Sad news this week, the kind of news which, on the surface, seems inconsequential, but which in fact matters more than one knows in subtle and hard to define ways. My news is that the small diner located near me, not far from the Tomé Post Office on HWY 47, has closed, the last day of business Friday, June 26.
Don Mario’s opened about the time Charlotte and I moved from Albuquerque to Tomé. I know Mario Chavez personally, a genial young man with remarkable culinary skills when it comes to authentic New Mexican food. I liked the food. I always enjoyed the staff. I enjoyed the view of Tomé Hill in the distance from the outdoor cafe tables in front of the roadside diner.
I wrote a number of blog posts from my favorite table under the shaded portal in front of Don Mario’s. Often read books I needed to peruse for Great Scots Magazine or made outline notes for feature articles while enjoying a big bowl of green chili stew with delectible sliced beef steak pieces added.
Don Mario’s was my Paris Cafe as a dog writer tethered to place and animals at Las Golondrinas in Valencia County, New Mexico. I could take my laptop, plug into Mario’s WiFi connection, or take my pen and a good book, and write, compose, and research on the Internet, while enjoying New Mexico outdoors and vistas and unique Mexican food at the same time.
Endings. I know we cannot do without limits and endings. They bring definition to our endeavors. But I’m especially sensitive to endings in my little world since Charlotte’s death. More than ever before I wish for things that shape and give structure to my life to be there. No disappearance. No death. Period. I want, of course, what I cannot have, viz., security from endings.
But as death feeds life, so endings feed new beginnings. The cycle of life turns as one dream dies, another dreamer’s dream of launching the perfect eatery is born. I will call good things, remembering Charlotte’s practice, and call a new ‘Mario’s’ to my favorite roadside location on HWY 47–in much the same way as I now daily call good things for my own future, as I step forward out of my own endings to new beginnings.
Joseph Harvill, publisher Great Scots Magazine
If you pine for the taste of Mexican food, look no further than Hillsboro. I know a fellow down there who grows his own Habanero chiles. He once gave me some of his Habanero popcorn oil and peanut butter. Once was enough.
Great stuff. My eyeballs exploded, my hair fell out, I became incontinent for a month, my jeans caught on fire and the toilet looked like nitric acid had been poured into it.
My Scotties, upon smelling the popcorn oil version of the Habanero, ran into the neighbors yard howling in agony, tears streaming from their eyes, seeking shelter under a pile of firewood for a week, snacking on field mice and green irrigation water.
Yup, I love that stuff. I always get sad when a favorite restaurant moves on. Well, sometimes anyway….
Dear Joseph,
Rick and I have ‘closed’ many of our favorite eateries. We never have been able to figure what we do wrong. We give them as much of our business as we can!!! In our case, it is generally pizza places. The mom and pop ones who know how to do it without charging extra for lots of cheese and lots of pepperoni. We have started to think the restaurant owners should pay us NOT to visit them.
I would avoid the one that Kevin just mentioned! That’s too much of a good thing!
However, as always, when one door closes, another door opens, and we find some other small mom and pop to make us a nice, fully loaded pizza.
It doesn’t take much to bring joy; and yes, a nice eatery where memories are abundant, that’s a treasure, too. And a loss, probably for all concerned, when it closes.
Love,
Cheri, Rick, Roger, Magic, Elliott & Forever An’GUS(RB)