Sunday 2/16
The desert still amazes me. After I arrived in Albuquerque, I was breathless with the dry brown vastness of the land all around me. The sky and sand met in a dusty blue haze on the horizon as I drove down to Belen to hook up with my old buddy Jose. He
Sunday 2/16
With time to kill in the Atlanta airport, I picked up a New York Times. I was amazed to see Bo Diddley right there on the front page, with a jump to a big spread inside. This is a guy who
I’m packing up to head out to New Mexico for a few days before going to California on business. As I was getting ready, I pulled out the ashes of my dog, PigPen, which I intend to scatter in the Jemez Mountains. Pigger was a New Mexican, born in Algondones, and the Jemez were one of his favorite puppy places to frolick.
Then it dawned on me. Those ashes look … well … suspicious. Could they be anthrax? Some other nefarious powder? What would someone searching my luggage think?
So I wrote on the plastic baggie: “Ashes of dog. Pigpen. Just ashes.”
And I thought, maybe that’s not enough.
So I put a note in the bag with the ashes:
“These are the ashes of my dog, Pigpen. He was from N.M. & I’m going to scatter them there. Bob Benz.” I also included my cell phone number, and the two Delta flights I would be on en route to Albuquerque.
So sad, that it’s come to this. The talk of duct tape and plastic sheets. Fear that a dog’s ashes could prompt panic. And I started wondering if the terrorists have already won. They’ve rocked us to our core. We’re drifting from some of our dearest democratic principles in the name of stopping terrorism. And despite the lesson we should have learned in the ’70s, we continue to suck fossil fuels faster than a wino empties a bottle of Wild Irish Rose.