This weekend we toured Lake Sumner State Park and Dam. Water level is not bad. It is run or overseen by the Carlsbad Irrigation District and they were letting out bunches of water. I guess the farmers down that way are needing the water for crops. However, folks were water skiing, fishing and camping..It was not real busy, but on the east side, campers had most of the trees  taken. Over on the west side there were some site for reservations which had covered tables, etc at the camping site which was nice.  We did not talk to the campers about the fishing, but we spoke to a nephew who had been up there a couple of weeks ago and he told me where to fish…a spot where he did very well. Anyway, we will probably talk about a couple of more places before we decide where and when to fish.  I was real busy the last few days and did not update the posts while I was away. The aforementioned is why. I’ll get caught up on the gossip and such on Gov. Bill, Prez, Nancy and some of the others and write something tomorrow. Thanks for visiting…Pete

You boys from Mississippi and Alabama don’t have trouble finding a fishing hole, eh, with water in it, eh, and fish in it. So, you grab your pole, head for the favorite fishing hole and probably catch a mess of fish most of the time and be heading home before us New Mexico boys arrive at our hole. But, out here in New Mexico we only have water in our holes when it rains, for the most part…You know what I mean…Out here you can be driving down a major New Mexico Highway and you pass a sign that says, “Watch for Water”….That is probably one of our major streams when it is raining, dry the rest of the time…Dang old fish won’t stay around without a healthy dose of water…So, we have to hunt for the fishing holes with year round water…Once that has been done you have to figure out if there is any fish in that particular hole..The best way to do that is to read the paper and they tell you when they are stocking a hole with fish. Sometimes they tell you what kind of fish, how many and what size….Now that helps a lot…Only thing, we got about 2 million people living in New Mexico and five or six nice holes…You read in the paper that Tingley Beach is gonna be stocked and you drive off down that way, folks all over the banks and that is good…somebody is gonna catch one or two..You holler at them, “Say, what bait are you using.”  He hollers back  , “Corn”…So you put on salmon eggs cause you know he is lying….Corn ain’t red…Well, we don’t have the mosquitoes or the chiggers or the water moccasins out here because we are so dry, but on the other hands, we ain’t got many fishing holes either….You remember me telling you about my neighbor losing gold fish out of her pond to that dang old hawk and now that he has met his demise, her pond is alive again with gold fish and a few other fishes….I kinda been tempted to wonder off over there after dark and making a couple of cast into the fish pond….Aw heck, I can’t do that..She has all them dang fish named and some of our neighbors would tell on me, I just know they would….”Pete went home hauling Wilbur, I saw him over there last night”…..Shoot, I’ll just look for me a good hole…..

The last couple of articles published in the Albuquerque Journal by Mr. Navarrette has not included his e-mail address. Now I’m not really picking on Mr. Navarrette but,  do you suppose the heat was turned up just a notch or two based on his support of the law breakers in Arizona? Surely I was not the only one trying to write him and have the e-mailed returned by damon….I think he knows he is wrong and he has trouble facing it, don’t you reckon? Gee, I don’t know, if he does have a bunch of kin folk in Arizona I can’t say I blame him…Why else would he support law breakers? Surely he has a valid license.  By the way, on Gov. Bill making it ok to get a New Mexico drivers license without a social security number…Did you read about the dude from Illinois being paid to bring illegals down here   to get New Mexico drivers license….he only charged them 1000 each for the service…there are  reports of some from Georgia also coming here  for drivers license…Humm, I wonder if I could sell mine?….I may start looking for a short bald headed guy who is good looking…wait that won’t work…oh, well, at least they ain’t profiling around here…..

Can you believe this is the same bunch. Three of us have passed on, one or two could not attend the reunion…for the most part that is us…just a tad older…ok, I have been asked to name the little rascals…I hope I am not getting myself in trouble…Here goes: Back row, from the left, kid with the ball, Larry, Harold, Sandra, Norma, Cecil, Pete, Virgil, (skip to the short one) Gene (deceased), Douglas, Errol, Kenneth (deceased), bottom row, Elaine, Scott, Shelby (deceased), Martha, Maxine, Betty Anne, Billy Ray…We miss Gene, Kenneth and Shelby McCool, all from the same family leaving only Sandra..We were next door neighbors throughout our growing up years..At the last reunion we hugged for a long time, kind’a letting the love flow between us, filling the void that we both had been feeling, as she had just lost a precious granddaughter in an auto accident…Since I have lost all my family and she has lost all of hers makes her all the more precious to me now…Don’t misunderstand, I love all my cousins and they know what it is I am trying to say…We are talking about another reunion for 2011…I hope we can..Things change so quickly

I bought me a new rod and reel….open face…light weight…fits in the car trunk easily…Now if I can find me a fishing buddy and a good place to fish….I remember my Uncle Buck Young fishing on Coal Fire Creek…He lived way off down yonder a few miles from the city of, er, the town of, er, that spot in the road called Coal Fire…He would walk off from his house a ways ’til he came to Coal Fire Creek, then he would fish all the way up past our house there in Coal Fire….bass fishing..he caught a bunch….and he was very good at it…Uncle Shorty Bonner fished Coal Fire also, but he liked set hook fishing. He caught a lot of catfish, eel and grinnell…and he cooked the grinnell, too. Said it was good…Pop wouldn’t fix grinnell cause he said it taste like cotton..well, I never ate either one, cotton or grinnell, so I don’t know. A lot of folks say it taste great but you have to fix it just right and not get the fish wet before you fry it and fry it the same day you catch it…Uncle Dee, now he was a crappie man..I think he called them white perch. He was a fishing dude and my Pop fished with him quite a bit. They may have had a few swigs from the jug from time to time, but they were a lot of fun to be with…and they caught a lot of fish. They did some set hook fishing from time to time as well….One day Uncle Dee Bonner, Pop (Webb Hester), Cousin Cecil and me were out seining for bait minnows and Uncle Dee being taller than Pop took the deep swing out into the water while Pop anchored one end of the seine. Cec and I was splashing the water, hopefully running the minnows up toward the net. I never will forget…Uncle Dee was wearing a hat and had a cigarette in his mouth carrying that seine. Suddenly he disappeared, his hat floated moving in the direction he had been moving. Seconds later he came back up, right back into his hat and the cigarette still in his mouth and he never missed a step..We all had a good laugh over that, including Uncle Dee….He never turned loose of that seine and we got plenty of bait…I can’t tell you today if we caught any fish or not that day, but the fond memories were about being together and having fun, but all those guys have passed on and a bunch of us still miss them. Cec and I renew the stories from time to time…..A fishing buddy like one of those guys is what I am looking for today….No 2 son and I have been doing a lot of talking….Maybe one of these days he and I can make some memories for us…we’ll see, huh son…..

Mr. Ruben Navarrette, Jr said in today’s Albuquerque Journal (Aug 1, 2010). “The eyes of the nation are fixed on Arizona, the undisputed problem child in the nation’s immigration debate.” …..but America says “Arizona is the leader in fighting the law breakers who have entered our country illegally.” Nothing is wrong with that Mr. Navarrette….Then he says, “Then there is Texas, which used to be a part of Mexico……” and it seems this takes us to the bottom of Mr. Navarrette’s problem, which seems to be ownership of the lands immediately adjoining the Mexican northern border…. You see, these people are not illegal aliens, the American people are the illegals and pretty soon the Mexicans will have it back, lets say 1 million illegals coming up every year, 10 years another 10 million and if they can get amnesty for the 12 million here now, that’s 22 million…..it will not take long and Mexico will have never fired a shot….And then he takes off on Texas trying to make a class A misdemeanor criminal offense for an illegal to be within the state of Texas and will oppose amnesty in any form….Sounds to me like Texas is doing it right…I am going to quit reading this fellow because he upsets me so….he claims to be an American citizen, but I wonder….I don’t know, he may have a bunch of kin who do not have their green cards, maybe that’s it…..Mr. Navarrette, I don’t oppose immigration, I oppose illegal entry into our nation….Get a green card..Mexico must be a terrible place for those folks to just keep leaving in such great numbers, I feel for them….. But our economy is going belly up….And how is California doing with it’s economy, Mr. Navarrette?…