Follow the Dirt Road In Your Soul to Humbug Mountain

Waiting For My First Taos Ghost

Being a white person is no excuse for not having seen a ghost. Navajos tell me I am tone deaf in this regard but I still would like to see one for myself.

Heather Anderson has seen ghosts all her life in Taos. Her favorite was the “man in blue” who ran into the yard of the Laughing Horse Inn around 1982 just as she and her teenage friend were getting into the hot tub.

“He saw us and looked surprised, like he had just come through a time warp or something,” said Anderson. “He had on a cavalry uniform with tight boots, pants with the stripe down the leg, a sword at his side and a crossed-sword insignia on his buckle and hat. We were naked and we watched him turn beet red.”

Locals will tell you of a ghost woman who can be seens some nights riding a white horse across Talpa Ridge toward the river. Gary Oline believes that his ghost followed him to his house in Talpa from Arkansas.

Follow the Dirt Road In Your Soul to Humbug Mountain

Taos Storytelling Festival For the Ninth Time

Storytellers aren’t cool and that’s one of my favorite things about them. They don’t make truckloads of money and they aren’t considered sexy. With the exception of Garrison Keillor they aren’t famous either. In the end they work for blessings, ours and theirs, because in the act of storytelling there is a connection and communication between teller and audience that leaves us both craving more.

Every year I get excited about the main event of one of the last literary groups left standing in Taos. Society of the Muse of the Southwest or S.O.M.O.S., presents a storytelling festival, a full weekend of invited and local storytellers including concerts of stories, workshops, story swaps, children’s stories all during the most beautiful time of the year in Taos.

Taos Storytelling Festival, Oct. 17 and 18 at Anglada’s Building
For more information check out www.somostaos.org

Follow the Dirt Road in Your Soul to Humbug Mountain

The World Economy According to One Doggy Gate

I just didn’t like Otto, the slobbermeister, blocking the rear view mirror with his tail while his drool trickled down my shoulder. I’d turn to see if it was safe to merge and get an earful of dog lick.

Tazzy, the little peke-a-poo-a-terry-huahua, always clamored for my lap, her little excited claws dug into my thighs, her yapping gave me a headache. I could no longer tolerate muddy dog prints on the back seat or the tornado of dog hairs swirling around whenever I opened a window.

I could have tried training. I’m a great admirer of Cesar Millan, the Dog Whisperer, but I haven’t had much luck with the whispering thing. Truth be told, I’m more of a dog yeller. Old dog yeller, that’s me. Between yelling and yapping I'm not always the winner.

So, I installed a doggy gate in my car, no tools or Engrish necessary, the instructions said. Three blood blisters, four broken nails and one hot head later I was cursing the man, it must have been a man, who designed that clap-trap, good-for-nothing, rip-off doggy gate.

Follow the Dirt Road In Your Soul to Humbug Mountain

Earning a Commercial Driver’s License Is No Free Ride

This summer I needed a paying gig so I hooked a summer job giving history tours and driving a red trolley. All I needed to get started with the ding, ding, ding and ching, ching, ching, was a commercial driver's license, or CDL.

“This whole thing has gotten a lot harder since 9/11,” my driving test contractor said. “I guess they think that someone might take a bus, fill it with explosives and drive it into the capitol building."

I'd never thought of the little red trolley as a danger to society but, with so many waiting periods, I can see why the government might worry.

It would be faster and easier to get a machine gun than a CDL. No waiting period there.

Follow the Dirt Road in Your Soul to Humbug Mountain

Lincoln Canes Connect Taos and Washington, D.C.

My husband, a historian before he was a minister, pointed out that Abe's hands at the Lincoln Memorial rest on a bundle of sticks, bound together with bands.

"Those are the Roman canes," he said, "called fascio, I think. They were the symbol of ancient Rome.

A few days later, giving a tour on my way to Taos Pueblo, I told again how each year the new pueblo governor receives the Lincoln cane, given by Lincoln himself in 1863, as a symbol of the right of the people to govern themselves.

Follow the Dirt Road in Your Soul to Humbug Mountain

Ten Tips for Pastor’s or President’s Wives

As a minister’s wife I can’t help but have sympathy for Hillary Clinton. Having a position by marriage that subjects your house, your parenting skills, your hairdo and your dog to scrutiny is what we pastors’ wives, or PWs, call “life in a fishbowl.”

My life could be Hillary’s except for no cameras, no state dinners, no trips around the world, no book contracts and no speaking fees. Oh, and my husband doesn’t cheat.

So, here are ten tips for pastor's and president's wives.

Follow the Dirt Road in Your Soul to Humbug Mountain

A Beautiful Bunker in the Neighborhood

I missed a doozy of a meeting as Albuquerque architect Don May justified two variances before Taos Planning and Zoning Commission. The first variance is from the town’s architectural style code because of the “functionally driven” nature of the building and the second is a request to double the 6-foot wall height limit. That’s right, they want a 12-foot wall.

What the town hadn’t told us before was that the new command center, around the corner from my house, was also a homeland security center and would have to be built, according to May, to withstand TNT and bullets.

I went around my neighborhood with copies of the plan. Most laughed. “Homeland security,” one questioned, “why can’t we get some help with graffiti?”

Follow the Dirt Road In Your Soul to Humbug Mountain

Losing the West By Inches

It's just an empty lot, a couple of acres across the street from my house. If I walk out my front door to the faraway end, I can watch the sun set behind the Pedernal near Abiquiu, New Mexico.

Georgia O'Keeffe believed that by painting the flat-topped Pedernal, she could own it.

"It's my private mountain," O'Keeffe said. "It belongs to me. God told me if I painted it enough, I could have it."

By Ms. O'Keeffe's lights, I've walked, talked, sung and prayed in that empty lot enough that it should be mine.

Follow the Dirt Road in Your Soul to Humbug Mountain

Trespassing Not Forgiven for Pastor Sent to Prison

Two years ago, the Rev. Chris Lieberman was awakened in the night by a voice. It was the kind of voice, he said, that you didn't have to ask who it was.

A little while after, Lieberman dreamed of prison, seeing himself in an orange jumpsuit, righting another's tray of food before it could fall to the floor.

Lieberman is the epitome of "mild-mannered," soft spoken if not silent.

"I'm not afraid," said Lieberman. "It continues to be the right thing to do."

Lieberman will turn himself in at the Federal Corrections Institute on April 6 in Anthony, Texas.