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Earthen structures are the world's oldest and most ubiquitous shelters. They come in an astonishing panoply of type and style from the troglodytic - which is to say cave dwellings of both early Europeans and current communities in North Africa - to the towering, rammed-earth apartment buildings of Yemen and the immense, communal, round adobe Hakka houses in China.
A great percentage of homeowners in Santa Fe and across the United States have HELOCs or home-equity line-of-credit loans. Most HELOCS were financed several years ago when the prime banking rate was in the 4 percent range. Homeowners who borrowed to pay off other debt now find that their HELOC cost has doubled due to the bank prime rate going to 8.25 percent.
Once upon a time, not so very long ago, the people in the old Hispanic settlements of Truchas and Córdova lived absolutely with the land. They used earth and trees to build their homes and churches, and provisioned themselves through hunting, agriculture, and husbandry. They endured harsh winters, and exulted in the beauty of the landscape in their unique corners of New Mexico.
What a little beauty! The house at 343 E. Palace Avenue is one of Santa Fe's most distinctive, and its history is equally interesting.
Smokey Bear didn't actually live here, but his chief human benefactor did. That was Elliott Speer Barker, a former director of the State Department of Game & Fish and the namesake of Elliott S. Barker Wildlife Area northeast of Cimarron.
Through my mortgage binoculars, I often would like to see us greet one another with the courteous query, "How's your FICO today?" The question shows concern for another's credit-worthiness and more. Mortgage lenders, insurance companies, and many employers use FICO scores to evaluate applicants.
When a home is purchased with a mortgage a paid, one-year hazard insurance policy on the dwelling is a required condition of closing. An appraisal of the property will determine the value of the dwelling and the value of the land. The required coverage will be the greater of either the loan amount or 80 per cent of the value of the dwelling. This is done to protect the lender's interests, and any benefit to the homeowner is an afterthought.
There is considerable lore attached to building with earth. In likelihood the oldest construction technology on the planet, there has been plenty of time for oral traditions to be formulated and passed along with no written record.
The giant chess set on the expansive natatorium rooftop terrace, framed by magnificient views of the Ortiz Mountains, the Sandias, and the Jemez Range encapsulates the drama and interest of this property.
The tremendous variety of fences and walls people have devised for the fronts of their properties speaks to a quality of individualism in this neighborhood.
My friend and colleague Mac Watson, who has considerably more patience for meetings and bureaucracy than I, has been closely following and contributing to discussions about the city of Santa Fe's approach to building codes. Because his understanding of the issue is far deeper than mine, I have asked him to be a guest columnist to explain the intricacies.
This essay reminded several of our judges of their own childhood expeditions to the Pecos in search of a Christmas tree. As they recall — and writer makes clear — it was not the perfection of the tree but the journey that mattered most.
We've all given someone some variation of a ruby-eyed donkey — or received one from an adoring child. If we were as fortunate as the children in this well-crafted essay, the exchange became a treasured memory rather than a trauma.
The true, clear voice of a native Santa Fean and loving daughter shines though this brief essay. Gifts from the heart, the writer reminds us, have a value far beyond their material worth.
In other hands, this sparse, well-crafted tale could have been overly sad, sweet or tragic. Instead, the writer illuminates a small moment in a small life — and shows us how family myths are born.
This dark tale portrays a side of the holiday scene all too familiar to many people. Though the subject matter is difficult, the writing is compelling and the narrator's pain believable.
This year, our team of five staff holiday writing-contest judges focused on the stories and essays we received, and Miriam Sagan, who teaches creative writing at Santa Fe Community College and writes a monthly poetry column for Sunday magazine, selected the winning poetry across all age groups. (Sagan's most recent book of poetry is Rag Trade, from La Alameda Press and her Web site — http://sfpoetry.org — features dozens of local poets.)
Even so, with 69 adults sending us their work, selecting the winners was more difficult than ever. There was often a very fine line between those that made the cut and those that remained in the anonymous pile on the table. So, to acknowledge the efforts of everyone who entered the holiday writing contest, we once again share our favorite lines from their stories, essays and poems.
The strategic use of repetition and a quiet restraint help this author weave a tale that takes readers back and forth in time. We were also impressed with his ability to show, not tell, us about his protagonist.
A series of finely constructed images take a surprise twist in this stream-of-consciousness reflection on Christmas and other winter activities. The narrator maintains an even voice and tone throughout the bittersweet tale.
There are many ways, and many reasons, to try stopping time — but few as clever, or futile, as this one. The narrator's voice rings true, as do the conclusions she reaches.
Of the six winners and one honorable mention in this year's teen division of the Holiday Writing Contest, five are from the same school — McCurdy High School in Española — a fact we were unaware of until we began calling them about their selection.
The links to the left will take you to all the winning teen entries, last week's children's division winners, or an index of 2004 entries, respectively.
This year, 95 young people under the age of 12 sent us their stories, essays and poems. The eight who won prizes and five who earned honorable mentions are highlighted here today. But we think every child who enters The New Mexican's Holiday Writing Contest is a winner — just for having the heart and courage to pick up a pencil or tap on a keyboard and send us their work to be judged — so we're also publishing our favorite lines from each of the entries.
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Throughout the year The New Mexican produces in-depth, award-winning comprehensive reports on local issues that demand attention and examination. Here's an index to some of this work:
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Once addicted to heroin, alcohol and other drugs, Phillip Martinez now sees himself as a symbol of treatment’s potential — one wearing black leather, several pounds of silver chains and a long, braided beard.
Martha Lopez Trujillo was just coming out of treatment for heroin addiction when she was interviewed by The New Mexican in 1999 for a series of articles on drugs in Rio Arriba County. During her four months of rehab in Carlsbad, she hadn’t used drugs, and returning home to the Española Valley, she was happy and optimistic about her future.
Everyone agrees that conquering addiction is tough. But it might be even harder in Northern New Mexico, where providers have failed to overcome their longtime rivalries to create a comprehensive system to refer and treat addicts.
On a typically busy Friday morning at Una Ala methadone clinic in Española, men and women pour into the tiny building and wait in line. Many clench money in their fists to pay for their daily dose of the synthetic opiate they drink as a substitute for the heroin they crave.
I met Ernie Archuleta at a meeting at the Rock Christian Fellowship in Española during a harm-reduction program that teaches addicts and their families how to prevent a fatal overdose. I told him I was trying to document the heroin problem in Rio Arriba County and had seen everything except the problem itself. We began to talk, and he told me he had been using heroin for 20 years. Archuleta is 33.
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last comment posted may 21, 2006 8:12 am )
The teenagers joked as they piled into a truck and drove to the youth center, turning north on a main street under a blue sky. They looked like any group of high-spirited young men. But all were residents of a drug-rehabilitation center in Northern New Mexico.
Not long ago, the teenage members of the Chimayó Youth Conservation Corps scoured the arroyos and hills around the community, collecting trash as part of an annual clean-up day. In one arroyo, they spotted four syringes.
Addicts and their families in Northern New Mexico wish the region had a centralized referral service, a one-stop shopping center for information about treatment and other support.
In 1998, the New Mexico Department of Health drew public attention to the disturbing number of drug-related deaths in Rio Arriba County, many of them caused by heroin, often in combination with other drugs. According to the department’s data, the rate of fatal drug overdoses there was nearly four times the national average.
It’s noon on the Thursday before Easter in Judge Michael Vigil’s courtroom in 1st Judicial District Court in Santa Fe. All morning, jurors in the murder trial of Ruben Sandoval, accused of killing his girlfriend, Kaylynn Brown, have heard grisly testimony about blood spatter found on Sandoval’s clothes.
Victim-impact panels are one of many programs that target drunken drivers in an effort to stop them from reoffending. Here are a few other programs in New Mexico and elsewhere:
Gov. Bill Richardson recently outlined his proposal to the Legislature for reducing drunken driving. This proposal was praised by Mothers Against Drunk Driving and others, including the editor of the Albuquerque Journal. And while increased penalties may affect some would-be impaired drivers, previous research on combating drunken driving demonstrates that a more comprehensive approach has a better chance to change behaviors on a community-wide basis.
Understanding Adobe: We emerged from there 
