“There sure wuzzn’t a shortage of baling wire on the farm where you grew up, Trujillo.”

There are many things one can say about this, not the least of which is that, for me, there was no farm to grow up on. I’m a Las Vegas city slicker.

Baling wire? Oh, you mean that two-story pile behind the barn? Those tons of metal wrought by decades of having hay loaded on to the loft in the barn?

Let me explain:

My father-in-law, Stanley Coppock, invented the “Coppock Cobble.” That’s simply any temporary fix that becomes permanent on what we all call Cocklebur Ranch. In this case, spending summers on Stanley’s farm north of Springer in the late ‘60s, I agreed to repair the barbed wire fence around the property, roughly a square mile.

I took a generous supply of baling wire with me, along with gloves and fence pliers. That fence has four strands (almost), and my job was to cut lengths of baling wire to wrap around the fence post and the barbed wire, to hold the wire to the post, as many of the original steeples had fallen off. Continue reading →

Did anyone show up an hour late for church on Sunday? There seems to be a correlation between the beginning of Daylight Saving Time and the number of excuses people conjure up for being an hour late.

Possibly the only person on the planet who feels this way, I like DST — for as long as it lasts. It represents a half year of an extra hour of daylight at a time when the days are getting longer anyway. My oldest son, Stan, who lives way in the northern European climes, laments — with some justification — about winter days when the sun rises around 10 a.m., stops and thinks about it for a few hours, and goes back into hiding at 3:30.

And in the summer, just the opposite happens. Continue reading →

Only a couple of weeks away from spring, we’ve gotten restless, tired of checking the weather reports to discover whether traffic’s stuck in Glorieta Pass. Newcomers to this area are often surprised that there’s actually visibility, sun and clear roads after trudging along, following a million semis crawling on I-25. We’ve stayed home more than we’re accustomed to, due to the weather, and we’ve acquired cabin fever.

There’s a map, published by a firm called MMI, that’s available at a number of local businesses. The map carries details of Las Vegas and San Miguel County. It’s a handy freebie, which has a number of advertisers. These maps have been around for years, frequently updated, and they’re usually available at the locations of those who buy the ads.

My map has a 2009 copyright. Imagine our surprise when we discovered there’s an opportunity to visit a host of new places we didn’t know existed. Let’s start with the forests. Did you know this map shows a Santa National Forest? Now the Santa designation is not to be confused with Santa Fe. This place is apparently a new site, popular in winter. Close by, we have a village named Sapollo, which is reminiscent of and in the same location as the former Sapello. Note that Spanish-speaking politicians, asking voters’ support often ask for “soporte,” when they ought to use “apoyo.” And they sometimes spell it “apollo,” which brings to mind “pollo,” a bird, or an ancient god, Apollo, who might have inspired the MMI map’s spelling of the little community between here and Mora. But let’s not get into fowl trouble. Continue reading →

Possibly the biggest fear I experienced in the elementary grades was in doing anything academic from Memorial Day to Labor Day. Before schools began tacking on extra days to the calendar, for “in-service” days, our summers were free.

Now, the school year often starts in early August and stretches into June. Hey, where’d our summers go?
I must have slept through the grammar units at Immaculate Conception School, taught by Sister Maria Nominativa Predicata. Once, when I blew it on my turn to walk that green mile to the board to diagram a sentence — did we ever do anything but diagram sentences in that class? — I tilted the line that signals a prepositional phrase in the wrong direction.

“You look like a good candidate for summer school, Arthur,” the teacher declared. My feelings were mixed: on the one hand, she’d never placed “good” within 10 words of a description of me; on the other hand, I became contrite as I dreaded the loss of Heaven and the pains of summer school. Continue reading →

In past columns I’ve devoted much lineage to the way things used to be, to my childhood and the dogged determination of hundreds of boys who worked six days a week to earn a few bucks selling Optics.

I’ve made fleeting references to the Optic sellers and carriers who’d spend hours in an alcove at the rear of the building, waiting for an unreliable press to churn out 80 copies a minute, to be distributed first to the carriers with established routes, then to the more tenured street sellers, determined by money, age, size and bully-ness quotient.

It was harrowing for us improperly dressed boys who’d remain on the streets from 2 p.m. (or whatever time the press run began) to 7 p.m. Five hours on some mid-winter days with temperatures like those we experienced three weeks ago, for a dozen sales and a quarter profit, including tips — unless, however, Cristobal or Carlos jumped you and stole your papers and your day’s earnings. Continue reading →

After years of having graded essays of kids all the way from seventh grade through their senior year, I encountered my share of words like “nuke-you-lerr” when the students meant “nuclear.”

Why is it so difficult? Why does this combination of nasals, plosives, vowels and glides make even scientists struggle — sometimes not even realizing it’s grating on others?

It’s easy to recall the criticism purists directed to George W. Bush, for whom that word may have been the most important in his mini-arsenal of verbiage.

Is the ex-President’s inclined cable railway known as a funicular? Continue reading →

As a student at Immaculate Conception School in the late ‘40s, I recall social studies units on The Great Depression, the Stock Market Crash of ‘29, and the concomitant suffering that ensued.

Well in those days, we were a lot closer to the tumultuous times of the early 20th century, and the biggest lesson I took home — and into my adulthood — was the fact that many people lost their fortunes. “Many millions of people lost everything they had,” intoned Sister Macarena, our fifth-grade teacher.

“But if so many people lost their life’s savings, didn’t some people get rich at the same time?” I once asked Sister. Barring things like crop failures, famine, pestilence and other terms we pluck out of the Bible, how does it happen that suddenly everyone’s poor?” We can’t blame it all on Bernie Madoff, who made off with billions, can we?

Accordingly, each day’s headlines refer to budget cuts, and it seems our elected officials are doing what they can to stop the financial bleeding, provided it doesn’t affect their turf. Continue reading →

It’s not exactly a case of generalized apathy, but the zeal that’s usually apparent around Super Bowl season just isn’t there.

The column of Super Bowl predictions lacks the wide-eyed passion we expect. And to no one’s surprise, some said, “I’ll tell you my prediction if you’ll tell me who’s playing.”

Glad you asked. I’ll tell you: It’s the Green Bay Packers and the Pittsburgh Steelers, both teams having made the Super Bowl trip many times and come out ahead almost as many.

Most pick the Steelers to cart off the Vince Lombardi Trophy; most believe Pittsburgh has too many weapons, including and especially Ben Roethlisberger, the 28-year-old quarterback who has won two Super Bowls.

Let’s move to the prognostications. Continue reading →

After having struck out on my own — trying to survive by publishing my own weekly newspaper in suburban Chicago, I returned to the Meadow City, in 1964.

My smartest decision: re-enroll at Highlands University, the institution I had left five years earlier, following grades less than many-splendored. Pell Grants and lottery scholarships hadn’t been invented yet, so most students took a part-time job.

There was an opening at Groth’s Grocery on 10th Street in Las Vegas. I’d long been aware of the family name, my having been a classmate of Jane Groth at Immaculate Conception School. But I found out the elder Groths, Ed and Emma, no longer owned the neighborhood store; they sold it to an Ignacio Flores, and the Groths had taken jobs at the Highlands Bookstore. Groth’s Grocery, familiar to many, became the last place that delivered groceries. People like former HU President Thomas Donnelly, Dr. H.M. Mortimer and J.S. Torres would call in their food orders, and by noon get home delivery. Continue reading →

An exchange, ongoing for years, has caused me to run for the dictionaries, all because of a single word: assassinate.

Bruce Wertz, a clerk for the Las Vegas City Schools, has assured me he’s still alive by giving me an unusual answer as to his health. I’ll ask, “How you doing, Bruce?”

Invariably, he replies, “I’m OK. I haven’t been assassinated this week.” Then he tacks this on: “And if I had been, I wouldn’t be telling you about it now.” Really?

Let me digress:

I had a friend who once asked me, “Are you on the wagon?” Well, yes and no. It’s like asking, “Have you stopped beating your wife? Give a simple yes or no, please.” Continue reading →