Saint Patrick's Day, Golden Spur

The Usual Suspects, in full Western- Irish- Rock & Country party mode. I have known John Paul Jones Apachito, aka Paul Jones and PJ, for thirty years, and never known he was Irish-- maybe Mongolian, certainly Alamo Navajo, but not Irish. But then the handsome young cowboy with Libby,  our handyman of all trades Tyler Chavez, is (a) north Italian,* like me-- his dad's name was Scartaccini; (b) Hispanic in name, and (C) raised in an Anglo ranching Mormon family (but then Tom Torres told me 30 years ago that "Italians, Chinese, and black people are all ANGLOS.") Not only is this New Mexico, the most ethnically complicated state, but it is Magdalena, of the cattle drives and mines and railroad, not to mention Navajos who stayed under Kit Carson's radar and never got exiled to Bosque Redondo; where the third person we met when I decided to rent thirty- some years ago, an Anglo woman with a western tang who would  celebrate her 100th birthday in a month,  reassured me: " You'll find us real friendly-- not like Catron county or Reserve. We're real integrated- everybody marries everybody else."

Yup-- thank you Miz Brunson!

Cody and Neal both have Anglo surnames and recent Hispanic ancestry, but because our society is currently nuts on some issues, Cody is Hispanic and Neal isn't.


*Sis Olney, rancher, considers herself ethnically Italian; her Italian great great grandfather, Joe Gianera, who arrived in 1859, is sometimes referred to as the first Anglo rancher in the county. Of course some of the more self- consciously Anglo Anglos thought he was a funny kind of Mexican because of his language...