My out-of-town pal likes VC vibe. We should, too

My buddy George came through Los Lunas a few weeks ago for work and surprised me with a text around noon.

I’ve known Georgie since high school and spent about 10 years after graduation as his roommate and playing in a band while living in Albuquerque.

Like a lot of folks, we keep in touch by texting or messaging on Facebook. Mostly, we exchange funny memes and comment about music stuff — like the passing of John Sykes, the guitarist who played with Thin Lizzy and Whitesnake back in the ʼ70s and ʼ80s.

It was a random Tuesday and George texted this to me around lunchtime:

“Working in Los Lunas today. Dang this place is giving me a 1970-early ʼ80s vibe. Trippy.”

I ask him what he was doing this far south of Albuquerque. Turns out George has changed jobs and he’s at a convenience store, doing a CO2 inspection for his new gig.

After a bit of texting, George explains his comment.

“Earlier I meant a ʼ70s ʼ80s Vegas vibe.”

As in Las Vegas, N.M. — our home town.

I had to laugh. Did George think I took the comparison as an insult? Maybe not.

We finished texting pretty soon after. He asked if I knew any good Indian food places — Indian from New Delhi not New Mexico, by the way. I kept thinking about his comparison.

I started getting familiar with Valencia County in 2006, when I first took a job at the News-Bulletin. I’ve lived in Los Lunas since 2012, when I moved in with my wife and her mom. In those 13 years, I feel like I’ve gotten pretty familiar with the county. And George is pretty spot on.

Valencia County reminds me a lot of my hometown, which is probably why I felt comfortable enough to move here in the first place.

It’s not perfect. But neither was Las Vegas in the ʼ70s and ʼ80s, but it was a pretty good place to grow up.

Valencia County, even with all the problems and bad things, is a pretty good place to live.

The reason I bring this up is that right before George hit me up, I was surfing the interwebs to get an idea of what I might be looking into as a staff writer for the News-Bulletin, having just accepted the job as staff writer covering Los Lunas.

I’m here to tell ya folks, there’s a lot of negativity about living here.

That’s what I mostly found looking at Facebook groups and community websites that end with Nextdoor. Just an observation, mind you. There is a lot of negativity online these days and what I found wasn’t terribly different from what I’ve seen about other towns, cities and countries. Maybe it’s just a sign of the times.

All afternoon, I kept thinking about George’s take on the county and how online Valencieños say the opposite. I know what we dislike and agree on some stuff, but what do I like?

I like the vibe George mentioned. Compared to Albuquerque and Santa Fe, Valencia County seems to be a little more laidback, a little less in a hurry. We also seem to be friendlier. Folks here seem to be more willing to engage and even to wave at each other when we see each other on our block, whether we’re in our vehicles, walking in the park or just sitting out in front of our houses.

With the exception of certain times on Main Street in Los Lunas, we don’t drive all crazy. We let people merge into our lane and don’t mind that it’s happening.

We’re patient at the pharmacy, whether in line or at the counter. We ask how people are without hesitation and chat up the people in the check-out line easily.

If we’re having a bad day, we don’t try to pawn it off on other people. We just keep it to ourselves, smile and try to lift other people up — and they help us out of our funk by smiling back.

That’s what I like about Valencia County — my fellow Valencieños.

What do you folks like about VC? Let us know on Facebook, in the comments section of this People & Places article.

By the way, George didn’t find any Indian food. He ended up going to a local restaurant, which I will not name here, mostly because he was very underwhelmed.

“Oh, wow. I thought they’d gone out of business,” I replied.

“Yeah, they should go out of business,” he quipped.

Not everything can be great, I guess. LOL.