By S. Derrickson Moore
dmoore@lcsun-news.com
LAS CRUCES — What does your dad want this Father’s Day?
I keep thinking of a wag’s twist on Sigmund Freud’s immoral query, “What does a woman want?”
Freud called it “The great question that has never been answered, and which I have not yet been able to answer, despite my 30 years of research into the feminine soul.”
A contemporary answer attributed to several sources is that women want the same thing as men, but in prettier colors.
And I’m pretty sure that what most good dads want is the same thing that most good moms want: happy, healthy kids.
That’s why the best thing you can give most dads today is some feedback on the ways they’ve made their kids happy.
According to the National Research Foundation’s 2010 Father’s Day Consumer Intentions and Actions Survey, conducted by BIGresearch, Father’s Day spending is expected to reach $9.8 billion and the average person will spend $94.32 on dad this year, up from $90.89 in 2009. More than 36 percent plan to spend a total of $1.3 billion on clothes. Others will spend $1.2 billion on electronics, $749 million on greeting cards, $578 million on tools or appliances, $550 million on home improvement or gardening tools and $400 million on automotive accessories. About a third of you will give up on the search for the perfect gift and shell out an estimated $1.2 billion for gift cards.
But you don’t have to. If you’re broke, and want something dad will really treasure, get creative.
Do something that will conjure memories of your happiest times together.
Make a card yourself. Write a poem or a song as an ode to Dad.
Make a little album with your favorite photos.
Do a top 10 list of your best times together.
Get together with your siblings and fill a blank diary with several pages of short memories: a vacation, a fishing trip, something he taught you, something you built together, a favorite holiday, a meal you made together …
And by the way, dads usually don’t stand on ceremony, when it come to the mushy, wonderful stuff. If you don’t quite finish your project or you aren’t quite satisfied with it, give it to him anyway, or let him know it’s coming.
If you can’t be together today, give him a call (no texting or e-mails today — dad needs to hear your voice) and tell him you love him.
It will make most dads happy to spend some time with their kids. If that’s not possible, do your best to make plans for a reunion soon.
The NRF survey found 39.9 percent of those celebrating dad this year will treat him to a special outing such as dinner or brunch, spending a collective $1.9 billion.
But again, some of the most dad-pleasing gatherings can be free, or almost. Plan a camping weekend. Put together a picnic or barbecue. Share a sandwich and a hike or a drive.
If you’re looking for an unusual treat for dad, consider a trip to Fort Selden Father’s Day celebration from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. today. Enjoy a campfire breakfast with biscuits and eggs cooked on a stick. Fort Selden State Monument is located in Radium Springs. Take Interstate 25 to exit 19, 13 miles north of Las Cruces. Admission is free for all dads, and for all New Mexico residents on Sunday. For information, call (575) 526-8911.
Happy Father’s Day!
S. Derrickson Moore can be reached at dmoore@lcsun-news.com; (575) 541-5450. To share comments, go to lcsun-news.com and click on Blogzone and Las Cruces Style.
Thursday, June 17, 2010
Thursday, June 10, 2010
Lamentations for the Gulf
A lament for the Gulf
By S. Derrickson Moore
dmoore@lcsun-news.com
LAS CRUCES — I watched the satellite photos of the Gulf, and the oddly reddish patterns of gushing oil, and thought of lines from “The Second Coming,” the W.B. Yeats’ poem: “Things fall apart; the center cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, The blood-dimmed tide is loosed …”
And I thought of the changes I have seen in my lifetime, growing up in a world addicted to oil.
I was a small child, swimming in a sparkling, spring-fed lake, near my grandparents’ waterfront cabin in Northern Michigan.
The sky and the water were a bright June blue. I floated contentedly for a while, then began a slow swim to shore — and swallowed a mouthful of gasoline.
A little marina had just opened nearby and boaters were careless with gas fill-ups for their outboard motors.
On a hot, humid June day, about 16 years ago, I was feeling happy about returning to New Mexico, and mostly glad to be leaving just about everything but a few loved ones and a big ocean in Southern Florida.
I decided to take a nostalgic last walk on one of my favorite beaches on the Atlantic coast.
I packed up some gear: water, beach towel, sunscreen. And baby oil and a soft, old cloth to remove the “beach tar” that had been part of every walk on every beach during my last seven years in Florida.
That was nearly two decades before the great 2010 oil disaster, and the beach tar was already a part of everyday life.
This week, I found myself reminiscing about the late, great, decades of the 20th century, when one could still walk an ocean beach and come home with bare feet that were shining clean and lightly pumiced … a natural pedicure, before we sullied Mother Nature’s beauty salon.
I’ve lived most of my life near large bodies of water. I grew up on the shores of Lake Michigan, and spent summers swimming, canoeing, sailing and kayaking on rivers and lakes both great and small. By the time my son was old enough to join me, fishing licenses carried warnings about industrial pollution.
My next home, in the Pacific Northwest, seemed to be a refreshing change from the downhill spiral into pollution. Progressive Oregon worked hard to clean up the mighty Willamette that ran through the heart of Portland, the state’s largest urban area, and established auto emission regulations, bottle return bills and other helpful measures.
But family members send reports that even that once-pristine area has suffered from chemical spills, medical waste and other ravages.
When I miss large bodies of water in my desert home, I’ve taken comfort in mountain vistas of large expanses of desert, not unlike the oceans and Great Lakes, I’ve thought, unpolluted by petroleum.
But there is no real refuge. On isolated mountain tops and remote deserts, I’ve been tortured by the noise and lungs full of exhaust, generated by ATVers.
I’ve mourned with friends over sites where thoughtless souls have dumped their oil on the banks of the already overburdened Rio Grande, killing fragile plants, fish and animals.
I just heard from my eloquent friend John Flannery of Truth or Consequences, an internationally renowned photographer whose work for National Geographic includes some of the most beautiful earth aerial photos I’ve ever seen.
“From a few of the aerials I’ve chanced on watching TV, the vastness of that unprepared for, ongoing disaster has created The American Dead Sea. BP is henceforth in my feeble mind a corporate serial murderer. Even after they ‘clean up every drop,’ they will have ruined countless lives, some unborn, some never to be born, and slammed open a Pandora’s box of a completely different sort. An aquatic and shoreline Buchenwald,” John laments.
Now, I’m holding vigil with my sister Sally, a retired Florida journalist who has worked with bird and marine mammal wildlife rescue organizations. We brace for revelations of new crimson tides and ponder what to do.
She recently visited Alaska’s Prince William Sound and found the area still has not fully recovered, more than two decades after the Exxon Valdez spill. We wonder how, or if, today’s greater assaults can be weathered in the more fragile Gulf Coast estuaries and the Florida Everglades.
And I think of poets and angels and the closing chapter in the New Testament, all warning of blood red tides, when the seas and their creatures died.
S. Derrickson Moore can be reached at dmoore@lcsun-news.com; (575) 541-5450. To share comments, go to lcsun-news.com and click on Blogzone and Las Cruces Style.
By S. Derrickson Moore
dmoore@lcsun-news.com
LAS CRUCES — I watched the satellite photos of the Gulf, and the oddly reddish patterns of gushing oil, and thought of lines from “The Second Coming,” the W.B. Yeats’ poem: “Things fall apart; the center cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, The blood-dimmed tide is loosed …”
And I thought of the changes I have seen in my lifetime, growing up in a world addicted to oil.
I was a small child, swimming in a sparkling, spring-fed lake, near my grandparents’ waterfront cabin in Northern Michigan.
The sky and the water were a bright June blue. I floated contentedly for a while, then began a slow swim to shore — and swallowed a mouthful of gasoline.
A little marina had just opened nearby and boaters were careless with gas fill-ups for their outboard motors.
On a hot, humid June day, about 16 years ago, I was feeling happy about returning to New Mexico, and mostly glad to be leaving just about everything but a few loved ones and a big ocean in Southern Florida.
I decided to take a nostalgic last walk on one of my favorite beaches on the Atlantic coast.
I packed up some gear: water, beach towel, sunscreen. And baby oil and a soft, old cloth to remove the “beach tar” that had been part of every walk on every beach during my last seven years in Florida.
That was nearly two decades before the great 2010 oil disaster, and the beach tar was already a part of everyday life.
This week, I found myself reminiscing about the late, great, decades of the 20th century, when one could still walk an ocean beach and come home with bare feet that were shining clean and lightly pumiced … a natural pedicure, before we sullied Mother Nature’s beauty salon.
I’ve lived most of my life near large bodies of water. I grew up on the shores of Lake Michigan, and spent summers swimming, canoeing, sailing and kayaking on rivers and lakes both great and small. By the time my son was old enough to join me, fishing licenses carried warnings about industrial pollution.
My next home, in the Pacific Northwest, seemed to be a refreshing change from the downhill spiral into pollution. Progressive Oregon worked hard to clean up the mighty Willamette that ran through the heart of Portland, the state’s largest urban area, and established auto emission regulations, bottle return bills and other helpful measures.
But family members send reports that even that once-pristine area has suffered from chemical spills, medical waste and other ravages.
When I miss large bodies of water in my desert home, I’ve taken comfort in mountain vistas of large expanses of desert, not unlike the oceans and Great Lakes, I’ve thought, unpolluted by petroleum.
But there is no real refuge. On isolated mountain tops and remote deserts, I’ve been tortured by the noise and lungs full of exhaust, generated by ATVers.
I’ve mourned with friends over sites where thoughtless souls have dumped their oil on the banks of the already overburdened Rio Grande, killing fragile plants, fish and animals.
I just heard from my eloquent friend John Flannery of Truth or Consequences, an internationally renowned photographer whose work for National Geographic includes some of the most beautiful earth aerial photos I’ve ever seen.
“From a few of the aerials I’ve chanced on watching TV, the vastness of that unprepared for, ongoing disaster has created The American Dead Sea. BP is henceforth in my feeble mind a corporate serial murderer. Even after they ‘clean up every drop,’ they will have ruined countless lives, some unborn, some never to be born, and slammed open a Pandora’s box of a completely different sort. An aquatic and shoreline Buchenwald,” John laments.
Now, I’m holding vigil with my sister Sally, a retired Florida journalist who has worked with bird and marine mammal wildlife rescue organizations. We brace for revelations of new crimson tides and ponder what to do.
She recently visited Alaska’s Prince William Sound and found the area still has not fully recovered, more than two decades after the Exxon Valdez spill. We wonder how, or if, today’s greater assaults can be weathered in the more fragile Gulf Coast estuaries and the Florida Everglades.
And I think of poets and angels and the closing chapter in the New Testament, all warning of blood red tides, when the seas and their creatures died.
S. Derrickson Moore can be reached at dmoore@lcsun-news.com; (575) 541-5450. To share comments, go to lcsun-news.com and click on Blogzone and Las Cruces Style.
Thursday, June 3, 2010
More uplifting adventures
By S. Derrickson Moore
dmoore@lcsun-news.com
LAS CRUCES — You have some intriguing tales to tell about downtown elevators, that range from possible hauntings to a Don Knotts 1950s movie line that had Las Cruces audiences rolling in the aisles.
In a recent Las Cruces Style column, I wrote about my uplifting travels in Downtown Mall elevators with grandson Alexander the Great in his formative childhood years, and many of you wrote, called and e-mailed to share your own elevator adventures.
“I read with interest your piece about elevators and our city's ‘rise.’ I suppose the new ones are indicative of progress of our town. One that your grandson most likely missed out on is the elevator in the Rio Grande Theatre. It wasn't part of the original building, but it has existed since the renovation completed five years ago,” said Doña Ana Arts Council president Kathleen Squires.
“If Alexander the Great had the opportunity to ride up in the RGT elevator, he surely would have been terribly bored … and chosen the stairs down. A one-story elevator, it is sweet, but very slow,” Squires said.
In fact, Heather Pollard, DAAC founder and past director, as well as a guiding force in downtown revitalization and the restoration of the Rio Grande Theatre, nominated what’s alleged to be the nation’s oldest adobe theater for another honor: “slowest elevator in the state.”
We should note that others nominated the Las Cruces Museum of Art and Branigan Library elevators for “slowest” accolades.
But Pollard has some powerful evidence, including a slow rider endurance feat by DAAC executive director Larry Broxton.
“The elevator has also gotten stuck, most notably locking in Larry for some 20 minutes,” Pollard said.
“The elevator is also said to be inhabited by a ghost — sometimes it goes up and down when no human person pushes the button,” reports Pollard, who is something of an expert on the history of elevators in the City of Crosses. “I remember when the Corbett Center and the Papen building were IT.”
The lack of elevators here inspired some very amused reactions from Las Cruces movie audiences in the 1950s.
Musician and songwriter Bob Burns of Las Cruces called to share a Las Cruces elevator story related to the 1958 movie “No Time for Sergeants,” starring Andy Griffith as U.S. Air Force draftee Pvt. Will Stockdale and his later-to-be-famed TV Mayberry deputy Don Knotts, who portrayed Cpl. John C. “Dexterity” Brown in the film.
“It shows them being inducted (into the Air Force) and they’re standing there in their skivvies, and they’re going around giving their names and telling what they did in civilian life. When it came to Don Knotts’ (character), he gives his name and says ‘I was an elevator operator in Las Cruces, New Mexico.’ Of course, nobody around the country knew to laugh, because at that time, there were no elevators in Las Cruces,” Burns said.
I also heard from a longtime Las Crucen who said he remembered helping to build some kind of a “lift” or elevator device while he was in college, at the old Newman’s Hardware Store on the Downtown Mall. I’ve talked to several natives, but have been unable to pinpoint exactly where it was: The consensus is that was in the same block where the Music Box is today, on the other side of the street.
Maybe we should all collaborate on an uplifting book, “A History of Las Cruces Downtown Mall Elevators.”
Actually, I hope it will remain a short history. I can’t help sympathizing with a Sound Off! caller who feels, “We should not be proud of the fact that we are starting to need elevators. One of the charming and wonderful things about Las Cruces was always how nice and low to the ground everything was. How we just blended in and nestled in our little Mesilla Valley. That is one of the things that made it unique. Elevators — who needs them? Who needs buildings that tall? We don’t.”
During daily commutes, when my views of the Organs are obscured, however briefly, by our new governmental buildings, I realize I’d gladly trade every elevator in town to preserve our low, slow way of life a little longer.
S. Derrickson Moore can be reached at (575) 541-5450
dmoore@lcsun-news.com
LAS CRUCES — You have some intriguing tales to tell about downtown elevators, that range from possible hauntings to a Don Knotts 1950s movie line that had Las Cruces audiences rolling in the aisles.
In a recent Las Cruces Style column, I wrote about my uplifting travels in Downtown Mall elevators with grandson Alexander the Great in his formative childhood years, and many of you wrote, called and e-mailed to share your own elevator adventures.
“I read with interest your piece about elevators and our city's ‘rise.’ I suppose the new ones are indicative of progress of our town. One that your grandson most likely missed out on is the elevator in the Rio Grande Theatre. It wasn't part of the original building, but it has existed since the renovation completed five years ago,” said Doña Ana Arts Council president Kathleen Squires.
“If Alexander the Great had the opportunity to ride up in the RGT elevator, he surely would have been terribly bored … and chosen the stairs down. A one-story elevator, it is sweet, but very slow,” Squires said.
In fact, Heather Pollard, DAAC founder and past director, as well as a guiding force in downtown revitalization and the restoration of the Rio Grande Theatre, nominated what’s alleged to be the nation’s oldest adobe theater for another honor: “slowest elevator in the state.”
We should note that others nominated the Las Cruces Museum of Art and Branigan Library elevators for “slowest” accolades.
But Pollard has some powerful evidence, including a slow rider endurance feat by DAAC executive director Larry Broxton.
“The elevator has also gotten stuck, most notably locking in Larry for some 20 minutes,” Pollard said.
“The elevator is also said to be inhabited by a ghost — sometimes it goes up and down when no human person pushes the button,” reports Pollard, who is something of an expert on the history of elevators in the City of Crosses. “I remember when the Corbett Center and the Papen building were IT.”
The lack of elevators here inspired some very amused reactions from Las Cruces movie audiences in the 1950s.
Musician and songwriter Bob Burns of Las Cruces called to share a Las Cruces elevator story related to the 1958 movie “No Time for Sergeants,” starring Andy Griffith as U.S. Air Force draftee Pvt. Will Stockdale and his later-to-be-famed TV Mayberry deputy Don Knotts, who portrayed Cpl. John C. “Dexterity” Brown in the film.
“It shows them being inducted (into the Air Force) and they’re standing there in their skivvies, and they’re going around giving their names and telling what they did in civilian life. When it came to Don Knotts’ (character), he gives his name and says ‘I was an elevator operator in Las Cruces, New Mexico.’ Of course, nobody around the country knew to laugh, because at that time, there were no elevators in Las Cruces,” Burns said.
I also heard from a longtime Las Crucen who said he remembered helping to build some kind of a “lift” or elevator device while he was in college, at the old Newman’s Hardware Store on the Downtown Mall. I’ve talked to several natives, but have been unable to pinpoint exactly where it was: The consensus is that was in the same block where the Music Box is today, on the other side of the street.
Maybe we should all collaborate on an uplifting book, “A History of Las Cruces Downtown Mall Elevators.”
Actually, I hope it will remain a short history. I can’t help sympathizing with a Sound Off! caller who feels, “We should not be proud of the fact that we are starting to need elevators. One of the charming and wonderful things about Las Cruces was always how nice and low to the ground everything was. How we just blended in and nestled in our little Mesilla Valley. That is one of the things that made it unique. Elevators — who needs them? Who needs buildings that tall? We don’t.”
During daily commutes, when my views of the Organs are obscured, however briefly, by our new governmental buildings, I realize I’d gladly trade every elevator in town to preserve our low, slow way of life a little longer.
S. Derrickson Moore can be reached at (575) 541-5450
Friday, May 28, 2010
Living Memorials
By S. Derrickson Moore
dmoore@lcsun-news.com
LAS CRUCES — This Memorial Day, I’ve been thinking about some of the artists and community leaders who will leave legacies that should be around to delight and enlighten future generations.
Anyone who writes a book, a poem, a play or a movie, who paints, sculpts or creates anything that can be preserved, has a shot at immortality.
Even the more ephemeral arts, like music and dance performances, will live on in memory.
As Oscar Butler, 93, talked to me about his farewell concert with the New Horizons Symphony Orchestra, I thought about what a lovely tribute it was to his late wife, Virginia Holman Butler, who died in April.
“She was a beautiful singer,” Oscar said of his wife of 70 years.
The concert will be a treasured experience for all who heard it, along with his visiting friends and family members and three of the couple’s children who played in the orchestra.
Oscar Butler’s story is really the history of much of our musical heritage and I couldn’t help nagging him to write his memoirs. He was part of a team at New Mexico State University that nurtured a choral department and later a symphony orchestra that produces some world-class performances and talents, continuing milagros, especially for a city our size.
Maybe it’s something in the water. Las Cruces seems to produce extraordinary souls who remain creative throughout long lives, well into their seventh, eighth, ninth, even 10th decades.
I think of people like Jackie Clark, who last year, at age 86, finished a two-year project designing and making 20 stained glass windows for Mesilla Valley Hospice Chapel.
It’s a wonderful memorial to the creative life here in high desert country, and a fitting tribute to Hospice programs, which offer loving, compassionate and sometimes even artistic ways to transition to the next realm.
In recent years, some of our most creative citizens and their families have collaborated to preserve capsules of our culture, our way of life and collections of our creativity.
Two of my all-time favorite adobe homes and compounds will someday become places that my grandchildren, great-grandchildren and even great-great-great grandkids can visit and enjoy as much as I have.
Educator and long-time state Rep. J. Paul Taylor and his late wife, Mary, a talented photographer and historian, left their beautiful and historic Mesilla Plaza adobe home and a remarkable collection of art and artifacts to the Museum of New Mexico system, which will maintain the home as a museum after J. Paul’s death. The place where the couple raised their seven children will be known as the Taylor-Barela-Reynolds-Mesilla State Monument.
And last year, Dr. Kent Jacobs and Sallie Ritter announced that, upon their deaths, their art collection and their 6,500-square-foot adobe house south of Las Cruces will be donated to the Museum of New Mexico to become a branch museum known as the New Mexico Museum of Art Jacobs-Ritter Compound.
Ritter, an internationally renowned artist and her husband, a retired physician who now writes novels and mysteries, said they wanted to help bring art and major exhibits south of Albuquerque, so there will be a memorial that not only preserves and celebrates the past, but also nurtures, inspires and showcases artists of the future.
This month, the Museum of New Mexico Regents came to Las Cruces to meet and visit both the Taylor home in Mesilla and the Jacobs/Ritter home in Las Cruces.
In the rose gardens of the Jacobs-Ritter home that will one day be an art museum, the regents’ president, Karen Durkovich of Santa Fe, acknowledged the treasures that both regional couples will bequeath for future generations.
It seemed like a perfect way to celebrate Memorial Day.
S. Derrickson Moore can be reached at (575) 541-5450. To share comments, go to www.lcsun-news.com and click on Blogzone and Las Cruces Style.
dmoore@lcsun-news.com
LAS CRUCES — This Memorial Day, I’ve been thinking about some of the artists and community leaders who will leave legacies that should be around to delight and enlighten future generations.
Anyone who writes a book, a poem, a play or a movie, who paints, sculpts or creates anything that can be preserved, has a shot at immortality.
Even the more ephemeral arts, like music and dance performances, will live on in memory.
As Oscar Butler, 93, talked to me about his farewell concert with the New Horizons Symphony Orchestra, I thought about what a lovely tribute it was to his late wife, Virginia Holman Butler, who died in April.
“She was a beautiful singer,” Oscar said of his wife of 70 years.
The concert will be a treasured experience for all who heard it, along with his visiting friends and family members and three of the couple’s children who played in the orchestra.
Oscar Butler’s story is really the history of much of our musical heritage and I couldn’t help nagging him to write his memoirs. He was part of a team at New Mexico State University that nurtured a choral department and later a symphony orchestra that produces some world-class performances and talents, continuing milagros, especially for a city our size.
Maybe it’s something in the water. Las Cruces seems to produce extraordinary souls who remain creative throughout long lives, well into their seventh, eighth, ninth, even 10th decades.
I think of people like Jackie Clark, who last year, at age 86, finished a two-year project designing and making 20 stained glass windows for Mesilla Valley Hospice Chapel.
It’s a wonderful memorial to the creative life here in high desert country, and a fitting tribute to Hospice programs, which offer loving, compassionate and sometimes even artistic ways to transition to the next realm.
In recent years, some of our most creative citizens and their families have collaborated to preserve capsules of our culture, our way of life and collections of our creativity.
Two of my all-time favorite adobe homes and compounds will someday become places that my grandchildren, great-grandchildren and even great-great-great grandkids can visit and enjoy as much as I have.
Educator and long-time state Rep. J. Paul Taylor and his late wife, Mary, a talented photographer and historian, left their beautiful and historic Mesilla Plaza adobe home and a remarkable collection of art and artifacts to the Museum of New Mexico system, which will maintain the home as a museum after J. Paul’s death. The place where the couple raised their seven children will be known as the Taylor-Barela-Reynolds-Mesilla State Monument.
And last year, Dr. Kent Jacobs and Sallie Ritter announced that, upon their deaths, their art collection and their 6,500-square-foot adobe house south of Las Cruces will be donated to the Museum of New Mexico to become a branch museum known as the New Mexico Museum of Art Jacobs-Ritter Compound.
Ritter, an internationally renowned artist and her husband, a retired physician who now writes novels and mysteries, said they wanted to help bring art and major exhibits south of Albuquerque, so there will be a memorial that not only preserves and celebrates the past, but also nurtures, inspires and showcases artists of the future.
This month, the Museum of New Mexico Regents came to Las Cruces to meet and visit both the Taylor home in Mesilla and the Jacobs/Ritter home in Las Cruces.
In the rose gardens of the Jacobs-Ritter home that will one day be an art museum, the regents’ president, Karen Durkovich of Santa Fe, acknowledged the treasures that both regional couples will bequeath for future generations.
It seemed like a perfect way to celebrate Memorial Day.
S. Derrickson Moore can be reached at (575) 541-5450. To share comments, go to www.lcsun-news.com and click on Blogzone and Las Cruces Style.
A challenge to reconcile
By S. Derrickson Moore
dmoore@lcsun-news.com
LAS CRUCES — This Memorial Day, Charles “Chuck” Miles is harboring no hard feelings for those who shot at him when he was a teen soldier in the last days of World War II. In fact, he has just presented a plaque that has a place of honor in the Möckmühl, Germany, cemetery where he and his fellow soldiers took refuge on April 7, 1945.
It’s the latest development in a story of forgiveness and synchronicity that stretches back through more than six decades of world history.
Miles, 84, also coauthored the 2002 book “Once Enemies, Now Friends,” which tells the story of two young World War II soldiers (Miles and German native Felix Pfaeffle) who met as friends and neighbors in Las Cruces and realized that long ago, they had been shooting at each other in a remote rural area of Germany. The book was translated into German and Miles and others have since toured Germany and France together, making friends, signing books and sharing stories with history buffs.
A plaque, dedicated in German and English “in memory of the America and German soldiers and civilians who died during the last days of the Second World War in Möckmühl” was presented in April 10 ceremonies by Wolfgang Schlauch of Mesilla Park on behalf of Miles, whose health prevented him from making the trip to Germany himself.
Historical plaques are important to Miles, a retired textile manufacturer and lifelong history buff. During his 20 years in Las Cruces, he has headed the Doña Ana County Historical Society and has personally donated five plaques in honor of local historical events and figures, now featured at sites from the Branigan Library to Las Cruces City Hall and Veterans Memorial Park.
“It’s my way of giving back to the community I love,” he said.
He figured a plaque would also be a fitting act of closure marking the 65th anniversary of a war that is still vivid in his memory.
“On the morning of April 5, 1945, a company of American soldiers of the 63rd Infantry Division moved through Rogheim, Germany, meeting little resistance,” he said. “We hoped our luck would continue, but it was not to be.”
As squad leader that day, Miles was the first American soldier to enter the village of Möckmühl.
“We charged through an orchard into the town cemetery. Then bitter house-to-house fighting followed as we battled their way through the town on to our next objective.”
On April 20, 1945, he was wounded, he said.
He dismissed it as “just a flesh wound,” rubbing the scar he still carries on his neck.
It’s clear that he’d rather talk about the recent friendships he’s made in Germany.
His personal post-war détente campaign started when Doña Ana Community College history professor Donna Eichstaedt invited Miles and Pfaeffle to speak to her history class.
“They’d never met, but discovered in the class that they were neighbors in Las Cruces and once had been within two miles of each other in Germany in 1945, two teenage soldiers on opposite sides, shooting at one another,” said Eichstaedt.
“Miles never forgot that cemetery or the town of Möckmühl and after writing a book about his war experiences in 2002, he was invited by the local historical society for a visit. Wolfgang Schlauch, Chuck Miles, Felix Pfaeffle, my husband Carl Eichstaedt and I traveled to Germany in 2002 and visited many of the villages where Chuck and his 63rd Infantry Division had fought. We were treated royally and gave talks and met a few German veterans,” she said.
“I developed some warm friendships with the people of Möckmühl, especially village historian Dr. Karl-Heinrich Kraft, who later visited me here in Las Cruces,” Miles said.
He learned their historical society was contemplating a plaque to commemorate the Battle of Möckmühl and the end of World War II by remembering those — both Americans and Germans — who lost their lives.
“With input from Möckmühl Mayor Ulrich Stammer, Dr. Kraft and Professor Schlauch, Miles decided to have a plaque made for the wall of honor in the village cemetery — the same cemetery he found himself in on that fateful day in 1945,” Eichstaedt said.
“I had the plaque made by Trophy County in Las Cruces and on April 10, my good friend Wolfgang (Schlauch) traveled to Möckmühl and presented it to the mayor and citizens of the town,” Miles said.
“There were about 50 people there from the town and the reaction was very positive. It was a very somber presentation. There were some old people there who remembered the very dark days of World War II. They thought it was a very generous gesture of Charles Miles, commemorating the war and also a way to think of peace that would hopefully last,” said Schlauch, 75, an Eastern Illinois University professor emeritus of history who now makes his home in Mesilla Park.
Schlauch, now an American citizen who has lived in the U.S. for 45 years, was born in the German village of Bachlingen.
“Chuck was shot just a few miles from my village. I was about 9 then,” said Schlauch, who has surprisingly fond memories of the post-war American occupation forces.
“I loved the American soldiers. I remember the first soldiers we met were black and they were very kind to the children. They gave us chocolate and we spent whole days with them.”
Schlauch brought back photos, newspaper articles and a special message to Miles from Möckmühl’s Mayor Ulrich Stammer.
“All citizens here in Möckmühl have enclosed him in their hearts. When former enemies reconcile and send such a signal, this then means something very special. This should be a challenge to all of us to constantly search for reconciliation,” Stammer said.
S. Derrickson Moore can be reached at (575) 541-5450
dmoore@lcsun-news.com
LAS CRUCES — This Memorial Day, Charles “Chuck” Miles is harboring no hard feelings for those who shot at him when he was a teen soldier in the last days of World War II. In fact, he has just presented a plaque that has a place of honor in the Möckmühl, Germany, cemetery where he and his fellow soldiers took refuge on April 7, 1945.
It’s the latest development in a story of forgiveness and synchronicity that stretches back through more than six decades of world history.
Miles, 84, also coauthored the 2002 book “Once Enemies, Now Friends,” which tells the story of two young World War II soldiers (Miles and German native Felix Pfaeffle) who met as friends and neighbors in Las Cruces and realized that long ago, they had been shooting at each other in a remote rural area of Germany. The book was translated into German and Miles and others have since toured Germany and France together, making friends, signing books and sharing stories with history buffs.
A plaque, dedicated in German and English “in memory of the America and German soldiers and civilians who died during the last days of the Second World War in Möckmühl” was presented in April 10 ceremonies by Wolfgang Schlauch of Mesilla Park on behalf of Miles, whose health prevented him from making the trip to Germany himself.
Historical plaques are important to Miles, a retired textile manufacturer and lifelong history buff. During his 20 years in Las Cruces, he has headed the Doña Ana County Historical Society and has personally donated five plaques in honor of local historical events and figures, now featured at sites from the Branigan Library to Las Cruces City Hall and Veterans Memorial Park.
“It’s my way of giving back to the community I love,” he said.
He figured a plaque would also be a fitting act of closure marking the 65th anniversary of a war that is still vivid in his memory.
“On the morning of April 5, 1945, a company of American soldiers of the 63rd Infantry Division moved through Rogheim, Germany, meeting little resistance,” he said. “We hoped our luck would continue, but it was not to be.”
As squad leader that day, Miles was the first American soldier to enter the village of Möckmühl.
“We charged through an orchard into the town cemetery. Then bitter house-to-house fighting followed as we battled their way through the town on to our next objective.”
On April 20, 1945, he was wounded, he said.
He dismissed it as “just a flesh wound,” rubbing the scar he still carries on his neck.
It’s clear that he’d rather talk about the recent friendships he’s made in Germany.
His personal post-war détente campaign started when Doña Ana Community College history professor Donna Eichstaedt invited Miles and Pfaeffle to speak to her history class.
“They’d never met, but discovered in the class that they were neighbors in Las Cruces and once had been within two miles of each other in Germany in 1945, two teenage soldiers on opposite sides, shooting at one another,” said Eichstaedt.
“Miles never forgot that cemetery or the town of Möckmühl and after writing a book about his war experiences in 2002, he was invited by the local historical society for a visit. Wolfgang Schlauch, Chuck Miles, Felix Pfaeffle, my husband Carl Eichstaedt and I traveled to Germany in 2002 and visited many of the villages where Chuck and his 63rd Infantry Division had fought. We were treated royally and gave talks and met a few German veterans,” she said.
“I developed some warm friendships with the people of Möckmühl, especially village historian Dr. Karl-Heinrich Kraft, who later visited me here in Las Cruces,” Miles said.
He learned their historical society was contemplating a plaque to commemorate the Battle of Möckmühl and the end of World War II by remembering those — both Americans and Germans — who lost their lives.
“With input from Möckmühl Mayor Ulrich Stammer, Dr. Kraft and Professor Schlauch, Miles decided to have a plaque made for the wall of honor in the village cemetery — the same cemetery he found himself in on that fateful day in 1945,” Eichstaedt said.
“I had the plaque made by Trophy County in Las Cruces and on April 10, my good friend Wolfgang (Schlauch) traveled to Möckmühl and presented it to the mayor and citizens of the town,” Miles said.
“There were about 50 people there from the town and the reaction was very positive. It was a very somber presentation. There were some old people there who remembered the very dark days of World War II. They thought it was a very generous gesture of Charles Miles, commemorating the war and also a way to think of peace that would hopefully last,” said Schlauch, 75, an Eastern Illinois University professor emeritus of history who now makes his home in Mesilla Park.
Schlauch, now an American citizen who has lived in the U.S. for 45 years, was born in the German village of Bachlingen.
“Chuck was shot just a few miles from my village. I was about 9 then,” said Schlauch, who has surprisingly fond memories of the post-war American occupation forces.
“I loved the American soldiers. I remember the first soldiers we met were black and they were very kind to the children. They gave us chocolate and we spent whole days with them.”
Schlauch brought back photos, newspaper articles and a special message to Miles from Möckmühl’s Mayor Ulrich Stammer.
“All citizens here in Möckmühl have enclosed him in their hearts. When former enemies reconcile and send such a signal, this then means something very special. This should be a challenge to all of us to constantly search for reconciliation,” Stammer said.
S. Derrickson Moore can be reached at (575) 541-5450
Friday, May 14, 2010
A job for Superman?
By S. Derrickson Moore
dmoore@lcsun-news.com
LAS CRUCES — It was one of those flying dreams.
I nodded off watching coverage of the Gulf oil spill, volcanic eruptions, terrorist attempts and more economic collapses. In the anything-is-possible transition to dream time, it suddenly hit me.
This is a job for Superman.
Oh, Superman, where are you, now that we really, really need you?
I know Spider-man, Batman and Ironman have attracted more attention in recent decades, but frankly, we need more than boffo box office numbers at this stage in human history.
Spidey and the Bat and Iron guys are pretty good with criminal masterminds, but frankly, they’re all homeboys and their terrestrial superpowers are too puny to deal with the consequences of corporate supercrimes and our burgeoning pile of manmade messes.
The Man of Steel could simply gather all that pesky vocanic ash clouding the jet stream and screwing up our weather and flight plans. With his super strength and high-temp gaze — or whatever super skill sets the occasion calls for — he could melt the ash into some kind of super-strong ceramic dome and use it to cap the oil leak.
As I learned from inventive Pacific Northwest ceramics artists who used Mount Saint Helens volcanic ash in their creations, such a superdome might even be beautiful, an artistic underwater tourist attraction.
And, of course, there are other great reasons to rely on the Man of Steel, who wouldn’t have frittered away precious time making excuses for fail-safe systems that in fact, did fail, or hauling in impromptu Rube Goldberg contraptions and wistful funnel devices, days after the first waves of oil had already begun to poison the Gulf of Mexico’s fragile marshlands and estuaries.
Superman could suck up all the oil, spit it into a refinery that separates oil from seawater, then inhale all the air pollution caused by the refining process, as well as pollution from cars, cows and coal, along with radioactive waste and other unsavory industrial biproducts, and maybe fly it all off to some distant and more advanced planet where they know how to detox it safely.
And speaking of planets, if we can decide banks and car companies are too big to fail and worthy of extraordinary bail-out measures, why can’t we recognize that our ecosystem is too fragile and precious to fail? Maybe we’re supposed to figure out that it’s a job too big for Superman, too important for magical thinking and too late to put off any longer.
Actually, we may be just as much in need of a mild-mannered superhero journalist these days. Would we have listened if Clark Kent had warned us about financial shenanigans, terrorist threats, ill-advised military actions, corporate arrogance and greed, and the consequences of our wasteful and violent environmental pillaging?
Oh, Clark, where are you? We know you were always a print journalist. Did the Daily Planet go under, along with so many other once-great metropolitan newspapers? Were you fired because your exclusive relationship with Superman was no longer enough to keep you from being scooped by online streaming MoJos (Mobile Journalists)?
Is that why Superman has been keeping such a low profile, because there’s no place for his secret alter ego on the planet these days?
Or maybe Clark took refuge online and has taken the Superman brand with him, and is now lost in an oil-slicked cybersea of bitter bloggers, a cacophony of Facebook and MySpace chatter and frantic, ineffectual Twitter alerts. Look, up in the sky, or at your iPhone or iPad! It’s a bird, a plane, or maybe Superman, who was trying to tell you that the Big One is about to knock California into the ocean, but was jammed because you were texting the coast about your breakfast pizza that morning.
Maybe this is the way Superman and the world end, not with a bang, but an unheeded Tweet.
S. Derrickson Moore can be reached at (575) 541-5450. To share comments, go to www.lcsun-news.com and click on Blogzone and Las Cruces Style.
dmoore@lcsun-news.com
LAS CRUCES — It was one of those flying dreams.
I nodded off watching coverage of the Gulf oil spill, volcanic eruptions, terrorist attempts and more economic collapses. In the anything-is-possible transition to dream time, it suddenly hit me.
This is a job for Superman.
Oh, Superman, where are you, now that we really, really need you?
I know Spider-man, Batman and Ironman have attracted more attention in recent decades, but frankly, we need more than boffo box office numbers at this stage in human history.
Spidey and the Bat and Iron guys are pretty good with criminal masterminds, but frankly, they’re all homeboys and their terrestrial superpowers are too puny to deal with the consequences of corporate supercrimes and our burgeoning pile of manmade messes.
The Man of Steel could simply gather all that pesky vocanic ash clouding the jet stream and screwing up our weather and flight plans. With his super strength and high-temp gaze — or whatever super skill sets the occasion calls for — he could melt the ash into some kind of super-strong ceramic dome and use it to cap the oil leak.
As I learned from inventive Pacific Northwest ceramics artists who used Mount Saint Helens volcanic ash in their creations, such a superdome might even be beautiful, an artistic underwater tourist attraction.
And, of course, there are other great reasons to rely on the Man of Steel, who wouldn’t have frittered away precious time making excuses for fail-safe systems that in fact, did fail, or hauling in impromptu Rube Goldberg contraptions and wistful funnel devices, days after the first waves of oil had already begun to poison the Gulf of Mexico’s fragile marshlands and estuaries.
Superman could suck up all the oil, spit it into a refinery that separates oil from seawater, then inhale all the air pollution caused by the refining process, as well as pollution from cars, cows and coal, along with radioactive waste and other unsavory industrial biproducts, and maybe fly it all off to some distant and more advanced planet where they know how to detox it safely.
And speaking of planets, if we can decide banks and car companies are too big to fail and worthy of extraordinary bail-out measures, why can’t we recognize that our ecosystem is too fragile and precious to fail? Maybe we’re supposed to figure out that it’s a job too big for Superman, too important for magical thinking and too late to put off any longer.
Actually, we may be just as much in need of a mild-mannered superhero journalist these days. Would we have listened if Clark Kent had warned us about financial shenanigans, terrorist threats, ill-advised military actions, corporate arrogance and greed, and the consequences of our wasteful and violent environmental pillaging?
Oh, Clark, where are you? We know you were always a print journalist. Did the Daily Planet go under, along with so many other once-great metropolitan newspapers? Were you fired because your exclusive relationship with Superman was no longer enough to keep you from being scooped by online streaming MoJos (Mobile Journalists)?
Is that why Superman has been keeping such a low profile, because there’s no place for his secret alter ego on the planet these days?
Or maybe Clark took refuge online and has taken the Superman brand with him, and is now lost in an oil-slicked cybersea of bitter bloggers, a cacophony of Facebook and MySpace chatter and frantic, ineffectual Twitter alerts. Look, up in the sky, or at your iPhone or iPad! It’s a bird, a plane, or maybe Superman, who was trying to tell you that the Big One is about to knock California into the ocean, but was jammed because you were texting the coast about your breakfast pizza that morning.
Maybe this is the way Superman and the world end, not with a bang, but an unheeded Tweet.
S. Derrickson Moore can be reached at (575) 541-5450. To share comments, go to www.lcsun-news.com and click on Blogzone and Las Cruces Style.
Friday, May 7, 2010
Remembering our "other" moms
By S. Derrickson Moore
dmoore@lcsun-news.com
LAS CRUCES — Happy Mother’s Day.
If you’re lucky enough to have a mom nearby, you’ll have a lot to celebrate today.
If she’s far away, you can send her a card, flowers, or something else you know she’d love and, of course, call her up and tell her you love her. No matter high tech your mom is, this is the time for snail mail sentiments or voice and/or webcam contact, not e-mail or texting.
If your mom is no longer on the planet, there are many ways to honor her memory. Make a donation to a cause you know she supported. Say a little prayer. Take a bouquet of flowers to her grave. Call your siblings or other friends and relatives who knew her and share favorite mom stories or get together for a meal and drink a toast to her.
About this time of year, when I’m remembering my own one-of-a-kind wonderful mom, I ponder her creativity, her kindness and the fact that she was a great mom not only to my sister and brother and me, but also to the hundreds or maybe thousands of kids whose lives she touched as a teacher of art and American history and a scout troop and community leader.
And I find myself thinking about the other “moms” in our lives. It’s a good day to honor some nurturers, mentors and role models who may not have had any biological kids of their own, but who made big impacts in our lives. Most of us could make a list.
My list would include Sister Beth Daddio, cofounder of Jardín de los Niños, a center that has given generations of homeless and near-homeless kids and their families a chance for better lives, and a sense of hope and safety in secure, beautiful and fun surroundings.
If you haven’t been keeping tabs, Sister Beth is back in Las Cruces, after working with community service programs in Iowa for many years. Many days, you’ll find her at Jardin’s chic boutique, La Tienda de Jardín, at 355 La Colonia, at the intersection of Main, El Paseo and Alameda. Stop by and say “Hi!” Clean your closets and donate goodies to benefit her kids and maybe even find a vintage treasure for yourself or your mom.
Cecilia Lewis is another role model who has stepped up to nurture kids in very difficult circumstances. When she was just a few weeks old, she and her mom and dad, British nationals working in China, were taken to a Japanese prison camp, where the family remained until World War II ended.
With a beginning like that, you’d think the last place she would want to be would be a prison of any kind.
But she founded the Fresh Eyes photography project, working first with adults and then with juveniles incarcerated here. She shared her considerable photography and social skills to show kids new ways to relate to each other and the world. The Las Cruces program became a model for similar programs throughout the state and the nation, from Santa Fe and Albuquerque to New Orleans and New York.
Though she never had biological kids of her own, when I went to see a Fresh Eyes exhibit at he New Mexico State Capital Building, it was clear that she’s been a dream mom to many incarcerated kids and a source of hope and encouragement to their families. You could see her influence in their photos: Cecilia learned grim truths about the world when she was very young, but she also learned, and now shares, the hopeful wisdom and creativity that transcends despair and makes fresh starts possible.
I bet you know some heroines like this, too. While you’re celebrating your mom today, send other inspirational souls a card, too, or make a little extra time to say the words that are the best gifts of all: “Thank you” and “I love you.”
S. Derrickson Moore can be reached at (575) 541-5450. To share comments, go to www.lcsun-news.com and click on Blogzone and Las Cruces Style.
dmoore@lcsun-news.com
LAS CRUCES — Happy Mother’s Day.
If you’re lucky enough to have a mom nearby, you’ll have a lot to celebrate today.
If she’s far away, you can send her a card, flowers, or something else you know she’d love and, of course, call her up and tell her you love her. No matter high tech your mom is, this is the time for snail mail sentiments or voice and/or webcam contact, not e-mail or texting.
If your mom is no longer on the planet, there are many ways to honor her memory. Make a donation to a cause you know she supported. Say a little prayer. Take a bouquet of flowers to her grave. Call your siblings or other friends and relatives who knew her and share favorite mom stories or get together for a meal and drink a toast to her.
About this time of year, when I’m remembering my own one-of-a-kind wonderful mom, I ponder her creativity, her kindness and the fact that she was a great mom not only to my sister and brother and me, but also to the hundreds or maybe thousands of kids whose lives she touched as a teacher of art and American history and a scout troop and community leader.
And I find myself thinking about the other “moms” in our lives. It’s a good day to honor some nurturers, mentors and role models who may not have had any biological kids of their own, but who made big impacts in our lives. Most of us could make a list.
My list would include Sister Beth Daddio, cofounder of Jardín de los Niños, a center that has given generations of homeless and near-homeless kids and their families a chance for better lives, and a sense of hope and safety in secure, beautiful and fun surroundings.
If you haven’t been keeping tabs, Sister Beth is back in Las Cruces, after working with community service programs in Iowa for many years. Many days, you’ll find her at Jardin’s chic boutique, La Tienda de Jardín, at 355 La Colonia, at the intersection of Main, El Paseo and Alameda. Stop by and say “Hi!” Clean your closets and donate goodies to benefit her kids and maybe even find a vintage treasure for yourself or your mom.
Cecilia Lewis is another role model who has stepped up to nurture kids in very difficult circumstances. When she was just a few weeks old, she and her mom and dad, British nationals working in China, were taken to a Japanese prison camp, where the family remained until World War II ended.
With a beginning like that, you’d think the last place she would want to be would be a prison of any kind.
But she founded the Fresh Eyes photography project, working first with adults and then with juveniles incarcerated here. She shared her considerable photography and social skills to show kids new ways to relate to each other and the world. The Las Cruces program became a model for similar programs throughout the state and the nation, from Santa Fe and Albuquerque to New Orleans and New York.
Though she never had biological kids of her own, when I went to see a Fresh Eyes exhibit at he New Mexico State Capital Building, it was clear that she’s been a dream mom to many incarcerated kids and a source of hope and encouragement to their families. You could see her influence in their photos: Cecilia learned grim truths about the world when she was very young, but she also learned, and now shares, the hopeful wisdom and creativity that transcends despair and makes fresh starts possible.
I bet you know some heroines like this, too. While you’re celebrating your mom today, send other inspirational souls a card, too, or make a little extra time to say the words that are the best gifts of all: “Thank you” and “I love you.”
S. Derrickson Moore can be reached at (575) 541-5450. To share comments, go to www.lcsun-news.com and click on Blogzone and Las Cruces Style.
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