Robert Wayne Owen – Obituary

 

Robert Wayne (Bob) Owen died on December 6, 2022, in Portales, NM. A celebration of his life will be held on Saturday, January 14, 2023, at 2:00 p.m. at First Baptist Church in Dumas, TX.

 

Bob was born on December 28, 1932, in Fargo, TX, to Wayne and Lurline Garrett Owen, the oldest of their five children. He started to school in Grady, NM, and graduated from Portales High School in Portales, NM, in 1951. Later that year, he worked the fall roundup for the Gill Ranch in Harney County, Oregon, then returned to Portales to enlist in the United States Army.

 

Bob met his wife, Hazel Dunlap, in 1955 while both were stationed at the U. S. Army Hospital in Berlin, Germany, where they worked together in surgery. They were married on February 19, 1956, in Berlin; in June 1956, Bob was transferred to the U. S. Army Hospital at Ft. Hood, TX, where he was the NCOIC of the Operating Room. He finished his enlistment in 1959 and the couple moved to Dumas, TX, where he was involved in the construction of Diedrichsen and Son Cattle Feeders in 1960. In 1963, Bob moved his family to Mancos, Colorado, where he ranched with his father. At that time, he also leased ranchland in Aztec, NM, where he grazed cattle during the winter months.

 

In 1970, Bob returned to Dumas to work for Dumas Cattle Feeders. He also began caring for cattle owned by local farmers before those cattle were sent to feedlots for finishing. Soon, he established Owen Cattle Service, a business he continued until his retirement.

 

Bob was ordained a Southern Baptist deacon in 1957 and was active in Southern Baptist churches throughout his lifetime. In Colorado, he served as deacon, Sunday School superintendent, and music director at First Baptist Church in Mancos. In Dumas, he served as deacon and Sunday School teacher and chaired several committees over the years.

 

Following Hazel’s death, Bob married Tommie Greer Bowen on September 4, 2004, in Roswell, NM. They made their home in Dumas. In 2012, Bob published a novel titled Beans: A One-Eyed Horse, and Tommie was instrumental in readying the manuscript for publication. Bob also loved music and played guitar beginning at the age of 10. He rode saddle broncs in rodeos in his teens, he played baseball and was a member of a competitive pistol team while in Berlin, and he was an avid lifelong reader.

 

Bob was predeceased by both wives, his parents, and a sister, Mildred Owen Beason. He is survived by daughters Luri Owen, of Albuquerque, NM, and Karen Bowen Padgett (Ben) of Belton, TX; sons Kent Bowen (Tycie) of Amarillo, TX, Kraig Bowen (Dawn) of Scottsbluff, Nebraska and James M. Luter of Bayfield, Colorado; brothers Bill Owen of Portales, NM, and James R. Owen (Jane) of Devol, Oklahoma, and sister Dorothy Owen Ray (Gary) of Porter, Oklahoma, as well as five cousins, twelve nieces and nephews, nine grandchildren, nineteen great grandchildren, and one great great grandson.

 

Bob’s ashes will be buried at the Santa Fe National Cemetery in Santa Fe, NM, at a private service later in the spring. The family thanks Heroes Home Care of Amarillo and Roosevelt County Hospital in Portales for their help at the end of Bob’s life. They also thank Wheeler Mortuary in Portales. Memorial donations may be sent to First Baptist Church in Dumas or to Cal Farley’s Boys Ranch in Channing, TX.

Je suis Charlie. Je suis Ahmed.

It seems that the New Year often prompts me to remember my erstwhile blog--I had already decided this year that I needed to take it up again, this time with a theme.  Since I hadn't posted to it in awhile (wink, wink), I had some struggles accessing it again.  But I am in again now--just in time to have lots to say about the current situation gripping France and, thanks to the media, the rest of the world.

I spent several terrific years in Paris.  I made good friends from all over the globe, and I discovered what has become my life's work while I was there.  That work has allowed me to continue to get to know people from all over the globe, and the news often makes me worry about former students who could be affected by earthquakes, tsunamis, plane crashes and wars.

Sometimes even I forget that I moved to Paris following a brief but fun stint in journalism at The Independent in Gallup, NM.  That job gave me experience as a movie critic, interviewer and recipe curator, skills that have served me well no matter what my job titles have been.

My mother wasn't happy that I was in Paris.  She worried about many things concerning my life there, but one day as we were talking on the phone she said to me, "Promise me you won't walk down a street where you know there will be a bomb."  I have always wondered what kind of friends she thought I had who would be able to tell me where a bomb would be, but her warning was in response to my telling her that, in fact, a friend from church had been inside a shop when its windows were shattered by a bomb in the street a few days earlier.

That's the purpose of terrorism:  catching average folks unawares as they pursue their lives in the course of an ordinary day.  In Paris on Wednesday, terrorism succeeded.

The attack itself touches on several factors including free speech, religious tolerance, and respect for law.  The policeman who was killed as the attackers fled embodied that irony:  employed for eight years as a policeman in Paris, he was of North African heritage and perhaps a Muslim.  He had the unfortunate fate of being in the way of the escape of the attackers.  Did they simply react to his uniform without considering him as a person?  Very likely.

Among my favorite museums is the Newseum in Washington, DC. There is a memorial to honor journalists who have been killed while covering war stories, and that's what I thought of when I heard about the Charlie Hebdo attack.  Will these journalists be included in that memorial?  I won't be in on the making of that decision, but I believe that their deaths count as being victims of war.  When the attackers are found, they may not be tried as war criminals, but I suspect that the attack itself will be counted as a victory for terrorism.  All of us have to live with its aftereffects--there is no "rewind" to give the attackers another moment in which to change their minds.

So what can be learned from this?  Firstly, that when tragedy strikes, it touches every human being, even if its victims are not personally known to us.  Secondly, that there are lots of people willing to perpetuate terror, particularly if they feel that they have a reason to do so. 

But we also can learn that we as individuals don't have to let terror take charge of us.  We can choose to perpetuate peace wherever we are--if enough of us commit ourselves to that task, it will succeed.  How do we do it?  By not only listening but also really hearing each other, by paying attention to the voices around us, by sometimes choosing to put off answering until an answer comes that doesn't add to the ill will others are feeling.

We can perpetuate peace through silence.


Over at Praying for Eyebrowz, my friend Leslie often ends her blog with "Peace, people!"  My wish is that we would all become people of peace.  We can perpetuate peace through speaking (and writing) our individual pieces.  That's what I've done today, and perhaps what I will continue doing throughout 2015.






      

Well Done, Ira Glass

Last night, I actually paid attention to the whole broadcast of This American Life rather than simply letting it run as background to doing something else. I listened because Ira Glass, its creator and host, used the whole hour to hold Mike Daisey accountable for passing off fabrication as fact.

Ira, you rock.

Mike, you don't.

I had heard the broadcast in January of the adaptation of Mike Daisey's monologue about his visit to Chinese factories that manufacture Apple iPhones and iPads. I don't own any Apple products. Since I don't remember having heard of him before, it was, at the time, an interesting segment on an interesting show by someone whose name I didn't catch at the beginning and didn't remember the next day. As it happened, I saw Mike Daisey on a Sunday morning news show a few weeks later; what puzzled me then was that he was identified as a Monologist. I made a mental note to look him up; since it wasn't a sticky note, it didn't stick in my brain, and I didn't.

However, when I heard Ira's spot on Saturday about the upcoming show on Sunday evening, that mental note was activated and Mike Daisey's face from the news show came into my mind. And that's why I paid particular attention to the show yesterday.

Ira, his colleague Rob Schmitz, and Mike's translator Cathy did a superb job of connecting the dots for this listener in Radioland. What sticks in my mind today from Mike's comments is that he claims that his purpose in stretching the truth for listeners in Radioland in January (and, evidently, in his live-theater monolog performances before and since) was to "make people care."

Hmmm.

A question for you, Mike: why did you assume that we wouldn't care if we heard only the truth?

As I listened to Rob, Cathy, Ira and you last night, one of our contemporaries came to mind, another person who wants people to care--and who has brought interview footage of real people to us to show and tell us why we should. His name is Michael Moore. He, too, could gloss things over, dress them up and sell them to us as truth, but he knows that truth, positive or negative, can always stand on its own, and he lets it.

I also thought of my friend Jesse Nemerofsky, currently a photographer for Zuma Press with a one-man show of his work hanging in a gallery in Providence, RI. Jesse has gone where the truth is, photographed it for us, and put it in our faces truthfully--no apologies, no window-dressing. And no need to hide access to corroborators, like you hid Cathy.

Hmmm.

It feels to me as if Mike really didn't care much about what people like me think because he assumed that telling me his truth honestly wouldn't be enough to make me think or care. And that brings another question to my mind.

Mike, if you can't tell your truth well enough to make me care about it, why do you think I'll care if you don't tell me the truth?

Hmmm. Good job, Rob, for finding Cathy and checking out what you, too, heard on This American Life in January. Thanks, Cathy, for telling the truth. Ira, you were wonderful at holding Mike's feet to the fire; if Mike had been honest with you and your staff earlier, none of you would have needed to put last night's show together.

Mike, tell the truth. After all, when we find it, it is stranger and more wonderful than fiction. And, if you aren't a good enough storyteller to make the truth interesting for me, perhaps you should take some lessons from the public radio people. They do it every day.

My Grandmother's Ravioli

So I took a six-year break . . . and neither of my grandmothers ever made ravioli
(except out of a can, maybe).

Twice today I've heard announcements about tonight's one-hour special on The Cooking Channel called "My Grandmother's Ravioli." Mo Rocca has intereviewed grandparents across the country and taped his interviews as he learned how to cook their favorite recipes. If I were a television watcher, I'd definitely tune in.

Listening to the the interview with Mr. Rocca on NPR's Weekend Edition Sunday, I thought about all the wonderful things I remember my Grandma Owen cooking. Recently, her tossed salads have been on my mind, specifically how she chopped all the ingredients with a fine dice, so that it really became a chopped salad. I would never have the patience to chop carrots, celery, green pepper and onion as finely as she regularly did, and I had resigned myself to enjoying those salads in memory only for the rest of my life.

Enter the Vidalia Chop Wizard. Santa brought me one for Christmas, and now I'm fully addicted--it's easy to use, easy to clean, and comes with two cutting inserts, one of which yields the fine dice I so admired in Grandma's salads. You guessed it: now I'm chopping everything, and salad has assumed a new prominence on my menus.

Grandma was famous for her cinnamon rolls, as I've mentioned in an earlier post. She cooked a mean pot roast in the "deep well" of her electric stove, and she kept her cookie jar full--it was a McCoy wishing well inscribed with "Wish I had a cookie" and that was among the first things we learned to "read." Mr. Rocca wishes he could go back in time and arrive at his grandmother's house a couple of hours before a family dinner to learn how to cook her recipes. None of us can go back, but we can all rejoice when we discover a food or a recipe that we remember from those dinners! And, if you can, you can tune in tonight to enjoy Mr. Rocca's visits with other people's grandmas. I may go visiting so that I can, too!

Love and Hugs, or Affordable Fellers and Happily-Ever-After

I pulled into a parking space at the grocery store this afternoon. In the space in front of me, a pickup truck had backed in; lettered across the tailgate were the words “Affordable Fellers” and a telephone number.

It took me a moment to realize that dialing that number would put me in touch with a timber-cutting business. Since it’s Valentine’s Day and I had already been sniffling over internet love stories, my mind wasn’t on timber, and I almost thought that the tall, bearded “feller” who got out of the pick-up truck might be the beginning of my own happily-ever-after. Although he wasn’t, he evidently is someone’s happily-ever-after because he headed straight for the floral department in the store.

The other day a friend who had read my last entry here asked me about the gift of farm-fresh eggs. In answering the question, I realized that it was a memorable gift for me not only because I really needed the eggs at the time but also because it reflected the giver’s insight into what kind of person I am. I still like to get and give useful gifts; I am committed to not giving gifts that make work for their recipients (plants and knick-knacks, for example).

But that’s a little off the track--although it opens a space for me to add the caveat that, at Valentine’s Day, you can’t go wrong in offering a gift of chocolate, flowers or jewelry. The real point of this blog is all about love, I think; I don’t have any answers for you but I can certainly contribute some questions!
The Writer’s Almanac today features the history of Valentine’s Day and also a brief history of writing about love and to lovers. I signed the few cards that I sent with “love and hugs;” but the recipients, because they know that I love them and I know that they love me, don’t really need the reassurance that I am sending my love with the card and that I would hug them today if I could. And perhaps this leads to the edge of the “love” precipice: what about those folks whom we hold dear but to whom, for whatever reason, we don’t say “I love you?”

On the calendar of the U. S. Marine Corps, today was, evidently, just another day: my father told me on the phone tonight that his only paternal first cousin had called to tell him, among other things, that his 19-year-old grandson left Okinawa today for a tour in Iraq--I suspect that didn’t make for a very happy Valentine’s Day in that family even though they are very proud of him. Personally, my wish for him is that, in a few years, he too will be just another “affordable feller” in a small town buying flowers late in the day for his own happily-ever-after. I’ve only met this young man a couple of times, but tonight, he’s a person to whom I send love and hugs.

Another friend of mine has a child studying in Australia; it happens that this young lady was born on February 14. She is bright and carefree, but she’s no different from other young ladies and recently called home in tears over a young man. Her parent was almost in tears telling me about her call; in thinking about them, I send love and hugs to all three, and to her eventual happily-ever-after, whomever that turns out to be. After all, there are “affordable fellers” everywhere!

And I could share lots more stories, but it’s getting late and I’m sure you get the drift. Happily-ever-afters don’t always begin on February 14, but that’s the day we celebrate them as a nation--and we’re not picky, really, about how long those happily-ever-afters extend on either side of that date; we just all want a sweetheart at least for the day. And, for at least the day, we want the illusion of romance: we want to believe that we are dear to someone, missed when we’re not around, and remembered without having to remind our beloveds to not forget Valentine’s Day!

We don’t forget those we love, even if February 14 slips up on us and we wind up buying a late-in-the-day card or gift to prove our love. And though the gestures we make for Valentine’s Day are sweet and fun, it’s what we do and say between February 15 (2006) and February 13 (2007) that make those we love look forward to the cards, flowers, chocolate and--for the really lucky ones--jewelry that we might deliver on February 14. It is that outpouring of day-to-day love in the form of commitments kept and burdens lifted and unexpected favors done and--for the really lucky ones--hugs given that makes it possible and desirable to set aside a whole day to celebrate happily-ever-after in whatever form it has come to us at the moment. For one day a year, we are all in love with love, and we are ecstatic if we are also in love with a person who loves us back.
About a year ago, I got a refrigerator magnet with a prayer printed on it which has since become a part of my daily litany. It goes like this: “Bless those I love and those who love me. Bless those who love those I love and those who love those who love me.” That’s really what I mean when I send “love and hugs”--that love would surround and cover those I love and those who love me, even if those two groups are made up of very different people. And I hope, for each person in each of those groups, that all those hugs are being delivered in person--if not by an “affordable feller,” perhaps by a sweet young thing or a trusting, hopeful child, or a stranger who simply meets your eye and smiles.

As for the rest of you--well, love and hugs to you, too!

http://encarta.msn.com/column_willpower_tamimhome/Can_You_Increase_Your_willpower_tamimhome.html?GT1=7538

I really like Ansary's perspective on pie, but read all the way to the end! :)

Curry's just the beginning . . .

I had a long evening at home on Monday, so I cooked a pot of hamburger curry. The cooking doesn’t take long, but the preparation does; it’s great for winter because the recipe makes a lot and it freezes well. The recipe I use comes from a Jaycee cookbook, but I was introduced to this type of curry long before I ever heard of Jaycees.

This particular curry isn’t Indian or Thai, but Japanese, and I first ate it when visiting in the home of my first serious boyfriend. His mom was Japanese and he loved her curry, so she made it often. It is like a vegetable beef stew with a mildly curried gravy, and it is served over rice. In other words, it’s exotic comfort food.

Thinking of that boyfriend made me think of other boyfriends, their families, and more food memories. My Gulfport boyfriend’s parents lived in Miami, and I picked grapefruit off the tree in their yard. I ate artichokes for the first time with my boyfriend in Gallup. In Paris, my Moroccan boyfriend introduced me to many tajines and couscous. A Frenchman once brought me farm-fresh eggs as an “I’ve missed you” gift, and a Mexican sweetheart brought me two liters of pure vanilla from his mom. One boyfriend’s mom was in the habit of assigning dishes potluck-fashion to anticipated attendees at family dinners, and it pleased me greatly to be asked to bring a broccoli-rice casserole for Thanksgiving one year.

Several of my boyfriends have been good cooks themselves--one of my best friends from college took the time daily to prepare elaborate Lebanese meals and often invited me to join him in the feast; he later trained to be a pastry chef on his way to becoming an Orthodox biship! Fortunately, what they enjoyed cooking was often very different from what I enjoy cooking, so one of us would be in charge of the kitchen and the other would function as sous-chef when we cooked together. It goes without saying that the sous-chef usually got the clean-up chores, too! But we created some wonderful meals together.

One boyfriend persuaded me to make blueberry cornbread after we returned from a blueberry festival. I wasn’t too sure how it would turn out, but with a little sugar in the batter it was fabulous. I am sure that I wouldn’t have thought of that combination myself, but it is unforgettable.

I have always enjoyed cooking, but I will never be as good a cook as my mom was. She cooked everything from scratch except biscuits, to her own consternation; she tried but never made scratch biscuits that measured up to her own high standard. For years, she kept a sourdough starter and baked bread from it every few days, handing it out to friends and neighbors while it was still warm. She was famous for her pound cakes and peanut brittle, and she canned every summer until the one before her death. The summer before that, she bought okra to make pickles and got the jars and the pickling solution ready, but then realized that she couldn’t see well enough to pour the solution over the okra in the jars. When my dad came in from working, he did the pouring and capped the jars. She made the best potato salad I have ever tasted and, even though she told me exactly how she made it, mine has never tasted like hers.

Because I watched my grandma make bread and cinnamon rolls often when I was a child, I wanted to learn how to make yeast breads as well, and 4-H gave me the opportunity to hone that skill as a teenager. I still enjoy the process of making bread; it’s tasty but not the same using a bread machine. Baking bread involves paying attention and cultivating patience since the baker has to wait for the dough to rise and watch to make sure it rises enough but not too much. In our instant society, baking bread is a way to drop out for awhile and return to a slower pace of life, and I have recommended it to parents who’ve asked my input on activities for teens. They have the opportunity to contribute to family meals, experience the joy of accomplishing something that not everybody else they know can do, and think deliberately about a food they will consume.

In the fall of 2003, I took a class at the University of New Mexico called “Food, Festivals and Ethnicity in the U. S.” Part of our grade was for each student to prepare and serve the class a food or foods to which he/she had an emotional attachment. We ate typical New Mexican green chile with pork, Utz potato chips and Japanese obento dishes. I took pound cake and peanut brittle and shared the recipes my mother used for both. When I got home, Mom wanted to know if my classmates had enjoyed their treats, and I was glad to report that they had. Two days later, my mother died. I spent almost six weeks here in Bayfield after her funeral, resting after the five months of caring for her, and I baked lots of bread and cookies as “therapy.”

We are told that we should eat to live and not live to eat, but our food memories are incredibly strong. It’s rare for a person not to remember at least one thing that he/she has eaten in the last 24 hours, and people always answer quickly when asked about foods they dislike. Food is central to our lives, and preparing the foods that nourish us is an intimate connection to life itself. It is a creative as well as a scientific process, and the process itself is comforting. Sharing the process and its results with those we hold dear is a way to literally “share the love.” Cooking isn’t difficult and can be lots of fun, and usually even a novice cook’s mistakes are edible. So here’s to good cooking and the sons whose moms who have welcomed me in their kitchens--thanks for the memories, guys!