Roaming Southern New Mexico (Book) - 10/30/2003 1:58:33 PM
Review by Dawn Johnson
Roaming Southern New Mexico, a new book by author Phyllis Eileen Banks, will appeal to armchair travelers and back-roads ramblers alike. Reading this delightful book is like hitchhiking with the author and her husband as they roam the roads less traveled in the lower half of the Land of Enchantment.
Off the major interstates we find charming small towns and cities with histories that date from the distant past to early last century. Man has left his mark on this amazing terrain-from the Sandia Man (25,000 BC), the Clovis man of the Pleistocene, to Native American communities, explorers, conquerors, and settlers.
As we roam, we learn the impact of ranching (ostriches anyone?), mining, the ebb & decline of oil, the role of railroads, the postal service, and the military on the birth and sometimes deaths of these communities.
We discover why J. J. Hoag’s son exhumed residents of an old cemetery in 1910 – 16 years after his father’s death, where Smoke Bear was born, the site of New Mexico’s oldest zoo. State parks abound as well as recreation areas, sports, arts & crafts, theater, museums, music, even the paranormal.
Gustatory delights abound. Try Pepper Lovers Heaven or the Nutcracker Suite (pecans), the Red Hen Café and the Velvet Garter.
Southern New Mexico has been called home by heroes and antiheroes like John Chisum, Geronimo, Billy the Kid, Butch Cassidy, General “Black Jack” Pershing, R. H. Goddard, and Elfego Baca-reputed to have 9 lives and was wanted ‘dead or alive’ by Pancho Villa.
Be sure to check your calendars to include the festivals in the areas you visit. They include Peanut Valley Festival, Leap Year Festival, Mescalero Coming of Age Ceremony, Lea County Fair & Rodeo, Old Lincoln Days, and the World’s Richest Tombstone Race.
Thinking of retiring to Southern New Mexico. You will be welcomed. You will also be able to choose a new address from such whimsical towns as Mogollon, Luna, Shakespeare, Elephant Butte, Pie Town, Animas, Yeso, Pep, Bent, Weed, Hope, Lingo and Loving.
Ms. Banks has written a well organized and referenced guide. An appendix of delightful short vignettes of the area written by the author for other publications completes our tour of Southern New Mexico.
“Museums are history lessons for those who have lived through that history and those who are too young to have experienced it. When you see how our ancestors lived it doesn’t give credence to the term “the good old days. It is however, a window through which we can view the past.”
As the back of the cover queries, “Aren’t you intrigued?”
- Dawn Johnson, St. Petersburg, Florida
Roaming Southern New Mexico (Book) - 10/14/2003 4:32:39 PM
These comments from a friend who purchased my book "Roaming Southern New Mexico" - "Take a bow, I am impressed. I may never completely read it, but will put it in the MH (motor home) for future reference. I couldn't put it down and read about several towns that are so well known and others I had never heard of. If I am ever in Alamogordo I sure will look for the Hurd Fresco and My House of Old Things - it's our kind of thing. In its day the WPA was the brunt of lots of jokes and derision but boy did they build stuff that has stood the test of time. I delight in seeing those that remain. I think it is wonderful that you included those pages...Your book is mostly about history so the only thing that will cause changes will be the growth of towns, much of which people would rather not see. I think you have a winner!!"
