Report from Santa Fe; Forrest Fenn

You Report from Santa Fe is made possible in part by grants from the members of the National Education Association of New Mexico, an organization of professionals who believe that investing in public education is an investment in our state's economic future. And by a grant from the Healey Foundation, Taos, New Mexico. Hello, I'm Librean Mills and welcome to report from Santa Fe. Our guest today is Forest Finn. Thank you for joining us.

Why do you say Forest Finn? Because I want you to take it for us. We are celebrating the fact that just this just this month, you were at the Governor's Mansion and the Department of the Mexico Department of Agriculture awarded you the Rounders Award, you and another wonderful writer, Slim Randalls, got the 2012 Rounders Award. And the Rounders Award was based on Max Evans's book now. It's over 50 years since he wrote this wonderful book which became an iconic movie. And so they named the Rounders Award after Max's book and he got the first Rounders Award. Tell me about what this means to you. What does being a Rounder mean to you? Well, they say on their website that the Rounders Award goes to someone who promotes and articulates the Western way. Yeah. But let me back up just a minute. I read Max Evans' biography of Long John Dunn of Taos. And I was fascinated by the guy, the way he could write

put words together in a sentence that I had not seen before. And so I was down and collected works book store and I said I would really like to have known this Max Evans because he sounds like my kind of guy and Dorothy, well call him on the phone. I said is that guy still alive? He must be 500 years old and she said no he's like 86 or something. So I call him Max on the phone. I said Max, I want to come down and interview you and he knew who I was because of my gallery. He said well come on down here. And so I read Slim Randalls' biography of Max Evans. And it's called All Max Evans, the first thousand years. Well, I knocked on Max's door and he opened it and I said Max Evans, I said I'm scared to death of you after reading what Slim Randalls said about you smuggling and fist fights in bars and in sales and things. And boy, he put his arm around and said come on in and said we're going to get along just fine. I interviewed him taped interviews four hours, two different times. I have eight hours of him on tape. As a matter of fact, he told me who murdered Arthur Rockford Mambie and Taus.

It's an unsolved murder. So I'm writing a book called Closet Stories of Taus. It's about the characters in Taus and the artist but it isn't an art book. But I'm going to solve that murder. Well, excellent, excellent. Now Max himself says that being called a rounder is not necessarily compliment and that he defines a rounder as someone who's been out and work in the ranch out in the country for way too long. Finally comes to town his more fun than he should. So have you been having more fun than you should? You know, I'm reminded of the word rake. Do you know what a rake is? A rake is somebody that's halfway between a scoundrel and a good guy. Errol Fland was a rake. So I think Max and I fit in that category somewhere. I think you both do and you're two of my favorite people. Max is my favorite New Mexican writer. He's just, and when he celebrated the 50th anniversary of the rounders, he had a novel out called War of Music. And he's still writing. He's got two new books to come out

but I'm not going to mention them. They're a surprise. But when asked about the, you were at him in a letter and you said, well, tell us what you said about whether you deserved the rounders award or not. Well, I know that Max's fingerprints were all over that award for me and I wrote him a letter and thanked him and I said, I'm not sure I deserved this award. I said, but I had cancer and I know I didn't deserve that. But you have to, I mean, Max is not gold-plated. He's solid gold. I mean, if there was everybody that articulated the way the West should be, and that's Max 7. That doesn't mean the West has always been good, but Max personifies the best of it, I think. I think so, too. But you, I wanted to just look at some of your Western works because that is why you got this award. This is a beautiful book you wrote about San Luis Lazaro Pueblo, the secrets of San Luis Lazaro. Can I say something about that? Yes, please. When I wrote that book, I was in a mood. I was, I was mad at writers and publishers because they, they, you know, why you put a dust jacket on

a book? In the old days, they didn't have a dust jacket. You put a dust jacket on a book to hide and ugly cover. Why don't you have a great cover? The original purpose was to buy a book with a dust jacket on it, take it on, take the dust jacket off and throw it away and put the book on the shelf. That was the original thinking. So, so, we won't damage your book before you get it home. But when I wrote that book, I decided that I have a number of books that have those great old covers, polychrome colors. And I said, I'm not going to have a dust jacket on this book. And the guy was going to print my book and says, well, you can't sell it if you don't have a jock sack in the well, then I'll just give it away. But I went to a printer in Phoenix and I said, I want this book printed on linen, the cover, on linen. He said, we can't print on linen. I said, well, then I'm out of here. He said, well, just let us try it. They'd never tried it. But they had some linen. They ran it through it, it worked perfectly. Hold that book up. Okay.

And the cover of that book is a painting of two prehistoric casino dance masks that I excavated to San Lausville Pueblo. And the watercolor drawing on the front of that is by Jim Ascher who lives here in Santa Fe, a great artist. He painted that for me. Well, thank you for, I didn't, I didn't know that. I'm going to quickly just tell you more than you want to know about that. No, no, I'm delighted to know that. I just want to show some of the other books that are part of your Western ufra because it's one of the reasons you got the round his word. This is historic American Indian dolls. You have quite an incredible collection of them and you write all about them. And then in your position as a gallery owner, we'll get to that in a minute. You have written about some of your favorite Western artists. This one I love. Tell me about this book. Tell me about the title. It's about Eric Sloan, the artist. Eric Sloan was probably my best friend. You say Western art. He painted New Mexico a lot, but a lot of his paintings are New England Barnes and covered bridges like on the cover. But Eric was the most talented man

that I ever knew. He could paint a major painting in a day, like in four or five hours. Go to lunch with me. Go to dinner with his wife that night and in 50 years write 50 books. You know everybody, Neil Armstrong. He sold a painting to Amelia Earhart. Oh, you knew Jimmy Doe Little. James, I have letters that he gave me from James Cagney to him. And it's endless. The guy had so much talent. And one other book and then we'll get back to your gallery. This is the beat of the drum and the hoop of the dance. And it's about Joseph Henry Sharp. I bought his estate many years ago. I wrote that book in 1982. It was really the first book that I ever wrote. And I didn't know how to write a book. So I got a bunch of yellow pads and some pencils. And I'm writing about Joseph Sharp. I had 35, 3 by 5 inch cards that I had made notes on for a few years. But I was so new to writing. I started writing this biography. And when I made

a mistake, I had to race that word instead of marking through it and keep going. You know, I was determined not to have a computer. I later learned the folly of that decision. But the book went out of print after too long a time and revised it, changed all the color plates and had carcullings right at the Ford Farming. And the new edition of that is the teepee smoke. Yes, yes, yes. Well, I want to talk a little about your background because you were 20 years. You were an Air Force fighter pilot. You flew 328 combat missions in Vietnam. And then when you left the Air Force, you came to Santa Fe and opened a gallery. But you said you'd never said a dart, never owned a painting or knew anybody who did. Lorraine, I had a bad tour in Vietnam. I was shot down twice. I was missing an action in Laos, wondering what my future was. And I sat there all

that long. I told myself, you know, there has to be something better than this. Yeah, really. I'd already been shot down once. This was the second time. And I just, I had been to Santa Fe before. And I told myself, when I retired from the Air Force after 20 years, I had to drive about eight miles to get to my home in Lubbock, Texas. And I got about halfway home and a weird feeling came over me. I stopped my little Volkswagen bug along the road there and climbed through a barbed wire fence and walked way out into a cotton field. A couple of hundred yards out there. I took my watch off and I threw it just as far as I could throw it. And I had a little calendar in my wallet. I took that out and I shredded it. And I spread it to the four winds. I said, for us, Finn, you'll never get up before daylight again. And you'll never go to bed before dark. And I haven't done that. Those are two promises I made myself. Wonderful. In the Air Force, you know, you're always going on alerts. Something four o'clock and working 15, 16 hour days. Yeah.

But Santa Fe was the only place that I knew where the bus would stop and let me out. I could wear hush puppies and blue jeans and I had a gallery here for 17 years. And this is how I dressed blue jeans and hush puppies. Well, your gallery was really unique. You specialize not only in Indian art, Western art and artifacts, but impressionists, the caliber of your art. Now, this was the famous fan gallery. And you've sold it. But for years, 17 years, you had the most unique and the best gallery in Santa Fe. Do you know how a gallery gets to be famous? How? Advertise full page color. These galleries that advertise half page black and white or quarter plays black and white. And big letters across the front. It says to me, don't come in here. If you advertise full page color, they think you're an expert. And it doesn't matter who you're early. It only matters who they think you are. Well, that's true. As a matter of fact, you had said,

at one point that your epitaph might be, I wish I could have lived to do the things I was attributed to. I've been attributed to a few things. You certainly have. You certainly have. You had a pond, a beautiful pond at the gallery. You had an inhabitant named after a famous Anglo-Saxon Bay Wolf. Bay Wolf? Well, I have to have water around me. I built a pond down at my gallery, out behind. Then when I sold my gallery and moved up on the old Santa Fe Trail, I built another pond. I get a thousand gallons of water a minute over my waterfall and it's 11 feet deep. But at the gallery, I had an alligator called Bay Wolf. Can I tell you a story about very carothers? He was running for governor. I was standing in one of my guest houses there. And we were having a fundraiser out there and he was standing on a rock with his back to my pond. Upon his one foot behind him. And a hundred or so people out there, he's telling everybody how

good he is. Water-great governor he's going to make. And Bay Wolf thought that it was me talking and calling him to dinner. So Claire crossed upon 60-70 feet. Here comes Bay Wolf. Oh my goodness. The crowd can seize Bay Wolf, but the governor can't. So Bay Wolf came right up to the rear end of Gary Crowley and opened his mouth like that. And the crowd went wild. And Governor Crowley's thought that he was making a good impression. But then he saw what happened and he laughed and he was good about that. You have to like Gary Crowley's. Well, I'm very fond of Gary Crowley's. And they always say that New Mexico politics is full of alligators. So I'm glad the alligators did not get governor Crowley's. He was saying in the guest house, but you have a tradition of many famous people, Jackie O. Share. I mean a lot of people have said in your guest houses. You know, the best thing about, in my opinion, about having a gallery was the great people that came in.

It was so much fun. And I remember you're not old enough to know who Lillian Gish was. I am too. The great silent Lucas talk. Beautiful. She came in one time and I was standing by the front door. It's such an elegant lady. And I said, I'm Forest Finn. I recognize her, but I didn't know who she was. You know how you do those things. Yeah. She had a gloved hand. She put it on my hand and she said, Lillian Gish. An hour later, we're still talking. Yeah. Because I had written a book about Nicolay Fession, the great Russian American painter. Lillian Gish posed for him, I think in 1925, in her costume from Ramola. And I asked her about what she knew about Nicolay Fession. She said, I don't know anything about Nicolay Fession. Who is he? I said, Miss Gish, you posed for him for that great painting that's in the Chicago Art Institute now. She didn't

remember it. So I took her to my library and I pulled a newspaper clipping out of her standing beside Nicolay Fession and that great painting between them, 1925. And she reads a very fine print. I said, you know, from, she's 85 years old. I said, you know, since about 45, I've been wearing glasses. How can you read that fine print without wearing glasses? She said, you know, when I was little girl, my mother told me that your eyes are going to dry out and you'll lose part of your vision. She said, if you put liquid in your eyes, three times a day, you'll, you'll never lose your eye. And she said, I've done that all my life. She could read without glasses. Oh my goodness. Well, I want to remind our audience that we're joined today by Forest Finn and we're going to go into the reason that wherever I go, people ask me about you and the treasure hunt. So his most recent book is a wonderful memoir called The Thrill of the Chase and you really started something

with this. You told me that you had been ill and you were looking back at your life and you realized that what mattered the most to you as in all of your adventures was The Thrill of the Chase. And please remind our audience what you did about this treasure, this hidden treasure. And then let's talk about all the emails you get and all the people, people always come up to me and say, has anyone found the treasure yet? Well this morning I received my 5,057th email and I've kept all of them. But in, you know, I never did go to college. I never studied business and my whole life was air force. I joined as a private. I made buck swords and went to pilot training, got a commission, became a fighter pilot. And when I retired at age 40, over half of my life had been spending air force with no education and no experience other than that. So I decided that Santa Fe was a place I wanted to go but I had to make some money. My retired pay was $800 a month with

wife and two kids. And I could get by on that, you know, if we didn't go to the movies or drink doctor papers and that kind of thing. But I just told myself, you know, and then when I got, when I reached age 58, I got cancer and I lost a kidney and I asked the surgeon before we went for the operation. I said, what are the chances of this being cancer? He said 5%. That's okay. Let's go with it. Well, when our operation turned into 5, and afterwards he gave me a 20% chance of living three years. So I went through all of the emotions, you know, shock, disbelief, denial, anger. Yeah. I went through all of those. But after about, I'm a pragmatic person. And when I looked back at the crib that I had in the art business and the air force, I said, you know, I've had my share. So maybe I'm being called out. And I accepted that. But I said,

I've had so much fun, particularly in Santa Fe, buying all these Indian things and ancient Egyptian. And you name it. I had all of them in my gallery. I said, I've had so much fun collecting these things. If I've got to go, I'm just going to take it with me. As a matter of fact, Ralph Lauren came in my house one day. He was a good collector. And he saw a bonnet that I had hanging on my wall. It was a, it was a crow medicine bonnet, had ermine skins on it and, and, and low ponds. And he said, I want to buy that thing. I said, I don't want to sell it. He said, you have so many of them. He said, you can't take it with you. You know what I said to him? Then I'm not going. And you know, I started thinking about that later. And I said, well, you know, if I got to go, why don't I just take this stuff with me? And I got the idea that I'm going to buy, I gave $25,000 for a beautiful, flimish, chest that they think dates to like 1150 AD. And I started going to gun shows and Indian shows and paying gold nuggets and gold coins. And

about six months later, I had 20.2 tri-pounds of gold in that chest. And jewelry that have emeralds and salons, sapphires and diamonds. There's a bracelet with 240 something rubies in that. Rubies, yeah. A Spanish emerald ring, a beautiful big arrow. It was found in a gallester ovation with a metal detector. And two beautiful little Chinese jade carvings of faces. I mean, the best things I had, you know, I was going to take them with me. I mean, this, I was 79 years old. So, you know, what do you have to look forward to? Well, so tell us what you did with this chest. Well, I took the chest out and I hid it. And in my book, the thrill of the chase. The thrill of the chase. I say that it's in the mountains, somewhere north of Santa Fe.

But there was a lady, a neighbor over there. I didn't know her, but she said she was a neighbor. She called me on the phone. She was really mad at me. I said, why are you mad at me? She said, two guys out there digging up my front yard. Well, I'm sorry. Tell the guys to leave. The treasure chest is north of Santa Fe. But you should read some of the emails that I read. Let me tell you what's been fun about this. About 2,500 emails have said, Mr. Fand, we know we're not going to find a treasure chest. But I just want to thank you for getting me and my kids off the couch and out into the wind. Yes. I've read a lot of those emails. I just wanted to say that in your book, the memory of the thrill of the chase, you have a poem in which you have hidden the clues. And I will tell you I read that poem, and I thought, this girl is not finding any treasure from these clues. But they're in there. And you have hundreds of people who come to Santa Fe and points north looking for this hidden treasure. Well, I don't know how many people have looked, but I'm sure

throughout this last summer, they're over a thousand. Yeah. And a lot of them go out and looking, I don't know about it until later. Yes. Then they'll send me an email and tell me they didn't find it. Well, I've read some of those emails and one of them said, I give up. I couldn't find it, but but I had a great summer with my son looking for it. Well, I'll write them back and I'll tell them, don't give up, it's still out there. Yeah. Yeah. Well, you ever know when someone finds it? The kind of person that we'll find it is the kind of person that can't keep it quiet. Yeah. So I expect I'll know about it. If I found something like that, I can keep it quiet for about three minutes. Yeah. Well, you got even more national publicity. Newsweek did a piece on you and unfortunately you weren't able to correct a lot of the inaccuracies in that and they went ahead and published it, but that brought you more fame. So how has being the, and people have written saying, thank you for giving me this dream. I worked two jobs. I'm a single parent,

but I think just knowing that I might be the one to find that treasure. Well, you know, I had the bomb, but Newsweek magazine let the fuse. Yeah. And I was inundated with that today's show wanted me to come on their show and I've had 11 reality shows want me to, and I just tell all of them, you know, I'm not that, I'd rather be out fishing on a creek. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. And then some people said, I've got to abandon the search because my wife says it's either me or that it's either the treasure or you stay here with me. And I've been about 30 divorces as a result. Oh, no. No, no. No, that one guy that said that talked his wife into going with him. Well, then yeah. Yeah. That beautiful, Gatti Swartz. You know, Gatti Swartz. I do from Channel 4. He'll be. He went to Yellowstone looking for it and he read in my book, the story about looking for Lewis and Clark where I don't know, and I had three baby Ruth candy bars.

That's all the food we took for for a week up in the mountains. We were going to catch fish and shoot rabbits and things. And he thought that was a fetish. So when he was up there in Yellowstone looking for the trash chest, he saw a sign that said red canyon, which is the canyon that we went up on horseback for a week. He went back to town and bought three baby Ruth candy bars and went out there nailed them on that big sign. And I had a friend later that's out looking for the treasure. And he said he found two baby Ruth candy bars. Rappers laying on the ground there. Oh my goodness. Yeah. Somebody ate the candy. Well, I wish it would encourage everyone to to get your book and to go out and make decipher what they can of this enigma hidden in the riddle. It's very cleverly written. But so the thrill of a chase, I want to know now what you're chasing now. You know, when I was in business, this is going to sound very crass. But in a back of my mind,

I told myself, there's never enough. Nothing is too good. That was the way I thought because I was turning in my business. You know, I was trying to make a living. It wasn't easy because I didn't have any experience. And first two major shows I had. I didn't sell anything. Not even a book. So, you know, but because I didn't know what I was doing, I decided that if I was going to compete, I had to hustle. And I decided I was going to be a hustler and be friendly, talk to people, invite them in. And famous people would come in. I loved that when that would happen. I'd always meet them at the door and shake their hand and take them to lunch if they'd go because I'm always inspired by people who have done something significant with their lives. I'm in all of those people. Well, I just want to mention one more time this book, The Thrill of the Chase, you can buy it at collected works in some place you can get that. I gave them all the copies they

can sell. And it's very important that they're donating the proceeds from this book. People said, oh, he's just doing this to make money. No, the proceeds are going through collected works. I'm not making any money on it. I'm not even getting my cost back on that book. But collected works is putting 10% aside. And when the time comes, we're going to buy a cancer operation for somebody because that's important to me. Yeah, yes. You are working on, I think, the closet stories of Tows. Pause the stories of Tows. Tows was such a great place in the turn of the last century. In 1915, there were so many great artists up there, but there was Long John Dunn, there was Dobelly Price, there was Mace McHorse. Is that not a great name? That's a great name. Mace McHorse owned the first car to dealership up there, and Mabel Daweslohan got the first car and Long John Dunn got the second. And Dorothy Brett told me a story about Mabel Daweslohan

getting the first bathtub in town. And Mabel was long dead when I came out this country, but I knew Dorothy Brett, and she was still mad. She said, she never would let me use her bathtub. Oh, you're also doing an event at the Spanish Museum with Bill Fields and Jack Leffler. You're doing the stories of Santa Fe coming up in December. I think they, I think they, I think the Carter Billy Field and I, because we're so old, we know everything that happened in Santa Fe in the old days. Where all the bodies are buried. But I think either the second or the third art gallery in Santa Fe hadn't been that long. You know, we're talking about 1972, really. Yeah. Yes. Well, thank you for spending the time with us today. Our guest today is Forest Finn, who is the winner, the co-winner with Slim Randals of the Rounders Award for 2012. And you're also, although you have hidden treasure and enticed people with the thrill of the chase, you yourself are a treasure. Well, thank you for that. Max Evans is a treasure, huh?

It's absolutely true. So thank you for taking me. You're a sweetheart for inviting me back. Thank you. Well, everyone asks me, where's the treasure? Get a clue if you can. So our treasure today is Forest Finn. Thank you. Thank you. And I'm Lorraine Mills. I'd like to thank you our audience for being with us today. This is Report from Santa Fe. We'll see you next week. Past archival programs of Report from Santa Fe are available at the website, report from Santafei.com. If you have questions or comments, please email info at report from Santafei.com. Report from Santafei is made possible in part by grants from the members of the National Education Association of New Mexico, an organization of professionals who believe that investing in public education is an investment in our state's economic future. And by a grant from the Healy Foundation, Taos, New Mexico.