ANN BERTRAND 1954: Yee-Haw, It's gonna be a goodie for sure ! I feel
it in my bones.
Late one afternoon we watched a young man approaching
on horse back. He was packing a rifle and a pistol in his belt. "Evening
stranger. Looks like you could use some vittles. Come join our camp fire
and sit a spell while we prepare to eat." He quickly spotted a couple of
Blue Quail (just flown over from Hobbs and the Chevron commercial). As
fast as I could say "shoot em" he leveled the rifle and dropped them. "Pretty
good shootin I recon."He was a quiet young man named William. Looked like
a kid. But, he handled his white napkin and eatin tools like a well-bred
Easterner. "You from these parts"? "No, Lincoln County". We all sat in
silence around a glowing campfire and a harvest moon. "We're on vacation",
I offered. "Got this new RV backboard, so we're just sightseeing our way
around this part of the country"."Head southeast", he replied....
LYNDA RAGAN 1960: Ohhhhh I just love these stories about RVs.
Come on Glenn tell us more.
We finished our dinner of quail and Big Mouth Billy
Bass freshly caught from Rio Pecos. The missus began the after-dinner cleaning
up. I could hear her under her breath, "Head Southeast. From these parts.
William, huh?Hungry, huh? Vacation, hell! Maybe for you. RV living, (bitch,
bitch, bitch)..." The young'ns took a shine to William and called him Billy.
He produced a mouth harp from his wescott and played a moanful tune in
a tango rhythm. He looked almost like the kids they were.Smokey campfire...embers
dying...moon rising...coyotes howling...crickets doing their song--then
sleep. The last thing I remember was watching meteorites skid across the
wide New Mexico sky in a shower of profusion. (Quiet)
ANN BERTRAND 1954: William, hmmmmmmmmmm?? This is beginning to
shape up into a very interesting story ! I love it !
(Dawn) Sunrise broke across the Ft. Sumner sky. A
cacophony of crows announced daybreak. Our family yawned, stretched and
looked around. No William. He's gone! Only fresh horse tracks revealed
his exit. We broke camp beside Rio Pecos, loaded the buckboard RVwagon,
and prepared to travel to the southeast. As we left the RV campground a
passerby wearing a sheriff's badge inquired if we had seen a "William".
It seems he was a wanted man. Two days later we made it to Portales Springs
and fresh water, then Milnsand and finally an outpost called Monument.
Here we saw native Americans playing LaCrosse and wearing team jerseys
saying Monument Indians. They had erected a concrete marker to themselves.
Seemed somehow out of character...
ANN BERTRAND 1954: Don't know why but the places in your story
sound so familiar !!!!!!
ROTFLOLWTIME
LYNDA RAGAN 1960: Are we talking a famous Indian here??
If so I think I know the hut errr place...
ANN BERTRAND 1954: Lynda, You wouldn't be talking about Geronimo
would you???????? LOL
LYNDA RAGAN 1960: Well now, I guess I'm not the only one that
knows where that place is located...ROTFL.....Ohhhhhh the fun we use to
have out there!
While on our short stay at Monument Springs we came
upon a wrinkled old man who called himself Geronimo the Gerontologist.
He was a geophysicist of the Monument tribe and loved to study geotechnology.
"Got something big to show White Eyes," he said. He produced a handful
of black, gooey, slick, oily, greasy, ugly, smelly, awful stuff for our
inspection. He put some on his hair and combed it. (Not much of a market,
I thought, since he only had a couple of hairs left) "Where did you find
this ", I asked. He pointed southeast and said some native American words:
("Many moons come walking.") "Oh, just on that small hill over there? The
one with the water tower with no name on it?" "Ugh!", he replied. (Funny
to see a single water tower in the desert with no town.)(stay tuned)
Geronimo had a tic in his voice. He always finished
each statement with "hut". Funny, I thought, seemed awfully early in the
century. Aw, well. We took a handful of his mystery product and loaded
up the hitch and buckboard to head out toward the silver water tower with
no name. Then she started up again: "Had to leave the Santa Fe Trail to
go exploring...couldn't let me just have one day in Santa Fe to shop...had
to take us southeast to this God forsaken sand dune...dinner with a desperado...ya-da,
ya-da, ya-da." I wanted to say "shut-up woman", but my better judgement
was interrupted just then by a problem with the wagon. It seems one of
the wooden spoked wheels with a steel band was separating--and they were
Tirestones! Curses!!! That RV buckboard dealer gave me a 3 year/30,000
mile warranty! We limped along and then another problem. A wheel bearing
began to smoke and squeal...sure sign it needed tending. Finally we arrived
about 4 miles west of the big silver water tower to a beautiful little
Loch. The kids even had a successful fishing effort and came back to camp
with a Big Mouth Larry Lobster. He's the new singing sensationthat displaced
Big Mouth Bill Bass, and he was delicious.But that didn't stop the missus
from her tirade. I hoped it had just been, well, you know, temporary. But
NO, she harped and complained incessantly about life on the road in an
RV. I was finally getting my head of steam also.
BEVERLY HARVEY 1967: And then?
LYNDA RAGAN 1960: Ditto !!
and then the kids kicked in. "Are we there yet, daddy?""How
long will it be?" Here we are in Sand Dune City, with tread separation,
squeaking wheel, squealing rug rats, and Sally Struther's sister, and all
hell's broken loose!It was hot, I was Hot, everybody was HOT! That water
tower was lookin good.Finally we make it to the hill with the water tower
with no name, an oasis at last. It stood alone in the streets with no houses,
only surrounded by palm trees filled with a few red birds. Water! Water!
Everybody drink.I started to tend to the squawking wheel axle and decided
to put some of Geronimo's elixir on the shaft. After all this is where
he found the magic fountain of it. Maybe it would do the trick....
Everybody stayed on the RV buckboard while I jacked
it up and removed the squeaking wheel to inspect the axle. Then it occured
to me to try some of Geronimo's black paste on the bearing. As it applied
the goop she started up the whining again. That did it! I stood up and
yelled at her to the top of my voice: "For God's sake Eunice!!!!"We hooked
up the RV wagon at the local hook up facility. The next morning I climbed
to the top of the water tower with no name and used the rest of the black
goo to spell out E-U-N-I-C-E. She smiled at last and seemed pleased. (Any
resemblence to persons living or dead, detrimental references to any ethnic
group/s, derogatory inferences to anyone, aspersions cast on outlaw renegades,
city governments, political action groups, residents of named cities, or
anyone else on earth, are purely coincidental)
ANN BERTRAND 1954: Glenn, The last statement in your story neatly covered
all bases I beleive ! LOL
A FOOTNOTE RE THE GERONIMO HUT Saturday nights was
big at Monuments Geronimo Hut when it was in its heyday. That's the first
place I ever played in a band for dancers. My salary was whatever was in
the "kitty" at the end of the night. Often 50 cents.I gathered some real
musical experience there and saw some sights. I was the only kid (about
l7) and sat next to a blind saxaphone player from Hobbs who had a braille
wristwatch. He was very good. When we weren't playing he asked me to tell
him what the women looked like. Even at that young age I thought it necessary
to tell some Tall Ones, so I always embellished the descriptions so they
all looked like glamour girls from Hollywood. He was impressed! I figured
no harm done. The truth is many of them were as tough looking as could
be, had tatoos on each arm,and danced with each other. That was a common
practice if they were short of men.The piano player was the leader and
played in the keys of C, G, A, Eb,--mostly string pickers keys. I learned
how to play in those keys which helped me tremendously.During the break
we went into the parking lot to watch the fights, which never failed. I
always said the GH had the Olympic Knife Fight Finals every Saturday night.
ANN BERTRAND 1954: I think I can honestly say the Geronimo Hut
was an exciting place to go on Sat night....I tripped 'the light fantastic'
a few times myself out there. But there were some rough looking people
sometimes and the fights were fun to watch ! LOL
LYNDA RAGAN 1960: I don't know how I missed all the fights as
I was at Geromino Hut on several occasions. Just lucky I guess!! AND Glenn
I have NO tattoos! LOL
LOL! The "chicks" with the tats were those delicate
little two-ton Tessies with fat arms where they could show off their butterfly
designs. One night I had a brand new horn, purchased over time and a lot
of work, and cherished it greatly. A couple came up and reqested we play
a tune and turned to walk away. Half way across the dance floor I heard
the woman say; "You should have tipped them." He took a 50 cent piece and
hurled it across the floor and hit my new Olds trumpet right on the bell!
I almost cried. It left a mark alwaysreminding me of the incident. Classy
people! Now you know why many bands played behind chicken wire.
LYNDA RAGAN 1960: Glenn, There are just some people with
absolutely NO CLASS!! Since he made the ding in the horn I think I would
have finished the job and crowned him with it!!! I sure hope his request
was not played but if it was a waltz one could have changed the tempo and
had him doing a fox trot..There are many ways to handle a JERK !! Vindictive?
ME? NOOOOOO ROTFLLLL
That was an early incident in a life time of playing
and dealing with people like him. I've seen some of the funniest things
happen at dances, mostly due to over-imbibing guests. Among them: A fight
between little league coaches and parents at the end of the season; a lady
who wanted to strip on the bandstand; a newly wed bride with diarrhea and
honeymooning in Mexico. And guests don't realize how much fun musicians
have watching them.
LYNDA RAGAN 1960: My husband is also a musician so I too have
seen what kind of strange things that people can do when they've had a
bit too much of the grape..I have to admit I do enjoy sitting back and
watching. There are sights that one would not see anywhere else..But when
the fist start flying I'm the first one out the door or under the table...LOL
I'm sorry I didn't have a chance to visit with your
husband in Eunice. We could have compared notes on funny gigs. I could
have told him about the New Year's Eve when somebody launched a handful
of buckshot on the dance floor and it suddenly became a skating rink! lol.
LYNDA RAGAN 1960: Glenn, You and Deanie ( my husband) could
keep the rest of us in stitches telling us tales. I think one of the funniest
incidents that happened at a dance we were at was a woman on the dance
floor doing a fast jitter-bug. When her partner twirled her around her
hair came flying off ( a wig of course)and what natural hair she had was
totally plastered to her head. I don't think she missed a beat plopping
it back on although it certainly was not straight. The rest of us were
rolling in the floor with laughter. She came off the dance floor with her
head, wig and all,held high and a big smile on her face. The Lady had class!
Now that's funny!