Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
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Bob Huber: Humor Columnist “What’s happened to manners in American sports?” I cried while watching a televised football game where a linebacker danced a clumsy jig after transforming a quarterback’s head into sludge. “I’ll bet his mama would nail his hide to the barn door.” I was visiting my daughters at the time, and they said, “It’s because modesty and chivalry are blasé and no longer acceptable. They’re too boring. Proof is, rudeness has 18 synonyms while courtesy has only six.” Obviously they took after their mother and... Full story
Bob Huber: Local Columnist “What’s happened to manners in American sports?” I cried while watching a televised football game where a linebacker danced a clumsy jig after transforming a quarterback’s head into sludge. “I’ll bet his mama would nail his hide to the barn door.” I was visiting my daughters at the time, and they said, “It’s because modesty and chivalry are blasé and no longer acceptable. They’re too boring. Proof is, rudeness has 18 synonyms while courtesy has only six.” Obviously they took after their mother and... Full story
When I was a kid in high top shoes and bib overalls, my Uncle Claude, a luckless farmer, tried to buy a one-way ticket to that Great Corn Field in the Sky. Of course his bad luck held up, and he failed. It was Great Depression time in those days, and Uncle Claude’s luck was more disheartening than a Republican running for office. He was thousands in debt, drank too much, and his wife Buela was pregnant. There seemed no way he could avoid life’s bottomless pit. So instead, he sought a way for his family to collect double indem...
Bob Huber: Humor Columnist Don’t fret over those expensive items you bought for your kid as he entered school this fall. You should instead smack your forehead and cry, “I shudda bought a Student Horoscope!” Allow me to explain. The 2005 Old Newsman’s Horoscope is hot off the presses, and it’s just what your kid needs. After thousands of hours of mind-boggling research straight from the backsides of cereal boxes and certain in-depth periodicals found in grocery checkout lines, we have perfected zodiac predictions for kids....
Bob Huber: Local Columnist Don’t fret over those expensive items you bought for your kid as he entered school this fall. You should instead smack your forehead and cry, “I shudda bought a Student Horoscope!” Allow me to explain. The 2005 Old Newsman’s Horoscope is hot off the presses, and it’s just what your kid needs. After thousands of hours of mind-boggling research straight from the backsides of cereal boxes and certain in-depth periodicals found in grocery checkout lines, we have perfected zodiac predictions for kids.... Full story
Hidden in the dark minds of commercial flight crews are wisecracks they’d like to shout over the planes’ speakers but don’t, because these heroes of the skies prefer to play the game of “Things I’d love to say, but I don’t want to spend the rest of my life driving a Greyhound bus.” I recently came across a collection of these quips — I won’t say where I found them, but its secret code name is “Internet” — and as a public service I’ll present them to you today. Some are dirty — rated R or X — but I’ve omitted them. If you sim...
Hidden in the dark minds of commercial flight crews are wisecracks they’d like to shout over the planes’ speakers but don’t, because these heroes of the skies prefer to play the game of “Things I’d love to say, but I don’t want to spend the rest of my life driving a Greyhound bus.” I recently came across a collection of these quips — I won’t say where I found them, but its secret code name is “Internet” — and as a public service I’ll present them to you today. Some are dirty — rated R or X — but I’ve omitted them. If you sim...
Bob Huber: Humor Columnist Hidden in the dark minds of commercial flight crews are wisecracks they’d like to shout over the planes’ speakers but don’t, because these heroes of the skies prefer to play the game of “Things I’d love to say, but I don’t want to spend the rest of my life driving a Greyhound bus.” I recently came across a collection of these quips — I won’t say where I found them, but its secret code name is “Internet” — and as a public service I’ll present them to you today. Some are dirty — rated R or X — but I’v...
Throughout my longtime marriage to Marilyn, she often asked, “Why do these things happen to us? Why? Why?” I always replied with a shrug, because I didn’t know. (Secretly I thought our adventures probably happened to everyone, but they just didn’t talk about them. I wanted to mutter, “We’re just lucky, I guess.”) Take the time we remodeled our house, and the mice got in. For a long time I thought about writing the incident as a horror movie called “Gnaws.” To this day I can hear the rumbling beat of ominous music whenever I... Full story
When I was a kid, I lived under a family curse that was common in America in those days. It was called “Relatives Dropping In.” I’m talking here about uninvited guests. You know, out-of-work uncles, religious aunts, outlawed cousins and icy in-laws, and they all stayed for days, sometimes months. By tradition, the welcome mat was always out, and there was no escape. In my role as low man on the totem pole, I occasionally learned of these visitations ahead of time by means of stern lectures about how I should behave in the p... Full story
Editor’s note: Bob Huber’s column will move to Tuesdays beginning next week. Before the days of retirement homes, my grandfather Opa lived with us a few years as part of an autumn quest in his life. He wanted to spend his remaining days with his five far-flung sons, one at a time. It was German tradition, he said. I didn’t mind, but my mother, who was neither German nor weak in the knees, didn’t like it. She told my father, “He complains about my cooking, and he calls me Greta. Who in blazes was Greta?” My father shrugged, b... Full story
Bob Huber: Local Columnist Before the days of retirement homes, my grandfather Opa lived with us a few years as part of an autumn quest in his life. He wanted to spend his remaining days with his five far-flung sons, one at a time. It was German tradition, he said. I didn’t mind, but my mother, who was neither German nor weak in the knees, didn’t like it. She told my father, “He complains about my cooking, and he calls me Greta. Who in blazes was Greta?” My father shrugged, because there was no answer short of big trouble...
My first encounter with a bona fide rattlesnake left me with a lethal dose of ophidiophobia (Greek for fear of ophidios) complicated by lingering runny nose. It took place while I was on a fishing trip in the Colorado Rockies. I was there because in those days a group of young guys could go camping without adult supervision, the purpose being to cultivate our skills at mountain lore, lewd songs and dirty words. I was 12 at the time. That day we slogged around a bend on a steep trail, singing something about rolling over in... Full story
My first encounter with a bona fide rattlesnake left me with a lethal dose of ophidiophobia (Greek for fear of ophidios) complicated by lingering runny nose. It took place while I was on a pack-in fishing trip in the Colorado Rockies. I was there because in those days a group of young guys could go camping without adult supervision, the purpose being to cultivate our skills at mountain lore, lewd songs and dirty words. I was 12 at the time. That day we slogged around a bend on a steep trail, singing something about rolling...
Today’s lecture will cover the methods employed by airport security officers to recognize dangerous persons and then delay them until their plane has been retired, scrapped, and turned into a fleet of riding lawn mowers. It’s called “profiling,” the evil scourge of the 21st Century. No one is safe from profiling, and we should put an end to it before it destroys the sacred game of football and the American way. Still, it might come in handy if we wanted to identify a person in a dark alley, just in case we see one. As an exam...
Today’s lecture will cover the methods employed by airport security officers to recognize dangerous persons and then delay them until their plane has been retired, scrapped, and turned into a fleet of riding lawn mowers. It’s called “profiling,” the evil scourge of the 21st Century. No one is safe from profiling, and we should put an end to it before it destroys the sacred game of football and the American way. Still, it might come in handy if we wanted to identify a person in a dark alley, just in case we see one. As an exam...
When I was a kid, there was nothing more pleasurable than summer baseball. A friend might ask, “What you want to do today?” and I always replied, “You crazy? Play ball, of course.” I’m not talking about Big League, Little League, or the Abner Doubleday Code of Conduct. I’m talking about a bunch of guys getting together on a rocky hillside in my Colorado hometown and having it out with bats and balls. (Girls weren’t allowed, because they argued if called out — a genetic flaw.) Bases were at various locations — sometimes beh... Full story
When I was a kid, there was nothing more pleasurable than summer baseball. A friend might ask, “What you want to do today?” and I always replied, “You crazy? Play ball, of course.” I’m not talking about Big League, Little League, or the Abner Doubleday Code of Conduct. I’m talking about a bunch of guys getting together on a rocky hillside in my Colorado hometown and having it out with bats and balls. (Girls weren’t allowed, because they argued if called out — a genetic flaw.) Bases were at various locations — sometimes beh... Full story
When Independence Day — the holiday, not the movie — rolls into town each year on a Wal-Mart truck, I always remember the launching of America’s first intercontinental ballistic missile. That singular event established once and for all that children should never play with matches. It began one summer when my friend Smooth Heine and I left a movie matinee all squinty-eyed and patriotic because of a Buck Rogers saga that showed us what Hollywood scenario writers could do with the 25th Century. “Boy, that Buck Rogers,...
When Independence Day — the holiday, not the movie — rolls into town each year on a Wal-Mart truck, I always remember the launching of America’s first intercontinental ballistic missile. That singular event established once and for all that children should never play with matches. It began one summer when my friend Smooth Heine and I left a movie matinee all squinty-eyed and patriotic because of a Buck Rogers saga that showed us what Hollywood scenario writers could do with the 25th Century. “Boy, that Buck Rogers,...
When I was a kid, a classmate named Arnold Buckowitz gave me a special birthday gift, one that sticks in my memory bank to this day. Here’s what happened: Arny was unofficially recognized at Harley Beers Elementary School as the class creeper. That’s not to say he was a creep, but a creeper. He crept around a lot. Always in the background and small enough to fit in a bushel, Arnold crept all over the school, anywhere that was unexplored. Sometimes he was under bleachers in the gymnasium, sometimes in air vents in the ban...
One memorable Father’s Day my son Glen and I conquered the rapids of the Rio Grande from Otowi Bridge to Cochiti Dam in a four-man rubber life raft. Even now, after all these years, I sometimes wake in the middle of the night shouting, “Hard a-port! No, starboard! EEAAIIIIII! Happy Father’s Day!” It began when Glen offered to take me on the Rio Grande excursion to see how the new Cochiti Dam had altered the splendor of the Rio Grande. He said his Father’s Day gift would be celebrated by riding the last boat down the river...
One memorable Father’s Day my son Glen and I conquered the rapids of the Rio Grande from Otowi Bridge to Cochiti Dam in a four-man rubber life raft. Even now, after all these years, I sometimes wake in the middle of the night shouting, “Hard a-port! No, starboard! EEAAIIIIII! Happy Father’s Day!” It began when Glen offered to take me on the Rio Grande excursion to see how the new Cochiti Dam had altered the splendor of the Rio Grande. He said his Father’s Day gift would be celebrated by riding the last boat down the river...
When I was bringing home $90 a week to feed a family of five, I experienced an illuminating event in my life. It should be noted that I also supported a pack of five dogs, a cigar addiction, and an ancient Chevrolet that came over on the Mayflower. If anyone says life was simpler in those days, the entire left side of my face still twitches. The event had to do with our dog pack, a cumbersome burden, and our children who were an equally unwieldy trio. The dogs were, in order of their ages and size, Nicky, Bee-Bee, Lonesome,...
June is my lucky month. It has Father’s Day, my wedding anniversary, and my birthday all rolled into one long cigar. I’ve always held June in high esteem. One thing that makes me feel so good about June is the fact that I was born this month as a boy instead of a girl. Now that’s what I call lucky. What if I’d been born some other time? Why, I might have been a girl! Not that there’s anything wrong with girls — I lived comfortably with one for 51 years — but look at the alternatives: As a guy I get to keep my family name n...
