Don't Shoot! I'm Just the Avon Lady!
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I'm such a Trekkie....
This article was written by my son, Louis. He is an incredible kid, an old soul, and a much better writer than I could ever hope to be. I am homeschooling him, and as part of his lessons, he is required (ha ha, poor kid) to write a biweekly column for my arts and culture magazine. His column is called Youth Perspectives, and this is his most recent submission. It made me cry, as do most of his pieces. I think he should start a blog, what do you think?
Obamites
by Louis Jencka
Never before have I canvassed, nor for that matter seen such a number of people canvassing! Canvassers were always in the distant fringes of my mind when it came to election time. Ads, news, and more ads ruled every election, spewing forth from the vast wasteland of internet sites, the flickering TV screen in front of the couch. Printed signs proudly boasted the virtues of their man, while screaming the sins of the opponent.
Canvassers, the bedrock of an actual election, were extinct as far as I knew, occasionally popping up in numbers of only trivial value, mostly leftovers from grand and energized parties now almost as deceased as their social base. But two weeks ago I was astounded to see a canvasser at my door. I felt as if this was the right moment to get out the camera and take a picture of this once extinct species, before she moved on to the houses on either side of mine.
"Hello, we're looking for volunteers to help us canvass, and we were wondering if.... are you..."
She checked her list of people and addresses. "Louis, age 13?"
A chance to join these people and their ranks? A chance to learn their secret tricks for convincing people to vote? I quickly agreed to help, and promised I would head down to their campaign headquarters when I could. I closed the door and felt slightly dazed, and reflected that I just agreed to canvass, for no apparent substantial reason. Their powers of persuasion were stronger than I thought.
As I walked down to the Obama HQ I met up with Cayla Simpson and Molly Cudia, two friends from school who agreed to become my comrades on this adventure. The headquarters were wallpapered with "Obamanos!" and "The Change We Need" posters, and hidden in every corner were lifesize cutouts and paintings of Obama, poised to scare a vote out of everyone with their lifelike detail. The three of us were high-fived to a front corner of the building, and initiated into the group with a quick training on the secrets of getting people to vote and vote early.
"Now," explained our instructor, only a few years more aged than us, "Here's what you're going to do."
In ten minutes time we were armed with maps, lists of names and "targeted voters," and the secret art of "Gentle to Moderate Persuasion." Five last minutes were spent in the back of a green toyota, north past Wal-Mart where we were finally exited onto some street which I had only seen - glanced at really - while zooming along by car.
It was only when we were given a final wave by the volunteer who drove us, and left standing on the sidewalk, that I realized I had not a clue as how to go about this. Do we just knock on the door and use our new combined powers of "Gentle to Moderate Persuasion?" Or do we follow one of the multiple scripts which were printed in such an unreadable font they might as well have been Russian? A combination of the two was decided upon, and the three of us approached the first door.
Cayla knocked, I held out a brochure, and Molly smiled. "Hello?" asked an old man, so shrunken he looked like a gnome, and quite confused why the three of us were at his door. Three minutes later and he was promising to vote, and vote for Barack. Others weren't as easy to talk to, and just stared disturbingly through their windows as we left pamphlets jutting out of the cracks under their door. Some yelled at us, and many life stories were told to us, in attempts to explain why they refuse to vote. Eventually, the 50 or so "targeted" houses were approached, and mostly converted to Obamites by our trio. A feat I would never have attempted before, and might never again.
Two days later, when, I confess, I'm writing this, Obama has been declared the President of the United States. His campaign had inspired people, like me, to go out and do what they could, in amazing numbers. Over one-third of America, or over one hundred thirty million people cast their vote. And, what did this, what inspired the millions of people, nationwide, to cast their ballot? I believe it is hope for the future. Hope for a more perfect union, that American ideal which is alive in the hearts of people on every corner of this earth, as they watch us grow into our promise. Hope, for a better tomorrow. And a sprinkle of persuasion, spread by an elite group of canvassers, with whom I now proudly stand.
Andy Carvin (center) discusses the returns at NPR's live-blogging event.
Nina Totenberg (left) and Mara Liasson study the returns in Studio 4-A.
You know his voice, the somehow smooth nasal lilt that caresses millions of ears each weekday afternoon during All Things Considered, the voice that massages confidence and instant intelligence into every listener's temporal lobes. The steady, measured cadence of Robert Siegal. He sits, tonight, in a padded black rotating chair, shifting this way and that, watching huge screens lining two walls of NPR's Studio 4-A. His white dress shirt is rakishly disheveled, sleeves rolled several inches up his forearms.
I stand, just two feet from him, as he grabs a stiff sheet of copy paper from a file box and reads it on air. I'm one of twenty bloggers from across the country spending election night in the bowels of NPR's Headquarters in Washington, D.C. I arrive just moments before Kentucky is called for McCain. Siegal leans close to his mic and announces McCain's eight electoral votes, then three for Obama as Vermont is added to the tally.
NPR's announcers handle breaking news in a curious mix of old school style and high technology. Siegal's copy paper is typed, sometimes handwritten, an aide tells me - a decidedly un-digital script. Every square inch of the room is filled with intention, with steady-eyed engineers mixing sound to decibel perfection, with web specialists writing and updating web content to reflect the quickly changing election map. There is precious little room to stand, to watch.
Nina Totenberg sits in the same mid-sized room, her eyes glued to a computer screen. She doesn't notice the bustle surrounding her. Her perfectly coiffed hair doesn't move even as she leans closer to the electronic results. She wears a gray body-hugging dress the color and fuzzy texture of the studio walls. An NPR worker tells me that the walls are specially padded to deaden sound, their curving corners designed to collect cough, tick, rustle of paper and suck it into nothingness.
The amount of people in the room - the amount of sheer NPR celebrity - is staggering considering its size. Despite a constant stream of almost-running personnel, all this visitor hears is Siegal's soothing commentary. As each state is called, small smiles accent the room, but no voice gives way to overt emotion. These people understand the basic precept of journalism: relay the information, the truth, in an impartial manner. Let the listener decide.
Two floors up, in a small room overlooking Massachusetts Avenue, NPR President Kevin Klose addresses twenty people in a tiny, packed room. NPR has just begun closed-captioning for audio audiences, the first program of its kind in the nation. A young woman signs his words for the hearing impaired in the audience. Klose wears a navy blue suit though the hour is late. His face is lined, translates a mix of exhaustion and gratitude. He claps for his workers, for the people who made radio truly available for everyone. He claps long and loud.
I sit at a long table in a rectangular room just a few feet away from Studio 4-A. My fellow bloggers are gathered to live-blog the election. Our table is strewn with power cords, empty cans of Diet Coke and Sprite, black plastic plates coated in brownie crumbs, in half-eaten chicken tortilla wraps. I forget where I am and look for green chile to splash on my sandwhich, but none is to be found. Three televisions flash coverage from CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC. A huge projection screen houses NPR's official election map. We're like Totenberg - our eyes are drawn to our screens. Hearty discussion about whether different calls are valid punctuate the talking heads' banter.
Sitting across the table from me is NPR's Andy Carvin, NPR's senior product manager for online communities. He's organized this event - invited bloggers, coordinated a dizzying array of snackage - from tiny bite-sized brownies to huge trays of sliced red peppers, zucchini, carrots, and celery - as well as helped each of us keep abreast of NPR's late-breaking news. Carvin keeps close a chart showing what time each state's polls close, keeps one hand on his keyboard as he sends frequent updates to his Twitter account. His brown t-shirt translates his emotion better than his face. As Obama takes another state, I see his shirt quiver, the quickening of his breath.
It's only 10 p.m. and it looks like Obama will sweep the election. I'm hanging in here, as late as it goes. Alaska's polls close last, at 1 a.m. Washington D.C. time. No way will I fall asleep. I've got Robert Siegal's voice to keep me company...
Robert Siegal in Studio 4-A Election Night
Just getting set up over here. I had a turbulent flight - seems like rain is in the forecast here tonight. I will be bringing you the election results live - along with some fun New Mexican stories about local reactions to what's going on both in town and across the country.
Another scene from Las Vegas, New Mexico, this photo taken today near the polls:
Stay tuned for stories, photos, and news! I'm setting up my equipment and getting a cup of hot tea.
Update before we begin: Here are a few photos of the newsroom here at NPR, plus one of me at this moment! Lots more photos to come.
Some more photos sent to me by folks back at home:
Not many people at the polls today - apparently HALF of registered voters in New Mexico voted early!
It's busy at Las Vegas, New Mexico's Obama Campaign HQ!
McCain Campaign Volunteer Patricia Smith holds down the fort!
New Mexicana....
We have a big conversation going at Gather.com - just look at the widget on the sidebar and click on over - I'm carrying on an all-night conversation there. Just keep refreshing the thread at Gather for the most up-to-date news!
Running Tally as called by NPR:
Projected Electoral Votes as of Midnight, E.T.:
McCain: 144
Obama: 338
270 needed to WIN
BARACK OBAMA is the Projected Winner of the 2008 Presidential Election!!!!!
Hugs in the newsroom as Obama is declared winner!
NPR's Andy Carvin keeps his composure as he verifies the results.
A happy group of bloggers!
Signs are a little... different... in New Mexico. We take our politics with a side of hot chile passion! Most of the signs in Las Vegas, New Mexico praise Senator Obama. Very few folks host signs favoring Senator McCain. I spent an hour driving through town, trying to find a good selection of McCain signs so as not to appear biased, but they weren't anywhere to be found. This is Obama Country, ladies and gentlemen. Si Se Puede!
The car hood painting of Obama (below) graces the window of the Old Town Plaza Obama Campaign Headquarters and was painted by local artist Isaac Sandoval.
I am traveling to Washington DC tomorrow morning to live-blog the election returns from NPR's Headquarters along with 19 other bloggers. I'm excited! Watch this space for my New Mexican take on the news. I will be talking with local friends and politicians by cell phone as I cover the returns, getting their reactions and posting them here.
What kinds of signs hang in your neighborhood?
The Straight Talk Express in Las Vegas, New Mexico/Birdie Jaworski
Michelle Obama's speech in Las Vegas, New Mexico/Birdie Jaworski
Two weeks ago, the Straight Talk Express parked in front of Las Vegas' iconic "Calumet Says Howdy" mural. The sexy cowgirl with her endless legs seemed to sit on top of the broad, bold font announcing McCain and Palin, gracing the bus with her campy presence. The Republican contender and his running mate didn't ride the bus this trip; they shook hands through other contested states. New Mexico's five electoral votes wouldn't be earned visiting my small - and mostly Democratic - town.
I live in a state, in a town, where my vote certainly counts. Las Vegas sits on the edge of the Great Plains, the Sangre de Christo mountains to her back, an ancient and wise city with four hundred years of cowboy against native bloodshed, filled with ranchers, university professors, artists, laborers, merchants, and activists, a town completely unlike the big City of Sin in Nevada. Las Vegas is marked by an incredible work ethic, by the role of the Catholic Church in daily life, by a Spanish population whose ancestors, the Conquistadores, rested in our lush mountain grasslands, vowing never to leave.
In the last two elections, the fate of New Mexico was decided by northern voters. The Democrats lost by 5988 votes in the state, votes that could have been obtained if landlocked ranchers and homelocked older folks, university students and hardworking merchants all made it to the polls. The Obama campaign is taking no chances this election. A drive through town reveals Obama-Biden signs on every street, a forest of liberal pinon dotted by the occasional McCain-Palin aspen. Volunteers have walked every street, knocking on each door in town to spread Obama's message of Change.
When the Straight Talk Express hit the streets, exactly seven locals came out to meet its crew - a local congressman and three t-shirted staff members - all anglos, all seeming a bit lost on our edge of prairie forever. Though no less than six Obama campaign volunteers asked for my vote, not a single McCain worker stood on my stoop, clipboard in hand, ready to extoll the virtues of Country First. I hovered near the Straight Talk Express, camera and notebook in hand, wanting to hear their message, wanting to believe they would tell me something other than "the other guy's a bad'n," wanting to believe that the race was about the issues, issues that matter to me, to everyone in my isolated town, issues of education, health care, the sinking economy, the ways a new president could help my own small business. But all I overheard were angry mentions of Ayers and late-term abortion. I wasn't invited into the McCain circle though I inched closer and closer. I left.
Yesterday, Michelle Obama visited Las Vegas, New Mexico. I stood with the press, on an elevated platform overlooking the historic Old Town Plaza. Michelle stood among several thousand banner-waving supporters - men, women, and children I knew, people who live and breathe struggle, people who count pennies to buy bread and milk, people who look for jobs that don't exist. Several schools brought their young students to listen and learn. Though the campaign promised a "free speech" area for those with a different message, no one took them up on the offer.
My 13-year-old son, Louis, inched as close as he could to Michelle's lectern. He held an official red, white, and blue campaign sign handed out to the crowd before the speech - but he didn't wave it. I knew why he didn't pump fists into air, why his eyes stayed riveted on Michelle, why his expression said "please help me, I want to understand."
When I was Louis' age, I wore an activist button on my Clash t-shirt the first day of school. It was four inches in diameter, four inches of slick solar yellow with stark black message. A smiling cartoon atomic explosion with an orange fisted hand pumped in the air considered the viewer with an evil grin. Encircling the button were three words in a puffy, upbeat font.
Atomkraft? Nein, Danke
I sat in the back row of Mr. Giroux's English class. I sat with a practiced expression of disgust, my perfectly-coifed mohawk the result of six egg whites, a small tube of silver glitter, and half a dented can of Aqua Net I stole from my mother.
"Ms. Jaworski."
Mr. Giroux walked down the center isle. He didn't seem to notice the kids who wore pink collared shirts with tiny alligators, didn't point finger at the bulky second-string football jock, the impossibly slim exchange student from France with a finger up his nose. His nicotine-stained index finger hovered one inch from my button.
"Ms. Jaworski. Please explain this."
He tapped the air in front of my chest. Mr. Giroux wore acid-washed jeans and a white button-down shirt with candy-red stripes. His breath smelled like stale cigars, like nights of small town boredom, like academic regret, like one-too-many nights with Jack Daniels and Mork and Mindy.
"It's in German. It means 'Nuclear Power? No, thanks.' Haven't you heard of Three Mile Island?"
I smirked. My classmates tittered. The French boy turned to give me a sly smile, an unspoken invitation to sneak cigarettes under the stadium bleachers at lunch.
"Ms. Jaworski." The second bell rang. "Please walk to the front of the class and explain why you're against nuclear power. I want both a scientific and a social explanation. Thank you."
"It's just a pin, man. Why don't you pick on someone else? Half the class' got Vote Reagan pins. He's scarier than atomic energy."
I rolled my eyes. The class didn't giggle, didn't give me what I wanted. They sat, stony-faced, children of struggling parents, parents who spent long machine-shop hours pressing decorative holes into wing-tipped shoes, who cleaned urine-splattered bathrooms at the state mental hospital. November 4 hovered like Mr. Giroux's finger, hovered outside our classroom. We lived in Massachusetts, lived under the same brilliant fall leaves as Ted Kennedy, but high inflation and the Iran hostage crisis scared my hometown's working class families into switching teams, tossing Carter into the street and grabbing Reagan's charisma and wrapping it around weary arms like an ace bandage.
"Ms. Jaworski. Take the front of the room. This is not a request."
I didn't budge.
"It's just a pin. It doesn't really mean anything."
Mr. Giroux smiled. He grabbed me around my upper arm - you could still do that kind of thing those days - and hauled me to the slim space between his desk and the good girls in short icy skirts and short, stacked hair.
"Ms. Jaworski. Explain the issues surrounding nuclear power. You have exactly sixty seconds before I send you to the principal's office."
I shrugged my shoulders and fought to keep my voice steady, bored.
"Nuclear power is bad. Everybody knows that."
I raced back to my seat. Mr. Giroux cleared his throat.
"Ladies and gentlemen. There will be no political pins allowed in this classroom unless you can back up your position with a well-conceived statement that you can defend against questions. The right to vote is the most precious right we have as American citizens. When you wear a pin without considering the consequence, or when you spout propaganda you've heard on the idiot box, you are slapping our founding fathers in the face. Heh. That's alliteration, boys and girls. Founding. Fathers. Face. Think about it. You each have the opportunity to become the uncommon voter. The truly educated voter."
Preppy and jock removed Reagan pins. I stuck the yellow button in the front pocket of my tight Jordache jeans. It made an outline against my right thigh, a circular extrusion of fourteen-year-old rebellion.
I skipped the rest of the day, didn't meet my new French teacher, didn't sit in a sweaty windowless band room with a tarnished saxophone in my lap. I didn't tell my friends I was ditching school. I walked three miles to the Longmeadow brownstone exterior of our historic library, slammed mahogany entrance door against stone wall, my mohawk transmitting fever heat anger.
"Tell me everything you know about nuclear power. Or give me books. I need to know everything there is to know. I need to know. Please," I added as an afterthought. "Please, and thank you."
The librarian squished up one-half her aging face, her wrinkled eyes belaying quick calculations about truancy, about percentage chances that punk rock girls with safety pins in their ears would trash the library. Somehow she decided in my favor.
"Okay. Let's start at the beginning. What do you already know? And why do you need to know this - is it a school project? School just started today you know." She paused to look at the antique grandfather clock. Three cojoined livers spots the size and shape of a trio of Tic Tacs connected her thinning eyebrows. "It started two hours ago."
Those days before the internet meant hours in research, meant pulling out long card catalogue trays looking for periodical and dusty tome that might match my request, meant browsing the Encyclopedia Brittanica at the library's heavy oak tables. I poured through microfiche copies of The New York Times, flipped pages in National Geographic and Time Magazine. I read about Three Mile Island, about the Arco Reactor in Idaho that suffered partial meltdown, about Dwight Eisenhower's "Atoms for Peace" speech.
The more I read, the more confused I became. Chernobyl hadn't yet occurred, and aside from a few small incidents and the Three Mile Island accident - a horrific event, indeed - humans seemed to be mastering the intricacies of nuclear power, seemed to be building safe havens where free neutrons run into a particular variety of uranium, causing the atoms to become unstable and split, breathing sheer power into the air, power we needed. I remembered the long line at the one gasoline pump in town, the creep of gas toward an unheard of dollar-a-gallon.
But Three Mile Island... I felt as if my own mind held an isotope of uranium, as if the library bombarded me with neutrons, with neutral statement of fact, enough fact on both sides of the equation to shatter my tiny bad-ass rebel view. I simply didn't know what to think.
Mr. Giroux raised eyebrows in surprise when I slammed my books on a front-row seat in his room. I slid my butt into the small chair and listed my mohawked head in defiance. He smiled, though, when he noticed my handmade pin, a button four-inches in diameter like the German pin I left at home, a pin that simply said "Ask me about Nuclear Power. Or tell me what you know."
This year, Louis made the transformation from soundbite baby to educated political thinker. He isn't yet of age where he can cast a ballot. He reads the papers, reads both sides' positions on the internet, hasn't wrapped my own beliefs and expectations around his slim body. He's suspicious of politics, of heavy blue buses parked under mural, of campaign-sanctioned signs.
"Mom," he sighed after the second Presidential debate. "How can you tell who's telling the truth? I don't want our country to fall apart before I'm old enough to vote. Do you think everyone will make the right decision? I have to stop reading the internet, it's making my head crazy."
But as the sun passed overhead and Michelle took the stage a little past noon, I watched his expression lighten a little as she spoke about her love for the young people of the United States, how she spoke about her love for her husband. Michelle kept her speech simple, talked about the plain-as-day issues that affect each of us, told us how her husband viewed these issues, what positive changes he wanted to make in the areas of health care, alternative energy, education, the economy. The message stayed positive, stayed on-topic, stayed warm, welcoming, without a single harsh word for the competition.
"Mom," Louis smiled after the rally, "we each are an experiment of one, each finding the way to keep moving towards the finish as best we can. That's what any election is really about, I think. Every person studying the issues and deciding what they think is best. And together, those individual experiments add up to some kind of unity. I think that's what your old teacher meant, Mom."
Whoever you vote for this election, remember that. Louis is only 13, but he's right. Mr. Giroux's right. We are each an experiment of one, each of us researching, collecting, concluding, until we reach a still moment in our heart where we find an answer.
Please, go and vote.
********
More photos below - just click on a thumbnail to see the full-sized version. All photographs by Birdie Jaworski:
I am posting a story on Michelle Obama's rally in Las Vegas, New Mexico later today!
Here are a few shots of the event, more photos to follow:
Crowds wait for Michelle around the Las Vegas old town Plaza/Birdie Jaworski
Michelle makes a point/Birdie Jaworski
Several thousand people attended the rally/Birdie Jaworski
Michelle thanks early voters/Birdie Jaworski
My son, Louis, (left) smiles as he speaks to Michelle (in the purple surrounded by body guards) and shakes her hand/Birdie Jaworski
I've started - along with my new business partner, Elizabeth deMare - a biweekly magazine celebrating the arts, cultures, and communities of Northeastern New Mexico. The name of the magazine is GALLINAS. "Trail of Chicos" (see below) is a story from the current issue. Each issue is 24 pages long, tabloid size, on thick white book stock paper, and includes many stories and features from a carefully selected group of wonderful Northeastern New Mexican writers. Three of my own original stories and articles are included with each issue.
If you live in Northeastern New Mexico, you can find the magazine at most stores, hotels, and restaurants as well as the NM State Visitor's Centers - for free. You can also read each issue online at gallinasmagazine.com.
Subscriptions are $100 a year, for 26 issues, mailed to your home or business address. If you are interested in subscribing, please email me (littlebirdie@mac.com).
Huero and Eva Gonzales among their chicos
The road to San Augustin passes nothing, nothing but a pistol-pitted sign welcoming travelers to county road C-24, nothing but dry wind and green-gold prairie, the asphalt twisting in deference to property line and gulch, pockets of fattened cows standing bored sentinel. I drove slower than the speed limit, my son riding shotgun, and watched the sun fall from my ears to shoulder in the rear view mirror.
A coyote stood at the edge of the road as if waiting to cross. Rough skin rose under her coat, a crisscross of scars and wayward tufts of fur. She looked like she knew something interesting about us, and I turned my head to keep her in vision. We watched each other until she became one with her fleas, a mere dot on the horizon, until my car edged past the Las Vegas Land Grant and into the Tecolote Land Grant at the Charles R Ranch. The late September sun framed her body, hung low in the sky, orange and swollen.
Louis counted two mobile homes, an ancient crumbled adobe, a simple stucco residence, another, until they disappeared behind us, until we turned with the road again and the plains turned to steep rock valley. I slowed to ten miles per hour, kept the car from sliding too fast down the canyon wall.
"Mom, we're almost here. Look, see the river?" I followed the line of his pointed finger across scarlet land to an oval protrusion of sage and rock and sunburnt clay, the river nestled inside, and listened as he described the kind of thing only thirteen-year-olds notice.
"This is so New Mexico. It's a chile canyon."
I let the car coast as Louis rolled down his window, took deep breaths of rich valley air. "Yeah? Why is that?"
"The clay is red, and the plants are green. This is a Christmas canyon."
Louis was right. The land spoke of chile and reflected sun, all the shades of ochre and sage an artist can create, shades beyond any palette. Juniper and piñon broke the sun. The land spread in lumps among deeply irrigated soil, some places covered in mold-colored lichen, some places layered in gold and black dirt beneath a constant wave of tall grass.
A lone red-tailed hawk led the way, swooped high above the rocks then fell just inches from the road. His talons extended toward invisible prey. He was missing two flight feathers and the remaining ones were ragged and broken. The wind from his journey seemed to signal a temporal change. As we crossed the Rio Gallinas a herd of goats splayed from canyon wall to acequia. We left our world behind, our world of stock market bailout, of hungry consumer, of constant cell phone interruption. We traveled back in time.
San Augustin hides behind a swayed hogback ridge, a collection of adobe homes in various states of repair and a simple steepled church dating back centuries. The village looks tired, looks sleepy and forgotten, but looks are deceiving. A handful of men and women still work the land in the old ways, still follow the river of weather and moon in a pageant of goat, pumpkin, and chico. The land still breathes.
"I was born and raised in that house over there." Huero Gonzales sat in a pitched-roof adobe home, his back ramrod straight against a wooden kitchen chair. A ristra of ceramic red chiles dangled near his head as he pointed toward a simple whitewashed home across the dirt street. "I'm 74 already. I have eight children, twelve grandchildren, and six great-grandchildren now."
Huero motioned for us to follow as he walked through his house to the back door. A beautiful framed photograph of the San Augustin church taken in the 1970's graced the living room wall, paying homage to the community of faith that gave the village her name, gave her a refuge. Huero smiled as he told stories of the decades before his birth, stories of Apache raids against the village, when men and women of the village would gather at the sound of the big cow hide drum and hide on top of the church's exposed vigas, ready to dump steaming hot water on the marauders.
"Now the church is only open one day a year, San Augustin's Day, the 28th of August," explained Huero's wife of 51 years, Eva Gonzales. "Huero built the sacristy of the church with his brother. Before that, people were going through the windows and stealing the saints."
Huero's back door opened to a yard resplendent with summer's final bounty. Rope strung from tree to porch to tree, every linear inch holding golden ears of roasted sweet corn whose kernels would become the northeastern New Mexican delicacy called "chicos." Some say the word chico comes from a Spanish word for something tiny. Others say it comes from the Pueblo people, comes from a similar-sounding Tewan word that means corn. Chicos have graced the tables of New Mexicans for centuries, sometimes slow-cooked in stews alone, sometimes with beans and pork and spicy chile.
Thousands of ears dried in Huero's backyard; thousands of hand-shucked ears first baked in a wood-stoked horno. The smell of fire and corn mixed with Huero's cigarette as he sat at a picnic table. The strings of chicos rustled in the wind, reflecting the afternoon sun.
"I only went through the eighth grade. I graduated from the IC School. I went one year over there." Huero bent low to pet his dog, Bruja. "I would walk on the weekends, walk all the way to McAllister Lake with the family goats and cows. It was my job to watch them. I used to saddle the horse, get the goats, while my mother made cheese."
The valley came alive as Huero spoke. I could see him chasing heifer and bull, collecting wood for fire, spending early mornings in prayerful walk past the church, courting a beautiful young village woman who would become his wife. Bruja seemed to grin, too, seemed to appreciate the stories of Huero's loyal working dog, a blue-heeler named Blue.
"I got me a job, four dollars a month cutting logs, not with a chain saw, a hand saw," reminisced Huero. "My hand would come out shaky. The next year I got a job catching the minnows in the river. I put some bread in the water, and I would scoop them into a crate. That was money in those days. I worked a team of mules."
Huero recounted the small jobs, the big jobs, the ways he kept his family fed during difficult times. He delivered mail to the villages of Trujillo and Maes. He began driving a school bus, taking children from the valley into town, a job that would remain his for thirty-five years.
"Everything is easy now," sighed Eva. "Those days, not easy. Everything is so easy now."
Huero jumped up to stoke the horno's fire. He added fresh pieces of dried wood. Flames licked the interior roof. Louis sat at the edge of the picnic table, his eyes riveted on the burning embers, his attention fully on Huero. The wind gusted, lifting the strings of chicos, shaking them like ghostly rattles. Huero pumped water into waiting buckets of fresh corn, then filled the horno with the soaked ears. He patted fresh clay made from his own earth around small cracks in the oven, sealing it shut with a broad, flat stone and more clay.
"The corn needs to sit in here overnight. In the morning, you can't believe how good it all smells. I make hornos for other people, and hope that more people in town call me to make them a horno. It's a dying art. Not many people can make them the right way, the way that will last." Huero squeezed his clay between his fingers, demonstrating the properties of his home-gathered earth. "If I make a horno in town, I have to haul the clay out there. This is the only place you can find clay like this."
The corn sizzled as the horno's flames leapt around the stalks. Smoke filled the backyard, the sweet smoke of harvest, of hard labor's pleasure, of traditions still strong and true.
"We used to wash the clothes, carry water from the well, we didn't have water inside or nothing. My mama, if we forgot something she would tell us you can't forget. You don't forget your rear end, because it is attached." Huero laughed, slapping his butt in a playful manner. "Life was so hard then. It's hard now, but I remember when it was much more difficult."
My son steadied a bag of chicos on his knees as our car wound up the canyon. Our clothes smelled like fall, like horno smoke, like Huero's words of cigarettes and memory. We lurched forward, in time, in space, until San Augustin disappeared behind us, her fertile valley awash in mystery, in the fading fire of Indian Summer.
*******
Please see my photo album detailing my trip to San Augustin to visit Huero and Eva Gonzales.
