Real time

Andre Baca took this phone shot of his uncle, my old friend Lawrence Aragon, and I at the Spur tonight, an hour ago.

My Bar

A very nice quote from Matt Mullenix on the Golden Spur: “A man’s watering hole is sacred. There should be some international treaty to protect places like that. “ I had been here five or six years when this 1985 photo was taken for the Albuquerque Journal.

Two old (or old- fashioned) naturalists, and new photo series

Two old farts in the bar courtyard. John Wilson is an old style bug catching (or photographing) “stamp collector” naturalist like me, an Ohioan who retired from an Audubon sanctuary there to a remote homestead in the Mags– somebody I can talk bugs, birds, and taxonomy with! Luckily he likes beer too. I am starting …

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Viejo

James “Viejo” Trujillo is one of my best and oldest friends here (relatively- despite his nickname, given because he was gray- haired at 21, he is a decade younger than me). He is a horseman above all, a cowboy, and a farrier, a man who never spent much time indoors. Now he is laid up …

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St Patrick’s at the Spur

Cowboy-Spanish St Paddy’s at the bar, with Montana’s excellent band “86’d Again”(thank God Linda at least did not have a green beard.) From top: Montana Pettis and Luke Martin (hat); Mary Jean Zamora Rains and Catherine Aragon tend bar; Chelsea Armstrong takes video as Bobby (Bad Dog) Contreras, owner Darryl Pettis (Montana’s father) and ranch …

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