Out of State Drivers

Dorothy L. Pillsbury was a southwestern author who lived in Santa Fe in the 1940s and 1950s and wrote charming human interest stories about the meshing of Anglo, Spanish and Indian cultures in those mid century years when Santa Fe was still a small dusty town.

She lived just off the plaza, in a Hispanic neighborhood of tiny adobes called the Dirt Road Section. It was along the old Acequia Madre water ditch but walkable to the center. Now her dirt track is paved and in a popular upscale section of the city, and the little adobes, rehabbed and offered on vacation rental sites, go for $900,000 and up.

Some of her sketches come across as condescending, especially when she relates quirky vignettes about Mrs. Apodaca next door or the amusing doings of Cousin Canuto -- she has a bit of a tin ear and they often read as belittling stereotypes. But mostly her writing is quite beautiful and her affection for this place shines.

One observation made me laugh out loud. She wrote about walking to the plaza to do her errands (in a time when there were real stores and everyday goods in them, not just jewelry and tourist attractions), and she wearily complained about the cars on San Francisco Street. What an annoyance -- cars going down the street the wrong way or parked in front of the fire station and didn't they all have license plates from Texas or California!

It's a sport in town now to complain about the California drivers and the trucks from Texas. How Santa Feans disparage tourist drivers on our streets. We all do it. And here was Dorothy Pillsbury, back in 1949 with the same complaints. Seventy years of the same complaints about Texans and Californians.

And to top it off, Dorothy was, like most Anglos in Santa Fe now, originally from somewhere else before she moved to Santa Fe. Where was she from?

California.

Some things never change.