This is Memorial Day 2025 week and I want to celebrate someone special. When I interviewed people from World War Two there was a bad week in April 1945. On the 12th President Roosevelt suddenly died and six days later Earnie Pyle was killed on ...

Here on the last Monday in May is the United States Federal holiday, Memorial Day. It honors and mourns those U. S. military personnel who died while in the service of their country. Importantly, it also honors the families of those service mem...

Do you like chile? I certainly do and I also spend lots of time thinking about chile. I tell everyone about Southern New Mexico's goodness of chile. In the last few years there's been a new wave of flavor to enjoy. Previously chile tasted preci...

An interesting fact came out of the recent Kentucky Derby and it connect in an odd way with New Mexico chile and onions. Sounds like a stretch but every horse running in the race could trace lineage back to Secretariat, the famous Triple Crown ...

There was a time when New Mexico didn’t have any businesses, no corner markets, restaurants, dry goods stores, nothing at all other than an individual here or there might barter. Today we have lots of businesses. When did New Mexico commerce be...

As youngsters we played Cowboys and Outlaws. As the Outlaw we shouted, “You got me" and fell to the ground. Cowboys always got the outlaws. I think of Old West writer Eugene Rhodes who was asked why in 1895 he let outlaws stay at his ranch in S...

One day I was asked about the Carson National Forest in Northern New Mexico. “I thought Johnny Carson from the Tonight Show was from Nebraska." Yes, Johnny Carson was from Nebraska. However, The Carson National Forest in Northern New M...

Southern New Mexico has proudly been in movies but there is one movie that local film people have not mentioned. It is a 1991 Mexican film directed by Nicolas Echevarria call Cabeza de Vaca. It is based on a real person. In 1535 Álvar ...

Later this year, when you bite into some delicious Hatch Valley grown chile, think back to the first week in April of 2025. This week starts the chile planting season which features many innovations in the process of commercial Hatch red and gr...

This is an odd question for New Mexicans: did you realize that Billy the Kid made you some money this last year? I mean how could he since he died a hundred forty years ago? Well, my friends Billy the Kid, the Old West outlaw did make people in...

We in New Mexico live completely differently than in the 1880s though there is a similarity that I want to talk about today. We travel without much effort all over the state and if we need to travel to Albuquerque from anywhere in the state it ...

We all enjoy gold, yes, real gold. In New Mexico there are several ways to get yourself some gold. Buy it – costs money, trade something for it or, find it. Yes, in New Mexico you can find it either by prospecting in a stream with a pan, cold w...

When March comes around, well we have March Madness with the wind but the other March Madness of basketball - those of us in New Mexico who enjoy College Basketball are thankful for a 2015 member of the National Collegiate Basketball Hall of Fa...

When people look at Elephant Butte Dam in southern New Mexico it looks like it has been there forever. Not so. It is a little more than a hundred years old but it took thousands of people a very long time to complete the dam. And I look at it a...

Many things have changed over the years, especially in our kitchens. Many years ago, there were absolute vegetable and fruit seasons. In the 1960s citrus was a treat at Christmas usually sold in boxes by the local High School band as a fundrais...

New Mexico is the land of enchantment. Oh, yes, I don’t to tell you that, we all know about the very enchanting New Mexico. But what I find enchanting is some of the place names that are in New Mexico and here are a couple: Bug Scuffle, one of ...

When the planet Pluto is mentioned, it isn’t often that someone says, oh yes, New Mexico’s Clyde Tombaugh found it 95 years ago February 18th. Is Pluto a planet? It is with me. Not that I spend time looking in the night sky for Pluto. Nope, Plu...

Let’s talk about the red, of the red or green question. The official New Mexico question is, red or green? The 1996 New Mexico Legislature passed that Red or Green was officially the state question. It put a spotlight on the New Mexico chile pe...

When talking about the great state of New Mexico, green and red chile are central in its identity. Where are you from? I’m from New Mexico. Oh, I love the Green and Red chile. You hear that often. But Green and Red chile in the preparation of f...

Tourists come to New Mexico for many reasons. Some destinations are New Mexico unique such as the Taos Hum, the Roswell Space Aliens museum and festival, the Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array, the White Sands that cling to visitors and the Carlsb...

Since New Mexico is a big part of the Old West, there are questions about New Mexico gunfighters. Truth be known the people in New Mexico and the Old West didn’t spend their time in bars and getting in gunfights. But there were a few unusual gu...

When it comes to commercially grown chile peppers, there is a special label Hatch Chile. Some people think Hatch Chile is a specific variety of chile peppers like Big Jim or Sandia chile. It is not. Rather, Hatch chile reflects the place in Sou...

Today, January 6, 2025, is the 113th anniversary of New Mexico becoming a state. It was a Saturday at 11:30 a.m. in Washington, D. C. when President William Howard Taft signed the statehood bill officially making New Mexico the 47th state in th...

New Mexico is so big that you could make at least four other states out of our size. And we are in the unique touching three other states at the Four Corners spot. Tourist love to put one foot in one state, one hand in another, their other foot...

Wherever you live some of the streets and some of the areas of New Mexico are named after real people. They are called Place names since the place, be it a New Mexico county, town, street or some other descriptor is tied to a real person’s name...