Remembering Stanley Crawford

Remembering Stanley Crawford
A gentleman, intellectual, environmental and political activist, a great writer, and yes, a farmer. 
By Pete Warzel

Following the passing of John Nichols several months ago, I tried to repair my dutiful neglect and emailed Stan Crawford after the new year, who I immediately thought about given his age. I told him that now, me being retired, I was foot loose and fancy free, so let’s meet for lunch in Dixon, at Zuly’s Cafe, where he always enjoyed the food and hominess of place.

I received a reply that stunned me. He told me he was dying of prostate cancer and only had a few days left. He wished me and Denise a Happy New Year.

I did not know what to say, but told him I hoped that his next life was in a place that had enough room for his enormous creativity and wicked wit.

This morning I heard the sad news. I am so sorry.

Stanley Crawford was a gentleman, an intellectual, an environmental and political activist, a great writer, and yes, a farmer. He was a truly inventive novelist, although best known for his non-fiction. Mayordomo is, in my mind, maybe the best book written about northern New Mexico in our time. He was a garlic farmer and wrote according to the seasons of the farm. Winter – writing time. Spring through fall - working the land. How wonderful is that balance with the earth that we now have all but lost? We are tied to work schedules that are artificially constructed, home lives that are set by television shows and clocks, and disrupted by all things social media. Stan knew the true rhythms of the land just as he labored over the rhythms of a written sentence, each to the betterment of the work.

I first met Stan at a Board of Directors meeting of the Railyard Community Corp., where he sat as a Director due to his guidance and commitment to the Santa Fe Farmer’s Market. We talked writing and he invited me up to El Bosque Garlic Farm for a visit. Over the years I reviewed his novels, did a profile piece on him for New Mexico Magazine, met him for coffee at the Saturday Farmer’s Market, and genuinely enjoyed his company. He was a very wise man, not afraid to take a stand, apparent in the recent legal actions over Chinese garlic import inequities. Over the years Stan spoke and read from his newly published books at The Historic Santa Fe Foundation, and he always filled the house. He appeared shy, but was certainly sure of himself, and I do not think suffered fools.

He leaves an empty space at the Santa Fe Farmers Market. He leaves his readers alone with his fine books. He leaves this odd piece of geography in northern New Mexico a much better place. And he leaves his friends and colleagues smiling, remembering his intelligence and wit.

“You pay homage when and where you can. I love the smell of the bulb as the earth opens and releases it in harvest, an aroma that only those who grow garlic and handle the bulb and the leaves still fresh from the earth can know. Anyone who gardens knows these indescribable presences...” - Stanley Crawford, A Garlic Testament: Seasons on a Small New Mexico Farm.