GHOSTS, SMOKE, AND FREE LAND

New Mexico is burning, but more on that in a minute.

I'm going to talk about several kinds of ghosts, a lot of smoke, and how someone named Yoon used his Macintosh to win 5 acres of mountaintop land in northern New Mexico. Better put on your woo-woo goggles, because what this is really all about is the human spirit. That's right, chil'len, we talkin' 'bout power and joy that lives outside of time and space.

Those of you who follow these things know that my wife and I have been on a 2,200 mile road trip in a Ford pickup truck and that the last column was filed in Dubuque, Iowa. Dubuque is remarkable in many ways, but what I'm remembering now is the Holy Ghost Credit Union!

The Holy Ghost Credit Union [above] resonates for more reasons than just the ironic juxtaposition of God and mammon. The older working-class neighborhoods of Dubuque with their churches and corner taverns seem nicely balanced by people living so close to sin and savior, you might say. For these folks, going to a church-affiliated credit union must be the most natural thing in the world -- the contrast between the rough-edged homes and the splendid churches would lead an innocent to think the clerics had all the money anyway, so why not? It sounds a little odd to this boy raised in the grand (?) and fearful semi-agnostic tradition, but having the imprimatur of the Deity for your borrowing is pretty cool, you have to admit.

The first day of our return trip we covered 600 miles in a little over 11 hours, going all the way from Dubuque to McCook, Nebraska. The town is known for a number of things, all of which I've forgotten except for the motorcycle-riding dog at Sarge's Tavern. I missed a shot of the little guy's arrival, so you'll have to trust me on this. My main thought here is that a guy who would let his pooch ride along with him on a 9:00 a.m. visit to a tavern is someone I could get along with. Besides a platform for Fido to occupy, the two-wheeler has a stereo with big speakers and (I swear) a cupholder. And you probably thought Nebraska was dull. For me this kind of motorized small-town zaniness recalled junior high school days in West Texas, another place where any fun you had was self-generated. (Kenny, Mike, and Charles floated by. Dead? Alive??)

Kansas was notable for being where I realized I couldn't say "we're not in Kansas anymore" and where we first learned of the Los Alamos fire. You need to know that I'm so unused to watching television these days that I don't even turn it on in motels, so when we picked up a Denver paper and saw the "FIRE!" in the headlines, it came as quite a shock.

Driving south into Taos County from Colorado was even more disturbing. Although we were at least a hundred miles from the fire, familiar mountain ranges just ahead were only half-visible. An alien haze of smoke and dust rose impossibly high to the south, looking for all the world like a huge cloud bank resting on the ground, except that it was neither. The image below, taken by a friend earlier in the week from high ground much closer to the fire, is something I hope I never have to witness. (And to imagine that it was started intentionally as a "preventive burn"!) The day after we returned, a strong southwest wind blew the smoke right in our direction. We live maybe 60 miles away and it was much too smoky to be outside!

Two days later, a northwest wind cleared things out enough for us to take a little hike to cut some lilacs growing farther up the valley. Arriving at the spot, we realized we had stumbled onto an old homestead. Though no trace of any buildings remained, the flat clearing surrounded by lilac bushes and apple trees could be nothing else. More ghosts! Had they been happy in this place, I wondered? They couldn't have been rich. We wandered farther up the trail and found more wonders: water, trees, green grass, and even a pond, mostly dried up now but still sporting a crop of dead cat-tails rising from the mud. Extraordinary! You have to see it to believe it, but in a semi-arid land, altitude makes all the difference.

A guy named Daniel Yoon has some altitude to appreciate now, 8,600 feet to be exact. Yoon is the 34-year-old former energy policy analyst and management consultant who won the Taos Land Grant Award for his film, "Post Concussion," at this year's Taos Talking Picture Festival. (Quoting now from an article by Su Wong in the May 11th edition of the Taos News:)

"The five-acre prize, located out in Cerro Montoso overlooking the Rio Grande Gorge, is perhaps the most permanent film festival prize anywhere. It was conceived and donated by Jeff Jackson of the Taos Land and Film Company. Its purpose is 'to plant extraordinary filmmakers in Taos' rich artistic soil, creating a community that supports and engenders high-quality cinema.'"

Now, I am not engaged in beating a drum here for the local chamber of commerce. SCREW boosterism! There are too many people here as it is and I shouldn't be taking up valuable space myself. If you arrive with less than a million dollars you might as well shoot yourself, and if you are that rich you'll soon be bored with all the poor people and leave anyway, so what the hell. No, the point about Daniel Yoon is that regardless of having no formal training in filmmaking, he made a movie just because he wanted to, entered it in a film festival competition, and won himself a 5-acre parcel of mountaintop land! Needless to say, our man Yoon is one very happy camper. It took him two whole years just to edit the thing, which he accomplished in his spare time "on his home Macintosh computer." Yup!

So what do we have?

God's own credit union, a dog on a motorcycle, Abilene, a stupid fire, homestead ghosts, a hidden forest, and a guy who used a Mac to win a mountain. Oh! And one more thing, this picture of happy Nebraskans from long ago, part of the family cargo picked up on our trip. Take a look and see what you think.

I see strength, calmness, happiness, and pride. These people don't know they're temporally deprived of Wal-Marts, ISPs, and HMOs. Their spirit leaps out across the years, which obviously don't mean a damn thing. This tells me that the human experience is timeless, that we are now essentially the same as we have ever been.

All week long I've wondered why these people keep "talking" to me: the ones who'd never put their money anywhere else, the prairie joker, junior-high cronies, my long-ago neighbors in paradise, the movie-maker with a Mac, the folks in the wagon, even the poor bastard who authorized the Bandelier burn.

There's energy there, I tell you. Whatever we are, we do things, yet we are more than what we do. You fill in the blank. Me, I'm off to go play with my camera or have a sandwich, and I don't think it makes a difference which or when, do you?

(Woo-woo! :-)

John H. Farr edits the news for Applelinks.com and invites your comments. The Farr Site Archives will take you to the past two years' worth of columns. John also writes his WebFaust column for MacAddict.com and a monthly op-ed page column called "El Emigrante" for Horse Fly in Taos, NM. He may someday stop talking about his Zoo Zone site, but we doubt it.

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November 20, 2008