Alamodoso Magazine September 2019 issue

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Alan Hale, born 1958, is an American professional astronomer, who co-discovered Comet Hale–Bopp along with amateur astronomer Thomas Bopp.

Hale specializes in the study of sun-like stars and the search for extra-solar planetary systems, and has side interests in the fields of comets and near-Earth asteroids. He has been an active astronomer most of his life and currently serves as the president of the Earthrise Institute, which he founded, and which has as its mission the use of astronomy as a tool for breaking down international and intercultural barriers. The International Astronomical Union has named an asteroid in Hale's honor, 4151 Alanhale, in recognition of his numerous comet observations.

Hale was born in 1958 in Tachikawa, Japan,where his father was serving in the United States Air Force. Four months later his father was transferred to Holloman Air Force Base.

Hale was raised in Alamogordo where his father retired from the Air Force and worked Read this, and past issues at issuu.com/alamodosomagazine email us at Alamodoso@gmail.com

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ALAMOGORDO HISTORIC DOWNTOWN in civil service. In 2013 Hale said, "I refuse to say that 'I grew up there' because anyone who know me knows that I really haven’t grown up yet."

He credits several factors for inspiring his interest in science and astronomy in the 1960s: the clear night skies in Alamogordo, library books on astronomy his father gave him in the first grade, the US space program, and the original Star Trek TV series. Hale also said that as a child he was interested in other sciences as well, and he "went through a dinosaur phase when I was in 2nd grade. I knew them all. Drove my parent nuts."

Hale graduated from Alamogordo High School in 1976, and then served in the United States Navy from 1976 to 1983. He graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1980 with a bachelor's degree in physics. Following his Navy service he worked at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory until 1986 as an engineering Read this, and past issues at issuu.com/alamodosomagazine email us at Alamodoso@gmail.com

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Hale first spotted the comet that would come to bear his name from his home in Cloudcroft. Since 1970 Hale had observed over 200 known comets, and on the night of July 22–23, 1995, after finishing his observations of periodic Comet Clark, and while waiting for periodic Comet d'Arrest to become visible above the horizon, he "decided to pass the time by observing some deep-sky objects in Sagittarius", and pointed his Meade DS-16 telescope towards globular cluster M70.

He said that he "immediately noticed a fuzzy object in the field" which had not been present when he had observed that region of the sky two weeks earlier.

After consulting his astronomical sources, and determining that the comet was likely unknown, Hale says: “I sent an email to Brian Marsden and Dan Green at the Central Bureau ... informing them of a possible comet; later, when I had verified that the object had moved against the background stars, I sent them an additional email. I continued to follow the comet for a total of about 3 hours, until it set behind trees in the southwest, and then was able to email a detailed report, complete with two positions.�

Unknown to Hale, that night Thomas Bopp was observing the same region of the sky with friends near Stanfield, Arizona. At around 11:00 pm, Bopp was observing M70 through his telescope and "noticed a fainter, fuzzy object coming into the field". Bopp and his friends followed the object for the next hour, and after seeing it move relative to the background stars, concluded that they had been viewing a comet. Bopp then drove back to his home in Glendale, and sent a telegram to the Central Bureau informing them of the comet.

On July 23, the IAU issued Circular 6187 Read this, and past issues at issuu.com/alamodosomagazine email us at Alamodoso@gmail.com

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ALAMOGORDO HISTORIC DOWNTOWN to announce the joint discovery of the new comet. Per Hale, calculations indicate that Hale–Bopp likely last appeared on the order of 4000 years ago, but any record of this previous encounter had not yet been positively identified from ancient records.

It has also been determined that Hale– Bopp will not return to the inner solar system until approximately 4385.

Comet Hale–Bopp, originally labeled C/1995 O1, and sometimes called "the Great Comet of 1997", became one of the most-viewed comets in human history, and the brightest comet seen since Comet West in 1976, appearing 1000 times brighter than Comet Halley did at the same distance.

When the comet was at the peak of its brightness, Hale says he was giving talks about the comet in big cities with lightpolluted night skies, so he did not get a chance "to see it all that much when it was really bright."

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DEJA VU A SHORT STORY by GLORIA MARIE

The feeling of Deja Vu is something, however eerie, we are all familiar with. It's that kind of spooky feeling like we've been right here before or this very thing has happened before. Maybe Deja Vu has happened to you. Now try to consider Vuja Da. That's a feeling like this has NEVER happened to ANYONE before. But THISwhat I'm about to share with you, is perhaps somewhere in the middle...somewhere between never happened, already happened, might happen, ain't gunna happen, will happen, should happen, won't happen. Well, coulda, woulda, shoulda!

I hope you enjoy what is about to happen.

Overridge is a town tucked away in the hills, surrounded by backwoods. It's a place no one has ever heard of. Even some of the Read this, and past issues at issuu.com/alamodosomagazine email us at Alamodoso@gmail.com

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ALAMOGORDO HISTORIC DOWNTOWN locals have never heard of it. It's a place where men are men, women are strong and kids are kids. Church services are held every Sunday at The Chapel of Our Lady of Amazing Guilt. Pace of life is slow. Slow too are the thought processes of most folks in these parts. But these folks are survivors.

Clever in their own way. Getting by, by however they can. Doing what needs doing.

These simple people lead simple lives.

Patrons Hall and Heritage Gallery is a Bistro/Cafe with delicious coffees, teas, ice cream and serves breakfast and lunch Monday-Friday LIVE MUSIC & OPEN MIKE NIGHTS

One day in the simple life in Overridge we see Ma and Pa sitting in their rocking chairs on their porch talking about Beauregard the Wonder Dog. Beauregard is a good natured old hound. He's short on brains but long on loyalty. Ma says, "He's a dumb dog, He ran into a tree." Beauregard says, "Rough bark!" Ma says," I wonder why we even have a dog?'

Pa answers quickly, "That's why we call him the Wonder Dog!". But anyway, Beauregard is a good natured old hound, and will be good for something one day. Ma and Pa like their rocking chairs, like their porch, like their dog, like their life, like their still in the backwoods and like the moonshine Pa makes with it.

Ma is thinking why nothing every happens in and around Overridge. But Pa reminded her that something DID happen in Overridge...once. Pa says, "My Great Granddaddy invented the tooth brush!" Ma says,"Are you sure about that?" Pa replied, "Yeah, sure. Otherwise it would be called a teeth brush."

1106 New York Ave | Alamogordo | 575-488-2185 Open Monday thru Saturday | Closed Sunday

Well there is a beautiful little old gal who lives in the valley. Her name is Moonbeam McSwine. She is a regular customer of that Hillbilly Pop, that Bush Whisky, that White Lightening Pa cooks up in the still hidden in the backwoods. Pa sells just enough of that Skull Cracker, that Alley Bourbon, that

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Panthers Breath to pay off the bank every month. Moonbeam is a fun loving gal, loves to dance, loves to go fishing and is right handy in the kitchen. And she's a mighty pretty little thing too.

Pa says, "Well, lookee there! Here comes Moonbeam McSwine now." She's a vision of loveliness, but she looks powerful thirsty...and a might concerned. Moonbeam says, "Pa, there's a stranger been snooping around. Could be a Revenuer?" Beauregard the Wonder Dog howls, "Revenuoooo".

Oh, this isn't good! If that Revenuer busts up the still, Ma and Pa could go to jail, or have to pay a hefty fine, or get put on probation,m or get a hangnail, or split ends, or, or, or LOOSE THE FARM! Pa is hoppin' mad. Ma tries to calm him down, get him to settle his nerves. She suggests they just call it a day and sleep on it, to just go to bed. Pa says." Ready Ma?" Ma says,"Able Pa"?

There's a big family that lives on the hill over yonder. They've been there since just after the War. They call themselves the Boombahs. Daddy Boombah wanted to treat the family to a trip to Disneyland a few years back. Daddy and MaMa Boombah loaded the clan into the truck and headed west. It wasn't easy for these simple folks to maneuver the highways of Los Angeles but they did it.

When they got to Anaheim Daddy saw a sign that read, DISNEYLAND LEFT. So he turned the truck around and they came home.

MaMa and Daddy Boombah have only two kids at home now : Bubba and Sis. Bubba Boombah is a strapping large lad. He's been on a seafood diet for years and years. He see's food and he eats it. He's real good in school too. As a matter of fact, he's had lots of practice. Bubba has been in school for 15 years now, off and on.

When school is on, he's heads above the rest of the class. Oh, I don't mean heads Read this, and past issues at issuu.com/alamodosomagazine email us at Alamodoso@gmail.com

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ALAMOGORDO HISTORIC DOWNTOWN above the rest in the scholastic achievement department and getting good grades and all. I mean he's just heads above the rest of those little tykes in 3rd grade, seeing as Bubba is 21 years old! But Bubba has a real good heart.

Folks around here say he's good and kind.

Good for nothing and kinda stupid. And now Sis, the youngest of the clan, well Sis Boombah is an absolute beauty. Known far and wide, oh did I say wide! Known for miles and miles around for her beautiful long brown hair, her sweet simple smile, her skill with a gun. She can shoot the spots off a ladybug at 100 yards.

And if Sis has any other hidden talents, well, they're well hidden. Sis can't hide her long brown hair. And speaking of brown hare Sis Boombah goes rabbit hunting almost every day. Nobody's going hungry in these parts. Roasted rabbit or hare stew in every pot, and with less rabbits nibbling on the garden, there's loads of fresh vegetables.

Bubba and Sis are close as siblings go. A while back Bubba got sick, Seems every time he looked in the mirror he threw up. So he went to the doctor.

Sis asked him, "What did the doctor say is wrong ?" Bubba replied, " The doctor doesn't know what is wrong, but he says my eyesight is perfect."

Meanwhile, back at the still Ma and Pa are hoping the Revenuer doesn't find the still.

Ma doesn't need to remind Pa that if the still is discovered, it'll get confiscated, or worse, get busted up and plumb ruined. Right about now here comes Moonbeam McSwine looking powerful worried.

She says, "He's nosier than a bloodhound , that Revenuer!" Beauregard howls, "Revenuoooo".

Ma says, "Oh dear!" They all look around and see a handsome official looking stranger

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approaching. The official looking stranger says,"What's going on here?" Pa says, "Um, uh, well, we." he stammers and stutters.

The stranger says, "I'm Agent Harris, a Revenuer." Beauregard says," Revenuoooo."

Agent Harris says, "I'm going to bust up this still right here and now." "I knew there was a still out here somewhere in these backwoods, I could smell it, and now I found it." "I'm going to bust this still up if it's the last thing I do!"

His intention was to mistreat and maul, puncture and perforate, pummel and punch,dash and destroy and fill that still full of lead. Agent Harris raises his shotgun and shoots at the still. Pa is horrified!

He grabs his pistol ad tries to shoot the gun out of Agent Harris's hands. Ma is antagonized. She grabs her pistol and starts shooting too. Moonbeam is mystified. She grabs her pistol and tries to break up the ruckus.

She finally hollers, "STOP!" As the smoke clears and everyone catches their breath, Moonbeam McSwine and Agent Harris ultimately get a good long look at each other.

It's love at first sight! They are both smitten.

Agent Harris says, "Be still my heart.

She's a Goddess, that Moonbeam, a siren to lure men to their final fates, a gem, a jewel, a diamond, a pearl, just too beautiful for a mere mortal, prettier than a brand new red pick up , softer than the sigh of a dove, warmer than August 15th, sweeter than a Mason jar full of sugar."

Agent Harris says to Moonbeam, "You're intoxicating!" followed by," Oh NO! Wait!

Intoxicating is illegal! It's against the law too."

Ma looks at Pa and says, "He's Moonbeam struck, the Revenuer is." Beauregard howls, Read this, and past issues at issuu.com/alamodosomagazine email us at Alamodoso@gmail.com

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ALAMOGORDO HISTORIC DOWNTOWN "Revenuooo." Pa looks at Ma and says, "He's nuts!" Moonbeam gazes at Agent Harris and says, "You OK Mr. Revenuer?" and Beauregard howls again.

Agent Harris says, "A voice like silver bells!" Yes, a voice like silver bells, eyes as deep as a catfish pond, ears like dried apricots, skin as smooth as corn silk, hair as fine as 5 lb. test, hands like velvet, lips as soft as a cows nose, and a body to die for.

And then that voice like silver bells asks,"You wanna go fishing?" To which Agent Harris replies, "I want only you."

Now Agent Harris and Moonbeam link arms and walk over toward the edge of the backwoods. He wants only you Moonbeam, you enchantress, you angel, you darling, you sweetie pie, you snookums.

Ma says, "Lets go to the Road Kill Cafe." Pa says,"They serve good vittles." Bubba says, "They're having a hoedown!" Sis says, "Hee Haw!!."

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Desert Foothills Park

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riented at the far eastern end of 1st Street, it borders the National Forest and as its name implies, the Foothills of the Sacramento Mountains.

A few years back the direct connection to the cliffs were cut off with the addition of a concrete culvert, the huge concrete diversion drainage flowing out of Marble Canyon.

Ideally, this ditch will prevent another catastrophic flood of the City; time will tell.

Now, it defines the eastern boundary of the park, though they have added a nice walking bridge to allow easy access to the small section of the park across the drainage.

The park is mostly low growing desert scrub, with a variety of paved and dirt tracks winding around and through the acreage. The gravel entry drive terminates at a large open parking area, with a roofed pavilion for picnics and cookouts. Bathrooms are oriented out at the park entry.

Hours of operation: 8am until Sunset.

Don't get locked in!

There are trails around and through the park. At the entry gate you can take off around the boundary to the North... or head out on the paved trail to the east. The park Read this, and past issues at issuu.com/alamodosomagazine email us at Alamodoso@gmail.com

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ALAMOGORDO HISTORIC DOWNTOWN includes a long section of the Pedestrian and Bike trail that runs the full length of the Drainage Ditch. Trails wind around the interior of the park... a variety of easy loops can be composed.

The nicer hike is to walk through the park, across the bridge... and on up the Goat Springs Trail. Though not the current official trail head for this nicely steep outing, this route is obvious once across the bridge. This is also the traditional start to the hike.

If you follow the hike/bike trail north, you will shortly be at the mouth of Marble Canyon with twenty more great hikes in front of you.

You could also cross the bridge, turn south and follow the old Pipeline Road down to Quiet Canyon, The Dome Cut, or the Prominent Point hike.

Most hikers opt to park outside the Park entry gates... then the hours of operation will not have an impact on your day.

Whether enjoying an easy outing at the Park... and just heading through and beyond... the Desert Foothills Park can nicely augment your Alamogordo hiking!

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Oliver Lee’s Dog Canyon Ranch and House Open Saturdays and Sundays 10:00am-3:00pm October 20, 21 October 27, 28 November 3, 4 November 10, 11 Guided tours offered Saturdays 10:00am and Sundays 3:00pm

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OLIVER LEE HOME circa 1940

OLIVER LEE HOME PRESENT DAY

OLIVER LEE

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O

liver Milton Lee, commonly known as Oliver Lee (November 8 1865 – 15 December 1941) was a part-time deputy U.S. marshal, rancher, and gunfighter. Lee was born in Buffalo Gap, Texas and died in Alamogordo, where the Oliver Lee Memorial State Park is named for him.

Little is known about Lee's life prior to his moving to New Mexico from Texas with his mother. His marksmanship even at an early age is mentioned in "The Fabulous Frontier" .

Lee worked as a Deputy US Marshal before turning to ranching. He was described in "Tularosa: Last of the Frontier West" as "magnificently muscled, straight as a young pine, catlike in his coordination".

"He had his mother's piercing black eyes which seemed to bore into you, and a chin like the rock of Gibraltar, but he always spoke softly." (A description of him at the age of 19.)

Dee Harkey in his "The Life of a New Mexico Lawman - Mean as Hell" stated he had many dealings with Oliver Lee and "so far as I know or ever heard, he always dealt on the square."

Nevertheless, it was not long before a range war of the Lincoln County type began to fester.

Lee moved into the area from Texas with his half brother Perry Altman. They planned to raise and sell horses as well as to acquire land. C.L Sonnichsen relates that Oliver and Perry soon met Cherokee Bill. He suggested that they buy out "Frenchy" who had a place in Dog Canyon where he was raising fruit trees. He told them the area had a reliable water source.

Perry is quoted as saying, "Well, Oliver this country is so damn sorry I think we can Read this, and past issues at issuu.com/alamodosomagazine email us at Alamodoso@gmail.com

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stay here a long time and never be bothered by anybody else." Lee's fair play ethics did not set well with the local power brokers, Albert Fountain, John Good and others.

Lee later became friends with Albert Fall.

The alliance would last for decades. It also put him on the side of the Democrats, who were at odds with the Republican faction led

by Colonel Albert Jennings Fountain.

Fountain was a powerful rival to land owners Lee and Fall. The struggle between them was characterized in the book "The Two Alberts - Fountain and Fall". The political party in the majority in the area was the Republican, and these were an extension of the Santa Fe Ring, a secret coalition of lawmakers determined to control public offices in the New Mexico Territory.

The range war came to a boil in the winter of 1895-6. Colonel Fountain had gone to the Lincoln County court and obtained 32 indictments against 23 ranchers for theft of livestock or defacement of brands.

Oliver Lee, Jim Gililland and William McNew were among the accused. This caused their being suspects in the February 1896 disappearance and presumed murder of Colonel Fountain and his 8-year-old son Henry. They were pursued by Sheriff Pat Garrett and a posse.

Garrett and posse engaged in a gun battle with Lee and Gililland near Alamogordo at Wildy Well, with Deputy Sheriff Kurt Kearney being killed.

Lee later testified that Kearney and Garrett shot at Lee and Gililland, who were sleeping on the roof of the house at Wildy Well, without even asking them to surrender.

Lee and Gililland fired back in selfdefense. Garrett and his men were pinned

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down and Lee and Gililland allowed them to flee. Lee and Gililland attended to Kearney, but he died of his wounds.

It was almost three years before the matter was settled in court. These events led to the political maneuvering which led to the formation of Otero County.

Lee believed that if he surrendered to Garrett he would never make it to trial. This is attested to in Dee Harkey's book "The Life of a New Mexico Lawman - Mean as Hell".

Lee's friend, Albert Fall and other Democrats offered to honor Otero, the Republican Governor, with the creation of a county named after him. The boundary of this new county would put the location, and so the jurisdiction of the Fountain case, in the new county. The only thing the Democrats wanted in exchange was that the sheriff of the new county would be their choice.

Once the county was established and Lee's friend, George Curry was appointed sheriff, Lee promptly surrendered.

Albert Fall and others defended Lee, McNew and Gilliland, who were charged with and tried in Hillsboro, New Mexico, for the crime of killing Henry Fountain (Albert's young son). No one was ever charged with the murder of Albert Fountain.

Charges against McNew were dismissed, while Lee and Gililland were acquitted. Dee Harkey notes that it was interesting that none of the other ranchers indicted were ever pursued as suspects.

Oliver Lee later held office in the New Mexico Senate and continued operating his ranches until his own death in 1941.

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THE SACRAMENTO MOUNTAINS

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DISCOVER THE SACRAMENTOS

● ● ● ● ● ● ● ●

High Rolls Cloudcroft Mayhill Weed Sacramento Sun Spot Timberon Pinon

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THE SACRAMENTO MOUNTAINS

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THE SACRAMENTO MOUNTAINS

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CLOUDCROFT | MAYHILL | TIMBERON | WEED

LUMBERJACKS & FALL ART SHOW SEPTEMBER 21ST, 2019 JOIN US FOR AN EXCITING DAY FULL OF EVENTS, MUSIC, AND ART SHOW AND MORE! ● Schedule of Events ● Women’s Axe Throw ● Men’s Axe Throw ● 0-60cc Chain Saw ● Men’s Single Buck ● Women’s Single Buck ● 60cc to 5 cubic in. Saw ● Underhand Chop ● Over 5 in. Saws ● Half Time: Kid's Competition ● Men’s Double Buck ● Jack and Jill Buck ● Standing Block Chop ● Women’s Double Buck ● Obstacle Choker Race ● Women’s Chainsaw ● Open Modified Chain Saw ● The Hot Saw ● Relay Read this, and past issues at issuu.com/alamodosomagazine email us at Alamodoso@gmail.com

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THE SACRAMENTO MOUNTAINS

Harvestfest Saturday, October 26th, 2019 Bring your own pumpkin and come participate or watch the Great Pumpkin Race! Amateurs will compete for prizes by rolling pumpkins down a hill. It’s as hilarious as it sounds, and it’s fun to see what kind of wheels the pros put on their pumpkins.

The pumpkins and their owners line up at the top of the hill in front of the library. On the word "go," the pumpkins are released and allowed to roll downhill with the help of only gravity. The pumpkins bounce and some may curved to the right or the left, while on their journey to the finish.

Pet costume parade brought to you by the CLOUDCROFT KIWANIS CLUB, there will be and prizes! Enter your pet or even a mini pet float!

Keeping with the Halloween spirit your entry can be funny, cute, sweet, spiritual , happy, or kind.

Trick or Treating on Burro Ave. will take place after the costume contest and pet parade. We will begin in front of the library on Swallow Street.

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THE SACRAMENTO MOUNTAINS

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CLOUDCROFT | MAYHILL | TIMBERON | WEED

Sacrament of Gold

By Edward Woten, Mountain Monthly

Chapter Two

Cold Steel and Hot Lead

The mounted Spanish caballero came fullgallop at him again, brandishing his deadly halberd side to side as he neared. Jim tried to swerve sideways, but it seemed his boots had become part of the rocky ground beneath him and could not be pulled loose. He reared back and as the cold steel flashed past his face, he could tell that the lance head and axe had been honed to a razor-sharp edge.

He caught a glimpse of the gloating sneer of superiority on the bristly-bearded face of the conquistador. The evil dark eyes were shadowed by the brim of the crested morrion helmet he wore.

Jim glanced over his shoulder as the rider turned yet again, this time for a killing pass.

The halberd was now rock-steady as he clinched it in his calloused hands. Jim tried to run, but couldn’t. His breath, he couldn’t catch his breath. He was suffocating. Couldn’t breath. Couldn’t turn away as the deadly 11.6 Read this, and past issues at issuu.com/alamodosomagazine email us at Alamodoso@gmail.com

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THE SACRAMENTO MOUNTAINS dream seemed so real as it chased him with a nightmarish intensity which continued into his waking consciousness as he thrashed and moaned.

He was shaking and his nightshirt was drenched with sweat as he nearly fell sideways off of his narrow cot. Strong hands gripped his arms to keep him from falling. His thrashing had kicked the thin cotton blanket to the packed dirt floor.

“Easy, amigo. Easy. Take it easy, my friend. You’re okay now. You’re safe. Take a deep breath. Slow ... slow ... good. Easy now, relax. That’s good. Relax.”

Juanito Lara’s voice was soothing and had a calming effect. Jim’s heart had slowed and he could breath again.

“What ... what happened? Where am I?” His mouth was dry and cottony with the effort.

“You, amigo, gave us one hell of a scare. I sent young Tomas over to check on the corral, and he found you laying in the dirt by the trough. Pobrecito, his little heart cried. He thought you were muerto, my friend. He stumbled home and we couldn’t understand him for the longest time, so I came over to see what was the que paso.”

“It’s a good thing we found you when we did, amigo. Your hand and arm were swelled up como un melon. You could have lost the arm it was so bad, all rojo y negro. That old snake give you everything he got.

“Bueno suerte, good luck for you, mi Tia Lupita knows a good cure for snakebite. She takes the bark off “el gobenador,” you know, that creosote bush outside, and she makes a, how you say, a poultice. She put mucho on the hand and it pull the evil poison out. She do this two days ago, amigo. You been gone to some bad place for two days.”

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CLOUDCROFT | MAYHILL | TIMBERON | WEED

Jim’s mind was reeling. Two days? Could it have been two whole days? But Juanito’s voice had a soothing effect, and he began to calm down. His breathing was almost regular again.

His limbs were still quivering, but only slightly now. He had very little strength left and he collapsed back onto the cot.

“That’s good, amigo. You rest some more.”

He quickly drifted off again to gentle sleep, this time without the pursuing nightmare.

When he awoke again, his small cabañita was dark. There was a single candle guttering on the wooden table across the room. Young Tomas was dozing in a ladderback chair next to the cot. He slowly stirred awake as Jim began to rouse himself.

“Oh Señor Jaime. I’m so glad to see you again. You have been out for days and days.

How are you feeling?”

Jim managed a faint smile. “I’m much better now, thanks to you. Or so I hear.”

Tomas’ grin was infectious. “Mama has some frijoles y tortillas here for you. They are cold, but still muy bueno. Are you hungry?”

“Young man, I am famished. Please bring me a bowl. I think I can manage some. And water. Bring me some water, por favor. I can’t believe how dry my throat is.”

The boy brought Jim a cup of water, a bowl half filled with beans, a fresh tortilla and a spoon. He managed to sit up in bed and lean back against the cool adobe wall.

“I go and fetch Papa,” the boy cried out as he ran out the door.

“Gracias, mi hijo!” Jim called after him as he set to with the simple fare.

The early morning sunlight roused Jim. He inhaled deeply of the sweet mountain air which flowed downslope at the beginning of every Read this, and past issues at issuu.com/alamodosomagazine email us at Alamodoso@gmail.com

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THE SACRAMENTO MOUNTAINS day. With his small ranch situated on the western face of the Sacramentos, he enjoyed the cool morning an hour longer than the flat expanse of the basin below.

He felt greatly refreshed from the protracted slumber. He arose slowly and stretched. He was steady on his feet and clear-headed, but his right hand and forearm still had a slight tightness to the skin. This too would pass as he exercised the stiff muscles. Jim had been snakebit twice before, but neither case had incapacitated him as this one had. His relatively quick recovery could only be accounted for by his stout constitution. At any rate, he was glad to be up and about finally.

Striding outside to the horse trough, he shucked his nightshirt and sluiced several buckets of water over his head, washing away the sweat, dirt and lingering miasma of illness.

The cool air quickly dried his skin. Stepping back inside, Jim was pleased to find that his clothes had been laundered and folded by Maria, Juanito’s wife, during his convalescence. He felt blest, once again, to have such trustworthy and caring neighbors, and vowed to do something especially nice for them in return. He would have to think of some unusual gift to bestow.

Yet again, he found that the morning chores around the small ranch had been taken care of by his good vecino, which left him free to focus on a task which had woven itself in and out of his dreams. He had to discover what it really was that he had glimpsed in the instant before the snake struck.

The few important possessions that Jim kept, a small album of old photos, legal papers, the family Bible, and now his new deed to the spring, were stored in a well-worn pair of saddlebags that he had toted around for years.

Amongst the limited debris of his life was a hand-tooled gunbelt and, wrapped in an oiled bandana, his Colt .44/.40, dulled with age, but

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till quite serviceable.

He seldom had reason to take the firearm out of storage, so he checked the action and dry-fired the pistol two or three times. It was smooth as ever. He loaded the cylinders, leaving one empty under the hammer, holstered the gun and buckled the belt around his waist.

The unfamiliar heft of the iron on his hip was distracting at first, but he soon got used to the idea. His next encounter with that old rattler would have a different ending.

A few items that he thought he might need were gathered together into a small tow sack: two beeswax candles, matches, tortillas wrapped in a hand towel, a bag of jerky, a coil of hemp rope, his lariat and a roll of cordage.

Slinging a full canteen over one shoulder and the tow sack over the other, Jim set out for the short, rocky climb. It felt good to stretch his legs after a few days of forced inactivity. This time, the trip was more exhilarating than anything else and he made quick work of the hike.

Studying the rocky face above the spring box, he noticed a projection of stone up from, and to the right of the ledge where the cleft was. With a practice swing of his lariat, Jim looped a coil over the rock and tested the tightly braided line of rope. He was able to dangle his weight from the end, but he was only going to use it as a hand line to steady himself on the short climb. Securing the tow sack with the canteen strap, he started up the face using the available hand and foot holds.

When he found firm footing a few feet to the side of cleft, he broke off a mesquite branch above his head and scraped it around the ledge.

There was no response from the snake, but he wasn’t taking any chances. He continued to wave the branch around deeper into the cave for a full minute. Nothing.

He reached down and retrieved the halberd that had first piqued his interest. There were a few pitted spots of rust on the blade, but it was Read this, and past issues at issuu.com/alamodosomagazine email us at Alamodoso@gmail.com

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THE SACRAMENTO MOUNTAINS in surprisingly good shape nonetheless. He knew that this Spanish artifact had to have been at least three hundred years old. Jim knelt down and gently placed his prize in the tow sack, then peered into the cave mouth.

The entrance was only about two feet high, but about five feet wide, and could easily accommodate his body. There were some dim shapes further back in the darkness. He would have to wait for his eyes to adjust to the shadowy interior. Proceeding with the mesquite branch held forward, he wriggled deeper into the alcove. He had now assured himself that there was no danger in front of him.

As he crawled forward, his hand brushed aside some small objects and he heard the distinct tinkling sound of metal. Fumbling in the cotton sack he pulled out the stub of a candle and the box of matches. Striking one, his eyes were immediately dazzled by the glint of gold! Strewn across the floor of the cave were dozens of sparkly yellow coins! He picked one up and recognized the crest of Castile y Leon. They were Spanish reales!

Just as his mind began to reel with the implications, a loud report sounded behind him, followed by another and another.

Gunfire! Someone was peppering the rocks outside the cave with hot lead!

He heard a voice call out, “He’s up there in them rocks, Boss! I seen him crawl up that there crack. We got him pinned down for sure.

He ain’t goin’ nowhere!”

An unfamiliar voice answered with authority, “That’s all right, boys. Y’all back up a bit. Come down here.” The voice paused and there was the sound of several pairs of boots scrambling over rocky surfaces. “That’s good, boys. Now stay put.” He shouted out, “Franklin! Bring up that dynamite!”

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019 is when you finally come home to yourself, Virgo – and not because you’re hiding out from the world. The

stars bring you plenty to celebrate on the domestic front this year. Happy, healthy, expansive relationships with family are highlighted through December. Reconnection with estranged relatives is possible because you’re wiling to forgive and accept forgiveness. With Jupiter in Sagittarius through almost the end of the year, walking into your door at the end of the day can feel like a thrilling adventure.

You might become obsessed with interior decorating Insta feeds as you beautify your space.

Real estate is lucky for you this year, and you just might move in with your partner if you’re not already living together. Start making those extra keys, luv. If you have a family of your own, your relationship to your children is extra warm and fuzzy in 2019 – expect endless optimism instead of frustration and lack of sleep. Pluto and Saturn continue to shape your ideas and make them perfect – but you finally feel ready to show them off rather than toiling in isolation.

The Cosmic Taskmaster has honed your selfesteem for about a year and in 2019, you truly have the practical tools you need to put a major project into the spotlight.

This might also be the year when you throw caution to the wind and begin to travel to the exotic spots you’ve been too busy or anxious to visit.

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THE SACRAMENTO MOUNTAINS Love & Sex: Get ready for an exceptionally powerful sexual healing this year, Virgo. After Chiron (better known as the “Wounded Healer”) returns to Aries in late February, your desire nature deepens. This is not necessarily about the lighter side of your sex life – it’s about the depths of emotional intimacy. But you won’t lack for pure pleasure, as long as you seek it out. Saturn might make you work a bit harder than usual for it, but it’ll be worth it. Neptune spends another year in your relationship zone, so you’ll have to avoid projecting your feelings onto your partner – and allowing your partner to project their own baggage onto you.

Career & Money: This is the year to start a home-based business or begin freelancing, Virgo. You’re so safe, content, and thrilled to be at home that even if you have a regular office job, you might ask for extra days to work remotely.

You’re at your most efficient and creative when you get to stay in your pajamas. Double-check all your accounting during the Mercury Retrograde phases noted in the overview. Powerful insights can arise during the rare and beautiful Transit of Mercury across the Sun on 11 November – this won’t happen again until 2039, and it could bring some massive insight into your overall life direction – including your professional/communication goals.

Health & Wellness: The eclipse cycle that reigned from 2016 – 2018 put some strain on your heath and may have increased your stress levels. The good news is that it’s all over now and you should feel a lot calmer and more stable, Virgo. Your perennial issue is anxiety linked to perfectionism, but during the second year of Saturn’s tour though your creativity zone, you’re learning to relax a bit. You’re slightly less obsessive-compulsive about getting all your I’s dotted and T’s crossed. Bringing wellness rituals into your private sanctuary will have you on cloud nine, thanks to Jupiter’s presence in your home zone. Candlelit essential oil baths, ergonomic pillows, and an assortment of medicinal herbal teas are must-haves.

Building your own personal at-home apothecary will keep you in excellent health in 2019.

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Cloudcroft Baby Sanatorium

By Florence Dean

S

ummer days in the southwest during the early years of the 20th century, as they are today, were brutal with searing temperatures well over 100 degrees. It was extremely difficult to keep food from perishing, especially food for infants. Milk soured in no time, and babies suffered from gastrointestinal disorders that kept them dehydrated. Some did not survive.

In 1904, Dr. Herbert E. Stevenson was on a train headed from El Paso to California with his wife and very ill 18-month-old son. The child had been ill for some time and the doctor hoped a cooler climate would help.

Sadly, the child died on the train; the family returned home.

Later, a second son was born. His life was saved when the doctor took him to the closer, cooler climate in Cloudcroft. The child’s health improved in the mountain air.

Cloudcroft at the time was mostly populated by “cottagers,” people who could afford to leave the desert during the summer months for cool mountain breezes. Although Read this, and past issues at issuu.com/alamodosomagazine email us at Alamodoso@gmail.com

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THE SACRAMENTO MOUNTAINS Cloudcroft was only a few miles from Alamogordo, at an elevation of 8,600 feet, there was a huge difference in climate.

Cloudcroft offered pine trees and temperatures 40 degrees cooler than the desert floor. Dr. Stevenson soon purchased a tract of land near Cloudcroft and spoke with friends about the possibility of opening a hospital there just for babies. It would only be open during summer months.

The El Paso and Southwestern Railroad built a road to Cloudcroft in 1909. Logging had begun there before 1900, and with the railroad now accessing the little town, people purchased land lots and began the summer trek to the cool mountains. Simple cabins were built with canvas sides and roofs sheltering wood floors. \ The Cloudcroft Lodge, a retreat that attracted many visitors, burned in 1909. Dr. Stevenson was instrumental in getting railroad leaders and the president of Phelps Dodge Corporation to rebuild the lodge.

Later, the railroad donated land for the proposed hospital, and Joshua Reynolds, president of the First National Bank of El Paso, gave Dr. Stevenson $10,000. An anonymous donor contributed another $5,000.

The Alamogordo News reported the following in April 20, 1911: “Here is a philanthropist whose generosity is resulting in the founding of a life saving station of the first magnitude. His bigness of heart and his breadth of mind are not measured by the size of his gifts, but by the manner of giving, which has been wholly without pomp or ostentation. He has steadfastly declined to have his name made public.� E. Krause, an El Paso architect, offered his services and there were other generous contributors. At last the hospital was assured and construction began.

In June 14, 1911, the Cloudcroft Baby

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Sanatorium opened, staffed by Dr. Branch Craige of Baltimore, and Miss Knox, a registered nurse. That summer the hospital was full of little patients. According to the hospital log, most patients were discharged as “cured, improved or well.”

Unfortunately two babies, one admitted in extremely grave condition with cholera, did not survive. Babies came from nearby Alamogordo and as far away as Chihuahua, Mexico. Dr. Craige and others brought sick babies from El Paso. Still others came with their parents on the railroad.

The railroad made sure the water supply to the hospital was tested and a sewer system installed. Electricity was supplied by the railroad power plant, though it was only available from 6:00 p.m. until midnight.

Just as the hospital and new lodge were scheduled to open, the Southern Pacific ran a $3.00 “Excursion Special” from El Paso to Cloudcroft. A group of visiting nurses took advantage of the special and returned to El Paso impressed with the new, modern hospital. They told about the large dormitory containing 30 cribs, a room for babies with contagious diseases, a doctor’s office, staff rooms, and bathrooms. There was a wellequipped kitchen and radiators in each room, while porches on three sides made it possible to put cribs outdoors on sunny days.

The founders of the hospital wanted to establish an endowment fund of between $15,000 and $18,000 so the facility could provide services to babies from poor families as well. This goal was reached, and no families were ever refused care because of the inability to pay.

Dr. Craige and Miss Knox managed the Sanatorium for two years, and were replaced by two registered nurses, Emily Green and Louise Dietrich. Dietrich, then an El Paso Read this, and past issues at issuu.com/alamodosomagazine email us at Alamodoso@gmail.com

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THE SACRAMENTO MOUNTAINS resident, was born in New York State. She had a long and illustrious career in nursing.

She was well-known in her field of work for reducing infant mortality. They operated the facility for the next eight years. Several doctors helped the nurses: Drs. B.F. Stevens, J.A. Rawlings, A.P. Black, Harry Leigh, and others who often brought sick babies with them to Cloudcroft.

The El Paso Times stated in 1911, “Although Dr. A.P. Black was not in residence, he made frequent trips to Cloudcroft, often taking sick babies with him.

Dr. Black gave the first blood transfusion ever given in the mountains. The baby was seriously ill and he (Dr. Black) was forced to improvise and “make do” with whatever was available.”

Entries in pages of the patient log, preserved at The Sacramento Mountains Historical Museum and Pioneer Village in Cloudcroft, list treatment for one little patient as: 2⁄3 milk, 1⁄3 barley, lime, H2O, and one ounce lactose. There were no antibiotics; excellent nursing care accomplished much.

At the end of the 1923 summer, 23 patients had been treated with no fatalities.

Emily Dana Greene, the registered nurse superintendent, commented in the log, “A most successful season. The number of admissions was low but the daily average was exceptionally high and there were no deaths.”

Although the El Paso Women’s Club must be credited with enthusiastic, unending support for the Sanatorium from the beginning, Cloudcrofters also united to raise funds. Weekly tea and bridge parties were held in the gardens of Cloudcroft. Each year a masquerade dance was held. The Little Theater group from El Paso produced a yearly play at the Cloudcroft Pavilion. This

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event was always a highlight for Cloudcroft residents. The performance was marked by a dinner preceding the performance, and a postperformance party.

The Weekly Cloudcrofter, in July 1917, commented on the dedication of people in both El Paso and Cloudcroft. “One of the permanent entertainments is the annual Masquerade Ball. This Ball will be given at the Pavilion on Saturday evening, an admission of fifty cents will be charged to everyone. There will be no dance at the Lodge on Saturday evening and from the interest taken in the coming Ball there should be much enjoyment as well as material benefit.”

The Alamogordo News also reported on the event. “A good many people of Alamogordo are making arrangements to attend this big ball.” The Fourth Cavalry Band attracted hundreds and raised $175 for the Baby Sanatorium.

Over the years about 500 patients stayed at the Baby Sanatorium. Approximately a third came from New Mexico towns, and on occasion from old Mexico.

The last year the Baby Sanatorium functioned as a hospital for sick children was 1934. In 1935, it became a recreation camp for underprivileged children. Although the building was closed in the summer of 1937 to allow for repairs, it reopened for five more seasons.

Pearl Harbor made it necessary to close the facility as a children’s care camp, and in 1942 most of the equipment was rented to the El Paso Girl Scouts. The baby cribs were given to the Sunshine Day Nursery in El Paso when the building was converted to a summer camp.

During 1945 and 1946, the Girl Scouts used the building for Brownie Scout Read this, and past issues at issuu.com/alamodosomagazine email us at Alamodoso@gmail.com

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THE SACRAMENTO MOUNTAINS activities. Clyde Lathrop, manager of The Cloudcroft Lodge, agreed in 1947 to make repairs to the Baby Sanatorium so his family could use the facility. Again, the building was made available to the Girl Scouts each June and July.

In 1951, an art colony was formed in Cloudcroft. Young potential artists who attended were housed at the Baby Sanatorium. This arrangement lasted until 1958, when the El Paso District Mission Board of the Methodist Church was allowed use of the building until the end of 1961.

Then, the Baby Sanatorium was purchased in 1964 by Buddy Ritter, who at the time owned and operated The Cloudcroft Lodge. The building was demolished and a private residence built on site.

In June 1999, in conjunction with the Cloudcroft Centennial Celebration at The Sacramento Mountain Historical Museum, a reunion was held of patients and others associated with the Baby Sanatorium. Ten babies who survived, reunited: George and Jimmy Angelos (1934), Marvin Bass (1926), Frances Bonnell English (1922, the only child born at the Baby Sanatorium), Shirleen Escontrias Guinn (1934), Marvin Flossi (1933), James Goforth (1919), Lilla Goggin (1932), Margie Springer Young (1927), and Dorothy Svoboda Hilbert (1929).

Most former patients remember little of their stay at the hospital, others knew only through stories passed on by their parents.

However, one Cloudcroft resident, Carrie Green, recalls helping her father deliver milk to the Baby Sanatorium and watching the nurses carrying the little babies. At the time, milk cost 15 cents a quart but the cows that furnished milk for the babies were kept in a special corral and fed separately. The milk for the babies, because of the special care, cost 20 cents a quart.

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Margie Springer Young says, “I may have left Cloudcroft but Cloudcroft has never left me.” She spent one summer at the Baby Sanatorium, essentially as a boarding patient, while her parents were out of town.

She says in later years, she and her parents took summer strolls past the Baby Sanatorium. “During daily long walks around Cloudcroft, they never stopped telling me about their decision, showing me where the building was located and how well they [the nurses and doctors] took care of me. I expected to see the remains of big sand boxes.” Mrs. Springer Young says for years she thought the name of the facility was “Baby Sands.”

Dr. Marvin Flossi of El Paso attended the reunion and writes, “My parents never spoke of this event, short of telling me that I was severely ill as an infant.” Shirleen Escontrias Guinn was about 14-months-old when she was a patient admitted for dehydration, but recalls little of the event.

Helen Hackett states that she was never a patient at the Baby Sanatorium, but her grandfather, Dr. Henry Towne Safford, Sr. and father, Dr. Henry Towne Safford, Jr., sent babies to the hospital.

The Baby Sanatorium was open 23 years, and during that time many baby lives were saved by the dedicated work of the doctors and nurses.

Five hundred families were spared the agony of losing their children to the cruel, long ago summers in Alamogordo, El Paso, and communities such as Tularosa, Las Mesa, and Sanderson, TX; Morenci, Benson and Wilcox, AZ; and as far away as Imperial, CA. The Baby Sanatorium was an innovative and compassionate solution by doctors struggling to save tiny lives before modern technologies we know today became Read this, and past issues at issuu.com/alamodosomagazine email us at Alamodoso@gmail.com

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available.

There are many wonderful stories of babies cured by the excellent care and healing mountain air, however, there were inevitably babies who were extremely ill when admitted.

One of these was little Meta Rheinheimer, a niece of Dr. E.W. Rheinheimer, who was a doctor at the hospital. Meta was admitted to the Sanatorium July 3, 1918, and passed away July 6.

Meta’s mother, Emily Louise, was expecting another child and was unable to stay in Cloudcroft with eight-month-old Meta. Sadly, Meta died before her mother could return.

The family recounts, wistfully and with affection, that Emily Louise was said to have been so devastated by Meta’s death, she never really bonded with the second little girl, also named Emily Louise.

The Sacramento Mountains Historical Museum & Pioneer Village is located at 1000 Highway 82 in Cloudcroft. It is open Fridays and Saturdays during the winter from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. There is an admission fee.

The museum has a crib from the Baby Sanatorium, the original patient log and many photographs. Its exhibits also include a Pioneer Village and other artifacts.

Writers Byline: Florence Dean writes from Cloudcroft a member of Otero County Electric Cooperative headquartered in Cloudcroft.

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Welcome to

RUIDOSO

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Actor Neil Patrick Harris has starred in TV sitcoms Doogie Howser, M.D. and How I Met Your Mother. He has also performed on stage in productions like Rent, Cabaret and Hedwig and the Angry Inch.

Born June 15, 1973, Neil Patrick Harris was 15 when he starred opposite Whoopi Goldberg in Clara's Heart. The next year, he began four seasons playing the title role in the TV sitcom Doogie Howser, M.D. Harris then appeared in films and TV movies, as well as on stage, in Rent and Cabaret.

Harris grew up in Ruidoso, New Mexico, where he got his start in acting as Toto in a grade school production of The Wizard of Oz. He appeared in several plays and musicals while attending La Cueva High School.

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M

ary Ann Almager (born December 5, 1968) is a former professional female boxer. Born in Seminole, Texas, she is a resident of Ruidoso, New Mexico. Her nickname is "Gorgeous".

Almager was attracted to boxing after her two brothers started practicing it, and by age nine, she joined them at a local boxing gym.

Almager later developed into a highschool athlete, playing basketball and volleyball as well as getting involved in track and field. Her dream was to become a softball player, but a knee injury forced her out of that sport.

On September 10, 2004, Almager fought what was both her last world title try and her last fight as a professional women's boxer, when she challenged Jacqui Frazier-Lyde for Frazier-Lyde's UBA's women's world Heavyweight title.

Despite putting a hard effort, she was deemed loser by a ten-round unanimous decision, retiring soon after.

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The Most Dangerous Street in America In the 1870s, Lincoln, New Mexico Territory, was the murder capital of America.

Story courtesy of TRUE WEST MAGAZINE TIM ROBERTS AND SCOTT SMITH

T

he Lincoln County War was exceptionally violent, and much of that violence occurred in the small town of Lincoln, New Mexico. But murder and mayhem were facts of life there long before Billy the Kid and the Regulators collided with followers of L.G. Murphy. In fact, the entire history of Lincoln in the late 19th century was punctuated with tragic accidents, senseless violence, questionable examples of frontier justice and acts of revenge. During the decade of the 1870s alone, more than 50 people were killed along the one-mile stretch of dusty road that curved through Lincoln—a fact that led President Rutherford B. Hayes in 1878 to declare it “The Most Dangerous Street in America.”

The following are just a few examples of the deadly violence that plagued Lincoln in those years.

Some of those who died were innocent victims, some were notorious criminals, but most were just typical denizens of the Western frontier. They were tough, independent people whose lives reflected the brutal reality of the conditions under which they lived. On September 2, 1876, Josiah “Doc” Scurlock accidently killed his friend Mike Harkins in the carpenter shop behind the Murphy-Dolan

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Store. Scurlock was showing off his new “selfcocking pistol” when it accidently discharged. The bullet struck Harkins just below the left nipple and pierced his heart, killing him instantly.

Two years later—on February 18, 1878— Lincoln was rocked by news of the murder of John H. Tunstall. Capt. George Purington sent a few soldiers from Fort Stanton to Lincoln the next day in hopes of keeping the peace. Then, on February 21, he sent a dispatch rider to Lincoln with a message for the detachment. The rider, unaware that a sentry was posted at the west end of town, attempted to gallop past the courthouse. The sentry, Pvt. Gates, failed to recognize his fellow trooper, though both were members of the same company of the famous 9th U. S. Cavalry. Gates fired just once, but Pvt. Edward Brooks, a 29-year-old native of Kentucky, was dead as he fell from the saddle.

“At least 200 men have been killed in Lincoln County during the last three years but I did not kill all of them.”

— Billy The Kid, as quoted in the Daily New Mexican, March 28, 1881 On the evening of October 21, 1874, Lyon Phillipowski was having a few drinks in the Billiard Room at the L.G. Murphy & Company store.

Phillipowski was married to Teresa Padilla, and they had an eight-year-old daughter named Lolita. He was also a deputy sheriff of Lincoln County. When it came time for bartender William Burns to close up, Phillipowski was angry. He wasn’t ready to go home. Burns insisted. Phillipowski ominously warned Burns that he would “see” him outside. Sure enough, as Burns left, Phillipowski approached and reached for his gun—Burns was ready, and Phillipowski collapsed, mortally wounded, onto the muddy street. He died the next morning.

On October 10, 1875—former sheriff Alexander H. “Ham” Mills confronted Gregorio Valenzuela along the street in Lincoln. Valenzuela and Mills had been neighbors in San Patricio in 1870, so had known each other for several years. Mills owed Read this, and past issues at issuu.com/alamodosomagazine email us at Alamodoso@gmail.com

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Valenzuela money, but was either unable or unwilling to pay. They argued, and Valenzuela called Mills a “damned Gringo.” Mills pulled out a gun and shot Valenzuela, a husband and father, dead. He was convicted of fifth-degree murder, but L.G. Murphy obtained a pardon for Mills from Gov. Samuel B. Axtell.

William Wilson once bragged that he had done time in Sing Sing Prison. He drifted west to Lincoln, and on August 1, 1875, he murdered Robert Casey near the Wortley Hotel. Wilson claimed that Casey owed him $8 in back wages. He was arrested, tried for murder and sentenced to death by hanging. This was the first legal hanging in Lincoln County, and Sheriff Saturnino Baca was anxious to get it right. On the appointed morning— December 10, 1875—Wilson was brought to the gallows under guard. The sentence was read out loud as the hangman prepared Wilson for the “long drop,” then the trap was sprung.

Unfortunately, the fall failed to snap Wilson’s neck. His body danced at the end of the rope for several minutes, but eventually he stopped struggling. Thinking him dead, Sheriff Baca cut the rope. The crowd was invited to view the remains, and a local woman realized that Wilson was still breathing. Not one to leave a job half finished, Sheriff Baca had William Wilson hoisted back up on the gallows and hanged for a second—and mercifully final—time.

George Washington, a former employee of A. A. McSween, was “trying to shoot a stray dog” in June 1879 at his home near the ruins of the McSween House. Somehow, a bullet intended for the stray hit Washington’s own wife, Luisa Sanchez, and their infant child, killing them both. The circumstances were highly questionable, but there were no witnesses. Later, when Washington attempted to elope with a teenage girl, unspoken suspicions were aroused. Washington was caught, returned to Lincoln, and late one night he was taken from the jail and lynched.

Sometime in early December 1871, 48-year-old Avery M. Clenny stopped by Pete Bishop’s saloon in Lincoln. Clenny owned a store in Hondo and was in town on business. He talked with Bishop briefly, but Bishop had to go to his storeroom to fetch something. Two younger men, George Van Sickle and Calvin Dodson, then entered the saloon. It’s

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unclear why, but when Bishop returned he found Van Sickle and Dodson administering a severe beating to Clenny. Bishop retrieved a pistol that he kept behind the bar and chased Dodson and Van Sickle into the street near the Montano Store, shooting at both men. Van Sickle survived; Cal Dodson did not.

The Horrell brothers were a notorious group of Texas outlaws. One brother, Ben, was carousing in Lincoln with friends when he was killed in a confrontation with Constable Juan Martinez on December 1, 1873. The surviving Horrell brothers brooded over their loss for about three weeks, and then on the evening of December 20, they rode into Lincoln bent on revenge. Hearing music coming from Chapman’s Saloon, they surrounded the building and fired through the doors and windows.

The music was for a wedding dance, and the building was crowded with men, women and children. Four Lincoln men died that night: father of the bride Isidro Patron, Isidro Padilla, Mario Balazan and Jose Candelaria. Two women and a boy were wounded. Not satisfied, the Horrells killed at least eight more people on their way back to Texas.

Lincoln is most famous for its association with Billy the Kid, Pat Garrett, L.G. Murphy and other notable contestants in the Lincoln County War. But the town’s legacy of violence extends well beyond that feud. Virtually every step one takes during a stroll down the sidewalks of Lincoln’s main thoroughfare is connected with another fatal incident. It has unquestionably earned its presidential distinction: The Most Dangerous Street in America

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She's also got rocks in her front yard, her back yard, and in the back of the truck! There all over the place!

Jeannie's been collecting rocks since she was a small child; and believes that they are the inveterate hitchhikers. Although a few of them have been in her collection for years.

An artist for some 60 years, and making a small living at it for at least 50, she's been drawing and painting all her life. Born in Los Angeles, California, the daughter and granddaughter of artists, she studied at Los Angeles City College, Otis Art Institute, and in New Mexico at New Mexico State University, studying sculpture, painting and drawing.

Her current work is mostly on rock, depicting animals from everywhere, but mostly the Southwest, where she has lived (in New Mexico) off and on for 30 years. Her favorites are animals that might be found on rocks; snakes, lizards, turtles, spiders. She works on rock from tiny ones, an inch and one half in diameter, to a giant tortoise on a "boulder" about 18 inches.

Other work includes ravens and other birds plus bison, elk, bear, fox, wolf on pieces of flagstone, or galvanized steel and wood.

Other pieces also include another favorite; ancient pictograph and petroglyph images painted on flagstone in earthy reds, browns and ochres. She paints (from photographs) native American images from Canada to Mexico, and very old depictions of animals from Europe, Africa and Australia. Her favorites are bulls and horses from the French and Spanish caves, that are up to 35,000 years old.

Look for the painted snakes on shrub roots, some realistic, some fanciful. There are also paintings; watercolor and acrylic, and pastels, mostly landscapes and some figurative work.

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Food and Drink That Promote a Good Night's Sleep

E

ating—and drinking—for better sleep means more than just avoiding caffeine and heavy, heartburninducing foods at night. Certain foods and beverages could actually help you fall asleep faster and sleep more soundly. Here are some things to put on your grocery list for more restful nights. ● Complex Carbs Skip the white bread, refined pasta, and sugary, baked goods, which may reduce serotonin levels and impair sleep. Instead, choose stick-to-your-ribs whole grains for your bedtime snack: Popcorn, oatmeal, or whole-wheat crackers with nut butter are all good choices. ● A Handful of Nuts Nuts are a good source of heart-healthy fats. And almonds and walnuts, specifically, contain melatonin, a hormone that helps to regulate your sleep/wake cycle. Eating them Read this, and past issues at issuu.com/alamodosomagazine email us at Alamodoso@gmail.com

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can increase your blood levels of the hormone, helping you sleep more soundly. ● Cottage Cheese Foods that are high in lean protein, like cottage cheese, also pack the amino acid tryptophan, which may increase serotonin levels. Serotonin is a brain chemical and low levels of it can contribute to insomnia.

To sweeten it up, top the cottage cheese with raspberries, which are rich sources of melatonin. ● A Cup of Bedtime Tea A nightly cup of tea (sans caffeine, of course) can be a perfect relaxing ritual.

Chamomile, ginger, and peppermint are calming choices for bedtime. ● Warm Milk Scientifically, there may be some link between the tryptophan and melatonin content of milk and improved sleep. But perhaps more powerful is the psychological link between warm milk and bedtime as a child. Just like hot tea, a warm drink of milk can provide the perfect soothing backdrop for a relaxing bedtime routine. ● Fruits Certain fruits that contain melatonin may help you fall asleep faster and wake up less often during the night. For instance, tart cherry juice and whole tart cherries contain a lot of melatonin, and bananas, pineapple, and oranges are also sources. If you have insomnia, eating two kiwis before bed can increase your sleep duration by an hour over the course of a month. Other fruits and vegetables that are rich in antioxidants (like berries, prunes, raisins, and plums) may have a similar effect by helping to counteract the oxidative stress caused by a sleep disorder.

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The Cowboy Symposium begins on Thursday evening, October 10th, with the signature band that inaugurated the Cowboy Symposium back in 1990, only with new players.

Bob Wills’ Texas Playboys Under the Direction of Jason Roberts take the stage to start the weekend.

"When you hear, ‘The Texas Playboys are on the air,’ you know that you’re going to be in for a good time," Alexander said. "Jason has accepted the responsibility of carrying on the Texas Playboy tradition. This is a brand-new group of players who all believe in that special sound and feel that only the Texas Playboys can deliver."

Dave Alexander and the Big Texas Swing Band will also be appearing on Thursday night, and there will be a special VIP reception in advance of the show to commemorate the Symposium’s 30th anniversary.

On Saturday evening, October 12th, the Symposium welcomes Texas Jamm Band, featuring members of George Strait’s Ace in the Hole Band, for their Cowboy Symposium debut. Special guests that evening include the Floyd Domino Trio along with Jody Nix and the Texas Cowboys.

"These are the talented players that toured for a generation with George Strait," Alexander said.

"Anyone who has ever attended a George Strait concert knows how special the Ace in the Hole Band is to country and swing music. They are going to fill-up the dance floor all evening, followed by Jody Nix and the Texas Cowboys — the most popular band in the history of the Lincoln County Cowboy Symposium."

Many of the Symposium’s regular events include the World Champion Chuckwagon Cookoff, more than 100 vendors with western products, equine seminars, three daily music stages and more family activities. Tickets for all events associated with the Symposium are scheduled to go on sale June 3rd.

For further information, visit raceruidoso.com, visit the Ruidoso Downs Race Track and Casino Facebook page and follow Ruidoso Downs on Twitter @RuiPressBox. Read this, and past issues at issuu.com/alamodosomagazine email us at Alamodoso@gmail.com

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C

elebrate Autumn in Ruidoso with a weekend of cool cars, hot chili, and a festive parade!

AspenFest, Ruidoso’s annual fall celebration, the first weekend in October, allows residents and visitors alike to participate in the celebration of our caring community, the cool crispness of the coming fall and the beauty that is Ruidoso.

AspenFest weekend is kicked off every year with a parade Saturday at 10 am through Midtown Ruidoso. “Everybody loves a parade and mixing with chili, cars and crafts is a home run. The fall is a time for tradition and friends and our mountain is the perfect spot.”

When the Aspenfest Parade finishes up head to Wingfield Park in mid-town for the Aspenfest Festival at Wingfield Park! In addition to beer, wine and spirits poured by New Mexico's finest purveyors, there will be food vendors, music, arts and crafts.

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Pasta with Creamy Pumpkin Sauce and Toasted Hazelnuts This rich, earthy dish featuring canned pumpkin puree was inspired by stovetop mac and cheese. The hazelnut and chive garnishes lend an elegant touch to this hearty pasta.

● 1/2 cup hazelnuts ● 1 pound orecchiette pasta ● 4 tablespoons unsalted butter ● 1 medium onion red onion, finely diced ● 2 garlic cloves, minced ● 2 teaspoons minced fresh sage ● One 15-ounce can pumpkin puree ● Kosher salt and freshly ground pepper ● 1/2 cup mascarpone cheese ● 1/4 cup freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese, plus more for serving ● 1/4 cup snipped chives

How to Make It ● Step 1 Preheat the oven to 375°. Spread the hazelnuts in a pie plate and toast for about 7 minutes, until golden. Let cool. Rub off most of the skins and roughly chop. ● Step 2 In a large pot of boiling salted water, cook the pasta until al dente. Drain the pasta, reserving 1 cup of the cooking water.

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â—? Step 3 Meanwhile, in a medium saucepan, melt the butter. Add the onion, garlic and sage and cook over moderately low heat until the onion is softened, about 7 minutes. Transfer the mixture to a food processor. Add the pumpkin puree and process until smooth. Season with salt and pepper. â—? Step 4 Wipe out the pasta pot. Scrape the pumpkin puree into the pot and cook over moderately low heat until hot. Mix in the mascarpone and the 1/4 cup of grated cheese. Add the pasta and the reserved cooking water and toss to coat thoroughly and heat through. Season with salt and pepper. Transfer the pasta to bowls, sprinkle the hazelnuts and chives on top and serve right away, passing additional Parmigiano at the table.

The pumpkin sauce can be refrigerated overnight.

Reheat the sauce before tossing with the pasta and the pasta cooking water.

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TASTY FALL BEVERAGE

Pumpkin Beer Float Pumpkin beer, vanilla ice cream and cinnamon Read this, and past issues at issuu.com/alamodosomagazine email us at Alamodoso@gmail.com

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As early as the 1940s, college classes were held in Ruidoso. State and private institutions from across the country looked to the area to establish campuses here.

A county-wide survey was conducted in 1983 by Eastern New Mexico University. The results confirmed that the residents of the county wanted a local college that would offer both academic classes and vocational training. NMSU jumped on these results and established a college program at Ruidoso High School.

The program closed after eighteen months.

A more specific survey aimed at the Ruidoso area was conducted in 1989. Several local organizations including the Ruidoso Board of Education, Ruidoso Rotary Club and local ENMU alumni, secured a commitment from ENMU to establish an off-campus center in Ruidoso. Eastern was eager and understood the political and economic intricacies of expansion, having established other campuses in Lovington, Roswell and Clovis.

Initial funding was secured through the legislature with assistance from State Representative John Underwood. Community efforts culminated in a mil levy passing in a three-to-one favorable vote. The growing impetus for a new college resulted in another vote four years later to increase the mill levy from 1 to 2 mils. Voter approval rate for this hike passed by a 9-to-1 margin.

The attention soon shifted to hiring someone to take the reins and make the college a reality. The candidate would need to be cognizant of the unique challenges of starting a college from scratch, in a rural community, dominated by out-of-state and tourist, discretionary income and defined through its unique geography and cultural diversity. Funding, finding a building and the transient nature of the workforce would need to be addressed. Despite the obstacles, village leaders felt that, with the right leadership, the students would come.

Enter Dr. Jim Miller, Jr. As former superintendent of Carrizozo schools when the original survey was taking place, he had since moved to Farmington to take the superintendent job there. Dr. Miller was hired; moved back to the area, rolled up his sleeves and went to work.

First on his agenda was to find a campus location.

Rather than purchasing land and constructing a new building, Miller rented an existing building that now houses Action Ski on Sudderth Drive. Two hundred and eighty three students registered for the first semester, and classes were held at night at various locations including Ruidoso High School and the Read this, and past issues at issuu.com/alamodosomagazine email us at Alamodoso@gmail.com

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Coronado Center. Community education classes like “Elk Bugling” were held in businesses like Wilton Howell’s garage (now Season’s Nursery) with Dr. Miller often sitting in as a student. No unoccupied space escaped Dr. Miller’s eyes; so much so, that when the Cree Fire broke out in 2001, classes and final exams were hurriedly re-assigned to the Sierra Mall and other buildings with little interruption. Despite his commitment to in-fill, a permanent campus was sorely needed, and, once again, Dr. Miller rolled up his sleeves.

The Dale Walthall family offered to donate their former True-Value hardware store at 709 Mechem Drive, and in late with financial help from ENMU 1994, ENMU-Ruidoso consolidated and partially moved to its new location. The centralized and open floor plan allowed for expansion that Dr. Miller parceled out in manageable portions. A set of classrooms were set aside for ITV classes a year later, allowing students in Ruidoso to obtain upper division and advanced degrees from ENMU via television. A computer lab was set up and additional computers were donated to Mescalero and senior citizen centers throughout the county for use by ENMU-Ruidoso college students.

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EXPLORE ALamogordo

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DISCOVER ALAMOGORDO

The Electric fence and The Lawn Mower Country by the Grace of God.

W

e have the standard 6 ft. fence in the backyard, and a few months ago, I heard about burglaries increasing dramatically in the entire city. To make sure this never happened to me, I got an electric fence and ran a single wire along the top of the fence.

Actually, I got the biggest cattle charger Tractor Supply had, made for 26 miles of fence. I then used an 8 ft. long ground rod, and drove it 7.5 feet into the ground. The ground rod is the key, with the more you have in the ground, the better the fence works.

One day I'm mowing the back yard with my cheapo Wal-Mart 6 hp big wheel push mower. The hot wire is broken and laying out in the yard. I knew for a fact that I unplugged the charger. I pushed the mower around the wire and reached down to grab it, to throw it out of the way.

It seems as though I hadn't remembered to unplug it after all.

Now I'm standing there, I've got the running lawnmower in my right hand and the Story continues page 62 Read this, and past issues at issuu.com/alamodosomagazine email us at Alamodoso@gmail.com

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My Real Estate Investing Nightmare

JULIA M. SPENCER When I first started investing, I did not have very much capital so my first investment properties were Tax Lien Foreclosures purchased in Bibb County, Georgia, in the City of Macon. At the time, I did not really know how to research Tax Lien Foreclosures properly and had literally no idea what I was buying and how to go about finding out. I figured once I buy it, I will figure out where it is, who owns it, and what kind of property it even is and what I can do with it. In any case I would learn the process. It was my ‘learnby-doing’ approach.

Don’t do what I did! Use a title company to research the property!

Although I do advocate that approach for many learning tasks, it did cost too much in this case.

One of the properties I bought was a commercial building located just across an ‘imaginary’ street line, which divided the ‘good’ part of town and the ‘bad’ part. Up until I looked at the property right AFTER my purchase, I did not know this imaginary line existed, Read this, and past issues at issuu.com/alamodosomagazine email us at Alamodoso@gmail.com

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DISCOVER ALAMOGORDO and that it was actually quite un-imaginary, but very real. My property was on the wrong side, about 100 yards. I never drove out to check it before I purchased it, nor did I think 100 yards is a big deal and it still can be considered a ‘good’ area, right? Wrong.

I had very big dreams for this property: In any other town, or other part of THIS town, this building was ideal for a 2 story coffee house, with a library corner, couches, and even several loft-style living quarters on the second floor. I paid roughly $4,000 for this property, it was a 2-story brick building from the 50’s, formerly a convenience store and now boarded up and mostly inhabited by bird nests on the second floor. ‘But it has so much potential,’ so I thought.

Soon after purchasing this property’s tax lien, I started receiving notices from the city that it was ‘uninhabitable’ and a risk for passers-by who could be hit by ‘falling rocks.’ Obviously the city officials were just waiting for a new ‘owner’ who would be scared enough by the notices to remove the property/ tear it down, so they wouldn’t have to do it. I didn’t want to, nor did I have the $30K to tear it down. So henceforth a paper battle started in which I stated my reasons to keep the building alive until I could afford to remodel it, and the city emphasized that it is an eyesore, and dangerous and needs to come down immediately. This went on for quite some time.

After a few months of back and forth, and even ‘breaking’ through one of the boarded up windows to look inside (it was in a horrible state, to the point that I almost cried), I had to come up with a solution for this building because the new tax bills were now becoming due, in my name. I guess the city wanted to collect their taxes if they couldn’t tear the place down forcefully.

In this case I had to just cut my losses and I signed a Quit Claim Deed to the original owners and filed it at the courthouse registering the new owners as the old ones. In the process I lost my entire investment ($4K, postage and mailing fees with the city, and a lot of aggravation). However, this was the only way to get rid of a dumpy property in a bad area and no longer be responsible for the taxes.

Don’t do this! Research Tax Lien Foreclosures you are looking to buy, drive to the courthouse and look at the records, drive to the property, talk to people, investigate the neighborhood, and talk to anyone and everyone from the county/ city where you are looking to buy BEFORE you buy. Or better yet, use the services of your local title company. Don’t do what I did!

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1.7 giga-volt fence wire in the other hand.

Keep in mind the charger is about the size of a marine battery and has a picture of an upside down cow on fire on the cover.

Time stood still.

The first thing I notice is my pecker trying to climb up the front side of my body. My ears curled downwards and I could feel the lawnmower ignition firing in the backside of my brain. Every time that Briggs & Stratton rolled over, I could feel the spark in my head.

I was literally at one with the engine.

It seems as though the fence charger and the piece of shit lawnmower were fighting over who would control my electrical impulses.

Science says you cannot poop, pee, and vomit at the same time. I beg to differ. Not only did I do all three at once, but my bowels emptied 3 different times in less than half of a second. It was a Matrix kind of bowel movement, where time is creeping along and you're all leaned back and BAM BAM BAM you just mess your pants 3 times. It seemed like there were minutes in between but in reality it was so close together it was like exhaust pulses from a big block Chevy turning 8 grand.

At this point I'm about 30 minutes (maybe 2 seconds) into holding onto the fence wire.

My hand is wrapped around the wire palm down so I can't let go. I grew up on a farm so I know all about electric fences ... but Dad always had those cheapo chargers made by International or whoever that were like 9 volts and just kinda tickled.

This one I could not let go of. The 8 foot long ground rod is now accepting signals from me through the permadamp Ark-La-Tex river bottom soil. At this point I'm thinking I'm going to have to just man up and take it, until the lawnmower runs out of gas.

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DISCOVER ALAMOGORDO 'Damn!,' I think, as I remember I just filled the tank!

Now the lawnmower is starting to run rough. It has settled into a loping run pattern as if it had some kind of big lawnmower race cam in it. Covered in poop, pee, and with my vomit on my chest I think 'Oh God please die .... Pleeeeaze die'. But nooooo, it settles into the rough lumpy cam idle nicely and remains there, like a big bore roller cam EFI motor waiting for the go command from its owner's right foot.

So here I am in the middle of July, 104 degrees, 80% humidity, standing in my own backyard, begging God to kill me. God did not take me that day .... he left me there covered in my own fluids to writhe in the misery my own stupidity had created.

I honestly don't know how I got loose from the wire ....

I woke up laying on the ground hours later. The lawnmower was beside me, out of gas. It was later on in the day and I was sunburned.

There were two large dead grass spots where I had been standing, and then another long skinny dead spot where the wire had laid while I was on the ground still holding on to it. I assume I finally had a seizure and in the resulting thrashing had somehow let go of the wire.

Upon waking from my electrically induced sleep I realized a few things: ● 1 -Three of my teeth seem to have melted. ● 2 - I now have cramps in the bottoms of my feet and my right butt cheek (not the left, just the right). ● 3 - Poop, pee, and vomit when all mixed together, do not smell as bad as you might think.

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● 4 - My left eye will not open. ● 5 - My right eye will not close. ● 6 - The lawnmower runs like a sumbitch now. Seriously! I think our little session cleared out some carbon fouling or something, because it was better than new after that. ● 7 - My nuts are still smaller than average yet they are almost a foot long. ● 8 - I can turn on the TV in the game room by farting while thinking of the number 4 (still don't understand this???).

That day changed my life.

I now have a newfound respect for things.

I appreciate the little things more, and now I always triple check to make sure the fence is unplugged before I mow.

The good news, is that if a burglar does try to come over the fence, I can clearly visualize what my security system will do to him, and THAT gives me a warm and fuzzy feeling all over, which also reminds me to triple check before I mow.

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DISCOVER ALAMOGORDO

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Although the exact date is unknown, City Dairy probably opened for business in 1925.

The dairy’s first newspaper ad appeared on June 26 of that year. The ad claimed that City Dairy “Supplies your needs in Pure, Fresh Jersey Milk” and offered prices: “Fresh buttermilk every day with the butter in it at 10 cents per quart, whipping cream at 50 cents per pint coffee cream 20 cents for one-half pint.” The ad also promised “two deliveries daily” There was “Old City Dairy” in 1922, but had ceased operation prior to the opening of the final City Dairy in Alamogordo.

The final City Dairy was originally owned

by Dr. Eber Devello McKinley. McKinley, a graduate from Central College of Physicians and Surgeons (Indianapolis, Illinois) in 1904, moved to Otero County for his health two years later.

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DISCOVER ALAMOGORDO He practiced medicine in Cloudcroft for afew months prior to his relocation to Alamogordo, where he was active in community service as well as his medical practice until 1930. A prominent player in local politics, McKinley served as Mayor, County Commissioner, and County Health Officer as well as helping as a physician for

the U.S. Army at Ft. Bliss and Camp Cody (Deming) during World War I).

Herb H. Riffe operated City Dairy for McKinley by at least April 2, 1931, and, after McKinley’s death on May 17, 1932, ran the company for McKinley’s heirs. Riffe began a series of ads called the “Adventures of Snooky.”

Snooky was a little boy who touted the praises of City Dairy amidst cartoon capers and witty sayings. The series was somewhat crude by today’s standards but featured a new ad each week – a radical departure from earlier dairy adver-tising in Alamogordo.

One ad featured Snooky in a suit, addresing an audience. He queried “What Story continues next page Read this, and past issues at issuu.com/alamodosomagazine email us at Alamodoso@gmail.com

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comes first, gentlemen? I ask you that!

Health, of course! Now, what one food is best for people who are tall, short, wide or narrow, young or old, well or sick? CITY DAIRY’S milk! Sure!” . Snooky ads continued until the end of 1931.

In 1932, City Dairy’s ads included a complete price list, offering: “Grade A whole milk, 9 cents a quart ,Grade A whipping cream, 75 cents a quart or 40 cents a pint . . . 25 c half pint.

Grade A coffee cream 60 cents a quart or 30 cents a pint and 20 cents a half pint.

Grade A buttermilk 7 cents a quart and Grade A separated milk 5 cents a quart.

Grade A fresh butter 30 cents pound 12 cents a quart, and 7 cents a pint. Buttermilk was 30 cents a gallon.

In April, 1936, City Dairy ads ceased, although the dairy continued to prosper.

Finally, due to the pressures caused by World War II, Riffe told the estate he could no long-er run the dairy, so McKinley’s heirs sold the entire operation to the McMurry brothers F.E. McMurry and his two oldest sons, George E. and William H. “Mac,” planned to buy the dairy with 50% ownership for the father and the other 50% divided between the sons. George had worked with milk cows and farming in Texas and had learned a great deal about the dairy cattle industry.

After some debate and with their father’s approval, the brothers decided to purchase the entire business themselves. So, Mac quit his job at Holloman Air Force Base, and, on August 1, 1943, the McMurry brothers became half owners of City Dairy, buying the other half later that month

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DISCOVER ALAMOGORDO The business was always family run; the McMurrys hired few hands and frequently worked sixteen hours a day. If anyone became sick or injured, one of the brothers was forced to cover two jobs until the other returned. If machinery broke down, everyone pitched in to make repairs and then had to work most of the night to catch up. Because there was no one to take up the slack, work commenced the next morning as usual During the World War II era, the McMurrys milked their herd of 50-60 cattle by hand, but, after the war, they began using milking machines that milked more than one cow at a time.

The milk was channeled into buckets and poured into large dairy cans which were then lifted by hand and emptied into the cooling system to remove the body heat of the cattle.

In 1960, the company built a milking parlor where milk was piped directly from cows into a stainless steel tank and from there into a tank truck for delivery .

Eventually they were able to milk at the rate of 50 cows per hour.

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Milking began at 1:00AM and continued until 7:00AM. The cycle began again at 1:00PM During the period after World War II, business prospered. Holloman Air Force Base was expanding, and market demands, including those for milk, increased dramatically. In 1950, City Dairy sold its herd.

The McMurrys had previously bought milk from Tularosa farmers who delivered it in ten-gallon cans. With the sale of the herd, the brothers relied entirely on local producers and started making and selling ice cream At one time, they bought from thirteen other local outlets including Trammel Dairy in Tularosa One dairy farmer at Ancho originally shipped his milk to the McMurrys on the daily passenger train and later removed the back seat of an automobile to haul milk cans. He eventually switched to trucking as storage and shipping methods improved.

Merchants in Lincoln County had been seeking improved sources for dairy service, and, in 1950, City Dairy began delivery to Lincoln County towns six days a week in refrigerator trucks The McMurrys celebrated the 33 Anniversary of City Dairy (tracing its roots to the first McKinley operation in 1925) on November 9, 1958, with a full-page newspaper advertisement.

The rise of the supermarket produced external problems for local dairies. Shortly after World War II, City Dairy had relatively little non-local competition. With sales divided between home delivery and small family grocery stores with limited storage space, a local base of operations was necessary. The increased capacity of the supermarket allowed a dairy to introduce large quantities of milk at a time, and improved processing Read this, and past issues at issuu.com/alamodosomagazine email us at Alamodoso@gmail.com

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DISCOVER ALAMOGORDO and storage life allowed deliveries to become less frequent. Outside competition in the form of the giant dairies entered the picture.

To survive the heavy outside competition, theMcMurrys began dealing with external sources. A farmer’s cooperative was started in Portales, and City Dairy became the distributor in Alamogordo for its Grand Champion Jersey Milk Price’s Dairy was the first to arrive in Alamogordo from El Paso and was later followed by Farmers Dairy and Wholesome Dairy (trucking their products from El Paso) and The Borden Co. (which opened a distribution point in Alamogordo).

Creamland shipped in ice cream from Albuquerque. Competition was intense.

During the 1960s, a milk price war broke out in Alamogordo. The large companies began cutting prices, and everyone was forced to radically reduce rates or face greatly diminished sales. At one point, the retail price of milk dropped to 38¢ per half-gallon, about the amount it cost to produce it. The McMurrys struggled just to stay in business .

Despite the outside competition, business was better than ever during the 1970s By 1976, however, George and Mac were in their 60s, and the long, 16-hour days were beginning to take their toll. In addition, because of the nature of milking hours, it was getting more difficult to find help outside the family, and the McMurry brothers decided to offer the dairy for sale in the latter part of the year. Even though several potential buyers were interested, none of them could raise the large down-payment required .

The brothers finally shut down operations in July, 1977, and began selling off the stock and machinery An era had come to an end

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Camp Raton-Baca

A Civilian Conservation Corps camp went up in 1933. Named Camp Saturnino Baca for the Civil War captain and politician who sponsored the bill creating Lincoln County in the Territorial Legislature The CCC abandoned it months after it opened, taking most of the equipment and furnishings to establish work camps for young men elsewhere in New Mexico.

About the same time, Lucy Leper Shaw and her husband, A. K., moved to New Mexico from New York City for his health.

The first woman investment counsellor at Banker’s Trust Co., Mrs. Shaw was educated at the Art Institute in Chicago and Columbia University, and also worked in social services.

Dismayed at the poverty and bleak future she saw for many young women in Depression-era New Mexico, Mrs. Shaw heeded First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt’s call to establish camps for young women in the same vein as the CCC camps where young men learned skills that could carry them through life.

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DISCOVER ALAMOGORDO The Shaws pieced the camp back together with surplus furniture from Fort Bayard and reassembled broken kitchen equipment. Mrs. Shaw traveled the state meeting families devastated by the 1930s economy and, after strong initial resistance from most parents, rounded- up 150 girls for the first session at her rechristened Camp Capitan in 1935.

It became one of the most successful camps in the nation for young girls and women aged 16-25.

Written up in national publications, more than 2,000 girls—most of them from New Mexico— went through the camp’s program in a five-and-one-half-years period. Of the approximately 90 camps established under the National Youth Administration, many ceased operating by 1937. But Lucy Shaw kept Capitan going into 1940, and much of its success was attributed to Mrs. Shaw’s business acumen and her program’s incorporation of Hispanic culture. Camp Capitan was one of the few of its type to operate year round and on budget.

The young women learned stenography, typing, and colcha embroidery. They sewed flags for every school in New Mexico and made clothing for the Carrie Tingley Hospital for Crippled Children in Hot Springs, now a veterans’ hospital in Truth or Consequences.

The camp was commissioned to create tin chandeliers and wall sconces in the traditional Spanish tradition for the new visitor center at White Sands National Monument, which still are in use today. And, they built the stillstanding masonry chimney for the Shaws’ home, since demolished, a building that doubled as the home economics classroom for the camp.

In the spring of 1938, Lucy Lepper Shaw, director of the mountain camp, met with Lyle Bennett of the NPS to discuss production of light fixtures, pottery, and woven curtains for

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the new visitors center at the dunes. Suzanne Forrest, author of The Preservation of the Village: New Mexico's Hispanics and the New Deal , wrote that Capitan "was considered to be the state's outstanding NYA project." It employed 125 girls and young women, ages 16-25, mostly Hispanic, for three months at a time to learn Spanish colonial arts and crafts.

Historians like Forrest and Sarah Deutsch, author of No Separate Refuge: Culture, Class, and Gender on an Anglo-Hispanic Frontier in. the American Southwest, 1880-1940, have warned of the paradox of such New Deal programs: training people for skills not in demand in the modern, urban-industrial marketplace. To Lucy Lepper Shaw, Tom Popejoy, and other NYA officials, however, learning Spanish-style crafts would provide youth with employment at home, and would take advantage of the 1930s fascination with Southwestern cultures Murals covered the walls of the recreational building known as Baca Canyon Opera House. At the end of each session, plays and light operas were presented. Open house was announced and people from Carrizozo, Capitan and the surrounding communities were invited. The girls displayed and demonstrated the work they did during a term of three months. The state flags, slacks, skirts and dresses showed off sewing skills. Spanish colonial rugs and blankets woven from hand spun vegetabledyed yarns, colcha embroidery and tin crafts created from used oil cans were on display..

Shaw and Bennett agreed that Camp Capitan would produce 53 tin light fixtures for the interior of the White Sands visitors center. "We are very anxious to do a good job," Shaw wrote to Vernon Randau in Santa Fe, "so we will not rush this order." Bennett Read this, and past issues at issuu.com/alamodosomagazine email us at Alamodoso@gmail.com

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DISCOVER ALAMOGORDO liked this cautious approach, noting that the young women "could possibly give us a fair job althouth not as good as if they [the fixtures] were contracted by a reliable firm."

He did concede that the Capitan workers "have done some beautiful hand woven articles." Milton McColm of Region Three agreed, telling the Washington office that "to contract for these fixtures on the open market, the cost is entirely excessive."

In addition, said McColm, "there is no labor nor supervisory personnel at White Sands capable of making or directing the making of these fixtures." In an ironic twist, SWNM superintendent Frank Pinkley, champion of instructing the tourist public about the distinctiveness of the region, offered the only discordant note. While signing the work order for Camp Capitan, he wrote in longhand in the margin to his superiors in Santa Fe: "Understand, I am only officially approving these fixtures. Personally I think all these tin fixtures look like hell."

In 1940, New Mexico celebrated the Cuarto Centennial of the Coronado expedition and the young women staged their interpretation of Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Mikado, called it “El Mayordomo” and performed it for more than 2,500 people in Spanish and English.

But the nation was retooling itself for war and camps like Capitan became less of a funding priority; the performance proved to be the camp’s swan song.

After the camp closed, Lucy Shaw became director of the NYA resident program in Phoenix. The Shaws later settled in Albuquerque where they lived the rest of their lives, and are buried at the city’s Sandia Memory Gardens cemetery in the city’s Northeast Heights.

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Shortly after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, every Japanese railroad family in Clovis was rounded up and relocated to the Shaws camp, which reassumed the name Camp Raton and operated as an internment camp for about one year before it was abandoned for good

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The USS TULAROSA

USS Tularosa (AOG-43) was a Mettaweeclass gasoline tanker acquired by the U.S. Navy for the dangerous task of transporting gasoline to warships in the fleet, and to remote Navy stations.

The Tularosa was laid down under a Maritime Commission contract on the 31st October 1944 at Bayonne, New Jersey, by the East Coast Shipyards, Inc.; launched on 17 December 1944; sponsored by Miss Patricia Hefferman; acquired by the Navy on 4 January 1945; and commissioned at the New York Navy Yard on 10 January 1945, Lt. Rex Montgomery Stagner in command.

In May, she made a voyage to Canton Island Harbor, in the Phoenix Islands; and then returned to Pearl Harbor on the 21st, Throughout her time in the Pacific, Tularosa operated out of Oahu, carrying aviation fuel and gasoline to Johnston Island and Midway Island. She continued her duties into 1946, departed Pearl Harbor on 30 January, and returned to the west coast on 12 February.

The Tularosa was stripped and was decommissioned on 23 April 1946.

7 January 1964 when she was sold to the National Metal & Steel Corp of Terminal Island, Ca for $16,500 and was scrapped shortly afterwards.

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The USS ALAMOGORDO

The Alamogordo (ARDM-2) was a non-selfpropelled United States Navy Auxiliary floating dry dock completed in 1944 at Oakland, California and was commissioned on 15 June 1944, Lieutenant Commander Irving B. Smith, USN in command.

The floating dry dock completed outfitting at Oakland and training at Tiburon, CA, between midJune and late August. On 3 September, she was taken in tow for the voyage west. En route to the Marianas, the dry dock made layovers of ten and seven days respectively at Pearl Harbor and Eniwetok. She arrived at Guam on 24 October and reported for duty During her more than eight months at Guam, ARD26 repaired warships damaged in the Leyte, Luzon, and Okinawa campaigns.

In the second week in July 1945, the floating dry dock was towed to the Ryukyus where she transported equipment between various locations around Okinawa and docked warships for repairs.

Her duty at Okinawa lasted until mid-August at which time she headed back to the Marianas. ARD26 resumed her repair duties at Guam on 22 August 1945 and remained so employed for the next 17 years.

In the latter part of 1962, the dry dock was towed back to the west coast of the United States. She was placed out of service in October 1962 and was berthed with the San Diego Group, Pacific Reserve Fleet.

She was struck from the Naval Vessel Register on 23 November 1993. On 18 December 2000, exAlamogordo was transferred to Ecuador under the Security Assistance Program.

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5 Reasons Homeowners Should Hire a Licensed Contractor

Before you start renovating your kitchen or finally installing that hot tub you’ve always wanted, take a moment to think about whom you will hire to do the work.

Some people prefer the lower-budget option of handling home repairs themselves or hiring unlicensed contractors. But when it comes to home maintenance, the cheapest routes are not always the safest routes. While both of these options can save dollars, they can also put homes and families at risk.

Hiring a licensed contractor may cost you a bit more, but it is a long- term investment that will eventually save you time and trouble. Here are five points to consider when it comes to working with a licensed contractor for your home construction and repair needs: 1. A contractor is licensed.

Licensed contractors have gained experience and knowledge through the proper training and legal processes. They put in the time to obtain the

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appropriate licenses and permits from authorized government offices, after passing the licensure test.

2. A licensed contractor offers insurance.

Most licensed contractors will offer liability insurance to protect you, your family, and your home. Liability insurance is protection from personal and bodily injury and property damage that could occur during your renovation. For instance, if a visitor is injured upon entering the construction site, the insurance protection will cover any medical fees that may be incurred.

3. A licensed contractor ensures that all requirements by city & federal government are met.

Licensed contractors have been trained to understand and meet all requirements set by the city council and federal government. They will schedule inspections to make sure your home meets every single quality requirement and passes all safety examinations. The can become very important when the time comes to sell your home. If you have had any major renovations completed, a potential buyer may ask if the required permits were pulled for the project.

4. A licensed contractor ensures that every step of the home repair or renovation is followed systematically.

This sounds like a given, but not all contractors follow the steps necessary to complete a project safely and on time. Licensed contractors, however, follow a specific, systematic approach to their projects. They carefully plan out the process before starting work; they will prioritize open communication with the homeowner from day one until the day the project is completed. A licensed contractor will also ensure that there is a signed legal contract between the two of you: a form of security that only licensed contractors can offer.

5. Finally, a licensed contractor will ensure the project is completed, even when problems or obstacles arise.

Licensed contractors will take responsibility if something goes wrong; ignoring or running away from mistakes can result in the loss of their licensure. Trust licensed contractors, to stay with you until your home renovation project is completed and you are satisfied!

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J

ohn Ramsey Patton was born Feb 1846 in Pennsylvania, his father was from England and his mother was from Ohio.

March 12, 1862 he enlisted in Co. K 109th Regt.

Penn. Infantry at Philadelphia. The Regiment fought in numerous battles as part of the Army of the Potomac including Gettysburg. After Gettysburg the Regiment was transferred to Tennessee, in April of 1864 they joined General Sherman in his march to the sea.

1865 found them in the Carolinas, in March they were consolidated with the 111th Pennsylvania; after the surrender they marched to Washington D.C.

They were mustered out in Washington on July 19, 1865.

Johnny then joined the 3rd Cavalry and came West. On April 2, 1868 Johnny was with Sgt. Glass and four other troopers who were reinforced by a party of 26 Tularosa settlers and fought the Apaches in the Tularosa Canyon in the Battle of Round Read this, and past issues at issuu.com/alamodosomagazine email us at Alamodoso@gmail.com

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Mountain. He was discharged at Ft. Stanton Oct. 25, 1868, maybe he had enough fighting.

In 1870 he was working as a cook at Blazer’s Mill, in April of 1878 he witnessed the famous or infamous gunfight there, Buckshot Roberts and Dick Brewer were killed.

His account appears in Emerson Hough’s The Story of the Outlaw, in his version of events he said he made one big coffin and Roberts and Brewer were buried together. “I couldn’t make a very good coffin, so I built it in the shape of a big V, with no end piece at the foot. We just put them in together.”

(From Frederick Nolan’s book The West of Billy the Kid) His whereabouts is a little obscure for the next twenty years but he was , no doubt a cook on some ranch or another. We find him in 1898 working for William McDonald down at Carrizozo Springs.

From an Essay about Doc Lacey and Fannie Lalone

by Rich Eastwood: “[When they were married in 1898] Doc was cowboying for the Carrizozo Cattle Company down at the McDonald place, he moved Fannie there but she was terribly lonely.

An oldtimer, Johnny Patton, was the cook there and Fannie would put on her gloves and go visit him. He took her under his wing, one day he commented that she didn’t have a ring, she said that they didn’t have the money; a short time later, Johnny bought a ring for her as a wedding present and she wore that ring for the rest of her life.”

In 1907 Johnny checked into the Sawtelle Veterans Hospital in Los Angeles suffering from Rheumatism and Brite’s Disease. the record states that he was 61 years old, 5’7”, fair complexion, Brown Eyes, Grey Hair, he could read and write, he was a Protestant and he had been a Cook in Carrizozo NM. Also there is an entry that is a little perplexing, it states that he was a Widower and his Nearest Relative was John R. Patton [could it be James B. Patton?] of Carrizozo. He died there in 1924... quite a life!

The picture of him fiddlin by the fireplace is in the White Oaks School

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OH HELL NO‌

Checking out at the store, the young cashier suggested to the much older lady that she should bring her own grocery bags because plastic bags are not good for the environment.

The woman apologized to the young girl and explained, "We didn't have this 'green thing' back in my earlier days."

The young clerk responded, "That's our problem today. Your generation did not care enough to save our environment for future generations."

The older lady said that she was right -our generation didn't have the "green thing" in its day. The older lady went on to explain: Back then, we returned milk bottles, soda Story continues page 94 Read this, and past issues at issuu.com/alamodosomagazine email us at Alamodoso@gmail.com

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7 Things You May Not Know About Geronimo

1. The origins of his name are disputed.

The man who would become the most feared Indian leader of the 19th century was born sometime in the 1820s into the Bedonkohe, the smallest band of the Chiricahua Apache tribe that inhabited what is now New Mexico and Arizona.

His given name was Goyahkla (“The One Who Yawns”), but as a young man he earned the moniker “Geronimo” after distinguishing himself in Apache raids against the Mexicans.

The source of the name remains the subject of debate. Some historians believed it arose from frightened Mexican soldiers invoking the Catholic St. Jerome when facing Read this, and past issues at issuu.com/alamodosomagazine email us at Alamodoso@gmail.com

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DISCOVER ALAMOGORDO the warrior in battle, while others argue that it was simply a Mexican nickname or a mispronunciation of “Goyahkla.”

2. Geronimo’s wife and children were murdered when he was a young man.

Geronimo came of age during a period of bitter conflict between the Chiricahua Apaches and the Mexicans. In response to the Apaches’ penchant for staging raids to gather horses and provisions, the Mexican government had begun ambushing Apache settlements and offering lucrative bounties for their scalps.

In 1851, while Geronimo and several other warriors were in the town of Janos on a trading mission, Colonel Jose Maria Carrasco and a detachment of around 400 Mexican soldiers ransacked his Bedonkohe encampment and slaughtered many of its inhabitants. When Geronimo returned later that night, he found that his mother, his wife and his three young children had all been murdered. “I had lost all,” he said in his autobiography. Following the massacre, Geronimo swore vengeance against Mexico and led a series of bloody raids on its soldiers and settlements. “I have killed many Mexicans,” he later wrote. “I do not know how many…some of them were not worth counting.”

3. He broke out of U.S. Indian reservations on three different occasions.

In the 1840s and 1850s, the MexicanAmerican War and the Gadsden Purchase placed the Chiricahua Apaches’ domain within the boundaries of the expanding United States. Geronimo and the Apaches violently resisted the influx of white settlers, but following several years of war with the U.S. Army, they reluctantly negotiated a peace. By 1876, most of the Chiricahuas had been shipped to San Carlos, an arid and i Continues page 87

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DISCOVER ALAMOGORDO nhospitable reservation located in Arizona.

Geronimo avoided the reservation until 1877, when he was captured by Indian agents and brought to San Carlos in chains.

He tried his hand at farming, but like many of the Chiricahua, he longed for the freedom of the frontier. Geronimo and his allies would eventually stage three escapes from the reservation between 1878 and 1885.

Each time, the renegades fled south and disappeared into the mountains, only resurfacing to conduct marauding expeditions on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border.

During his second breakout in 1882, Geronimo even staged a daring raid on the Apache reservation and forced several hundred Chiricahuas to join his band—some of them at gunpoint. By the time of his final breakout in 1884, Geronimo had earned an unparalleled reputation for cunning, and stories of his ruthlessness Story continues page 90

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both real and imagined—were front-page news across the United States.

4. Geronimo’s followers credited him with supernatural powers.

While he often exerted considerable influence over the Apaches, Geronimo was never a tribal chief. Among the Chiricahua, he was better known for his skills as a shaman, or medicine man.

Those who followed Geronimo credited him with a variety of supernatural powers including the ability to heal the sick, slow time, avoid bullets, bring on rainstorms and even witness events over great distances.

In one incident described by Apache Jason Betzinez, a few warriors were sitting around a campfire during a raiding expedition when Geronimo suddenly had a premonition that U.S. troops had attacked their base camp.

After arriving at the site several days later, they found that Geronimo’s vision had been correct—the Americans had already captured the encampment. “I cannot explain it to this day,” Betzinez later wrote, “but I was there and I saw it.”

5. Nearly a quarter of the U.S. Army took part in the final hunt for Geronimo.

On May 17, 1885, Geronimo and some 135 Apache men, women and children took flight from their reservation for the final time.

The famed warrior was then in his 60s, but he remained as determined as ever, often pushing his group to cover as much as 70 miles per day to avoid the American cavalry and Apache scouts on their trail.

Over the next several months, Geronimo’s fugitives raided countless Mexican and American and settlement, killing several civilians. They nearly surrendered in March 1886, but Geronimo and 40 followers reneged on the agreement at the last minute and Read this, and past issues at issuu.com/alamodosomagazine email us at Alamodoso@gmail.com

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Geronimo was able elude both forces for over five months, but by August, he and his followers had grown weary of life on the run.

On September 4, 1886, he finally gave himself up to General Nelson Miles at Skeleton Canyon, Arizona. In laying down his arms, he became the last Indian leader to formally surrender to the United States military.

6. He spent the last 23 years of his life as a prisoner of war.

Following their surrender, Geronimo and the Chiricahuas—including the Apache army scouts that had helped catch him—were condemned to manual labor at army camps in Florida. The Indians were later moved to Mount Vernon Barracks, Alabama, and then Story continues next page Read this, and past issues at issuu.com/alamodosomagazine email us at Alamodoso@gmail.com

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Fort Sill, Oklahoma, but despite their repeated pleas for a reservation in the West, they remained prisoners of war for the rest of Geronimo’s life.

As the years passed, Geronimo busied himself with farming and cashed in on his growing celebrity by selling autographs and peddling walking sticks, bows and other items to American tourists.

His captors also granted him permission to appear in occasional World’s Fairs and Wild West Shows, where he was often billed as the “Apache Terror” and the “Tiger of the Human Race.”

7. Geronimo participated in Theodore Roosevelt’s presidential inauguration.

Geronimo’s most famous public appearance came on March 4, 1905, when he took part in President Theodore Roosevelt’s inaugural parade in Washington, D.C. Flanked by five other Indian leaders, the elderly warrior rode a pony down Pennsylvania Avenue, eliciting cries of “Hooray for Geronimo!” from spectators.

Five days later, the Indians got a chance to speak to Roosevelt in person at the White House. Geronimo—still a prisoner of war— took the opportunity to plead with the President to send the Chiricahuas back to their native lands in the West.

“I pray you to cut the ropes and make me free,” he said. By then, nearly 20 years had passed since Geronimo’s surrender, but Roosevelt turned down the request out of fear that war would once again break out if the Apaches returned home.

The federal government wouldn’t free the Chiricahuas until 1913—four years after Geronimo’s 1909 death from pneumonia.

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TULAROSA, NM ONE HUNDRED YEARS AGO. By Joe Ben Sanders 2017 The setting is August, 1917, and WWI rages across Europe and Americans are involved. The village pours out its young men and their cookies and love and send the soldiers off to war. They await in Albuquerque, training to become American Expeditionary Force "doughboy" soldiers and waiting to go over "there".

'Twas a century ago Tularosa Valley News reported on August 4, 1917 the following: "LETTER of Thanks and Appreciation to Tularosa Albuquerque, NM, July 29, 1917.

The boys from Tularosa having recieved the kits sent them by the people of Tularosa, wish to express therir deep appreciation and thanks for same.

Nothing in my opinion would have suited us better.

Everytihng pertainig to practical arrmy use was included and as the allowance for such has been greatly decreased during the present crisis it is no wonder that the Tularosa boys are wearing a smile.

Not only do we apprciate these material things, but to know that the people of our hometown have not forgotten us is of the more value than any thing else. Speedily are we coming to realize that wer are engage in as great a struggle as this nation has ever been called upon to face, and I am sure that should we have to go cross the water the Tularosa boys will give an account of themselves in any thing that they might be called upon to perform.

Again we wish to extend to all of you collectively and individually our appreciation and thanks for the kite.

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DISCOVER ALAMOGORDO bottles and beer bottles to the store. The store sent them back to the plant to be washed and sterilized and refilled, so it could use the same bottles over and over. So they really were recycled. But we didn't have the "green thing" back in our day.

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CHRISTMAS WILL BE HERE SOONER THAN YOU THINK!

Grocery stores bagged our groceries in brown paper bags that we reused for numerous things. Most memorable besides household garbage bags was the use of brown paper bags as book covers for our school books. This was to ensure that public property (the books provided for our use by the school) was not defaced by our scribblings. Then we were able to personalize our books on the brown paper bags. But, too bad we didn't do the "green thing" back then

. We walked up stairs because we didn't have an escalator in every store and office building. We walked to the grocery store and didn't climb into a 300-horsepower machine every time we had to go two blocks.

But she was right. We didn't have the "green thing" in our day.

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DISCOVER ALAMOGORDO Back then we washed the baby's diapers because we didn't have the throw-away kind.

We dried clothes on a line, not in an energygobbling machine burning up 220 volts. Wind and solar power really did dry our clothes back in our early days. Kids got hand-medown clothes from their brothers or sisters, not always brand-new clothing.

But that young lady is right; we didn't have the "green thing" back in our day.

Back then we had one TV, or radio, in the house -- not a TV in every room. And the TV had a small screen the size of a handkerchief (remember them?), not a screen the size of the state of Montana. In the kitchen, we blended and stirred by hand because we didn't have electric machines to do everything for us. When we packaged a fragile item to send in the mail, we used wadded up old newspapers to cushion it, not Styrofoam or plastic bubble wrap. Back then, we didn't fire up an engine and burn gasoline just to cut the lawn. We used a push mower that ran on Story continues page 98 Read this, and past issues at issuu.com/alamodosomagazine email us at Alamodoso@gmail.com

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human power. We exercised by working so we didn't need to go to a health club to run on treadmills that operate on electricity.

But she's right; we didn't have the "green thing" back then.

We drank from a fountain when we were thirsty instead of using a cup or a plastic bottle every time we had a drink of water. We refilled writing pens with ink instead of buying a new pen, and we replaced the razor blade in a r azor instead of throwing away the whole razor just because the blade got dull.

But we didn't have the "green thing" back then.

Back then, people took the streetcar or a bus and kids rode their bikes to school or walked instead of turning their moms into a 24-hour taxi service in the family's $45,000 SUV or van, which cost what a whole house did before the"green thing." We had one electrical outlet in a room, not an entire bank of sockets to power a dozen appliances. And we didn't need a computerized gadget to receive a signal beamed from satellites 23,000 miles out in space in order to find the nearest burger joint But isn't it sad the current generation laments how wasteful we old folks were just because we didn't have the "green thing" Read this, and past issues at issuu.com/alamodosomagazine email us at Alamodoso@gmail.com

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We have the solutions for your Kitchen & Bath Design Needs

Cabinets | Counter Tops | Sinks & Faucets Knobs & Door Handles | Lighting & more

Visit our showroom 155 Hwy 82 * Alamogordo 575-921-5371 hillside-custom-cabinets-more.business.site Open Mon - Fri 9-5

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Dad Jokes So Bad They’re Actually Hilarious ● What concert costs just 45 cents? 50 Cent featuring Nickelback! ● Why did the scarecrow win an award?

Because he was outstanding in his field! ● What do sprinters eat before a race?

Nothing, they fast! ● Why couldn’t the bicycle stand up by itself? It was two tired! ● Did you hear about the restaurant on the moon? Great food, no atmosphere! ● What do you call a fish with two knees?

A two-knee fish! ● Why do melons have weddings? Because they cantaloupe! ● What happens when you go to the bathroom in France? European. ● What’s the difference between a poorly dressed man on a tricycle and a welldressed man on a bicycle? Attire! ● How many apples grow on a tree? All of them! ● Did you hear the rumor about butter?

Well, I’m not going to spread it! ● Did you hear about the guy who invented Lifesavers? They say he made a mint! ● How does a penguin build its house?

Igloos it together!

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Tularosa Invites you to visit

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THE WATERBOSS Chapter 25 TROMPING COTTON The sun had set before they got back to the field, but a huge full moon shined down from a cloudless sky, lighting the night almost as bright as day time. Stars began to twinkle in the night.

Randy pulled the pickup close to the open back of the wagon so the headlights could shine on the load of picked cotton piled inside. Then he turned off the lights, stared awhile in the dark.

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he mused out loud. He turned to Betty Jo and asked, “The moon is bright enough, don’t you think?”

She agreed as she opened the pickup door and jumped out onto the ground. She began to climb into the wagon when Randy came up behind her to give her a boost. She turned toward him just as his arms circled her waist.

“Need some help?” he asked.

“Not really,” she answered, looking up at him as his arms pulled her close. “But, that’s nice of you to offer.”

He took advantage of her upturned face, kissing her full on the lips. She responded by kissing him back. The pit of her stomach melted and her heart pranced like a racehorse at the starting gate as his kiss lingered on.

“Did we come here to tromp cotton, or what?” she asked as they pulled slightly apart from their embrace.

“I like the “or what” better than the “tromp cotton” part,” he answered, pulling her close and kissing her again before lifting her up to the piled cotton in the wagon bed.

Both moved to the edge of the edge of the trailer, stomping in tiny steps on the cotton, pressing it down, compressing as best they could to make room to pile in more cotton tomorrow. They worked in tandem, Randy in front, Betty Jo right behind him.

After half an hour of the tromping, Randy turned around. He caught Betty Jo’s hands and pulled her to the center of the trailer and sat her down in the soft cotton.

“Stop!” he insisted. “Let’s take a break.

I’m thirsty. There’s some bottles of pop in the

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DISCOVER TULAROSA truck. I’ll get them and we can wet our whistles.”

He jumped from the trailer and in a few minutes returned with two bottles of orange soda.

“Hope you like orange,” he said, handing her a bottle.”

“Love it. I’m surprised you have soda instead of beer though.”

“Would you rather have beer?”

“No. Can’t stand the stuff. It tastes nasty.”

Betty Joe made a wry face with her comment.

“I agree. I don’t drink any of that stuff either.” He sat down in the cotton beside her and drained half his bottle at once.

They sat in silence, enjoying the quiet night and the sweet taste of their sodas.

Suddenly, Randy asked, “Do you remember that day in the irrigation ditch?”

“Yes, I do,” she answered. “I’ve wondered now and then if you remembered, too.”

“My memory isn’t very good, but that’s one time I won’t ever forget.

You’re the first girl I ever got to see down there,” referring to her private parts. “You looked so beautiful, so innocent.”

She smiled. She surprised herself by not taking offense at his comment. For some strange reason, she felt comfortable with him, enjoying his presence, his actions, and the sound of his voice. It was as if this was a normal conversation between two very old friends.

He reached out for her, pulling her close to him as he lay back onto the cotton with her by his side.

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“You’re the first boy I ever saw,” she shyly admitted, her voice almost inaudible.

“Other than my baby brother, of course, when I changed his diapers.” A little giggle escaped her. “I guess that doesn’t count though.”

“Have you seen other guys since then?”

“No… none. I’ve dated a few, but it just never got that far.”

“Did you want it to?”

“Not really.”

“Why not?”

“I dunno. Just wasn’t that interested.

Besides, it’s too dangerous and it’s the wrong thing to do.” She raised up on one arm to look at him. “What about you? Have you seen other girls? Maybe even loved a few?”

The moon lit up the night enough that she could see him smiling at her when he answered.

“A very few,” he said, “but they never let me really look.”

“Did you love them?”

“No.” Betty Jo lay back down, this time with her head on his chest. He slid his arm around her and cupped his hand over her warm, firm breast. She didn’t move. She just let him hold her, but she felt a warmth surge thru her entire body that she had never felt before. She liked the way she was feeling.

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THE WATERBOSS Chapter 26 CONSUMMATION They lay in silence, lost in their own thoughts, enjoying the thrill of their bodies lying so close together in the bed of soft cotton. Neither of them wanted to be the one to break the spell of this magical moment.

Randy let his free hand stroke her hair feeling its soft, fine texture beneath his fingers. After several long, quiet moments, he took a deep breath and spoke her name in his soft, husky voice.

“Betty Jo, will you let me see you again?”

He hesitated when she did not immediately answer. “I mean, down there?”

She remained silent with her head still resting on his chest. Slowly she shifted her body onto her arm, and looked at him.

“Why?” she asked. “Why would you want to do that?”

“For old time sake, I guess,” he answered simply. “I mean, we were so young. You were so pretty. I’ve thought of you so often. I want to see how much more beautiful you look now that we’re older.” When she remained silent, he added, “I promise I won’t do anything but look.”

“Only on one condition,” she finally agreed.

“What’s that?”

“Well, you know how it goes.” She stalled. He waited. “If you show me yours, I’ll show you mine.” She gave a nervous giggle.

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They stood up then, in the middle of the wagon and he grabbed her and held her tight.

“You’re teasing me, aren’t you?”

He cupped her chin and looked seriously into her face. In the bright moonlight he could see her smiling.

“I’m not teasing you. I mean it. It’s only fair, you know.”

He answered by tightening his hold and pressing his lips hard against hers. Her arms flew around his neck. Her supple body leaned into him while his tongue searched inside her mouth. They stood locked together until he eased her down onto the cotton, his hand searching for the button on the side of her slacks, his mouth still affixed to hers.

Her slacks fell open easily once the zipper slid down. His hand found the top of her panties and slipped them downward until he felt soft pubic hair beneath his touch. Her body arced slightly and stiffened.

“Don’t be afraid,” he whispered. “I won’t hurt you. I’d never hurt you… not on purpose. Honest.” He withdrew his hand at once.

“I know that.” Her body relaxed. “It’s just that this is new to me. You’re the only one who has ever done this.”

Another quick kiss from him and she began to respond once more. He sat up on his knees and unzipped his own pants.

“You wanted to see, too.” He was fully erect when he pulled his penis through the opening in his shorts. “Here he is,” but she averted her face.

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DISCOVER TULAROSA pulling her slacks down and off.

“If you want to,” she assented. He felt her shiver in the warm night air as he spread apart her legs, offering him a full view. He heard his own breath suck in a deep breath of air, exhaling very slowly.

“Oh, darling, you are exquisite. You have become more beautiful than I remembered.

You were so young when I first saw you.

Now you’ve matured from a little girl to a lush young lady. Thank you for letting me see you again.”

His eyes examined her closely. When he looked up, he saw she was looking intently at his genitalia.

“You are different than I remember, too,” she admitted. “You are much larger than when you were a 13 year old. You sure don’t look like the pictures drawn in those little books I found though.” She saw him watching her. “I think you look quite adorable.” She reached out with a cautious hand, tenderly touching him. This time he shivered in the warm air.

“Let me touch her, please,” he begged.

“Maybe even give her a quick kiss. It won’t hurt, I promise.”

“Okay, but I get to hold him, too,” she said with determination.

He bent over her, gently spread her lower lips apart, and lowered his head to her body.

He heard her intake of air as his lips made contact. His senses reeled, tongue darted out to caress the alluring vaginal inside. Her taste, her smell, her touch was more than he anticipated. She moaned with pleasure.

Unable to contain himself any longer, he let go and felt immediate relief.

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THE WATERBOSS Chapter 27 JUST ANOTHER COTTON PICKING DAY Early the next afternoon, Betty Jo stood up to shake loose cotton from the mouth of her half-filled sack down to the cotton she had already picked and had shaken to the end. She looked toward the trailer where she and Randy had been the night before. It was gone and another empty trailer stood in its place.

Disappointment swept through her.

When she came to work in early morning, the full trailer was there. The sight of it filled her mind with last night’s images of her and Randy that were so new to her. Her stomach fluttered while blood coursed hot and wild through her veins as she deliberately relived their hours together. Random mages projected on the screen of her brain ran repeatedly, each time etching a deeper groove onto her memory coils. She wanted to remember every moment of that night.

While thoughts raced in her head, her fingers flew at picking the snowy white cotton from the open bolls, leaving only empty burrs behind on stripped stalks. Her first weighing was thirty-five pounds.

It seemed like more than that as she dragged her sack along the dirt row, picking, poking, and packing cotton fiber into the long canvas tube, once new and white and now well used. Dusty, acrid smelling raw cotton pushed time and time again into it permeated it inside. As Betty Jo pulled it through dry rows of adobe dirt, the outside turned dirty brown within a week or two. This was her second season with this sack, so it was well broken-in.

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She turned to resume picking when she noticed the full trailer being pulled from the field on its way to the cotton gin. She recognized the driver of the Farmall tractor pulling the trailer. It was Randy.

she fervently hoped it was Randy returning.

Another picker

He was the one taking our memories away, she thought. She smiled. I wonder if he thinks of last night as he takes the trailer to the gin. She began picking once more. I wonder if he will be back and ask me to go with him for another burger and root beer.

The sun was hanging low in the west by the time she had filled her sack. Another two hundred feet of this row was left to pick. Her sack would not hold that much more cotton, so she hoisted the long sack over her shoulder, carefully balancing it, and began walking to the trailer to get it weighed.

Nearing the almost empty trailer, she saw a green pickup enter the field. Her heart lurched, her stomach flipped

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VISIT

CARRIZOZO | WHITE OAKS | CORONA

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DISCOVER CARRIZOZO | WHITE OAKS | CORONA We wish to thank the scores of you all who took the time to enter our 1st annual Otero Lincoln County Photo Contest sponsors by the Carrizozo Photo Gallery and by us here at Alamodoso Connections Magazine. We were overwhelmed by your response and the quality of the photos.

We are still in the process of choosing the two best photos entered and will be announcing the winners in a few weeks.

In the mean time, we have inserted a few of the entries, in no particular order, in this issue of Alamodoso Magazine for your viewing enjoyment.

And once again; thank you all!

(Some photos cropped for space)

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Top 10 things to know about the Day of the Dead

W

e've all heard about the Day of the Dead or seen the classic sugar skull paintings—but what does this celebration really represent?

HERE’S ONE THING we know: Día de los Muertos, or Day of the Dead, is not a Mexican version of Halloween. Though related, the two annual events differ greatly in traditions and tone.

Whereas Halloween is a dark night of terror and mischief, Day of the Dead festivities unfold over two days in an explosion of color and life-affirming joy. Sure, the theme is death, but the point is to demonstrate love and respect for deceased family members. In towns and cities throughout Mexico, revelers don funky makeup and costumes, hold parades and parties, sing and dance, and make offerings to lost loved ones.

The rituals are rife with symbolic meaning. The more you understand about this feast for the senses, the more you will appreciate it. Here are 10 essential things you should know about Mexico’s most colorful annual event.

WHAT IS DAY OF THE DEAD? Día de los Muertos, or Day of the Dead, is a celebration of life and death. While the holiday originated in Mexico, it is celebrated all over Latin America with colorful calaveras (skulls) and calacas (skeletons). Learn how the Day of the Dead started and the traditions that make it unique.

Lincoln, New Mexico Celebrates

DAY OF THE DEAD November 2nd | 10AM until 4PM

Recognition by UNESCO Thanks to efforts by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, or UNESCO, the term “cultural heritage” is not limited to monuments and collections of objects. It also includes living expressions of culture—traditions— passed down from generation to generation. In 2008, UNESCO recognized the importance of Día

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LINCOLN - BILLY THE KID COUNTRY de los Muertos by adding the holiday to its list of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. Today Mexicans from all religious and ethnic backgrounds celebrate Día de los Muertos, but at its core, the holiday is a reaffirmation of indigenous life.

History Day of the Dead originated several thousand years ago with the Aztec, Toltec, and other Nahua people, who considered mourning the dead disrespectful. For these pre-Hispanic cultures, death was a natural phase in life’s long continuum. The dead were still members of the community, kept alive in memory and spirit—and during Día de los Muertos, they temporarily returned to Earth.

Today’s Día de los Muertos celebration is a mash-up of pre-Hispanic religious rites and Christian feasts. It takes place on November 1 and 2—All Saints’ Day and All Souls’ Day on the Catholic calendar—around the time of the fall maize harvest.

Altars The centerpiece of the celebration is an altar, or ofrenda, built in private homes and cemeteries.

These aren’t altars for worshipping; rather, they’re meant to welcome spirits back to the realm of the living. As such, they’re loaded with offerings— water to quench thirst after the long journey, food, family photos, and a candle for each dead relative. If one of the spirits is a child, you might find small toys on the altar.

Marigolds are the main flowers used to decorate the altar. Scattered from altar to gravesite, marigold petals guide wandering souls back to their place of rest. The smoke from copal incense, made from tree resin, transmits praise and prayers and purifies the area around the altar.

Literary Calaveras Calavera means “skull.” But during the late 18th and early 19th centuries, calavera was used to describe short, humorous poems, which were often sarcastic tombstone epitaphs published in newspapers that poked fun at the living. These literary calaveras eventually became a popular part of Día de los Muertos celebrations. Today the practice is alive and well. You’ll find these clever,

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biting poems in print, read aloud, and broadcast on television and radio programs.

The Calavera Catrina In the early 20th century, Mexican political cartoonist and lithographer José Guadalupe Posada created an etching to accompany a literary calavera.

Posada dressed his personification of death in fancy French garb and called it Calavera Garbancera, intending it as social commentary on Mexican society’s emulation of European sophistication.

“Todos somos calaveras,” a quote commonly attributed to Posada, means “we are all skeletons.”

Underneath all our manmade trappings, we are all the same.

In 1947 artist Diego Rivera featured Posada’s stylized skeleton in his masterpiece mural “Dream of a Sunday Afternoon in Alameda Park.” Posada’s skeletal bust was dressed in a large feminine hat, and Rivera made his female and named her Catrina, slang for “the rich.” Today, the calavera Catrina, or elegant skull, is the Day of the Dead’s most ubiquitous symbol Food of the Dead You work up a mighty hunger and thirst traveling from the spirit world back to the realm of the living. At least that’s the traditional belief in Mexico. Some families place their dead loved one’s favorite meal on the altar. Other common offerings: Pan de muerto, or bread of the dead, is a typical sweet bread (pan dulce), often featuring anise seeds and decorated with bones and skulls made from dough. The bones might be arranged in a circle, as in the circle of life. Tiny dough teardrops symbolize sorrow. Sugar skulls are part of a sugar art tradition brought by 17th-century Italian missionaries.

Pressed in molds and decorated with crystalline colors, they come in all sizes and levels of complexity.

Drinks, including pulque, a sweet fermented beverage made from the agave sap; atole, a thin warm porridge made from corn flour, with unrefined cane sugar, cinnamon, and vanilla added; and hot chocolate..

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LINCOLN - BILLY THE KID COUNTRY that spills into streets and public squares at all hours of the day and night. Dressing up as skeletons is part of the fun. People of all ages have their faces artfully painted to resemble skulls, and, mimicking the calavera Catrina, they don suits and fancy dresses. Many revelers wear shells or other noisemakers to amp up the excitement—and also possibly to rouse the dead and keep them close during the fun.

Papel Picado You’ve probably seen this beautiful Mexican paper craft plenty of times in stateside Mexican restaurants. The literal translation, pierced paper, perfectly describes how it’s made. Artisans stack colored tissue paper in dozens of layers, then perforate the layers with hammer and chisel points.

Papel picado isn’t used exclusively during Day of the Dead, but it plays an important role in the holiday. Draped around altars and in the streets, the art represents the wind and the fragility of life.

Day of the Dead Today Thanks to recognition by UNESCO and the global sharing of information, Día de los Muertos is more popular than ever—in Mexico and, increasingly, abroad. For more than a dozen years, the New York-based nonprofit cultural organization Mano a Mano: Mexican Culture Without Borders has staged the city’s largest Day of the Dead celebration. But the most authentic celebrations take place in Mexico. If you find yourself in Mexico City the weekend before Day of the Dead this year, make sure to stop by the grand parade where you can join in on live music, bike rides and other activities in celebration throughout the city.

Pan de Muerto’: The sweet part of the ‘Dia de Muertos’ festivity On the altar, along with the Pib and the traditional candies, there is always displayed the “Pan de Muerto”, the preferred bread for Mexicans.

The date is approaching, and as every year in Mexico, people are already working to have

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everything ready for the “Dia de Muertos” festivity, in which food has a huge meaning.

This bread is a true pleasure, and we can find its origin in the time of the Conquest, inspired by preHispanic rituals and modified by Spanish cooking methods, resulting in the deliciousness that today is one of the most important traditions for offerings dedicated to the dead.

There are several versions and theories about the origin of the “Pan de Muerto,” but what all have in common is that its elaboration comes from the time of human sacrifices and the arrival of the Spanish Army to the then New Spain (now Mexico), in 1519.

According the legend there was a sacrifice ritual, in which a princess must be offered to the gods by removing her heart form her chest while she was still alive. Then her still-beating heart was placed in a pot with amaranth seeds, and the priest who led the rite would bite the heart as a sign of gratitude to a god. The Spanish conquerors rejected such sacrifices, and they made a heart-shaped wheatbread covered in red sugar, to resemble the blood of the lady.

Other historians believe that the birth of this bread is based on a rite to the dead made by the first settlers of Mesoamerica, which buried their dead with their belongings. In the book “De Nuestras Tradiciones” is narrated the elaboration of a bread composed of ground toasted amaranth seeds, mixed with the blood of the sacrifices which were offered in honor of Izcoxauhqui, Cuetzaltzin and Huehuetéotl.

The shape and decorations of this bread also have a meaning: the ball which is at the top of it represents the skull; the side strips resemble the bones and the taste of orange blossom is for the remembrance of the deceased.

It also could have other forms like human bodies, all depending on to whom is dedicated the offering; this last shape is more often used when there isn’t an available photo of the deceased.

Everybody knows that the Mexican food is delicious and is always better when you know the history and meaning of what you eat. TYT wish you continued enjoyment of the season’s festivities.

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LINCOLN - BILLY THE KID COUNTRY Ingredients ¼ c milk ¼ c water 2 Tbsp unsalted butter, room temperature 3-3 ½ c unbleached all purpose flour, divided ¼ c sugar 2 ¼ tsp active dry yeast one packet 1 ½ tsp ground anise 1 tsp salt 2 eggs, at room temperature For the Glaze and Topping 1 Tbsp milk ¼ c + 2 Tbsp sugar, divided 1 orange, zested and juiced Instructions In a small saucepan heat the milk, water, and butter together until the butter has melted. Remove the pan from the heat and cool the mixture to roughly 80-90F. In a large bowl, mix together 1 c flour, sugar, yeast, salt, and anise. Add the cooled milk mixture to the flour mixture and whisk until smooth. Add the eggs and whisk until combined. Add the remaining 2 c flour, ½ c at a time, stirring well after each addition,

DAY OF THE DEAD WORD SEARCH

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The Sugar Skull Tradition Sugar art was brought to the New World by Italian missionaries in the 17th century. The first Church mention of sugar art was from Palermo at Easter time when little sugar lambs and angels were made to adorn the side altars in the Catholic Church.

Mexico, abundant in sugar production and too poor to buy fancy imported European church decorations, learned quickly from the friars how to make sugar art for their religious festivals. Clay molded sugar figures of angels, sheep and sugar skulls go back to the Colonial Period 18th century. Sugar skulls represented a departed soul, had the name written on the forehead and was placed on the home ofrenda or gravestone to honor the return of a particular spirit.

Sugar skull art reflects the folk art style of big happy smiles, colorful icing and sparkly tin and glittery adornments. Sugar skulls are labor intensive and made in very small batches in the homes of sugar skull makers. These wonderful artisans are disappearing as fabricated and imported candy skulls take their place.

There is nothing as beautiful as a big, fancy, unusual sugar skull!

Although it is a holiday from far away in southern Mexico, it’s a holiday one can personalize and integrate into their own religious and cultural beliefs. It is more of a cultural holiday than a religious one. It is a wonderful way to celebrate the memories of our loved ones who are now gone‌ through art, cooking, music, building ofrendas, doing activities with our children, we can recount family stories, fun times and lessons learned‌ not how the person died, but how they lived.

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