One Of Our 50 Is Missing - September 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.
A MOVING EXPERIENCE: While preparing to move from Sterling, Virginia, to Rio Rancho, one of the first chores L. J. Ackermann chose to do was notify business correspondents of her new address.
“Since most companies have websites, I thought this would be easy,” Ackermann says. Little did she know that what awaited.
On the very first website she visited, Ackermann ran into a roadblock. “I went to the customer-service page and found the ‘change your address here’ link,” she says. “I typed in my old address, my account record was pulled up, and I started to change my address to ‘Rio Rancho, New Mexico’.”
When she saw the drop-down-menu options, she was dumbfounded: NB, NC, ND, NE, NJ, NS, NV, and NY—but no NM!
Ackerman phoned the company. On hearing that Ackerman was moving to New Mexico, the customer-service rep said, “Oh, we don’t mail our magazine overseas.”
“New Mexico is not overseas,” Ackermann shot back. “New Mexico is next to Texas, Arizona, Oklahoma, and Colorado.” The customer-service rep was so frustrated, Ackerman asked to speak to the webmaster.
Ackermann says that after 15 minutes on the phone, the webmaster assured her that “NM” would be a selectable option soon.
“The next day, I successfully changed my address to ‘NM’.”
CONNECT THE DOTS: Mary Mortensen Diecker, of Albuquerque, came across an unusual item at www.enchantedlearning.com. “New Mexico: U.S. State Dot-to-Dot Mystery Map: Connect the dots to draw the borders of a mystery state of the USA. Then use a globe or atlas to figure out which state you have drawn. You might want to give students clues, such as that it is in the southeastern USA, that its capital is Santa Fe, or that its name starts with ‘N’. Answer: New Mexico.”
“As a native New Mexican, this is sort of a relief,” Diecker says. “Does this mean New Mexico’s no longer missing? It’s just been relocated to the other side of the USA, somewhere in the Southeast?”
TIED UP: Bill Gould, of Fallbrook, California, lived in Santa Fe for 10 years before business led him back to the West Coast. But it is a business trip in the mid-1980s that he remembers fondly.
“I had to attend a client meeting in upstate New York,” Gould says. “Being a Montana native, and now a New Mexican, I naturally wore my only good suit, my favorite well-polished cowboy boots, a belt with a Hopi buckle, and my prized mid-’50s Diné bolo, set with a large piece of Tonopah turquoise mined in the 1890s.”
Gould met his client at an upscale Italian restaurant, where his outfit caused a stir. “The maître d’ politely pulled me aside and explained that they had a strict dress code, and asked if I would please remove that rock from around my neck,” Gould recalls.
A proud Gould explained that the bolo was New Mexico’s “official state tie, and that even the governor and the Legislature wore them. The maître d’s response was priceless. ‘Oh, sir, we are always honored to respect the native traditions of our foreign guests, and of course, you may wear your rock.’
“He made the entire trip to New York worth it!” Gould says.
