tavern or in someone’s tacky pool room. It’s the famous series of works by Cassius Marcellus Coolidge, “Dogs Playing Poker.” He began creating the series in 1894, showing anthropomorphized dogs around a table playing poker, smoking cigars, cheating at cards and generally having a good woof of a time. Sixteen of the 18 paintings were commissioned by Brown and Bigelow to promote cigars they distributed around the turn of the century. One art critic described the work as being  “indelibly burned into … the American collective schlock subconscious…”

Here’s a link to a Wikipedia site which gives additional information:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dogs_Playing_Poker

I mention this because our dog Chester, a not-quite three-year-old rambunctious Golden Doodle, has the most elastic face and transparent mannerisms I’ve ever seen on a dog. His eyes constantly roll around when he’s pondering something and his John L. Lewis* eyebrows constantly twitch as he ponders. He peeks around corners in hopes of not revealing himself or his intention, smiles (yes, big toothy smiles) when he’s deliriously happy and leaps higher than my head when he knows one of his favorite admirers is about to give him a treat. Chester would simply bust up any chance of winning a poker hand because of his give-away looks. I’m attaching some examples, with what I think he may be revealing to others at the dog poker table.

*John L. Lewis was a famous labor leader from the early to mid 1900s, noted for his over-the-top bushy eyebrows and his unflinching command of the United Mine Workers of America.