Today's Political Picture 2-Old Albuquerque

Old Town Plaza, Albuquerque, New Mexico - circa 1920's

(Courtesy of Zimmerman Library)

THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN; is populated by forgivers. THE REALM OF THE DAMNED By those who refuse To forgive, themselves.

Today's Political Picture 2 Con't - OLD ALBUQUERQUE

Old Town was surrounded by small farms, open fields and networks of acequias rich with vegetation and wild life. It was possible to walk along the banks and spot such things as asparagus, of La Acequia Madre, (Mother Ditch) and find aspargus, beets and radishes, growing wild at the base of tall willow hedges that served as property boundaries and crop separators.
It was not uncommon to find turtles, minnows, cat fish and sucker fish, even an occasional trout in the tributary waters. Giant bull frogs and, of course toads.
The most common animals were chickens and dogs as part of every household, rabbits, hogs, goats, cows, horses, cats, of course, are necessities in farming communities where adobe bricks are the greater part of the architecture but some people still maintained non poisonous snakes that did a more through job of riding houses of unwanted varmints .. while remaining out of sight.
Bird life was plentiful too, hawks, and eagles were not uncommon, Spotted owls, bats and other varieties of insect eating birds from common sparrows and swallows, robins etc .. Some people kept unusual or semi exotic birds such as canaries, guinea hens, some peacocks, and parrots.
Wild pheasants, and roadrunners. were also abundant., so were grasshoppers, homed toads, lizards and butterflies.
Albuquerque was self sufficient in the food and housing departments since most farms were owned outright by families. The farm that were in trouble were commercial truck farms such as the Blucher farm, or garden. It was the largest farm in Old Town and the employer of more people.
As the depression worsened, Old Towners reverted to the most ancient methods of making ends meet, the barter system.
Many people were employed at the saw mill, the railroad shops and in the new businesses that had sprung up in New Town, but that included people from a!most everywhere in New Mexico, plus many Old Towners, but many farming families felt more secure doing the work that had done for generations. and, many did have other jobs, they never really left the farm. The chores still went on when they came home.
Produce, livestock, arts, crafts, were exchanged for dry goods or services, be it chopping a truckload of wood, drilling for water, helping to build or plaster a house, relocating an out-house repairing and mending saddles, harnesses, or helping out at a mantanza.
Matanzas were community affairs, since there was no refrigeration, meat had to be disposed quickly, and most of those hogs weighed five-hundred pounds or more.
The squeals of the pig that was to be slaughtered was an invitation for everyone within hearing distance to show with their dish pans of assorted kitchenware, plus knives, whetstones and bell­like shavers to dress the kill, returning home with a load of pork for the family table.
Most pork was quickly consumed, although everyone knew of methods to preserver the meat, most people did not trust it, Carne Adovada and home-made sausage were the only two exceptions. Even so, the chile marinated of highly spiced, seasoned and salted pork, even in winter when the cold weather kept things longer. Most people did not own an ice box, and electricity was still some twenty years away. Perishable food was kept in a screened box like affair with wooden slats for shelves, To get to the food one had to either go outside or, if the cooler was built onto the outside of the kitchen window one simply reached out to get what one needed.
Beef, goat, and mutton could be made into jerky, smoked, or pickled, by the way, so could pig's feet, but only the Italians dared to do the same to pork. This writer's father did well for himself selling squabs, aged steaks, italian sausage and prociuto to the Harvey House Restaurant. Matanzas were planned according to the seasons. Hogs were usually slaughtered in the winter time, other livestock, in the spring or summer. Chickens, and rabbits had no season, wild fowl, deer and there was some fishing, but not enough to say that Old Towners were avid fishermen. summer kill could be preserved to eat in winter. Every part of the animal was utilized, especially the organs, skin and bones .the economy did not affect New Mexico. as much as the droughts that hit the state about the same time that Oklahoma disowned its people. Stay tuned. ///fgyl

Albuquerque Street car 1920's-Courtesy of Zimmerman Library




Albuquerque, Old Town, Kids riding Burro circa. 1890's
Courtesy of Zimmerman Library




Albert Congregation 1899-Courtesy of Zimmerman Library
The erecting of a church was a commuvent, Jewish or not.

Los Griegos, Albuquerque before the depression era. circa 1899.
Courtesy of Zimmerman Library

Today's Political Picture

The Plaza, Old Town, Albuquerque, New Mexico

II diavofo no e diavola per essere diavolo, e diavolo perche e vecchio.

Today's Political Picture

Today's Political Picture is reminiscent of the death scene in Zorba, The Greek.
In the movie Zorba's wife is dying, her friends and neighbors drop in to take her meager belongings on the pretext of "visiting" her, while Zorba attempts to comfort her in her final seconds of life.
Our economy may not be dying, but it is seriously ill, yet everybody and his or her special interest is trying to capitalize on the bailouts. Including New Mexico.
For instance: If Albuquerque is in financial striates, it's because Mayor Marty and the Municipal Mafia fell for The Texan's BS. Time and time again they went out and did things on Bush's promise, complaining about unfounded demands from upstairs but digging us deeper in the hole on the promise that the check was in the mail. "No Child Left behind" promised so much. Where is it? How about the money for all the cameras, and a host of too many other things to list here but are well known to all of you. It would seem that anyone smart enough to win political campaigns would be smart enough to see through a scam after falling for it as many times as this gang has, but all Bush had to do was to promise and they believed it and spent it before they got it to live beyond their means, all the while they were telling the people that there was a war going on and that they should tighten up their belts.
The people did that, but they went on spending like a bunch of power-drunk republicans. Surely we can do without things, such trolleys until we dig ourselves out of this financial mess, or do you anticipate a more complete melt-down of Wall-Street and want to ride in style when we all go to the poor-house?
The exploitation of government, religion, and race for monetary, political, or social personal benefit is rapidly becoming a thing of the past, like the old time filling stations, the field became too overcrowded for small timers to keep up with the competition.
More and more only the fittest of the fit survive, and fittest are playing for Billions, while small-fry are selling their souls for a few hundred thousand and even less in many cases. The financial crisis is much worst than what the public is being told, and it's going to stay that way for a lot longer than any of the other financial messes to which greed always leads.
Omnipotent Kaffe Klutch Klique KaLLers to Konservative radio Koncure that the bank regulator fell asleep at the wheel, and didn't enforce the regulations. WHAT REGULATIONS!
During the Great Depression of 1929, FDR enacted a series of laws called "The Depression Laws, " to insure that it would never happen again. Ronald Regan, in his wisdom, tossed all those laws out, doing away with our safety nets. Today the very same entities that inspired Regan to trash them and cheered him on when he did are lamenting what we, who went though it once knew was inevitable if banks were not subject to "regul atuib," Many depression busters were utilized to stave the wolf from our doors in the 1930's, most of those methods have been outlawed , privatized, politicized, or otherwise rendered ineffective since then, and some fell due to legitimate progress. Let's go back and review some of these things and you decide if doing away with them was justified or not.
First of ail, you have to picture Albuquerque as it was then., not as it is now. New Mexico had just become a full-fledged status in 1912, but already, the joy and enthusiasm that went with the new status had already suffered it's first major disappointment when the bottom fell out of the market in 1929.
Old Town had been the center of social, commercial, and political; activities, not to mention the religious aspects of the community until the railroad came, after that Old Town had been abandoned and, except for the church, Charley Mann's general store, the post office and one little cafe, a home for unwed mothers it remained a neglected ghost town that was not long in deteriorating. The proper name for Old Town then was Old Albuquerque, and it's limits were from what is now Mountain Road, to about what is now Central Avenue, and from where the roads now split to form Old Town Road and Mountain Road, to the East side of what you now know as Rio Grande Blvd. What had been the Territorial Fair became The Society Hall, a dance hall that drew people from everywhere within what you now know as Albuquerque but then identified themselves as independent villages, Atrisco, Barelas, Armijo, Los Tomases, Duranes, Los Griegos, Corrales, Alameda, Martineztown, etc.
Going North from the Society Hall there were two houses and then Old Town School, then residences still referred to as El Rancho de Albuquerque" although, as the families often grew and married, those ranchos had been divided and sub­divided so much that what had originally started as land grant that had to touch the mountains on one end and the other had shrunk down with barely enough room to accommodate a house and, perhaps a small garden. The villages mentioned above also started as grants hence the names, (to be continued.) II/ fglyl