Fiesta Dresses are a distant topic from sex torture and murderous pitbulls. Given the continuing notoriety of the David Parker Ray case and Sierra County's apparent desperation for economic stimulation, I'm greatly relieved and a little surprised no one has had the idea of re-creating the "Toy Box" as a museum piece - at least that we know of.
Lessons from that horrifying history seem limited to: A) Gosh, we sure hope that's history; and B) "Let this serve as a warning to girls."
It's infuriatingly common to hear that this is what happens when girls do X, Y or Z. Such victim-blaming is blazingly evident in the justice system and the Ray trials.*
The focus on the victim and her part in sex crimes doesn't change behavior - least of all men's behavior toward women and girls. But it does evoke generalized fear and suspicion on the part of one-half the population toward the other. This is hardly the basis for a healthy community but it's great for gun sales.
Pleasant and un-prurient interests abound in Sierra County, as fiesta dresses remind me. The Geronimo Springs Museum also has a most fabulous pottery collection, including a Mimbres Black-on-White pot with an exquisite crossword puzzle-like design - as if the artist was tripping and picturing a New York Times of the future. But the fiesta dresses are my personal favorite.
My Mother, Aunts and every other female I knew had a fiesta dress or three during the day. These particular rick-rack on-net artifacts of the 50's home sewing era were winners of T or C's annual Fiesta Dress competition. They're kept lovingly dusted and displayed in the "Barbara and Ralph Edwards Suite" along with fifty plus years worth of parade and pagent memorabilia - walls full of B-movie stars' signed photos and smiling fifty faces of Miss Fiestas.
Ralph Edwards died in 2005 and in the 2006 parade the Sierra County Sheriff's Posse honored him with a riderless horse. The Fiesta event has cooled as the town struggles with finances in the absence of Edwards's largesse. But they're still crowning "Miss Fiesta" every year.
*For a detailed account see Consequences: The Criminal Case of David Parker Ray, by J.E. Sparks. But better yet, don't. Take a picnic or go to the museum where you won't see a thing about it.
Weeds rule the weed ranch. Stickers on steroids assaulting tender paws and skin. It'll be goatheads the size of golf balls in the fall if forces are not mustered now.
But it is sure to be another long expensive war. A mercenary I asked for a yard work estimate drove up in a Jaguar.
The beer. Seattle PI's Washington Beer Blog, "Everything beer in the Evergreen State" has coco news, straight from the Raven’s mouth:
The elusive Coco Jones is about to make a rare appearance. I’m not talking about my disowned second cousin, Ms. Coco Jones. Last I heard, cousin Coco was still doing two shows a night in Vegas, proudly walking on the wild side. Nope, not that Coco Jones. Today we are talking about Black Raven Brewing Company’s Coco Jones Coconut Porter.
While Director of Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory between 1943 to 1945, J. Robert Oppenheimer and his wife Kitty would ride two days on horseback from the mesa to his summer home in the Pecos, "much to the dismay of the FBI agents who had to accompany them." Oppenheimer frequently rode a spooky horse aptly named "Crisis."
(Sources: Ferenc M. Szasz, Larger Than Life: New Mexico in the Twentieth Century. and J. Abraham Pais, Robert P. Crease, Robert Oppenheimer: A Life. Photo: historycooperative.org)
