Saturday, May 25, 2013

A Blank Space is Not a Memorial!



What’s Wrong With This Picture?

Better yet, what is this picture?

This is the north wall of a room in the Albuquerque Publishing Company headquarters.
 

It is the Ray Cary Auditorium.
Who was Ray Cary and why was the auditorium named for him?
Cary was an Albuquerque Journal photographer for many years.

You have met him here, and on the Blue Flyer; here Cary, center, is at a June 5, 1969, impromptu press conference with land grant activist Reies Lopez Tijerina, left during a convention that would end with the burning of U.S. Forest Service signs. Tijerina and his wife were arrested and convicted. He was sentenced to ten-years along with another conviction, yet spent a little over two-years in custody.

So What’s Wrong With This Picture?
I had heard about the room, but had never seen it. I had the opportunity to attend a day-long event in the auditorium last week. I was greatly disappointed. Though it is a state of the art presentation hall, with all the electronic bells and whistles, it was lacking.

The walls are bare. How could a room named in honor of a Journal photographer not have a single picture taken by him or of him to demonstrate why he is recognized?
Cary and I were not the best of buddies, but we were peers, contemporaries, and fierce competitors when it came news photography contests.
What may have been his most famous pictures were taken after the courthouse raid and appeared in a book by Peter Nabokov, “Tijerina and the Courthouse Raid.” 

The Smithsonian Institution has photographs in their museum of his coverage following the June 5, 1967, Rio Arriba County courthouse raid at Tierra Amarilla, New Mexico.

It is unfortunate that Journal Editor Kent Walz and Albuquerque Publishing Company Owner and Journal Publisher, Tom Lang, purportedly his friend, don’t go through the morgue and select eight or ten of Cary’s best work, print them, frame them, and hang them in the room.

It’s the least they could do as a real honor.

Thursday, May 02, 2013

How to Win a Baseball Game


What’s Wrong With This Picture?

Take a beautiful Albuquerque evening, at Isotopes Park, let the winds calm down, play back and forth ball, get to the end the ninth inning tied 4-4 with the Memphis Redbirds.
After enjoying the between innings promotional events 
and the antics of the huggable Orbit, winner of best mascot in all of Minor League baseball contest.
Hang out in the dugout with Tony Gwynn eating sunflower seeds and analyzing the game on an off night.
Get the Birds out in the top of the tenth inning on the relief pitching of Australian native Peter Moylan, who pitched two no-hit innings.
Bring to bat Isotopes First Baseman Scott Van Slyke, let him get on base, this time by way of a walk.
Earlier in the game Van Slyke was face down in the mud, hit in the left hand by a pitched ball.
Catcher Tim Federowicz, who had already hit two doubles, scoring two runs, takes a pitch and with a mighty swing places it in the Redbirds bullpen.
The Isotopes bench gathers around Home Plate to greet Van Slyke and Federowicz.
Final score 6-4.