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.
Tuesday, December 13, 2011
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.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)