{"id":1510,"date":"2016-06-01T12:00:55","date_gmt":"2016-06-01T06:00:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/?p=1510"},"modified":"2016-06-17T13:10:09","modified_gmt":"2016-06-17T07:10:09","slug":"slobs-among-us","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/?p=1510","title":{"rendered":"Slobs among us"},"content":{"rendered":"

Memorial Day weekend was surprisingly busy for the Trujillo family. It included trips to the Veterans Cemetery in Santa Fe to see the burial site of my older brother, Severino, who succumbed to prostate cancer in December. On a separate trip to the same place, I took a friend to visit the place where her husband was laid to rest about 10 years ago.<\/p>\n

Here in town, we visited the gravesite of my parents, J.D. and Marie Trujillo, at Pilgrims Rest, near Meadows Home. We also spent a day at Santa Rosa\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Blue Hole, a place where experienced divers train in wetsuits. We took along our foreign exchange students, Phaedra and Ana. And we drove to Holman Hill to see the spectacular views from scenic lookouts.<\/p>\n

The walled-off barriers prevent cars from running off the roads, but they don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t prevent pickups from backing up to dump trash.<\/p>\n

So here\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a bit of trash talk:<\/p>\n

Several of us lined up for photographs at one of the turnoffs. I looked down and noticed trash, strewn over a large area, courtesy of some slob who probably figured he or she could save a few bucks by dumping the stuff down the valley. You know: Out of sight . . .<\/p>\n

Totally unsightly! From our vantage point, there were the requisite numbers of disposable diapers (they weren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t meant to be disposed of in quite that manner), heaps of garbage bags, beer cans, broken bottles and other kinds of litter.<\/p>\n

I fantasize about the prospect of the violators\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 being caught in the act and being made to remain all day (or all week if necessary) to clean up every bit of litter.<\/p>\n

Some readers may recall that on several occasions I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve written about trash simply dumped along roadways in Camp Luna, close to where we live.<\/p>\n

The first time, we did our own cleanup and in the process acquired quite a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153snapshot\u00e2\u20ac\u009d of the dumping family. Seeing legal papers, we surmised that Mr. and Mrs. Dumpers of the Year are divorced. We found photos, broken cassette cases, empty prescription bottles, bills dunning payment for cable service and credit cards, and even a summons to appear in court, something the scofflaws apparently didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t consider important.<\/p>\n

The offending parties were easily identifiable. Accordingly, we took a batch of the junk to county officers, where some hand wringing occurred. The second time we delivered samples of what people had strewn along the road, nothing happened.<\/p>\n

But I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t want this to become a Clean Up, Paint Up, Fix Up type column. I just wish some people weren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t such slobs.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2 \u00e2\u20ac\u00a2 \u00e2\u20ac\u00a2<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Golf War\u00e2\u20ac\u009d? he wrote. Ron Querry, who brings the community horse parades and who also has chased many commas in his academic life, sent an email about the skirmish among golfers. That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s all he wrote.<\/p>\n

As the longest-serving employee and copy editor at the Optic, I naturally surmised Ron meant me (or, as my English teacher would have it, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153meant I\u00e2\u20ac\u009d). Having no recollection of the egregious error, I wrote back, insisting on my correctness in a good-natured way: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Yes \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcGolf War\u00e2\u20ac\u2122! Haven\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t you ever seen a couple of caddies mixing it up on the fairway?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

And I asked when and where the alleged error occurred. He cited a recent issue of the Optic, and worse \u00e2\u20ac\u201d said it was in a headline. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll search for it, but meanwhile I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll remind Ron of a phenomenon that occurs in the newspaper field: Sometimes little gremlins enter newspaper offices after closing, and they plant errors. As evidence, if I let \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Golf War\u00e2\u20ac\u009d get past me, I can always blame the gremlins or claim it was deliberate.<\/p>\n

Errors do get past us. The auto-correct feature of many writing applications usually anticipates what the user is about to type, and as a result, we often accept the application\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s \u00e2\u20ac\u0153suggestion.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d
\nOne of the more serious (albeit humorous) errors to appear in the Optic was in an article about someone who\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d been in a minor automobile accident in Las Vegas and was transported to the old Northeast Regional Hospital.<\/p>\n

The reporter intended to write that the driver was \u00e2\u20ac\u0153treated and released.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d However, these blasted auto-correcting features sometimes have a mind of their own.<\/p>\n

The final version said the man was \u00e2\u20ac\u0153threatened and released.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d That should teach the motorist to use caution on the highways and to avoid trips to the hospital.<\/p>\n

There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a difference, and I probably never would have known about the error had it not been for alert reader Susan Swan.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2 \u00e2\u20ac\u00a2 \u00e2\u20ac\u00a2<\/p>\n

Last week\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s column contained a list of actual businesses that advertise their goods and services by using names of famous people, movie titles or common expressions. Alice Chambers filled in and submitted the following words that allude to the businesses\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 names:<\/p>\n