WAY OFF BASE
Ohioan Karen Deemer left work to meet a moving company at her house. She had been storing household items for her son and his wife, who were newly stationed at Kirtland Air Force Base. Born and raised in Albuquerque, Deemer had already faced questions about her passport and how she learned to speak such perfect English. So she didn’t think twice about asking to see their paperwork after the moving men loaded all the furniture on the truck. Wise move. It said the shipment was to be delivered to Bernalillo, Mexico. After calling their dispatcher, the men shared a good laugh with Deemer. “I told the dispatcher that this load stayed in the U.S.,” one of the men told her. “She just wouldn’t believe me.”
ICH BIN EIN NEW MEXICAN
Cathe Ragsdale was looking to switch from cable to Wi-Fi in White Rock, so she went to the FCC’s website to determine if there was decent reception in her neighborhood. White Rock got a new zip code in July, and she entered it into the search box. The map that popped up put her closer to Munich than Española. “I’d better brush up on my German. Danke, FCC!”
LEAPING LATITUDES!
During this summer’s Olympics, the New York Times published a virtual-reality story, “The Modern Games.” Highlighting famous moments from past games, it included a photo of Bob Beamon’s 1968 gold-medal long jump in Mexico City. The caption, though, gave credit where it wasn’t due, saying the games that year were held in New Mexico. “Who knew?” said Heather Kovach of Shiprock. She was just one of several Times readers who gave us a heads-up on this twist on the time-honored “Missing” meme.
TO THE MAX
While shopping in the Ben Franklin Apothecary in Duncanville, Texas, near her home, loyal reader Elaine Ham saw a poster in the quilt department. It asked customers to leave a push-pin mark on their home state, one of which (and you know which) was identified as “New Maxico.” Well. That’s a new one on us. We thanked Ham, who graciously replied, “I wish I was there in New Maxico.”
HOUSTON, WE HAVE A PROBLEM
Ann Zeigler of Houston didn’t want her daughter to miss home while attending graduate school in Albuquerque, so she filled packets with clippings from the Houston Chronicle and the like. Every other week, she’d hand a packet to staffers at her law firm to mail. “When I got the first quarterly expense sheet,” she says, “my eyes bulged out at several hundred dollars in mail costs.” She whipped out a road atlas and did a little on-the-job training. “There was a lot of embarrassed shuffling when they had to admit that postage from Houston to New Mexico did not require international rates or customs tags.” From then on, Zeigler dealt with the mail herself.
HAVE A “MISSING” MOMENT?
Send it to fifty@nmmagazine.com or Fifty, New Mexico Magazine, 495 Old Santa Fe Trail, Santa Fe, NM 87501. Include your name, hometown, and state. Thanks!