Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
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I haven’t gone to the movies for the better part of 10 years. They cost too much. The screens are too small. The magic has faded. So I just rent something for home. But going to see a movie is supposed to be an event, not just a film on television. I can remember when it was something I looked forward to for a week or more. Years ago we got a lot for our money at the movies. Now the price of admission is higher than renting at least two movies at the video store. We can watch them at home where we don’t have to arrange a sec...
Jim Lee: Local Columnist As most of us know, Friday was Veterans Day. The observance was originally called Armistice Day because it marked the end of hostilities of World War I, up to that time the bloodiest and most widespread war in human history. That first global conflict finally stopped with the Treaty of Versailles on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918. Some returning veterans marched in victory parades while other returning veterans watched the parades from their wheel chairs, and many lay in...
Jim Lee: Local Columinst I haven’t stolen any ideas from Don Criss lately. So I’m a bit overdue for some literary larceny, don’t you think? Today’s topic emerged the other day during the Criss-Stasheff-Scott-Lee coffee ritual when I began bragging about how well my rose bushes had been doing after replacing the deceased ones. The live ones do tend to grow much better than the dead ones, or so my biologist friend Tony Gennaro tells me. While I reveled in the throes of convincing my morning coffee pals of my botanical experti...
Jim Lee: Local Columnist Well, at 2 o’clock in the morning we get to turn the clocks back an hour and go back to standard time for awhile. I’ve been told we get an extra hour’s sleep out of the deal, but how can that happen when we have to wait up till 2 a.m. to reset the clocks? Oh well. I guess it’s just the price of admission for all the fun. It’s difficult to imagine a bigger thrill than trying to figure out how to set the time on the microwave, then head for the clocks. Boy howdy, that’s more fun than chasing duc...
Engagment Lucero/Aguirre Cindy and Oscar Lucero of Clovis announce the engagement and approaching marriage of their daughter, Maria A. Lucero, to Charlie M. Aguirre, son of Charlie and Evelyn Aguirre, also of Clovis. The bride-elect is a 2001 graduate of Clovis High School. She is a full-time student at Clovis Community College. The prospective groom is a 2003 graduate of Tucumcari High School. He is employed at the Curry County Adult Detention Center. The ceremony and reception will be announced later. Invitations will be...
Jim Lee: Local Columnist On Oct. 7, I watched a television interview with author Kurt Vonnegut on PBS. Although TV makes me more disgusted just about every time I hit the "on" button, this interview became a rare and valuable experience. I witnessed non-contradictory contradiction. Hey, how's that for a topic to drive a person goofy? I have long admired his writing, but I didn't know how fascinating Vonnegut could be in an interview. Of course these ideas could have been salted away in some form in his books, but I grew...
East Valley View Homemakers Club East Valley View Club met Oct. 12 at Golden Acres. Leatha Clark and Fern Clark were hostesses. Members brought recipes for the dishes they prepared for a recipe exchange. Rose Johns led the prayer before the meal. Members present were: Fern Clark, Leatha Clark, Margrette Forrest, Rose Johns, Lorraine McAlister, Edna Morrison, Roberta Payne, Lou Wayne Rogers and Lois Sparks. Guest was Lois Tivis. Fern Clark and Leatha Clark will be hostesses again for the Oct. 26 meeting. Each member is to brin...
Jim Lee: Local Columnist One of my pet peeves is unreliability. Don’t say it if you ain’t gonna do it. Take plumbers for example. The kitchen faucet has been dripping for six months, and we have to flush the toilet 28 times (waiting for who-knows-how-long for the tank to fill up each time). The pipes from the house to the water supply have rusted — and they’re plastic pipes. The sprinklers wet down the street and miss the grass. In other words, we need a plumber so we can use the bathroom or wash the dishes or take a shower w...
Jim Lee: Local columnist On Saturday, I became a past president of the Kiwanis Club of Portales. It was the first day of our club’s new administrative year, and officers serve a one-year term. Elwyn Hulett became our new president. Elwyn will do a great job, and I’ll be able to take a break now. He has an abundance of administrative experience, and is a person of dedication and highest integrity. The club will greatly benefit from his leadership. We like to kid around saying we got elected when we were absent, nobody els...
Jim Lee: Local Columnist As a human being I choose to live as a participant rather than exclusively as an observer. To me, this means trying to understand what I don’t understand, particularly when thinking about my own species. Sometimes this turns out as something kind of funny, sometimes something kind of sad. But it always starts with trying to learn. And answers always lead to more questions. Because of this, I have been trying to understand the mixed reactions I have observed from recent events. Since that terrible o...
Jim Lee: Local Columnist I often wonder how and why some things get their names. For example, how do parents dream up some of those monikers for their helpless-to-do-anything-about-it offspring, and why do they afflict their descendants with labels that cause schoolyard fisticuffs and lifelong humiliation? And what about those weird names for planets? Why is the planet Venus named after the Roman goddess of love when the place is about as inviting as skinny dipping in a lava flow? It’s something like 800 degrees without a col...
Jim Lee: Columnist Four years ago today, something awful happened. Just about everyone can probably recall that morning with detailed clarity. As with those who remember the attack on Pearl Harbor, the death of President Roosevelt, and the assassination of President Kennedy and Dr. King, we know exactly where we were and what we were doing when the airplanes struck. I was in the break room at the Eastern New Mexico University Broadcast Center. I had just finished doing a newscast and had gone after a cup of coffee. The first...
Some people have apparently become terminally bored with organized sports, at least the mainstream events like baseball, football, and kitten stomping. This was brought to my attention when Shannon Hearn casually mentioned the sport of anvil tossing. I thought he was putting me on until I did a little research. Sure enough, the activity does indeed inhabit the world of reality. As a matter of fact, it even has spinoffs that have drawn crowds of up to 30,000 souls on a quest for fulfilling diversion. According to the Oct. 24,...
Since childhood I have been fascinated with politics. As a high school sophomore I worked on John Kennedy’s campaign. I was only a kid, of course, and I just did whatever the local organization needed me to do. I learned a lot. I saw our presidential candidate in person when he made a campaign stop in my home town. I felt part of something really rare, a special group of truly dedicated people working toward a common goal transcending the promotion of self interest. It was special, and it made me special. I couldn’t vote yet...
U.S. Rep. Tom Udall, D-N.M., told members of a largely Democratic audience that the Republicans in Washington are not doing enough to help Americans, but also said Democrats need to do more if they hope to change that. Udall was the guest during a luncheon organized by Friends of Democracy, an institution a little more than one year old. Udall was in the area for a meeting involving Cannon Air Force Base and a ceremony later in Portales to award belated medals to Vietnam veteran Tom “Mack” Tucker. During the informal session,...
Freedom Newspapers: Kevin Wilson U.S. Rep. Tom Udall, D-N.M., speaks during a Friends of Democracy luncheon Tuesday at the Memorial Building. Kevin Wilson: Freedom Newspapers U.S. Rep. Tom Udall, D-N.M., told members of a largely Democratic audience that the Republicans in Washington are not doing enough to help Americans, but also said Democrats need to do more if they hope to change that. Udall was the guest during a luncheon organized by Friends of Democracy, an institution a little more than one year old. Udall was in...
Jim Lee: Local Columnist Since childhood I have been fascinated with politics. As a high school sophomore I worked on John Kennedy’s campaign. I was only a kid, of course, and I just did whatever the local organization needed me to do. I learned a lot. I saw our presidential candidate in person when he made a campaign stop in my home town. I felt part of something really rare, a special group of truly dedicated people working toward a common goal transcending the promotion of self interest. It was special, and it made me spec...
Jim Lee: Local Columnist One of the best ways for a storyteller to get something started is with a simple question beginning with the words “what if?” Of course I don’t mean to pass myself off as a storyteller. Everybody who has read this column for a while knows I never exaggerate, resort to silliness, veer off into fantasy, or just flat-out make something up. We all know everything that appears in this spot is the gospel truth and never just my opinion. As I have said many times on this page, “Hey, would I lie to you?” We c...
On Sunday mornings I like to kick back in my recliner and look at the Portales News-Tribune as I revel in having the day off work (when I actually do have the day off) and try to dream up some devious technique of postponing doing things around the house and getting it past Saundra. I enjoy Bob Huber’s column for a chuckle at his exploits with his childhood buddy Smooth to get my mind off the dread of Monday morning. I try to understand “Mallard Fillmore” at the bottom of the page, then turn to the funnies. Not only does...
Jim Lee: Local Columnist Have the evil killer bees arrived at last in Roosevelt County? Is it time to panic? Shall we call in the National Guard? First of all, they are not “killer” bees. The recent attack near Causey and Lingo was from Africanized honey bees, not “killer” bees. Second, it is never time to panic, unless you see me with my 9-pound sledge hammer and a repair manual. Third, why try to get the National Guard on the scene when they’re all in Iraq? Besides, with a dab of cautious common sense, we can live with thes...
People have been arrested for wearing paper clips. This brings to mind a number of ways a person needing criminal recognition could accomplish this. Did violators simply wear something made of paper clips, thus allowing others to view certain body parts forbidden to public display by glancing between those bent wires? Not so, friends and neighbors. People have actually found themselves taken into custody for simply attaching a regular, run-of-the-mill office paper clip to otherwise acceptable attire. Curious yet? Want an...
My abilities in matters of any practical importance have been called into question on more than one occasion. This has recently happened again. Yet I still fail to understand why people doubt my abilities, particularly my amazing versatility and creativity. Why does everyone focus on the negative? OK, a few things have gone wrong, but just think of how intelligently they went wrong. Hey, I’m nobody’s fool — I can foul things up in ways never before considered possible. Maybe I am the only person on Earth who does home repai...
My car battery died recently. That got me thinking about why the car parts place wanted the old battery. The matter had to have some significance because I had to turn in the old battery to buy the new one. What would anybody want with a worn-out battery? I found out that the lead-acid battery (such as the car/truck/motorcycle battery) is the most recycled consumer product of all. Not only does that keep prices more reasonable than making each one from scratch, it’s good for the environment. According to the Battery C...
Back in May I wrote about the car battery going dead. That got me thinking about why the car parts place wanted the old battery. The matter had to have some significance because I had to turn in the old battery to buy the new one. What would anybody want with a worn-out battery? I found out that the lead-acid battery (such as the car/truck/motorcycle battery) is the most recycled consumer product of all. Not only does that keep prices more reasonable than making each one from scratch, it’s good for the environment. A...
This column has appeared on this page for well over two years now. Sometimes it’s serious, and sometimes it’s downright silly. It’s not news reporting or presenting myself as an authority. I ask questions rather than claiming to have incontrovertible answers. I try to be observational, not professorial. In short, it’s just looking around. In just looking around, I try to pay attention to the world around me and pass it along in a palatable and sometimes playful way. I let the experts sort out the details and do the in-dept...
