Voyager America

Welcome to the Boom Town...

Santa Fe Plaza store window

Tesuque neighborhood

Traveling, even if one pays a little attention, is a rolling lesson in history. Of course, what constitutes "history" is a question under much scrutiny today, and rightfully so. Does the focus of history revolve around big people and big events, or is it, like Tolstoy believed, the sum total of the multitude of variables and decisions made by all involved? Is history more accurately told locally, regionally, nationally, internationally, or some swirling composite of these areas? Who gets included and who tells the stories? Whose voice is left out and why? Is "knowing" history just interesting in itself, or is it possible that "knowing" history can lead us to make decisions that move us "ahead"?  All in all, we are a nation that does not want to pay too much attention to all this. We seem to understand and make sense of things mostly within the frame of our own lifetimes and mostly within those "histories" that we perceive have some direct impact on us.

I hadn't been in Gatesville for almost 40 years, Big Bend National Park for 40 years, and not at Carlsbad Caverns for 50 years. So, for parts of this trip, I'm reliving my own personal history.  Leaving Philadelphia and traveling through West Virginia (see our first blog), Tennessee, Arkansas, Texas, and New Mexico has taken us through some distinct regions. However, a common theme has been the boom or bust cycle our American economy spurs. Very few places we have visited are in some kind of stasis, that grand American vision of "hometown". Rather, places are either in a boom phase, like north Dallas, Texas, or in a state of decay because the economic engine has left their station, like Coalwood, West Virginia. Each specific region adds particular details: geography, weather and water availability, the different people living in an area and their mutual and competing interests, the prior histories of a region and of the people living in the region, innovation and technology and their effects on each area, the rise of new consumer demands (just who creates these "demands" is interesting to consider), the US military interest in a given region, the US and State Constitutions, and tribal laws that hold jurisdiction in an area, and the effects of luck and serendipity to name but some factors.

Santa Fe streets

Carrizozo, NM, streets

Technology and the Internet can lead to new possibilities, like the company in Gatesville, Medical Plastics Laboratory,  that makes life-like plastic skeletons and sells them worldwide to hospitals and medical schools. The national homogenization of hotel chains, dollar stores, Walmarts, fast food places, drug stores, gas stations, and hardware stores has led to most towns with more than 5,000 people having a similar strip of businesses on the main highway by the town, but not in the older, downtown area, which is usually less vital. While all of this does help stabilize local economies, it does not reach more deeply into the boom or bust cycle. If a town is going bust because its economic engine has dried up, these enterprises will go bust with it. The surface scars of towns and areas after the bust are easy to see. The deeper wounds of this American process lie more hidden in the hearts and minds of our people and get played out as we move to create the future.

In thinking about economic concerns, a metaphor that has recently surfaced is the idea of "invasive plants". Living in Philadelphia, I'm aware there is a clear movement to return the region to its native flora and rid the area of non-native, invasive plants. Native flora, it is believed, best sustains a local, ecological balance into the future. What would a "native" economic venture look like that did not simply destroy (take over) local businesses, but was compatible with them, and also could fold more seamlessly back into the local economy (life) when it was no longer profitable? Can the boom or bust cycle be replaced with a more consistently evolving process by creating business ventures that meet a "native plant" standard?

Madrid, NM: From coal town to artist colony

Magdalena, NM, our home for the past three weeks boomed in 1885 when a spur of the Santa Fe railroad arrived. Magdalena quickly became a regional hub for shipping cattle and sheep to other parts of the region and country. 1919 is the high water mark for the number of animals shipped from Magdalena, 21,677 cattle and 150,00 sheep. Ore extraction of Smithsonite, also benefitting from the railroad, added to the boom. Some of the remnants of the boom are still quite visible, but the effects on the citizens today is, at best, only a guess on my part. However, I wish such histories and changes, and their effects on people's lives, will be brought to the light of day for everyone. From such publicly open insight, can a more sustaining and inclusive life be attained? 

Magdalena - Santa Fe Railroad Station

Magdalena Shipping Pens

Magdalena Hotel

In Santa Fe, we came across this forceful, native woodcarving in a shop window. The description of the piece offered by the artist is another view of American history and economy. This voice is certainly part of the open insight hoped for above.

Second Prize Carving at 96th Annual Santa Fe Indian Market

See Text Below

"Together with Spirit and Nature We Fight"

This piece was made to symbolize the "State of Our World". There is a fight going on that has been exposed to the modern world. A battle known only by those who understand that the Earth is our mother and our home: we only have one. As caretakers of the Earth, we were meant to live in harmony with nature, not destroy it. Mankind, as a whole, now understands the steps we must take to change the state of our world. Clean means of energy are available but we battle the hold of fossil fuels and its industrial empire. Proud Warrior God Katsina, is representing the Warrior Spirit of Mankind. He is battling a two-headed serpent representing the oil industry and its coils on humanity. The red tailed hawk represents "Mother Nature" and its response to the industry's ignorance. As technology has grown in the past fifty years, so has the incline of natural catastrophes.  We can change and save our Mother, but only as one. 

WE MUST LEARN HOW TO LIVE BETTER FOR FUTURE GENERATIONS.