Category: wayback machine

Top Ten Things I Miss About New Mexico – 2018 Edition

One of the most popular posts I have ever done on my little blog is this one: Top Ten Things I Miss About Christmas in New Mexico.

Originally written in a fit of holiday homesickness in 2007, I republished it at the holidays for many years.

It’s been a while since I put it up on the blog, and this year I decided not to republish that same post but instead write a new one. It’s now eleven years later and things have changed. I have changed.

I’m sure many of the items will be the same, but may be on the list for a different reason. I don’t know, I’m riffing this as it comes to me. Eleven years seems like a long time, then hardly a blip on the radar too.

Anyhow, I’m super sentimental today and I’m listening to oldies Christmas music (go Bing Crosby!) so here we go:


The (refreshed) Top Ten Things I Miss About Christmas in New Mexico:


1) The smell of piñon fire smoke mixed with the smell of snow or very cold air. Don’t think snow has a smell? Think again. And piñon is the smell of home, hands down. Where I live now it’s often a spare the air day, so no fires. And also, no snow.


2) Shopping with my mom for the annual Christmas ornament. Usually we shopped in Old Town, but not always. I took the challenge of picking out my annual ornament very seriously. I have all of them now in a box. Maybe I should hang them on the tree this year? I haven’t done that in a while.


3) Biscochitos for sale pretty much everywhere. I love making them but also love eating them so sometimes my demand outpaced my supply. There was a little restaurant in Los Lunas that my folks used to like for breakfast that sold their own biscochos by the register. So light and crumbly. Gah! I could go for one now.


4) Tamales as gifts. Tamales at holiday pot lucks. Tamales at holiday parties. Just, all the tamales! All the time.


5) Creamland Egg Nog. You might say, “What now? Don’t they have egg nog out there in crazy California?” Yes they do, but I’ve never found any I liked as much as that local NM dairy brand. Plus now that my ol’ rig can’t tolerate dairy like it used to, I just have live in memories of glasses of delicious chilled nog from childhood.


6) This holiday candle my mom had from Avon that she only put out at the holidays. It smelled SO good. I have no idea what the smell even was, some sort of spiced berry thing. It was in a really pretty gold painted glass container.

Oh wait, holy moly. I found a photo online. This is it! Called Avon First Christmas Frankincense & Myrrh, circa 1967 to 1972. This is the scent of my childhood holidays. Man I miss that smell. It’s all Christmas Eve just after Mass, gazing at the tree, eating tamales, and you know, drinking big glasses of egg nog.


Awesome nostalgic photo was, surprisingly, found here.

7) Holiday happy hour at Gardunos, the one by Winrock. They’d decorate that whole warehouse looking place for the holidays. The margaritas flowed and mariachis played and there were good eats in abundance. I hear that the quality of Gardunos has gone to meh in recent years, and that makes me sad. Those days live on in memories from my mid-to-late 20s. (Well, there are quite a few things I miss from my 20s. My waistline, for example.)


8) And also sopaipillas. Which isn’t really just a holiday but year-round thing, but gall durn I miss them.


9) Snow on Sandia Crest. Or snow on the Organ Mountains. Or snow on any of the gorgeous mountains in New Mexico. (and the delicious city water that flows at spring thaw). I do NOT miss driving in snow, or how crazy people get when it is snowing, or cleaning snow off the car. Or for that matter, snow melting then re-freezing for weeks so you have that one patch that you slip on every single morning on your way to work.

But snow in the mountains? Perfection.


10) Making, placing, and lighting luminarias. Yes, we called them luminarias, correctly or not. Labor intensive but a labor of love. Digging up good New Mexico soil to fill paper bags and plopping in a candle. Stamping out the fire when the NM winds got to be too much… Like that.


Wow, so that is ten. It’s over as quick as it started. You know, ten seems hardly enough to capture all of the homesick in my heart, but this list is a pretty good place to start.

Maybe later tonight I’ll sip a little good Irish Whiskey (which doesn’t hurt my tummy!) and put my old childhood ornaments on the tree and hug The Good Man and The Feline and let memories have me for a while.

Coming up in the next few days: When I am done with the Wayback Machine, I think it is time to write the Top Ten Things I Love about Christmas in the Bay Area. There is a lot to love at the holidays, and after living here for 20 years, maybe it is time to give it its due.





Very cool image of Central Avenue in the 1950s-ish, at Christmastime was found here.





On Hideous Lizards and Good Brown Dogs

It’s funny the things that stick with you. The seemingly forgettable details or moments that you look back on with fondness.

This past weekend, I returned home to New Mexico after a far too long two-year personal drought. Life, work, whatever, gets in the way (no excuse is good enough).

The occasion of my return was the high school graduation of my oldest goddaughter. At almost 19 she is no longer that curly-haired blonde toddler who captured our hearts. She is a smart, sassy, funny, talented and gorgeous woman and I’m a bit weepy right now just typing that. I’m so proud of her.

I have been working too many hours and it’s fair to say I dragged my ragged self onto a plane, glad to go home. Sometimes I feel like I wander a little too far away from New Mexico. I forget the foundation of my soul and going home never fails to readjust my mind, my very DNA. It gets me back to remembering who I am and what matters.

Plus I eat good when I’m there, and green chile itself will help anyone get right.

Each time I go home, I’m overwhelmed at all of the things that have changed since the last time I was there. El Paso is growing fast. The area around Las Cruces too. More cars, more buildings, more people. It’s crazy.

So then I start to seek the familiar. What hasn’t changed. What is there that I remember so I can have a touchstone. A “hey, there that particular thing is, just where I left it.”

The feedlots in Vado, for example. I was pleased to find them there, cows huddled under the water misters. The inevitable cow scent on the breeze.

The Organ Mountains. Craggy, uneven, and absolutely gorgeous. I see those mountains that once watched over my college education and smile, glad to say hello again.

So today at work when I was homesick, missing my best friend and the peace of her back patio, I started going through the photos on my phone to help me with the pain.

Did I find photographs of vast mountain landscapes? Did I see the faces of my loved ones? Did I have a whimsical photo of a cow?

No I did not.

All of those sorts of photos are on my actual camera. Weirdly, I took very few photos with my phone on this trip.

So I will share with you the two photos I did take. Memories I’m carrying in my pocket to remind me of home. This gives you an awful lot of insight into my muddled mind:

First, a photo of my goddog. I may have taken one or two photos of him in the past.



The gray hair around his eyes and in his muzzle makes my heart hurt, just a little

The second will take a little more explanation.

You see, to get back to Las Cruces, I have to fly into El Paso and while that’s not my town, over the years I’ve even grown a bit fond of that crazy place.

When I stumble off the airplane and into the terminal I find that nothing much has changed. Then my heart softens a little when I see the genuinely godawful carpet in ELP’s main terminal. Seriously, it’s so bad, it makes me sentimental.

Nothing says “welcome home” like lizard carpet. Apparently, I was so overcome I had to take a photo.



Not conducive to overcoming a hangover

And now I’m glad I did, I just found out today that the infamous ELP carpet is due to be replaced, like this month! Yipes.

That means next time, I won’t be greeted at the door by the funky lizards. And as my goddog isn’t getting any younger, one day I’ll roll up to my best friend’s house and won’t get to experience his side-angled lope and velvety soft ears.

That’s too much to consider. Right now, I will rest easy knowing that hideous lizard carpet and beautiful brown dog eyes remain just where I left them. I feel my connection to home, which makes sitting in this dull gray office just a tiny bit easier to take.





Both photos ©2018 Karen Fayeth, taken using the Camera+ app on an iPhone. Don’t steal ’em. Thanks!



Ok, I’ll Pick A Side

Recently, as I perused the pages of Facebook, I came across a Newscastic (read clickbaity) article with a New Mexico topic. I took the bait so you don’t have to.

The title of the article is:

Pick A Side: 11 Famous ABQ Rivalries Since The Day You Were Born

They said to pick a side, so I did.

Herewith, the 11 so called rivalries (many of which came well after the day I was born, by the way) and my pick for each.


1) Comanche vs Candelaria


We can all agree not Montgomery, right? My preference always was and will always be Comanche, since it was quite close to the house where I grew up.

Sideline here, I looked up the house where I grew up on Google Street View. Wow, hardly recognize it. Brought a little tear to my eye.

Back in my day Comanche had way less traffic than Candelaria and made it worth taking, even with all of the stoplights. Who knows how it goes today? Maybe my ABQ folks can let me know.


2) Twisters vs Golden Pride


Have I been out of the state so long I don’t know what Twisters is? Had to look it up. Established in 1998. Psh! No.

Golden Pride (est 1972) all the way.


3) Sadies vs El Pinto


Isn’t the right answer first one then the other?

Okay, okay, look, I grew up in the days when Sadies was located in a bowling alley. That’s the kind of clientele they drew. El Pinto was always nice, a little more upscale (and pricey).

So to me it’s Sadies if you want casual and El Pinto if you want nice. Even with the lovely Sadies stand-alone restaurant, I stand by that rule of thumb.

Verdict: No pick, love ’em both in different ways


4) Rio Grande vs Alameda


Shrug. No opinion. I was a Northeast Heights girl. Didn’t get down either very often. Probably Alameda, based on my limited memories.


5) The Shins vs Brokencyde


Who? I thought this was “rivalries since the day you were born.”

Let’s go with neither. How about Joe King Carrasco, who is not from ABQ but played the hell out of it back in my day. Yeah.


6) UNM vs New Mexico State


I believe my feelings are this matter are abundantly clear.

And when we win this game, we’ll buy a keg of booze, and drink it to the Aggies til we wobble in our shoes.


Best. Fight song. Ever.


7) Eldorado vs La Cueva


Richie rich versus the really Richie rich. Who cares? Not me.

Del Norte for the win.


8) Sandia vs Rock Quarry


For skiing? Sandia. Oh Sandia and your bare dirt patches. Your hard icy spots. Your imperfect but nearby skiing, how I miss you.


9) La Cueva Skatepark vs Los Altos Skatepark


Hey! You children get off my lawn!


10) Scorpions vs Dukes


Those Dukes are comin’ up swinging. No contest whatsoever. Love the Dukes. Likely because I am a huge fan of the sport of baseball.

While I love the sport of hockey and have nothing against the Scorpions, it just never seemed…right…to have hockey in the middle of the desert. (Yes, yes, I know about the Coyotes)

Side note, the Dukes used to have dollar dog and dollar draft days. Wow there are some games I can’t remember but had fun.


11) Sandhill cranes vs Balloons


Stop it Newscastic, you’re drunk. This is a ridiculous question. What, because they both fly?

Here’s the answer, hot air balloons in the morning, sandhill cranes at sundown. Owl burgers all day long.

Solved.


Okay, ABQ folks, what are your picks?





Image found here.





Slowly Fading Out of Sight

I drove a 1979 Mercury Bobcat. It was a Ford Pinto made by Mercury. Less flammable.

It featured a rigid manual clutch and four speeds on the center console. With a good tail wind and a steep New Mexico hill, I could get some speed in that tin can of a car.

Its vintage meant that it was too new for an 8-track player and too old for a cassette player. Only an AM radio was provided. You’d pull the button out and shove it back in to save your favorite station.

There is a lot of wide open land in New Mexico. So uninhabited that radio signals from faraway populated areas don’t always reach. Spin the dial and listen to different kinds of static. Only static.

I grew up in Albuquerque and went to college at New Mexico State in Las Cruces. The same day I moved into my freshman dorm, my parents moved to Carlsbad.

To go from Las Cruces to Carlsbad, you get to the other side of El Paso and face about two hours of nowhere and nothing. No people. No animals. No radio.

The seatbelt on the passenger side fit nicely around my boom box, a Christmas present from my mom. A stack of cassette tapes queued up to take a turn in the dual slots.

The Mavericks, Patsy Cline, Foster and Lloyd, Dwight Yoakum, Buck Owens, Alan Jackson, Keith Whitley, Marty Stuart, Willie Nelson.

Merle Haggard.

And that’s the point of telling this story, isn’t it?





Those voices, those songs, those musicians. Then and now, they are a part of telling my life’s story. The music of Merle Haggard lives in my DNA. It’s a short hand between friends. An access code for memories, to instantly revisit a time and place.

There was this blue eyed cowboy. He loved to sing. Occasionally he’d even sing to me. There was this dance in Mimbres. The band let him do a song, “Silver Wings.” Merle’s music and that cowboy’s voice. Everyone talked about it for weeks.

I wasn’t even there (he and I had parted ways by that point) and it’s still a part of my story, the collective story of all of us Ag College kids from that era.

Back then a band or a jukebox or a cassette tape would play a Haggard song and we had to dance, had to sing along.

When I was taking acoustic guitar lessons, I spent a lot of time learning how to play “My Favorite Memory.” I never quite got it right.

Merle Haggard told stories. His stories became our stories. His stories became timeless. The opening cords of any number of his songs thrum a string in my soul.

Seventy-nine years is a lot and yet somehow not enough. I had recently been trying to get tickets to a show. He’d rescheduled February and cancelled March. I knew he was having trouble.

Knowing the end is near and the arrival are two very different things.

We last got to see him in December 2014. He came out to the stage looking tired and at half a lung down his voice was a little thin. By the end of the show he had energy and that smooth Merle Haggard sound rang clear, filling the venue and spilling out onto the streets.

We left the show full up to the top with the music of Merle Haggard. Though we’ve lost the man, his music lives on. In that way, we’ll always have Merle.

I’m saddened for his family who lost a husband, father and friend. We lost a good man yesterday. Today seems a little paler for the loss.

Rest easy, Hag.




December 2014 at the Uptown Theatre in Napa, CA




Black and white photo from Ben Haggard’s Facebook page all rights stay with the originator. Color photo ©2014 Karen Fayeth, taken with an iPhone6 and the Camera+ app and subject to the Creative Commons license in the right column of this page.




Were You There?

This one goes out to all of us who found ourselves attending New Mexico State University back in 1989. Maybe it was 1990. Memory is funny.

This one is for the Ag College kids. I’m about to drop a memory on you. Come along with me.

I can’t really recall what time of year it was, but it was sunny. That much I recall. Then again, it’s sunny in Las Cruces an awful lot.

The band Foster & Lloyd were on the radio. Remember them? Back then we were all listening to Foster & Lloyd. A lot. And Dwight Yoakam. And the Mavericks. And more.

So along came the news that Foster & Lloyd were opening for a Los Lobos show at the Pan Am Center. Yeah, I wanted to go to that show real bad. Alas I was a broke college kid and couldn’t afford tickets. I heard the ads on KGRT over and over and pined, but knew it wasn’t meant to be.

So instead I popped my Faster and Llouder cassette tape into the boom box I carried in the car. Or maybe it was Verision of the Truth. Or maybe first one then the other. And I held my own car concerts as I rolled around Cruces.

Then something unbelievable happened. My best friend called, out of breath and excited, to tell me that Los Lobos had to cancel the show and Foster & Lloyd were going to do a free concert just outside of Corbett Center (the student union building at NMSU) in this little amphitheater area.

We gathered up all of our friends, an armful of blankets and made sure we went to that show. My best friend walked with confidence right to the front of the small stage area and staked out our place. Up close and personal. We sat, we listened, we sang, we were a bunch of kids feeling an awful lot like family on that day.

For a bunch of Ag College kids from NMSU (hands up now, “I believe in the Future of Farming…”) having a national act come out and do a show FOR FREE was, well, that was about the coolest thing in the world.

That was a best-day-ever kind of a day. Back then anyway. Sitting here today I do have to admit that my wedding day is my best day ever, hands down. But back then to this New Mexico kid wearing dusty beat up goatskin ropers, that sunny Las Cruces day was really the best day ever.

My best friend and I slip into the Wayback Machine an awful lot when we get together, and that free concert is one we land on quite a bit. What I wouldn’t give to have a real Wayback Machine and dial it to back to that day. I might never come back.

Toward the end of the show, Foster & Lloyd were really swinging. We were all riding a sonic high and at one point, Mr. Radney Foster wandered out into the audience and put a hand out to my best friend’s little sister. He plucked her from our blanket and spun her around a little bit with the music.

My best friend and I were both elated and jealous as hell. In fact in the now twenty-five years hence, I know for sure that my best friend has never really gotten over it. Neither have I, if I am honest.

My best friend’s little sister was and is a beauty. Gorgeous and sweet and funny as hell. She is pure awesome and I love her madly, so of course I can’t be upset with her. Just jealous, I guess.

When we were in college, Little Sister was in high school and she’d find her way to Las Cruces and we’d take her out with us. When a cowboy would start to get a little too interested in her, my best friend would wander by and whisper “Um, just thought you should know…she’s sixteen.” That usually put an end to things.

So we were used to her getting a lot of the attention. On that day after Mr. Radney Foster twirled her under the bright New Mexico sky we laughed and hugged her and loved every second of that show.

It is a beautiful memory. Were you there too?

A few months ago I happened to stumble across Radney Foster’s Facebook page and hit “like” so I could see what he was up to. I’d lost track of him after his Del Rio, TX 1959 album.

Then came the fateful day where he posted that he’d be playing a little venue called Freight & Salvage in mid-July. That’s not too far from where this New Mexico kid is living these days.

Well, I hopped on those tickets so fast my credit card started smokin’.

And that live show happened just a week ago, July 15.

The Good Man had never heard of no Radney Foster until I showed him a bunch of YouTube clips in the days before the show. Then he was totally onboard. We stood at the front of the line when the doors opened and found second row seats in the general admission venue.

Aw yiss!



Photo Copyright ©2015 Karen Fayeth

It was just Mr. Foster and his acoustic guitar and he put on one hell of a show. Storytelling, songs, laughter. Man alive, it was really profound. It was like seeing a really dear old friend and picking up right where we left off twenty years ago.



Photo found on @valisaschmidley Twitter stream because I was too gobsmacked to actually take a photo myself during the show.

I almost started crying when he hit the first notes of the first song. It felt so right.

And then…oh and then…

After the show, Mr. Foster came out to the front lobby to sign a few autographs and I jumped in line.

I practiced what I was going to say and when I got there, I let roll the story of that day, 1989 (or was it 1990?) in the grass outside Corbett Center in Las Cruces, New Mexico.

Given the sheer number of shows he has performed in the last 25 years, I was surprised that he actually remembered that one day. But he did.

“Oh yeah, we were rocking that day,” he said.

“Yeah you were!” I replied.

Then I thanked him, I told him how much that free show meant to all us New Mexico college kids.

Then I reminded him about coming out into the crowd and dancing with my best friend’s little sister. About how my best friend has never quite gotten over it.

Then I held out a copy of his new CD and said “Her name is Kate and you are going to sign this for her.”

(The album is titled “Everything I Should Have Said” and it’s awesome and you should pick one up. Here is the Amazon link and here is the RadneyFoster.com link ($3 cheaper!) Go on, click one of those links. You know you wanna)

And he did sign that CD. Oh boy did he ever.

Here’s what it looks like. In case you can’t read it, it says “Kate, You get the next dance.”




Photo Copyright ©2015 Karen Fayeth

C’mon! How awesome is Radney Foster? The correct answer is amazingly awesome!

I told him that he had just created some healing twenty-five years in the making and he laughed. Then I had that “hey, let’s go grab a beer” moment and of course thought better of it. He’s just the kind of musician you feel like you know well because he writes the kind of songs that feel personal.

Then I asked him to sign a CD for The Good Man and me, and he did.

I walked out of that venue smiling from ear to ear and remembering and laughing and just at peace with the world.

And so this entire post today and all of these stories are intended to bring all of my NMSU Ag College friends along with me into that Wayback Machine.

Were you there? Do you remember? Wanna reminisce?

This post is also to thank Mr. Radney Foster for helping create another amazing memory.

Whew. Today as I wrote this I listened to The Essential Foster & Lloyd album and it was almost hard to hear. So many memories both beautiful and sad captured in all of those songs.

Well, thanks for staying a while and reading all of these words. I’m serious about you grabbing one of those new albums. Get to clicking! And if you can catch Radney Foster live? Well even better.

____________


P.S. If you have ever wondered how a New Mexico girl could ever live in California, I suggest you obtain a copy of Mr. Foster’s new album and listen to the song “California.” (I believe it is also on YouTube) Then you will understand. According to the story, that song was inspired by a beautiful Bay Area sunset as viewed from the Oakland Hills. Saaaalute!