Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
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People wear masks when they mow the lawn, work on home projects, refinish furniture, when they paint. All in the name of safety. So, what’s the big deal about wearing a mask now? We have a two-person household unless you count the critters. When we, the two-footed critters, venture out for grocery or pharmacy runs or doctors’ visits, we wear masks. I am just this side of claustrophobic, so I have to talk to myself a bit each time I put it on. But I do it. I do it because my...
The church has left the building. Simple yet profound. But church isn’t about the building. Don’t get me wrong — I love my church, Westminster Presbyterian in Clovis. It’s a beautiful building where every single nook and cranny holds a memory. Walking up to the door, I’m greeted by memories of past “Wacky Olympics,” where adults and children competed against one another in some seriously goofy games. Once inside, thoughts of past Sunday school gatherings and youth activit...
These are the moments that define us. We’re all doing the best we can navigating our way through this new normal of “shelter-at-home.” It’s an uncertain time, and that can be pretty nerve wracking and unsettling. The stories and statistics change daily, if not hourly. People are unsure of jobs, of the availability of grocery items, of the ability to get the things they need daily for their families. Students are worried about finishing school online, and adminis... Full story
I love lists. I especially love lists when accompanied by color-coded sticky notes. Sometimes, however, even the best-laid plans complete with lists and sticky notes can fall apart. That point was made for me on a recent trip for work. I sent what could only be termed a note of desperation to my husband: “Well poop on a cracker! Guess what I didn’t pack? PANTS!” Now added to the angst of being away from home for a lengthy period of time, I had to worry about pants, or lack...
I never really agreed with the whole “marriage is 50-50” thing. Thinking about it, I probably thought it meant that a marriage is an equal partnership, hence the 50-50. But something just didn’t sit right. Marriage is a partnership; but, I think when I hear 50-50, I think effort. When you make a statement and someone else agrees with that statement, their response back is often “100 percent!” If we give 100 percent to making a statement, wouldn’t we give 100 percent to...
Hello, 2020. You snuck up on me. I knew you were on the way; but I still haven’t decorated for Christmas yet, and here you are, nipping at my heels. I haven’t processed 2019, and here I sit on the threshold of 2020. You gave me a run for my money, 2019. Like everyone else, I was swimming through everything life tossed at me. Sometimes I managed well, and then other times, meh. I gave up writing resolutions years … OK, decades … ago. Since they were broken before the ink was...
I have about a million wishes for this holiday season. Big ones and small ones. As I watch Christmas movies filled with sugar plum fairies and dancing snowflakes, I wish I didn’t fail out of ballet class. My high level of grace and coordination “stunned” the teachers, and they suggested to my parents that perhaps I find another activity. (I did; hockey. I was the goalie.) I wish I had the power to fix broken hearts and broken dreams. The holidays can be even more diffi...
I’m glad I grew up in a time before social media. A lot of my “stupid people tricks” happened outside the scope of cell phones or easy-access cameras. While these stunts may be remembered by family and friends (who are sworn to secrecy), there isn’t any recorded evidence that show such shenanigans took place. And for that, I’m grateful. Looking back over my childhood there are a few events where I question how on earth I managed to survive. Like the time I decided to ride m...
Dictionary.com defines a ‘dork’ as: a silly, out-of-touch person who tends to look odd or behave ridiculously around others; a social misfit. If we’re truthful, we’ve all probably fallen into this category a time or two. Some of us outgrow it (or grow into ourselves), and others simply embrace it. In the “embrace it” column, we have Melissa and Charlie Broz. Upon my first meeting of this quirky couple many years back, they were calling one another “dork” and “nerd.” They we...
Some things just don’t make sense. Oysters, for example. I can’t imagine who might have cracked open one of those “delicacies” and thought eating it was a good idea. I suppose we could say the same for clams. There is a world of difference between delicious deep-fried clams or clam cakes (a personal favorite), and oozy clams on the shell. Same for okra. Foodstuffs shouldn’t have a slime factor. I’m told that if you fry okra properly, there isn’t a slime factor. Sadly, my fir...
Recently, I had the distinct privilege to officiate the celebration of life service for Richard Allen Trask, who was 99 and some when he died. As I listened to the stories shared by his son and daughter-in-law Rick and Kathi Trask, I was struck by the sheer tenacity and strength of will he had. I cannot imagine all that he had to endure. Like many of us, I’ve read about the Bataan Death March. It is one thing to read about it; it is quite another to live it and survive it. And...
It was a bad pain day. My usual “peopley” self was amped down a couple of notches. We had parked close to the front of a grocery store, and I made my way from the jeep to the door, wincing with every step. My joints weren’t cooperating; my feet wouldn’t bend, my knees wouldn’t bend. I stumbled along like a rusted penguin soldier. This, it seems, irritated a driver who was trying to get from one side of the parking lot to the other. He felt compelled to not only share his...
“Family is everything.” Simple. Profound. Recently, I attended the celebration of life service for a man I didn’t know. Like many others, I felt as if I did “know” him because of his presence on regional television. Little did I realize how his life connected with mine, even in a small way, until I read of his passing. David Gonzalez of Roswell passed from this life to the next on May 6. His family, and his community, honored him with a touching celebration of life service on...
There is a lot of ugliness in the world right now. It would be easy to blame social media, the times we live in, political unrest, and a host of other things. And as these things go, people have laid the blame squarely on the doorsteps of others. We see the posts, or the photos of people with faces distorted by hate or hear divisive statements from one political group against another. We don’t have conversations so much anymore as we do finger pointing. We’ve become “us” again...
Sometimes, we get weary. We all have those people that we can turn to (or run to depending on the situation) when the day-to-day grind overwhelms us. But, what do we do when one of those voices is silenced? For me, The Dad was just such a person. While the grief of his passing is always under the surface, of late it has made its presence known with a vengeance. And carrying the weight of that is exhausting. The simplest of things can put us right back to the moment of our...
The Dad came up in conversation this past week, again. Since he daily dances through my mind, it isn’t a big leap to find him in a conversation. This time, it wasn’t because of a funny Dad story; it was about respect. I had wandered into a group talking about the idea of respect, whether anyone deserves it, whether you give it or someone has to earn it, and how “respect” looks. Turns out, this conversation started because of an episode of a reality TV show, involving screami...
I had a serious flashback a few days ago. I’m not sure how Facebook “knows” things, but Bob Dylan’s song, “The Times They Are a Changin’,” (1964) popped up on my timeline. Maybe it’s Facebook’s way of telling me it thinks I’m older than dirt, or it was a happy coincidence since I love that song. NPR aired a segment of American Anthem in September featuring this song. Dylan’s rendition was featured, as was the Jennifer Hudson version. Hudson, along with the Destiny Road Choi...
So long, 2018. You were a tough one, taking The Dad from this world to the next. While there were many lovely things that happened throughout the year, that one event has changed me. Permanently. I don’t miss The Dad any less today than I did yesterday or the day before, the month before. I miss the sound of his voice (which still rings in my ear). I miss his advice (which I mostly took). His laugh. His humor. The way he loved his family. In those moments when I didn’t thi...
I have a date with a nearly 5-year-old kiddo, my nephew Gavin. We are kicking off the holiday by watching “Elf” on the big screen. Rounding out this group of elf-watchers is Gavin’s mom, and nana and Uncle Wayne. It’s hard to say who’s most excited about the movie (OK, me). It is a completely silly movie, about a man who was raised by elves, who decides to find his “real” dad. Despite the silliness, there’s a sweet underlying story about family and the goodness of peo...
Like most of the rest of the world, I was horrified when a man entered the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, shot and killed 11 people and wounded others. Squirrel Hill is labeled as one of the U.S.’ largest predominantly Jewish neighborhoods. It was also Mr. Rogers’ neighborhood. Ironically, Fred Rogers said, “When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, ‘Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping... Full story
Sometimes, you just need to see the world through the eyes of a 4-year-old. Recently, we met up with my 4-year-old nephew, Gavin, and his Nana Della for dinner. While we waited to be seated, we played fire engine and tank, and listened to stories of the Army train. We watched train videos and made train sounds, of course. Gavin has a thing for trains, much like The Dad (my dad) did. Apparently, so does Gavin’s Nana. Della saw a train loaded with Army vehicles, all green, on h...
I have a love/hate relationship with mosquitoes. They love me (apparently, I’m delicious) and I hate them. Weather allowing, we begin each day at Head Acres on the front stoop, coffee in hand, watching the sun rise. The second bit of welcoming the day involves me wrestling dogs away from my coffee cup while my husband Wayne swats at mosquitoes. We like to end the day much the same way: warm beverage in hand, wrestling dogs, swatting mosquitoes. We’ve planted mos...
My 4-year-old nephew Gavin picked out my toenail polish. I’m sporting a rather shocking, glaring pink polish. I’ve told people not to look directly at my toes, because they’ll go blind from the glare. Gavin was very proud of his choice; I’m grateful that he moved on from the mustard-yellow-glitter polish, and the speckly purple polish, and the blue with silver flecky-bits polish. It took him a long time to choose. I had to lift him up and go from shelf to shelf, bottle...
Onion rings did me in. Sitting in a local eatery, I skimmed over onion rings on the menu, and flashed to my dad. Cue the waterworks. I am not sure which was more difficult, trying to keep the tears in or letting my breath out. As I sat in the middle of my public struggle, I remembered a trip my dad and I took to Ruidoso. We had traveled there for a presbytery gathering, and had stopped in one of his favorite places for lunch. As I looked through the menu, my dad said we had...
Playing in the dirt is good for the soul. The past several days have been a blur of activity at Head Acres. We have pulled weeds, dodged some nasty looking bugs, and ran screaming from some pretty dicey spiders. We’re not the only gardeners getting up close and personal with nature. I saw a post from a friend in Tucumcari who, when turning over a pot, came too close to a scorpion. So now, we’re turning over pots and moving sticks and debris very gingerly. Spiders and bugs asi...
