TomMilesABQ-Albuquerque Historical Timeline » Santa Fe

!Viva Mexico! 2010 – Video From Los Golondrinas

Tom Miles — Thu, 26 May 2011 20:37:24 +0000

Apologies for the l-o-n-g haitus. Life got hectic and I allowed myself to get distracted. I’ll try to do better. I may be changing the title of the blog from “TomMilesABQ-Albuquerque Historical Timeline” to just “TomMilesABQ,” and opening up the subject matter more broadly. What do you think? Any ideas or suggestions? Love to hear ‘em.

Here is a link to a short video I shot and edited from the Mexican Consulate’s ¡Viva Mexico! celebration at Los Golondrinas in Santa Fe last year.

!Viva Mexico! 2010

I hope you enjoy viewing it as much as I did shooting, editing, and posting it on my You Tube channel.

Maybe it will encourage you to go this year’s event, assuming with all the budgetary challenges that there will be one.

All the best to you …

Great Albuquerque Adventure Read

tom — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 17:26:55 +0000

Clearing Customs, by Martha Egan (July 2009), is a new and rollicking good read! And a lot of it takes place in Albuquerque and Santa Fe.

It is worthy noting that this story takes place in 1988-99, long before the Patriot Act’s privacy invasions became commonplace. The book’s protagonist and heroine is Beverly Parmentier, owner of a small Latin American folk aft and antiques importing store in Old Town.

How Beverly finds herself and her store under surveillance by U. S. Customs Service is a humorous happenstance of President Reagan’s Central American policies and a relentless and opportunistic Customs Service Albuquerque Station Chief. The story shifts into high gear from there and never lets up until the last pages.

Beverly (Martha) relates in detail her surveillance as the story careens from Albuquerque across the country. They include Customs Service employment of Vietnam Vets and taxpayer funded junkets to “surveil” Beverly from Albuquerque’s Old Town, North Valley, Santa Fe, Washington, D. C., a Colorado river raft trip, and a Caribbean island “getaway.” You’ll howl both in laughter and in anger, over the ineptness and relentlessness of the federales abuses of power. And then you will smile wickedly at the justice of the finale.

Lots of familiar territory and names and places throughout should make Clearing Customs a particularly enjoyable read to everyone familiar with Albuquerque, Santa Fe, New Mexico … or U. S. Customs.

New Mexico History – ‘El Gringo’ by W. W. H. Davis

tom — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 19:45:50 +0000

I have just finished reading El Gringo, by W. W. H. Davis. Davis’ 1853 description of New Mexico is one the earliest full-length accounts to appear in English. It provides a beautiful picture of a newly conquered land, its customs, languages, landscapes and histories. He really captures the protected and unique nature of New Mexico in this paragraph:

“There is no country protected by our flag and subject to our laws so little known to the people of the United States as the territory of New Mexico. Its very position precludes an intimate intercourse with other sections of the Union, and serves to lock up a knowledge of the country within its own limits. The natural features differ widely from the rest of the Union; and the inhabitants, with the manners and customs of their Moorish and Castilian ancestors are both new and strange to our people. For these reasons, reliable information on this hitherto almost unknown region can not fail to be interesting to the public.”

Davis was a veteran of the Mexican War of 1846-48, and returned to New Mexico in 1853 to become United States Attorney for the territory. He traveled with only a few changes of clothes, a two-book law library and a ravenous curiosity, and he thoroughly journaled his entire travels to and throughout New Mexico.

His thousand-mile journey from Independence, Missouri to Santa Fe would take 25 days by mule train, traveling in torrential rains and drifting blizzards. Many nights were spend sleeping on the ground under the wagons for shelter, and many meals were skipped due to inclement weather.

El Gringo was written by W. W. H. Davis (1820 – 1910) and first published in 1857. You can order from the Books page; enjoyi!