Welcome to my World

Welcome to the domain different--to paraphrase from New Mexico's capital city of Santa Fe which bills itself "The City Different." Perhaps this space is not completely unique but my world shapes what I write as well as many other facets of my life. The four Ds figure prominently but there are many other things as well. Here you will learn what makes me tick, what thrills and inspires me, experiences that impact my life and many other antidotes, vignettes and journal notes that set the paradigm for Dierdre O'Dare and her alter ego Gwynn Morgan and the fiction and poetry they write. I sell nothing here--just share with friends and others who may wander in. There will be pictures, poems, observations, rants on occasion and sometimes even jokes. Welcome to our world!

Sunday, May 25, 2014

Trains, planes, automobiles... and dogs

Whew, been a busy weekend so far. Actually started on Thursday. But the night before the plane part comes in. I booked my flights to and from Alaska! Yes, if you go thru these various 'cheap tickets' outfits it is kind of like roulette but I scored a fairly decent price, two one stop flights and only weird hours at Anchorage--but in the summer daylight is sooo long it won't be too hard. At least I am telling myself that!  I found it was a tiny bit cheaper to fly from El Paso instead of Albuquerque plus it is easier to get there being closer for someone to drive me and pick me up. Going north I make a very short hop from El Paso to Phoenix and then a very long one to Anchorage. Coming back, a long trip to LAX (Los Angeles) and then a moderate one to El Paso again. It feels more real now that I am committed for a sizable chunk of change there. Now on to transportation while there and an itinerary lined up.

Autos: I took the little Focus wagon to drive to Silver City--roughly 150 miles --since it gets better mileage than Red Hot Mama although I prefer to drive the latter. The wagon, which came to us from the kid brother who passed away in 2005, I christened "The Pattie Wagon" when I lived in Hurley, NM back in 2008-09 because I lived on Pattie Avenue! Just so you know if I use that name.

Anyway I left mid morning and tooled along highway 70 to Las Cruces and from there on I-10 over to Deming where I took highway 52 up into Grant County. And next, we do the train thing. I saw three east bound UP freights between Akela and Deming but as I got close to Hurley, I caught up with the Southwest Railroad local coming up from the UP mainline at Deming. It was a long train for a short line system--around 90 cars in a mix of tankers and ore cars and there were seven units (locomotives to non-rail-fans) dragging it up the grade. They were an interesting mixture with three of the blue SWRR units, one old gray SW diesel that must have been resurrected from the old Phelps Dodge rolling stock and three former Santa Fe locos still in the blue and gold 'warbonnet' style of the old ATSF but with new SWRR numbers added. Of course I took pictures to share with my brother and for my own collection.

 The first shot is at the end of a street in Hurley where I used to walk with Belle when I was living there and the secone one is a bit farther north toward Bayard at the south end of North Hurley.  It was a pretty day, BTW, with just enough clouds to decorate the blue sky.

Anyway once I got to Silver City I went right to my friend Constance's place and we dug into some packing, went out to dinner that evening and visited. Next morning, having called and set it up before I went to bed the previous evening, I drove out to Cliff to meet Joe Runyan. He's very much a dog person and came wheeling up on a mid-sized tractor--he sells hay from his small farm and was out working --with a pack of lean Pointers running along. We had a great chat about dogs, horses and mules and of course mushing and the Iditarod. He was very encouraging about my project and said he'd help all he can. He, too, is a writer and has ghost written the race tales for several of the well known male racers but I guess didn't choose or want to work with the ladies so that leaves an opening for me. Of course some of them have books out but many do not and that may be something I can pursue after the first project is done. That was the real purpose of my trip and I felt it went very well indeed!

So yesterday since the weather was a bit iffy with wind and thunderstorms forecast, I headed home fairly early. Of course my two little red dogs were very glad to see me.  The little guy, wee Rojito, had some teeth pulled Tuesday and was still not quite up to par though doing well and then there were thunderstorms Friday night that had all four dogs in the household very upset. Ginger has almost been "velcroed" to my knee since I got back! So there you have it, three modes of transportation and my favorite canines.Whether huskies, hunting dogs or herders, I love them all--and even wee red mutts! Here are my two kiddos in our room a few weeks ago.

Thursday, May 15, 2014

Celtic Knots in the Circle of LIfe




Straight lines do not appear very often in nature. Even tree trunks which we think of as linear usually have some bends and twists. Life does not have many straight lines, either. I'm a person who looks for patterns and sees pictures in clouds, designs in a variety of things. The past few years I have really come to understand where my Celtic ancestors came by their inspiration for the elaborate knot work patterns of which they were so fond. That was one way to portray the path of our life and of those around us.


It has been said there are no coincidences. I might instead call them serendipity --those very odd happenstance kinds of things. It's in the way our route through life doubles back, crosses over and weaves or twines around to bring people to us and take them away, to make surprising things happen. More and more I see that taking place around me.

I know I have not mentioned Alaska and my big project-to-be for awhile. I will assure you it is still very much on my radar and although it is going to take longer and probably be more complicated than I first visualized, I am still determined to see it through. Right now I am reading Libby Riddles' account  --the first female winner back in 1985--of that race. Although there was more snow than the last few years, she encountered an incredible range of difficulties and mishaps! In fact, nearly half way through the race she had fallen back to fourteenth place, was dealing with sick dogs and wondering if she'd even make the finish line, never mind what place. Most of us end up dealing with just that kind of situation--oh, we aren't driving dogs a thousand miles across the wilderness but we have goals and projects to complete and each one is a struggle. At that point we can lie down and play dead or we can pull up our socks and keep giving it our best.But sometimes unexpected help comes from totally amazing sources....

Weekend before last I went over to Silver City to see my friend Constance who is getting ready to leave, seeking a climate and environment that will not confine her to the house with choking asthma. I did want to spend some time with her before she leaves. And it is her friend and former sister-in-law who lives in Wasilla and will probably be renting me a room when I get up there later this summer. Now serendipity kicks in!  There's a little newspaper/magazine put out over there called Desert Exposure. From a rcent issue, Constance pulled out an article about the colony of former Alaskans who now reside, at least part of the time, in Grant Country, New Mexico. The very first name there was Joe Runyan.

I began to read avidly. Joe was an Iditarod winner some years back and has covered the race for Cabellos sporting goods and posted several-a-day blog entries on the Iditarod Trail Committee website during the race as he follows along on a snow machine. He now has a farm/ranch out at Cliff, about .thirty miles north and west of Silver City. He still has dogs but they are now hunting dogs instead of huskies. I found his phone number but was shy about calling cold; we found his mail address and I have written him. But there is more!

As you may know I have had two articles this spring in a monthly magazine called Mules and More based.on my experiences and recollections of the time when I was training and selling mules with my dad. A chap named Max Harsha has a regular column in the same magazine and he too lives in Cliff, NM. I got his address off his website and wrote him, also. The other day my phone rang and it was him. He'd just received my letter and wanted to talk and said I'd be welcome to come over and chat almost any time. He had gotten into mules back in Missouri about the same time I began to work with them and then moved to New Mexico and began to hunt and use mules more. Now the serendipity part. I mentioned trying to get in touch with a former Alaskan about my book project. He knew who I meant at once and said he knew Joe Runyan well. They are almost neighbors and he took Joe on a quail hunt some years back and that was instrumental in Runyan locating there! Now isn't that a most amazing pattern of knots, twists and links!??

That is just one example. I run into them or they find me almost constantly. I hardly even get surprised anymore even when I am taken totally off guard by unexpected events and such. So the old Celts knew what they were portraying. It's the great pattern, the circle of life, as we are born, live, die and go back for rest, regroup and return. Along the way we find and lose friends, fall into mishaps and are rescued by help and events we had no idea were on the horizon. Hopefully we learn and grow until we come at last to the end --or maybe yet another beginning, for like the Highway Men sang--I'll be back again....

Sunday, May 11, 2014

A Special Day Recalled

I'll keep this short but just want to comment on two things that make today special. First it is Mother's Day and my dear daughter--yes, she came to me as a 'rescue',  second hand and housebroke, but she is still my "baby girl' and will be even if she is looking at a serious birthday this fall. She posted an old photo on my Facebook page that she got out of a family album I passed to her a few years ago. Yes, I admit to tearing up! Thank you, Sweetie, for this!!

I think this was on my first wedding anniversary or our first anniversary as a family. And yes, I did make her
dress and I had one that matched it which was my 'hippie style' wedding dress. She wore the same outfit the afternoon her dad and I tied the knot. A neat thing was that Rev Allen, the minister who married us, asked the two younger kids still at home if they would accept me as their step mother. Had they not agreed, he would not have performed the ceremony and he told me so afterwards. That was nearly forty three years ago, or will be come September. Thank you Jennifer; I have never been sorry and I hope you haven't either.

Second this would have been my dad's one hundred and second birthday. We often celebrated mother's day and his birthday on the same time and as I got older I sometimes made a cake and fixed a meal for them both. I was the first grandchild on both sides of the family and a spoiled rotten little girl for awhile. Here is a shot of each of my parents with me as an infant, long years ago in Kansas City before I became a born again Arizona native. Dad and I had our conflicts and issues but I really  never doubted that he loved me and always meant well even though it was sometimes hard to see this at the time when I was young and had my own ideas about things. RIP Charles McCormack Morgan. Thank you for your part in making me the person I am today; without you it is not likely I would be a writer. And Mom, you taught me what being a mother should be; I may not have measured up but I did try. I miss you to this very day.


Saturday, May 10, 2014

Growing Up on the Bridge

This is the essay I wrote in the writer's group meeting the afternoon of May 9, 2014. Make of it what you will!!  GMW 

Those of us who came into this life in the middle of the twentieth century were blessed—or condemned—to live on a bridge between “the old days” and today. In 1940 something or the early 1950s, we thought ourselves very modern and fortunate to live in the wonderful twentieth century.
As small kids we might not yet have had television in our homes, but we had a radio that brought us the magic of words, news, wonderful and varied music and drama from the vast world. We had electric lights and refrigerators and automobiles that were getting faster and more luxurious every year. And there was even air travel as well as trains and busses. What a life!
Then as we began to grow up, the days of TV sitcoms with the perfect family, parents who slept in twin beds, the picket fence, two-point-five kids and a spotty dog morphed into the turbulent 1960s. It was the time of hippies, protests, Vietnam, Woodstock, the Black Panthers, women’s lib and acid rock. By now TV was everywhere, in color even, and our cars got faster and higher powered each year. Zero to sixty five in… And our music became louder, more strident and very much tied to electronics. We had crossed the first bridge in our coming of age.
Then more decades came and went, bringing more changes. We put satellites into orbit, a man on the moon, more and faster communications. The Berlin wall came down and Cosmopolitan magazine had nude male centerfolds! Cuss words became a feature in movies and song lyrics. We watched our kids begin to grow up, much more wild and rebellious than we ever were, of course. No one chanted, “First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes Susie with the baby carriage,” any more. That order was often transposed. Some were shocked and others said, “high time.”
Finally we burst through into a new century, surviving Y2K only to be jolted hard by 9-11. There seems an odd irony in the fact those same three digits are also the near-universal code to seek help in an emergency. Just dial 9-1-1. That day it would not have helped much.
In a couple of decades we went from “computers” which filled a warehouse sized space to an equivalent amount of power and capability in the palm of our hands. We came through talking on cell phones and doing email to texting, tweeting and twerking—no, wait; that is some kind of a dance but I guess communicating in a way, too.
So here we are, aging “baby boomers” who have lived our lives on a bridge between “ancient history” and the future. Changes came in increasing numbers, sometimes in almost the blink of an eye. Change and progress—yes, progress requires change but I assert that all change is not progress—sweep past at a geometrically accelerating pace. Where do we go from here?
Do you sometimes feel you’ve been left behind in this mad dash? Maybe I am the only one but I suspect there are more of us. My maternal grandfather, who was born in the late 1800s and passed away in the late 1900s, had gone from horse and buggy to space ships, telegraph along the railroads to wireless phones. He coped as every generation must, but it seems each new group of us has to witness more change and faster change.
Perhaps I am almost ready to step off the bridge and let the rush go on without me. I am not sure how much more and new I can comprehend and adapt to. In my case, growing up in a rural part of the southwest US, I saw the tail end of the ‘old west’ in then elderly men who had been cowboys, gunfighters, mountain men, cavalry who fought Indians or like my late father–in-law commanded a troop of Buffalo Soldiers along the Mexican border during World War I. I only experienced their lives vicariously but it still seemed real and vital, not remote bookish history.
The only way to keep their stories was to write them down or use a big, cumbersome tape recorder so my recollections are not perfect. Even my own early days seem so distant now, veiled in shadowy almost-dream-like vagueness, back at the start of this bridge.
The years pass so quickly as we become mired in the daily trivia of living so that we lose so much, even while we are still here and semi-sane. It feels as if the cord of our rosary has broken and beads have slipped off and fallen away without our notice. You can’t go home again, they say. Anymore not even in memory. That tends to make me sad.
The next bridge or span will be perhaps the scariest or most marvelous yet. I am more curious than fearful and in many ways I am eager to talk again to those who have crossed ahead of me. Maybe their recollections will now be crystalline and perfect. Maybe mine will be too, once I join them. But then perhaps from that new viewpoint we will no longer feel the need or desire to look back.

Someone once said that heaven and hell might be no more than watching a ‘video’ of your life play out on a sort of screen where you must watch it, over and over…. There might be a kind of poetic justice in seeing your highs and lows, your good deeds and the harm you caused and perhaps the most cruel, having to realize how mediocre most of us really are. Already I am wishing I might have another chance to relive my three score and some, fix some of my worst boo-boos and undo some damage… But life has no rewind button, no go back arrow or delete key. It is what it is. Time only moves in one direction and we have no choice but to go along on a strange rolling walkway until it is time to step off this bridge….

Springing into Summer & National Train Day

In the high desert, seasons do not slide smoothly from one to the next. We're in that transition period right now.A few days will be relatively calm --just moderate afternoon breezes -- and warm to nearly hot. Then, blam, a storm goes by to the north and we are pounded with gale force winds, 35-45 mph sustained with gusts up to 50 or even 60 and hurricane force blows in some mountain passes and such. It isn't cold but raw and sometimes on the chilly side now that blood has thinned for warm weather. We get 'brown outs' where blowing dust cuts the visibility to a mile or less. That is not good for allergies and other respiratory problems nor easily irritated eyes...  But this too will pass.

Today, I just read, is National Train Day. I made a trip over to the Silver City area last weekend and got a
shot of the Southwest Railroad's repair track at Hurley. The units (locomotives) sitting there are not the two wrecked in the accident I talked about earlier this year but you can see they are pretty stripped down. Whether they will ever roll again or not I do not know. The line in the middle of the picture is the antenna on Red Hot Mama; I took the picture from inside the cab as I was kinda trespassing...But it was Sunday and no one was around to be upset or run me off so I chanced it. I still feel kind of proprietary about that little bit of railroading.

I had a good time--despite the Tour de Gila bike race madness which had the whole area in a spin. I even discovered there is a community of Alaskan 'refugees' in the area to include one gentleman who follows the Iditarod on a snow machine each year and blogs about it several times a day on the ITC site. I greatly enjoyed his commentary this past race.He's now raising hunting dogs but I'm glad to see he's still into canines. He did win the Last Great Race once, quite a few years ago. I will have to go back in a bit to try and talk to him.

Lots of things blooming now. Since I posted photos of most of the local flora last season I won't do that again but I will share a new shot of the Ephedra shrub, often called "Mormon Tea," which grows in my yard. It really bloomed out this year. It is beginning to fade but the brilliant yellow was like a pile of sun drops just  glowing. It is an interesting plant.

Last bit of news is I went yesterday to a meeting of a writer's, group at the Senior Center. They call themselves OWL, Older Writer's League, and focus on inspiring and encouraging seniors to do essays and word sketches of their diverse experiences and recollections to preserve for the future many things that have changed, vanished or been almost forgotten. History is important and so much is lost with each generation's passing. We all wrote for half an hour on a subject we chose.and then read them aloud. No critique, not snide or snarky comments and really each essay was quite good! I will do some minor editing and clean up of my effort and post it a bit later today. We had to write in longhand and for me that is a challenge wile deciphering the hieroglyphics later is even more so!

Happy Mother's Day to all the moms and grandmas in the crowd. I guess I am one of them myself and still have a hard time in admitting or accepting I am pretty much the clan's matriarch of both the Morgan and Walton families and have been for awhile. My maternal cousins' mother passed a couple of years ago and she was the last one. All my aunts and uncles are gone and I'm the oldest of the cousins on both sides Sheesh--I am not sure if I like that or not!! Maybe rank has its privileges and I suspect I am about as rank as any these days LOL..