“You’re doing fine, Dad! You can make it.” With that, my youngest son Ben, less than half my age, entreated me as I climbed and descended a mountain — all part of his and his wife Heather’s gift on my birthday. I didn’t need a pep talk; I needed some horse liniment.

The invitation was for my wife Bonnie and me to join Ben and Heather for a weekend at Carlsbad Caverns. We were to explore the famous Big Room by going through the Natural Entrance. I’d visited the caverns before, when I was about Ben’s age and much more physically fit than I am today.

The first physics lesson a visitor learns is that even though going 75 stories downhill does not require all the heavy lifting of going up, the body nevertheless uses muscles — different muscles — to provide resistance against falling and tumbling down. With every step I took in the descent, I became aware of how I’d be sore — but differently sore — the next morning. At least the path was even. Continue reading →

Whenever there’s an error in the Optic, some readers likely think we messed up. And they holler, “Hire a proofreader!”

But isn’t it possible that we merely plant a typo here and there? Why? To give readers something to talk about and us something to write about. Like now.

Alex Montoya of Las Vegas, now living in Flint, Texas, caught one of the plants, this time in an advertisement for Mora County manager. Montoya, my former student, writes, “I thought of applying for the position. I don’t think I meet the computer qualifications. The ad calls for one who is ‘computer illiterate.’“

No, Alex, if you’re lacking the “illiteracy” qualifications, Mora County simply has no room for you. However, what if, just what if … the alleged error were deliberate? We at the Optic get tired of going days without anyone calling to say, “You know that article you wrote about city government? Well, I want you to know that almost every word was spelled right.” Continue reading →

Few things took precedence last week over the details of the visit by President Obama and the First Lady to Britain’s Queen Elizabeth. The economy, bailouts, the war in Afghanistan, the G20 Summit: All of these paled as talk-show hosts and columnists spent days purely pondering protocol. 

For a few days, the big news was whether Obama had blown it by presenting Her Royal Highness with an iPod containing footage of her previous public appearances (she gave the Obamas a framed family portrait) and whether Michelle committed a breach by touching Queen Elizabeth other than during a handshake.

So, what constitutes protocol? What are the roots of this phenomenon that determine distance, occasions for touching, whether a curtsy or a bow takes precedence over a simple handshake?

To review: Both Obamas gave the queen a two-handed handshake, called a glove, apparently proper procedure. And while taking a group photo, neither Obama touched the queen. Notice, in scores of Optic photos, usually of cheerleaders, how many subjects put their arms around one another. Some day it may even be common to find U.S. presidents hugging the queen while holding two fingers behind her head in rabbit ear fashion. Continue reading →

Except for the administration of the City of Las Vegas, which farms out its advertisements to the Journal North, bypassing the Tri-Weekly Optic, lots of people feel good about shopping locally and keeping the money in circulation.

I’ve tried to abide by that policy. A couple of times last week I was favorably impressed with local service — and remember, this comes from a man who believes it’s courteous to say “please” and “thank you” and to go way beyond our job description.

Let me explain: Continue reading →

It’s time for another round of whimsical titles of movies, TV programs and books. The rules are simple: React to the clue and make a minor change in the title. Most of the works have only a single letter altered, but the correct answer may also depend on a rhyme.

For example: In this movie, Arnold Schwarzenegger works as a remorseless, opinionated and efficient hairdresser. Answer: The Permanator (The Terminator).

Ready? Continue reading →

“Hayseed” and other put-down terms generally get showered on rural folk by us urbanites. We’ve looked at people from neighboring towns as rustics, while we, in the big city of Las Vegas, are urban sophisticates.

Basketball teams arriving from any of the small schools that once dotted northern New Mexico in the ‘50s had funny ways of handling the ball, or cheering. Our teams, on the other hand, the epitome of sauvity, knew all the LeBron James moves, even before LeBron was conceived (of).

Listening to high school sports on radio makes me wonder how and why particular nomenclature evolved. Specifically, how and why do teams have their nicknames?

But let’s start on the farm in the mid-‘60s: Continue reading →

To what lengths will some people go to connect with their roots? And what means enable them to do so?

These questions arise in the case of Florence Bordj and her mother, Therese Bonnafous Bordj, from France but now living in Tahiti. They flew to the states to be close to the haunts of their great-grand-uncle and grand-uncle, respectively, Msgr. Adrien Rabeyrolle, the pastor of Immaculate Conception church.

But first, how they got the connection: Back in 2003, the first year of Work of Art, I wrote on how the word “challenge” appears to have changed complexion.

Let me explain:

Today, a challenge comes across more as a request, as in “I have been challenged to invite 20 or more people to my Amway party.” I said in that column that “challenge” used to be an urging to attempt something that has a foreseeable reward. My words were, “‘Challenge’ was the word Msgr. Adrien Rabeyrolle employed to announce to us Immaculate Conception School third-graders in Sister Mary Verfressen’s class that the fourth-graders had challenged us to sales of raffle tickets. We gladly took up the challenge. Besides, what business do those pseudo-sophisticated fourth-graders have trying to beat us?” Continue reading →

My dad, who lived to be 94, might have been called a dandy in his younger days. We don’t use the term much nowadays, and for those too young to have heard it, it describes someone overly concerned with appearance.

Today’s most proximate term might be “metrosexual,” although not all the connotations of the term apply to Dad. And in absolute fairness to him, I emphasize he worked hard to support his family of eight. But he still liked being dressed up.

My dad, J.D. Trujillo, is remembered in his neighborhood on Railroad Avenue as “the man who always wore a suit and tie.” He walked to work, to the Ford dealership three blocks south, on Grand Avenue, and sometimes caught up with a number of other Werley Auto employees, who also lived in this barrio. In those days, people bought homes close to where they worked and took jobs close to their homes. Few had cars. Continue reading →

It’s tough to realize that today marks the last Thursday publication of the Las Vegas (Daily) Optic.

The announcement that the (Daily) Optic is to become a tri-weekly the first week in March has generated more attention than the Optic’s decision, when Landmark became the parent company, to publish every weekday, even on holidays.

Remember, the penta-weekly Optic for years observed Thanksgiving and Christmas, New Year’s Day and other national holidays, with the result that on certain weeks we had only four issues.

I’m not sure people ever got used to having a Christmas issue, for example, when that holiday fell on a weekday. And possibly on rare occasions, Optic carriers merely bundled the holiday issue along with the regular copy.

It’s the end of an era, involving rearrangement of Optic features and work schedules. Area subscribers will now be getting their Optic in the mail every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, and that day’s edition will also be at single-sales locations around town in the morning. So you can enjoy the newspaper with your morning Ovaltine. Continue reading →

For many of my grandparents’ generation, the Biblical words, “Be fruitful and multiply,” were more of a command than a suggestion. Grandma and Grandpa Medina complied, delivering 16 children, of which my mother Marie was the oldest daughter. Six remain, most in their nineties, and most of the others lived into that decade as well. And a few of them procreated so efficiently that in the ‘50s it was fairly safe to tell people, “I’m related to half of Santa Fe. If it’s a Medina, there’s a good chance it’s a cousin.”

But that was back in the ‘50s, when Santa Fe’s population was around 25,000, a figure close to the number of exempt employees currently on Gov. Richardson’s staff, not counting his security force.

Like many of my generation, the last-surviving cadre of grandchildren, we self-regulated. Accordingly, none of my siblings even came close to the dozen children my Aunt Stella in Santa Fe delivered. Imagine how much more populated the world would be if every generation, on average, set out to have even more kids than they have siblings or aunts and uncles.

About 30 years ago, when the Zero Population Growth movement was much more militant, people were shamed if they had more than two children. The idea was simple: Every married couple had only two kids — to replace the parents, and so on. Continue reading →