I learned last week of the death of John Gierach, a writer whose work I’ve admired for years. His subject was invariably fly fishing, but his messages were always far beyond just the nuts and bolts of the sport and his experiences on the water.

He had written more than 20 books and countless articles for various sporting magazines, including Trout, the official publication of the group I’m heavily involved in, Trout Unlimited. He is credited with coining the phrase “trout bum,” which is one of the titles of his books.

He died Oct. 3 of a massive heart attack at an age dangerously close to mine.

I’ve come to appreciate his careful selection of words, his clever humor, the timing in his writing and the close attention he paid to detail — particularly of the natural world around rivers, lakes and mountains.

Most of what he wrote was about his experiences fishing around the world, but mostly in Colorado where he lived. But always interlaced with his writing was philosophy. Take, for example, this passage from his essay “Trout Candy” in his book “Even Brook Trout Get the Blues.”

“Fly fishing, you see, is supposed to be a very difficult and painstaking business in which success can be rare and fleeting and with complex philosophical undercurrents. That’s the sport’s main attraction and why so many of its practitioners are such misanthropes. We don’t actually hate society, we just feel like we’re plugged into something bigger, better and more interesting, so that the more alienated we become on one hand, the more at home we feel on the other.”

As I said, most of his writing was based on personal experiences, but he did venture into fiction on occasion.

One of my favorite John Gierach fiction pieces is also in his book “Even Brook Trout Get the Blues” and is entitled “The Poacher: A Fictional Fish Story.” The story involves the fictional narrator’s friendship with a larger than life character named Harvey who enjoys the thrill of fishing — uninvited — in private waters to catch lunker trout while risking being caught or even shot at by irate landowners.

Harvey is a philosopher himself.

“Organizations,” he said, “are by definition organized, and therefore both predictable and ineffective. Clear thinking and effective action emanate from a political party focused enough to have only one member.” Harvey then goes on to describe himself as a “Jeffersonian Zen Buddhist Agrarian Anarchist. There are few committee meetings.”

Harvey convinces the narrator to try fishing at a fabulous private lake which he has scouted earlier in his red pickup. He later confesses that he even cut the lock to the property the day before. On the day of the secretive fishing excursion, he drives a different vehicle — a heavily banged up and bandaged Land Rover — to the property and hides it behind some obscuring bushes. Prior to this, he had assured the narrator that he had obtained the landowner’s full permission to enter the property. The reluctant narrator, after catching some giant trout on the lake soon forgets about the danger of poaching. But then both are spotted by the landowner who is literally hopping up and down mad on the other side of the lake before chambering two rounds in his rifle and firing it threateningly into the air.

Harvey quickly concludes they’ve caught enough fish for the day and says it’s time to head home. The two perps escape without harm but are later confronted by the incensed landowner and a sheriff’s deputy at Harvey’s home. The landowner claims to recognize them both and says they snuck into his property in a red pickup. They claim no knowledge of the incident and point to a disabled red pickup in the back yard of Harvey’s house. Cleverly, the day before, Harvey had dismembered the truck’s transmission and scattered its innards on the ground next to it. That way, in case someone wanted to point to it as evidence of a mode of illegal entry, they would find it completely immobile. Harvey then fabricates a story that he was fishing in plain view of the world by a bridge on public waters earlier that day and the narrator quickly invents a claim to have come to Harvey’s house only moments ago “to borrow a pair of pliers.” With no solid proof, the Sheriff convinces the landowner to tuck his tail between his legs and go home.

After another such adventure involving an irate landowner, the storyteller concludes: “So that’s when I stopped going fishing with Harvey.”

And of course, they go on another similar memorable escapade not long afterwards.

As said, it’s great writing in my humble opinion. The stories are short and full of entertainment, some genuine fishing tips and spiked with doses of humor and philosophy. I’d recommend any of his books, which are available in paperback on Amazon.

Mercedes Benz joined with Chinese automaker Zhejiang Geely Holding Group in 1994 to produce the “Smart” brand of very small two-passenger cars for urban markets outside of China.

You still see a few of the “Smart fortwo” models buzzing around, but sales in the United States stopped in 2019 because of a declining demand for such small vehicles. BMW had the better idea for very small cars when it revived the legendary “Mini” brand 2000 and has since sold thousands in America. The cars come in a variety of models and normally seat four people.

I personally think what led to the death of the Smart brand in the United States was the use of a Smart fortwo model driven by the hapless Inspector Clouseau (played by Steve Martin) in the movie “Pink Panther 2.” If anyone as goofy as Clouseau chose a vehicle like the Smart fortwo, then your ownership of one might brand you as being in the same category as the bumbling inspector.

I mention Smart cars because on my way to my temporary job as an election official, I passed by the car in the picture below.

As you can see, the tiny car is squished between the house and a fence on the edge of the street right-of-way. My lumbering GMC Sierra 1500 pickup would have protruded almost halfway to the median of the street if it was parked in the same spot.

And also as you can see in this photo, the vehicle is very well protected by a flotilla of equally small but yappy Chihuahua dogs that made sure I was not welcome when I took the picture. I’m sure these small but fierce dogs can easily fit in the Smart fortwo. Our dog Chester, however, takes up most the entire back seat in our pickup and instead of barking at any dangerous person, he’d be drooling and expecting a treat from them.

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And as a note to my very few readers, my posts will likely be fewer in the next few weeks as I work as a volunteer early voting election clerk. If I have time before or after the days I work, I’ll try to post something if I think it might be interesting to you.

My wife and I attended the Southern New Mexico State Fair last month to watch the Ranch Rodeo competition, which is always a fun event if you’re never seen one. As opposed to professional cowboys riding bulls, busting broncs and roping calves, the Ranch Rodeo events are closer to what real cowboys do during their work. Teams of up to six cowboys from real ranches compete in a variety of entertaining events and are timed for a combined score.

The event I like the most is when a team has to rope a steer, load it into a trailer (which is no easy task with an agitated bovine), then load a horse in the same trailer, then dash to jump into the bed or cab of the pickup pulling the trailer. The horses are particularly entertaining to watch because of their speed, agility and uncanny ability to work with humans to keep ropes tight while the cowboys do their jobs.

My next favorite is the wild cow milking contest, where roping is a bit more difficult because cows don’t have the horns that steers sprout and the animals are much larger than the roping livestock. Cowboys usually resort to pulling on the animal’s tail while two others try to hold it by the head while a fourth tries to get a small amount of milk from the unruly bovine.

But the best part of the evening was when a young woman was singing the Star Spangled Banner and a group of calves being held in pens for an upcoming event decided to join the chorus. I hope you can see and hear the video attached above. It was quite comical, and I’m amazed that the young woman was able to keep her cool while being joined by the calf cacophony.

Otherwise we spent $36 for two corn dogs, one small freshly made lemonade and a pile of curly French fries that probably could have fed the entire population of a third world country (think of El Guacador) for six months. Admission to the fair was reasonable — $15 for each of us with access to everything except for carnival rides. We chose not to go on any of the rides, mostly because I feared I would toss most of my $15 French fries at the top of the “Loop of Death” or whatever the most treacherous ride was called.

I start my duties today, Oct. 8, as an election clerk, Machine Judge and Same Day Registration official for the Nov. 5 general election. My first job is fairly simple — retrieve absentee ballots from the collection box outside the polling place where I will be working during the election and turn them into the Bureau of Elections at the Dona Ana County Clerk’s office. I’ll collect any absentee ballots there three more times before I begin my twelve days of on site work as a Same Day Registration official and Machine Judge and then finish up with one r-e-a-l-l-y long day on election day, Nov. 5.

I’ve already attended two training sessions in preparation for my work. Our procedures will be pretty much the same as they have been for the three previous elections for which I have volunteered. The overriding emphasis in our training is making sure the process is fair and accessible to everyone eligible to vote. As I have said in posts about this previously, the number of security steps we go through make it virtually impossible for someone to manipulate results of the election.

One of the things we learned during this year’s training is that the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Election Data and Science Lab has ranked New Mexico’s election process as the best in the nation. MIT’s ranking system analyzes each state’s voting procedures. New Mexico got the top spot after MIT reviewed “a variety of performance indicators measuring aspects of election administration such as voter registration rates, post-election audits, security protocols, ballot rejection rates, wait times, and more.”

Here’s a link if you want to read more about it:

New Mexico’s Elections Ranked Number One in Nation | Maggie Toulouse Oliver – New Mexico Secretary of State (nm.gov)

New Mexico often ends up 48th, 49th or 50th on many rankings evaluating our state’s performance in such categories as poverty, education, child care, bad drivers, etc., so it’s nice that we are on the top of this particular review.

One thing of interest that was emphasized during our training is that this election is expected to have the highest turnout in recent history. We also learned that in New Mexico there have been more people who have registered as for this election as challengers, watchers and observers than in any previous election.

It will be an interesting election. I urge all of you to exercise your right to vote and have confidence that the process in New Mexico is working well.

“You are requesting information which we have determined does not currently exist and would, therefore, require the TRD (New Mexico Taxation and Revenue Department) to create a new public record.  We are, therefore, unable to provide for inspection of the records that would include the information that you have requested.”

The above is the state’s response to what I thought would be an easily accessible bit of information that I suspect is actually available somewhere and would be of use to quite a few people — automobile manufacturers and dealerships in particular.

What I was seeking was the number of Ferrari and Rolls Royce vehicles registered in the state, by county. It was just something I was personally curious about. I was able to access this exact information easily more than 40 years ago when I was a journalist and Bureau Chief for United Press International in Santa Fe.

When we get our annual registration form or get a title to our vehicle, it clearly contains the make and model of that vehicle. That information is stored in the bowels of some computer mainframe in Santa Fe. I’m not a computer nerd, but I suspect it’s much easier today to do cross reference searches and calculate vehicle type by county than it was four decades ago.

Yet, I’m told by the state that information “does not exist.”

Imagine, if you will, that you are Subaru of North America and you want to see what sales opportunities are in Las Cruces, New Mexico. Las Cruces used to have a Subaru dealership but it disappeared many years ago and we don’t have one now. Yet when you drive our streets, the number of Subarus you see clearly indicates the popularity of the brand. We have one family just down the street from us that has three of them — all relatively new models. When our daughter visits us in her Subaru, I’m sure she would appreciate it if a dealership was available locally if she had any service needs or even wanted to buy a new one.

Yet, according to the New Mexico Motor Vehicle Department (under the Taxation and Revenue Department), Subaru of North America could not determine exactly how many of their vehicles are owned in Dona Ana County and therefore could not determine what kind of market penetration they already have and project the potential for new sales.

I’m sure I’m simplifying what factors are involved in determining what vehicle franchises are awarded in certain markets, but I am pretty sure the type of information I was seeking would be something they would look at before making a decision on a dealership.

And imagine this scenario. State Police are seeking a serial killer somewhere in Valencia County. One of the things police know is that the suspect drives a 1998 dark green Ford van — license plate unknown — that was seen at multiple crime scenes. They try to narrow their search by determining how many of those are in Valencia county, and who they’re registered to, only to be told by another agency that the information “does not exist.”

But I’m not giving up. I suspect that if a representative from a vehicle dealership called the MVD to find this information, they would probably have a more direct line to a data center that could supply that Subaru count in Las Cruces. I have a couple of friends in the new car business that I may ask to see how far they can get with my simple request.

And yes, I know that this is not the kind of hard-hitting investigative local journalism like Woodward and Bernstein did, and I know 99.9% of my readers don’t care. But in my mind, there is a principle about how easy it should be to get information from our state government — especially if it becomes something very important to a larger group of its citizens.

I’ll keep you posted. But of course, you’re free to just ignore my ramblings.

(Imagine you’re listening to the tune of Sonny and Cher’s “And the beat goes on…”)

If I was a resident of New Mexico trying to address a serious problem that I thought state government could help me with, I would have concluded after two days of searching online and by phone that there are no actual humans working for us.

I am college educated, reasonably smart and had a good record of tracking down information from state government when I was a journalist many years ago. For those reasons, I thought it would be relatively easy for me to find out a simple bit of information about how many Ferrari automobiles are registered in our state for a post I wrote on my blog earlier this week. Not so.

So far, I have run into an endless string of dead-end loops of recorded phone menus, useless websites and nothing resembling a place or person where I can find the information I am seeking.

After two days of searching online, I’ve only been able to talk to two live human beings. The first live person I was able to speak to was at the New Mexico Department of Taxation and Revenue, which oversees the New Mexico Motor Vehicle Department, He quickly referred me to a phone number at the Motor Vehicle Department, which — guess what — turned into another endless loop of recorded phone menus.

I thought I’d give my state legislators a call. Neither one of them, Sen. Carrie Hamblin or Rep. Micaela Lara Cadena, had phone numbers listed in the official legislative website. There are e-mail addresses listed for them, but I thought I’d continue to try to talk to a live person.

So I decided to do a moon shot and call the governor’s office. Amazingly, someone in person answered the phone. I told him what I was looking for and his first response was that “I don’t think anyone has that kind of information.” But he agreed to help me and said he would contact someone at the Motor Vehicle Department and have them call me back. I was skeptical that I’d ever hear anything more.

But I guess when the governor’s office calls, people hop into action. I received a call back within about five minutes from a woman with the Motor Vehicle Department. She also said she didn’t think that information would be available, but said I could go on to the New Mexico Department of Taxation and Revenue Department website and fill in a request for that information.

So I submitted an online request form with the simple request for “Number of Ferrari and Rolls Royce vehicles registered in the state by county.”

I will let you know how this turns out. But in the meantime, I can’t help but feel sorry for anyone who lacks the skills to navigate websites or state government phone numbers to get information that they might desperately need. I suspect what I experienced is similar to what one might experience in another state or with the federal government.

I know I’m starting to sound more and more like Andy Rooney, the late curmudgeon from the CBS 60 Minutes TV show who routinely berated what he thought were silly departures from common sense.

But I really think our governments could make things simpler and not let computer nerds or “AI” dictate our choices.

Many years ago, when I was Bureau Chief with United Press International in Santa Fe, the news cycle would predictably slow down during the summer months when the New Mexico Legislature was out of session and bureaucrats went back into hiding to lick their wounds inflicted by the lawmakers.

On top of that, many people were on vacation and people’s focus turned away from state government.

During those times I often wrote longer, more in-depth feature stories about interesting people, places or things in the state.

One summer, as I walked to the post office from my office at the state capitol building, I spotted a bright red (what else) Ferrari zipping around the federal building office building north of the historic Santa Fe plaza.

In New Mexico, Ferrari sightings were pretty unusual then and even now (except when I see some used models on the showroom floor of a car dealership that I visit on occasion).

The sighting prompted me to wonder how many of these magnificent Italian machines were registered in the state of New Mexico, and where were most of them domiciled. At that time, it was pretty easy to call the New Mexico Motor Vehicle Department and drill down the call list to their statistical division and request a report on vehicle registration by type per county. So I wrote a feature story based on that easily obtained data.

Although I can’t recall the exact number of Ferraris in the state, I do recall being surprised when the number at that time was more than 100 (I think I remember it being more like 350, but that memory has long since faded.) And what was most surprising to me was the discovery that at least five of these 12-cylinder beasts were registered in Sierra County, home of Elephant Butte Lake and Truth or Consequences. I figured most would have been domiciled in Bernalillo or Santa Fe Counties, but I found them in such far flung places as Gallup and Clovis.

Fast forward to today. I decided to investigate the Ferrari population in our state at the current time and discovered… that’s it’s almost impossible to get that information.

I started with the New Mexico Motor Vehicle Department. After endless menu selections without a live human voice to respond, I was finally put on hold to listen to classical music. No one ever answered, although I was assured someone would call me back if I left a message. (“Good luck with that,” I thought. ) And none of the menu selections seemed to be pointing me in the direction of the information I sought.

The MVD is now under the auspices of the New Mexico Taxation and Revenue Department, so I thought I would give that agency a call. I got another endless chain of menu selections sounding nothing like I was interested in.

It makes one wonder how you can ever get in touch with a real person in state government, except by driving to Santa Fe and boldly entering into an office and announcing you want to talk to a human. (I’ll hold off writing that blog until another time, however.)

So I decided to try another route. I asked Google “How many Ferrari cars are registered in New Mexico?” I found a site called “Statista,” which sounded Italian, but could not provide the information I needed. I also stumbled across a Ferrari owner’s club site, which had some interesting chats and questions from Land of Enchantment owners.

I found this breathless post:

“My f430 ships tomorrow from Ohio. Would be happy to talk cars or just visit. I am in High Desert NE Albuquerque above tramway.”

It was followed by this tragic response:

“Well you are surely luckier than me. The wind damaged our garage door, and the damaged door was nailed shut trapping my 360 inside. Thus, I am Ferrariless!

But nothing I found on the Ferrari owners website could point to how many Ferraris are in the state. I suspect that no one but me cares, but I am going to do my journalistic best to get to the bottom of this important issue, which I am sure will somehow influence the upcoming elections.

However, I did come across some other rather startling information regarding vehicle registrations in New Mexico: There were 1,783,151 vehicles registered in the state in 2020, including cars, trucks, buses and motorcycles. There were 2,117,000 residents in New Mexico, according to the 2020 Census, meaning that there was more than eight-tenths of a vehicle per person, including a whole bunch of people who weren’t even eligible to drive.

And, if you look at our roads and streets, you’ll surely guess this — there were almost twice as many trucks as there were cars on our roads. And I’m betting at least half of those trucks were Ford F-150s.

A couple of quick updates regarding fish.

Last month, the once endangered Gila trout’s cousin, the Apache trout, was removed from the federal endangered and threatened species list, which is worth another cheer from all of us who love the outdoors. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, formerly a New Mexico member of Congress, made the announcement.

Work on preserving the strain had been underway for more than five decades, about as long as efforts had been in place to remove the Gila trout from the endangered list.

The Apache trout’s habitat is in southeastern Arizona, and there are apparently no known populations in New Mexico. The Gila trout is found mostly in the Gila country of southwest New Mexico, but also has been found in populations in southeastern Arizona. The species are very closely related, but slightly different genetically.

The U.S. Department of Interior says at least 30 separate populations of the Apache trout now exist in southeastern Arizona along 175 miles of streams, almost all of those in the White Mountains of that state.

Having seen photos of the Apache trout and having recently caught several Gila trout, I have to say that the Gila trout appears more colorful, with brighter yellows on its fins and body and more colorful spots.

Here’s what I found on the internet describing the differences in appearance:

“Apache trout are similar in coloration to the Gila trout (Oncorhynchus gilae), however, the yellowish coloration is restricted to the ventral region of the Apache trout (Behnke 2002). Additionally, the Apache Trout have larger and fewer spots compared to the Gila Trout.“

So even if they’re not as pretty as the Gila trout, I’m glad the Apache trout has been taken off the endangered list and will continue to be monitored even though anglers can now catch them in their native Arizona.

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And speaking of Gila trout, things are finally underway to start raising a population of that species in a classroom at Stout Elementary School in Silver City next spring. Because the species is currently being raised in only two hatcheries in the state, getting the okay for the Trout Unlimited’s “Trout in the Classroom” project was a little more complicated than starting a similar program using rainbow trout at Ruidoso last spring. If everything goes according to plan, the fish will be hatched in a tank in a classroom in Silver City early next year and will be released as fry in Lake Roberts in late May.

Meanwhile in Ruidoso, plans are underway to start raising the rainbow trout in the classroom at White Mountain Elementary beginning in late October. It’s hoped that the fish will be a little larger than the ones we released into the Rio Ruidoso last May and will have a better chance of survival. We’re virtually certain that all of the fish we released last spring in Two Rivers Park in Ruidoso died during the intense flooding that followed two major forest fires.

I’m really proud that the teachers wanted to do the program again this year, given what a difficult time it has been for everyone in Ruidoso this summer.

I’ve already been to Ruidoso this fall to help the teachers get set up for the program. I’m scheduled to deliver trout eggs to the class on Oct. 18, driving them from Lisboa Springs hatchery near Pecos to Ruidoso on that date.

Although I’m sure this is getting boring from some of my readers, I’m still enthusiastic about the program and hope we can see more of these started in the future.

Various news agencies have recently reported the closing of the historic St. James Hotel in Cimarron, a property in northeastern New Mexico known for housing many famous Western characters during its heyday.

The hotel, as several other older New Mexico hotels have claimed, is also suspected to be haunted.

Take, for example, the Lodge in Cloudcroft, where the ghost of Rebecca reportedly wanders through the halls at night. Rebecca, whose name is currently used for the hotel’s restaurant, was a chambermaid working at the hotel when she was caught by her lumberjack lover in the arms of another man. Rebecca, who was described as having “shocking” red hair and brilliant blue eyes, disappeared after her tryst was exposed, never to be seen again. The hotel says her ghostly actions include unexplained opening and closing of doors, moving of furniture and objects on tables and lights that go off and on without explanation.

Another interesting hotel in New Mexico is the Hotel Parq Central in downtown Albuquerque, originally a hospital for railroad employees and later an institution for the mentally ill. People have said they occasionally see a woman looking out a window on the top floor of the facility and guests complain that their sheets have been ripped off their bed during the night without any explanation.

The St. James in Cimarron has hosted such guests at Buffalo Bill Cody, Wyatt Earp, outlaws Jesse James and Black Jack Ketchum, famous western author Zane Grey and artist Frederick Remington. About 20 bullet holes in the ceiling of the hotel’s main dining room are attributed to various gunfights staged there over the years.

Reports say at least two of the hotel’s bedrooms are haunted. One was open to guests, but one article said the other was permanently closed because it was occupied by a ghost “so malevolent that occupation was considered hazardous.”

I’m sure the closing of the hotel will come as a great disappointment to paranormal sleuths. But although I never visited the hotel, its closing also is a great disappointment to me and others who relish unique things in our New Mexico history.

The hotel owners say the facility was closed yesterday, Sept. 16, apparently because of problems in finding enough staff to keep it open.

For information on other hotels in New Mexico that are reportedly haunted, you can go to this website:

https://www.onlyinyourstate.com/stays/new-mexico/haunted-hotels-nm

There have been two articles in the Albuquerque Journal recently about an apparent bat infestation at Presbyterian Hospital in that city.

My most memorable bat experiences was the time I was coaching my son’s soccer team in an evening game under the lights and the players — 10 to 12 years old at the time — were more interested in watching bats flying around the field lights to catch bugs than concentrating on their game. Luckily, the kids on the other team were just as distracted and I think we played to a 0-0 draw. The bats, however, scored big on catching bugs flying around the stadium lights.

Presbyterian has hired a company called “Get Bats Out,” a national company specializing in removing the flying mammals that have infested homes and businesses.

However, one California man visiting his uncle at the hospital managed to take care of the bat problem on his own. Nicolas Mascarenas said he first thought a bird had fluttered by him in a hall inside the wing where his uncle was hospitalized, but then realized it was a bat. He noticed hospital employees scurrying around with sheets, hoping to trap the critter,s so he decided to join in the hunt.

But instead of using a sheet, he clapped his hands loudly to scare an animal as it fluttered around a corner and flew — “splat” — right into a glass window.

“It was laying on a white ledge,” Mascarenas said. “I returned to the staff and told them the bat would be easy to catch.”

When I last wrote about the mystery of Henry and Linda Twaddle, whose detail-free obituaries had been running for weeks in our local newspaper, my wife suggested that it was time to “just leave them alone.”

Finally I can do that, now that I have discovered a bit more about them and that they did indeed exist and had some connection to Las Cruces.

Our good friend Cheryl, who is a determined researcher likely due to her long career as a librarian, found some information about the Twaddles that I had not been able to discover. She went on Ancestry.com and found that a son of the Twaddles had once lived and worked in Las Cruces. I assume Linda Twaddle was brought here to be near her son after her husband Henry had died almost two years ago in North Carolina. She died in June of this year, apparently here in Las Cruces.

Cheryl also found information that the Twaddle’s funeral/end of life services were being handled by a company called Willowise, which apparently does on-line celebrations for the departed. I looked up the company and found that it has no physical address, only a phone number and website. The phone number has an Idaho area code and the website offers testimonials from previous customers and information about how to set up a service. The company was apparently founded by a couple who wanted to celebrate the life of the husband’s father, who died of Covid unexpectedly in 2021. The website notes that the as the family “was processing through this sudden loss, we decided a virtual memorial service was going to be the most effective way to honor” the man who had died. I never knew such companies existed, but I guess more and more people are choosing non-traditional church funerals to remember their loved ones who have passed away.

I found this little bit of additional information about Henry Twaddle on the Willowise website:

“Henry J. Twaddle had a variety of interests that reflected his vibrant personality. He was passionate about gardening, often spending hours tending to his plants and flowers. He also enjoyed fishing, which allowed him to relax and connect with nature. Additionally, Henry was an avid reader and loved exploring different genres of literature.“

The website says there will be an online memorial service for the Twaddles at 1 p.m. Mountain Time on Oct. 4. If you’re interested, you can go on the website and register to attend.

I think at this point, I will, as my wife suggested, “just leave them alone.”

The on again, partially on again and completely missing mystery of the Twaddles’ obituary continues.

In an earlier post, I wrote about the twin Twaddle obituaries that appeared for weeks (maybe even months) in the local Las Cruces Sun-News. Separate obituaries for Henry J. Twaddle and Linda M. Twaddle were always published adjacent to each other, with identical wording that seemed to have been generated by an AI copywriter and which breathlessly proclaimed that the Twaddles “will be fondly remembered and sorely missed by all who knew him (or her).”

Mysteriously, the obituary for Henry J. Twaddle, stopped running in the paper for two weeks. Only Linda’s was still running as of Sunday, Sept. 1. However, Henry’s started running again on Tuesday, Sept. 3, but Linda’s was now missing. Then on Wednesday, Sept. 4, both obituaries reappeared. But today, Sept. 5, neither of the Twaddle obituaries are in the Sun-News.

It might be that whoever was paying for the obituaries finally realized that both of the Twaddles died some time ago and that only nerds like me cared about reading the obituaries. Since there was no information about an upcoming funerals or life celebrations, maybe whoever wrote the obituaries concluded it was no longer worth the money to continue publishing both of them.

Of course there could be all sorts of other sinister things going on. What if the obituary was being published to convince a life insurance company that Henry and Linda were dead and the company would have to pay off a policy that’s now letting them live a luxurious life on a remote island in the South Pacific? Maybe they had a big tax lien that they’ve been able to dodge now that the federal government, state or county thinks they’re dead. Or maybe they are in a witness protection program living under the radar as Mr. and Mrs. Twiddle in Moose Breath, Minnesota.

But here’s my theory. I think it’s some kind of secret code, just like the red flag in Bob Woodward’s flower pot that he left to contact Deep Throat while reporting the Watergate scandal. If both Twaddle obituaries are published, everything is on hold. If only Linda’s is published, there is something about to happen. And if Henry’s suddenly reappears, the plan is in action. But what does it mean that both have now disappeared? Is the end of the world upon us?

Every morning for the last couple of weeks, I dashed outside in my sleep togs — hoping none of the neighbors would see me — to find if the newspaper has arrived and whether the Twaddle obituaries were published. I am sure most people’s interest in this story is waning — if there was actually any interest in the first place — but I will stay true to my journalistic instincts and let my dedicated readers know about any new developments.

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On another subject that I had discussed previously in the Albuquerque Journal’s Business Outlook section, I found this new patent application in the official records section:

“Rylans Enterprises LLC, Las Cruces, New Mexico, has been assigned a patent developed by Robert Baca, Las Cruces, New Mexico, for “Chile roaster.”

We need more inventions like that I think, rather an adjacent patent granted for a “transdermal sampling strip and method for analyzing transdermally emitted gasses.” It sounds like something a wife might carry with her to gauge the noxious level of a flatulent “transdermal” emissions from her husband. Actually, that might be worthwhile.

Every summer, we see a few mushrooms pop up in our back yard. As far as we know, they are not a poisonous variety and our dog Chester seems to ignore them. He likes to chase tennis balls, and I was afraid he might confuse one of the rounder fungi for a toy, but he seems to have made a distinction and leaves them alone.

On Thursday of this week when I mowed the back lawn, there were about three mushrooms that the mower quickly dispatched when I passed over them, leaving fluffy white chunks scattered around. By Saturday, there seemed to be a few more, but nothing unusual.

Yesterday, morning my wife noticed them and commented that there must be at least a dozen growing. In the afternoon, I went out to count and the number had grown to about 26.

Today (Monday), the population had — well to use an appropriate term — mushroomed to at least 65.

I did check online and found several sources saying that this variety of mushroom is not toxic and that it actually is a sign of a healthy lawn. The fungi apparently stimulate the soil and form nutrients from decomposing grass clippings and other things.

By the time you read this today our back yard may be completely white. Or, if these are the body snatching pod variety, this might be my last post. Hopefully, our dog Chester will alert us of the danger by barking wildly in the middle of the night. Oh wait, he does that anyway when he concludes that moving air in the back yard is a threat to us, so we’ll never know.

We’ve all been aware of the hard times that Ruidoso residents have been facing since the huge South Fork and Salt fires and subsequent flooding this summer.

Last Sunday, the Albuquerque Journal wrote a great story about how the Ruidoso High School football team was going ahead with its fall season, even though they were shortchanged on their fall practice sessions and many of the players homes were lost in the fire or flooding.

Their first outing was not very successful, with the Warriors losing 50-7 to the always difficult Eunice Cardinals. (When I was a football player at Ruidoso High School centuries ago, the teams in southeast New Mexico that were in our district — Jal and Eunice — would always flog us mercifully.) But I have hope for better things from Ruidoso.

As an example, my pet project at White Mountain Elementary to have students in the 3rd grade raise and release trout is moving ahead, despite the setbacks.

As you may recall, the students at White Mountain Elementary were able to release 13 tiny fish they had raised in their classrooms into the Rio Ruidoso last May, only to have them washed away in subsequent flooding a few weeks later after the devastating South Fork forest fire.

I was very doubtful that the program would be able to continue in the coming school year. Several teachers lost their homes in the fire and/or the flooding, many of the students’ parents lost homes or jobs and had to move away.

Yet the teachers who initiated the Trout Unlimited “Trout in the Classroom” project wanted to give it another try.

We’re hoping to deliver fish eggs from the New Mexico Game and Fish Department earlier this year — hopefully late October or early November — so the fish will be a bit larger when we release them. We’ve also been able to convince the NM Game and Fish Department to let us release the fish in Grindstone Reservoir, which was not affected by the two fires or flooding.

(The only downside is that the fish will probably eventually be caught and eaten by people from out of state — well, mostly one state to the south and east of us — I won’t name names.)

I’m very heartened by the dedication of these teachers and their desire to keep things normal in their community after all the suffering it has endured this summer. As I said before, the two individuals who initiated this program, Michelle Thurston and Rachel Lutterman, are the kinds of teachers we all wanted our kids to have when they were growing up. They expressed no hesitation about getting the program going again.

I’m hoping for a great outcome this year and am looking forward to several trips to Ruidoso this fall and winter to help the program succeed and help show how the community has recovered.

I’ll keep you posted.