Columnist: Humbug Mountain
Carol Mell
Follow the dirt road in your soul to Humbug Mountain where you’re danged if you do and danged if you don’t so you might just as well.
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It's all about genetics. I descended from a weak-ankled Irish forty-niner who didn't get to California until 1852, which explains why I am always late and have indecisive ankles. The old man followed the gold rush to Oregon but spent all he found in saloons, whorehouses and gambling parlors. The family, though rich in lore, has been poor ever since where the Oregon Trail panned out along the Columbia River.
Summers I spent in an eastern Oregon ghost town searching for edible mushrooms and riding other people's horses. I earned an improbable degree in modern dance from the Juilliard School but because of an injured ankle went looking for love, Spanish and poetry in Colombia. Except for the Spanish, that expedition failed.
Though my parents still wonder where they went wrong, I married a minister. As a pastor's wife I lived in Navajoland and later on the Arizona-Mexico border where, as a docent for a living history museum, I wore a pioneer dress and specialized in mule skinning, adobe making and rattlesnake roasting until I got a real job as a Spanish-speaking reporter.
I've written for newspapers, magazines and even one Chicken Soup for the Soul book. My “Taos Hum” column appears in the Albuquerque Journal North where I write about pressing issues like the Wal-Mart wars, the pretty woman of a dog who turned out to be a streetwalker, goat head stickers for flagging libidos and Taos High's singing lunch lady.
One of these days I expect to find that good fortune out West that has eluded us for five generations. Why give up now?
