Down “round Claunch, NM
Posted by Pete | Posted in News | Posted on 19-01-2011
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Going through the community of Claunch, NM kind’a reminds me of Coal Fire, AL…But Coal Fire is huge compared to going through Claunch. In Claunch, a couple of buildings grace the community, one of them a church, and two or three houses and one wonders where they get enough people to keep the church going. Every ten or fifteen miles are so you see a ranch house around Claunch and you see houses all around Coal Fire…There is a church in Coal Fire, but the only thing is, there are many churches….and many houses within a few miles…In Claunch, no so much and I think one denomination fits all or at least they make it fit. But they get together in the community center, play music, games and have fun…Takes one back to the good old days when the tv was not so important..Folks still get out and visit….When one of the ranchers is having a round up, folks come from miles around, branding and dehorning and giving shots, etc , all of them doing turn about to help each other out….I like the life style down ’round Claunch…It’s like the good old days still exist in some parts of the world….I’m gonna have to go down there again soon..It kind of takes you back, back to a slower, easy living pace….Most days they can have a beer and drive home and never pass or meet one single car or pick up on those gravel roads…probably send a herd of antelope scurrying along though…Just so you’ll know, the main road through Claunch is paved…a good road too…..



Google Clunch and Coal Fire, separately of course, and you will find another big difference. Googling Coal Fire will give 18,800,000 hits most of which deal with burning, smoldering fires in a seam of coal; and none of which deal with Coal Fire, Alabama, although I did find Coal Fires, with a capital letter in several other places. Googling Clunch, New Mexico came up with no hits at all, although it did suggest the spelling of Claunch for which it gave 184,000 hits for a place in western New Mexico in Socorro County with the zip code of 87011 and a 2007 population of 125 (68 males and 57 females). Is this the same as Clunch? Population-wise it is similar to Coal Fire, Alabama, but there the similarity ends unless one, like me when I was bicycling and hiking over the Enchanted Land, imagined Alabama everywhere I looked. It requires some imagination, but it can be done if one is a lonely Air Force troop far, far from home. Coal Fire, Alabama does not have a zip code. I guess that means it would have to have a post office to have one. I guess Claunch does have a post office. I was told that Coal Fire, Alabama did have a post office a long time ago before zip codes were invented.
you are right. I misspelled it. Sorry…Coal Fire is very close to a other zip code locations. Claunch on the other hand is 38 miles from Carrizozo and 39 miles from Mountainair. At 125 population, it is bigger than I imagined…I wonder if some were counted twice???