Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
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A good many years ago, I was visiting a friend at his house and offered to move a load of freshly laundered clothing from his washer to his dryer. I asked where the lint trap was located so I could empty it before starting a new load. His response: “What’s a lint trap?” Suffice it to say, the fact that his dryer had never burst into flames would clearly qualify as a miracle. I gave him no small amount of grief for the oversight. After all, who wouldn’t know to empty a dryer li...
I suppose it was inevitable. As I made the drive from Portales to Clovis last week on US 70, I noticed the cleanup was complete of the fire-ravaged building that once housed the Blackwater Draw Museum. That part I had expected. It was the removal of the remains of two nearby structures that tugged at my heart: the adobe “caretaker’s cottage” and the “bathhouse,” the last relics of the old Eastern New Mexico State Park. I might never have even heard of Eastern New Mexico State...
I had two boxes worth of old home movies converted last month into a format compatible with 21st century technology. My uncle Jack owned the camera — he had a passion for gadgets. Most of the reels of film were shot in the 1940s and 1950s. I spent hours last week immersed in images that likely haven’t been seen in decades — possibly even since they were shot. While Jack would never have won any awards for filmmaking, what he did succeed in doing was capturing tidbits of daily...
Portales High School is set to celebrate one of the oldest traditions in eastern New Mexico this week, with the winding of the Maypole. Maypole came up in a conversation with my friend, Jean Grissom, a few months back. You may remember her as the former resident of this area who I wrote about last October after I learned she had kept a daily diary for 83 years. Jean, who has lived in Paris, Texas, since 2009, turned 95 last month. In one of our periodic phone calls, I asked...
Baby spiders are called spiderlings. If that isn’t the sweetest name ever, I would welcome your nominations for a better one. Even in dry years like this one, spiderlings have been taking flight this month as they do each spring—airborne on threads of spider silk long enough to take them sailing to their new homes. In an especially good launch period and with a favorable breeze, these strands of silk end up on every line of fence wire and every branch of shinnery, mesquite and...
I recently had the opportunity to meet two young distant relatives of mine: an almost-3-month-old and a just-turned-2 cutie pie. These tykes are brothers. If I am counting generations correctly, their great-great-great-grandfather and my great-grandfather would be the same person, a fact that carries little weight with the diaper-wearing crowd. The baby doesn’t play a big social role at this point. His main job is being passed from doting adult to doting adult and o...
I’m the midst of an ongoing excavation of decades of detritus in my home. The best — and most priceless — treasure I have turned up so far surfaced on Sunday. It’s a small, dusty five-year diary bound in green leather with the name “Lucy B. Williamson” embossed in gold on the cover. Better known in our family as “Ma,” Lucy Betty Williamson was my paternal grandmother. I never knew Ma. She died more than a year before I was born. She exists in my imagination through old pho...
A year ago this month, Rudianna Ornelas of Portales spent the better part of a day in the parking lot next to Coach J's BBQ Shack hawking tickets at a fundraiser being hosted there to benefit Habitat for Humanity of Roosevelt and Curry Counties (HFHRCC). She had a vested interest. Ornelas and her partner, Joel Baltazar, and their three young children were the current "Habitat family," meaning that they had recently broken ground on a lot and earned the right to help build a...
“Something for everyone” is a phrase that arguably gets used too often. But on a weekend like the one we have coming in our area, it’s tempting to say that yes, indeed, there IS something for everyone, including a used book sale, live theater, a community band concert, Frisbee golf, and even a volunteer opportunity at our local state park. Seriously, isn’t there something on that list that calls to you? Here are some highlights: The annual Friends of the Portales Public Librar...
Last weekend, I attended my first multi-day group event since early 2020. There’s something special about gathering with a group of folks who have interests similar to yours, swapping stories, recalling favorite moments from beloved books or movies or television shows. We did a lot of that this weekend, which set me to thinking about the joy of the shared experience, and how that is evolving, what with the internet and endless options for streaming media. I wasn’t esp...
As we head into one of the busiest local weekends in more than two years, let me urge you to not overlook a hidden gem: the Portales High School production of the musical, "Annie, Jr." Without taking away from the challenges faced by any segment of society during Covid, for those in performing arts, it has been a particularly bleak existence. PHS theater teacher Melody Gallagher said her young cast is eager to be on stage - some of them for the first time - in a production per...
I found myself in unfamiliar territory for a chunk of this month, in a place where I was entirely reliant upon signs to stumble my way about. It was a fine time to wonder at how a species like ours — a species so good at so many things — can be so abysmal at signage. I have my theories. My first is that the people who are responsible for putting up signs to help others navigate a property are themselves so familiar with the property that they omit key information. They ass...
When your favorite floor lamp only stays upright because it’s been lashed securely to a nearby end table with 10-ply string, it could be time for a replacement. So it is at my house, which has triggered a shopping expedition into the overwhelming array of choices that exist to bring illumination to our homes. One online retailer I looked at offers more than 4,000 selections for floor lamps alone. Yikes. It’s a good week to appreciate my grandparents’ kerosene lamps. Electricit...
It's been 4 1/2 years since a musical was performed on the Mainstage at the University Theatre Center at Eastern New Mexico University in Portales. That changes this week with the opening of the Broadway musical version of Louisa May Alcott's beloved classic, "Little Women." I sat in on a rehearsal last weekend and visited with Director Travis Sherwood while the cast and crew worked out the glitches that come with individually microphoning 22 performers. "The rehearsal...
Much to my surprise, last week on the snack aisle in the grocery store I encountered a fully stocked shelf of Fritos corn chips. This made me happy for three reasons. First, if you are a Fritos fan — even an occasional one, like me — you are painfully aware that Fritos remain high on the list of items that have been hard to find for the last two years. Many excuses are offered: COVID (of course), labor shortages, supply chain disruptions. Whatever the cause, they’ve been...
My brothers and I were born to a winter sports mother — unusual for this area, but she had grown up in Cleveland, where winter occupied a hefty portion of the year. When she married our dad and moved to New Mexico in 1957, her tiny stash of possessions included a pair of ice skates. On the rare occasions when we had several continuous days of sub-freezing weather — enough to build a few inches of ice in the metal tank that we swam in each summer — my brothers and I fough...
It’s less than a week to Valentine’s Day, and being the helpful person that I am, I have scoured some local newspapers from decades past to uncover gift-giving ideas that may have escaped your radar, as well as some pitfalls to avoid. I’m betting, for example, that you may not have considered a wig for your loved one. A half-century ago, the Wig Chateau (inside New Mexico Barber and Beauty Supply in Clovis) offered this Valentine’s Day special: “A new look pre-style...
My brother in Taos told me recently about a breakfast foray he’d taken to the nearby northern New Mexico community of Tres Piedras. He asked if I’d ever been there. I pulled out the atlas and decided that I probably have not, even though I’ve wandered around a good portion of that area over the years. While I was perusing the map, I happened to notice that every road that leaves Taos in every direction is marked with those tiny green dots that atlases use to designate a “scen...
The swings, slides, and teeter-totters on the Dora school playground in 1971 and 1972 provided front-row seats for the grandest construction project that my classmates and I had ever seen. While we chose up sides for recess games and eagerly implored "Red Rover, Red Rover" to send someone right over, we got to watch earth movers and cranes and bricklayers all hard at work on what would become our new gymnasium. That building, officially named the Guy Luscombe Gymnasium more...
How old must something be before it is no longer called "new?" In the case of the Guy Luscombe Gymnasium at Dora Consolidated Schools, it must be more than 50 years. That iconic blond brick building, which has hosted countless basketball games, tournaments, science fairs, graduations, and even a few funerals, turns 50 this year. For many of us - including those my age who remember watching it be built, as well as the current students and staff at Dora, I'm told - it is still "...
When it comes to the perfect venue for frittering away massive amounts of time, local newspaper archives are my downfall. I’ve spent most of my life in eastern New Mexico, so it’s always great fun to scroll through newspapers on the hunt for familiar names and events. But, honestly, I wouldn’t have to know a soul to appreciate the gems that regularly made it into print in older papers. I just blew most of a morning in a single issue of the Portales Valley News from 90 years...
Besides our parents (or grandparents, guardians, primary caregivers), for most of us there is nobody who plays a bigger or more important role in our young lives than teachers. I had a long and rambling phone conversation with my friend Rob Borden over the weekend that eventually led to that topic, along with sharing memories of our favorite teachers from elementary and high school. Borden lives in Florida, but his eastern New Mexico roots are important to him. His parents and...
I had the occasion to visit the Clovis Regional Airport a couple of times over the holidays, the first time I’ve been out there in at least 25 years. I’m happy to report that the charms of a small regional airport still exist. It’s enough to make me remember why flying was such a happy adventure back in the day. My 26-year-old daughter has few memories from the pre-9/11 days — she was a brand-new kindergartener the year that happened. She was not old enough to remember the joy...
As part of our holiday festivities this year, we pried open two leathery pomegranates one afternoon, and shared those shimmery jewel-like seeds as we visited. Pomegranates are a special treat, a fruit that always seems exotic and out of place in eastern New Mexico. I don't remember ever having one in our home when we were growing up. Instead — and curiously — the occasional pomegranates that I encountered came from a most unlikely place: the old Dora Grocery run by Opal and...
If you happen to pass Dallas Draper's home in Melrose on Christmas Eve, and notice that Santa's sled has been parked outside long enough that the reindeer are stomping with impatience, well, you should know there is a good reason. The jolly old elf will have 49 - count 'em - 49 stockings to take care of once he squeezes down the chimney. It could take a while. Those rows of hand-quilted, personalized stockings represent every member of Draper's extended family -- children,...