Claunch Bean Elevator

The most enchanted place in the Land of Enchantment

So the kid found this baby kitten at the edge of town, where the garbage blows into the chamisa. The kid already has one foot out the door, so little kitty doesn’t have to live with the very silly name he picked. She can live with my very silly name instead.

Meet Claunch Bean Elevator.

If that’s too much for you can call her Bean, Black Bean, Baby Bean, or Bean Elevator. (yes I got eyedrops from the vet, she’ll be fine)

What, you may ask, is a Claunch Bean Elevator? Oh wow, only the most magical place in New Mexico, duh!

To see it for yourself, you have to to to Claunch! Claunch is far away from everything and you will never accidentally go to Claunch unless you didn’t know it was there because it’s such a small town. But it’s not on the road anywhere you’re going. And it’s probably not on the map you have either. (Sure it’s on Google, but you think you’re gonna have Google out there? Pssshttt. )

There’s about a dozen people who still live there but the WPA-era school is a burned out husk. The church looks OK, the post office was open when we were there and there’s not much else. The boy said it looked like the set of “There Will be Blood.”

Later I found out that Claunch was a thriving bean producing community until the nuclear tests of the 50s and they were downwinders, so…. no more beans, no more Claunch. I even met a Kathleen Claunch, who works down in Hobbes, and although her great-grandfather settled the community, she’s never set foot in it herself.

Anyway, back to the Claunch Bean Elevator. It’s right in the middle of town, across from the Claunch Community Church and defunct school.

If you should ignore the signs and sneak in under the loose siding you’ll find a mid-century museum. The newest items in here are maybe early sixties. Furniture, appliances, all kinds of amazing stuff just tucked away. But what’s really stunning are hundreds and hundreds of pictures on the walls of Mr. Claunch and his “dance partner,” a dark-haired beauty with stunning long legs. Mr. Claunch and his “dance partner” must have loved the high life his bean money brought him, because in all the pictures, they’re dancing, drinking cocktails, on cruises and beaches, at parties, laughing all the way through the forties, fifties, and early sixties together. Grinning around cigarettes and martinis when they’re not spinning and dipping, her long legs flashing from a number of gorgeous dance outfits.

Mrs. Claunch was still alive when we were there in 2020. Mr. Claunch had been gone for some 50 years by that point. My sense was Mrs. Claunch was still pretty pissed about all the dancing and that’s why everything was shoved into the bean elevator. But nothing will ever erase my sense of stepping back to a moment in time, a memory of raucous (and possibly raunchy) joy, when the bean crops were good, the music was playing on the hi-fidelity turntable, and you could dance all night with the lovely woman who was not your wife.

ANYWAY back to the important part, the kitty. Poor little dirty sad thing was out forgotten in the desert after some catastrophe. No one in the world was going to love her except me and my kids. Just like the Claunch Bean Elevator. And she’s a miracle of joy and love for me, also like the Claunch Bean Elevator.

There’s another layer, which has to do with the kitten in Milagro Beanfield War, but Bean Elevator is sleeping on my lap so there’s no way I can get up & get the reference. Trust me, the reference is simultaneously super cute and incredibly profound.

Thanks for reading! Hope you enjoy Claunch if you ever make it there! Don’t forget to stop at the Claunch Bean Elevator! It’s the most amazeballs!!