Busy McCarroll – "O Fair New Mexico" (2015)

Land with its bright mañana

Coming through weal and woe

State of our esperanza is Nuevo México

One day shortly after I moved to Washington, DC, in 1977, I heard a story about a young medical school graduate who had a problem when he submitted his application for a license to practice medicine in the District of Columbia.  

After looking over his paperwork, the clerk on duty – who was filling in for a vacationing colleague – asked why he had not submitted documentation showing that he had passed the examination required of graduates of foreign medical schools.

“I didn’t go to a foreign medical school,” the puzzled young doctor said.  “I went to Georgetown.”  (Georgetown University, which has a well-known medical school, is located in DC.)

Georgetown University's Healy Hall

He flipped through the documents in his file and pulled one out.  “Here’s my Georgetown diploma,” he said, handing it to the clerk.

She examined it carefully, then shook her head.  “You can’t tell me this is a diploma from an American medical school,” she said.  “It’s not even in English.”

Georgetown University diplomas are written in Latin.

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I always figured that story was apocryphal.  Back in the day, the District government had a well-deserved reputation for sloth and incompetence.  But surely the city’s employees weren’t that clueless.

Recently, a New Mexico newspaper had a story about a bureaucratic snafu that was most definitely not apocryphal.   

A couple of days before Thanksgiving, Gavin Clarkson – a resident of New Mexico – went to the DC Marriage Bureau to pick up a marriage license.  (Clarkson and his fiancee were planning to get hitched in Washington, which is where she lives – which is why he was applying for a DC wedding license.)

Mr. and Mrs. Gavin Clarkson

When Clarkson gave his New Mexico driver’s license to the clerk at the Marriage Bureau, she told him that an international driver’s license wasn’t an acceptable form of identification, and asked him for his “New Mexico passport.”

Clarkson told the clerk that New Mexico was, in fact, one of the 50 United States.  The clerk was skeptical, but accepted Clarkson’s New Mexico driver’s license after consulting with a supervisor.

“She thought New Mexico was a foreign country,” Clarkson told the Las Cruces Sun News.  “All the couples behind us waiting in line were laughing.”

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The last year hasn’t been a good one for Clarkson – who like me is a graduate of Rice University and Harvard Law School.

He resigned his position as Deputy Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Department of the Interior after the department’s inspector general issued a report critical of a program he had overseen.

He then sought the Republican nomination for New Mexico’s 2nd Congressional District, but finished third in the June primary election.  (After announcing his candidacy, Clarkson was fired from his New Mexico State University associate professorship.  He promptly filed suit against NMSU, alleging that he had been wrongfully terminated because he is a pro-life Christian, a Choctaw Indian, and a Republican – not necessarily in that order.)

Clarkson on the campaign trail

When the Republican nominee for secretary of state dropped out of the race a week after winning the primary, party officials named Clarkson as her replacement.  Unfortunately, he lost that election as well.

Given that run of bad luck, what’s your over-under on how long before Clarkson’s wife dumps him?

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New Mexico became the 47th state in 1912.  

Sheriff Pat Garrett

The New Mexico state song, “O Fair New Mexico,” was written a few years later by Elizabeth Garrett, the daughter of Sheriff Pat Garrett – the man who had shot and killed William “Billy the Kid” Bonney in 1881.

Click here to hear Busy McCarroll’s recording of “O Fair New Mexico."