Orogrande - Turquoise, Jasper and Pewter, Organic Style Southwestern Necklace

Description

True story:

I went to high school in Alamogordo, New Mexico, a small town about 1 1/2 hours from El Paso, Texas. For fun, we used to pile into a '67 Volkswagen Beetle and drive to El Paso and go to the Farrell's Ice Cream Parlor to have a sundae. (Entertainment comes hard in the desert...)

Approximately halfway between Alamogordo and El Paso, close to the Texas border, is a tiny town called Orogrande. At that time, Orogrande had a population of 13.

(Well, until one of the residents caught one of the other residents sleeping with his wife, and promptly shot him. Then the population dropped to 11 - one was dead, and the other went to jail.)

Near the town of Orogrande was a bar - a "Last Chance Saloon" type of place. It had a reputation as a somewhat dangerous place, and we all avoided it. During our senior year, a bunch of us were on our way to El Paso one Saturday afternoon, when one of the gang had a serious need to use a restroom. You can't just go into the bushes or behind a tree out there; this is true desert we're talking about - no bushes, no trees, nothing but tumbleweeds, roadrunners and rattlesnakes. Oh, and scorpions and tarantulas. It's all desert. So...we stopped at the bar near Orogrande.

Have you ever heard that Bob Seger song, "Turn the Page"?

"Well, you walk into a restaurant all strung out from the road
And you feel the eyes upon you as you're shaking off the cold
You pretend it doesn't bother you, but you just want to explode

Most times you can't hear 'em talk, other times you can
All the same old clichés, is it woman is it man?
You always seem outnumbered, so you don't dare make a stand"

Well, this was just like that song. It was the 1970's, and most of the guys in our group had long hair. And we had entered a bar filled with hard-core rednecks who had no use for a bunch of teenage hippies. Our friend with the small bladder ducked into the restroom, and the rest of us stood around feeling extremely uncomfortable. Inevitably, one of the guys started whispering about how this was "just like that song, man!", and the rest of us started quietly laughing at what complete hillbillies these guys in the bar were, compared to us ultra cool kids...

Well, you guessed it...some of the rednecks took offense at our laughing at them. A few bits of heated conversation ensued, and just as things were starting to look scary, our friend came out of the restroom and we all hightailed it for the car...with the shouts and boastful threats of the rednecks ringing in our ears as we shoved each other out of the way in our haste to get to the safety of the Beetle.

So what does this story have to do with a turquoise necklace? Well, not a darned thing, actually, except for the fact that at that point in time, turquoise was a southwestern cliché, and as an oh-so-cool teenager, I wouldn't have been caught dead wearing the stuff. But now I love it, and I've named this necklace after the town where being so cool almost got our butts thoroughly kicked.
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Turquoise, Jasper, lead-free pewter. Sterling rope chain and sterling clasp. Measures approximately 19 inches / 48.26 centimeters.

Added on Nov 21, 2009

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