Clayton, New Mexico, high range cattle country - Son Johnny and I have finished dinner at the historic Eklund Hotel - minus their green chile stew that they no longer serve. The chiles rellenos were excellent, and I highly recommend the Eklund. But why is it that restaurants often discontinue serving their best stuff?
I would be a poor focus group member - seldom in the majority or going along with the crowd on anything. Come to think of it, that's why I'm in Clayton, taking roads less traveled.
I recall from previous visits the two bullet holes in the barroom ceiling. We ask the waitress about them. She leads us to the end of the bar and points them out. There they are, carefully preserved as reminders of the region's colorful, if more violent, past.
At the risk of tarnishing the region's colorful history, those bullet holes were not the result of a blazing gun battle. It was a gun slinging cowboy celebrating the election of Warren G. Harding to the presidency of these United States.
It's curious that your average cowpoke had anything to celebrate with the election of Warren G. Harding. It shall remain as one of life's unsolved mysteries. My untested hypothesis is that when a gunslinger, perhaps enhanced by distilled spirits, wants to shoot up the joint, any excuse will suffice.
Speaking of roads less traveled, we climb back into my GMC and take state route 402 on the lonely stretch south to Nara Visa and U.S. 54. It was several years ago on a dark, snowy winter night that I was for an instant scared out of my wits. As I rounded a bend, an apparition appeared on the road before me. It took an instant to realize that it was a couple of Black Angus steers, covered with heavy wet snow. The reflection of headlights off the wet snow covering their black bodies was indeed a startling sight as they ambled insouciantly across the road.
But tonight there was no snow, and no apparitions, just bright moonlight bathing the open range land. We reach Nara Visa and travel the remaining distance to Tucumcari where Michael and Kathryn have a room at the Route 66 Motel heated and ready for us.
Next morning, we enjoy huevos rancheros at the Pow Wow Inn, head west to Santa Rosa, then south on U.S. 54. The air is crisp with bright sunshine and blue skies - it's good to see blue skies once again. Were it not for this journey, it would be the entire month of December without seeing sunshine.
At Carrizozo, we stop at Roy's Old Fashioned Ice Cream Parlor. Roy passed away last year. But I'm honored to still appear on his Facebook site, enjoying one of his great banana splits.
We drive the remaining distance, through Tularosa to Alamogordo, past Holloman Air Force Base, past White Sands and over the Organ Mountains to Las Cruces and old Mesilla, enjoying bright sunshine all the way.
Next morning, we have breakfast with friend and former colleague Clyde, followed by running a few errands and checking on my adobe in old Mesilla.
We had brought some stuff down for daughter Kara, stationed at Ft. Bliss, Texas, a few miles down the road from Las Cruces. She was in the midst of some exams during her training as a psychiatric nurse practitioner, but we manage to deliver her stuff and catch dinner with her in El Paso.
Now holding the rank of Major, she says she almost feels guilty, as well as privileged, observing enlisted men going through their paces. I remind her that she paid her dues - having gone through basic training at Ft. Jackson, South Carolina, during the heat of summer. After four years enlisted, she returned to civilian life, only to be recruited back into the Army several years later as a Captain.
That is not the typical Army career track, but it enabled skipping the denigrated rank of lieutenant. Readers of this column who are enlisted veterans might agree this is a good thing.
After running a few errands the next day, Johnny suggests we get some exercise and jog along the irrigation ditch, as I did in years past during my eleven years at NMSU. It was depressing. The farthest I can jog is from the idiot box to the kitchen for a beer during the incessant commercials of a Packers game. Actually, one would not have to run for a beer - a below-average reader could cover several chapters of "War and Peace" during commercials.
I almost hate to admit that I get caught up in that nonsense - watching four hours of commercial America, interrupted by smidges of football fed to us in ten- to thirty-second segments. But I digress.
Evening, and we join another former colleague and friend, Willie, for a drive through the Pecan groves down to La Mesa and Chopes, my favorite Mexican restaurant. I usually order a combination of Chiles Rellenos with green chile stew - still hoping the Eklund will serve it once again.
Next morning, we have breakfast with another friend and former colleague, Regents Professor of Economics, Jim Peach. Jim is now NMSU's faculty representative to the NCAA. Instead of solving the nation's economic problems, we address collegiate football issues.
Jim loves sports and teaches a course on "Sports Economics." With respect to the proposition that most college athletic programs lose money on their operations, and all of them lose money if you include capital costs, Jim was once heard to observe, "You don't want a college athletic program run like a business. If run like a business, you would have shut the damn thing down years ago."
It was a short stay, but with a welcome interlude of sunshine, it was time to head back to Wisconsin's incessant December clouds once again.
- John Waelti's column appears every Friday in the Times. He can be reached at jjwaelti1@tds.net.
I would be a poor focus group member - seldom in the majority or going along with the crowd on anything. Come to think of it, that's why I'm in Clayton, taking roads less traveled.
I recall from previous visits the two bullet holes in the barroom ceiling. We ask the waitress about them. She leads us to the end of the bar and points them out. There they are, carefully preserved as reminders of the region's colorful, if more violent, past.
At the risk of tarnishing the region's colorful history, those bullet holes were not the result of a blazing gun battle. It was a gun slinging cowboy celebrating the election of Warren G. Harding to the presidency of these United States.
It's curious that your average cowpoke had anything to celebrate with the election of Warren G. Harding. It shall remain as one of life's unsolved mysteries. My untested hypothesis is that when a gunslinger, perhaps enhanced by distilled spirits, wants to shoot up the joint, any excuse will suffice.
Speaking of roads less traveled, we climb back into my GMC and take state route 402 on the lonely stretch south to Nara Visa and U.S. 54. It was several years ago on a dark, snowy winter night that I was for an instant scared out of my wits. As I rounded a bend, an apparition appeared on the road before me. It took an instant to realize that it was a couple of Black Angus steers, covered with heavy wet snow. The reflection of headlights off the wet snow covering their black bodies was indeed a startling sight as they ambled insouciantly across the road.
But tonight there was no snow, and no apparitions, just bright moonlight bathing the open range land. We reach Nara Visa and travel the remaining distance to Tucumcari where Michael and Kathryn have a room at the Route 66 Motel heated and ready for us.
Next morning, we enjoy huevos rancheros at the Pow Wow Inn, head west to Santa Rosa, then south on U.S. 54. The air is crisp with bright sunshine and blue skies - it's good to see blue skies once again. Were it not for this journey, it would be the entire month of December without seeing sunshine.
At Carrizozo, we stop at Roy's Old Fashioned Ice Cream Parlor. Roy passed away last year. But I'm honored to still appear on his Facebook site, enjoying one of his great banana splits.
We drive the remaining distance, through Tularosa to Alamogordo, past Holloman Air Force Base, past White Sands and over the Organ Mountains to Las Cruces and old Mesilla, enjoying bright sunshine all the way.
Next morning, we have breakfast with friend and former colleague Clyde, followed by running a few errands and checking on my adobe in old Mesilla.
We had brought some stuff down for daughter Kara, stationed at Ft. Bliss, Texas, a few miles down the road from Las Cruces. She was in the midst of some exams during her training as a psychiatric nurse practitioner, but we manage to deliver her stuff and catch dinner with her in El Paso.
Now holding the rank of Major, she says she almost feels guilty, as well as privileged, observing enlisted men going through their paces. I remind her that she paid her dues - having gone through basic training at Ft. Jackson, South Carolina, during the heat of summer. After four years enlisted, she returned to civilian life, only to be recruited back into the Army several years later as a Captain.
That is not the typical Army career track, but it enabled skipping the denigrated rank of lieutenant. Readers of this column who are enlisted veterans might agree this is a good thing.
After running a few errands the next day, Johnny suggests we get some exercise and jog along the irrigation ditch, as I did in years past during my eleven years at NMSU. It was depressing. The farthest I can jog is from the idiot box to the kitchen for a beer during the incessant commercials of a Packers game. Actually, one would not have to run for a beer - a below-average reader could cover several chapters of "War and Peace" during commercials.
I almost hate to admit that I get caught up in that nonsense - watching four hours of commercial America, interrupted by smidges of football fed to us in ten- to thirty-second segments. But I digress.
Evening, and we join another former colleague and friend, Willie, for a drive through the Pecan groves down to La Mesa and Chopes, my favorite Mexican restaurant. I usually order a combination of Chiles Rellenos with green chile stew - still hoping the Eklund will serve it once again.
Next morning, we have breakfast with another friend and former colleague, Regents Professor of Economics, Jim Peach. Jim is now NMSU's faculty representative to the NCAA. Instead of solving the nation's economic problems, we address collegiate football issues.
Jim loves sports and teaches a course on "Sports Economics." With respect to the proposition that most college athletic programs lose money on their operations, and all of them lose money if you include capital costs, Jim was once heard to observe, "You don't want a college athletic program run like a business. If run like a business, you would have shut the damn thing down years ago."
It was a short stay, but with a welcome interlude of sunshine, it was time to head back to Wisconsin's incessant December clouds once again.
- John Waelti's column appears every Friday in the Times. He can be reached at jjwaelti1@tds.net.
