Stay Awhile: A New Mexico Sojourn (Red Crane Literature Series)

To many visitors, New Mexico is glistening aspens, the smell of burning pinon, and southwestern style. In reality, it is much more. New Mexico is its people--intriguing, hardworking, contemporary people with universal hopes and dreams. Through entertaining narratives, Toby Smith reveals diverse New Mexican legends, landmarks, and local color as he shares his experiences as a journalist traveling the back roads as well as the main roads.
Included in Smith's cast of characters is a man who had a thunderbolt brush with death in the mountains above Taos:
A battered hiking boot rests on a bookshelf in George Easley's Los Alamos study. Left-footed and ankle-high, the boot is undistinguished except in one way: on the back is a gaping hole, the kind of cavity that looks as if a small animal chewed from the inside out. But no animal caused that hole; lightning did. A year ago, when George Easley wore the shoe, an electrical charge entered his lower back, raced down one leg, and created the hole as it exited. Though the lightning damaged the boot, it made its owner stronger.
After dropping in on Smith's characters, there's always the feeling you'll be back. New Mexican people being who they are, you're certain to receive an offer to return and stay awhile.