¡Colores!; Notable New Mexican 2004: Tony Hillerman; Tony Hillerman Notable New Mexican 2004

You You You You

You You You Parshall funding to the production of this program was provided by the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of New Mexico and by New Mexico Arts, a division of the office of cultural affairs and the national endowment for the staff known years ago I'm headed for San Francisco on a what used to be called Santa Fe Chief. Climbing up nine mile hill out of the Rio Grande Valley and I

run up the stair to get into the observation car because I'm know we're going to see that wonderful view from that ridge westland. I'm sitting next to three business bands from somewhere in the east. I'm Eve shopping and all of a sudden we're over the ridge and there it is. The SUNY buttes and Mt. Taylor and the whole world out there maces and ever color in the universe and the sky is full of wonderful monsoon thunder clouds. Little bit of lightning. Virga from a couple of clouds and the conversation beside me stops right mid-sense and these three men are looking up at the very landscape I'm looking at. It's seen that it's lifted my heart and caused all my worries to fall away and one man says to

the other. My God why would anybody live out here? There's a moment of silence and I'm thinking my God why wouldn't everyone love to live out here? The first question authors get when at book signings is where do you get your ideas? In my case the second question is how do you a white man seem to know so much about an apple culture and answering that requires a brief

biography? Born in 1925 Tony Hillman was the youngest of three children. He was raised in the white open spaces of Eastern Oklahoma in a little town called Sacred Heart. Imagine if you can to town it was only 38 people. You knew everybody and everybody knew you and you knew their dogs and then knew your dog and you know which one could whip you and which one couldn't. When I think about my dad I think about a guy that worked seven day week. It was a depression, a dust bowl of depression. Making eleven was very, very tough going. My dad had a peculiar way of enforcing discipline. He never ever touched one of us kids in hostility and he never spoke harshly to us. His worst

penalty was to call us in and tell us that he was disappointed and that was a devastating blow to disappoint Papa. My mother had died in childbirth but even so she was afraid of nothing my mother was and she taught us kids two things inevitable. You're going to you're born that's one you're going to die that's to what matters is what's between. We went to the boarding school for girls a boarding school for Potawatomi Indian girls or Indian girls in general but a bunch of us farm boys lived around there and farm girls and so we could go to school there too. What I guess I learned there that was most obviously important

was growing up knowing that Indian are just like everybody else. You grew up without us in them attitude about other races. We were all members of the same species. We had an us in them of course but the us was the Potawatomi's and the Seminole's and the other farm kids. The them was the town boys. The town boys had were low-clutch shoes they had money so there was a class relation between us and them right which I've lived with all my life. As World War II loomed Tony found himself running a ruined farm in Dustbow, Oklahoma trying to raise Alfalfa. He ended up with acres of wings.

I was draft exam because my dad had died when I was 15. My one goal in life was to get off the farm and I promptly got drafted. There I was in the private and the army. Happy as a lot I thought. From 1943 to 1945 Tony served with Charlie Company 410th Infantry 103rd Division and saw combat in France. Seriously wounded Tony's legs foot and ankle were broken and he had facial burns and temporary blindness. He was awarded a silver star, the bronze star with oak leaf cluster and the purple heart. Discharged in 1945 he found himself back in Oklahoma.

When I did finally get home I wasn't really home it was Oklahoma City and I went down to the USO and met a very pretty redhead girl whose father was an independent oil man and he needed somebody to drive a truck with low field equipment in it out to the reservation to reopen a well. During that trip outside of Crown Point New Mexico on the Navajo Reservation Tony witnessed a Navajo cleansing ceremony. A Navajo clan was welcoming home members who had served in the war restoring them to harmony with their people. When he unloaded equipment I asked a guy a rancher there for about what I've seen coming in and he told me what it was and he said they wouldn't mind me going and watching if I'd stay sober and behave myself. So I did both and I watched some of this

animal waste ceremony and a very impressive piece of work. That was my introduction to the Navajo culture. Then Tony met the love of his life Marie Elizabeth Unsner. Here was I just become 21 years old and I was feeling very depressed by it all I wasted my youth. Here I was a certified male human being. My real friend was Lonesome and my friend came by and said why don't we go by the Newman Center they're having a dance there. I was still limping but I was watching them dance and I saw this charming, beautiful, brunette dancing.

I thought well she looks like she might not mind if I am clumsy and limping and sure enough tap the guy on the shoulder and I told him I wanted to go then and she was willing. I'll never forget that evening and it led to 54 years of happy married life. During the war Tony's mother shared his letters with Beatrice Stahl, a feature writer for the Daily Oklahoma newspaper. Impressed, Miss Stahl told Tony he should be a writer. Thus the seed was planted. Tony earned his degree in journalism. I wanted to work on a state capital newspaper where you can cover politics and anyway we came to Santa Fe and then I was in charge of it. The state was me and one other guy. I was boss, he was the guy I bossed.

Santa Fe was an interesting gathering place for some of New Mexico's most colorful characters. But one of the more dignified people in the state that caught Tony's attention was Tom Popejoy, the visionary president of the University of New Mexico. I was editor of the New Mexican and I wrote an editorial praising him to this guy. And long time later the chairman of the whole chairman of the University Journalist Department came to see me. He said why don't you come down here and get a master's degree while I'm getting ready to retire. And he said Tom Popejoy will give you a part-time job. So Tom Popejoy gave me a part-time job as sort of a doer of undignified deeds. Didn't have any authority but made sure the faculty didn't know it. I'll give you an example.

We were trying to get a bill passed to authorize the University of Mexico Medical School. So he called me and he said Tony you're going to get a call from the Santa Val County Sheriff. He said he needs some help see what you can do for him. He said all right what I need Tony is I need a bunch I need 13 mattresses. So we then we were running an outward bound school for some project and they had a whole basement full of mattresses. So he sent his pickup truck over it took 13 of them and disappeared with them. Then up at the Senate here comes his brother. I'm up there trying to lobby. What do you need Hillary? I said what you mean? You got my eye on you and I said what you mean? I said what you gave my brother those mattresses. I said well the only vote we're really bad they need is a vote in the Senate. Appropriations committee for that medical school bill. Turns out when the vote came you voted yes and we got a medical school. So you can credit that medical school to 13 old worn out mattresses.

We wanted to have children. We had Anne and we weren't able to have anymore. And so we thought well we'll adopt children and we did. This is from an essay I wrote about growing up in a family with adopted brothers and sisters. Because there were six children in my family. Me and my five adopted siblings. The holidays always brought joyful chaos to our house. My parents said congratulations you're the big sister. Janet, Tony, Monica, Steve and Dan joined our household.

My parents stressed that their adoption made them special, much loved, chosen children. In the throes of hormonal adolescence I decided I would have been happier as an only child. I could have had a pony for Christmas. But now when I sit down to Christmas dinner joined by my five brothers and sisters, our parents and our own children. I'm thankful for my real family. One dreadful day when I was still a professor at university. I had delivered a lecture that was so bad that even I recognized boring. And I decided to quit teaching.

I knew I wouldn't miss the administrative details. I thought I'd miss teaching and I did for several years. Pretty soon I realized that I enjoyed writing a lot better than I did grading papers. For years, Tony struggled to find a niche for his fictional work. In 1970, he broke into the literary world with the best seller, the blessing way. My agent went the same thing when I sent her the blessing way. She said, I called her, had any luck with it, no. And I said, why not? And she said, it's a bad book. It saved a lot of conversation, doesn't it? She thought it fell between the stools. It was neither a literary novel or a genre novel, mystery novel. Halfway between bookstores wouldn't have a slide study once she helped to put it on. And if I rewrote it, I thought, well, what would she change?

Get rid of all the Indian stuff, she said. You know, that slows it down. I thought I didn't want to do that. Tony Hilderman's books have received international acclaim. When awarded with the Edgar Award, mystery writers of America Grant Master Award and the National Media Award to name a few. I hope that I have made Americans aware that it's not such a problem in Mexico, but it's such a sort of an invincible ignorance, a lot of places about Native American cultures. To make people understand it is a lot of richness and depth and value in these cultures. The years have been far better for me than anyone deserves.

Two-thirds of them were Brighton by Marie, who rarely saw a disaster in which she couldn't find something to laugh about. And a lot of them may tense and nerve-wracking and interesting and joyful by what happens when you're bringing up six children. My three-fourths of a century to sum it up have been notable for fortunate outcomes and rare disappointments. Thank you.