Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
Sorted by date Results 176 - 200 of 327
An independent survey this week showed that hidden in the dusty catacombs of my files are dozens of juicy Christmas stories I experienced as a young, insolvent reporter. But only one stands out as a reminder of how innocent I was in those days. (Some biased reports claim I was stupid.) That story goes like this: A young mother in Denver hocked her cheap wedding band just before Christmas to buy a scraggly holiday tree for her three children. Her husband had emptied the family coffers and deserted her, and the pawn shop...
So it’s another Christmas season, which means my daughter Tracy will corral friends and family to tell her favorite yuletide story — “The Russian Pelekh Box.” It’s a marathon narrative full of adventure, romance, and mystery, although its authenticity leaves something to be desired. So while a turkey roasts in the oven and pumpkin pies cool on the porch, put your elbows on the kitchen table and sip your hot buttered rum as Tracy tells her story. It’s a Christmas tradition. I’ll tell you an abbreviated version. When Tracy li...
So it’s another Christmas season, which means my daughter Tracy will corral friends and family to tell her favorite yuletide story — “The Russian Pelekh Box.” It’s a marathon narrative full of adventure, romance, and mystery, although its authenticity leaves something to be desired. So while a turkey roasts in the oven and pumpkin pies cool on the porch, put your elbows on the kitchen table and sip your hot buttered rum as Tracy tells her story. It’s a Christmas tradition. I’ll tell you an abbreviated version. When Tracy li...
Here at Christmas Central where credit cards grow on trees, I’m recalling the time I draped yuletide lights on a pine shrub in our front yard. After the holidays I chopped down that bush in a fit of hay fever, so the next year I had to improvise a new display to keep up with my colorful neighbors. My fresh creation was a wooden structure made of old laths and studded with blue lights, but my wife Marilyn wouldn’t have it. She said, “It looks like an abandoned cotton gin,” and I agreed, although I secretly preferred a Hiroshi... Full story
Here at Christmas Central where credit cards grow on trees, I’m recalling the time I draped yuletide lights on a pine shrub in our front yard. After the holidays I chopped down that bush in a fit of hay fever, so the next year I had to improvise a new display to keep up with my colorful neighbors. My fresh creation was a wooden structure made of old laths and studded with blue lights, but my wife Marilyn wouldn’t have it. She said, “It looks like an abandoned cotton gin,” and I agreed, although I secretly preferred a Hiroshi... Full story
Now comes Thanksgiving Day with fond memories of family gatherings and succulent roast turkeys — you know, those buzzard-looking birds with Jurassic brains the size of peas and flapping wings strong enough to tear your head off. One particular event in my family’s history had to do with 200 of those nasty gobblers. My father traded some hay for them, and although the incident took place when I was still a kid, I get cold sweats just thinking about it. But first let’s talk about farmers back in those bygone days and how they l... Full story
Now comes Thanksgiving Day with fond memories of family gatherings and succulent roast turkeys — you know, those buzzard-looking birds with Jurassic brains the size of peas and flapping wings strong enough to tear your head off. One particular event in my family’s history had to do with 200 of those nasty gobblers. My father traded some hay for them, and although the incident took place when I was still a kid, I get cold sweats just thinking about it. But first let’s talk about farmers back in those bygone days and how they l...
You should have been there the year my son Glen turned 13. That was the same year I purchased six white turkeys on the hoof, figuring to slaughter them for crowded holiday banquets we always hosted each year. The turkeys were hand fed by a friend’s daughter as a project of 4-H, an organization I’ve avoided ever since. She assured me her turkeys were all corn fed and perfect for a fastidious holiday season, so I bought them. To say those turkeys were big was an understatement. They stood more than nine hands tall and weighed c... Full story
You should have been there the year my son Glen turned 13. That was the same year I purchased six white turkeys on the hoof, figuring to slaughter them for crowded holiday banquets we always hosted each year. The turkeys were hand fed by a friend’s daughter as a project of 4-H, an organization I’ve avoided ever since. She assured me her turkeys were all corn fed and perfect for a fastidious holiday season, so I bought them. To say those turkeys were big was an understatement. They stood more than nine hands tall and weighed c...
Each fall I’m reminded of my heroic attempts to pass the spelling test at the University of Colorado. I’m legend in the faculty lounge at Boulder where they say, “Do you remember that rocket scientist who couldn’t spell CAT?” Back then, CU believed in an 11th Commandment that said students couldn’t become juniors until they scored at least 70 percent on a spelling test. If they failed, they had to drop out or transfer to journalism school. The test was given each fall. That rule was chiseled in stone by the university...
Editor’s note: Bob Huber’s column, which is usually published on Mondays, is running early this week because of the topic: When I was a kid, the joy of Halloween ranked second only to Christmas. It was that wonderful night of the year when we could be ghosts, goblins, and other evil things, and at the same time extort candy and tear down our neighbors’ mail boxes. Of course, in those days costumes weren’t fancy. Wal-Mart hadn’t been invented yet. Our disguises were made of gunny sacks or frayed bed sheets and were worthy of... Full story
When I was a kid, the joy of Halloween ranked second only to Christmas. It was that wonderful night of the year when we could be ghosts, goblins, and other evil things, and at the same time extort candy and tear down our neighbors’ mail boxes. Of course, in those days costumes weren’t fancy. Wal-Mart hadn’t been invented yet. Our disguises were made of gunny sacks or frayed bed sheets and were worthy of awards only when neighbors couldn’t pick us out of a lineup. Back then, modern Halloween dangers didn’t exist. Oh sure, the... Full story
You don’t hear much about it, but daylight-saving time is a major cause of divorce. I don’t know why the Legislature doesn’t do something about it. In our half century of marriage, my wife Marilyn always pooh-poohed that notion, because she said the battle of the sexes was impossible to win anyway. Too much fraternization with the enemy, she said. By that analysis I should have known better than to seek her help figuring out daylight-saving time. I asked Marilyn, “Now that the politicians have us approaching standard time ag...
You don’t hear much about it, but daylight-saving time is a major cause of divorce. I don’t know why the Legislature doesn’t do something about it. In our half century of marriage, my wife Marilyn always pooh-poohed that notion, because she said the battle of the sexes was impossible to win anyway. Too much fraternization with the enemy, she said. By that analysis I should have known better than to seek her help figuring out daylight-saving time. I asked Marilyn, “Now that the politicians have us approaching standard time ag... Full story
Before they come after me with that final funny jacket, I have to tell you that the night the lamb broke up our bridge party ranks as a high-water mark in my otherwise serene life. Of course, it doesn’t live up to the time our neighbor lady shut down her husband’s drunken poker party using a 10-pound bag of beans, but it was close. You see, the lamb thought it was a dog. Everything else just fell into place. It all began when a nephew with rural tendencies gave us an orphaned baby lamb thinking it would be great fun for our... Full story
Before they come after me with that final funny jacket, I have to tell you that the night the lamb broke up our bridge party ranks as a high-water mark in my otherwise serene life. Of course, it doesn’t live up to the time our neighbor lady shut down her husband’s drunken poker party using a 10-pound bag of beans, but it was close. You see, the lamb thought it was a dog. Everything else just fell into place. It all began when a nephew with rural tendencies gave us an orphaned baby lamb thinking it would be great fun for our...
Last month folks in this neck of the republic glared at bleak and shadowy clouds and muttered, “All right, enough is enough!” They were, of course, referring to the soggy conclusion of the drought hereabouts and the beginning of what frontier historians would someday cite as “The Year When Everyone Had to Learn to Tread Water.” Of course, events in Florida overshadowed all available newscasts on television, even though their weather persons lacked enough sense to get in out of the rain. The real news here was that in the san...
Last month folks in this neck of the republic glared at bleak and shadowy clouds and muttered, “All right, enough is enough!” They were, of course, referring to the soggy conclusion of the drought hereabouts and the beginning of what frontier historians would someday cite as “The Year When Everyone Had to Learn to Tread Water.” Of course, events in Florida overshadowed all available newscasts on television, even though their weather persons lacked enough sense to get in out of the rain. The real news here was that in the san... Full story
There was a crucial moment preceding my half-century matrimonial partnership that made my future wife Marilyn shout, “You WHAT?” Her scary attitude resulted from something I mumbled in her ear about eloping and getting married. We were students at the time at the University of Colorado, a campus full of world class scholars, wealthy football players and GI veterans living lavishly in Army surplus Quonset huts. But let me back up a little. Marilyn and I met one April evening when her sorority stole my fraternity’s mascot, a st...
There was a crucial moment preceding my half-century matrimonial partnership that made my future wife Marilyn shout, “You WHAT?” Her scary attitude resulted from something I mumbled in her ear about eloping and getting married. We were students at the time at the University of Colorado, a campus full of world class scholars, wealthy football players and GI veterans living lavishly in Army surplus Quonset huts. But let me back up a little. Marilyn and I met one April evening when her sorority stole my fraternity’s mascot, a st...
A tradition persisted in my hometown involving freshman hazing at our local college, the Colorado School of Mines. It culminated in a public showing of manly strength in the center of town as sophomores faced freshmen in a mighty tug of war across Clear Creek. You have to understand that few of us local guys understood what went on at the School of Mines — for years I thought it was the Skula Mimes — nor did we know that students there would someday become engineers and geologists, marry pretty girls from town, and get ric...
A tradition persisted in my hometown involving freshman hazing at our local college, the Colorado School of Mines. It culminated in a public showing of manly strength in the center of town as sophomores faced freshmen in a mighty tug of war across Clear Creek. You have to understand that few of us local guys understood what went on at the School of Mines — for years I thought it was the Skula Mimes — nor did we know that students there would someday become engineers and geologists, marry pretty girls from town, and get ric... Full story
The next time you travel to England — I’m sure you do every year or so, don’t you? — don’t wait until the last minute to brush up on a few phrases so you can find bathrooms and order beer, not necessarily in that order. After all, they speak a foreign language in the mother country, and you don’t want to spend your time looking up each word and be pointed out as just another dumb Yank from Cleveland. So today we’ll look at a few examples of the king’s English, which is spoken in Britain, and compare it with the president’s En... Full story
You’ve probably never heard of the World War II coastal fortifications on Long Island known as the Marginal Line, built to keep the European forces of evil in check. Frankly, I hadn’t either until recently when secret archives of that great project were opened to me. What happened was… Two patriots, Don and Bob, were boyhood pals growing up on Long Island, NY, when nails cost 8 cents a pound and windshield wipers petered out if you drove uphill with a heavy foot. They were typical kids in that their Depression-weary paren...
If you want to get deep into religion, find a Texan. They even think Moses was a Texan. As proof they point to a wall in the Cross Trails Church in Fairlie, Texas, which contains the King Ranch version of the 10 Commandments. It reads: • There’s just one God. • Honor your Ma and Pa. • Don’t gossip or tell tall tales. • Show up for Sunday prayer meetin’s. • Put nothin’ before God. • Don’t mess with another fella’s gal. • No killin’. • Watch your mouth. • Don’t take what ain’t yours. • Don’t be hankerin’ for your partner’s stuf... Full story
