Christmas Morning and Pancho Claus

It’s Christmas morning and we’ve been up since dawn. After a wonderful sunrise, it has clouded over and is starting to drizzle. The mountains that I can see from my office window are disappearing into the cloud; they’re just impressions now. When the clouds move on, those mountains will probably be white with snow in the pines and on the meadows. We had rain and snow earlier in the week, and snow lingers at the higher elevations.

We aren’t celebrating Christmas in any big way. Nick is still sick with a very bad cold that’s had him in bed for a week now, and I’m catching it. We were invited to dinner with Skee, her son and his wife and the “motorcycle gang.” Her son’s a retired Phoenix police officer who rides his Harley in a local gang. But it’s a classy gang, made up of a retired Air Force officer, a retired nuclear scientist, a high-school teacher, another retiree who worked at Rocky Flats in Denver, and others – gray-beards all, softened by the presence of wives and middle-aged tummies.

We’ve been here 6 weeks now – 7 this Sunday – and long enough to gain some real impressions of the area. I’ve collected some of my favorites and share them with you here.

• When you walk by someone in the grocery store, they look you square in the face…right in the eye…and smile! Well, many do. Novel and welcome experience. I keep wondering if I know them?!
• Those that don’t are probably from Texas! Texas seems to take the brunt of biases such as “no wonder he drives that way, he’s from Texas” or “she spends money like she’s a Texan.”
• It’s important to master the two-finger wave offered from a moving vehicle. To perform this particular wave, keep your hand at the top of the steering wheel. When a car comes in the opposite direction, lift the pointer and middle fingers briefly, accompanied by a slight nod of the head. Until you are confident in your execution, best to wave with all 4 fingers. No need to lift the hand from the steering wheel to be effective.
• Two finger waves are much more common here than the one-finger salute familiar to those who drive in cities back East.
• Be prepared to receive a two-finger wave when you see a car approaching with a driver whose profile includes a cowboy hat, or the car itself – actually, probably a truck – is older, dirty and likely to have a professional sign of some sort on the side. Do not expect a two-finger wave if you can hear the music before you can see the car, if the driver can’t see over the steering wheel, or the license place is from Texas ;> And, if you have an out-of-state license plate from, say, Maryland, expect the more enthusiastic 4 finger salutation. Maybe they just don’t think we’ll see only two fingers.
• The roads are equally shared by very large 4-wheel drive pick’m-up trucks and American-made cars. Toyota has made inroads here; rarely is a Volvo seen; no Saabs west of Dallas-Fort Worth; one Mercedes; a couple of BMWs, but old ones--dented and rusting. Many elderly 4-wheeled boats with names like Olds 98, Chevrolet Impala, and Cadillac DeVille. I have seen two old Ford pick-ups the age and condition of my grandfather’s when I was little – still tooling down the road with a dog or hay in the bed.
• Our public radio station has a wonderful 2 hour program every weekday evening that broadcasts bi-lingually and plays the most wonderful Mexican, central/south-American or southwestern folk music, some cowboy music (as distinctly different from country-western) and other indigenous music. A treat to listen.
• The same radio station has been playing Christmas music for the last week or so. O Holy Night translates to Oh Santa Noche. “Jesús en pesebre, sin cuna, nació”? That’s “Away in a Manger,” Spanish version. And in case Santa Claus can’t get this far south, there’s Pancho Claus. Really! I’ve linked the poem, Twas the Night before Christmas and all through the casa… Thank heaven no one translated the country seasonal hit, “Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer.”
• Here, you have a choice of spiritual practice. In addition to the recognizable Catholic and Protestant churches, there is a Zen Buddhist center, World Harvest Church, Latter-day Saints, Jehovah’s Witness, Living World Church, New Life Fellowship, Unitarian Universalist, and the Church of What’s Happening (honest!).
• Small town angst: can’t get the newspaper delivered. The Silver City Sun-News is a 7-day daily produced locally, but owned out of El Paso. Apparently doesn’t do home delivery outside of city limits; we are about ¼ mi outside of Silver City limits proper. But they took my order and are now billing me for a paper I’m not receiving. This is the big paper in town – consisting of appx 20-40 pages, exclusive of advertising inserts. The other paper, the Daily News, is a 5-day daily, owned and produced locally, that runs to about 8 pages. Also doesn’t do home delivery; gas would cost more than the paper. So we “take” the Washington Post online.
• The best paper around, anyway, is Desert Exposure—it’s free and it’s liberal.
• More small town angst: All gasoline comes from one provider, regardless of the name and affiliation of the gas station (Fina to Exxon). So the one provider fixes the price to the gas stations, and won’t sell to any station that tries to either sell below price, or get gasoline from another middle-agent. Gas prices are, therefore, kept artificially high. We heard that the citizens staged a “citizen stand-up” at a town/county council meeting and forced the provider to lower his prices. He did, marginally. They need to “stand-up” again, because he’s still at $1.79/gal when I hear that the country’s average is down to $1.59.

Well, that’s it for now. We wish you a wonderful day today, spent with family and friends in a safe, cozy and happy place. Keep off the roads, off the ice and out of, as the song goes, “a drifting bank” -- Jingle Bells, 2nd verse, in English! Love, Sonnie