Guns 'n' Things

Guns are a big thing in the southwest. The Arizona legislature this year established Colt as the Official State Gun - the first state not only to name a state gun, but the first to name an on-going commercial business product as the state official anything. Truly, the business of government, at least in AZ, is business - and a deadly one at that (pun intended).

Here in Roswell, at least, the open carry law is not in effect, but if you take a 3 hour class given by the Roswell Police Department, you can get a certificate enabling you to carry a concealed weapon. Which, you can carry, concealed, anywhere unless expressly prohibited - like at the heart doctor's office we went to yesterday. This is the sign on the front door.

New Mexico, on the other hand, just designated an official state necklace - the Navajo squash blossom necklace.




News from the local zoning wars: In the 1990's, the city council specifically allowed property owners in one part of town to put a mobile home on their property if the owner got a majority of property owners within 100 feet of the proposed lot to consent. The ordinance was designed to allow people who couldn't afford to build a house, to own land and live on it. Well, Mr. A secured the appropriate signatures and applied for and was given a permit to put a mobile home on his property. It's a 1977 some-brand trailer. Mr. B, who lives 7 lots away down the street, was indignant and has complained to the planning commission. His reasoning: "With the work I've done on my house since I bought it in 2006, it's now worth between $30,000 and $40,000. With the trailer there, it's going to be worth less." He is concerned more trailers will be permitted. "This is already a run down neighborhood; they're throwing us to the dogs. It's like they're saying, Let's pack all the rats over there in one corner..."

I bet he's a hit with his neighbors!

But there are streets in many parts of town where there are trailers, next to houses, next to abandoned lots with a crumbling adobe on it, next to a car repair shop ("Carbs and Tunes"), next to a beauty shop, standing in the middle of a bare dusty lot, next to a well groomed yard and well kept house, etc etc. How can he complain?

Guest comment

It seems people are having problems logging in to make comments to my blog - at least that's what I hear from my (one) faithful reader - Gary, so he has a guest comment to make in honor of his upcoming birthday this weekend. And, BTW, if you can't log on to leave a comment, please email me and I can copy and paste your comment directly to the blog.

go Gary:

Ahh Roswell, gotta love it. For my Birthday, Sunday April 3rd, this lovely community is giving me this



That is the official forecast picture from the National Weather Service for Sunday. And the wind will gust to 50 Mph and the temperature will be 95. Not that I don't appreciate this lovely gift, it is rare, I looked up the climate data for Roswell and for April 3 that would be the most lovely day since the data started in 1899 or so.

Mom and Angie asked me what I wanted for my Birthday and what I really wanted to say is Roswell in our rear view mirror (which is a take on a old Country and Western song about Lubbock, where I was really born), I had to be nice instead.

For some laughs about the current political mess I might suggest you go to a web site called Mock the Dummies on Youtube. We look at one of these each day at breakfast to start the day.

Enjoy Angie's blog and send in some comments or e-mail, I can't comment on her site, I wonder if that is some kind of suppression from Blogger about spouses commenting on their darlin's blog. Well I can get around that.

Enjoy SLO, I mean really really enjoy SLO. It ain't Roswell, thank god almighty, hallelujah.

Cultural events in roswell

Oh, the choices we have to make! Last Saturday, I could have gone to a live western-swing band dance, with special entertainment by the 4th grade girls' clog dancers, as a benefit for the men and women serving in Iraq and Afghanistan, with refreshments provided - all for a $5 entry fee, at the Adult Center; or an evening of classical music by the Roswell Symphony Orchestra, under the baton of Maestro John Farrer, who is also the music director, for the past 10 years, of the Santa Maria (CA) Philharmonic. Didn't know Santa Maria had a Philharmonic? Neither did I til last Saturday, when I read about it in the program.

Since I had been to a live western-swing band dance at the Adult Center last time I was here (albeit minus the clog dancers), I opted for the classical music.

The Sunday paper had a review, which did not really describe any of the musical pieces at all, but did note that the Orchestra gave its "usual quality performance." That about says it all. There were about 100 people in the audience. The applause was pretty tepid throughout - and at the end of the Edward Elgar Serenade for Strings, it appeared the audience wasn't sure it was over, as no one applauded for about a minute. The orchestra and the conductor remained frozen in their places until some brave soul started clapping, and then they smiled and the conductor turned around and took his bow. It was a bit embarrassing to watch.

I don't know what I can do next Saturday - maybe the final performance of the stage play at the Little Theatre, Steel Magnolias, or maybe not...

recycle?

One neat thing about Roswell is that every block (totally flat, laid in a square grid from end to end) is bisected by an alley, wide enough for the garbage truck to travel. The garbage trucks come through twice a week, and they pick up anything - anything - like cars, rugs, furniture, and whatever is in the huge rubber garbage cans behind everyone's house, in the alley.
Here's a picture of the alley outside our house, and the garbage can, into which the house on the other side of the alley, which had a birthday party today for some little kid (a whole 'nother story) dumped its trash from the party: broken plastic lawn chairs, a huge packing box from which they had extracted a trampoline and trampoline screen, many black sacks of who knows what, which added to my puny bag of the week's worth of garbage filled the bin to overflowing. This bin stands 5 feet tall and 5 feet around.

eating out in Roswell

It's Friday night! Let's eat Mexican food! Google "Mexican restaurants in Roswell NM" and up come several. some of which we have tried before and found wanting, so we tried a new one. To us. Actually, it's been there 30 years or more, in the old "Mexican" part of town. Ordered rellenos, stuffed sopapillas (a traditional New Mexican dish) and green chile stew (ditto). Here's the best part of the meal: yup, the chile shaped fan blades. The food was terrible. But the place was packed! Couples, single guys, groups of people, families, and the whole back room was filled with a private party.

OK, now it's the weekend. It's Saturday; let's go somewhere for lunch - how about Billy Ray's - a sort-of sports bar and "business man's lunch" spot during the week. They have green chile cheeseburgers and beer, and it was actually pretty good. Although it is a different owner, decor etc., it is the local bar that Gary's mom used to go to when she had her beauty shop - which was conveniently right next door. She has fond memories of the place! If you look closely you can see the sign over the doorway that says "Billy Ray's" - you know it's the south, every one has at least 2 names.

And, here's trip down main street:
need I say more?
The coffee shop is run by Christians, as are all the alien knick-knack stores, and I have yet to taste the wine.

Listenin' to the radio

just a few lyrics at random from Kickin' Kountry, KCKN, 1o20 on your AM dial

"when I die I may not get to Heaven, I don't know if they let cowboys in; but if they don't, just let me go to Texas, Texas is as close as I have been." one presumes, as close to Heaven - and if that's the case, god help us all!! (ed. remarks)

and, here's one I didn't get all the words to because I was driving, but here's an approximation: I come from a small town, where there's no where to go. I remember the good times, down at the crossroads, looking at the sight of those big wheels shining in the moonlight. One assume he means "big rigs" semis. oh for the bright lights of those big wheels in the moonlight! what an exciting town! just like Roswell.

Life at Home

So, here's what's going on. Inside the house, it is like anywhere - clothes get dirty and need washing; food gets prepared, eaten and cleaned up, and the garbage has to go out; supplies need to be replenished - milk, bread, etc; the dog needs to be fed, and walked, and his poop cleaned up; dust and dirt pile up on the floors everywhere and have to be swept - constantly!

But outside, things are a little different. Every door has 2 locks, including the security screen doors, and the windows all lock with keys. Which is probably a good thing, as the morning paper lists all reported police calls, and they are mostly burglaries, of TVs, VCRs, computers, Ipads, games and game consoles etc, all electronic stuff. I'm guessing the thieves fence the stuff in Mexico - only about 200 miles to the border. And some pretty unusual items have been taken - someone removed a religious statue from a yard, another person took a table and chairs, a bed and a rug from an unoccupied apartment.

The neighborhood has a certain dusty, neglected look, in some ways like a Clint Eastwood movie set. Dogs in dusty, brown yards, chain link fences, old cars, left over construction material, mainly, everything is dusty brown. The weather report pictures in the papers, you know - blue for clear, the sun for sunny, clouds for cloudy, etc - well, here the pictures are shaded brown.

random sampling of house in the 'hood.

There is also an inordinate amount of trash, Just junk, old rugs, broken furniture pieces, plastic bottles, socks, food wrappers, etc etc, more junk - and it's all lying around on the streets, in the front yards, along the alleys, in the playground catty-corner across from our house. And, dogs. did I mention dogs? every house has at least one, usually two - a big mean one and a smaller one, chained, or behind chain fences, and even in cages in the yard. A very sad life. They are uniformly mean acting and I don't blame them.

New Mexico is officially in a drought, as a consequence of La Nina, which moved all the precipitation further north, leaving the reservoirs really low and fire danger really high. But readers will be happy to hear that state officials are convening a Drought Task Force to deal with these issues, whatever good that will do.

And, now, on top of everything, US Fish and Wildlife Service wants to designate the "dunes sagebrush lizard" as endangered, which will severely curtail the oil and gas industry's ability to do business, and endanger the already pretty fragile economy of the state. So, the New Mexico Oil and Gas Association has asked its members to "volunteer to create a grass roots group and work to oppose" the designation at upcoming scheduled hearings . The headline for this article: " Lizard listing bad for oil, gas."

But the biggest news is that the new census figures short Roswell by 1,634 people to make it to the 50,000 population mark, which then makes the city eligible for federal money for projects. What no one is saying publicly is that to get to 50,000, they have to count people in the Mexican community (whom the gringos uniformly belittle and who the gringos believe didn't turn in a census form). According to the papers, only 74% of the residents turned in a census form.

Someone said I should explore the nightlife of Roswell - Night life: that's an oxymoron for this town, unless you count the man found with a gun shot wound to his lower back, lying in the intersection downtown at 11 PM last Saturday. The paper said he was "unable or unwilling " to talk to officers at the time, and is recuperating at the local hospital, although that was 5 days ago, and there has been nothing, I mean, nothing about it in the paper since.

But "nightlife" is a good topic for the blog, and I will try to add that in, like 'best martini bar," "best Irish bar", etc. Hopefully the only female person more or less my age that I have met here that I can actually have a real conversation with might help me in that regard, as she promised to take me "out" while I was here, but the main shit-kickin' cowboy bar, "Bootscooters," has closed down; so has the "sports bar" in the fancy hotel downtown, leaving only places I'm not sure I want to go. But I can already tell you, there is NO bar with the best martini. I would be afraid to order one in this town. And, there are no Irish bars or college kids, either. Only Mexicans and cowboys.

Here's an update on the alligators: they are now on their way to Sarasota Florida to live out their long and happy lives. Still no word on whether the owners had the required permit or whether the narcs ever got to execute the search warrant. But we did find out the newspaper is paid for by the landlord. Nice perk.

Another artifact from the prior renters: a gun magazine. My favorite ad: a pink handled, double barreled 5 shotgun shell magazine hand gun, just the thing for the little lady driving alone, when a stranger (pictured luridly in the color ad) forces his way into her car. All she has to do is turn and shoot, blam, blam, blam, and stranger is splattered all over the roadway. There is violence everywhere around here.

Thanks to the alert eyes of a reader, I now know that third graders are smoking weed in Roswell http://www.rollitup.org/content/148-third-graders-new-mexico-smoke.html

And there is a head shop, around the corner from the local Albertson's grocery store.

Mom and her best friend and the 2 of us celebrated her 90th at the Red Lobster yesterday, after consuming a pitcher of Margaritas here at the house first! A good time was had by all, and she walked into her house at the end of the evening on her own steam! Go, Gertie!

Here's pics of her opening her presents. She said she wanted blouses, so I went wild in the local thrift store, and she loved them!





Enough for now.

todays' news (not Libya or Japan)

The people who had this house before us must have paid for a subscription to the local daily newspaper (the Roswell Daily Record, for which one has to pay to see the stories in the on-line edition), because it was in the front yard when I looked out this AM while making coffee. As you can see, the word "yard" is misleading, as it is hay stubble, dry as a bone, despite the owner spraying it daily.

Friday's news: the local narc squad was executing a search warrant when they busted into the "perp's" house (he wasn't home, needless to say), and found 2 large alligators. While it is mostly illegal to have such animals, there are, apparently, exceptions, for which a permit is required. The paper said the owners of the house had 72 hours to produce their permit. Not a word about the drug charges; owners not identified.

second story: 95 year old ex-commandante of the local boy's (and only recently, girls) military academy (read: alternative high school) was today's hero of the month, or something, and he told of his youth in Iowa growing up on a corn farm (I do not make this up - pay$19.95 for a short subscription to the aforesaid RDR and see for yourself) and his jobs included turning the corn in the right direction - that would be up? The article did not elaborate, so we'll never know the "right" way for corn to grow.

And, finally, sightings around town: I got into a lane of traffic behind a "family"'sedan-looking kind of car, and noticed the bumper stickers: on the left, in plain simple print: "Buy the good stuff." and on the right, same print, "Marijuana Heals. " Gary's mom says she often detects the sweet odor around her senior complex. Medical marijuana is legal in NM. So all is not lost.

The full moon tonight is absolutely brilliant at 5,000 feet with no smog or lights to cut the view. It is the superfull moon, with the earth and moon orbits as close as they will be in 18 years (or is it 18 years since the last time?) Very pretty over the fence in our humongous back yard.

Which is also hay stubble, and which the dog, Rusty, pads dross from into the house every time he goes out in the back, which is pretty often, for the usual reasons, or to chase the birds, or to throw his ball around. There's a thin layer of dry, grain dust on the floor!

And in between the two hay stubble fields, is our cute little pink house (see above), a very southwestern-cottage style home from the post war era. Thick walls, cool inside, no complaints. Best of all, it is less than a mile from a very good Thai restaurant, from which we have been having take out for the past 2 days. How can a town as weird as Roswell have this good a Thai restaurant! There may be hope yet.

The Voyage Beyond CA

How many of my readers have spent St. Patrick's Day in Grants, New Mexico? Well, we just did - a night not to be forgotten - or repeated.

But first, some background. The high desert parts of New Mexico (there are several) share a lot in common with Bakersfield CA; in fact, the same music is on the radio, and the same signs litter the highway. The first country song we heard (after the currently much maligned public radio station finally petered out) was " God is great, beer is good, and people are crazy." And the first song playing as we crossed into New Mexico on Route 40 at Gallup, was - you guessed it - the same song. It's like eastern CA and all of AZ were not there. In my mind not a bad thing.

But I digress. Grants is in the NE part of the state, on the road to Albuquerque, but a universe away in any measure you want to pick. It was a ranching town until uranium was discovered in1950, when it enjoyed a boom for a generation while the native population(yes, those pesky redskins) died off from toxic waste in the land and the water. Uranium is a nasty thing all round. Grants has a museum devoted to it, where one could (we didn't, it being St.Paddy's day, and all) go underground to a replica of a uranium mine. Actually, I might like to do that some day - on a prior trip we went to the Carlsbad Nuclear waste facility, where they "take care" of the trans-uranium waste" (defined in gobbledy-gook) and for which there is a specially built road outside of Roswell, en route to Carlsbad, just for those trucks transporting said trans-uranium waste - so the civilians don't get "too" contaminated.

But I further digress. The guide book said that during the boom, Grants attracted lots of different people, giving it a"cosmopolitan culture," for instance the Monte Carlo dining room and Lounge :

So I looked for some Irish evidence of that cosmopolitan history, but the only 2 bars that the hotel "recommended" were both real cowboy roadhouse dives, where, when a fight breaks out the customers duck because guns will be exhibited if not used. And I chose not to go in. Gary was smart; he stayed in the hotel room and watched the spread of the nuclear disaster on TV.

Today we left Grants before the light of day;





and traveled old Indian routes, as you can see from the points of interest: all pointing to extinct Indian settlements on the high desert.









And, some modern day Indian settlements.








And, so here we are in Roswell, where is was 90 degrees today.

Roswell Redux

If it's spring, it must be time to visit Roswell. Here we go again, on the road with dog in tow. Look for (hopefully) pithy and witty comments about the southwest flora and fauna (especially the human ones).

Your input is always welcome!