Friday, February 24, 2012
1953 - The Year a UFO landed on Bishop's Lodge Road
Dateline
October 25, 1953.
Jimmy
Milligan, 16 yr old Santa Fe High School junior, reported sighting an
unusual flying “thing.” Milligan was driving home about 9:30 pm,
returning from the Young People's Fellowship Dance at the Methodist
Church, and heading north on Bishop's Lodge Road, just passing the
baseball field.
Suddenly,
he saw a ten foot long object floating floating directly across the
path of his car. Milligan swerved off the road and got out of his
car. On the dirt embankment in the weeds, Milligan saw a metal
object, about 10 feet long, shaped like two flat boat hulls attached
together.
Milligan
said, “ Naturally, I was a little bit scared and hesitant about
getting too near it. But when I reached out my hand to touch it, it
raised straight up in the air for a couple of feet and took off in a
steep climb toward Santa Fe.” Milligan drove home in a hurry
“You
should have seen him when he came in the that door,” Milligan's
mother said. “He was white and shaky. He looked so odd.”
“I
want to tell you something, “ young Milligan told his mother. “You
and Daddy'll think I'm crazy but it happened. I'll swear it did. On a
stack of bibles.”
His
father, B.F. Milligan, a repair foreman for the phone company, took
Jimmy back to the site and, together they searched for it. “We
didn't see much,” Mr. Milligan reported, “ because there was only
the light of the moon to see. We didn't have a spotlight in the car.”
Although Jimmy was shy about telling anyone about his story, the
newspapers learned of it and persuaded Jimmy to give an interview.
He
told the New Mexican reporter that he nearly struck the “thing”
with his car as he was driving home. The object was metal colored,
like aluminum and shaped like a great big bullet, about three feet
high, ten feet long and five feet across. While he was reluctant to
touch the object which was resting on an embankment, his curiosity
made him reach out. As he did so, the “thing” began roaring and
rose up in the air and began climbing in to the air.
“There
wasn't any glow or spitting fire,” Millingan reported, “I
couldn't feel any heat. No smell of carbon monoxide in the air. When
it was taking off, it made a sound like a washing machine, but even
faster. You know how a small airplane engine sounds. It was sort of
like that, only more high pitched.”
Milligan's
mother, a teacher at Harvey Junior High School, said that her son has
never been the over-imaginative type of boy, prone to making up tall
tales. She said Milligan was a good student with a B average at Santa
Fe High School, who spent his free time tinkering with his car, an
old roadster.
When
queried, Brigadier General G.G. Eddy, commanding officer of the White
Sands Proving Grounds issued a public statement, doubting that that
“thing” came from the proving grounds. He disclosed that there
were many projects of a highly classified nature at the Proving
grounds but that he was not at liberty to talk about them.
There
are no later news accounts of any further investigation into the
October 25 sighting or any explanation for the “thing” that
Milligan saw. “You know,” Milligan told the reporter, “I kind
of wish I had hit the thing as it came in front my my car. Then I'd
have some proof, all right!”
During
the course of his interview with the local newspaper, young Milligan
drew sketches of the “thing” and helped a New Mexican artist
sketch the object for publication. The next day, on the front page,
the newspaper published the story and the artists sketches of the
unidentified flying object that landed on Bishop's Lodge Road.
Monday, February 13, 2012
1973 - The Year the Plaza Monument Almost Disappeared
I was reminded the other day, as I lounged on a bench on the Santa Fe Plaza, of the great controversy of 1973 about this center of the city, the Plaza. The same Plaza which had welcomed loafers like me for more than 300 years.
In 1973, the Plaza was a fire storm of debate. That's the year that the City decided to make the Plaza a no-parking zone, catching the Plaza merchants off guard. Within days, 35 of those merchants, led by Tom Moore and Walter Kahn, organized to reverse the City's decision but the City was holding fast.
The City had built two spacious parking lots – one behind J.C. Penney's and one across the street from the Hilton hotel, neither of which were being used by down town shoppers. The City thought that banning parking on the Plaza would divert shoppers to those lots.
After some wrangling, a solution of sorts emerged. The merchants would give their customers one hour of free parking in any city lot and pay the City for it themselves with dues collected from all the plaza merchants. In this way, the City got money, the merchants got customers and everybody was more or less happy.
Of course, parking was a problem on the Plaza anyway in 1973. The City had embarked upon an ambitious plan to improve the Plaza, to the tune of $150,000 – half of which came from a generous federal grant. Plans for the venerable center of the city included the following:
—The streets that bordered the Plaza would be paved either with
brick or colored concrete. And since those streets were considered part of the city's “arterial” road system, the state kicked in another $67,000. And the plaza merchants, led by the First National Bank chipped in another $29,000.
—The present bandstand would be demolished and a portable band-
stand structure would replace it.
—The banco (bench) which surrounded the Frontier Monument
would be reduced in size.
—The bell from the battleship New Mexico would be removed to a
site in the Capitol complex, next to the Bronson Cutting statue.
_The Gen. Kearney marker and the End of the Trail markers, however, would remain intact.
And the whole plaza would receive extensive landscaping and all of this work under the direction of Santa Fe architect John Gaw Meem.
Well, it all sounded good but then a curious thing happened. Since the Plaza was being renovated anyway, the City Council unanimously decided to remove the monument in the center of the Plaza. That bears repeating. The City Council – unanimously – voted to remove the 110 year old Civil War Monument from the center of the Plaza. When the news hit the papers, Santa Fe might as well have been struck by a meteor. What an uproar!
The City Council were apparently responding to a letter from Governor Bruce King who had been urged to request removal of the monument by someone from the American Indian Movement which believed the Monument was, and I'm quoting here, "a source of perpetuating racism and prejudice through the character assassination of our forefathers." This was because the plaque on one side of the monument read:
"To the heroes who have fallen in the various battles
with Savage Indians in the Territory of New Mexico."
That “savage” part apparently rankled the sensibilities of the modern-day Indian of 1973. The other plaque on the monument, by the way, honored union soldiers who battled the rebels during the Civil War.
Citizen reaction was predictable. First, there were those lofty-minded individuals who were racing to be politically correct, urging the removal of the obelisk so as to not to hurt the feelings of any Indian whose eyes might fall upon the plaque. It was, they claimed, the Spaniard or the Anglo who were the savage ones, not the beleaguered Indian.
Interestingly, the five nearby Pueblo Governors were united in keeping the Plaza monument where it was and to let history stand. "This is a reminder of what happened in the past," said Governor Paul Baca of Santa Clara "We feel much the same way about our history, that it should not be changed to fit the times." And savage might even be accurate, Baca said, because “we didn't give up our lands without a fight.”
Then came the historians, who argued that the wording on the plaque merely reflected the times and only survived as a curious but beloved anachronism. Its removal would be tantamount to book-burning or re-writing history. One even pointed out that the term “savages” only referred to the nomadic Apache and Navajo – opponents in a bitter war for two centuries – not our peace-loving neighbors, the pueblo Indians.
Then there were the die-hard Santa Feans who didn't want any change in Santa Fe at all, no way, no how. So what, they wrote to the editor of the local paper, all that happened too long ago to make a difference. One suggested a petition, not to remove the monument, but to recall the City Councilors who voted for the stupid idea.
Them came the jokesters who mocked the controversy. James B. Alley, a local lawyer proposed a second monument dedicated to “the Indians Who Saved their Land and Culture from the Barbarian Hordes of Anglos Who Descended upon Them from Urban Neon Jungles." Then there was the wag who said that as long as we're getting rid of offensive monuments, let's take down the Statue of Liberty with that insulting reference to immigrants as “the wretched refuse.” Then there was the prankster who taped up a cardboard sign on the monument itself to replace the word Indians with Conquistadors so that it read the “Savage Conquistadors.” By the way, this was many years before someone actually chiseled out the word “savages” and solved the problem once and for all.
As it happened, the City had no say about the monument. In fact, any effort to take it down would exact a severe penalty and not just the wrath of the voters. Turns out the Plaza was a both a National Historic Landmark and a protected State Cultural Property. So, no changes were possible on the Plaza without serious federal and state legislation. Oh, and that $75,000 federal grant the City was about to receive to fix up the Plaza – well, the federal government said the City might as well kiss it goodbye if the Plaza Monument were removed.
Even the City Council, dumb clucks that they were, could see the handwriting on the wall. They hastily convened and – unanimously – rescinded their vote to remove the monument from the Plaza. Instead they favored a plan to add yet another plaque to the Monument, explaining the other plaques. This was the same plan, incidentally, which was favored by the Governor of NM, the Indian Pueblos and federal government. The new text would read:
Monument texts reflect the character of the times in
which they are written and the temper of those who
wrote them. This monument was dedicated in 1868 near
the close of a period of intense strife which pitted
northerner against southerner, Indian against white,
Indian against Indian. Thus we see on this monument,
as in other records, the use of such terms as 'savage'
and 'rebel.' Attitudes change and prejudices hopefully
dissolve.
And that's what happened on the Plaza in 1973.
By the way, the 1973 Santa Fe City Council consisted of eight busy men, mostly sober businessmen, who donated their time to lead the city – Robert Berardinelli, Elmer Longacre, Sam Pick, Robert Stuart, Joseph Allocca, Clarence Lithgow, Alex V. Padilla and Mike Scarborough. It was this City Council that will always be remembered in Santa Fe, not for benevolent government or progressive leadership, but for the jaw-droppingly awesome stupidity of their unanimous vote to remove the Plaza Monument in 1973. And the next time you see one of them, tell them I said so.
In 1973, the Plaza was a fire storm of debate. That's the year that the City decided to make the Plaza a no-parking zone, catching the Plaza merchants off guard. Within days, 35 of those merchants, led by Tom Moore and Walter Kahn, organized to reverse the City's decision but the City was holding fast.
The City had built two spacious parking lots – one behind J.C. Penney's and one across the street from the Hilton hotel, neither of which were being used by down town shoppers. The City thought that banning parking on the Plaza would divert shoppers to those lots.
After some wrangling, a solution of sorts emerged. The merchants would give their customers one hour of free parking in any city lot and pay the City for it themselves with dues collected from all the plaza merchants. In this way, the City got money, the merchants got customers and everybody was more or less happy.
Of course, parking was a problem on the Plaza anyway in 1973. The City had embarked upon an ambitious plan to improve the Plaza, to the tune of $150,000 – half of which came from a generous federal grant. Plans for the venerable center of the city included the following:
—The streets that bordered the Plaza would be paved either with
brick or colored concrete. And since those streets were considered part of the city's “arterial” road system, the state kicked in another $67,000. And the plaza merchants, led by the First National Bank chipped in another $29,000.
—The present bandstand would be demolished and a portable band-
stand structure would replace it.
—The banco (bench) which surrounded the Frontier Monument
would be reduced in size.
—The bell from the battleship New Mexico would be removed to a
site in the Capitol complex, next to the Bronson Cutting statue.
_The Gen. Kearney marker and the End of the Trail markers, however, would remain intact.
And the whole plaza would receive extensive landscaping and all of this work under the direction of Santa Fe architect John Gaw Meem.
Well, it all sounded good but then a curious thing happened. Since the Plaza was being renovated anyway, the City Council unanimously decided to remove the monument in the center of the Plaza. That bears repeating. The City Council – unanimously – voted to remove the 110 year old Civil War Monument from the center of the Plaza. When the news hit the papers, Santa Fe might as well have been struck by a meteor. What an uproar!
The City Council were apparently responding to a letter from Governor Bruce King who had been urged to request removal of the monument by someone from the American Indian Movement which believed the Monument was, and I'm quoting here, "a source of perpetuating racism and prejudice through the character assassination of our forefathers." This was because the plaque on one side of the monument read:
"To the heroes who have fallen in the various battles
with Savage Indians in the Territory of New Mexico."
That “savage” part apparently rankled the sensibilities of the modern-day Indian of 1973. The other plaque on the monument, by the way, honored union soldiers who battled the rebels during the Civil War.
Citizen reaction was predictable. First, there were those lofty-minded individuals who were racing to be politically correct, urging the removal of the obelisk so as to not to hurt the feelings of any Indian whose eyes might fall upon the plaque. It was, they claimed, the Spaniard or the Anglo who were the savage ones, not the beleaguered Indian.
Interestingly, the five nearby Pueblo Governors were united in keeping the Plaza monument where it was and to let history stand. "This is a reminder of what happened in the past," said Governor Paul Baca of Santa Clara "We feel much the same way about our history, that it should not be changed to fit the times." And savage might even be accurate, Baca said, because “we didn't give up our lands without a fight.”
Then came the historians, who argued that the wording on the plaque merely reflected the times and only survived as a curious but beloved anachronism. Its removal would be tantamount to book-burning or re-writing history. One even pointed out that the term “savages” only referred to the nomadic Apache and Navajo – opponents in a bitter war for two centuries – not our peace-loving neighbors, the pueblo Indians.
Then there were the die-hard Santa Feans who didn't want any change in Santa Fe at all, no way, no how. So what, they wrote to the editor of the local paper, all that happened too long ago to make a difference. One suggested a petition, not to remove the monument, but to recall the City Councilors who voted for the stupid idea.
Them came the jokesters who mocked the controversy. James B. Alley, a local lawyer proposed a second monument dedicated to “the Indians Who Saved their Land and Culture from the Barbarian Hordes of Anglos Who Descended upon Them from Urban Neon Jungles." Then there was the wag who said that as long as we're getting rid of offensive monuments, let's take down the Statue of Liberty with that insulting reference to immigrants as “the wretched refuse.” Then there was the prankster who taped up a cardboard sign on the monument itself to replace the word Indians with Conquistadors so that it read the “Savage Conquistadors.” By the way, this was many years before someone actually chiseled out the word “savages” and solved the problem once and for all.
As it happened, the City had no say about the monument. In fact, any effort to take it down would exact a severe penalty and not just the wrath of the voters. Turns out the Plaza was a both a National Historic Landmark and a protected State Cultural Property. So, no changes were possible on the Plaza without serious federal and state legislation. Oh, and that $75,000 federal grant the City was about to receive to fix up the Plaza – well, the federal government said the City might as well kiss it goodbye if the Plaza Monument were removed.
Even the City Council, dumb clucks that they were, could see the handwriting on the wall. They hastily convened and – unanimously – rescinded their vote to remove the monument from the Plaza. Instead they favored a plan to add yet another plaque to the Monument, explaining the other plaques. This was the same plan, incidentally, which was favored by the Governor of NM, the Indian Pueblos and federal government. The new text would read:
Monument texts reflect the character of the times in
which they are written and the temper of those who
wrote them. This monument was dedicated in 1868 near
the close of a period of intense strife which pitted
northerner against southerner, Indian against white,
Indian against Indian. Thus we see on this monument,
as in other records, the use of such terms as 'savage'
and 'rebel.' Attitudes change and prejudices hopefully
dissolve.
And that's what happened on the Plaza in 1973.
By the way, the 1973 Santa Fe City Council consisted of eight busy men, mostly sober businessmen, who donated their time to lead the city – Robert Berardinelli, Elmer Longacre, Sam Pick, Robert Stuart, Joseph Allocca, Clarence Lithgow, Alex V. Padilla and Mike Scarborough. It was this City Council that will always be remembered in Santa Fe, not for benevolent government or progressive leadership, but for the jaw-droppingly awesome stupidity of their unanimous vote to remove the Plaza Monument in 1973. And the next time you see one of them, tell them I said so.
Tuesday, December 13, 2011
1964 - UFO over Santa Fe
Late one April evening in 1964, State policeman Lonnie Zamora was chasing a speeder on a roadway a mile southwest of Socorro when he spotted a blue flash of light emanating from the nearby hills. Aware that a mining shed in the general area contained dynamite, Zamora broke off the chase and went to investigate.
Traveling through rough roads, Zamora finally gained a hilltop view and saw, to his amazement, an egg shaped metal object in a draw, standing on slim legs. Beside the object were two small humans, or possibly large children, who appeared startled to see him. As he proceeded on foot into the draw, he heard a roar and saw the object rise from the ground on a blue flame and shoot off to the west at an altitude of less than 20 feet. The stunned police officer examined the landing area, found still smoldering plants, fused sand and indentations from the legs of the craft.
At the same time, witnesses nearby – including two tourists traveling through, a gas-station owner and a young girl on a hike – independently reported hearing a roaring noise, blue flames and a small oval object traveling at high speed through the air. To this day, it is the most highly documented UFO sighing in Blue Book history but it remains on the record as unsolved.
The next day, 35 year old Orlando Gallegos of Santa Fe, drove to La Madera to visit his father. Just after midnight, he stepped outside the house to shoo away some horses when he spotted a bright metal, windowless, egg-shaped object, about as long as a telephone pole and 14 or so feet in diameter, sitting on a graveled area about 200 yards away. The object displayed a ring of blue flames emitting from jets around the bottom of the craft but was noiseless. He saw no one around it.
He returned to the house, badly shaken, and told his family but no one would venture out to see it, although Gallegos went out twice more to look at it again. The next morning, the object was gone and Gallegos drove to the nearest police station (in Espanola) and reported the sighting. State police officers – now aware of the Socorro sighting – went to La Madera and found the ground in the area still smoldering and indentations in the ground.
In Santa Fe, a day later, the city's police chief, A.B. Martinez, issued a formal warning to citizens to stay away from any mysterious objects.
The following morning, hundreds of Santa Feans turned out to watch an unidentified flying object traveling in the sky over the northwest part of the city. Witnesses described the object as multi-colored and “V” shaped like a plumb bob used by surveyors. Some claimed they saw flames as well. State and city police were flooded with calls about the mysterious sighting.
As it happened, earlier that day, a celebration at the Casa Solana Shopping Center included a large cluster of colorful gas-filled balloons tied on strings at the bottom, forming a “V” shape. Before they could be stopped, a group of small boys managed to cut the balloons loose and, still in a cluster, the balloons floated away. Once the police learned of the boys' mischief, no further investigation of the colorful UFO over Santa Fe was conducted.
Traveling through rough roads, Zamora finally gained a hilltop view and saw, to his amazement, an egg shaped metal object in a draw, standing on slim legs. Beside the object were two small humans, or possibly large children, who appeared startled to see him. As he proceeded on foot into the draw, he heard a roar and saw the object rise from the ground on a blue flame and shoot off to the west at an altitude of less than 20 feet. The stunned police officer examined the landing area, found still smoldering plants, fused sand and indentations from the legs of the craft.
At the same time, witnesses nearby – including two tourists traveling through, a gas-station owner and a young girl on a hike – independently reported hearing a roaring noise, blue flames and a small oval object traveling at high speed through the air. To this day, it is the most highly documented UFO sighing in Blue Book history but it remains on the record as unsolved.
The next day, 35 year old Orlando Gallegos of Santa Fe, drove to La Madera to visit his father. Just after midnight, he stepped outside the house to shoo away some horses when he spotted a bright metal, windowless, egg-shaped object, about as long as a telephone pole and 14 or so feet in diameter, sitting on a graveled area about 200 yards away. The object displayed a ring of blue flames emitting from jets around the bottom of the craft but was noiseless. He saw no one around it.
He returned to the house, badly shaken, and told his family but no one would venture out to see it, although Gallegos went out twice more to look at it again. The next morning, the object was gone and Gallegos drove to the nearest police station (in Espanola) and reported the sighting. State police officers – now aware of the Socorro sighting – went to La Madera and found the ground in the area still smoldering and indentations in the ground.
In Santa Fe, a day later, the city's police chief, A.B. Martinez, issued a formal warning to citizens to stay away from any mysterious objects.
The following morning, hundreds of Santa Feans turned out to watch an unidentified flying object traveling in the sky over the northwest part of the city. Witnesses described the object as multi-colored and “V” shaped like a plumb bob used by surveyors. Some claimed they saw flames as well. State and city police were flooded with calls about the mysterious sighting.
As it happened, earlier that day, a celebration at the Casa Solana Shopping Center included a large cluster of colorful gas-filled balloons tied on strings at the bottom, forming a “V” shape. Before they could be stopped, a group of small boys managed to cut the balloons loose and, still in a cluster, the balloons floated away. Once the police learned of the boys' mischief, no further investigation of the colorful UFO over Santa Fe was conducted.
1941 - Fiesta
1941 marked the 229th annual Fiesta, kicked off as usual by the burning of Old Man Gloom. The ceremony encountered a small problem, however. Governor John Miles was scheduled to speak at the event and introduce a special guest, an emissary from the Mexican President, who was given the honor to touch off the burning of Zozobra. By accident, someone on Will Shuster’s crew set off the powder trail a little too early and everyone – heads of state and foreign diplomats – had to clear the area mighty quick. The Gloom Dancers just barely made it out before Zozobra caught fire and went up in flames. The Governor, however, took it all philosophically.
Downtown, on the plaza, the Fiesta Queen, the beautiful Clara Garcia, was crowned on the Plaza by the Conqueror Don Diego De Vargas, portrayed that year by J. Alfonso Armijo. The Queen was entertained by a variety of performers including the child students of Mrs. Wilson’s La Gitana Dance Studio, consisting of Betty Serna, Betty Jo Brannon, Betty Ortiz, Phyllis Calkins and Anita and Dolores Fernandez.
Music is always a big part of Fiesta but in 1941, there was a bonanza, so said music chairman Wayne Mauzy. The Mariachi de Santa Fe was featured on the plaza, at Bishop's Lodge on Saturday afternoon and for the street dance Sunday night. Los Morenos – another popular Santa Fe orchestra with spectacular uniforms – played on the plaza and were also featured both at the Fandango and at the Conquistadores Ball. Another Santa Fe group – Los Villeros Alegres – were the stars of Koshare Party held at the Safeway parking lot across from the County Courthouse. The group also held a concert on the Plaza and marched in the candlelight procession, too.
And if that were not enough music, the Old Villa Tipica 12-piece orchestra from out of town played at the traditional roof dance at La Fonda. The last time the group played in Santa Fe was 1938. And an authentic Mexican circus band, led by the Ortiz Brothers of Old Mexico, played on the plaza accompanying an acrobat show. And, for good measure, the Duo Jaliciense of Jalisco strolled the Plaza in the evenings,
And that roster of musicians didn't even include the city's most popular hometown singers, Nora Chavez and Johnny Valdez. That year, the two were showcased in a musical Fiesta Melodrama about a poor Spanish family from Pojoaque, struggling to pay off the mortgage held on their ancestral home, a mortgage held by the villain – and, incidentally, the only Anglo character in the play. Other stars of the Melodrama included Rosie Gutierrez Moya, Mrs. Jose Moya and Jack Konopak. At that same Melodrama, Johnny Valdez and Tony Cruz performed a comedy song between the acts which ended with a real can-can dance by the “Hot Set” girls, Lena, Perla and Arline.
The kids were in for a special treat at the 1941 Fiesta. Students at the St. Francis opportunity school crafted several beautiful marionettes and staged a puppet show – one in the morning and one in the afternoon – at Loretto Hall. It was titled “Pinocchio at the Fiesta,” and it told the story of Pinocchio and Jiminy Cricket who come to Santa Fe at Fiesta time and join the Fiesta fun.
Two interesting things about this version of Pinocchio – one, Jiminy is made an honorary member of the New Mexico State Police for being a good conscience; two, Jiminy – who, you recall, was a cricket – sang a song about his little cousin – La Cucaracha.
In 1941, the Koshares were only making their second appearance in a Fiesta. The Koshares were a group of local men, many of whom were serious businessmen during the year. But, come Fiesta time, they put on Koshare costumes and roamed throughout Fiesta, playing practical jokes, performing crazy stunts and producing general nonsense. They were patterned after a Pueblo Indian Koshare tradition where one man would dress up, painted in stripes and wearing a nutty mask, then play the irreverent fool at even the most religious events.
It was all in good fun and people really enjoyed it. In 1941, for example, the Koshares led a snake dance through La Fonda Hotel at 3 in the morning. Oh and the Koshares put on El Mercado Loco on Sunday, where the zany Koshares, this time dressed as Mexican peones, tried to sell passersby one single shoe or a page torn out of the telephone book, perhaps a rusty nail or half a corset. Actually, that last one really was for sale at the Mercado Loco.
In 1941, the Koshares also put on a Fiestecita – a large outdoor party at the Safeway parking lot with music, dancing and entertainment. It was the Koshares, incidentally, who sponsored a weekly Spanish song and dance session every Tuesday night at Seth Hall for the two months before Fiesta. A Fiesta tradition that's been lost.
And here's another. In 1941, there was a shooting exhibition put on by the Contra Costa County sheriff's posse from California. In those days, that group came to Fiesta every year to ride in the parade and put on a marksmanship show, offering both plain and fancy shooting, just like the old west.
New for the 1941 Fiesta was the Espanola Fiesta Revue, a group of 16 girls who performed both folk and popular dances – not just the old varsoviana but examples of the rhumba and the conga.
The big Fandango dance at Seth Hall for Saturday night offered a “South of the Border” theme and Seth Hall was dressed as a jungle with greenery and exotic flowers, courtesy of Dorothy Stauffer and friends. Music and dancing, of course, but the highlight was a comedy sketch – all in rhyme – depicting Santa Fe in 1940 when the movie stars came for the premier of the movie, “The Santa Fe Trail.” Locals played celebrities like Errol Flynn, Rudy Vallee and Witter Bynner.
Hugo Zehner, chairman of the Hysterical Parade committee, had a brief scare. It seems the old Conestoga Wagon, a classic prairie schooner, was scheduled to head the parade but it ran into a problem while traveling over the original Santa Fe Trail. The wagon was being pulled by a team of oxen but the oxen died en route. No one knows why, exactly, but arrangements were made to ensure the Wagon arrived in Santa Fe in time to lead the parade, complete with a new team of oxen.
The weather was excellent for most the 1941 Fiesta – sunny and fair – but on Sunday night, high winds kicked in. For the candlelight procession, led by Archbishop Gerken, celebrants were forced to use tin cans and drinking cups in an effort to keep their candles lit, an effort which didn't work well at all. Very few lit candles made it all the up to the Cross of the Martyrs.
Are you waiting for the usual Fiesta crime round-up? Times were calmer back then. Oh, the usual drunks and auto accidents, but no violence at all. But I must report that some would-be safe crackers used the Fiesta hustle and bustle to cover a break-in at the Wood-Davis Hardware Store on Lincoln Avenue. They managed to enter the store, break off the handle on the safe but couldn't get it open. Not a dime was taken.
Oh, and one odd crime. The Dunklee family at 413 Camino de Las Animas was having a Fiesta picnic on their lawn on Sunday. In the afternoon, everyone in the family went back into the house to look at photographs. When they came back out, the picnic was gone – food, blankets and silverware. That's right, at the 1941 Fiesta, someone stole a picnic.
And that’s a look at Fiesta 1941. Que Viva La Fiesta!
Downtown, on the plaza, the Fiesta Queen, the beautiful Clara Garcia, was crowned on the Plaza by the Conqueror Don Diego De Vargas, portrayed that year by J. Alfonso Armijo. The Queen was entertained by a variety of performers including the child students of Mrs. Wilson’s La Gitana Dance Studio, consisting of Betty Serna, Betty Jo Brannon, Betty Ortiz, Phyllis Calkins and Anita and Dolores Fernandez.
Music is always a big part of Fiesta but in 1941, there was a bonanza, so said music chairman Wayne Mauzy. The Mariachi de Santa Fe was featured on the plaza, at Bishop's Lodge on Saturday afternoon and for the street dance Sunday night. Los Morenos – another popular Santa Fe orchestra with spectacular uniforms – played on the plaza and were also featured both at the Fandango and at the Conquistadores Ball. Another Santa Fe group – Los Villeros Alegres – were the stars of Koshare Party held at the Safeway parking lot across from the County Courthouse. The group also held a concert on the Plaza and marched in the candlelight procession, too.
And if that were not enough music, the Old Villa Tipica 12-piece orchestra from out of town played at the traditional roof dance at La Fonda. The last time the group played in Santa Fe was 1938. And an authentic Mexican circus band, led by the Ortiz Brothers of Old Mexico, played on the plaza accompanying an acrobat show. And, for good measure, the Duo Jaliciense of Jalisco strolled the Plaza in the evenings,
And that roster of musicians didn't even include the city's most popular hometown singers, Nora Chavez and Johnny Valdez. That year, the two were showcased in a musical Fiesta Melodrama about a poor Spanish family from Pojoaque, struggling to pay off the mortgage held on their ancestral home, a mortgage held by the villain – and, incidentally, the only Anglo character in the play. Other stars of the Melodrama included Rosie Gutierrez Moya, Mrs. Jose Moya and Jack Konopak. At that same Melodrama, Johnny Valdez and Tony Cruz performed a comedy song between the acts which ended with a real can-can dance by the “Hot Set” girls, Lena, Perla and Arline.
The kids were in for a special treat at the 1941 Fiesta. Students at the St. Francis opportunity school crafted several beautiful marionettes and staged a puppet show – one in the morning and one in the afternoon – at Loretto Hall. It was titled “Pinocchio at the Fiesta,” and it told the story of Pinocchio and Jiminy Cricket who come to Santa Fe at Fiesta time and join the Fiesta fun.
Two interesting things about this version of Pinocchio – one, Jiminy is made an honorary member of the New Mexico State Police for being a good conscience; two, Jiminy – who, you recall, was a cricket – sang a song about his little cousin – La Cucaracha.
In 1941, the Koshares were only making their second appearance in a Fiesta. The Koshares were a group of local men, many of whom were serious businessmen during the year. But, come Fiesta time, they put on Koshare costumes and roamed throughout Fiesta, playing practical jokes, performing crazy stunts and producing general nonsense. They were patterned after a Pueblo Indian Koshare tradition where one man would dress up, painted in stripes and wearing a nutty mask, then play the irreverent fool at even the most religious events.
It was all in good fun and people really enjoyed it. In 1941, for example, the Koshares led a snake dance through La Fonda Hotel at 3 in the morning. Oh and the Koshares put on El Mercado Loco on Sunday, where the zany Koshares, this time dressed as Mexican peones, tried to sell passersby one single shoe or a page torn out of the telephone book, perhaps a rusty nail or half a corset. Actually, that last one really was for sale at the Mercado Loco.
In 1941, the Koshares also put on a Fiestecita – a large outdoor party at the Safeway parking lot with music, dancing and entertainment. It was the Koshares, incidentally, who sponsored a weekly Spanish song and dance session every Tuesday night at Seth Hall for the two months before Fiesta. A Fiesta tradition that's been lost.
And here's another. In 1941, there was a shooting exhibition put on by the Contra Costa County sheriff's posse from California. In those days, that group came to Fiesta every year to ride in the parade and put on a marksmanship show, offering both plain and fancy shooting, just like the old west.
New for the 1941 Fiesta was the Espanola Fiesta Revue, a group of 16 girls who performed both folk and popular dances – not just the old varsoviana but examples of the rhumba and the conga.
The big Fandango dance at Seth Hall for Saturday night offered a “South of the Border” theme and Seth Hall was dressed as a jungle with greenery and exotic flowers, courtesy of Dorothy Stauffer and friends. Music and dancing, of course, but the highlight was a comedy sketch – all in rhyme – depicting Santa Fe in 1940 when the movie stars came for the premier of the movie, “The Santa Fe Trail.” Locals played celebrities like Errol Flynn, Rudy Vallee and Witter Bynner.
Hugo Zehner, chairman of the Hysterical Parade committee, had a brief scare. It seems the old Conestoga Wagon, a classic prairie schooner, was scheduled to head the parade but it ran into a problem while traveling over the original Santa Fe Trail. The wagon was being pulled by a team of oxen but the oxen died en route. No one knows why, exactly, but arrangements were made to ensure the Wagon arrived in Santa Fe in time to lead the parade, complete with a new team of oxen.
The weather was excellent for most the 1941 Fiesta – sunny and fair – but on Sunday night, high winds kicked in. For the candlelight procession, led by Archbishop Gerken, celebrants were forced to use tin cans and drinking cups in an effort to keep their candles lit, an effort which didn't work well at all. Very few lit candles made it all the up to the Cross of the Martyrs.
Are you waiting for the usual Fiesta crime round-up? Times were calmer back then. Oh, the usual drunks and auto accidents, but no violence at all. But I must report that some would-be safe crackers used the Fiesta hustle and bustle to cover a break-in at the Wood-Davis Hardware Store on Lincoln Avenue. They managed to enter the store, break off the handle on the safe but couldn't get it open. Not a dime was taken.
Oh, and one odd crime. The Dunklee family at 413 Camino de Las Animas was having a Fiesta picnic on their lawn on Sunday. In the afternoon, everyone in the family went back into the house to look at photographs. When they came back out, the picnic was gone – food, blankets and silverware. That's right, at the 1941 Fiesta, someone stole a picnic.
And that’s a look at Fiesta 1941. Que Viva La Fiesta!
Thursday, October 6, 2011
1957 - Stealing Home
Like almost every 10-year old boy in Santa Fe in the summer of 1957, I was crazy about baseball.
I’d play every day, all day, until the dark sent me home. Each night, I would faithfully oil my fielder’s mitt and bind it tightly with a baseball inside to achieve the perfect pocket. I wore my baseball hat with a slight dent on the crown just like my hero, Mickey Mantle. I followed the Yankees in the papers and I never missed a game on TV. I was so baseball crazy that I actually kept an official score book for each game I saw. I was a true believer.
You know, there’s an Abbott and Costello routine where Lou says he’s a ballplayer but Abbott doesn’t believe it and says so. Lou says, “I eat baseball, I live baseball – all night when I’m asleep I dream about baseball." Abbott asks, “Don’t you ever dream about girls?” Costello is shocked: “What? And miss my turn at bat!” Well, that’s what I felt about baseball.
But it was my fate to be a mediocre player, more enthusiastic than talented, and thus eligible only for the “minors” in Little League. The minor leagues teams were typically sponsored not by well-known Santa Fe businesses like Creamland Dairy or Santa Fe Motor Company but by lesser-known entities like the Eagles Club or St. Ann’s Parish Church.
To be in the minors meant only a hat and T-shirt for uniforms. To be in the minors meant that I rarely played on the beautiful grass fields on what is now Salvador Perez Park, equipped with dugouts and real fences, even stands for the fans. And concession booths and paved parking. To be in the minors meant I played on the dirt fields, with a wire backstop and spotty base lines chalked on the dust. I didn’t really mind. I was happy just to be on the team.
At the time, I lived on Acres Estates, well down Airport Road. The “estates” amounted to a strip of dirt road, thinly lined by homes of miscellaneous architecture but otherwise surrounded by vacant land. Today, it’s a street called Jemez Road, it’s paved and my old house has been turned into a motor scooter sales shop.
Back then the players always included me, my brother Gene, Ray Lovato, Joe Burton and his brother Jimmy, Ronnie Mascarenas, Jimmy and Tommy Poehler, sometimes Ralph Anstey, Johnny Sandoval and Jimmy Hall. We made a baseball field on a good flat spot in the field next to Cosme Lovato’s house. Johnny Sandoval’s older brother used a tractor to scrape out a diamond for us. The bases were potato sacks filled with sand, which, after a while, became just potato sacks. But it worked just fine.
Before I go further, I feel obliged to introduce the history portion of today’s post. Hang on because it somehow ties in. Here’s the history:
In 1883, a prison was built near Santa Fe, intentionally far away from the town. But by the 1950’s, the City had grown and “The Pen” was surrounded by houses and shopping centers. Roughly, it occupied the northeast corner of the intersection of Cordova Road and St. Francis Drive, where the Joseph Montoya Building now stands. Over the years, Santa Feans had been subjected to only occasional scares over escaped prisoners and other trouble at the penitentiary but it all changed in 1952.
In 1952, prison guard named Filemon Ortiz was mysteriously murdered in a cellblock with 78 inmates all locked safely behind bars. Ortiz was the first guard to be killed in the pen’s 69-year history. After a bit of rigorous interrogation by State Police Captain A. B. Martinez, two inmates confessed to killing Ortiz in a failed escape attempt, Homer Lee Gossett, a lifer for murder, and Donald Maynard, in jail for escape.
While the Ortiz murder was still being investigated, an uprising took place at the Pen. A dozen State Penitentiary inmates surprised a guard, held him at knife point, and armed themselves with rifles and shotguns from the guard’s office. The inmates took over Cell Block Two and seized eight prison guards as hostages. Within an hour, 150 law enforcement officers surrounded the State Penitentiary and the siege began.
Inmate Claudis “Sonny Boy” Williamson, described by the newspaper as the Negro ringleader, demanded a car and the gates of the penitentiary to be opened. Sounds more like a comedy act than a plan, if you ask me. One car, twelve inmates – it would have been interesting to see that.
After 18 tense hours of negotiation with prison officials, the siege ended in a bargain. The hostages were released, shaken but unhurt. The inmates then surrendered on the promise they wouldn’t be put in the “hole.” The “hole” was a bare concrete cell under the prison next to the boilers. Apparently, inmates found it uncomfortable.
For nearly two days, the City had lived in fear and with some cause. A dozen desperate men, armed with rifles and shotguns, in the middle of the city. Interestingly, the inmates never used their weapons at all. One inmate caught some buckshot from a guard’s shotgun early in the action. And a New Mexico state trooper was accidentally shot by a Santa Fe City police officer. The injury was not serious but, damn, that had to be embarrassing.
The ensuing investigation into the uprising turned up corruption among prison officials and guards and credible allegations of sex perversions, wide open gambling and marijuana smoking among the convicts. Heads rolled, among them Warden Joseph Tondre who resigned rather than be fired.
Hardly had Santa Fe calmed down from the siege at the penitentiary when two convicts working at the State Pen’s dairy barn simply walked away from the grounds. Lloyd Wardwell, con artist, and Homer Glass, thief, found their way into Santa Fe where they cashed a worthless check, cheekily giving the prison warden as a reference. They then visited four bars, bought some new clothes and checked into La Fonda Hotel where they were finally apprehended, sitting comfortably in their suite, sipping fine bourbon. It was 23-year old Richard Montoya, a rookie on the city police force who got the tip and he, along with patrolman Felix Lujan and Hotel Detective Earl Fordham, made the arrests. It was not difficult; the two escapees were too drunk to resist or even make any coherent statements. The newspaper reported that Lloyd Wardwell managed to say “I’m a G-d- chump and I feel like one.”
1952 was a tough year for the State Penitentiary: murder, riot, corruption and a suite at La Fonda Hotel. The State Legislature met in 1953 and the decision was made to close down the old prison and build a new, modern prison about 15 miles south of town. This took some time and by 1957, only the outer walls of the old prison still stood, though badly crumbling. The large outer grounds of the Penitentiary had been cleared and the City of Santa was given permission to install badly needed Little League baseball fields.
These “prison” fields were the same dirt fields I played on as a “minor” in 1957. I spent many a summer day in the shadow of the old Penitentiary playing baseball or watching baseball. Idling between games one day, a few of us began exploring the prison walls and spotted a way in. As the smallest boy in the group, I was hoisted onto Joe Burton’s shoulders just high enough for me to scramble to the top of the wall. From my vantage point I could see the razed foundations of several buildings, some piles of lumber or debris and little else.
But directly below me, I recognized the familiar outline of a baseball diamond, long abandoned and shorn of bases and backstop. But there, still in its rightful place, was a home plate, a genuine official baseball home plate. I could almost swear it was glowing in the dusk.
When I reported the find, the same idea leaped into each of our baseball-fevered brains – we had to have that home plate. For the next game, we smuggled a length of rope and some miscellaneous tools into the equipment bag. We gathered at the break in the wall and I was once again hoisted onto the wall and, armed with a handful of tools, I shinnied down the rope to the prison baseball field.
Removing home plate was a bit of a puzzle. After digging around the plate, I found a thick metal pin protruding from the bottom of the plate, a pin which fit into a hollow anchor set into the ground with a bit of concrete. The pin and sleeve were held together with a thoroughly rusted cotter pin. After banging on the cotter pin for a while without success, I discovered the concrete crumbled with just a few hammer blows and within minutes, the plate was free.
I tied the plate to the rope and gave the rope three sharp tugs, the signal to haul away, and home plate quickly disappeared over the wall. It seemed a very long while before the rope reappeared and I had a lengthy opportunity to ponder the high surrounding walls. So this is what it was like to be in prison, I remember thinking. When the rope came within reach, I climbed up as quickly as I could and escaped from the old Penitentiary.
The next day, our new home plate was ceremoniously installed in our own neighborhood baseball field and it became a point of pride that our field, shabby as it was, sported an official major league home plate.
Our family moved away from Acres Estates to Sombrio Street in 1959 and I never went back to our old field and I have no idea whatever happened to our prized home plate. My Little League career was not particularly noteworthy and I ended it where I started it – in the minors. But Ray Lovato, Joe Burton and my brother Gene – made the majors on their first try and were named all-stars three years in a row.
I like to think that the penitentiary home plate had something to do with it.
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