“Why, when I was your age . . . “ It’s impossible to utter those six words, in that sequence, without having someone come up with, “Yes, we already know: You had to walk to school five miles, uphill both ways, in deep snow.”

So I won’t be mentioning the daily trudges through snow, in freezing weather that lasted from December to December. Nor will I write about the distance of our treks.

In fact, I’m wary of beginning any sentence with those six words, even though discussing distances to school or climatic conditions might be far from my mind.

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Photographing Julia Martinez for the Optic’s Senior Profile feature last week convinced me that hers was by far the easiest interview I’ve helped writer Lupita Gonzales conduct.
I simply go along for the photos; I let my colleague ask the tough questions.

So what made it so easy? Probably our conviction that Mrs. Herman Martinez is extremely alert. Yes, she’s 92, but she’s much more “with it” than many people 30 years younger.

The interview brought back memories of her late husband, Erminio (Herman) Martinez, whose employment at Murphey’s was a short two blocks from their house, on Fifth Street. I don’t remember ever having met or having seen Herman’s wife, but the family photos in her living room reminded me I’d known Herman since childhood (mine). Continue reading →

“Did you catch that typo?” I asked my oldest son, Stan Adam, as we drove past a place of active outdoor sales.

He said he hadn’t, so I made a U-turn to give him another look. “I don’t see anything unusual — for Las Vegas,” he said, “unless you’re looking at the way the people misspelled “flea.”

He had in fact gotten it, even emphasizing that he saw the typo several days earlier but failed to mention it to his language-cop dad. That was a number of years ago when there was a flea market in that empty field close to Mills Avenue and Hot Springs Boulevard. Continue reading →

The commotion lasted half a Saturday morning, taking place almost directly in front of my house on Railroad Avenue, otherwise known as El Barrio.

It was back in the ‘50s, on a summer morning when several of us spotted a shirtless neighbor, Tommy, driving while guzzling a can of Coors.

Sure, it’s a grt-tasting brew (or so some of the older boys in the neighborhood told me). But why did Tommy flaunt his guzzleability and flout the law? I assume Tommy was of legal age to drink, but isn’t it illegal to drink and drive anyway? (Yes, dear reader, we used to ask that question even six decades ago).

After about his 20th u-turn, some of us flagged him down, asking what his game was. “Do you see any beer in my car?” And before we got a chance to respond, he asked, “Do you smell any beer?” Continue reading →

“Let’s go over that again, Phillip, and this time, try to get rid of the excessive tire pressure.”

That was part of a bit of coaching I once did as a teacher of beginning speech in high school and college. My 33 years of teaching that subject yielded some interesting trivia.

First, I learned that students in this area have peculiar speech mannerisms. How many times have you heard it said that people in Las Vegas specifically, and northern New Mexico generally, have their own style of talking?

Let me explain: Continue reading →

Lora M. Shields, a professor after whom a science building on the Highlands University campus is named, once told a class I was in about some amazing properties of pigs and piglets.

She said a farmer could fill a pail of milk and let the pig drink it all, then lift that same pig into the same bucket and even have a little room to spare. It took some of us a while to catch on.

I confess I was one of the gullible, having been raised in town and believing only that all hogs are tiny, cute and cuddly. The just-ended Kiss-a-Pig promotion, that netted $6,186 to help Samaritan House, contradicts some of that tiny, cute and cuddly mythology. Continue reading →

Teaching an honors course in Cuba, N.M., I had the pleasure of being surrounded by some extraordinarily perceptive students. There’s no particular reason why Cuba, of all places, would have had such a bumper crop of bright students; it must have just happened.

One day, Annette asked in class, “Do you consider yourself knowledgeable when it comes to state capitals?” Of course I said I could hold my own. But before you, the reader, wonder whether we actually took the time to teach, let me assure you that yes, we followed a syllabus and at the time were covering current events, as part of a journalism class.

I contend that our state-ly discussion dovetailed into that day’s teaching unit. I mention this to fend off any attempts by New Mexico’s education secretary, Hanna Skandera, to yank my teaching license — retroactively. Continue reading →

OSLO, NORWAY — A 1969 romantic comedy with almost the same title as this headline (should be Tuesday instead of Wednesday), humorously depicts the whirlwind nature of European travel itineraries.

Never having been this far north, we opted to tack on an Atlantic coast week of travel to our customary two weeks in Denmark, where we visit our son Stanley Adam and his family, in July.

We wanted to see Norway, to view the fjords, to take in the majestic mountains and waterfalls and, especially to visit the Olso Opera House and other cultural sites, where names like playwright Henrik Ibsen, composer Edvard Grieg and artist Edvard Munch (The Scream) became famous. True, we knew the itinerary ahead of time, but we didn’t snap that a mere six hours in this magnificent city just doesn’t cut it. Continue reading →

THE NORTH ATLANTIC — On one of our across-the-Atlantic flights to visit our son Stan, his wife and children, we noticed several passengers who had positioned themselves in the middle seat of the middle row. My wife and I had been content with our seat assignment, a window seat and the one next to it.

The motives of these middle-of-the-roaders soon became clear: As soon as we were airborne, they’d simply raise the armrest between the seats, stretch out and snooze all the way to Copenhagen. On a later, less crowded flight, I claimed one such arrangement, told Bonnie about it, agreed to let her use it, “just for a half hour,” and ended up in my cramped single seat, next to a large man who had claimed Bonnie’s seat, and who apparently had been eating garlic-and-onion sandwiches. Continue reading →

Remember a few years back that a pair of human spell-checkers made the news for traipsing around the country making corrections to signs they believed contained errors? For their efforts, the language-fixers, Jeff Deck and Benjamin Herson, got banned from certain national parks.

I wrote about this team who would arm themselves with Sharpies, erasers, adhesive tape and righteous indignation. They’ve faded from the news, but if they wanted an assistant, I’d try to join them.

Besides, what business do people have displaying typos in public places? And on that subject, has anyone ever seen an obscenity or scatological message, emblazoned on a building or underpass, that contained a typo? Why is it that the army of spray-paint vandals always manages to spell correctly? Continue reading →