Humbug Mountain
Follow the Dirt Road in Your Soul to Humbug Mountain
Obama’s Yes We Can Echoes Chavez’ Sí Se Puede
This year I’m breaking my silence to say why I didn’t vote for Hillary though I wanted to vote for a woman.
“I’m doing it for my daughters,” I told myself but they made it loud and clear they wanted no part of the female version of a Clinton White House.
One of the twins is no doubt remembering how she learned about "oral sex" from the first President Clinton.
Nowadays, we hear Barack Obama’s supporters chanting, “Yes we can.”
To hear Obama chanting the English version of, “Sí Se Puede,” the famous rallying cry of Cesar Chavez and the United Farmworkers has a strong resonance with Spanish speakers. I admit that at first it sounded strange but there is honesty in the way Obama is using it.
[more]
Follow the Dirt Road in Your Soul to Humbug Mountain
Men Have Their Super Bowl, Women Have Super Bowl EnvyI don’t get the Super Bowl. As far as I can tell it’s all about odd balls, bouncing female anatomy, beer, Roman Numerals and a few cars thrown in.
I do understand the game.
In fact, I was a football player myself with a bunch of boys in the neighborhood. Granted, they weren’t the most athletic types. One was fat and one had a withered hand but I was a girl so we were all making do.
The only event I can imagine that would put so many women in front of the television would be Oprah’s wedding but that would only work once, leading me to conclude that guys are simpler. They’ve found a formula that puts them together, front and center for a day. Is it their fault if women suffer from Super Bowl envy?
[more]
Follow the Dirt Road in Your Soul to Humbug Mountain
Evel Knievel At the Pearly GatesWe lost some interesting people last year. It was the death of Evel Knievel, the bunged up daredevil in the confederate-flag suit that hit closest to home.
I was home from college after Evel’s famous jump over the Snake River in Twin Falls, Idaho, not far away. I thought he was cheating by claiming to jump the “Snake River Canyon.” He knew darned well that we’d all imagine Hell’s Canyon, a huge chasm deeper than the Grand Canyon but then, Evel was always one for exaggeration.
“I hear Evel’s got a brother, Awful Knawful, who’s even better than he is,” Bud said confidentially.
“There is no such person, Bud.”
“I’d still like to see him.”
There never was much point in arguing with Bud.
[more]
Follow the Dirt Road in Your Soul to Humbug Mountain
Taos Hum or God’s Call, Annoying Either Way
Here in Taos Valley, where fresh batches of starving artists collect as fast as beer bottles tossed into my driveway, folks are fond of saying that if the mountain calls, you will stay. If not, you’ll be turned away, forced to search for your muse (or cheaper rent) at lower altitudes. In Taos, quite a few are called but very few are chosen.
My husband was the one to get a call to move to Taos but then he’s in the call business, being a minister. Payment is optional in his line of work but a call is required. Still, about one month after moving here from the Arizona desert, it was my husband who started getting up and walking around the house at night complaining about an infernal noise, a hum that he said sounded like the low rumbling of trucks in the distance. It was driving him crazy.
The Albuquerque Journal North, the newspaper that runs my column, revisited the Taos Hum issue again recently. My former editor, Polly Summar, contacted me about finding hum hearers. She remembered the column I wrote about Wayne's unfortunate ability to hear the hum. In the end he was the only hearer she could find.
[more]
Follow the Dirt Road in Your Soul to Humbug Mountain
Bone Orchard Offers a Unique Taos Sound
It’s an old Taos story. Artists come to town to bask in the light, the land and the history but this is the version with a musical twist. It concerns Daniel Pretends Eagle and his band, “Bone Orchard.” His other half, Carol Morgan-Eagle, not only performs vocals with the band; she’s the organizer, stylist and taskmaster in their lives and on their newest CD, “A Romance of Ghosts.”
Dan is a thoughtful, learned and still-looking-for-answers kind of man who works out his questions on the guitar, banjo, percussion and most of all in his songwriting. He is an imposing but not menacing 6 foot 2.
“My father was Lakota Sioux, raised in a boarding school,” Dan said. “He had a lot of issues and left when I was a baby. They say I’m not that tall for a Pretends Eagle. We were tall and good horsemen.”
That’s the kind of story with which Pretends Eagle had to settle while his Anglo mother raised him in an Illinois suburb.
His musical influences were underground dissonant rock and roll bands like “Velvet Underground” and “Joy Division.” He started his first band in seventh grade.
[more]
Follow the Dirt Road in Your Soul to Humbug Mountain
At The Gates of Old AgeWhen you reach the gates of old age an angel hands you a slip of paper that reads,
“Good for passage through these gates on one condition—you must first get a colonoscopy.”
“Huh? How does that work?” you ask the angel in the surgical mask blocking the gate with a flaming high-tech scope thingy.
“If you want to live to be a grandma, to prove yourself worthy you must first perform a series of tests.”
“But they’ve been trying to pop my mammary organs like fat ticks for a decade,” I protest.
[more]
Follow the Dirt Road in Your Soul to Humbug Mountain
I Got a Blue Ribbon
I took this picture at Big Springs near the Western gate of Yellowstone Park. I called it "Skeeter Universe." It won a blue ribbon in photography at the Taos Fall Arts Festival Open.
Though it doesn't match my eyes I'm proud of my blue ribbon. I haven't won a ribbon since I was a breastroker at a meet in Pendleton, Oregon.
You can buy this picture if you want to because I didn't sell it yet.
Follow the Dirt Road in Your Soul to Humbug Mountain
The Little Computer That Wouldn’t
Working at home seemed like the perfect solution, no overhead, no commute, all I needed was a computer. I didn’t bargain for a model with a high-maintenance personality and a constant need for new accessories. I named her Barbie.
Barbie has been a challenge. Like all girls she needs support that is both technical and uplifting. I’ve given her aromatherapy and astrology readings to soothe her. She loves to shop and wants, no needs, frequent additions to her software closet even though I have outfitted her with a tasteful selection of lounge ware, casual ware, scan ware and photo ware for all occasions.
She’s temperamental. I don’t know what she says to them but I keep downloading new drivers and their licenses for her because she just can’t hang on to good help.
[more]
Follow the Dirt Road In Your Soul to Humbug Mountain
Wet and Wonderful Camping at Our Aqua Oasis
When I go camping, I go looking for water. This goes back to my days growing up next to the Columbia River. Summer heat gave us two choices, picnic with the rattlesnakes or head for the cove and dive into delicious, cool refreshment. OK, so we were just downriver from the Hanford Nuclear Site where people worked in yellow suits and where my Grandpa’s cousin Neil did something top secret but what did we know? Back then we thought the government was looking out for us.
If our plan was to seek the healing properties of water, this year the water seemed to come looking for us. I can report that for the first time in my life I had to bail out the old tent, not once but twice.
[more]
Follow the Dirt Road In Your Soul to Humbug Mountain
Our Old Toymaker Goes to Meet His Maker
Russell Whiteman was 94 when he died on September 1, 2007. He was a toymaker, sage bundler, farmer, accountant, Arabian Horse breeder, grandfather and father to all in our congregation at Taos Presbyterian Church.
I wrote about this remarkable man last November for this page. Click here to read the story.
We had a service for him that was all the more touching because he chose the scripture and the hymns. Russell wanted to sing "All Things Bright and Beautiful" and "Morning Has Broken," an old Gaelic hymn that Cat Stevens made famous years ago. That was Russell, hip to the end.
A few years back Russell had a cancerous kidney removed. He'd recovered nicely but told me, "If I ever get cancer again I'm going to meet my maker." That's what he did.
[more]
