Sidetracked Charley

I think it was Friday that Yahoo! announced that the dreaded transition to another blog platform for Y!360 was at last going to take place. My first blog experience will close on July 13th. We knew this was going to happen for more than a year now so it should not have been a surprise. It is just that it took a lot longer for the train to arrive at the station than expected and we were all sleeping on the benches as it were. But the first stages of transfer of blogs to this new platform - Yahoo Profile s - seemed to have gone quite seamlessly. In fact the last couple of days have been a bit of a party with exiles that went to other blogs returning home to say hi and find out what was going on. So that was not the train wreck. The derailment is that I have been spending so much time on Profiles and updating my uploads to my FlickR account that I have seriously neglected my blogs here. And I had this grand idea of uploading all my old 360 blogs to Chats with Charley II blog that I set ...

When a young and impressionable high school student I read W. W. Jacobs short story The Monkey's Paw. Seldom have I been so taken by a few words, which for all of you that have not read it, is available on line to read at the link American Literature link. In short the story is about wishes that go wrong, and being very careful what you ask for. I had at the time a very difficult life. Mom had undergone breast cancer surgery which in the early sixties was a black and brutal thing indeed. My father, who deeply loved my mother, was not coping very well at all. My brother, who was over attached to Mom, was useless. And I had a kid sister that seemed abandoned by everyone but me who was having a difficult time with me. And as if that was not enough my art teacher decided to become abusive and the school administration's only answer was to take me out of the one activity of the day that produced any sort of calm. I teetered on the edge of a total nervous breakdown. Looking back I n...

My father used to call World War II his war. He also fought in Korea but staunchly maintained it was a police action and not a war. He said the same thing about Vietnam. But to those of my generation that fought in it or against it Vietnam was the war; our war like it or not. I visited the wall. I makes me cry. Even photos of it to this day make me cry. I have never dared to pick out specific names. The Vietnam War is so tied up with so many things like Watergate, and abuse of power. Leaders that would never take responsibility for enlarging it or ending it. That time ended the faith of a generation in our elected officials to do what was right. I re-watched Frost/Nixon yesterday. It is a Netflix selection I got on Thursday and watched once then. I think for anyone that lived in Washington, DC during Watergate it is a very heavy film. Ron Howard made it because he thought GW Bush was abusing the presidency as Richard Nixon had; considering himself above the law. That for the preside...

Ellen Libby "Cattle Kate" Watson Cattle Kate was a Wyoming pioneer and an outlaw. The term outlaw was posthumously applied by her killers. She was never known to be violent nor charged with a crime but she was ultimately lynched by powerful Texas ranchers that tried to take land from Wyoming settlers in the late 1800's. That makes her a bit of a hero like Butch Cassidy and Sundance Kid and the Hole in the Wall Gang. But she was clearly not a snappy dresser. As a kid playing cowboys and Indians I had a rather biased view of my heroines like Cattle Kate or Belle Starr or Annie Oakley or Calamity Jane. Hollywood delayed my confrontation with reality. The gorgeous women stayed east and married well. But the real independent women went west where nobody cared how they dressed. I was reminded of that today when I jumped into the car and headed into Angel Fire five miles away for necessities at the hardware store. They have gotten used to seeing me in paint splattered joggers b...

When I lived in Winston-Salem, North Carolina I would get up on Sunday Morning and go for breakfast at a bookshop/cafe that offered bagels with lox and the Washington Post and New York Times. A shamelessly liberal venue in a very conservative southern city. When I moved to Lee's Summit, Missouri the Kansas City Star was delivered and Ozzie, my Persian cat, and I would debate floor space with coffee and the paper before I went out to Shoney's for brunch. Both of these rituals were continuations of a long established habit of Sunday paper reading, crossword working, and general lazing around because it was after all Sunday. Moving to the high country of northern New Mexico was culture shock. Especially here outside Angel Fire. There are few restaurants open on Sunday morning and the only paper that can be had is the Albuquerque Journal which does not compare favorably to the Washington Post which I read every day when I lived in the nation's capital. And it no longer seems to...

Raton, New Mexico is one of those mining towns that survived the shut down of mines. It was one of the towns that got a railroad. The Atchinson, Topeka and Santa Fe came to Raton on its way west to the Pacific. Routing of trains through the wilderness depended upon many factors in the late 1800's: water for the steam engines, coal for the boilers, timber for the ties. And ways across the natural barriers that existed out west. Raton had a pass over the mountains, coal in its mines and water so it was blessed with a railroad that did not go at the time through any of the towns in its name. I am not sure why it skipped around the Kansas towns but it probably had something to do with the size of the right away the builders were granted. In parts of Kansas the railroads were given 20 miles each side of the track. Many railroad companies competed for routes and the Raton Pass was fought over by the Denver and Rio Grande and the ATSF, who surveyed the pass second but filed first in Wash...

In addition to trappers taking beaver from our streams, homesteaders taking advantage of open lands out west, and cattlemen that had overgrazed Texas tapping our green meadows, my area of the state of New Mexico was settled in part by miners looking for the Mother Lode. They were often the Johnny-come-too- lates for the California Gold Rush. Some never made it that far or once there found no gold already not staked out and returned with the second rush to Colorado. And were too late there. Yes, there is gold in these hills but not in the rich veins that make mining it profitable. There is also an abundance of public lands and therefore subject to the Mining Act of 1872. The General Mining Act of 1872 is a United States federal law that authorizes and governs prospecting and mining for economic minerals , such as gold, platinum, and silver, on federal public lands. This law, approved on May 10 th , 1872, codified the informal system of acquiring and protecting mining claims on publ...

I am blessed with living in an area with little to no light or luminous pollution . The International Dark Sky Association would love it here though there is one security light up at a neighbor's house that I am itching to shoot out. At least he no longer lights up his neon cross. And New Mexico has recently put some teeth into dark sky legislation. Frankly I think just bullets would have been enough. But then that is my western frontier attitude. My studio which was designed so that its windows captured the sun's warming rays in the winter has proven to be a fantastic planetarium with its views of the eastern and southern skies. The morning skies are my favorite to gaze upon. I am not one of those get up at 2 a.m. types of sky watchers unless alerted that there is to be a special event like a comet or meteor shower. But I will stand at my studio windows with cup in hand and watch the parade of planets in the predawn sky. Venus of late has been very bright and done some wonde...

On May Day, as I mentioned previously, I went out to my prepared raised beds and sowed seeds for my garden patch. Yesterday, it rained all day blessing my efforts. I plant primarily varieties of leafy greens for summer salads because not much else grows without much effort at 8725 feet altitude. But the kale, spinach, mustard greens and lettuces grow wonderfully all summer long because it never gets hot enough to make them bolt. I also grow some chives, tarragon, garlic, and thyme outside. Inside I grow oregano and rosemary and lavender as well as some other herbs. I will dry these for use in cooking. Today I will get a pot of basil begun that will live days on the stoop and chilly nights in the studio/sun room. I chop up the basil and mix with just a bit of water and freeze in ice cube trays. Once frozen I pop them into a zip lock back to be retrieved as needed for pesto and Italian sauces. Previous to this summer this has always been a hobby of a mad gardener and gourmet cook. This ...

May Basket by Andrew Wythe A tisket a tasket A green and yellow basket I wrote a letter to my mom And on the way I dropped it. Author and source beyond memory unknown. I have gone from pandemics to Mayday Baskets in a blink. I warned everyone that Sidetracked Charley was going to be a bumpy ride. So hold on. Yesterday I began to feel better and suddenly I had to strip the bed of all things and pop them into the wash. Hanging them out on my new clothes line I was reminded of my mother doing the same thing after one of us was sick. I told myself I might be doing too much to be just out of the sick bed or that modern research shows viruses live on surfaces for only six hours but I just felt compelled to open windows, and wash or at least air in the spring sun everything I had been in close contact with (including the dogs which were given a play day with the neighbors) over my illness. As I went about my airing out chores my mind traipsed down memory lane from Mother doing the bed clothes...