Commentary & Opinion
When everything looks like a nail, odds are you are using the hammer for the wrong job
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Every new tool is sold with the dazzling promise of abundance enjoyed in leisure
Past Perfect
QEPD Johnny Snyder: the good was in the shared golden years of our childhood, so I’ll remember instead all the happy times we had as boys in Laredo
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“Even though neither one of us had ever tasted one, in those days, the world was our oyster.”
Past Perfect
That well-respected gentleman, Mr. Fred Dickey Jr., had a laugh unchanged from the one the boy Freddy had, an explosion of gusto released from deep strata of humor
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By the age of enjoying grandchildren and enduring the indignities of old men’s malfunctioning bodies, Fred and I had both become almost as much wiser as we were older
Past Perfect
The Peyote Chronicles IV: Agent “Pussyfoot” Johnson comes to Laredo; sworn enemy of booze and peyote takes on merchants Villegas and Wormser, suppliers of sacred plant for Native American religious ceremonies
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Peyote buttons, also called “Japanese Buttons,” cost $2.5o per thousand f.o.b. Los Ojuelos in 1909; they were shipped by Tex-Mex rail from Aguilares to Laredo for distribution to reservations north of the Red River
Past Perfect
Cactus commerce in Laredo ended after Anna B. Nickels; then came Margret Sackville Jones and her collection of 3000 species behind the Cactus Gardens Café
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Native Americans have long considered the Bordas Escarpment east of Laredo holy ground for harvesting sacramental peyote
Past Perfect
Trick question: does it drive you crazy to hear a great story being mis-told?
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Alert, read no further: if you don’t know what I’m talking about, odds are this is about you
Past Perfect
The remarkable life of Laredo plantswoman Anna B. Nickels lost to the river of forgetfulness; the cactus collection she discovered and assembled for the 1893 Columbia World Exposition in Chicago was located at her Arcadia Gardens nursery at the corner of Matamoros and San Agustín
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She traveled by rail to Chicago and so did a boxcar carefully packed with the 300 specimens of her exhibit
Past Perfect
The Peyote Chronicles: Part I – While “The Gateway City” got a bad rap in literature and song, Elsie Moore’s Orchid Farm in Laredo earned acclaim for 100 peyote buttons for $8
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In the movie adaptation, the defiant peyote purveyor is played by Salma Hayek; she drives a ’61 Cadillac convertible
Past Perfect
The Chinook Jargon Pocket Dictionary: six pages, ready when you need it
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An inspirational motto for 2020: Kopet wawa. Mamook kwollan, literally, “Stop words. Do ear”
Culture
The Flood of 1932: Through an unlikely combination of unique events, one of the most important artists of the 20th century and billions of cubic yards of muddy water were hurtling toward the same narrow pass
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From the catastrophic mess our two separated and increasingly walled-off Laredos are struggling to survive in 2020, we look back to Labor Day Weekend 1932 with bitter nostalgia.