One Of Our 50 Is Missing - February 2010
After more than two decades, thousands of our readers have shared their experiences of lost New Mexico in the "One of Our 50 is Missing" humor column, compiled by managing editor Walter K. Lopez. Tell us your experiences at fifty@nmmagazine.com or on our message board.
BLUNDER DOWN UNDER: Josh Boltrek, a Santa Fean who now lives in Adelaide, South Australia, says he recently received a king-size jolt while listening to a news broadcast on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s morning show.
“While I was getting ready for work, the talking head got my attention when he began doing a story about New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson having the North Korean diplomats at his house for a talk,” Boltrek says.
It was what followed that left Boltrek spitting out his morning coffee. The talking head then said, with an air of superiority, “What seems odd to me is why these talks about American/North Korean relations are being held in a house in New Mexico and not in the United States.”
Boltrek says, “What makes this even funnier is that this particular talking head is a left-wing Aussie, amongst whom it is popular to bash Americans endlessly.”
SPACED OUT AT FOX: Fox News recently ventured where no news network has gone before: Spaceport America . . . in the Mojave Desert.
Bob Rivas, of Las Cruces, says that while he was watching a Fox story on space tourism, a photograph of Spaceport America, provided by and attributed to the New Mexico Spaceport Authority, popped up on the screen. Everything looked fine until Rivas read the caption: “Flights will depart from the Mojave Spaceport in the Californian desert, so you’ll get spectacular views of the mountains and Pacific Coast.”
Rivas’s reaction was immediate: “I’m sure that there will be spectacular views of the mountains and Pacific Coast, but I believe that Spaceport America is not in the Californian desert but right here, smack dab in the middle of the Land of Enchantment.”
NEW STATE OF MIND: Like our neighbor state of Texas, as portrayed in its TV travel ads, it appears that Ruidoso is “like a whole other country.”
Ruidoso resident Clinton Smith says he was on the phone with a customer-service rep, attempting to cancel a catalog order, when the conversation took an unexpected twist.
When the rep asked Smith to verify his address, she repeated the town’s name and the state’s initials: “Ruidoso, N-M . . . now, is that North Michigan?”
Surprised, Smith quickly responded, “No, ma’am, it’s New Mexico.”
After giggling for a few seconds, she apologized to Smith, who adds, “I had no idea that there was a North Michigan.”
STINGING RETORT: Kim Perkins says that while gardening at her home in Coopersburg, Pennsylvania, she struck up a conversation with a local pest-control man who’d arrived to remove some wasp nests from her rafters.
Perkins said the conversation quickly gravitated to her upcoming vacation. “Can’t wait until next week,” Perkins said. “We’re going to New Mexico.”
The man scoffed. “I never travel international . . . don’t even have a passport.”
Perkins tried to correct him: “No, New Mexico—you know, bordered by Texas and Arizona.”
Her stab at a mini-geography lesson fell on deaf ears. “Oh yeah,” he said. “Well, my mom though, now, she loves to go out of the country.”
Perkins said she was too stunned to continue the conversation.
GONE TO POT: Victor and Deena Marshall, of Dallas and Jémez Springs, received an unsuspecting surprise recently when they sat down to read the weekend edition of The New York Times.
While perusing the travel section, an article about the town of Breckenridge, Colorado, relaxing its marijuana laws caught their attention. The article was a smooth read for the Marshalls, but Victor says the accompanying graphic—a map of Colorado and its bordering states—was a bit jarring. The map properly illustrates Colorado’s northern borders with Wyoming and Nebraska, but shows the state of Texas, not New Mexico, as its southern neighbor!
“Maybe the mapmaker was partaking and got confused about which state sits at Colorado’s southern border,” Marshall jokingly suggests.
To The Times’s credit, it ran a correction a couple of days later: “A map on Saturday with an article about the decriminalization of possession of small amounts of marijuana in Breckenridge, Colo., labeled a neighboring state incorrectly. The state directly south of Colorado is New Mexico, not Texas.”
