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GENESIS by Otto Rigan at Spaceport America. (Photo courtesy of Otto Rigan)

— This morning is the last of Round 1 of lung cancer treatments — the end of a coordinated radiation and chemotherapy plan to first shrink the tumor and then get rid of it, hopefully, with surgery. Apparently, I won’t know much about the effects of Round 1 until late April and CT scans. There are hints, professional and self-generated, that it has gone well, but the tumor was big and in a tricky place and lung cancer is tough to treat.

— I can report this about the initial phase of treatment that began Feb. 12: I feel good. In fact, I have felt increasingly better as treatment has progressed. Yet, I am reminded this morning that cancer is its own deep universe. A tumor 1 centimeter in size can contain a billion cells. That sounds like a lot of potential meteoroid matter. More chemo might be called for.

— I was little jarred yesterday by the announcement of my retirement from the Albuquerque Journal, where I have worked for the past 33 years. Of course, I knew it was coming, but it is something else again to see it in print, in an email to staff. The Journal was the last and long stop in a 41-year newspaper career, but, in a time sense, it has come and gone at warp speed.

— I’ll choke up if I talk about all the kindness the Journal’s ownership, management and staff have given me in the end. So, moving on….

— I think this newly installed sculpture at Spaceport America by Otto Rigan is fabulous. Well done, you all. Even if Virgin Galactic never gets a celebrity-loaded space tourism flight off the spaceport runway, the architecture and art alone would make it worth the drive to the middle of nowhere. I especially appreciate this photograph since I napped through the planetarium show on a trip to the Museum of Natural History and Science on Sunday with sister Hope, nephew Will, sister Susan and her partner, Dick.

— Hope and Will depart for Salt Lake City today to see sister Winifred, before returning to Montana. We had a great visit that I will remember always.

— And sister Hope left me more to think about, even after a series of conversations running to midnight, ranging from poetry to horses. She doesn’t like Western movies: “Bad horsemanship and too much gunfire,” she says. Guess I’m going to have to pull my wanna-be Resistol down and drugstore-cowboy up if I’m going to keep on watching. Hope is the real deal.

Field notes: Reading

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March 24, 2015

My sister brought along a book about the poet Richard Hugo, which led to reading trails about his teacher and an essay about his “Degrees of Gray in Philipsburg.”

Here is a link to this penetrating poem about a decaying Montana mining town. It begins:

“You might come here Sunday on a whim.

Say your life broke down.”

The teacher was Theodore Roethke at the University of Washington, a poet my father read to me as a child and who I continue to read. The book that Hope brought with her from Montana is “The Car That Brought You Here Still Runs,” by Frances McCue, and the book mentions an essay about the Hugo poem by Charles D’Ambrosio, who also has Seattle and Philipsburg connections. My free time yesterday was pretty much set when I discovered the essay is included in a D’Ambrosio collection I just bought, called “Loitering.”

It’s been fun reading through this, and Hugo’s poem, which I had not read before, is still filling my head.

But it also gives me an excuse to post this picture of my nephew, Will, taking over my lamp and chair last night and reading his Harry Potter before going to bed.

Field notes: Fun

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March 23, 2015

Cooper seems to have found in my 9-year-old nephew, Will, a companion he’s never had.

And he seems equally accepting of my sister, Hope. I hope he’s not going to be too disappointed when they return to Montana.

Oh, I walk with him as much as I can, but I pretty much do my own thing at home. I don’t think he’s going to go for me trying to cover him in saddle blankets. But it’s fun when that guy Will does it.

Field notes: Company comes, Legislature goes

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March 21, 2015

What do uncle John and nephew Will do first thing in the morning? Fool around with electronic gadgets, of course.

Maybe uncle John is a bad influence on this 9-year-old guy, who arrived here in Placitas yesterday from Montana. But I can’t deny him the iPad if the first thing I’m doing is checking the news on the laptop.

With the quiet of the morning to ourselves, we also had a preliminary breakfast of blueberry “buckle,” baked in abundance and sent up the hill by neighbor Lori.

Sister Hope, who announced last night that she probably would slip out for a run this morning before Will and I stirred, seems to be sleeping in.

Cooper is still figuring out what’s with these extra people in the house, but seems to be adapting just fine.

I’m making an adjustment, too, as I continue on medical leave from work. I guess this is the first time since 1977 that I’ve missed an adjournment of the Legislature. Feels pretty weird not to be there. Can’t say I miss it, though. At this point, it’s just hard work. Just sent my best wishes to Deborah Baker and Dan Boyd, who are up there grinding through the final hours for the Journal. Good luck, too, to editor Steve Williams, who is on the receiving end down in Albuquerque.

Now Hope is up, too, reading a story with coffee, before her run.

And Will and I put the gadgets aside and got out for a walk with Coop while Hope ran. Susan is going to take them skiing Tuesday.

Field notes: Routines and visitors

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March 20, 2015

— I started giving Cooper his breakfast in my office before I head to Albuquerque for cancer treatments, (just a few more to go). He chows down at my side while I have a cup of coffee and rattle around on the iMac. We walk later.

— Sister Hope and nephew Will arrive today and I’ve still got a couple of housekeeping chores to do. Excited about their coming.

— They are arriving on the thankfully still smooth Delta flight schedule from Helena to Salt Lake to Albuquerque, much faster but maybe not entirely as much fun as this method of travel at home in Montana. Sister Susan is looking to get them a little lift-served skiing while here. And, especially for Will, a trip to the Museum of Natural History and Science also is on the agenda.

— Looks like rain and wet snow on the Sandias. Susan headed up early today to ski Santa Fe and reported 11 inches of new snow.

— Wired this morning from chemo on Wednesday, but the crash should come later today. Getting familiar with the pattern with just one more chemo to go. Guess that’s good in the end. Strange, new experience these last seven weeks. Coop sometimes looks a little dazed. And I tend to babble.

Fog bound: High Noon versus the Magnificent Seven

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March 19, 2015

— A little Raymond Chandler fog in the atmosphere this morning, or at least that’s what came to mind as I looked out the bedroom window at first light. I started pondering mysteries of the weather, cancer, spinners and Western movies, in no particular order.

— We only get fog a few times a year. Coop, always looking for sheep threats in the hills, looks confused. I know I am. Chemotherapy initially leaves me wired and sleepless. The crash comes Friday. One more chemo added after yesterday’s treatment. That and radiation end March 25. After that, the CT scans to see how well it worked. Sure saw a lot of really hard-times looking cancer patients at the hospital yesterday. My deal so far seems benign by comparison.

— John Fleck and I have been having this off and on conversation about life away from daily newspaper work. He’s left to write and book and I’m on medical leave. We’ve both remarked about how great it is to be free of the spinners that cluttered our vision as reporters and, now, the freedom to see “real people” working hands on with the world’s daily issues. I have tended to condemn politics, after 40 years of covering it, but in calmer moments I remember it is the means to ends — the enabler of those “real people” working hands on. Somebody has got to do it — the politicking, the money-getting, the policy approval, the enabling legislation. I think it’s just that I’m ready to change teams, appreciate a new perspective. Not to speak for him, but it seems Fleck already has made that decision.

— I wrote something called “Good riddance, John Wayne” a couple of weeks ago. To explain. The burr under my saddle at the moment — and it’s been there for a long time — was the John Wayne character quote “Never apologize: It’s a sign of weakness,” which I remember from “The Searchers,” but which Wayne apparently also uttered in “She Wore a Yellow Ribbon.” I most only remember the Ben Johnson riding — the best part of many John Wayne movies — in “She Wore a Yellow Ribbon”. The “never apologize” imperative was forced on my even as a boy at home, but it’s always made me bristle. I understand it’s value in a leadership sense but question it morally. Plus, John Wayne’s swaggering often just bugs me in general.

— And I could live without waterless, tree and grass-baren Monument Valley at as a Western movie set. It might have been the latest, and especially boring, “Lone Ranger” that pushed me over the edge. I couldn’t see it through. (You know, maybe The whole “Lone Ranger” thing was just a dumb idea to begin with). Scenery-wise, much prefer, say, the northern New Mexico shots around Santa Fe in the Jimmy Stewart movie “The Man from Laramie.” It was nice to see the Dallas Divide up near Ridgway, Colorado, in “True Grit,” but neither can I take any movie where they (script-wise) ride horses to death. I can’t even watch the non-lethal downhill stuff in “Man from Snowy River, although that’s a bunch of wild Aussies.

— I once worked with a wrangler, who, in angry moments, said horses had “shit for brains” and threatened that the only way to enforce human instruction was a “two-by-four between the eyes.” Coincidentally, he was an old mustanger along the California-Nevada border.

— Which leads me in a fog-bound way, to say I appreciate “The Misfits” far more than “The Searchers” as a Western movie.” And if it’s cowboy-Indian strife, gut-shooting and the like that you wish, try “Ulzana’s Raid” with Burt Lancaster. And, as for courage against the odds, it’s worth comparing the lasting art of “High Noon” against the technicolor gore of “The Magnificent Seven.”

Field notes: Sunset and treatment

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March 17, 2015

— Good evening from Placitas, New Mexico.

— Got a different colored sunset on St. Patrick’s Day, gold instead of the usual watermelon red.

— Final chemo and radiation treatments on March 25. Presbyterian’s oncology staff has made it a walk in the park. Feeling pretty darn good, although I’ve got to get back in hill-walking shape.

— Excited about sister Hope and nephew Will coming down from Montana on Friday.

Field notes: From me to you

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March 17, 2015

To all my family and friends, one of my favorite wishes:

“May the road rise up to meet you. May the wind always be at your back. May the sun shine warm upon your face, and rains fall soft upon your fields. And until we meet again, may God hold you in the palm of his hand.”

No, not maudlin at 7 in the morning, and I certainly ain’t drinking. I just like this one: Always had a special lilt and feeling for me. We can discuss interpretations of God, but the sentiment is the same.

One fine day

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March 16, 2015

No place in particular to go, clouds decided to do a little dancing around the Sandias. I think KHFM 95.5 warmed me up to watch with Beethoven’s Piano Trios Opus 1, No. 1. It’s fun, circa 1793 or now. Thank you sky gods and KHFM. Or maybe it was Ellen’s chiles rellenos.

Field notes: Photographic memory

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March 15, 2015

— Good morning, and thanks to all who have written me recently. Stay tuned for some photography stories below.

— Ordinary dawn today, I suppose, but it looked cheery enough to get me outside with a new point-and-shoot to take a picture. Looking northeast; Santa Fe 25-or-so miles over the ridge.

— I know these point-and-shoot photos, with little thought to composition or light, other than, “Heh, that looks cool,” probably drive all my photographer friends nuts. So, I will confess to always having been an undisciplined, seat-of-the-pants learner. One of these days, I might con one of you into a lesson. I never was really interested in taking my own pictures until the iPhone, which I could simply tuck into my pocket on every walk. But the iPhone doesn’t yet do justice for mountains and distant clouds, so I’ve invested in a little red Canon.

— These photography thoughts are all a big coincidence, linked by two developments yesterday. First, I heard from old friend Jeff Moscow, who I worked with when he was a photographer for The New Mexican in the mid-1970s and who is now a physician and researcher with the National Cancer Institute. Next, I got the news alert from Dan Boyd and Deborah Baker of the Journal’s Capitol Bureau that state Sen. Phil Griego had resigned from the Senate amid an ethics investigation. This triggered playback of several Jeff Moscow stories.

— Jeff was — and is — a fine photographer. But he was so intense on the job as a photographer for The New Mexican that working with him often became adventurous if not hazardous duty.

— The Griego resignation reminded me of the last mid-session resignation in 1975. State Sen. Anthony Lucero’s case somehow ended up in the old Santa Fe County Courthouse, adjacent to the Palace Restaurant and bar. After a day’s hearing, Lucero and a phalanx of family members decided to exit the courthouse through a back door. But Jeff and I, covering the event as photographer and reporter, were waiting for them as their media-hating wedge hurried down the hallway. Jeff suggested that I stand in front of him to ensure that he could get off a shot. I foolishly agreed. I think at least one fist flew from the family as I shielded my clever photographer friend. Fortunately, it was deflected or did not land. I’m sure Jeff, as usual, got the picture. I have never again agreed to stand in front of a photographer. (Nor, as I did once with the famous Tony O’Brien of Santa Fe, try to cover a bottle and rock throwing melee in the dark with his camera’s flash repeatedly lighting up our position).

— This one appeared in the pages of The New Mexican. Intrepid Associated Press writer Larry Calloway — later an editor and columnist for the Journal — got wind that two famous lobbyist/operator types had a card game going in an empty committee room on the third floor the Capitol during a legislative session. (This was in the day when newspapers had space for portraits and features). I think I’ve got this right: Larry and Jeff lined up outside the room. Larry pushed open the door. Jeff snapped a shot, catching the two startled card players, looking at the camera, cards in hand. One was a former state senator and a Mormon. The other was one of Albuquerque’s best-known criminal lawyers and a pal of the governor. I don’t know what ensued after Jeff’s shutter captured the scene.

— Jeff and I got an assignment — or Jeff cooked it up — to do a photo story with words on people who work at night. It really was Jeff’s story, but I chafed at some of his more aggressive ideas. After midnight, and probably closer to 2 a.m., we ended up at Tiny’s Lounge in Santa Fe. Without permission, as I recall, camera-bearing Jeff slipped behind the bar and prepare to take some head-on shots of guys staring down into their last beers of the night, hiding out from wives or something else — I guess with veteran bartender Arkie somewhere in the frame. My mind’s eye might embellish when I recall the thick arm and big hand of a surprised and surly patron suddenly shooting out for Jeff’s throat, but I am pretty sure that the equivalent happened. Jeff and I stayed friends, but I think I parted ways with him on that assignment about dawn on the Plaza, before we got back to the office. I also recall that the photos ended up being better than the words.