PHOTOGRAPHY BANS ARE STUPID.

In yesterday’s blog my partner was complaining about the photography ban in the famous mansion he was visiting. As prolific travelers and photographers, we come up against bans all the time. My daughter, Kristanne, happened upon two articles on the subject and sent them to me.

First, let me explain that I visited the Louvre in 1987 and I was amazed that they allowed flash photography. They obviously weren’t worried about flash damaging their treasures. Tests have proved that flash is no more damaging than the gallery lighting. Jim and I rarely use flash. I like it in a darkened bar with intended gloom and colored neon lights.

Now, the excuse is, they think you won’t buy post cards or other items in the museum store if you take photos. That doesn’t hold water either. In the Louvre I bought beautiful prints of famous artwork as gifts. I buy post cards all the time. And sometimes books.

Another excuse, the copyright laws are trampled upon. Sure, people in droves are going to take a picture of someones work, copy it, sell it,  and pass it off as their own?  It is ludicrous. I doubt it has ever happened.

Most galleries allow photos, some don’t. The bans are laughable, really, because every gallery, save one exception, where the owners control the gallery, they love it when you photograph their work. They are getting free advertising. You name their gallery and give an example of what they do. If the owners love it, why wouldn’t all artists like it?

And, my final point on the subject, any brochure advertising a mansion, a ghost town, a gallery, an event, a visitors center, shows a picture because a picture entices you to want to see more. Any magazine describing  a circus, an event, a beautiful town, provides a picture. And, most telling, magazines constantly tout food at restaurants. They usually publish a picture and a famous recipe or two. And providing the recipe does NOT keep customers away, as they used to believe.

We obey their bans but our readers who can’t ever get there miss out. That is why I resent the bans.

 

SMALL TOWNS TO VISIT IN 2013

This comes from my Smithsonian Magazine. They chose  towns with less than 15,000 population that are big on culture as the 20 best small towns in America for 2013.

What makes a small town big on culture?  Exceptional concentrations of museums, art galleries, orchestras, theaters, historic sites and other cultural blessings.

If the air is a little fresher, the grass greener, the pace gentler than in metropolitan America? All the better.  Generally, they’re devoted to preserving their historic centers, encouraging talent and supporting careful economic growth. There’s usually an institution of higher learning, too.

Most important are the people, unpretentious people with small-town values and high cultural expectations—not a bad recipe for society at large. As a sign on a chalkboard in Cleveland, Mississippi (our No. 2 pick) puts it, “Be nice. The world is a small town.”

Here is the List:

1. Gettysburg, PA.,             11. Galena, IL

Cleveland, MS.,                   Sausalito, CA

St. Augustine, FL.,               Hanover, NH.

Baraboo, WI,                      Oberlie, OH.

Astoria, OR,                         Jackson, WY.

Petoskey, MI,                       Lexington, KY.

Fairfield, IA.,                         Abilene, KS.

Los Alamos, NM.,                  Lihue, HI

Sitka, AK,                            Fredricksburg, TX.

Provincetown, MA.,              Glenwood Springs, CO.

I’m pleased to note I’ve visited Gettysburg, Baraboo, Astoria, Sitka ,Provincetown, Sausalito, and Fredricksburg. And in all cases, I found them delightful. So, traveler, fit one of these in your plans and you won’t regret it.

Read more about the towns they’ve chosen at their link.

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/travel/The-20-Best-Small-Towns-to-Visit-in-2013-196855051.html#ixzz2OVGYaVLe

FREEPORT TEXAS

Yesterday, when I got up, the moon was shining through  a bank of clouds. The mist off the river gave the park lighting a misty yellow glow.

The whole campgrounds looked surreal and beautiful.

Then, the sun struggled  through the mist in pink and purple hues.

The WINs were already finished with their hugs and mugs gathering  by the time I was finished with my therapy exercises I do each morning.

Paul, Garth and the two pats decided to visit Bay City.

Arlene handed out some persimmons she found. They are very small and of an oriental type I’d never seen before. Pat, on the left,  will be parting from the group after Mardi Gras New Orleans, but will rejoin them again before they head west. We all hugged goodbye and bid them a fond farewell.

We arrived in Freeport and  got permission to stay for a night at the VFW. I liked Harvey’s hat and took a picture. This is a very active club and we learned that clubs that only serve beer are open to the public. If they serve booze, they are considered private. That is a Texas State rule.This club has computer gambling, as well, and is very active.

Freeport is a very industrial city and doesn’t have much to see, but we always head for the local museum. The city was organized around its sulfur deposits by Dow Chemical. Dow bought acreage and sold housing lots cheap and got a workforce. It grew from there.

A maritime  industry developed.

And, from museum to museum, it is a given that you will see hurricane damage and a town rebuilding. Freeport also straddles the Brazos river and has weathered floods over the years.

As usual, I find something interesting I’d not heard  before. An all woman Supreme Court?

If you travel with kids, this is a great museum for kids. Fun and educational.

It has a mini planetarium and we enjoyed it just as much as any kid. You lie back on bean bags and the sky story is narrated above you. (There wasn’t a kid, or another person in the museum.)

The museum had a huge room devoted to U.S. Presidents and elections. A replica of the oval office,  a table sized map of the United States explaining how the electoral college works.

Pictures of presidents and their most famous quotes while their most famous speeches are broadcast on a video. 

I had never heard this one from Nixon. I guess this wasn’t his most famous quote. I’m not sure how the quotes were picked. But, they do tell a story of the times.

We still deal with our liberties today. Have we learned anything from the past?

The museum was a bit short on artifacts, but I loved this gorgeous old organ. What beauty and craftsmanship to admire.

And, as a curiosity, this is the hand washing station in the men’s room. I guess you could call it a big sink. Today, we move to Galveston Island.

SIGNS OF A LAZY DAY

Yesterday, the sun shined brightly and we soaked it up. Jim worked on the mal functioning auto lock on the passenger side door of the Bronco. I washed a couple of rugs and hung them out to drain and dry in the sun. It felt good to move about and feel the sun on our faces.

We did the laundry and bought home-made tamales from Rosa’s on the way home. Delicious late lunch. We  sort of melted into the cushions and read the rest of the  day and just snacked for dinner. On the way home I saw a sign for a frame shop, Hall Of Frames. I’m often impressed by the clever names people choose for their businesses. I don’t always get the picture, but I indulge in clever signs whenever I get a chance.

Dog grooming.

.

.

This sign is in old town Gallup, NM,  outside of a business near a park. I once had a small retail store and I understand this completely.

Of course, strange but  serious signs are funny too,  like this one on a desert walking trail.

You don’t see one of these very often. It is part of General Patton’s Museum in California where they tested tanks and other war equipment at one time.

Others are just fun. (The blur is my fault.)

.In Tombstone Arizona where the waiters and waitresses wear guns, unloaded, I’m sure. The customers are not allowed to wear guns.

.

An ad on a T-shirt.

I think this was a game shop, cards, poker chips etc. in Las Vegas.

Stapled to a power pole in Bisbee, Arizona.

A cookbook for sale in a motorcycle  museum.

This curious statement on a business window in Harlingen, Texas,  intrigued me. Driving by it a second time, I found out the new business going in will be a bike shop. Can’t reason it out. Obviously something I don’t know about bikes and bikers.

Well, this one is easy to understand. It is posted at my Italian neighbor’s house, and she is a hoot.

Port Isabel & South Padre Island, Texas

Yesterday we drove the motorhome the about 50 miles from Harlingen to Port Isabel, Texas.

We spent the night parked at Wal-Mart in Port Isabel because of its convenient location. Parked at the far edge of the parking lot made for a relatively quiet night’s sleep. We’ll move on this morning to Brownsville about 25 miles distant..

As always you may left click upon an image to see an enlarged view and then click once again to see an even larger view…

As always, i like to show the view from the dining room window…

It ended up being a full day exploring the local area. The Google Earth image below shows Port Isabel as PI and South Padre Island as SPI. The Rio Grande River enters the Gulf of Mexico from the lower left…

Because I took so many photos yesterday…in this Blog entry I’m going to show you only a couple from each location. To see the rest of the photos you will have to click the provided Picasa Web Album link.

First stop of the day was at the Port Isabel Historical Museum…

To see the other 18 photo I took at the Port Isabel Historical Museum, click this Picasa Web Album link…
https://picasaweb.google.com/110455945462646142273/PortIsabelHistoricalMuseumTexas

The second stop od the day was at the Treasures Of The Gulf Museum…

To see the other 21 photos I took at this museum, click this link…
https://picasaweb.google.com/110455945462646142273/TreasuresOfTheGulfMuseumPortIsabelTexas

Third stop was at the Port Isabel Lighthouse which provided a nice view of South Padre Island…

To see the other 7 photos, click this link…
https://picasaweb.google.com/110455945462646142273/PortIsabelLighthouseTexas

A combination ticket to all three museums for seniors was only $5, You can read about theses museums by clicking their website link…
http://portisabelmuseums.com/mopi/

After the lighthouse it was time for a late lunch at Joe’s Oyster House…

Where we both had…naturally…the delicious grilled shrimp plate for $8.95…

Now it was time to cross the Queen Isabela Causeway to South Padre Island. Here’s an aerial view I picked off of Google Earth…

You can read all about South Padre Island by clicking this Wikipedia link…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Padre_Island,_Texas

First stop  was at the South Padre Island Birding and Nature Center…

To see the other 23 photos, click this link…
https://picasaweb.google.com/110455945462646142273/SouthPadreIslandBirdingNatureCenterTexas

You can read all about this place by clicking their website link…
http://spibirding.com/

Then we drove “up Island” to see the beaches…

To see the other 5 photos, click this link…
https://picasaweb.google.com/110455945462646142273/SouthPadreIslandTexas

Enjoying beautiful area locations is another joy of the full-time Rving lifestyle!!!

The red dot on the below map shows our approximate location in the State of Texas. You may double left-click the map to make it larger…

Enjoying 65-75 degree temperatures most of the year is a primary joy in the RVing lifestyle!

“Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance you must keep moving”…Albert Einstein

If you have not checked out my Ramblin Man’s Photos Blog, you can do so by clicking this link…
http://ramblinmanphotos.wordpress.com/

All original material Copyright – Jim Jaillet 2013
For more information about my three books, click this link:
http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/panamaorbust

Harlingen, Texas – Day 9

Mary is at home in California enjoying the holidays with her family. She has made her airline reservations to join me here at Harlingen, Texas on January 3, 2013.

The motorhome is parked at Tropic Winds RV Resort and is scheduled to be here until January 10th. While I await Mary’s arrival on the 3rd, I’ll be seeing some local attractions, performing repairs and preventative maintenance on both the motorhome and Bronco, plus thoroughly cleaning both vehicles.

A few days ago I drove the Bronco the about 12 miles to San Benito, Texas, to visit the Museums of San Benito…three museums in one building. Yesterday I reviewed the Texas Conjunto Music Hall of Fame & Museum. In that museum was a display of the La Villita Dance Hall still in operation at 261 W. Robertson Street, a few blocks from the museum.

Here’s the museum’s description of La Villita…
A historical treasure that is found in downtown San Benito is El Patio La Villita. In the 1950s–60s and 70s, it was the premier dance hall in the entire Rio Grande Valley. People traveled from all over the Valley for weekend dances. Orguestas (orchestras) such as Beto Villa, the Father of “Musica Orguestal Tejana” played here during their lifetimes. Conjunto legends such as Narciso Martinez, Tony De La Rosa, Valerio Longoria, Freddy Fender and many other musicians also played here during their lifetime.

The music is called Conjunto and you can read about it in this link…(Be sure to click the video button and then the related video buttons to hear a nice selection of this music)
http://www.texasconjuntomusic.org/aboutus.html

Here’s La Villita’s current website link…
http://lavillitadancehall.com/LV_LADS005.html

As always you may left click upon an image to see an enlarged view and then click once again to see an even larger view…

Here are some of the photos that I took…

Here three photos of the La Villita exhibit…

Here three photos of the building. La Villita in Spanish means small town which this area, where the dance hall is located, was many years ago…

By clicking these two links you can read about the history of South Texas Dance Halls including La Villita…
http://www.thc.state.tx.us/medallionmag/medalliontrav/medalliontravelPDFS/swngn_slns_07_10.pdf

http://www.dailyyonder.com/las-salones-baile-across-south-texas/2012/04/23/3942

Enjoying a wide variety of museums is another joy of the full-time RVing lifestyle!

The red dot on the below map shows my approximate location in the State of Texas. You may double left-click the map to make it larger…

Enjoying 65-75 degree temperatures most of the year is a primary joy in the RVing lifestyle!

“Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance you must keep moving”…Albert Einstein

If you have not checked out my Ramblin Man’s Photos Blog, you can do so by clicking this link…
http://ramblinmanphotos.wordpress.com/

All original material Copyright – Jim Jaillet 2012
For more information about my three books, click this link:
http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/panamaorbust

WINDOW ROCK, AZ.

Jim arranged for us to park for two nights at the Navajo Museum Library & Visitors Center in Window Rock, Arizona,  not far from Arizona’s border with New Mexico.  Here is located the seat  of government for the Navajo Nation on the largest reservation in the United States, at 27,000 square miles.

This “woman’s” hogan was removed to the center and is preserved here. It is a very solid building. The area is surrounded by huge rocks typical of those we have seen all over New Mexico. Somehow, we never get tired of these monolithic giants plopped down from some ancient cataclysmic event, that we might enjoy their beauty.

A great view out our dinette window. I’d love to be a kid again and climb these rocks and if I didn’t have a bum hip I would have. We watched young boys go up in minutes. On the grounds is a zoo populated by animals that have been injured and rescued to stay or be returned to the wild if they can be rehabilitated.

One of the main attractions in town is the window rock  for which the town is named.  A tribal park, a monument to the Navajo Code Talkers, a Veterans Memorial, and the Navajo Nation Council Chambers, are a stones throw of each other. We decided to walk the mile or so into town.

Window Rock  may have  significance  to the Navajo more than its simple beauty.  In the film from the Gallup Cultural Center we saw a Navajo woman singing the Marines Hymn,  in Navajo,  in front of  Window Rock. It is a fitting place for their Code Talkers and Veterans Memorial.

The first building we approached was the office of the President, Ben Shelly.  It is similar to our White House.  He was not available and we couldn’t meet him.

Next we visited their Council Chambers with the help of  Law And Order Chairperson, Edmond Yazzie , (right) and  Eldridge Anderson, Legislative District Assistant to Delegate Rosco Smith.  This building is where all the real action of government  takes place, similar to our House of Representatives.

The stone government buildings fit into the surrounding monolithic rocks.  Assistant Anderson gave us a VIP tour.

The view from Speaker of the Council, Johnny Naize’s seat.

The great seal behind his chair.

Council members desks face the Chair and are set up much like our National Houses of  Government.

Assistant Anderson gave us a poster of their members serving a four-year term 2011-2015. They have a true democracy where each district delegate is voted in by his constituents in his district without an electoral college between the voters and the final result.  Council members represent their districts by population, just as our House of Representatives.  Assistant Anderson was so accommodating, he gave  us a ride back to the motor home so we didn’t have to carry our paper posters in what was then a fierce wind, and then drove us back to town to finish our tour.

In town there is a daily flea market and a food court with about five small restaurants featuring Navajo foods.

I enjoyed a delicious sweet corn and lamb stew with Indian fry bread. Jim had a Navajo Taco on fry bread.

Genevieve Hardy invited us to join her for lunch and we learned a lot about the Navajo people, their schooling, languages and jobs in the community. She wears a neon vest because she bikes from home at Fort Defiance to work. Besides her government day job, she weaves custom native dresses, skirts,tops, and saddle blankets of wool. Her website is:   Jus.weaving@yahoo.com. A delightful woman. Her daughter works at Canyon De Chelly and we hope to connect with her.

We poked around town, a flea market, a Native  Arts and Crafts store, with quality jewelry and prices to match. ($6,000 and up for a necklace.)  No pictures.

We walked back to the motor home and visited the Nearby Museum and Library. I was expecting a Navajo language library. It was both. The museum was a history of the Navajo in paintings and photos with a some artifacts and a film.

This picture is about having to get your hair cut to go to the boarding schools.

The old ways.

A woman and her baby survived the long forced walk under Kit Carson where the Navajo were imprisoned at Bosque Redondo.

Window Rock should be a definite on your travel agenda.

FOUR MUSEUMS IN ONE DAY.

The Navajo Museum at Red Rock Park is an absolute must to visit if you are in the area. There is no charge for this excellent museum. I took pictures of over 30 murals; they have great western art, wonderful pottery, old photographs. and a well done history of the Navajo.

One fascinating aspect of their culture is the sand paintings.  The one above was made to help heal someone “agitated” by a rattlesnake. The sand painting is made on the ground and the afflicted person lies on the sand while he is prayed over. When he stands up, grains of sand stick to him and the remaining sand is removed to a sacred place.

Making a sand painting is a tedious business, and the “paintings” are beautiful and precise.  Many framed and glued examples of sand paintings are here for you to see.  Fascinating.

I loved this photograph of the gnarled old grandmother’s hand with her sweet grandbaby’s innocent face. I took photos of photos from this museum and the Gallup Cultural Museum in downtown and I’m unsure what pictures came from which museum.

This ceremonial dance, the bent over form, the walking sticks can also be seen depicted in the murals.  This dance can be seen by the public when  Native Americans have a ceremonial day. Many of these dances are private and are not available to the public.

Excellent needle work.

Beautiful pottery with distinctive designs. With the crudest of tools, they made designs of great intricacy.  Young Navajo study the old designs to try and keep the patterns alive.

I took 34 photos of outdoor and indoor murals at this museum if you’d like to see them click the link:
https://picasaweb.google.com/106530979158681190260/GallupMurals?authkey=Gv1sRgCJOLrpjDgPaRsAE
Our next stop was the Code Talkers museum situated in a Christian School. This was more an honorarium for the 30 Code Talkers that had attended this school from Gallup.

And, the story is a fascinating one.  Speaking Navajo for communicating during battles turned out to be successful and essential. The Japanese could not break the code and it helped  turn the tide of many battles because communications were quick and decisive. A communication that would have taken more than an hour to get through without detection, could be radioed openly in Navajo in a few minutes.

Just how essential they were is stated by Major Howard Connor.

This tiny museum brushed briefly on their training. They needed to use vocabulary that was not in the Navajo language. It was rigorous training and memorization to coordinate a code talker on the battlefield. The code talker had to speak fluent English to apply.

While the little museum supplied pictures for us, the Gallup Cultural Center had an amazing  film on the Code Talkers. On the battlefield they were so important, they were surrounded by guards so they would be protected from friendly and enemy fire. Some soldiers could not tell a Navajo from a Japanese. During transportation, they were given births on the train, they got special quarters and the best food. They were given respect. Something some of them experienced for the first time. It changed the path of the Navajo Nation. Code talkers returned to their land with a newly awakened purpose. They knew they had to become political, businessmen, teachers and assimilate into the culture to make headway in America and still be able to keep their native practices.

I thought this cartoon was worth seeing.

The beautiful old Rex Hotel in downtown Gallup is listed on the historic register. The building is in great shape and holds the Historical Society Museum. Local people donate their precious belongings for their own museum, school yearbooks, grandma’s washing machine, old tools and so on.  We like to go even though we see a lot of the same things over and again. We like to look for that jewel you may never find anywhere else.

What’s so charming about local museums is that everyone in town knows who Martha Zollinger’s mom is. They are, as this one was, overstuffed, personal and quaint; run by volunteers.

And, I found this jewel of an old stamp machine with envious prices for stamps.

And clip-on-your-shoes, sidewalk skates. I got my first pair when we moved to a city with sidewalks. They kept falling off and caused me  many skinned knees.

Gallup’s Cultural Center is in a beautiful old train station. A sweet cafe  reminiscent  of the cafe in pictures of   the station in its heyday.  It has a bit of everything. A masters and dreamers gallery. Historic pictures of all walks of life in the Gallup Community from Route 66, to coal mining, to Native American life.  But, the code talkers film is a do-not-miss.

 

 

Three paintings from the Gallery of Dreams, budding young artists.

A painting from the children’s gallery.

And work from the Masters Gallery.

I got my art fix. Then we went on to visit the famous El Rancho Hotel. Famous because of the many movies made here.  The stars put up at the best hotel in town. The El Rancho.

The building is still in use as a hotel. It is beautiful from the outside.

I’ve seen rustic wood buildings before. This one is fancier wood plank rustic.  Interesting doors.

The lobby was heated by a fireplace, no longer used.  People’s fascination of the place is more about the movie star pictures lining the upstairs balcony that over looks the lobby.

Lucy  and Desi.

Errol Flynn

 

Kirk Douglas

Paulette Goddard.

The pictures are a really fun cruise. I didn’t grow up with movies and I’m not gaga about movie stars, but they evoked old familiar movies I liked and faces we don’t see anymore.  In fact, the doors to the rooms in the hotel have a movie stars name above them.

We visited several jewelry stores because I wanted to find something from the Zuni tribe.   Their craft is declining as the old Zuni jewelry makers die and the younger people aren’t as interested in their art.  And, believe it or not, I took this photo of a photo in a jewelry store.  The little girl’s jewelry is Navajo.

It was a great museum, jewelry, history, art crawl and a full day. Later, I’ll blog some of the Navajo rugs and other pictures from this very full day.

Gallup, New Mexico – Day 2

On our last full day of exploring Gallup, New Mexico, we visited four museums where we learned about the Navajo Code Talkers, a couple of Indian jewelery stores and the famous El Rancho Motel…Home to the Movie Stars.

If you missed Day 1 and desire to read that Blog entry, you can do so by clicking this link…
http://wp.me/pDCku-4xn

If you are not aware of who the Navajo Code Talkers were, this official website link will cure that malady…
http://www.navajocodetalkers.org/

If you are unaware of the history of the El Rancho Hotel, this website link will cure that malady…
http://elranchohotel.com/about_hotel.cfm

Because we covered so many things yesterday, the photos in this Blog entry will be a mish-mash of paintings, photographs from the past, Indian Jewelery, blankets, pottery, etc… and some of the El Rancho Hotel.

As always you may left click upon an image to see an enlarged view and then click once again to see an even larger view…

To see the other 100 photos that I took, click this link…
https://picasaweb.google.com/110455945462646142273/GallupNewMexicoDay2

In other news…

Now that we have completed our visit to Gallup, New Mexico…today we’ll move on to a new destination within the Navajo Nation. It’s the largest Indian Nation within the United States consisting of 27,000 square miles within New Mexico, Arizona and Utah.. Here’s the map…

In the next couple of weeks we may end up in locations where this is no Internet signal. Not to worry. As soon as we have one there will be another Blog entry.

All original material Copyright – Jim Jaillet 2012
For more information about my three books, click this link:
http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/panamaorbust

COLUMBUS, NM MEMORIAL DAY

To the sound of the bagpipes carried on a cold wind, we walked out of Pancho Villa State Park,  crossed  the highway and entered  the Memorial Garden where the Columbus Historical Society honors those who were killed in Pancho Villa’s infamous raid. March 9th, 1916, at 4:00 a.m. the city was awakened by gunfire.

Villanistas went directly to Ravel’s store, a man who sold guns across the border. A new government degree made it against the law to sell guns across the border. Ravel kept the money and didn’t deliver the guns, so the story goes. Some think that may have been the cause of the raid. Seventeen year old Arthur Ravel was dragged from under his bed in his underwear. His father was in El Paso at the dentist.  Arthur lived to tell his story.

Above picture from the Historical Society Museum shows Pancho at a friendlier time. Susan Parks, a 19-year-old telephone operator heard noises outside her living quarters at a Columbus Print Shop. Peering out the window she saw Villa’s men lurking nearby. She scooped up her sleeping daughter and crept toward the town’s switchboard to summon aid. She lit a match to see the keys and a volley of gunfire exploded the shop’s window. Glass splinters tore into her face, neck, arms and into the face of her daughter. She stashed Gwen under the bed and when it got light enough, she carefully crept back to the switchboard and sent word to Fort Bliss that a group of Mexicans was shooting up the town.These, are just a couple personal stories that the historical society has in their museum, along with many pictures and a clock that was struck with a bullet registering the time of the raid.

Members of the Border Patrol on horse back raised and held the colors for the hour ceremony.

Pictures and a biography of those killed hang at the base of the review stand for all to see and read. This year, for the first time, the Society invited Dr. Robert H. Bouilly, a Historian at Fort Bliss to make a presentation at the Memorial. He pointed out how many of them were not U.S. Citizens, like Fred Green, the first of the soldiers to die. Serving in the army was a path to citizenship then. Three units of Villanistas attacked  Fort Furlong, where Green was on guard near the stables. The rest of the encampment, was unarmed. They had to break open the armory to get weapons. The Villanistas were after the horses and Green was actually trampled to death after being wounded.

Struggling with the cold wind trying to blow his notes away and carry his voice off with them, Dr. Bouilly gave an in depth  account of some of those killed in the raid, and an account of victims of the raid that are not included in the official count of those lost. He spoke of a Mexican businessman who came to town and was in the hotel. The Villanistas had hauled the men out to the street outside and the women, after taking their jewelry and valuables, into the lobby. He was planning to kill them all. The business man who spoke excellent Spanish, convinced the, “…we are all Mexicans.”  He took each woman under a dim light and showed them they were all Mexicans, which they were not. The Villanistas  let them live. His body was found two days later over the border. He was never listed as one of those who died in the raid.

Nor was Yarbrough, a man who was seemingly only slightly wounded. He died from complications with gangrene three years later. Or, the wife of John Walker, who never got over his death and had several mental breakdowns after the horrific killings she witnessed.

James Todd Dean died in the raid. His cousin, Tom Dean was present at the ceremony and has a remarkable likeness to the picture above with his hat and sunglasses removed.

Dean called out the names of those Military dead. In the background someone struck a bell at each name.

And then he laid the wreath at the foot of the Memorial. Another man did the same for the civilian casualties.  While some relatives are bitter about the park being named after Pancho Villa, Dean is one of those who is not.  The whole review was interesting and informative and we were glad we braved the chill.

We revisited the State Park Museum, as well, and looked once more at this 1915 Dodge, full of holes. The driver was wounded, his wife took the wheel and with a good lead, the family of three escaped. In a similar chase in another vehicle, the husband  was killed and his wife and kids got out and lay by his body and pretended to be dead. They lived to to tell the tale.

The Museum has other things in it besides an account of the raid. This was the first airbase and a Jenny is mounted to the ceiling. The instructions say, “Do not inspect the Jenny, or you will never want to fly her.”  The reason being, the skin is made of cloth.

Because of the heat, soldiers at one time were housed in two-man adobe “tents”.

We hiked into town and had delicious Mexican food at a hole-in-the-wall family owned Mexican restaurant. The owner had to attend the store next door, and then come back to cook for us. No adjoining door.

Get ready now, federales,
Be prepared for very hard rides,
For Villa and his soldiers
Will soon take off your hides!

A good profile of the Robin Hood of Mexico, Pancho Villa, hated by thousands, loved by millions at the following link.

http://www.desertusa.com/mag07/feb07/villa.html