Local Color

Bar owner Darryl Pettis, new mayor Diego Montoya, and some library donations from Darryl -- because I can, and because I support both. (I am on the library board).

Not a secret, but I bet Libby and I are the only Magdalenians who have been there other than her: Diego's mother came from Waltham, Mass. Montoyas? I live in one of the oldest houses in town, dating to the 1870's. I am the first non- Montoya to own it,  albeit I have had it for more than a few years, and my electric bill address is still "Montoya Rock House". Though this may be the first time Dieguito ever heard it!

(Albuquerque Journal photo)

Great Local Photo

Shamelessly stolen from the Golden Spur Saloon website, which is replete with good stuff;  a portrait of Lawrence Aragon and Johnny Krynitz playing at the Spur last summer. They both live and raise cattle 30 dirt- track miles north of town, near the ghost town of Riley, or as we are more likely to call it, Santa Rita. Lawrence has a small farm plot on the seasonally dry river, one that  has been in his family for generations; Johnny (who is Spanish, a Vigil*) runs his cows in the uplands. Photo by Magdalena filmmaker Matt Middleton, who I think should do more black and white portraits.

* A local reminds me that ears from elsewhere read the name "Vigil" as something like "VIDjil" rather than as it is understood here" VeeHEEL". Correct and noted.

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...

New Year at the Spur

Our annual tradition: seeing out the year at the Golden Spur Saloon. A selection:

House band: manager Monana Pettis and chef Linda Rael, heading up the ever- evolving 86'd Again, offer up a stomping rock version of Folsom Prison Blues:

(It is a matter of being a local I suppose-- it had to be pointed out that an oryx or a bighorn or a javelina wearing a hat are not usual ornaments for a band stage...)

Below: owner Darrel Pettis beams; Bobby Contreras show off his moves; bartender Cat Aragon smiles a BIT wearily (she teaches full time too); Juan Malvido is having too much fun...

Happy New Year from Querencia and the Spur.