As many of you are probably aware by now, President Trump signed an executive order on his first day of office to rename the Gulf of Mexico the “Gulf of America.”

Whether he has the authority to do this and whether the change would be recognized worldwide is not something I’ll delve into, given my desire to keep my blog apolitical.

However, when the incoming President first floated that idea before his inauguration, it generated a flurry of comments, including a suggestion from one pundit that New Mexico might have to be renamed “New America.”

Some of you readers may remember that I wrote a blog several months ago about the possibility that other names may have been suggested for our state. I also questioned whether the name of our state had in some way been responsible for our seemingly endless low rankings on various performance indexes when compared to other states in the union. I’ve always felt that was the case, but have no proof to support my conviction.

However, it true that the name “Montezuma” was once considered as a name for our state, which would make the phrase “Montezuma’s Revenge” an even more pejorative reference to the Land of Enchantment. I also mentioned that my father had once determined that the name “Lincoln” was considered to have been considered as the name for our state. (Think “Lincoln, Lincoln — a town so nice they named it twice.”) I’ve found no evidence of this, but I did discover that alternate names were once considered for several other states.

I offer these as examples:

The name Idaho was at one time considered as the name for Colorado.

Oklahoma might have been named “Sequoyah,” after an indigenous person who taught reading and writing to the Cherokee nation.

A naturalist, Alexander von Humboldt, might have been the namesake for the state of Humboldt — now commonly known as Nevada.

Utah, named after an indigenous peoples in that state, might have been named “Deseret,” after a chapter in the Book of Mormon.

Several alternative names were considered for Maine — New Somerset, Yorkshire, Columbus and Lygonia.

New York almost became New Netherlands and the name Kanawha was considered for the current state of Kentucky.

At one point, a proposal was made to name a western portion of Virginia “Franklin,” after Benjamin Franklin. However, at some point, that western portion of Virginia (named after the “Virgin Queen” of England) became Tennessee.

And Kentucky could have become the horror capital of the nation with a once considered name of — wait for it — Transylvania.

In my online research, I found that at least 23 states’ names were of indigenous people’s origins (including New MEXICO which is of Aztec origin.) Eleven other states were named after individuals and New Mexico might have been the 12th if we had become Lincoln.

It’s an old adage that having four wheel drive in your vehicle only gets you stuck further away from help.

I experienced this first hand when I was in high school and owned a surplus World War II Jeep (made by Ford) and did my best to prove it could go anywhere.

Unfortunately it didn’t always work out that way.

I remember one such foray onto an old logging road in the Upper Canyon area of my home town in Ruidoso. As I was moving slowly along the long abandoned road, the right side of the roadway began slipping away, thanks to some recent rains and my inattention to exactly where I had pointed my front wheels.

The Jeep suddenly slipped sideways on the road and left me hanging in suspension between the front and rear axles. I managed to get out of the vehicle without tipping it further over to its right side, then took a humiliating four mile hike back to town to let my father know about my predicament.

A heavy duty tow truck (also of World War II vintage and with four-wheel drive) managed to get close enough to my stranded Jeep that it was able to snatch it from its precarious position with a long cable. In the end there was no damage to the Jeep — only to my ego.

I mention this because of the car I spotted last week while taking a load of trash to our landfill on the East Mesa. The driver apparently figured he could turn off the paved road and park on a flat spot adjacent to it. I’m not sure if his (or her) intention was to start going on a hike or perhaps find a secret spot just off the highway where the driver could spend a few amorous moments with his or her partner.

The turn out ended up being covered with very soft sand and left the vehicle stranded without any way to gain traction once the rear wheels had spun out any sand that might have provided the footing needed for a slow retreat.

I’m sure the owner was able to find someone with a stout winch or tow rope to extricate the vehicle, but I suspect they’ll give a second thought to where they park in the future.

Last week, we experienced an unusually heavy (for southern New Mexico) snowfall. The snow began in the morning and lasted most of the day. At our home, we accumulated about three inches, which was more than the frosting that the Organ Mountains received.

The snow was very wet. It was perfect for snowball fights and crafting snowmen. Oddly, the snowmen we saw in our neighborhood looked like they were wearing a layer of fur because of leaves that stuck to them during the rolling process to create their various sections. I wish the storm had come a week or so earlier so all of our grandchildren — who are geographically deprived of much or any snowfall — could have enjoyed it when they were here over the holidays.

Growing up in the mountain community of Ruidoso, I remember lots of heavy snowfall events fondly. As a kid in school, we always hoped it would snow enough to lead to cancellation of school so we could go out and make dangerous runs for our sleds or engage in snowball fights with neighborhood arch enemies. But of course the downside was that in the late spring toward the end of the semester, we would have to make up any snow days on Saturdays. Yuk!

I remember the sound of snow scrunching under my rubber galoshes. I remember making snow ice cream with a little milk, some vanilla and lots of sugar. I remember how much trouble it was to put on all the layers of cold weather clothing our mother thought we needed to play outside during a storm. I remember snow being piled so high in the middle of our main street that you could not see vehicles in the opposite lane. I remember having the exhausting task of shoveling heavy snow accumulations off our outside deck because my father was afraid it would collapse from the weight. And perhaps in a case of revenge, I remember driving my father’s Jeep station wagon out to a paved parking lot and spinning it in endless donuts in the snow.

And I especially remember the quietness during a heavy snowfall. With large fluffy snowflakes falling in the air and muffling many normal ambient sounds, it was strangely quiet. The only exception seemed to be when vehicles that had been chained up to get through the snow would drive nearby and you could hear the constant click, clack, clack sound of the end of the chain slapping against the inside of a fender. The snowfall was usually so heavy that you could not actually see the vehicle making the noise — just the constant clicking telling you it was somewhere nearby.

I also remember how much I enjoyed skiing in heavy snow storms, most memorably one about 20 years ago when my daughter and I rode a slow chairlift together at Ski Apache. It was a very heavy snowfall and we could barely make out the chair in front of us, creating a sense that we were away from the rest of the world inside some kind of white, soft, fluffy cocoon It was a magic moment that I’ll always remember and doubt I’ll ever be able to replicate.

With climate change looming larger every day, I suspect many of my other snow memories won’t be repeated either. (Not that I’d actually want to eat snow ice cream again.)

In 1973, when I was Santa Fe bureau chief and political reporter for United Press International, a particularly sensitive topic was on the agenda of the New Mexico Legislature.

It was a vote on whether the Legislature would approve the national Equal Rights Amendment to the United States Constitution. Although New Mexico was one of 30 states that eventually ratified the amendment, the required number of 38 states needed to make it take effect was never met. In fact, five of the states which had at one time voted to approve it later tried to rescind their approval of the amendment.

Opposition to the amendment came largely from conservatives. Leading the charge was political activist and attorney Phyllis Schlafly whose supporters claimed the ERA was a threat to the traditional role of women as homemakers. Schlafly made many arguments against the ERA, including that it would dismantle financial support for women as legal dependents of their husbands and would lead to gender-neutral bathrooms, same-sex marriage and women in military combat. Liberal supporters claimed there was a conspiracy by old white men to keep women barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen and out of the executive suites of the nation.

On the day on which a vote for approval of the amendment was scheduled, a severe snow storm had moved into northern New Mexico. Tension was already high in the state capitol that day, with rumors being spread that women had been seen using men’s bathrooms in the capitol building and that violent demonstrations would break out if the amendment was either approved or defeated. As the debate moved into the evening in the packed Senate chamber, snow-packed roads into and out of Santa Fe became treacherous.

As proponents and opponents to the amendment came to the podium during the debate to express their views, I could feel the tension in the room rising. The Democratic Lieutenant Governor at the time, Roberto Mondragon, was chairing the Senate session when unexpectedly, he was tapped on the shoulder by an aide and halted the debate.

He said there was an important announcement that needed to be made. Many of those in the Senate chamber, including me, wondered if it was going to be an announcement of some kind of political maneuvering that would put the process in turmoil.

But when a State Police Major (and I can’t recall his name) stepped up to the speaker’s platform, we are all a bit alarmed about what might be happening.

“Ladies and gentlemen, or gentlemen and ladies,” he began as he addressed the packed chamber. His words captured the essence of the debate and left some in the room worrying about whether something inappropriately political might come next.

“You are all aware that there is a serious snow storm outside right now,” he began, while dressed in his somewhat intimidating black uniform. “I wanted to advise you that the roads out of Santa Fe, this evening… (a long pause)… are all paved.”

The room burst into laughter and we all felt an immediate release of tension with his perfectly timed bit of humor.

He went on to describe the road conditions, urged everyone to use caution when going home and left the podium to a round of applause.

The state’s approval of the amendment was eventually approved that evening without incident.

I mention this because of what happened at former President Jimmy Carter’s funeral services last week.

One of those who gave a eulogy was Andrew Young, former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations during Carter’s administration, Civil Rights leader, former mayor of Atlanta and Congressman from Georgia. His praise for Carter’s many accomplishments was woven with a tapestry of references to the South and the the relationships the former president had with minorities — particularly Blacks.

At one point during Young’s eulogy praising Carter and his accomplishments, he paused for what seemed like a very long time, then confessed that he hoped the the next thing he said would not be “anything disrespectful.”

For many of us listening, I think we feared he may be making an uncomfortable mark directed at incoming President Donald Trump, who was in sitting front and center at the funeral. Similar to that moment in Santa Fe many years ago, you could feel the tension in the room rising.

But instead, Young said:

“Uh, (long pause)… I still find it hard the believe that a future president of the United States could come from Plains, Georgia.”

The audience at the National Cathedral burst into laughter. It was perfect timing for a tension relieving comment like that. In my mind it was a example of what makes some individuals great statesmen (or stateswomen).

I’ve attached a link to Young’s comments at the Carter funeral. I hope you find it as uplifting and refreshing as I did. (His comment comes fairly early in the video clip.)

Monday’s Albuquerque Journal served up two stories of interest to me that have prompted me to offer some thoughtful responses. (Well at least in my warped way of thinking.)

The first was the listing of the Albuquerque home where the character Walter White of the TV series “Breaking Bad” was filmed.

The home, now surrounded by a serious fence and safety pylons to keep out all of the gawkers who frequently drive by the home while on a tour of local Albuquerque sites used in the series was filmed, has been listed for sale for $4 million. Keep in mind that this is a 1900 square-foot tract home in an otherwise unexceptional neighborhood in Albuquerque’s aging Northeast Heights.

The realtor justified the asking price, which is about $3.6 million above comparable home values in the neighborhood, was because of its “iconic value.”

“We compared it to other properties featured in TV shows and movies and knew this would attract even more attention, given its significance to fans,” said realtor David Christensen.

Granted, we enjoyed “Breaking Bad,” even though I think it cast a rather negative light on Albuquerque because of the drug culture portrayed in the city. But would I want to live in that home for $4 million, just so I could brag about it to my friends but have to put up with endless streams of rubberneckers?

But wait, I have a thought. I think my very good friend Mark, a former next door neighbor and realtor who moved to Albuquerque a couple of years ago, can help me out. I believe my current home might be worth a lot more these days now that I am a famous blogger on the Internet. I’m going to ask Mark to list our humble abode in Las Cruces for a modest $2 million, then wait for the offers to roll in above listing price. Then I’ll probably move down the street and around the corner to a much fancier house that I’ve always lusted for and wait for its value to increase exponentially before moving on to the next big property.

I’m waiting for your call, Mark, to make this all happen.

In the meantime, I’ve come up with another great income producing plan.

The Albuquerque Journal’s Business Outlook says a new company has been formed in Albuquerque called “Hike Doggie.”

When I read the article about the venture, I felt like I was listening to an episode of “Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me,” on our local NPR station. That program has a segment that asks panelists to guess which one of three preposterous stories is actually true. This story fits that mold.

In the case of “Hike Doggie,” residents of the Albuquerque area can pay professional dog walkers to take their dogs on a $120 per day hike in the mountains or wilderness areas to enjoy alfresco New Mexico, get a treat, then a bath to remove all those nasty outdoor encounters, and then return to their home in a pet friendly van. These dogs, I suspect, are from homes of DINKs (Double Income, No Kids), who are pampered beyond reasonable expectations.

In Las Cruces, the only mountains nearby are in the spectacular Organ Mountain National Park. Unfortunately, most trails are closed to dogs because of environmental concerns.

So what’s a Pampered Pet owner to do? Well, call us at “Bike Doggie.”

For just a paltry $100, we’ll put your pooch in an eco-friendly, padded dog crate on the front of a trendy electric bicycle and buzz them along the trails adjacent to the Rio Grande. We’ll stop on occasion to let them sniff ground squirrel holes, slop around in any turgid water that might be in the mighty river and then encourage them to poop and pee on anything nearby. At the end of your doggie adventure, we’ll remove any goat heads and Johnson grass burrs they encountered on their paws during their excursion, then return them to your home. They already washed themselves in the Rio Grande, so we won’t charge you for that.

I’ll be taking reservations once I can get my website up with links to my home real estate opportunity.

I’ve gone to several high school reunions in my home town of Ruidoso. At each one of them, someone brings up one of the more embarrassing moments of my school days.

Do they remember the game saving tackle I made in our football battle against arch-rival Capitan in October of 1964? Did they remember my stellar performance in the Senior Class Play that (in my mind) was worthy of an Oscar? Did they remember that the Future Homemakers of America picked me for best groomed hair in high school? (Well okay, that last one was a bit dubious.)

No, they don’t remember those and many other high high points in my school days. What they remember was something really dumb that I did in fourth grade when i accidentally got my head stuck in a school desk during a 4th grade class. Yes, it’s true.

I’m not sure why on that particular January day in Mrs. Hawkins class I decided to poke my neck through the opening between the metal support bar on the right side of the desk and the seat. I seemed to be functioning normally in class when a five-amp fuse in my brain must have blown and made me wonder if my head could fit somewhere it was not supposed to go. So while Mrs. Hawkins was scribbling something instructional on the chalkboard, I got out of my seat, lurched sideways and forced my head into an unlikely receptacle. (My wife says she was not surprised to learn about this incident because I’ve probably been a little bit ADD and fidgety all my life.) At any rate, once my head went into the tight opening during the previously uneventful classroom session, I discovered that I could not extricate it. As my fellow students began sniggling and chuckling at my stupidity and misfortune, I let out a yowl that frightened Mrs. Hawkins and was heard all the way down the hall in the office of our principal, Mr. Bruce.

Mr. Bruce quickly summoned our school janitor, Mr. Fox, who soon arrived on the scene with a set of wrenches. Mr. Fox was an amiable old guy who always wore a black bow tie with his monochrome gray pants and shirt that reflected his usual unemotional demeanor. But even he conjured up a smile and a chuckle when he saw my predicament and foolishness.

With a few twists of a wrench, the metal bar was disconnected and I could remove my head from the trap and return to classroom activities. Needless to say, however, the classroom never quite recovered that day from the excitement, with my fellow students anxious to ride home on the bus to tell their parents what a ridiculous thing I had done. Decades later, I am still remembered for that incident.

I mention this because a story in the news last week explained that a cow elk in my old home town of Ruidoso had somehow entangled its head in a metal chair or bar stool it found outside a home.

Several people spotted the forlorn animal, photographed it and reported it to the New Mexico Game & Fish Department. That agency was able to track it down last week and tranquilize the animal to remove the unwanted bit of furniture. The animal recovered and is doing okay.

What was interesting to me about the story is that the Game and Fish Department said there had been no less that three similar incidents last January.

“This incident is not the first time an elk has found itself tangled up in outdoor furniture,” the Albuquerque Journal reported. “According to Game and Fish, ‘In January 2024, officers captured and removed lawn furniture from three cow elk in the course of one week.'”

After reading that, it became suspicious that there may be some kind of evil vortex that swirls around during the month of January in the Ruidoso area which makes hapless animals and dim-witted humans like me want to stick their heads in unusual nooks and crannies in furniture. However, I’m hoping this oddity can just be blamed on misguided curiosity and fidgety behavior.

And I’m sorry, Mrs. Hawkins, that I disrupted your class that day.

On several occasions since I’ve been writing this blog, I have been surprised when someone unexpected from my past sends me a me a note saying they’ve liked what I’ve written and want to reconnect. They usually explain how they tracked me down from a friend’s recommendation, many times from people I didn’t know were following my blog.

So it was a few weeks ago when I got an unexpected e-mail from Tom Toppino, a friend from college, who caught me up on his life and reminded me of a story we experienced together when we lived in nearby bungalows in the Old Town section of Albuquerque.

In this particular case, it regarded an unusual individual who called himself Ulysses S. Grant, reincarnated. I wrote a previous blog about Grant, but the note from my college friend turned up some new details about the character.

“Ulysses” was a hippie type who lived in a commune called Lower Farm near Placitas northeast of Albuquerque. For reasons I can’t recall, he managed to draw attention to himself and then announced in 1969 that he was running as a Republican candidate for governor of New Mexico. His plan was to visit every county in the state while riding his old swayback horse, “Blue” on the campaign trail. He wore striped Civil War era cavalry trousers while campaigning.

I was working for United Press International on the evening shift at the time and decided an interview with Ulysses might make an interesting feature story. So one weekend when I wasn’t working on the news desk or fretting about upcoming college projects, I drove to Placitas to find and interview him.

He was easy enough to find and willing to do an interview. (Aren’t all politicians running for office anxious to be interviewed?) I only remember a few things about the interview. One was that he had an incredibly large barrel of soy sauce in his cabin that served as a chair and whose contents he shared with other members of the commune. I also remember that during the interview while walking around the compound, he decided to relieve himself and did it unashamedly in an open field front of a young woman who had accompanied me for the day. And the third thing was his pronouncement that when he was elected governor, he would build no more roads in the state and not repair any that already existed.

“We have enough already,” he declared.

My story about Grant was distributed nationwide by UPI and featured the photograph below:

Grant managed to get six write-in votes during the 1970 New Mexico primary.

During the interview, I must have told him where I lived and he showed up unexpectedly a few days later riding his horse Blue. He became friends with my pot-smoking roommate at the time and stayed overnight at our place at least once. He enjoyed smoking with my roommate (I was too busy with full-time work and a full college load to participate) and he especially liked riding around in my roommate’s slick Triumph Spitfire sports car.

“I’m not supposed to like modern material things like that, but it’s a really cool car,” he confided to me one day.

Some time after that, there was a report that he had shot and killed two member of the commune and promptly vanished, along with his wife who reportedly had been assaulted by one of the individuals who was killed.

I never heard any more about him, until I got the e-mail from my college friend a few weeks ago. Tom, now a retired professor at Villanova, said his son had become interested in the matter of Ulysses S. Grant, which led to the successful effort to track me down.

I found out Grant’s real name was Donald Waskey and that he was never apprehended for the crimes in New Mexico. However, his charred body and the body of a woman who was believed to have been his wife, were found 18 years later in a burned out building near Bonner’s Ferry, Idaho.

On an internet search, I ran across a story written by Ron Franscell, a self-proclaimed author of some true crime novels which offered this information:

“In the rubble of a house fire near Bonner’s Ferry, Idaho, deputies found two charred bodies. Both had been shot in the back of the head and the fire intentionally set. In a nearby barn, investigators found more than a thousand thriving marijuana plants—the biggest indoor pot farm Idaho had ever seen—along with a cache of assault weapons, machine guns, and rifles with night-vision scopes. They also found booby traps throughout the facility, later estimated to have produced almost $2 million worth of pot every month.“

Authorities believe the murders in Idaho were conducted by a member or members of a rival pot raising operation.

My college friend Tom also had this recollection of meeting Grant in our Old Town neighborhood.

“I remember that he stayed at your house one night. His horse stayed in my backyard! I’m not sure whether it was the same night, but he came over one time when you guys weren’t home. I was fixing dinner, so I invited him to join me, and he accepted. I was in the kitchen preparing the meal (to the extent that my culinary skills allowed), while Ulysses was hanging out in my living room. He came into the kitchen after a while to show me a picture of Ulysses S. Grant that he had found in a magazine I had lying around. I said something like, “Oh, a picture of your namesake!” He looked at me very seriously and emphatically said, “No. This is me.” I didn’t think of him in quite the same way after that.”

In another interesting twist, I also ran across another picture of Grant that was taken by another old friend of mine, journalistic colleague and photographer, Buddy Mays. Buddy now lives in Bend, Oregon, and has also written several books in addition to his award winning photographs. I’d show you the image, but it was sold to Getty Images and to use it would cost me $175. The photo shows him sitting on a log somewhere in New Mexico, with another unidentified man next to him. In the photo, Grant was wearing his traditional cavalry-issue striped pants.

Our son, Tyler, was born the day after Christmas in 1978 while my wife and I were living in Albuquerque.

A few weeks before he was born, I recall going to the obstetrician’s office for what would be my wife’s final checkup before delivery. While visiting with the doctor, he complained that he had spent the last several nights folding hundreds of luminaria sacks to line the streets and surround his house in the old Country Club neighborhood of Albuquerque.

“I would watch whatever NBA games were on TV and fold sacks like some kind of non-stop machine,” he told us.

I secretly worried that his skillful surgeon’s hands and fingers might be out of commission from the frantic activity by the time our son was due.

The Country Club area of Albuquerque was known then and still today for its spectacular displays of luminarias during the Christmas season. Cars still choke the streets of the neighborhood to get a view of the flickering lighted paper sacks lining the streets and adorning the historic homes there.

Of course, these days, displays of luminarias are common in virtually every city and town in New Mexico and the tradition has grown beyond the state.

My display of luminarias peaked in the 1990s when I would put out more than 225 at our home in Las Cruces, including lining the roof of our Southwestern style home. Getting up on the roof these days would be a little more challenging for me, so I’ve stopped doing that. However, with the help of visiting grandkids, we still put out about 150 along our street and lining our driveway and sidewalk on Christmas Eve.

I remember reading something my son brought home when he was in high school which tried to explain how living in Las Cruces was so unique.

“A brown paper bag of sand and a votive candle are considered normal Christmas decorations,” it said.

From my online research, the tradition of luminarias began more than 430 years ago in the state. An entry from the New Mexico History Museum blog has this to offer:

“In a Dec. 3, 1590, journal entry, Spanish explorer Gaspar Costaño de Sosa mentioned the small bonfires his cohorts had lit to guide a scout back to camp. Luminarias, he called them…”

At some point, the word farolitos was substituted for the word luminarias, since the word depicted a small lantern. Sometime in the 1800s, when the tradition of decorating the outside of your New Mexico hacienda at Christmas with small bonfires from your limited pile of winter firewood became a concern, someone came up with the idea of using paper bags, sand and a candle.

In northern New Mexico, many people continue to prefer the word farolitos while south of I-40, the word luminarias has become more commonplace.

Again quoting from the New Mexico History Museum blog:

In the 1930s, as more people got the paper-bag bug, newspaper articles dithered, alternately calling them farolitos, linternitas, and farolillos. In 1958, the august New York Times chimed in, but said Albuquerqueans called them farolitos, further confusing the geography.

Before his 1996 death, Fray Angélico Chavez himself waded into the debate and essentially concluded, “Whatever.”

What I have learned is that whenever I write about “luminarias,” spell checkers are constantly trying to change that word to “luminaries,” which is not a word I would use to describe the wisdom of whoever wrote the spell checker rules.

About a year ago, I reconnected with my stepsister — the only daughter of my father’s second wife. I had not seen or heard from her in many years. She somehow found me through a search process, which I think was rather difficult since I don’t have a Facebook account or post on any other social media platforms. (The only thing I do on the Internet is write this blog a few times a month when something strikes my interest.)

To make a long story short, her mother had died fairly recently and my stepsister was checking to see if I wanted some of my father’s old things that she had kept. She delivered them on a trip to visit friends in El Paso last spring. Among them were some old Ruidoso News issues that were published in the 1960s when my father owned that publication. There were also some of his drawings and paintings, a personal note from Charles M. Schulz of “Peanuts” fame and an old clunky typewriter that I didn’t remember my father owning. I mentioned some of these in previous blogs, but I didn’t know much about the typewriter, a very old Oliver No. 9, often playfully referred to as the “batwing” model because of its unusual design.

Last week, my wife found a newspaper article about old typewriters being used by two local writers in what they call an “act of public typing” at a local coffee shop. They use the typewriters to pound out stories or letters with a simple mechanical device that is not connected to any electronic network. According to one of the writers, the simplicity of the machine allowed him “to get away from all of the distractions and just be present with my own thoughts.”

That piqued my interest in the old Oliver typewriter that had been largely ignored and gathering dust in my office. (I even found a couple of tiny dead spiders underneath the keyboard.)

I checked the internet for information about the typewriter and found that certain models of this device can fetch more than $1,000 if in good condition. I also looked at the history of the brand and discovered that it was invented by a pastor, Thomas Oliver, who wanted to make sure the sermons he was writing were more legible when he read them to his congregation. The design was patented in 1892 and production began in 1894. The company was based in Woodstock, Illinois, near Chicago. The typewriters were produced until 1928, when an English company bought the brand.

The design was unique at the time because writers could actually see what they had typed on the paper. Most of the earlier models were in a heavy cast metal base painted dark green — an “olive” color in honor of the inventor’s last name.

The typewriters are very heavy. My particular model has two two-inch curved protrusions on each side to allow a person to lift the device more easily and hopefully avoid a back sprain.

The type fonts swoop down onto the roller holding paper from U-shaped arms, one on each side with a satisfying clacking sound to form the letters. The keyboard is a standard “qwerty” design in three rows.

I have not been able to determine what year my model No. 9 is. The plate which I think had that information printed on it has been smoothed over during the years. The best I can guess is that it was made about 1917 because of a list of patent renewal dates listed on two separate plates at the back of the machine. The most recent date of the patent renewals is 1917.

Now that I know a bit more about the machine, I plan to clean it up and maybe start using it on occasion. It appears to still be in working order and I will abide by the instructions on its front which urge me to “Keep Machine cleaned and oiled.”

Of course, if you want to see what I wrote on it, I’ll have to scan it on my printer/fax machine, send it to my laptop, then convert it to a PDF file, save it to my photos file or the Cloud, then convert that to a jpg file, then insert it into my blog using the complicated “WordPress” program. That kind of defeats the goal of keeping things simple by using a typewriter.

Yes, readers, they are indeed related.

You may recall that earlier this fall, I decided to do a post updating on a story I wrote many years ago while Bureau Chief and State Political Editor for United Press International in Santa Fe. The story involved my curiosity about how many exotic vehicles were registered in our relatively small population base in New Mexico.

Working then directly with the New Mexico Motor Vehicle Department, I was able to obtain that information rather quickly. I discovered that there were more exotic car brands registered in the state than I had expected, including in such unexpected locations as Truth or Consequences.

Fast forward 50 years and my initial inquiries to find the same information ran into a brick wall. To begin with, it was impossible to find a live person to talk to at the Motor Vehicle Department, even after going through multiple recorded menus. I was directed — by a voice recording — to the New Mexico Taxation and Revenue Department, which now oversees the MVD. I got nothing but more recorded menus and nothing remotely close to the information I wanted.

I then called the governor’s office and spoke to a live person. They gave me the name of someone in the Taxation and Revenue Department, who then referred me to a process to request such information through the state’s Open Records process. After filing such a request, I got a message back that “no such information exists.”

Stonewalled and becoming more frustrated, I decided to seek help from my New Mexico State Representative, Michaela Lara Cadena. (Full disclosure: We contributed a small amount of money to her first campaign a few years ago, but I doubt she remembers that. I also mentioned in my request that she and my daughter once played on the same high school soccer team, which she acknowledged.)

I sent her an e-mail and within a day, she responded. She said she would direct her Constituent Services Representative, Marijka Cunningham, to help me track down the information. My quest was delayed for a couple of weeks while I volunteered as an election clerk, but as soon as that was finished, Marijka picked up the pace and directed me to a woman at the Motor Vehicle Department, April Vigil. April then forwarded my request to agency Project Manager Sean Bulian. I received the information on Nov. 25 in a nicely prepared Excel spreadsheet.

Once I had contacted my State Representative, the process to get the information I sought was fast and efficient. I was beginning to conclude that everything in State Government was as bogged down as many naysayers proclaim. To my delight and surprise, it worked well once you got to the right person. And to be honest, my request was not nearly as important as many other projects that these individuals work on daily. Still, they were all very pleasant to deal with and professional in their response.

I do have to admit that it was a bit annoying to have to go through as many steps as it took to finally talk to someone in person. And I wonder if someone who has no personal connection to someone in state government, their legislator or the governor will get a response to their inquiry.

I think endless recorded telephone menus are just the norm these days, regardless of whether it’s state government or your cable or cell phone provider. I’d honestly be willing to pay a few extra bucks a year to be able to reach a live (and knowledgeable) person when I need customer support.

Enough pontificating. So what did I discover with this updated information?

Well, the most surprising thing is that one or maybe two people in extremely rural Catron County in far western New Mexico own exotic Ferraris. This is the part of the state where the standard vehicle is a Ford F-250 dually with a gun rack in the back window and a winch on the front bull bar. Cruising a bright red Ferrari in downtown Reserve with a snarling V-12 would definitely get you noticed in a town where people work hard not to be noticed and many prefer to live off the grid.

Here are some other interesting discoveries about exotic vehicle registrations in New Mexico. There are 565 Ferraris registered in the state, 414 Maseratis, 242 Bentleys, 106 Lamborghinis, 91 Rolls Royces and 140 Tesla Cybertrucks.

As expected, Bernalillo, Santa Fe, Dona Ana and Sandoval County (Rio Rancho), have the most exotic cars.

For some reason, Maserati is a hot commodity in oil-rich Lea County (Hobbs, Lovington), where 15 of them reside, the fifth highest count among all 33 counties.

Lincoln County (Ruidoso and home for lots of ex-pat Texans) seems to have lots of exotics for its population size. There are 12 Bentleys, eight Ferraris, five Maseratis and one Lamborghini residing there.

And Grant County (Silver City) had a surprising 21 Ferraris registered there — not too far away from the two lonely units in adjoining Catron County.

Rio Arriba County (Espanola), likely because of its proximity to Santa Fe, had two Ferraris, two Lamborghinis and one Rolls Royce there.

Bernalillo County had 231 Ferraris registered in and around the Duke City, 137 Maseratis, 97 Bentleys, 40 Lamborghinis and 37 Rolls Royces.

With Bernalillo County holding first place for the number of Cybertrucks — 60 — Dona Ana County and Las Cruces came in second at 18. Santa Fe claimed 15 and Sandoval county had 16. The strangest place I found a Tesla Cybertruck was truly rural Mora County, which had one. I suspect there aren’t many Tesla charging stations around that part of the state.

So that’s the conclusion of my research that no one — except maybe for maybe a few nerdy gearheads — really cared about. And if you need some information from your state government and get stonewalled, I hope you’ve got someone as responsive as my state representative.

I’ve attached the information I received if you are interested in looking at it.

(A SPECIAL EDITION OF MY BLOG FOR YOUR THANKSGIVING DAY READING)

Last Saturday, Albuquerque radio station KKOB staged a promotion in which hundreds of rubber duck “turkeys” offering various prizes were dropped from the station’s hot air balloon over a crowd at Balloon Fiesta Park.

It was reminiscent of the 1978 episode of the television series “WKRP in Cincinnati” in which live turkeys were dropped from a helicopter over a local shopping mall as part of a Thanksgiving promotion. The incident was reported by the station’s hapless reporter Les Nessman who had said “as God as my witness, I honestly thought turkeys could fly.”

A the turkeys plummet to earth, Nessman goes into his over the top reporting mode:

“Oh, the humanity! People are running about. The turkeys are hitting the ground like sacks of wet cement! … Children are searching for their mothers and oh, not since the Hindenburg tragedy has there been anything like this.”

Hopefully, none of the rubber ducks or people on the ground were injured during the Albuquerque promotion last weekend. However, I discovered an article in the Omaha World Herald this morning in which a real turkey drop was staged in 1946 in the town of Alma, Nebraska. Alma is a small farming community on the Nebraska-Kansas state line, population about 1,500. (The nearest town is named Prairie Dog.)

According to the Omaha World Herald, the Alma promotion was organized by the Alma Chamber of Commerce. Local pilot Jim Waldo was tabbed to release 20 turkeys over the downtown area of the city. Because his plane was small, he could only carry 10 of the birds at a time, so he had to make two passes to release all 20 on that fateful fall Saturday morning.

As it turns out, the birds could actually fly — maybe flutter is a better word. A story in the local newspaper, the Harlan County Journal, said one woman was especially lucky in catching one of the turkeys.

“Two or three of the birds set their sails at a high altitude and really gave the boys and gals a run for their money,” the Journal reported. “The honors for being the luckiest of the day must be awarded to Miss Ruth Swindell. She was in her Main Street apartment, confined with the mumps. As she watched the scene of flying turkeys and lunging chasers, a big turkey landed on top of the porch next to her window.”

“Before Mr. Turkey could gain his bearings,’’ the Journal reported “She opened the window and pulled him into her apartment, and while still holding the prize, called for assistance over the telephone.”

And in another similar promotion in 1930 in in the Florence neighborhood of Omaha, turkeys were released from rooftops of local businesses as a Christmas promotion.

To close out the turkey story with a New Mexico angle, an article in today’s Albuquerque Journal says that researchers at New Mexico Tech in Socorro have created a flying drone using a turkey that had been preserved by taxidermy and infused with a flying drone platform. According to professor Mostafa Hassanalain, the taxidermed turkey and ducks are being created to help understand wildlife and possibly learn more about aerodynamics by studying nature.

So however you got your turkey today, I hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving.