dudemanflab's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1/4 Went with Eric to do laundry in Adams two nights ago, and afterward we paid a visit to the Hilltop. We're not allowed to drink at our program headquarters, mostly because its on state land, which means that every weekend most of the interns drive a half hour to the bars for a drink. The Hilltop's the exception, however, as it's only a five minute jaunt. From the outside it looks all of a seedy dive, the kind of country bar that don't take too kind to strangers, but inside it shows signs of a recent facelift and the obvious popularity of being the only bar in a 30 mile radius. Eric ordered a tonic water and I ordered mine with gin, and we caught up with Rosey and Tim and Tim's sister Britney. Rosey was near the bottom of her Jack and Coke, and Tim and his sister were nursing Steel Rail brews. The bartender came by with the Hilltop's legendary dice game. For a buck, you roll five dice. You only get one chance--two rolls--per night. If you get four of a kind, yours is a free drink. Five of a kind wins you the jackpot, all the money people have paid into the game (minus 10% to start the pot again), which is now up to three thousand. Tim's sister claims she's good with dice, even after saying it's all pure chance. She may do something right because she won a free drink. I asked Eric for four quarters so I could play a round, which is when he whipped it out. Remember in the eighth grade when the state quarter program began? I was still attending a private school in Carlsbad, and I stood in the cafeteria looking down at the green-felt gymnasium floor. I had a Delaware quarter in my hand, 1999-D, featuring a horse and rider at full tilt, heralding the birth of the colonies, but also the first mint project of its kind. Someone--Trent Hester, Elliot, Brandon Williams, Morgan Reed?--told me that the quarters would come out sequentially, which made sense, with Delaware's minted motto reading "The First State." I held in my mind the day that New Mexico would come out with its quarter design, years in the future. That day came at the Hilltop as Eric whipped out his spare change for me to toss in a game of chance. The bartender stood somewhat impatiently holding the tray and cup, while I reveled in the design for the first time. He made a grunt, and I saw his brows making twitches under the rim of his glasses. I rolled. I lost. I didn't care. I told Eric I'd pay him back and sat at a bar stool, staring at the back of the quarter like it was a Zahir. I don' know what my friends and I were expecting when we imagined the coin, some all-encompassing symbol of the state--William Bonney rising from the dead at sunset with Smokey the Bear cresting the pink Sangre de Cristos. Or, the Taos pueblo conflated beside the Pecos River with the towering Shiprock in the background and a beleaguered German accused witch running for his life on a single, spare highway. A yucca and roadrunner? A chile ristra hanging from a portal? What it ended up being was much more direct, and probably the most inclusive. The state shape itself, with outlines, from all I can tell, of mountain ranges and rivers. The Zia symbol sits squarely in the northern center of the state, circling Santa Fe and Albuquerque and flaring out to the four corners. To one side, it reads "Crescit Eundo," meaning "It grows as it goes." The motto's an allusion to Lucretius, who's actually describing a thunderbolt. Rosey caught me staring a little to long at the quarter. She asked to see it, and I asked her if she thought the marks on the state looked like mountains. She said they were people, holding up the Zia symbol, and wouldn't hear otherwise. She appealed to Eric, who commented on their similarity to Argentina. I didn't care what they said. I had my coin. 11:06 a.m. - June 29, 2008 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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