February 23, 2003
New Mexico photos ...
I finally got a chance to upload the photos I took at Bandelier National Monument in New Mexico. There are several sets of ruins. I visited two. The first, in Frijoles Canyon, is the main area. I also hiked Tsankawi Trail, which is only a few miles away.
Check out the photos here.
Posted by Bob Benz at 6:34 PM | Comments (6)
February 20, 2003
Strange scenes in the Jemez . . .
2/18
-- While driving between Jemez Springs and Los Alamos, I spotted one of those “Adopt a Highway” signs, this one informing me that the local Wiccan’s were keeping the highways clean. Very cool. Don’t see many of those in the Bible belt . . .
-- Just say no: I’ve been kind of amazed at the anti-war sentiment here, something you see very little of back in Tennessee. There are several billboards along Interstate 25 north of Albuquerque with strong anti-war messages, and a lot of bumper stickers and yard signs.
-- I skirted around Los Alamos yesterday, and it struck me how similar it is to Oak Ridge, Tennessee’s national labs. There was just something about the place. Maybe the feel of “base housing,” as Lara calls it, that reverberated across the nation and linked these two atomic cities.
-- Dog days: While driving into Jemez Springs the other day, I passed a massive Newfoundland lying in the red clay in front of a driveway gate. He reminded me of Xena, and it took everything I had not to pull over and spend some time with him. Then, on my way to Bandelier yesterday, I saw a large coyote skulking along the treeline. I pulled over to try to snap his picture, but he vanished into the pines. And to complete the canine hat trick, after I’d scattered Bubba’s ashes into the Jemez River, I was smoking my cigar and looking around for nothing in particular. There in the muddy red riverbank, only a few yards from where I’d scattered those ashes, I saw dog prints. Clearly a large dog. Probably about the size of Bubba.
-- At Los Ojos last night (yes, I had dinner there two nights in a row, though this time I upgraded from a cup of green chile stew to an entire bowl), there was a group of leather-clad lesbians at one booth, a few wandering yuppies at another, two Buddhist monks at the bar, and the usual assortment of lumberjack-looking locals playing pool and socializing. None of these disparate groups seemed fazed by the others. Jemez harmony, I guess.
Posted by Bob Benz at 12:11 AM | Comments (1)
Running to the Mountain
Tuesday 2/18
I fell asleep last night in front of the fireplace, reading Jon Katz’s “Running to the Mountain.” I’ve been reading Katz for several years, in Wired, Hotwired, Slashdot. I’ve also read his cyber treatise “Virtuous Reality,” When I saw that he’d written a “midlife crises” book about buying a dilapidated house atop a mountain in upstate New York, I knew I had to check it out. I’ve been having similar thoughts recently, that there has to be more to it than this. I don’t know that I’d call it a crisis. My sense of deferred gratification is too strong to let midlife derail it. But my “midlife incident” has me looking wistfully in the News Sentinel’s real estate section each weekend, lusting after that perfect mountain retreat. The one that is at least 50 acres, has a good, clear-running stream and a few ponds. Ideally, it will back up to some wildlife management area so subdivisions can’t find me, and it will be within a reasonable drive of town. I’m just not certain I want it to be in Tennessee. There’s much to love in Tennessee, but a few days back in New Mexico have definitely turned my head. The West is the best. At least for me. But how to live here and make a living?
I woke up after midnight, the fire mere embers and a pattering on the roof. At first, I thought it was a tree scratching the cabin in the wind. But then I came to realize it was rain. It’s still raining softly this morning as I write this. The day is overcast. It’s prefect, really. A nice space to collect my thoughts before I check out and head down to Albuquerque for meals with old friends. Tomorrow I fly out to L.A. on business. I’m trying to keep that in the background. Deep background. I have one more day. But one of the dreams I remember last night was that my Blackberry wouldn’t stop buzzing with incoming e-mails. I’d driven back into town, and there was so much e-mail flooding the device that it vibrated constantly, overflowing with information and needy demands that had accumulated over the 48 hours or so that I’d been off the cyber grid.
Even after running to Jemez Mountain, I haven’t been able to exorcise work from my mind. It’s always there. Maybe that’s a good thing. But my brief stay in the Jemez has been refreshing. It’s not surprising that the Buddhists and Catholics have chosen this place for retreats. Or the lumberjacks at Los Ojos, for that matter.
Posted by Bob Benz at 12:09 AM | Comments (0)
Ashes to ashes . . .
Monday 2/17
One of the reasons I came out to New Mexico was to bring home my old buddy Bubba. Lara and I got Bubba, aka PigPen, in Algodones New Mexico, and some of my fondest times spent with him were desert hikes in the Jemez Mountains and the Sandia Foothills. When he died last January, I vowed to bring his ashes back to New Mexico.
After hiking through Bandelier for most of the day, I drove back into Jemez Springs and toward Jemez pueblo. Before you get to the pueblo, there are a series of small parks that give access to the Jemez River. When Lara and I used to bring the dogs up here, this was one of the places we’d stop to let them cool off on hot desert days.
I pulled into River’s Bend park, lit a cigar and walked down to the fizzing water. I took old Pig’s ashes and tossed them in, watching the water go milky white for a moment before coursing forward, carrying him off. I wiped a tear from my eyes and sat there, listening to the water and watching the cliffs ignite in sunset red.
Posted by Bob Benz at 12:06 AM | Comments (0)
The ruts of time . . .
Monday 2/17
Part of my fascination with ruins, I think, is walking through them, leaving footprints in places that people inhabited centuries ago. I’ve trudged through Templo Mayor, Teotihuacan and Monte Alban in Mexico, and I’ve probed most of the major Anasazi ruins in New Mexico . . . Chaco Canyon, Salmon, Aztec and now Bandelier. After I was done at Bandelier, I decided to drive up to Tsankawi, an Anasazi pueblo that’s just up the road from Tyuonyi. It’s part of Bandelier, but it’s out of the way. I almost skipped it. I’d spent almost four hours hiking the main part of Bandelier and was pretty beat. But I’m glad I didn’t.
Tsankawi is not as “developed” as Bandelier, and it doesn’t get anywhere near the tourist traffic (when I left Bandelier at about 1 p.m., the parking lot was packed . . . and it was a Monday morning in February.) Tsankawi was nothing like that. It’s about a 1 ½ mile loop that goes through the cave dwellings.
There were two remarkable things at Tsankawi: Over the centuries, foot traffic has worn trenches in the rock. It’s amazing to stand there and see these troughs of human activity crisscrossing the site. And then to place your feet in them and fall in line with the human erosion on the desert landscape. The second thing was the view. Tsankawi has one of the most incredible views of all the New Mexico ruins I’ve visited. The snow-capped Sangre de Christo Mountains were shimmering in the east. The Jemez Mountains were to the west. And about 70 miles to the south, you could see the Sandias, the range that looms over Albuquerque and shadowed me while I lived there.
Posted by Bob Benz at 12:05 AM | Comments (0)
Running with the herd
Monday 2/17
I’m always amazed at what herd animals we are. And I’ve always been very suspicious of this tendency, fighting it in myself as much as possible. I arrived at Bandelier early today, eager to shuffle through the Anasazi ruins and get a big dose of humility. The parking lot was almost empty. Good sign. I’d have the place mostly to myself. But as I started on my hike around the main loop trail, I encountered several families. I climbed up to the cave dwellings, the valley below unfolding into a checkerboard of Tyuonyi pueblo’s decaying stone dwellings. Tourists were marching antlike through the pueblo, heading my way. I could hear children’s shrieks echo up through Frijoles Canyon.
That’s when I cam to Frey Trail, my escape route. It switchbacked up into the hills, and the marker warned that it wasn’t a loop. It was clearly off the beaten path.
I’d found it. A way to break from the herd. I tend to do the same thing in the Smokies when I go there. Pick the trail that veers off the main path. And I’ve found that even in a park swarming with tourists, most of them won’t venture more than a 100 yards from the safety of their car or the main “interpretive loop.”
Frey Trail was just the ticket. The first half mile was a brutal series of switchbacks leading up out of the valley. Toward the top, I saw two massive mule deer on the trail ahead of me. The buck was at least four points. The doe didn’t seem terribly upset by my presence. They stepped off the trail and climbed a ridge while I snapped a few photos. Sure beats encountering some sausage fattened yo-yo from middle America tossing candy bar wrappers on the trail.
Once I reached the top, the trail flattened out, going on for another mile or so, where it ended at a campground. It was a beautiful high desert hike, spiced with pinon and sage. At the campground, I learned this was the original trail into Bandelier, the one used before they cut in a road.
I went back down the trail, looking for the mule deer to no avail, and rejoined the masses on the main loop. But then I realized something. They’re really not so bad. Everyone I passed said hi. Some stopped to talk. Come to think of it, I always meet great people when I’m out hiking. I guess those Deliverance boys stay at home when I hit the trail.
After climbing 150 feet of shaky ladders, I reached the ceremonial cave. As I sat there trying to catch my breath, I talked to several people. Great folks. We discussed our travels, laughed at a “common sense” sign begging the tourists not to toss rocks off the cliff because there are people below, and I recommended they stop at Los Ojos for lunch.
As I walked out of Frijoles Canyon, I realized the Anasazi had a great sense of the herd. In all this vastness and sprawling desert, they congregated in these urban cliff dwellings, bartering, arguing, raising their children. We do the same thing in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles. Who am I to chuck all that aside? I’ll try to show less contempt for the herd. But you’ll have to forgive me if I still gallop off alone frequently to soak in the solitude of nature.
Posted by Bob Benz at 12:04 AM | Comments (0)
The eyes have it . . .
Sunday 2/16
I finally pulled into Jemez Springs and found Giggling Star. The cabin I’ve rented is much more than I expected. There are three cabins here, dating back to the 1920s, and a hot spring beside the Jemez River. It’s quiet. No TV. No phone. My cell phone had a “No Service” warning on it, and I grinned as I shut the damn thing off. The cabins have been restored beautifully, complete with fireplace and a deck that looks down on the hot springs and river. Perfect.
Even more perfect is the fact that it’s just across the street from Los Ojos, a bar and restaurant that Lara and I used to frequent during our day trips here in the early ‘90s. PigPen and Crystal would wait tired, wet and panting in our Ford Bronco II while Lara and I would go into Los Ojos (Spanish for “The Eyes”) for a beer and a bowl of incredible green chile stew.
As I walked across the street to return to Los Ojos for the first time in years, I was a little worried. Would the chile still be good? Would the saloon still be smothered in animal pelts and antlers? Yes, on both counts. I ordered enchiladas, stacked, smothered in green chile and a cup of green chile stew on the side. It was just as good as I remembered it. Maybe better. The bar patrons looked like extras from a lumberjack movie, which I always found a bit odd. They’re the true locals here, in this town of Buddhist monks, wayward priests and new age drifters. (Well, I guess the “real” locals are the folks from the pueblo, but that’s another story . . .)
After my dinner and three Fat Tires, I came back to the cabin, lit up a cigar and sat on the back deck, listening to the roaring silence of the Jemez River, the occasional barking of a dog. A brilliant moon came up.
Then I crashed, waking up 10 hours later with plans to explore some local ruins.
Posted by Bob Benz at 12:03 AM | Comments (0)
The death of Junkie John . . .
Sunday 2/16
I found out today that Junkie John is dead. I guess that really shouldn’t be a surprise. But I still find it disturbing. John and Steve were our next door neighbors in Albuquerque. Each roamed the city with a conure on his shoulder. Steve’s was a Jenday/Sun cross that he called, appropriately enough, Sunday. John’s conure was a greencheek. The shrill screams of those birds announced John and Steve everywhere they went.
During the First Gulf War (I’m assuming the second is slouching toward reality),. John didn’t leave his television. He watched it with the same dedication that folks watch “Bachelor” and other so-called reality shows today. Despite his hard-core conservative rants (I was a “limousine liberal,” despite my tendency to drive around in a 1986 Ford Escort at the time), John had no qualms about living on the dole, be it Steve’s good will or the government’s food stamp program. He worked only briefly in the four years I knew him, and he was quickly fired for stealing from the unfortunate convenience store that hired him.
John could be very kind, intelligent, interesting, but more often than not he was a bore, trying to impose his beliefs on bystanders through sheer volume. In addition to his taste for heroin and methadone, John also was a drinker. And the more he mixed alcohol with narcotics, the more boorish he became. At one point, John finally crossed the line, offending Steve in some way that prompted Steve to toss him out of the small apartment Steve paid for. John moved in with his brother. The last I saw him, he was opaque. Light was still filtering through, but it was impossible to make out what it was illuminating. John was lamenting the death of one of his beloved birds, a footless Gouldian’s finch that had been devoured by one of his brother’s cats. John drifted into the past. Until today. Jose told me John was found dead in his apartment a few years ago. Apparently, his body went undiscovered for quite some time, slowly decomposing while new wars were conceived and new networks rose to cover them.
I don’t know what happened to that poor greencheck conure that used to ride around on John’s shoulder. I hope it somehow managed to fly away before John’s heroin wings burst into flame . . .
Posted by Bob Benz at 12:02 AM | Comments (0)
Livin’ on Gringo time
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’s one of the most decent, kind people I’ve ever met, and the years certainly haven’t changed him. Perhaps the best thing I can say about Jose is that he taught me how completely irrelevant and capricious time is during a trip to Mexico in the early ‘90s. Anyone who knows me is aware of my obsession with timeliness. I think it’s an inherited trait. When we were kids, the Benz family was always among the first in the pews at St. Anselm Church, awaiting the start of Sunday Mass. We were never late. And I am never late. It’s just part of me. But during that trip to Mexico, Jose taught me about time. It’s largely irrelevant, and instead of being at its beck and call, we should force it to be our servant. At first, Jose’s “lateness” made me crazy. But slowly, reluctantly, I came around. I learned to go with the flow during this trip through Ciudad Juarez, Mexico City, Puebla, Oaxaca and the Pacific Coast. It certainly didn’t come easily. And I quickly reverted to my antsy gringo ways after returning from Mexico. But for that one stretch of time, I learned to disrespect minutes and hours. We came and went as we needed to. And it all worked out. Schedules be damned.
Jose did me one other great favor. He introduced me to his family. His dad, a jeweler in Puebla, his brothers, and his mother. After meeting them, it became obvious why Jose is such a great person. I’ll never forget how his father spent time with me, showing me his craft and quizzing me on my Spanish. Jose’s mother served some of the most incredible food I’ve ever eaten, and I’ll never forget a night his brother Nacho and I spent draining a bottle of Oro de Oaxaca mezcal while swinging in hammocks on the Pacific Coast. Nacho’s English was abysmal; my Spanish almost non-existent. But for one glow-in-the-dark night in Puerto Angel, we communicated fluently in a dialect drenched in mezcal.
It was great to see Jose again today. He’s doing well, teaching at a local high school and at a branch campus of the University of New Mexico. One of his sons is studying at the University of Tampa, while the younger son is in high school. Life seems to be treating him well, and I’m glad to see it. I realized how much I miss him during the brief few hours we spent together today. I used to sit in on his night Spanish class at Valencia campus, and afterward we’d go to his home in Belen and drink beer and talk late into the night. He was a big influence on me and taught me much about Mexican culture, music and art.
Posted by Bob Benz at 12:01 AM | Comments (0)
Go, Bo Diddley
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’s been too long neglected. From the first time I heard Not Fade Away, I was hooked. He IS rock and roll. While a bunch of yuppies nearby squawked about their impending trip to the Bahamas, I read the story of Bo Diddley. Fascinating stuff. Ed Sullivan gave Bo his first big TV break, but Sullivan wanted it on his terms. He wanted Bo to do Tennessee Ernie Ford’s “16 Tons,” but Diddley came out rocking with “Bo Diddley.” Apparently, Sullivan was so pissed, he made Bo give back the $750 performance fee and vowed Diddley would never be on TV again. Sullivan came close to making good. It was another seven years before Bo was on camera. And then another decade before he made it again. Amazing. Bo never did get his due. He’s now on a small spread in Florida, still making music and stewing in bitterness.
Particularly odd was The New York Times’ insistence on referring to Bo as “Mr. Diddley” throughout the article. Somehow, that was jarring, out of place. I guess the gray old lady is ruthlessly consistent, if nothing else . . ..
Posted by Bob Benz at 12:00 AM | Comments (2)
February 15, 2003
homeland insecurity ...
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.
Posted by Bob Benz at 11:56 AM | Comments (3)
February 3, 2003
A boy and his fish ...
In creative writing class, you'll go over the classic sources of conflict in literature. Man against man. Man against himself. And man against nature.
This is a tale of Man against Nature. Man won. Big time.
I managed to slip away from reality long enough last week to get out on the Gulf of Mexico with my good old buddy Wes to pursue the mighty grouper. Nothing like a 70 degree January day to put things in perspective. The waters were Prozac calm, rocking me into a trance as I watched the flash of sinker and bait spinning down through the blue depths, easing into blackness, plunking off the bottom. Each fish strike would jar me back, dragging my mind up out of the depths as I'd start reeling like a madman. We caught a lot of fish, but the catch of the day came when Wes hooked up with a 20 pounder that he managed to drag up out of 40 feet of water.
This wasn't the grouper's first encounter with man. We found at least two other hooks in him, and a 6-inch Rappalla lure was lodged in his gut. Each a tale of the one that got away.
After cleaning him, we took him to a restaurant near the marina, where they cooked him up for us. He was good blackened. He was good fried. That big old fishy did not die in vain.
So Wes left Clearwater with a full belly, a fish tale and bragging rights till the next time we get out on the Gulf. It can't happen soon enough to suit me ...
Posted by Bob Benz at 9:00 PM | Comments (5)
Population: 485
Just finished Michael Perry's Population: 485. Perry is firefighter/EMT in a small town in Wisconsin (population 485 ...). Definitely worth reading. For a work framed by death and filled with vomit, blood and firefighting, it's an incredible affirmation of life. Perry's a good writer who can turn a phrase, and he doesn't drift into the syrupy "firefighter hero" thing that seems so prevalent post-9/11. There's a Garrison Kiellor quality to his storytelling and the people who populate these ruminations on small-town life. It's worth checking out.
"This is how it goes when you die in this way, people stand around your body, poke it, turn it over to look at your wounds, conjecture about how it might have gone. One minute you're alive and flying, the next you're cooling in the leaves. You drop to the temperature of the dirt, and it's all over."
If nothing else, check out his website: SneezingCow.com.
Thanks to Anita for sending me this book, a verbal bolt from the blue. Never heard of it and was a bit dubious at first, but it pulled me in.
Posted by Bob Benz at 8:36 PM | Comments (3)