The Flying Pie: On The Santa Fe Trail

We all know a little about Santa Fe, we have our own images of the town. We imagine it’s a colorful setting for artists and Indians, where rich dowagers glide through adobe mansions on their way to the famous Opera in the desert, where Zen centers and Tibetan shrines and Yoga studios pop up on any available street corner, where gurus and healers and prophets are as prevalent as accident attorneys. If Sedona is not the New Age capital of the world, Santa Fe must be. If a poor soul needs therapy for mind, body or spirit, he can find it there. If one is interested in creating a new art form, Santa Fe is the place. If you are a tad eccentric and want to fit in somewhere, you’ll be right at home. Santa Fe embraces the odd, the unexpected, the exceptional. If errant aliens crash-landed smack in the middle of the city plaza, they’d be the toast of the town.

Santa Fe has been around for awhile, 411 years to be exact, founded by New Mexico’s second Spanish governor, Don Pedro de Peralta, who was blessed with the gift of gab. He called it La Villa Real de la Santa Fe de San Francisco de Asis, the Royal Town of the Holy Faith of Saint Francis of Assisi. Beaumont never had a name like that. We first remember Santa Fe from the old western movies, notably the Santa Fe Trail, where Errol Flynn and Olivia de Havilland knocked knees and Ronald Reagan got to play soldier. The cinema cowboys always talked endearingly of the place: “Yeah, the railroad passes through now but it sure ain’t Santa Fe.” The city was always important to the West, cleverly constructed as it was at the crossroads of the old Camino Real and the Santa Fe Trail.

I knew the place existed by the time I was five years old, way before I’d ever heard of Omaha or Birmingham or Tallahassee. By that time, I could climb to the top of the fence which separated our property in Lawrence, Massachusetts from the vast train yard beyond, an exotic depot with freight cars emblazoned Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad parked there in abundance. Kids sit on a fence and wonder. What’s it like in these faraway places….Atchison….Topeka….Santa Fe? Later, there was a popular song of the same name which everlastingly etched the town in our memory banks. “Do ya hear the whistle down the line….I figure that it’s engine number forty-nine….Folks around this place get the time of day….from the Atchison, Topeka and The Santa Fe.” But the USA was a big country in those days of auto and rail travel only. Visit Santa Fe? Right. We could barely get out of Connecticut.

Captain Billy’s Whiz-Bang, aka The Great Big Folk Art Show

Siobhan and I felt fortunate to be arriving in Santa Fe right in the middle of the three-day International Folk Art Market, an open-air extravaganza featuring more than 150 Master Artists from 53 countries displaying their wares on nearby Museum Hill. The produce included textiles, handmade jewelry, beadwork, ceramics, pottery, retablos, handwoven baskets, homegoods, paintings and other unidentifiable but attractive creations more difficult to categorize. What do you call a miniature house full of skeletons left over from the Mexican Day of the Dead? (I call it Fun.)

We pulled in to our hotel, The Inn On The Alameda, by nine a.m. and were on the shuttle to the Market at 9:30. We weren’t the only ones arriving for the opening bell at 10:00. The streets were lined with hundreds of fair-goers snaking around corners, through parking lots, down dusty trails half-way to Albuquerque, all buzzing with the excitement of the day. Volunteers in bright red Whole Foods Market shirts patrolled the area reassuring everyone the opening was nigh and free water bottles were available. Despite the massive crowds, entry to the grounds was quick once the gates opened. The nearest booths, of course, were immediately swamped by the first surge of traffic. We cleverly decided to go to the most remote part of the grounds, only to discover tons of people had achieved some form of early entry and were already there. Imagine the most crowded downtown art festival you’ve ever been to and multiply it by five---that’s what the International Folk Art Market was like.

If you got close enough to appraise it, you promptly discovered the available merchandise was not cheap. Not a problem for the citizens of lovely Santa Fe, few of whom are on food stamps. Textiles were big sellers, everything from giant room-sized rugs to simple bath mats. Upper-crust women laden with jewelry shuffled through clothing made everywhere from Bombay to Belize, likely purchases carried over one arm while the other continued to work. The casual browsing of such local institutions as the Winter Park Spring Arts Festival was nowhere to be seen as the crowds slogged slowly around the property making some booths difficult to navigate and others completely inaccessible. To make things even more fun, the method of purchase was clumsy and expansive. Siobhan bought her sister-in-law Mary a fine scarf from a Cambodian lady, who then led her to a booth behind the exhibit where Siobhan received paperwork confirming her purchase. It was then necessary to bring the papers to a tent with very long lines where all the purchases were paid for and eventually to return to the original booth with a receipt, after which you finally received your art item. As you can imagine, buying and paying for one piece at a time was out of the question. Cash purchases, of course, were a faster option if you happened to be carrying a few thousand dollars with you. There weren’t many earrings for $17.95.

We don’t mean to sound sulky. Nobody likes a crabby art patron. And there’s also nothing that a tasty lunch from Cowgirl’s Barbecue cannot ameliorate, so consider us satisfied if not exuberant. After all, every day can’t be a balloon ride.

(1) Mob scene at the Folk Art bash, (2) Artist plying her trade, (3) Siobhan’s Cambodian Connection.

On The Square

The Santa Fe Plaza, now a National Historic Landmark, has been the heart of downtown Santa Fe for nearly 400 years. The modest park hosts Indian and Spanish markets and other annual events as well as community gatherings, concerts and the like. The park is surrounded by retail establishmens, most of them with adobe-style facades, none of them chain stores. There are several museums nearby. There is also a plaque at the rear of one of the markets at 109 East Palace Avenue recalling that address as the starting point for the men and women who worked on the Manhattan Project at nearby Los Alamos, many of whom had no idea what the job involved when they began.

We particularly enjoyed The French Pastry Shop & Creperie adjoining the La Fonda hotel, which is so popular it only accepts cash payment. If anybody doesn’t like their methods, the Pastry Nazi standing at the counter will point a finger and declare, “No crepes for YOU!” before summoning Security. Nonetheless, the place is always full and the customers seem amused when newbie malcontents receive their punishment.

Siobhan and I also patronized the Santa Fe Oxygen And Healing Bar, though a little too late in the afternoon when, as you can imagine, all the healers were very busy. This was an upstairs emporium, the only one of its type which could afford the lofty Plaza-area rents. The lovely Diana poured me some sort of Pomegranate masterpiece, which cured all ills, while Siobhan opted for her usual replenishing Ginger miracle. Had we only known sooner, we might have been the beneficiaries of various healing treatments like the Weary Traveler remedy or another called Belly Bliss. Or maybe even an Intuitive Reading. I haven’t had one of those in ages. Downstairs is the affiliated Apothecary with an Oxygen Lounge, Elixir Bar and High Vibe Boutique. It almost brought me back to hippie days without the tie-dye.

A Rainy Day At Georgia’s

If you are going to Santa Fe, of course, you will be required to visit the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum, not far from the Plaza. The maverick painter died in Santa Fe at 97 and spent much of her life painting at Ghost Ranch in Abiquiu, an hour or so down the road. O’Keeffe’s famous Red Poppy VI, painted in 1928 played an important part in Siobhan and Bill’s relationship.

In the early days of courtship, Siobhan expressed her frustration at not being able to find a print of the famous painting. Bill, being a smart alec, soon located one, had it framed and put in the trunk of his car. On an overnight weekend in St. Petersburg Beach, he colluded with the headwaiter of their hotel restaurant to hang it just above the table at which they’d be dining that night.

When Siobhan saw the painting, she thought a miracle had happened, that the relationship had been blessed by Georgia O’Keeffe’s ghost. The waiter told her she could have it since she loved it so much, but she wouldn’t hear of such incredible largesse, astonished at his generosity. Then, of course, the secret was revealed. The picture is still hanging in our bedroom after 33 years. Which could very well be why Siobhan is married to Bill rather than to Phineas Pfogg, the Phamous Physicist or others of his ilk. So, you see, there was never a question of visiting Georgia’s museum. After all these years, she’s like a member of the family.

The Museum, itself, is roomy and tasteful, decorated with a wide sampling of the artist’s work. Siobhan was a little disappointed that Red Poppy VI was represented neither in the museum nor the gift shop, nor were several other prominent works, all now extremely expensive and in the hands of collectors. For sale on the way out were representations only of the work actually hanging in the museum. But that’s okay with us. We’ve got the important one.

Austin The Asthmatic Pedicab Man & The Tale Of The Phantom Carpenter

The first night of our stay in Santa Fe, we noticed a pedicab hustler buzzing through the streets in search of fares. Siobhan was determined to get a photo of this operation and began positioning herself to catch him coming into the Plaza. I thought we might as well just call him over and get a ride. “Austin’s my name,” he told us, “and history’s my game.” You didn’t just get a trip around the block with Austin, you got a rundown of every historic building on or near the Plaza. Seems the pedicab man was asthmatic and stopping every few minutes was a requisite. To fill in those idle moments, Austin would lay a little history on you. His favorite story was one about a mysterious staircase at the Loretto Chapel.

The Loretto Academy was a school for women founded in Santa Fe in 1852 by the local Sisters of Loretto. In 1873, construction was begun to add a chapel to the site, a project plagued by delays including the shooting death of the main architect. It’s Santa Fe, remember, this sort of thing happens all the time. As the builders were concluding their work, they discovered that the plans drawn up by the architect had not included any means of access to the chapel’s choir loft. That’s always a poser. Do we send them up there on ladders?

The notion of constructing an ordinary staircase up to the loft was rejected because it would have seriously compromised the seating space in the choir area, not to mention being aesthetically horrendous. Carpenters and builders were summoned for a look, all of them shaking their heads at the impossibility of the task. In despair, the nuns decided to hold a novena, praying to the the Master Carpenter, himself, St. Joseph. Joseph, peered down at the situation, slapped his forehead and mumbled “Why do they always give me the HARD stuff?”

On the ninth and final day of the novena, a humble workman leading a burro loaded up with carpentry tools meandered up to the chapel. All he needed, he said, to resolve their problem were a couple of water tubs. The tubs were brought in promptly.

The next few days, the sisters going to chapel saw wood soaking in the tubs. The carpenter always withdrew while they prayed, so there was little communication between parties. The nuns were happy to see the stairs rise slowly but solidly in an economical double helix. When they looked closer, they were amazed the stairs contained not a nail or screw. The floor space used was minimal and the stairway added to rather than detracted from the beauty of the chapel.

At the finish, the sisters were overjoyed at their wonderful construction. It was beyond their wildest dreams. They planned a fine dinner to honor the clever workman but he could not be found. The local lumberyards were approached but all claimed he had not purchased any wood from them. Experts testified that the wood used in the staircase was not indigenous to the area. In an effort to thank the workman and pay him for his efforts, advertisements were run in the local newspaper but they brought no response. Dare we think it….could it be that the miracle staircase was built by (gasp!) an incognito St. Joseph, himself? (Insert Twilight Zone music here.)

No scoffing, please. It’s Santa Fe, after all, where the impossible is likely and Magic never takes a day off.