In 1927, a 13-year-old orphan of Aleut-Russian descent, came up with the design for the Alaska state flag. The simple design featuring the big dipper and the north star in gold on a dark blue flag, was submitted by Benny Benson to the Alaska Department of the American Legion, which had conducted a design contest for the then territory’s flag.

Like New Mexico’s iconic red Zia on a yellow-gold background, the Alaska state flag has consistently been picked as one of America’s top ten state flag designs because of its elegant simplicity and meaning.

What made me think about this was the discovery of a dead “official state insect” on the grounds of our church earlier this week. The insect was the tarantula hawk wasp  (Pepsis formosa), which became the state’s official insect because of a project by an elementary school class in Edgewood, NM.

The class had discovered that New Mexico was one of a few states that did not have a state insect, so students began researching for a candidate. After looking around for something that was unique and creepy at the same time, the students came up with three choices, then asked other students around the state to vote for their favorite insect. The tarantula hawk was the students’ choice. It is a giant wasp that laid its eggs in the living body of a tarantula spider — both common species in the high desert climate of New Mexico. And to make things even creepier, they discovered that a sting from the wasp is said to be the most painful sting of any flying insect. (Luckily, not many human stings are recorded because the insect does not sting unless provoked or it finds a suitable tarantula scuttling along the ground.)

They are very large and have a rather imposing presence with orange colored wings and a black almost blue body. A predominant feature is the extremely long stinger at the end of its abdomen. The dead insect I found at our church did not appear to have a stinger still attached, so it may have delivered that weapon earlier.

American entomologist Justin Schmidt created the Pain Scale for Stinging Insects with the help of variably willing or unwitting test subjects. He once described the tarantula hawk’s sting as “instantaneous, electrifying and totally debilitating.” Schmidt has also in the past suggested that when stung, the only response is to “lay down and scream.”

Fortunately, the pain seems to go away in about five minutes, according to sources in my search.

One writer about this insect said its life cycle “sounds like the most gruesome horror story Hollywood could make up.”

To begin the cycle, the tarantula hawk wasp looks for tarantulas, which often come out from their underground burrows after Southwest monsoon rains to look for mates. After spotting one, the wasp makes a quick attack on the otherwise gentle spider, paralyzes it, lays a single egg in the body of the spider and then drags it off to a nest where the baby wasp will then hatch inside the body of the victim. The body of the spider — still living but still immobilized — then feeds the baby wasp when it hatches.

So thanks to the kids at Edgewood Elementary School, we have a really creepy insect specimen that was adopted by the New Mexico Legislature in 1989. And ironically, a group of students from Alaska heard about the New Mexico school’s insect project and traveled all the way to New Mexico to watch the legislature vote on the official state insect.

I suspect they didn’t trade one of their state’s flag for a live tarantula wasp.

In 2017, someone accidentally flew the Nebraska state flag upside down at the capitol in Lincoln for 10 days before someone noticed the error.

It’s understandable. It’s a busy state seal placed over a dark blue background that looks like state flags from several other states that seems to have been designed around the same time.

I imagine this conversation from state flag designers of that era:

“I know, let’s put our indecipherable state seal on a safe dark blue background,” says one.

“Yeah, sounds cool. Maybe we can plaster a conestoga wagon on it too so it shows our pioneering history,” the co-designer responds.

We’re fortunate in New Mexico to have a flag design that is consistently ranked in the top 10 (most of the time top five) designs of all state flags.

The iconic red Zia symbol over the yellow gold background is a simple and elegant expression about our state. And as I’ve said before, it’s pretty much foolproof. If you hang it upside down, no one would notice. I’m sure if it was accidentally hung vertically, there’d be a quick adjustment.

I’ve written previous posts about our flag. The New Mexico Secretary of State’s Website has this historical information about it:

In 1920, the New Mexico Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution (D.A.R.) advocated the adoption of a flag representative of New Mexico’s unique character.  Three years later, the D.A.R. conducted a design competition, which was won by the distinguished Santa Fe physician and archeologist, Dr. Harry Mera.  The doctor’s wife, Reba, made the winning flag design with a symbolic red Zia on a field of yellow.   In March of 1925, Governor Arthur T. Hannett signed the legislation, which proclaimed the Mera design as the official state flag.

But it could have been much worse. The original state flag was designed by self-appointed New Mexico historian Ralph Emerson Twitchell, a prominent figure in the early years of New Mexico’s statehood. Said to have been a member of the infamous “Santa Fe Ring,” Twitchell came to the state from Chicago in 1882 or 1885 as an attorney representing the Santa Fe Railway. He became enamored with New Mexico and later began writing what was then considered to be the definitive book on New Mexico history. The enormous two-volume “The Facts of New Mexican History” weighed 20 pounds. Over the years, the luster of Twitchell’s book has faded a bit, with current historians questioning some of his facts.

And at some point, Twitchell submitted the following mind-boggling design for the state’s official flag:

There are so many weird things about this design. First, the moniker “The Sunshine State” was usurped by Florida in 1949 and then made official in 1970 before New Mexico could officially claim that wording. Although “sunshine state” had appeared on New Mexico license plates as early as 1932, the New Mexico Legislature never got around to adopting that wording. The more appropriate wording “Land of Enchantment” had been used by a state tourism agency starting in 1935, but it was not officially adopted until 1999. The great seal of New Mexico (which is actually a pretty good design that I’ve written stories about previously) is displayed in what would be an awkward spot in the lower right hand corner of the flag — even smaller and less visible than the one on the forgettable Nebraska state flag. The main color of the flag may or may not be turquoise. (It looks more like a teal green to me, which does not seem to represent anything New Mexico other than a scrub juniper or dark-colored sagebrush). The American flag on the upper left hand corner has 48 stars (which you have to assume would be updated as more states were added to the union.) The “47” appears to designate that New Mexico is the 47th state to be admitted to the union before Arizona. — a number that many people would find confusing without knowing our history. And then for some strange reason, the words “New Mexico” seem to have a typographic anomaly of shrinking in font size as one reads from left to right.

Twitchell may have been widely acclaimed for his historical work, but I think we can all conclude that he should have stayed away from graphic design. And some current historians apparently think he should have stayed away from writing about New Mexico’s history.

Frequent reading of the Albuquerque Journal’s “Business Outlook” section provides fodder for my brain to turn the mundane into a blog.

For example, there’s always the Restaurant Inspections section which provides some cringeworthy details of why certain eateries have been shut down. Consider these:

“Person in charge unable to provide records…”

“Unlabeled spray bottles containing cleaners misrepresented as sanitizer…”

“Observed staff failing to wash hands…”

“Vomit observed in men’s restroom toilet…”

“Orange mold-like substance in debris buildup on ice machine…”

There are also interesting items included in the “Patents” section. Many of the inventions are far to complex for me to understand. Like this one:

“System and method for a digitally beamformed phased array feed.”

Then there’s one that’s pretty straightforward for my brain to grasp:

“Calf nursing cradle.”

And this kind of scary one:

“Systems and methods for immersing spectators in sporting event and evaluating spectator participating performance.”

I envision some sort of brain probe attached to your head when you go to enjoy a football game and are forced to initiate a crowd wave when the fourth quarter gets too boring.

And then there was this one, which I will let you ponder, without my warped interpretation:

“Systems and methods for positioning an elongate member inside a body.”

Remind me in the future to always check first with my good friend Jim Libbin, retired Acting Dean of the New Mexico State University Department of Agriculture, Consumer and Environmental Sciences before I post anything agricultural related.

He thankfully called me out on the errors I made in post earlier this week regarding New Mexico’s cattle ranking against other states. The source I found on the internet, which was not verified, said New Mexico ranked No. 11, but it was not clear exactly what that meant.

According to Jim, it was the ratio of cattle to humans in each state. South Dakota ranked first, with more bovines than people. In New Mexico, it turns out there is approximately six-tenths of a cow for every human.

I was surprised when I saw that New Mexico was ranked higher than Texas in the chart, but it’s because of that state’s much higher population than the Land of Enchantment. According to a National Agricultural Statistics Service source provided to me by Jim, Texas had approximately 12.2 million cattle, compared to New Mexico’s measly 1.2 million bovines.

Jim also notes that our cattle number are higher in part because of the large dairy industry in the state.

“The only difficulty with the cattle inventory number is it incudes dairy cattle in addition to beef cattle, and New Mexico has a bunch of dairy cattle,” Libbin said. “We’re #22 because of dairy cattle, we would probably be in the high thirties, down with Nevada without the dairies.”

I’m glad to have all of this clarified. And by the way, in addition to 12.2 million cattle, Texas also has more than 160,000 oil wells and more than 83,000 gas wells. Which explains the rich odors we occasionally get when the wind blows from the east.

By just one place, New Mexico missed being in the top ten among states of something I never quite thought about.

While browsing the internet this morning, this surprising statistic showed up unexpectedly on Instagram.

So according to this non-sourced post on Instagram, New Mexico is 11th in the nation for the number of cattle in the state. According to statistics from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, there are approximately 1.28 million cattle in the Land of Enchantment. Below is the information straight from the USDA website as of January 2005.

Livestock Inventory New Mexico

Cattle, Cows, Beef – Inventory ( First of Jan. 2025 )	450,000
Cattle, Cows, Milk – Inventory ( First of Jan. 2025 )	240,000
Cattle, Incl Calves – Inventory ( First of Jan. 2025 )	1,280,000

I was really surprised that we had more cattle than Texas. But having experienced numerous trips through Nebraska to visit my wife’s family farm while passing seemingly endless odiferous feedlots, I was not at all surprised that Nebraska was ranked #2 in number of cows.

At least at this point, bovines don’t appear to outnumber humans in our state, as is apparently the case in South Dakota. According to the latest U.S. Census Bureau data, New Mexico’s population is estimated at 2.13 million. That means there is one cow for every 1.6 persons. Luckily, my cow quota is in a feedlot or dairy farm miles south of where we live, although I’m occasionally reminded of their presence when we get a southerly breeze.

And although I have no way of verifying this, I do suspect that there are more jackrabbits in New Mexico than there are humans. A drive along one of our less traveled rural roads will confirm large numbers of squashed bunnies and confirm my suspicion that there are lots more out there who had enough sense to stay off the roadway when a vehicle is approaching.

My wife recently suggested that before I write anything historical about New Mexico in my blog posts that I should check first with our very good friend Cheryl, a retired librarian at New Mexico State University and a great researcher and diligent fact checker.

I mention this because of a recent blog about the big shootout that occurred in old Mesilla in 1871 that was triggered by conflicting political views. I learned about it from an article written by noted New Mexico historian Ralph Emerson Twitchell and included in a book edited by author Tony Hillerman.

After I had written about the incident, based on several sources, Cheryl sent me an article that appears to be the definitive piece on what became known as the “Mesilla Riot.” Cheryl has provided follow-up information about other blog posts I’ve written in the past, which are always appreciated.

The article, “Shootout in La Mesilla,” was authored by four men and a woman who called themselves “The Fat Boys Historical Research Group.*” Although the article confirmed the basic facts of what I had written, there was much more detail about the actual day the shootout happened, along with a look at what had led up to the incident.

A quick recap of the incident:

As the 1871 general election campaign got underway, a group of Republicans and a group of Democrats clashed when their marches during dueling political rallies on the plaza in old Mesilla on Aug. 27, 1871, confronted eachother. The two groups were marching in opposite directions and when they met, neither group budged or blinked. A skirmish ensued and by the end, nine people had been killed and an estimated 40 or 50 more were wounded. I drew my own conclusion that the Democrats were probably marching to the left around the plaza (counter clockwise) while the Republicans were marching to the right (clockwise). The article confirms I was right about that assumption.

I had at least three readers ask me who won the election a few months later — a obvious question that I forgot to answer. According to the article, the Democrats overwhelmingly won all their races in Dona Ana County during that election. Cheryl’s discovery of the Fat Boys article helped me close that loop.

I also found two interesting anecdotes about the shooting that day in which two different people were spared serious injury from bullets because of some random metal they were carrying.

In one case, a member of a band supporting the Republicans was shot. According to the article, a bullet struck the musician’s flugelhorn and he was “only stunned and he shortly gathered his horn and ran home for cover.”

And a groom who had unfortunately picked this same day for his wedding in Mesilla was shot in the lower rib cage by a random .36 caliber bullet when the clash started.

“Fortunately, the young man was only stunned and bruised,” the article says. “By chance, the bullet had only penetrated his vest and coin purse and torn a small hole in an 1851 copper one-cent piece…”

What I also found interesting was the names of many of the participants in the event. I read an article several years ago about the lyrical Hispanic names that were once common in New Mexico but are no longer seem to be in favor. This story seems to have many of these names:

Apolonio Barela, Felicito Arroyo y Luera, Tiburcio Lopez, Florencio Lopez, sisters Magdelena and Isabella Lopez; Rafael Bermudes, Mariano Barela, Cristobal Ascarate, Jose de Jesus Baca, Perfecto Armijo, etc.

And finally, there was even a small song written about the event, apparently sung to the tune of “Marching through Georgia,” which the Democratic band played on that fateful day. The song made fun of the Republicans, many of whom reportedly ran away to Asencion, Mexico, after the skirmish. It goes like this:

(Spanish)

Las Republicanos se van

Se van a La Ascencion

Porque las Democratas

Ganaron la eleccion

(English)

The Republicans are going

They’re going to Ascencion

Because the Democrats

Won the Election

*According to my internet search, “Fat Boys Historical Resarch Group” has no website. If you look it up online this is what pops up:

“The Fat Boys Historical Research Group is not a formal organization with a publicly accessible website or a well-defined structure. However, the name “Fat Boys” appears in the title of a book series, “On the Road with the Fat Boys,” which focuses on the history and geography of Southern New Mexico.”

I’ve always said that you can tell a true long-time New Mexico resident by the fact that they stand outside to watch when it’s raining.

We’re getting some rain this morning, a bit of an anomaly for the first week of June — at least four weeks before the usual summer monsoon rains start. While walking my dog in the lingering sprinkles this morning, a man walking his dog playfully asked me: “What’s this wet stuff coming down from the sky?” It was a sign of New Mexico weather humor rooted in acknowledgement of our dry surroundings.

My wife and children have always suggested I might have been happier in a career as a weather forecaster, where my nerdiness about atmospheric phenomena could have had a full run. With today’s rain, I allowed myself to venture into that topic, wondering about historic rainfall amounts in the Land of Enchantment.

From what I gleaned on several sites, including that of the National Weather Service, 1941 was the mother of all rainfall events in New Mexico since weather records were first captured beginning in 1849.

The total precipitation that year was 26.25 inches, compared to the statewide annual total of about 14 inches. The graph below, from the National Weather Service website, shows the detail of average rain amount by year. As you can see, 1941 was an abnormally wet year.

Rainfall between May and September of 1941 was so abundant that Elephant Butte lake was filled to capacity by the end of the rainy season, according to the NWS. That source also says there were 28 weather related deaths and $3.5 million in property damage (an equivalent of $55 million in today’s economy.) A ranch in San Miguel County recorded 203.6 inches of snow during the winter and Cloudcroft recorded 106.7 inches of snow.

I found this interesting account from a man who as a child lived in the Sacramento Mountains near Cloudcroft that summer.

“Stock tanks with dirt dams were overflowing so we could go swimming if we accepted the cold water and the floating cow chips,” he said “Grass was so tall in some meadow areas that we could not see the white-face calves even when they were standing.   Deep mud meant that the ranch pickup could not get us into town for weeks at a time.  Two bad-tempered old jersey cows provided milk and cream so we made ice-cream with hail from the tin roof,  the only ice available on a ranch with no electricity.”

The nearby mountain community of Whitetail, on the Mescalero Apache Reservation, recorded 62.4 inches of rainfall during that summer.

That year, Las Cruces received almost 20 inches of precipitation, more than double our average 7.5 inches of rain and snow.

Try this link if you want to learn more about the record 1941 season. There’s all sorts of technical discussion about what forces were at work to bring the record rains, some of which I kind of understood, but likely not of interest to most of you.

Weather.gov > Albuquerque, NM > NWS ABQ – 1941 Extreme NM Precipitation

So with rainfall starting in early June, hopefully we’re in for another record year of precipitation in Las Cruces and New Mexico. Hopefully, however, it won’t so much that we have floating cow chips in our streets.

I know, it would sound better if the squirrel was a mole, so I could say “Holy Mole.” But no, I spotted the actual ground squirrel that has been “ventilating” the otherwise lovely grounds of our church, St. James’ Episcopal in Mesilla Park these last few days.

Not only has it dug several holes, but it also left a rather large mound of dirt at one of the entrances or exits of its labyrinth of tunnels on the church grounds. What was interesting to me was that the “dirt” was actually fine sand, like you find at the bottom of the Rio Grande when it goes dry in the winter when water is stored upriver at Elephant Butte reservoir.

During the time I’ve lived in Las Cruces, I’ve heard many times how the course of the Rio Grande has changed in the broad Mesilla Valley. At one time, the river was east of present day Mesilla. I’m told that its eastern banks were near western edge of the New Mexico State University campus where the terrain begins to rise up toward the Organ Mountains. St. James is located not far from that part of the University, so the evidence of river bottom sand seems to confirm that our church might have been under water if it had been built there 150 years ago.

According to the “Old Mesilla” website, the river at one time divided the town of Mesilla and Las Cruces. There was even a barge that connected the two towns. Mesilla was the original hub of activity in the Mesilla Valley, but got outhustled by the new town of Las Cruces. The story goes that Mesilla landowners who heard of plans to build a railroad through the valley priced their land too high so the route was changed to run through cheaper land about two miles east through Mesilla Park and Las Cruces.

The Old Mesilla website also notes that there was frequent flooding of the valley from the Rio Grande in the 1800s and that at one point, two branches of the river surrounded the village and left it an island. Also left behind were marshy areas which were a perfect breeding ground for mosquitos. In the 1870’s, the marshy areas turned into a swamp and there were outbreaks of yellow fever and malaria from the swarms of mosquitos. The website says “more than 50 Mesilla residents died as a result.”

The River again changed its course in 1885 to its present location, but apparently there was no guarantee that future flood events would cause damage to the low lying village and the river would change course again.

That was all resolved in 1907 when the Leasburg Diversion Dam was constructed as part of the Rio Grande project and the river was permanently channeled in its present location. Four years later, construction began on the Elephant Butte dam as part of the program to control flooding and provide irrigation water for the Mesilla Valley into Texas. The mightly river, often called the “Rio Bravo” has now been pretty much tamed.

But thanks to the squirrel, who I hope we can eventually capture and relocate, I’ve finally seen actual evidence that the Rio Grande once flowed near my home in Mesilla Park. And I’m glad I don’t have to worry about the river flooding my home, although I do still get annoyed by mosquitos every summer.

For some reason that we can’t explain, the hollyhock flowers we have on the east side of our house have exploded into more blooms than we’ve ever seen before from the humble plants that are honestly really close to just being weeds.

We planted some of these years ago and have had a few stragglers show up every year, but not in the number that decided to be so boisterous this year. One of the darker red varieties came from seeds that I took from a spectacular hollyhock plant growing in the front of the historic San Francisco de Asis church in Taos years ago. The others were from seeds gathered here and there from friends and neighbors.

Since the flowers showed up so abundantly this year, I decided to do a little more research on hollyhocks and found some interesting things. They are known as alcea, part of the mallows family. There are more than 60 varieties of hollyhocks and more than 4,200 species of mallows. Unfortunately, one of the most degenerate of those species is okra, which I personally believe should be banned from the earth — but that’s another story. Hollyhocks originated in Asia, where they are still highly valued today.

Most hollyhocks have a two year life, with the first year establishing leaves and a good root system, then the second year showing off their blossoms. When the seed pods dry, they scatter hundreds of seeds on the ground, many of which will spring up the following year.

We’ve always finding hollyhocks around our yard in places we never planted them, like in my wife’s vegetable garden. We left the plant there because hollyhocks are known for attracting pollinators like bees, butterflies and hummingbirds which help spread pollen to make my wife’s annual corn crop produce some mildly edible ears.

The first hollyhock to bloom this year was another volunteer, which wedged itself between our driveway and the dry streambed in the front of the house.

As a kid, I remember my sister making hollyhock ladies, which my wife did as well. There are lots of sites on the Internet on how to make them in several varieties.

I also looked up hollyhock lore and discovered that in New Mexico, they are often called Las Varas de San Jose. Here’s an article I found on the interenet:

In New Mexico, hollyhocks are called “Las Varas de San José,” representing St. Joseph’s staff which, according to legend, was transformed into hollyhocks. According to a legend, God turned St. Joseph’s staff into hollyhocks to signify his approval of his marriage to Mary. 

According to sources on the internet, planting hollyhocks near the entrance of your home wards off evil spirits. Another source says they offer strength and endurance.

I also found a reference to hollyhocks on a website called “The Witchery Arts.” It claimed that the flowers “are a positive influence to the witch’s garden, along with fairies, bees, butterflies and white magic.”

I think most flowers are seen as having a positive influence on one’s home and garden — well with the possible exception of deadly nightshade. I think we’ll leave that out of our garden and let Georgia O’Keefe’s paintings give it exposure from afar.

The Trout in the Classroom program at White Mountain Elementary school in Ruidoso, which has had its ups and downs this year, concluded last week with the release of three fish that we think were raised in the 3rd grade classroom of teacher Rachel Lutterman. The 150 kids who witnessed it, along with a tour of a fish hatchery, were squealing and cheering during the whole process, so it must have been a success.

It’s a long story.

A batch of 35 triploid rainbow trout eggs that the New Mexico Game and Fish Department had donated to the school for the second year of the Trout in the Classroom Program (sponsored by Trout Unlimited) were delivered to the school in November. Unfortunately, all of the fish that had hatched died during the holiday break, for reasons still unknown.

The Mescalero Apache hatchery, which has been a great partner in the program, agreed to give the school three juvenile rainbow trout to continue raising in Ms. Lutterman’s classroom. These three fish were thriving until a major power outage cut off electricity to the tank filter, water chiller and oxygenating systems. The outage was intentionally triggered because dangerous winds threatened to knock down more powerlines in the Ruidoso area and start fires that would be disastrous to the mountain community. Two years ago year, if you’ll recall, much of the forest land around Ruidoso and many of the homes in the area were burned in a devastating forest fire.

When teacher Lutterman became concerned about the viability of the fish during the power outage, she asked the Mescalero hatchery if she could rush them the 25 miles south and place them in tanks with their siblings. The hatchery agreed and the three Ruidoso trout were back swimming around in tanks and fish raceways that had been their home three months earlier.

Friday, May 2, was the date scheduled for release of the remaining Ruidoso three, along with about 150 pounds of other fish from the hatchery. To be truthful, we’ll never know if the Ruidoso trout were actually in the batch that was released that day, but in the students minds, I’m sure they were all there swimming around with their rainbow trout buddies.

Prior to the release of the fish, the Mescalero hatchery gave all 150 kids a grand tour of the fish hatchery. As you might expect with just a couple of weeks to go in the school year, a chance to get out of class for the day and a field trip on an activity bus was a really big deal for a bunch of third graders. (My ears still hurt from the the shrieks, laughs, squeals of delight and amplified chatter that the kids offered up during their adventure.)

As a member of Trout Unlimited, I’ve acted as an advisor and facilitator to the Trout in the Classroom program in Ruidoso and now in Silver City. But the majority of this program’s work falls on the dedicated teachers who clearly love their jobs and the students they teach.

My proudest moment for the event was when I was able to rescue a fish that had slipped through a net when they were being loaded into the tank on the back of the truck that was taking them to the release site.

I managed to grab it while it flopped around on the ground, held it up to show to the kids, tossed it in the tank and got a resounding cheer from them. It made my day.

And the smell of a just caught trout on my hands, when I am preparing to release it back into the water, is still one of my favorite scents to this day. I need to go fishing again soon.

About 40 years ago, we planted a cottonwood tree in our front yard, hoping the species would be appropriate for the Rio Grande valley area in which our home is located. The tree has done well but is beginning to show its age with several large branches dying and some infestation by mistletoe.

I called an arborist who had done work for us before and asked him for a bid on trimming up the tree so our home wouldn’t have a “Grapes of Wrath” patina.

He silently rolled up to our front house the next day in a sinister looking Tesla Cybertruck, painted in flat black with windows deeply tinted. I was curious about who might be driving the truck and why that was his vehicle of choice.

When I first seemed to be interested in his vehicle, the affable young man immediately offered this:

“I apologize if my truck offends you,” he said. “I bought it about five years ago. I always tell that to people when I go to give them a bid.”

Being a longtime “grearhead,” I was interested in the truck and asked if I might look inside and also have him explain some of its features.

It turns out it is a pretty good choice for his work. He has to drive around town to various locations all day and it has sufficient range to do that, without sipping a drop of fuel. In addition, he said it has a 220-volt electrical outlet which can power his welding machine and some other heavy duty equipment. The bed is covered in a fully retractable cover. Having known of several contractors who have had equipment stolen off their trucks during work projects in the middle of the day, I’m sure that was an important factor.

Despite what you may think about the owner of the company who sells the truck, it probably makes good sense for some people who have a need for several of its advanced features. It’s a bit too showy for my tastes, but as it’s said, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

He told me he gets lots of obscene gestures, rude comments and loud outbursts when driving the vehicle around town, but he’s become accustomed to them.

I read a recent feature article in the New York Times about a young writer who had rented a Cybertruck for a week to gauge what kinds of response he would receive when driving around the area and in New England. It turns out that he got a lot of “single finger salutes,” obscene yells and other negative responses during that time.

The author said his mother’s response when he first told her about his proposed experiment was: “I don’t think that’s a very good idea.”

You may have noticed that a lot of Tesla drivers recently have offered up some kind of apology with stickers on the back of their now controversial vehicle. One Cybertruck driver plastered what looked like a genuine “Toyota” banner on the tailgate of their truck in hopes it would fool someone who is not adept as distinguishing different vehicle designs. Another that I saw said “I’m pretending this is a Riven.”

I never did ask the young man about his political preferences, which really wasn’t any of my business. I just hope his crew does a good job on making my old tree look good.

__________

As my wife and I have done times in the past few years, we volunteered this week with members of our church to serve food at our local “El Caldito” soup kitchen for the homeless and disadvantaged. We worked alongside members of the church who we know are on both sides of the political spectrum, but their dedicated work showed no bias and only an understanding that this kind of thing needs to be done by all of us.

As always, it’s a humbling experience that makes one realize how fortunate most of us are. And as always, the people receiving the meals of soup, salad, chicken or turkey patties and desserts appeared to be thankful for the food.

What amazed us was that we served almost 500 people during the three hour shift that we worked — far more than we had served when we did this in previous years.

I’m not writing about this to seek compliments for me or my wife. My only thought is that if you have an opportunity to work in one of these services serving the poor and needy, please do so. Every little bit helps.

Imagine that you’re walking along the dusty main street of Taos, NM, 125 years ago in April. It’s a pleasant day with fragrant flowers and fruit trees in blossom, temperatures in the low 60s, no blustery spring winds and a receding cap of snow on towering Taos Mountain just to your east.

Somewhere in the distance, you hear a steady “pop, pop, pop” noise approaching you. Up the street you spot the source of the noise. It looks like a moving horse-drawn carriage, but without any horses.

As the strange device gets closer, you recognize the person sitting on the bench seat where someone would normally be holding a set of reins to guide the horses. Instead of reins, the man is holding onto what looks like a boat tiller. The popping noise is coming from a crude gasoline fueled engine.

The man on the contraption is Dr. T.P. Martin, the local physician everyone in the small town knows simply as “Doc Martin,” whose office is right on Paseo del Pueblo.

According to an article in the April 30, 1900 edition of the Santa Fe New Mexican, Martin has had an automobile shipped to him from Denver on the old Denver & Rio Grande “Chile Line” narrow-gauge railroad that stopped 50 miles west in Tres Piedras.

“Dr. T.P. Martin, secretary of the New Mexico Board of Health and for years a practicing physician at Taos, recently received from Denver a strictly up to date automobile or gasoline carriage which he intends to use in making trips over the comparatively level road between Taos and the railroad station at Tres Piedras,” the article said. “The distance is about 49 miles and can be covered with the automobile at the rate of fourteen miles per hour. It is expected that the doctor will ride into the capital city (Santa Fe) on his new carriage before many weeks.”

It is believed that this was the first automobile in the state of New Mexico, and it’s likely that it was first driven from Tres Piedras to Taos within a few days of this date, 125 years ago.

Records don’t show what kind of vehicle it was, since there were not many automobile manufacturers in existence at that time, but the newspaper article seems to suggest it was gasoline powered. There is some speculation that it was a design which featured a tiller as a steering mechanism instead of a round steering wheel.

Martin was an interesting character in the early history of Taos. He brought modern medicine to the nearby Taos Pueblo, and to the Penitentes religious sect that was common in northern New Mexico. He was a surgeon and served on the New Mexico Board of Health and also was involved in various civic organizations. His office and home was on Paseo del Pueblo, the main north-south street in Taos. After his death, his widow turned the facility into the “Hotel Martin,” which later became the historic “Taos Inn.” The portion of the hotel which was once his office is now a restaurant named “Doc Martin’s.”

Martin was also involved in the arts scene in Taos, hosting the first meeting of the “Taos Society of Artists” at his home. That meeting on July 19, 1915, was attended by famous artists Ernest Blumenschein, W. Herbert Dutton, Bert Phillips, Joseph Henry Sharp, E. Irving Couse and Oscar E. Beringhaus. They were originally known as the “Taos Six”.  Martin’s sister was married to Bert Phillips.

Here’s a link for the “Taos Society of Artists:”

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

It is believed that the second automobile in New Mexico was brought to Albuquerque in the fall of 1900 by local businessman R.L. Dodson. This particular vehicle was a steam-powered “locomobile” which featured a tiller instead of a steering wheel.

The third car brought to New Mexico was purchased by H.L. Galles, who was born in Hillsborough in Sierra County. He started New Mexico’s first automobile dealership in Albuquerque in 1908 which still operates today under his name. His Cadillac dealership was said to be the third one granted by the luxury car makers in the United States.

Although I could not find the specific connection in Ancestry.com, I believe he must have been a nephew of Nicholas Galles, the man credited with founding the community of Hillsborough and the first president of the old First National Bank of Dona Ana County, where I worked for many years.

I also looked up information about the first automobile in Las Cruces and found that it was a 1915 Ford Model T had been converted into a fire truck. It continued to serve the city until 1934 when it was decomissioned. It was owned for several years by a private individual and was gifted back to the city in 2022.

It’s hard to imagine what it must have been like to drive one of those vehicles in the early 1900s, given the lack of decent roads and primitive technology which could often leave you stranded at the side of the road. When I get into my new GMC pickup truck, I am greeted by color TV screens larger that our first 13-inch black and white home television set. When I drive, I can monitor camera views from at least eight different angles, determine the air pressure in my tires and my fuel consumption. I am protected by a warning system that beeps when I get too close to an object and automatically jams on the brakes when I’m about to hit something going forward or in reverse. I have a satellite connected roadmap of virtually anywhere I go and a source any kind of music or news that I desire to hear. It’s a highly protected and comfortable transportation pod that can lull your senses into forgetting that you’re hurtling down the highway at 75 miles per hour.

I guess drivers in the early 1900s just had to endure enjoying the scenery and the visceral jolting experience as they chugged along at 14 miles per hour through the New Mexico landscape. Actually, come to think of it, that’s not so bad.