The time of day to be in the square in Santa Fe, New Mexico is the same as my last trip — or any previous trips — early, early in the morning. Early in the morning before the Indians spread blankets on the north side to sell jewelry and trinkets. Early in the morning, before the swarms of visitors hit the sidewalks on an eternal mission to shop and snack in the ice cream stores.

For on the square at the break of day, the old photographs in the state archives around the block on Lincoln Street of the religious processions down to the cathedral in 1800 come alive. Volkswagens fade away to oxen pulling carts loaded with water. Stray dogs following mounted men are resurrected from the sepia-shaded paper of a long-ago cameraman. Flowers wilted from the promenade of the night before lie in the gutter. A yellow and rose fan blade dropped from the fingers of a coquettish senorita flares in the wind. Two spent pistol shells spill on the sidewalk from an over-exuberant cowboy's first night in town and subsequent stay in the city jail. Butts of thin cigars once stashed in dandies' pockets lie smashed on the walks. So it all awaits imagination's charge, sitting on a steel bench before Santa Fe awakens into a day booming with tourist activity.

Natives adjust to the bustle and traffic jams. One permanent fixture is a guy who trained a big black and tan pooch to let a white and gray black brindle tomcat ride on his back without the cat dumping a white rat riding on his back. This three-tiered spectacle attracts folks packing still and movie cameras. The act pays well in tips and treats in the ice cream store, as the trainer and his charges looked sleek and healthy.

Fellow on the string town road going to Sherwood named Shorty Baker had a cat out in his barn that nursed three puppies the summer we helped him bale hay. Too bad Shorty wasn't a showman. He might have developed a strain of dogs broke for tomcats to ride. I don't think he'd have gone so far as to add a white rat to the act. The reason Shorty kept the cat in the first place was to keep rats out of his barn, not to raise puppies.

Takes 15 minutes to walk from the place where we stay to the square. By mid-morning, the streets and sidewalks swarm with such a mass of humanity that the tempo is from one shop window to the shopkeeper's place next door. Over two blocks off the northeast corner of the square is one of the fanciest dining spots in Santa Fe. (I think there are 75 or 80 restaurants in town.) It's called Casa Sena. The house specialty for 30 or 40 years has been a rainbow trout bedded in pinion nuts and baked in clay (trout and nuts from the nearby mountains).

A few years back, we stopped having dinner at the Casa Sena as signing the credit card voucher ran so many left-hand decimal places that the final tab caused a nervous chill followed by a scalding hot flash. Still attracted to the crisp atmosphere of white linen cloths and beamed Spanish ceilings over a crowd of diners perhaps brightening the day with a glass of red wine and a thin yellow and blue bowl of creamed soup, I am drawn back to the place for lunch.

On this particular visit, the maitre 'd showed us the menu for the Sunday brunch (the trout was now being stuffed with jalapeno, so I'll ignore it) featuring slow roasted wild boar loin as the entrée. Lot of Sundays had passed since I ate the wild hogs we used to catch for the taking on the Middle Concho River at home. Those particular hogs weren't slow roasted, but they sure were fast on foot.

Though I don't drink wine, or read French well, the only word in the suggested vintner for the wild boar course I recognized was "Telegraph." If I'm not mistaken, the "telegraph" line was the dam side of a two year-old horse that won the Grand Prix race in France in 1983. I kept quiet. It would have been disrespectful to question the wine list of a joint charging 69 bucks for a late Sunday breakfast.

We stopped in Santa Fe to adjust to the high altitude before going to the writers' workshop in Taos. On the Sunday we left town, a light snow frosted the iron benches around the plaza. Sharp, thin mountain air made exposed skin smart from the cold. Brisk footfalls scraped and scrunched against the sidewalks. The bells in the massive stone belfries rang in the cathedral across the old town, announcing Palm Sunday mass as has happened since 1869. And I suppose the slow roasted boar was about done once again in the brick oven at "Casa Sena."

April 25, 2002