Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
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After a solid year of postponed and canceled events, the weekend that is coming (even with all the still-necessary modifications) represents a glorious return of some beloved events and local traditions. Get ready for some virtual elbow-rubbing time with science fiction folks, a High Plains talent show, tasty smoked pork chops, high stakes domino championships, and a cascade of petunias and geraniums. The fun kicks off Thursday with events that will be vying for space on the...
It comes as no surprise that the drought monitor maps continue to keep our area solidly in center of a puddle of the dreaded deep brown patches that forecasters designate as “D4 - Exceptional Drought.” There are many situations where being labeled “exceptional” is positive. “Those biscuits were exceptional!” “What an exceptional novel.” “She is a pianist with exceptional talent.” But when it comes to drought, exceptional is what we don't want to be. For those who don't sha...
High Plains forecast for Thursday: Sunny, 80 degrees, and a 100 percent chance of smoked meats, accompanied by macrobursts of generosity and torrential warm fuzzies. In other words, it’s the perfect day to head to Coach J’s BBQ Shack in Portales, make a donation to Habitat for Humanity of Roosevelt and Curry Counties (HFHRCC), and take that brisket and sausage plate to the park where we can enjoy a great meal for a good cause. It’s a documented fact that fundraiser food taste...
About this time last year, Jan Smartnick was gearing up to direct a pre-Easter performance of "The Living Last Supper" at First United Methodist Church in Portales. The drama, written in 1954 by Pastor Ernest K. Emurian, is inspired by Leonardo da Vinci's painting, "The Last Supper," a depiction of Christ and his disciples sharing a final meal together. "We were all ready," Smartnick recalled this week. With two rehearsals under their belts (or maybe sashes?), the cast was...
In 2009, a writer named Judith Wynn Halsted published a book called, "Some of My Best Friends Are Books," a guide to 300 of her favorite books for young readers. The title has always stuck with me because, well, it's true: Some of my best friends are books. And a number of those friends have arrived via used book sales throughout my life. I spent a couple of hours last Friday among some potential new "friends" as we set up the Friends of the Portales Public Library Pay What...
My mother was a lifelong fan of the Metropolitan Opera. Most Saturday mornings of the September-March opera season (I'll bet some of you didn't even know opera had a season), she wrestled the antenna on our portable radio into compliance, shushed my brothers and me into reluctant silence, and settled in for the live broadcast of the opera matinee from Lincoln Center in New York City. If it was one of her favorites and she wanted to be sure she wouldn't be interrupted, she...
In the fall of 1967, clutching a fat pencil, a box of crayons, and a Big Chief tablet, I became one of the 28 little kids in Peggy Prater's first grade class at Dora Elementary School. By the end of the first day, I had fallen head over heels in love with my teacher. Fifty-four years later, that hasn't changed. Though I knew she was under hospice care, when her daughter notified me on Saturday that sweet Mrs. Prater had died, I was heartbroken. I suspect that I am one of...
I chauffeured a dear friend to the Roosevelt General Hospital clinic recently to receive her second dose of the COVID-19 vaccine. I’ll call her B. As the masked and gloved medical assistant cleaned B’s upper arm with an alcohol wipe, she asked B if she’d had surgery on that shoulder. “No,” B said. “On the other, but not that one.” “Why do you have this scar then?” the MA asked. “Oh,” B answered with a laugh. “That’s from my smallpox vaccine.” You see, when B was a first gra...
There are no two ways around it. This last year has been a tough time to host fundraisers. Our community service organizations have had to cancel many long-standing events because of the ongoing health restrictions. Fortunately for local chili lovers, the members of the Kiwanis Club of Portales have come up with a way for us to satisfy our annual craving this Friday evening and stay safe: chili to go. Here’s the plan, but first a caveat: I am writing this on Monday, and this i...
Like many on the High Plains, we woke up without water on Monday morning in the sub-zero weather. It was a preventable problem, at least at our house, but I had grown complacent after a string of winters when we had dodged that icy bullet. Out here in the country, water and electricity go hand-in-hand. Our water flows with the aid of pumps powered by electricity. Most of the times we do not have water, it's because we don't have power. In fact, we are so well-trained that at...
If you were out and about last weekend on U.S. 70 from Roswell to Clovis, you may have passed a young backpacker on the side of the road, moving east with quick steps like a woman on a mission. We like to call it "walking with purpose." Because, in every sense of the word, she is. Hannah Bacon blew through our area like a tumbleweed, and along the way completed "days 79 and 80, and miles 1149-1187" of a trek that she hopes will take her completely across the United States -...
Are you a singer, a dancer, a musician, an undiscovered cowboy poet? Do you have that one magic trick that gets requested every Thanksgiving, or a card manipulation that always fools your audience? Are you a closet yodeler secretly yearning to go public? Do you make killer tortillas and have a great how-to demonstration? If so — or if you have virtually (and virtually is the key word here) any kind of talent — the folks at the Eastern New Mexico University Department of The...
In the fall of 1928, only weeks before she got her first tooth, little Norma Mozelle Estes of Portales was named the "prize winning baby in the Best-All-Around Baby contest" at the Woman's Club picnic held at Arch. The memory is captured in a yellowed clipping pasted in a pink leatherette baby book, which arrived in the mail at the Portales Chamber of Commerce last fall. Chamber Director Karl Terry shared the book with me. The woman who sent it to Portales said she had...
I spent a good half hour recently digging through boxes in search of a handful of photos I took during one of the most beautiful and serene evenings of my life. When I found them, I was transported back - as I hoped I would be - to a hushed and snowy night in February of 1986. I lived near Washington, D.C., then and worked for a high school civic education program. For several weeks each year, our entire staff moved into a large hotel in the district where we played host to...
When my mother arrived in New Mexico as a bride in 1957, she brought two items that I doubt were in many ranch homes at that time: a pair of ice skates and a set of snow skis. She was a native of Ohio, a state where snow can endure for months on end. She had also spent the previous three years in Japan where the extremely favorable (at the time) exchange rate let her hit the slopes almost every weekend. It is reasonable to say that she welcomed snow in eastern New Mexico with...
When I was a little kid, and before I had enough sense to avoid carnivals, I eagerly boarded a ride one year at the Roosevelt County Fair. I don’t remember the name of the ride, but I do remember that four or five of us were seated in a pod. Those pods hung precariously on ends of long arms that hurtled us in circles as the ride spun. They also twisted independently, flinging us from side to side. It took only seconds to realize that stepping foot into that pod had been a t...
As we prepare for Christmas in the most non-traditional year of our lives, I have found myself remembering holidays from the past. Perhaps you have, too. I’ve come back several times to an event that we participated in most of my growing up years: the December “candle burning” hosted by my Aunt Blanche and Uncle Jack. (In the spirit of full disclosure, I’m betting that Aunt Blanche did the heavy lifting on this event, but Uncle Jack was always a willing and gracious partici...
After some hemming and hawing last week (or perhaps I should say hemming and sawing), I put up our annual Christmas branch. Yes, branch. We are Christmas branch people at our house, and with few exceptions always have been. Our house is surrounded by towering old Arizona cypress trees planted by my grandfather probably in the 1930s or 1940s. These trees have supplied many a Christmas branch to us for two reasons: They are fresh and they are free. Along with that, they happen...
Those crafty and civic-minded women in the Altrusa Club of Portales have come up with a clever way to brighten our community as well as provide a socially distanced activity for those of us who may be suffering from an ongoing case of cabin fever. If you have been out and about in Portales, you've likely seen the festive Christmas chairs in front of many local businesses. How many are there and where all can they be found? That, said Club President Beverly Bennett, is where...
When our daughter was but a little tyke, I stumbled across an idea in a parenting magazine about how to extend the magic and anticipation of the Christmas season with a month-long countdown of books. I collected children’s books long before I ever imagined I would have an actual child in the house. That collection exponentially expanded when our own little reader was born. Using Christmas paper, we individually wrapped 24 books (mostly off our shelves but including a few n...
If you’re tackling a turkey today, or having it out with a ham, imagine roasting up a small herd of cattle in preparation for several thousand guests. That was exactly what happened in 1933 in Portales for what may have been the largest Thanksgiving gathering that ever took place in eastern New Mexico. Franklin Roosevelt was in the White House and the United States was smack dab in the middle of both the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl. Thanksgiving was still celebrated o...
I was awakened in the wee hours one morning last week by the unmistakable odor of freshly launched skunk spray wafting its way through closed windows into our house. We haven't had a skunk visit for a while, but all it takes is a whiff and the memories come flooding back. I was but a young girl when my father killed both a skunk and a basketball on our porch one night using only a single bullet. You don't see that kind of marksmanship every day. My mother, though, was the...
A couple of colors have been on my mind the past several weeks. Perhaps you’ve been thinking of them, too: Blue and red. (Please note that I’ve listed them alphabetically, to avoid charges of favoritism or bias.) There’s a good reason why most of us don’t remember this obsession with “blue states” and “red states” from our childhood. We didn’t have it then. The notion of using colors to help illustrate election maps came about, not surprisingly, with the advent of color t...
I grew up in an era and in a region where there was a sweet payoff for both politicians and voters in the autumn weeks leading up to elections: Community gatherings to meet candidates and, yes, eat pie. Back then the rural communities took turns inviting local candidates to events in their respective community buildings or school cafeterias or whatever space they had that was roomy enough to seat a crowd. Someone would come early to unlock the building, set up folding chairs,...
Jean Fisher of Clovis has a mystery on her hands, and she's looking for our help. Fisher, who is 82, worked for 37 years as a nurse at the Retirement Ranch, but she's also a long-time quilter. That means (this will come as no surprise to other quilters) that she has accumulated a lot of cloth over the decades. She and her late husband, Gerry, loved to frequent auctions and estate sales, and were regulars at bidding wars all over eastern New Mexico and west Texas until Gerry's...
