Juma’s Memorial Service and Manby Nomination Announced

On Friday, Nov. 1, a memorial will be held from 6 pm for Juma Archuleta, the Chicano Barber, at Las Pistoleras across the street from Raoul’s Brotherhood of Love Barber Shop in El Prado. Currently, a descanso or roadside memorial is in progress on the north side of the shop. See the flowers and mementos being dropped off for the beloved barber.

Manby Nominee

In odd-numbered years, the Manby Society, aka The United States Secret and Civil Service Society, Self-Supporting Branch (USSCSSSSB) founded by Arthur Manby and Teracita Ferguson, nominates a local business person or politician who best represents the mythic character of Arthur Rochford Manby, patron saint of realtors and fund raisers in Taos. Manby has been memorialized in Kit Carson Park but outside the historic holy ground of the cemetery. Manby’s reputation as serial killer, land swindler, con artist and lover of widows has been undiminished by time.

Manby honorees from the past include Henry Rivera, who was arrested in Mexico, where he had fled after, allegedly, fleecing Taosenos with prayers and life insurance policies. Currently Henry is or was doing time in one of New Mexico’s “big houses.” The Art and Gallery trade will remember Burke Armstrong, who was memorialized in news reports for absconding with the doors from the old County Courthouse on the Plaza as well as selling but not necessarily buying art circa the troublesome 80s. Who can forget John Ramming, attorney for us all, embezzler and two-time loser, who became more influential, politically speaking, after serving time? Several governors turned up for John’s funeral. Then, of course, we have King John (RIP) and Prince William (Himes) who waits trial in Albuquerque as we speak (unless he copped a plea) for alleged misdeeds against senior citizens.

Some of the folks above were much sought after for their wisdom and advice even as they greeted their marks with a smile and a grin. Though none of them won “best of” awards from the community like this year’s nominee. It takes years for a nominee to be confirmed or denied as an honoree, which case depends, of course, on a fair trial, whether in bankruptcy court or in The Taos News.

This year’s nominees come, according to news reports, from the restaurant and real estate/development business. Apparently “art sequestration” whether directly, as in the Armstrong case above, or indirectly, as in the current case, is part of the nominee’s self-inflicted portfolio. An indirect or inadvertent effect adds to the mystery. When you don’t pay rent collected from an artists cooperative to the landlord and the landlord locks out the artists, you get additional Manby points.

In particular, blaming $1.3 million in debt on expansion and/or a faulty “grease trap” strikes the Manby Society (USSCSSSSB) as ingenious. Plus filing for bankruptcy adds a modern wrinkle. Emails to fans announcing attendance at AA meetings in Mexico reflect a contemporary concern with appetites and out-of-control behavior, certainly one of the dangers inherent in the hospitality trade, and, of course, it’s always a Taos policy to blame somebody else or a “condition” (including Taos itself) for your problems.

If the wine tastings don’t get you, the after work white lady will, if you catch my drift (and she caught mine years ago). The necessary flight to Mexico, emulating the pattern of Henry Rivera—even Manby was rumored to have flown the Coop for southern climes——confirms the historic pattern.

So, we salute this year’s nominees, Lesley and Peter Fay of Graham’s Grill, and wish them well in their Taos afterlife. We haven’t confirmed the rumors that local coop artists have hired a bounty hunter to search out the palapas of Mexico’s finer fishing villages. The artist coop, located, like Graham’s Grill, in the old J.C. Penney building, will spark memories for Taosenos.

The last manager of J.C. Penney’s in Taos was as I remember it, a tall, thin blond woman, Betty Sutton, well received and much lauded in the local news. One day her husband, a fugitive, who accompanied her, was picked up by the FBI for having embezzled, allegedly, funds from his hometown church in the Midwest. We were “shocked” “shocked” to discover chicanery in our midst, despite the reputations so prominently guaranteed by the boosters at the Chamber of Commerce.

With our local boys, say Rivera, Ramming and Himes, we are never shocked but only wonder and wait to see if they will get caught. But out-of-towners bring their own bag of tricks to town, like Manby.

A Friction Reader writes,

Rivera was indicted on August 19, 1994 by the Office of the Attorney General on 29 felony counts in connection with defrauding investors of more than $6 million. He fled to Mexico until his deportation in September of 2003. Rivera was arrested and jailed by FBI agents on a federal warrant for unlawful flight to avoid prosecution. In April 2006, Rivera was found guilty on 25 counts involving securities fraud. Attorney General Patricia Madrid sentenced him to 117 years in prison, 37 years behind bars. The remaining sentence of 80 years was suspended by Judge Denise Barela Shepherd.

A second reader writes, “Rivera absconded with $12 million and was discovered under a “palapa in bahia” in Mexico selling bikinis.”