Taos Mitote y Morte

Courts & Cops. The dockets in the 8th Judicial District have turned Raton into Taos and vice versa. Due to excusals, recusals, and conflicts, judges and attorneys will be flashing back and forth between the two courthouses like orbiting planets, waving their writs out windows. Gives new meaning to “Circuit Riding.”

For cops, reshuffling at Superman’s downtown HQ is striking fear into the hearts of management and the veteran Taos P.D. officers–as Young Execs assert their authority email wise. Who’s on patrol today? Flavio knows. The mayor is calling, we hear, for another council meeting on the subject of his recalcitrant manager. The County still has a job opening for Young Daniel—no outsider need apply. Nick the Greek is just waiting for a locale.

Local Humor. The “Mea Culpa” Man, KCEC CEO Reyes is making the rounds of the talk shows and local media. The PRC chastised the Mgr. for trying to fool the members. Now Luis is making nice about increased electrical rates and the cross-fertilization of diversification  with electrical revenues. “Too late, buddy,” say the activists. “Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia” and better yet Manuel, Toby, and Francis. Look for a recall petition and by-law changes at this year’s annual KCEC membership meeting in June. The PRC hearings are likely to drag on and on.

TMS. The Taos News and the candidates for the TMS board would rather talk civility than educative issues—despite the disaster-laden results at TMS. But Gov. Martinez knows and she may dine on crab legs, say insiders. Flavio endorses “The Three that Can Do”: Caldwell, Sanchez, and Velasquez. “CRAB Hall ain’t for amateurs,” says the longtime custodian about the FAT CAT syndicate.

Taos Crime Syndicate Busted. Marijuaneros from Taos forged alliances in high school and ten years later violated pot regs in Colo. according to a spokesman for the Rocky Mountain State’s DA. Three to five local boys get burned. The RICO bust calls “custom” in Taos a “criminal act” in Colorado. “If you want to stay out of the Canon City rock palace, stay on this side of the Stateline,” says the Disappeared Barber. Adios mis amigos. Read their names in the newspapers and weep for the departed: This is What Freedom Means.

Culture. Pecha Kucha (Chit Chat) about art and culture sold out at the H’Wood Museum’s new theatrical venue to a delighted audience, who saw unusual art feats, yoga twists, organic splendor, soulful photos, and other creative assaults on the senses. Then a week later: same thing, different crowd for John Nichols’ sing song stand-up about life in El Norte at the acoustically sound space. It was the best. Kudos to the Brujos and Brujas who made it happen.

Steve Parks is winding down, moving next to World Cup with only Melissa Zink and Jim Wagner in tow as the art biz dwindles. Buy a Wagner fish and Zink Zia. Keep the heart of art alive.

From the Wizard of Loneliness: Testimony

I wanted to share with you that my amazing little mother-in-law passed away in the morning of January 6, 2011, in Santa Fe Care Center. She was 106 years old, but has only been in a home for the last 3 years. She was the reigning Queen in the Santa Fe Fiestas parade last year, and rode a regal float in the parade through the state capitol.

Kika, Aaron and I took her to Mexico for a vacation when she was 97 years old. She had a blast! However, we were passing through a god-awful, hours-long section of the Sonoran Desert on a back-road southwest of Nogales when our air conditioner went out. We had not passed another vehicle for nearly a hundred miles, and absolutely nothing that resembled life was visible for much further than that. The ambient temperature was over 108 degrees. I became alarmed at our situation, but did not want to upset her, so I just rolled down the windows and kept an eye on her in the rearview mirror. I saw the scorching wind whipping her hair around in the middle of this desolate moonscape/nowhere, and I asked her “Como Estas, Mama?”

Her jubilant reply was “Que bonita tierra, No?” The surrounding terrain resembled an A-Bomb test site, and she was thrilled at the deadly beauty of it all. I have never forgotten that moment, or her giggling response to what I thought was a horrific risk.

Aaron once busted her chopping wood at her home at age 102, standing in knee-deep snow and a howling wind. He jumped out of the truck and yelled, “Grandma! -What are you doing out here in this freezing cold getting wood!”

She peered up out from under her woolen cap, and with a huge grin on her face, almost shouted with joy, “I LIKE IT!!!”

She was an incredible person, having witnessed the changes in humanity and society that we in current times cannot possibly imagine. Automobiles, electricity, telephones, women voting and the like were not even dreams in her childhood. She was traded by her father to an old drunken man when she was 13 years old in exchange for a team of horses. He beat her unmercifully, and when she could no longer stand it, fled back to her home, where her father beat her again for having to return the horses.

She was excommunicated from the Catholic Church as a child, as that constituted a divorce, and was only allowed to return to the church in the last decades of her life or so i.e. Vatican II. (Yo Pope! Give that some deep thought, if you dare!). Even still, we took her to clean and decorate her father’s grave every year on Memorial Day without fail until she went into the home 3 years ago.

When she was in her late nineties, I went over to take her to the Senior Citizen’s Center. There was a dance that she refused to miss. As she got in the truck, I noticed that she only had one glove in her hand. I asked her where her other glove was and she told me (with a look of bemused condescension) “I only take one so that if I lose it, I will still have another glove.”

In some odd Ghandi-esque fashion, that somehow made perfect sense, and I could not think of any possible logical argument. She did this type of thing to me early and often for the entire time I knew her.

Witnessing a life such as hers, I have had to develop a new perspective on almost everything I ever believed about mankind. I simply cannot give great thought to the sound of my ring-tone, or what the hottest, latest software or taxes are going to be. All the collective trauma I have ever experienced in my life pales in the magnitude of a single moment of her existence. She was the strongest person I have ever known, and to my knowledge was only sick once for about 4-1/2 hours in December of 1994. She had a flu (that she contracted from me) that sent my wife and I to what I suspected was going to be our deathbed for over 10 days.

She, on the other hand recovered by noon, in time to make us homemade tortillas, chili and beans for lunch. I have always felt that her stamina would allow her to take the fuel rods out of a nuclear reactor with her bare hands, dip them in salsa and snack them right up without a hitch or hiccup. I have been convinced for years (if not decades) that a simple study of her blood makeup could hold the key to the cure of untold numbers of decimating diseases.

She will be greatly missed by all of us, although most of her friends from childhood have been decades in their graves. My wife, our son and I took care of her needs (albeit surprisingly few!) for over 17 years together, and that is an irreplaceable honor that I will carry to my own grave.

Virginia Vargas was the only person I have ever met that when she prayed, I suspect God answered with “Yes Ma-am!, Right away, Ma-am!”

The picture above shows Mama Virginia (with my wife Kika) picking cherries in the courtyard of the Taos Art Museum at 105 years of age.

Wiz Allred and Kika Vargas