Framers to ordinary Americans
Cornudas Mountain Music
Independence Day
By Stephen L. Wilmeth
John Adams
suggested Americans regale the celebration of this nation’s independence with great
merriment. Normally a fairly high brow fellow, our second president pulled all
the stuffy stops out by urging “pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports,
guns, bells, bonfires, and illumination from one end of the continent to the
other from this time forward.”
The Father
of our country, George Washington, did one better … he ordered double rum
rations for his artillerymen.
North of the border, too
If somebody
asked me where the most spectacular Fourth of July fireworks celebration occurred
in my life, without question it was the one in Stampede Stadium in Calgary, Alberta
in an evening extravaganza production of the Stampede. The amount of powder
expended that night would have made George’s artillerymen envious.
The only
thing more spectacular would have been to watch the reactions of the broncs and
the bulls that weathered the spectacle directly under where the aerial display
was detonated. From our vantage point from the box seats, the pens were
obscured behind the bucking chutes and Stampede race track. From the decibels
and the immensity of the explosions, though, it had to have been a real rodeo
unto itself.
At the
time, we thought it was part of the show to welcome Westerners to a celebration
of our life’s common ties. What we learned was it was a continuing celebration
of Canada’s
own Independence Day held, officially, each July 1.
Never,
though, have I felt more part of our way of life.
Diesel
pickups, gooseneck trailers, good horses, and people who can speak articulately
to the same issues that affect our existence were there in abundance. It was
more western than most of our West.
Over the years, that theme has only
grown more pronounced. We are outnumbered, but our existence may be the
greatest indicator of the health of our Union.
Life we live
Farming and
ranching are not professions. They are life styles of the most improvident
dedication. There is something profoundly humbling to absorb debt, market
volatility, the esoterics of our pursuits, production constraints, extreme
barriers of entry, and the immensity of the stewardship of life, and … lives.
Then, there
are the external threats to our existence.
Few of our
number can operate with the degree of freedom that Adams,
in particular, would have envisioned for future generation Americans. In
today’s emails alone, there were 23 new federal agency regulation notices of
intent and or NGO suits filed against our industry components.
Tomorrow,
there will be more.
We can’t
operate in equilibrium. We find ourselves spending as much time or more
defending our lives and investments than we do planning for our future. That is
a recipe for disaster and, yet, that is what we face.
Cornudas Mountain music
In another corner of the American
West, a gathering celebrating our way of life takes place every Fourth of July.
It is there, on New Mexico’s Otero Mesa, a group of
Westerners gather. They come mostly in ranch broke four wheel drive pickups.
They drink coffee, share discussions, offer grace, and break bread together. The
mountain … Cornudas
Mountain has called them
back.
The women seek new babies, and offer
counsel to young mothers and reassurance to themselves. The men have largely
traded felt hats that have withstood the spring winds for more comfortable
summer straws.
Bobby and Pat Jones are the hosts
and the ranching stewards of the mountain and part of the mesa that spreads out
beyond. Bobby will have wood split and stacked. He will tend the fire, the
coffee, and cook the meat for the meal and gathering.
Following the meal, most of the
group will make its way into the cave and find a place to sit and wait
patiently in the coolness. On the walls are preserved reminders of times when
buffalo soldiers chased Indians, travelers stopped on dusty overland stage
journeys, and families endured the dangers and the promise of a new land.
Those reminders are preserved
solely through the protection provided by the ranching stewards hosting the
gathering.
The musicians will arrange their
chairs. They will sit in a circle facing each other. They will talk and tune
their instruments. Their attention will be concentrated inward within that
circle. Their music will highlight the day’s celebration.
The musicians are all familiar. They
bring their fiddles, their guitars, and other stringed instruments. In addition
to Bobby Jones there will be Pete Lewis or other members of the expansive Lewis
clan. Pop Snow was a featured artist for years. Joe Delk is sometimes there
with his fiddle. Vaughn Teel and his guitar often sit facing westward in the
circle. Brian and Amy Muise have become regulars, and even the likes of Junior
Dougherty and Frank DuBois have accompanied the tradition of the mesa.
There is no program agenda.
The process will start by one of
the musicians. He, or now she, will pick up a tune and set off on a personal
rendition. The others will join in variously until the circle is engaged.
The acoustics in the cave are
wonderful.
The audience will tap their toes
and sway to the tunes largely returned from another time. The mix might include
the ‘Kentucky’ or ‘Westphalia Waltz’, ‘Draggin’ the Bow’, ‘Faded Love’, ‘San
Antonio Rose’, ‘Marie’, ‘Milk Cow Blues’, or ‘The Old Rugged Cross’. There will
be more spiritual favorites mixed with two steps and traditional ballads.
After a song, the musicians will
comment on their mistakes or somebody’s good licks. They will pause, talk and
laugh, and get set for the next tune. The protocol is to work from chair to chair
with each successive performer expected to make the selection and be featured
for a solo and then accompanied performance. They become noticeably unaware of
the audience around them.
The audience, though, is as
interesting as the musicians. The matriarchs are honored features. From the
families of Jones, Bennett, Bond, Cookson, Davis, Lee, Lewis, Schafer, and
others, they will come. Collectively, they are always there to fill the table
with food and the gathering with genuine western feminine charm.
Their men are there with them.
Cowmen and cowboys they are. They are the men that former Arizona
Congresswoman, Gabrielle Giffords, referred to as ‘those mysterious men with
the rough hands’. Their families started coming to the mesa as early as the mid
1860’s. Together, they are land stewards of significance. They are immensely
important to the customs and the culture of the mesa.
The entire gathering is an event of
major heritage importance, and … it is in jeopardy.
Secular affront to original intent
The mesa is high on the
environmental wish list. Saving the ‘pristine nature’ of the most southern
grama grasslands in New Mexico
has long been a priority of the environmental left. Notwithstanding the
presence of the entrenched socioeconomic ties with the land, the ranching
heritage on the mesa is ignored in the process.
Evidence of that is clearly set
forth in the recent BLM draft of the region’s resource management plan. In the
plan’s ‘Impacts on Socioeconomic Conditions’, the mesa’s ranching heritage is
mentioned only superficially and that reference is most troubling.
In one of the alternatives for
livestock grazing is the plan to force the termination of grazing “after
voluntary relinquishment of all or part of a grazing preference”, or, in other
words, force those ranchers out with federal buyouts. The preferred
alternative, the continuation of the social value of ranching, is conditionally
set forth with the unqualified conclusion that such an alternative “may be
slightly less potential for economic gains from livestock ranching”.
That conclusion is utter nonsense.
Unless changed through the process
of public comments, this destructive principle will stand in this document and
others like it that set the course for at least a decade of federal land
management. That conclusion was reached without any input from a qualified Ag
or impartial socio-economic evaluation.
Implicit throughout the plan is the
secular, environmental agenda. The cleansing of rural communities from the land
is in process. Otero Mesa is on a front burner.
John Adams would not comprehend
many things today not the least of which would be to cleanse human bonds of
stewardship from American lands. We can clearly discern his position time and
again. It is revealed in his desire to promote the celebration of Independence
Day. In his continuing words urging Americans to celebrate the day, he wrote,
“It (Independence Day) ought to be commemorated as the day of deliverance, by
solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty!”
The Cornudas Mountain
July 4 musical gathering is exactly that. Those people and that event represent
the heart and soul of the American experiment, and … their continued presence on
that land is critically important to every American.
Stephen
L. Wilmeth is a rancher from southern New
Mexico. “The Cornudas Mountain Independence Day
gathering has national and historical implications.”
Many a good time was had at Cornudas Mountain. Good folks, good food and good music.
Many a good time was had at Cornudas Mountain. Good folks, good food and good music.
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