I seem to be captivated by the color of turquoise lately; it has for some reason been in the forefront of my mind. It is probably one of the oldest gemstones known, and it is opaque some-what and from blue to greenish in color.
Did you know it is the New Mexico State gem? Yes, on March 23rd 1967, it was proclaimed so.
I have always loved the color, and the gem, in fact I have a watch bracelet I purchased in about 1975 from a Navajo silversmith named Pete Morgan. It is a beautiful piece of silver and turquoise art work. I don’t wear it anymore, but I do admire its beauty!
And cars; don’t forget them, you know that Evelyn, Duke Marie and I are car nuts, and we have amongst others, like our newly acquired Jeep, a 1959 Chevrolet Apache 31 pickup truck, in you guessed it, tartan turquoise. One day we may cover the rust patina with a fresh and total turquoise paint job. Don’t hold your breath though! I think the prettiest Chevrolet car was the 1956 Belair in two tone color of white and turquoise. There were tropical turquoise and twilight turquoise paint color options as well.
Oh yeah! And the most precious turquoise is that our Cibola County achieved the turquoise color assignment lately, allowing less restrictions in distancing and allowing more restaurants to open at a larger capacity as well as museums and such, by having low covid numbers.
It’s been about 56 weeks and about the same number of stories in our Cibola Citizen newspaper where we shared our life’s adaptations and adventures in dealing with covid-19.
We started with senior shopping hours and restaurant hours. Together we lost and found our marbles, we shared special spots in the hills and talked of streams. We imagined “The Duke” talking of our Governor’s face mask idea; his take may have been: “Wear your mask pilgrim or stay at home....it’s that simple!” We talked about angels in April, Super Bowl size challenges, and Max and his mask! We’ve shared dreams and had a laugh or two. We’ve shared the dawn and spring break together!
Our town’s elementary school’s children did Christmas window paper art as opposed to actually painting the glass on our town’s main-street businesses as we had done previous; it was “Plan B“, driven by covid! The town loved it! We talked of the 1919 penny and “In God we trust, and being in the greatest country in the world! It’s been fun and challenging to say the least.
We watched over 1.8 million vaccinations administered thanks to “warp speed” in developing those!
There have been many days that a story topic has been difficult, but Grace has saved us! We will stay in touch and perhaps we may sit across from each other at a local diner and enjoy the new norm as normal.
Turquoise …ah…it’s beauty!