Few artists who spend time in Lincoln can resist sketching this reconstructed tower. The earliest Spanish settlers would take refuge here during Apache raids.
Here in military uniform, is Lew Wallace…later Governor of New Mexico Territory who bargained with the Kid while writing “Ben Hur”
I forget who this is…maybe Murphy or Chisum…
This is the Kid’s good friend and rustling associate, Charles Bowdre and his wife Manuela. Charlie was killed by Sheriff Pat Garrett’s posse at Stinking Springs and is now buried beside the kid in Fort Sumner, NM.
Of course, Billy the Kid, is the focus of much of the fuss in old Lincoln Town.
Matt had a fire at his rental house, so he moved in with Ula Joe, a Texan who worked for The Trust. The Trust was an entity which owned a number of historical buildings in Lincoln. Joe later moved back to Midland/Odessa and resumed his career as a teacher. Great guy.
My lovely wife Ann and I are revisiting some spots in New Mexico next week where we honeymooned 25 years ago. So prior to our absence this week I am posting various scribblings from a sketchbook I kept while in Lincoln, NM in 1978. Here is my good old buddy, the late lamented Matt.
We went to “mado”, a BYOB restaurant in Wicker Park, Saturday night. The decor is nothing outstanding. I did like our tabletop alot…roughly textured boards with a nailed sheet metal strip down the center…the nails ground down smooth. “mado” does a great thing by purchasing from local farms within the natural “foodshed” as Joel Salatin dubs it. However, I was less than satisfied with my entree, a bowl of seafood stew…one-third of which was a chunk of bread…the stew was bland, amazing, considering that it was topped with a home-made green salsa. And it was $18! No sides or anything! Several of the other diners complained that their salads were salty. Whoever heard of a salty salad? Overall disappointing…the sketch above is of the man responsible, the chef and boss…he was wearing odd shoes with elven type tips which looked good on him.
This was a Tribune illustration…when it was published they cropped the left and right sides, thus the strange arcs.