Sidetracked Charley

First the disclaimer: This blog has nothing to do about lions. I just felt like posting a happy picture of lions to erase all the pictures of a dead Cecil currently on the internet. This blog is really about a tooth. My ex-tooth. And that I will put off going to a dentist until it is so painful I consider pulling it myself with a pliers. I know I have blogged about how I feel about dentists before. This blog about The Tooth and nothing but The Tooth . Because that is what your life becomes about when you have a bad tooth. Your focus at every meal is how to chew on the side The Tooth isn't on and in such a way the movement of your mouth or tongue does not touch THE TOOTH. THE TOOTH becomes the entire focus on your life. Even when it isn't hurting you are thinking about The Tooth. You think that when at last THE TOOTH  is gone you can get back to normal but then you get to think about not exploring with your tongue where it was, and how much it cost to have it gone, an...

Bridge on NM 434 I have been working in one form or another on a series of articles about the New Mexico Department of Transportation announcement to widen a stretch of road I frequently travel. It will take them five years to widen eight miles of which five is too narrow for two way traffic. It is essentially a one lane road without adding logging and cattle trucks and tourists with RV's or flagmen. For all the years I have lived here, approaching 20 in Black Lake, we all knew the road needed to be widened but we were sure it was impossible. The state engineers' office doesn't think so. The five year plan is afoot. And now it is not whether or not it is impossible but whether they can do it without a complete road closure for at least three years of that five. Frankly, I love that we have something other than politics and religion to discuss. Or for that matter the never ending discussion of widening of NM 64 over Palo Flechado Pass to Taos. There are always the n...

Dad's story, told at every family gathering after I entered college, was that they could not get me to run away from home and so they ran away from me. I never thought it was funny but I did come to believe it was one of the luckiest things to have happened in my life. Mother had registered me for college. I was not even aware she had done it until she got me up one morning and told me I needed to go enroll at the local school, University of New Mexico. So much of what occurred in my life following Mother's cancer was rote or automatic. I just did what I had to do. What people told me to do. Or in the absence of anyone making a decision I just followed the crowds. Like a lemming rushing to the sea. Keep on keeping on. When I stopped to think I thought of suicide. I kept a notebook of all the thought about methods. I didn't want to make a mess that Mother would have to clean up. Or that would horrify my sister should she be the one that found my body. A friend of min...