Chris James Martinez, a.k.a. Jethro, Santiago, Jim, et al., gave us the slip one year ago today.

You left us way too soon, homes. Some of us never got the chance to say “Adios” until you were dust in the wind.

Well, dust in a Chock full o’ Nuts coffee can, anyway.

After you hit the door running for the final time Larry, Kelly, and William got the old band back together and then some, first at the Bull & Bush in Glendale, and again in Alamosa, trying to sing you back home.

Sorry if it sounded more like the howling at the moon that was No. 1 on our El Rancho Delux hit parade Back in the Day™. Weren’t none of us exactly Jimmy Ibbotson, even then. More like Jimmy Beam, and near the bottom of the bottle, too. Talk about your long, hard roads.

Anyway, our serenades kept going to voice mail, or maybe to that answering machine I bought you way back when. It’s probably under those Glendale mondo-condos next to the Bull, with the rest of El Rancho. There’s an artillery piece at the Alamosa boneyard in case you want to call us back.

Thinking of you today, my brother. And of Lucy and Lawrence, too. Give them un abrazo for me.