Pam Hendrickson calls New Mexico's Gila Forest the place of her soul. From her hilltop home at Lake Roberts, her daily routine includes a lot of "critter" watching. Her subjects' antics often end up in her weekly Silver City Daily Press column, "Mountain Views." Recently one of her articles about a local Mimbres Indian ruin was picked up by the Associated Press and reprinted in newspapers across the state.
Pam has won several journalism awards over the years, writing for newspapers such as the Sacramento Union and San Francisco Chronicle, and she has been published in several magazines, including Jack & Jill and Good Housekeeping. She loves research as much as writing and will write about anything. Behind any "thing," she believes, is at least one person with an interesting story to tell.
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Here at Lake Roberts, the best remedy for the winter blahs is some much-needed rain, or waking up to see our beautiful mountains and forests blanketed with snow. Even extreme weather is good, on occasion. It adds a little spice to life.
Earlier this week it rained some, then those fat, white flakes fell while we were tucked snug in our beds. This little morsel of seasonable weather gave our spirits a welcome boost. We were beginning to think winter took a vacation somewhere else. If we'd wanted to live in a sunny, warm winter clime, we would have all moved to Florida, instead of the Gila National Forest area of New Mexico. We're not odd, we just happen to prefer four distinct seasons.
For dedicated anglers, Lake Roberts is a good place to hang out all the time. A frosty morning after a snowfall is different, however, and certainly memorable when the fish are biting. What better way to perceive all this than from the middle of the lake, in a boat, with the early sunshine bouncing off a dazzling, white landscape?
It was not me out there, catching my limit of rainbow trout on Monday morning. I was walking the upper end, merely enjoying the scenery and the antics of my 4-month-old puppy, Maisy, when a fisherman pulled up to the boat dock. At least I thought it was a fisher "man."
The man turned out to be a fisher "woman," Linda Starr from Portland, Ore. (No relatiion to Ringo or Kenneth Starr.) She was bundled up to the eyeballs, which was why I hadn't correctly surmised her gender. After I admired her catch, and she complimented me on having the sense to live in such a beautiful community, she told me a little bit about herself.
This spunky lady was playing hooky from a family reunion in Bayard. Her husband couldn't get out of the "clan" doings: It was his clan. The couple have never been to our area before, but since both are retired, they spend several months of the year traveling the country in a motor home, small pickup in tow, checking out fishing holes along the way.
Ours is a good one, according to her. Borrowing a boat and trailer from a relative in Bayard, they discovered our lake a few weeks ago. It was sunny and warm, a perfect fishing day, even though the fish were not very hungry. She had caught only one trout, and her husband none, though he did end up with two nice catfish.
On this sunny but not-so-warm day, she happily admitted she liked going fishing alone sometimes. She seemed very practiced at hauling the boat out of the water and loading it onto the trailer. She certainly didn't need the help I offered. As we parted company, I thought, what an interesting experience, but then chance encounters with strangers around here often are.
She goes fishing to cure the winter blahs. All I need is a good dose of winter weather, and meeting someone like her who savors life in any kind of season.