Lordsburg - Plea from the edge of the earth

Is there anybody out there?

Lordsburg Revisited

Plea from the edge of the earth

By Stephen L. Wilmeth

            Lordsburg?

            I must admit that most of the memories of Lordsburg cannot be arrayed in the highlight reel. That being said there has been some humor. There was the judge’s son who chained the patrol car to the light pole ala American Graffiti and then raced by the tethered cruiser speed shifting and laying rubber. Rumor had it his dad seriously considered not sharpening his knife prior to skinning him.

            Then, there was the newly indebted rancher who was hauling his cull Brangus prizes home from the Willcox auction only to have the worst of the she monsters almost jump out of the open topped stock trailer on Railroad Avenue. With no gates or cross fences between Los Angeles and Florida on the nearby I-10 corridor, he still has occasional nightmares thinking of what could have been if he hadn’t applied post-doctoral common sense to remedy his precarious situation.

            Then there was the infamous Border Patrol coming to Jesus meeting at the old office on the north side of town when Whip and the boys worked out a matter of internal affairs that had been festering. The shades were drawn, the doors locked and a rousing discussion ensued. Rumor had it that the furniture was rearranged and scratched, several windows were broken (along with at least one arm), some teeth were found missing, but the fellows emerged with a much better understanding of whatever subject they had identified for debating.

            Of course, Millie had another whore house there.

            And, one afternoon I slipped some Schnapps into the rest home where my great aunt was incarcerated. She lit up like a chandelier when I looked both directions before I pulled it out of my jacket. I was trying to open it when she whispered not to, but, rather, look in her second drawer under her writing paraphernalia for an open bottle.

            “Let’s finish that one first,” she whispered as she smiled.

            Her father had been a freighter driving his mule teams between the Separ store and Steins in John Wayne Stagecoach fashion. Most of the verbal history about him was about like the rest of the Lordsburg legacy.

It was all pretty tough, dreary black and white, and … discouraging.

Is there anybody out there?

Driving through the place today is akin to driving into Hunt’s Point in the days before Rudy Giuliani was mayor of New York. It is a quagmire of decay. Once robust Railroad Avenue has bookend Travel Centers that compete for fuel and Snicker sales with arguably three competitive businesses in the center of the remaining span. The McSpaddens, the Martins, and the Allred brother that looks like Bruce but isn’t seemingly remain the arbiters of good standing and endurance.

Even the El Charro has closed its doors. Once the western corner of the isosceles triangle of best Mexican food in the entire world, it apparently can’t draw enough locals to offset the scourge of the freeway bypass.

Of course, there is the school and its teacher population. The Border Patrol is there is numbers, too, but most of them apparently can’t stand the thought of living at their place of assignment so there is a line of traffic headed north toward Silver City at the close of each shift. The railroad administrative offices are gone. Darr is selling more and more fuel, but the drift for the greater community is downward and spiraling. There just aren’t enough days scheduled for the county fair each fall to make a dent in the gloom.

Plea from the edge of the Earth

It is with that background that the plea from Hidalgo County Manager, Tisha Green, was sounded.

The problem with Lordsburg and Hidalgo County is not just the attrition of major historical employment it is the geopolitical corridor they happen to occupy. Some 18,000 vehicles of east west traffic pass by each day, but the rampant, cancerous impact to the county and the nation is what transits the mountains and the smuggling corridor going north and south out of this extreme southwestern most portion of New Mexico, the Bootheel.

This is the only Arizona Class smuggling corridor along the New Mexico border with Mexico.

This isn’t the land of coffee shop talk or intellectual political debate. This is where real people face the stark danger of a border that has long been a multibillion-dollar farm to market illicit trade route. This is where the political class has played constitutional badminton with lives they obviously don’t understand and seemingly care less or nothing about.

That is the only conclusion that can be reached for those who live in this place.

The Border is safer than it has ever been! is what too many of their leaders are spewing. The problem is not a single one of those leaders actually live and work in direct exposure to the border. Words they use along with their media allies have long since lost any local agreement.

Ms. Green’s letter exposes in very straight forward script what this community of mostly rural Americans face. In fact, read it for yourself. You are going to find it very hard to trace any of it to a lefty or a righty politico or a tedious special interest mob. What will emerge is the manifestation that residents here are mere subjects of a divided government. They are being told illegals contribute more political capital than American residents.

It is a terrible place to be, but the it is not the location. The Bootheel of New Mexico is arguably some of the most enchanting landscape of this supposed Land of Enchantment. The it is the predicament that working loyal citizenry have long been under … a system whose cost bears little witness to promised returns.

Stephen L. Wilmeth is a rancher from southern New Mexico. “We all shake out heads at what Hidalgo County could be, and what it is.”