You Ve Reversed Global Warming?

Sandlin p. 1

Peter Pym came charging into my office last winter, all a-tizzy because he’d found the secret to marketing Jackson Hole. Peter was waving a copy of AARP: The Magazine he claimed he stole from his acupuncturist’s waiting room, but I know for a fact he gets them in the mail. If AARP: The Magazine really does have the highest circulation of any magazine in America, as it claims on the front cover, it also has the highest number of subscribers denying they read it. Anyway, Peter thrust the magazine in my face and practically shouted. “I have found the way to insure our valley’s future.” “You’ve reversed global warming?” “Better. I now know how to sell Jackson Hole. Look.” He showed me an article entitled, “Five Countries Where the U.S. Is Not Hated.” It was a rundown of all the spots in the world where American tourists can take vacations and not be treated like scum-sucking Norwegian wharf rats. For those few of you who may have missed the story, here is the list of foreign countries considered safe for the sensitive American to travel: Northern Mariana Islands, Grenada, Belize, Andorra, and Luxembourg. “These are all nice destination resorts,” I said, “but none of them strikes me as competition for Disney World.” “Not a country on the list bigger than Yellowstone,” Peter said. “I wonder what we did to hack off Southern Mariana Islands.” The royal family of Luxembourg generally vacations at a secret hilltop hotel overlooking Jackson Hole (we’ll call it Amangani) and one of the princes told Delores that, in his country, whenever a citizen turns Sandlin p. 2 eighteen they throw a party for him or her at the palace. Imagine that. I’ve been to Luxembourg. The tourist attraction is a bunch of cannons inside caves facing the mountain roads into the city. It’s fascinating, but, let’s face it, two hours and you can pretty much say, “Done that.” “I firmly believe Americans are not comfortable spending their leisure time and money in a country where the waiters hiss as they enter a restaurant,” Peter said. “Not to mention the dollar tanking in Europe and Asia,” I said. “Unless you love Andorra, this might be the summer to see America first.” “So here’s my advertising campaign slogan.” Peter made an imaginary headline with his hands. “Come to Jackson Hole -- We Don’t Hate You.” I pictured how Peter’s slogan would look in a quarter-page display ad in Field and Stream. It reminded me of when we’re on a trip and we see a motel with a sign out front that reads CLEAN BATHROOMS. There’s something about a place that feels the need to stress that as a positive. It makes me suspicious. “How do you know it’s true?” I asked. “This is advertising. It doesn’t have to be true.” “We’d have to get rid of all those bumper stickers that say, ‘If it’s tourist season, why can’t we shoot them.’ ” “My favorite is, ‘You should have been here before people like you came here.’ ” The truth is, the world over — not just in Wyoming — locals and tourists have what the self-help books call a co-dependent love/hate relationship. Tourists see locals as hicks out to fleece them of every dime Sandlin p. 3 possible. Locals see tourists as stupid. Consider how New Yorkers react with glee whenever one of their own sells some poor rural sap the Brooklyn Bridge. And Floridians with their baby-on-a-rope gater bait stories. Heck, in Paris lying to tourists is a spectator sport. Every time some city slicker buys into jackalopes or the Gros Ventre Slide or mogul storage units, we feel vastly superior. The entire rubber tomahawk industry is built on out-of-towners paying cash for junk locals wouldn’t touch with a stick. We are entertained no end when they shell out fifteen dollars for earrings made out of shellacked elk poop. Back home, would these people pay the same amount for dog turd accessories? I don’t think so. There’s a store downtown making a killing on food that looks like excrement and excrement that looks like food. Only in America. When I was a kid, a naturalist named Wally Butts worked up at Jenny Lake. Whenever tourists asked Wally where Jackson Hole was, he would take them out behind the museum there and show them a hole. One summer it was an under-construction cistern. Another year, he showed them a chiseler hole. More than once, I saw families in winter coats and summer shorts taking photographs of the Jenny Lake chiseler hole. Lord knows what the Park Service would do to a ranger who pulled that stunt today. Peter, himself, got his start in journalism after he told a tour group from Oklahoma the white stuff on the mountains was Styrofoam put there to break the falls of mountain climbers. They believed him and he wrote a story about it. I’d like to see how Peter feels in Africa when they tell him the hippos are animatronic. Sandlin p. 4

But, it’s not all locals making fun of tourists. The thing goes the other way too. “The very first tourists in the Yellowstone ecosystem managed to insult every local they met,” Peter said. “Are you fixing to tell me some ridiculous story that makes sense until I sit down later and think about it?” “I’m fixing to tell you a true historical fact. Remember when Lewis and Clark came up the Missouri River?” “I’ve heard about it.” “They stopped at each Indian village to trade beads and mirrors for horses and food.” “Cheating locals.” “Right, but before they moved on, they would ask the name of the next tribe off to the West. Those Indian tribes all called themselves The People. Or Human Beings, or just Us. How else do you expect people to look at themselves? But since the next tribe over was usually an enemy, or, at best, a rival, they gave Lewis and Clark the derogatory name. Blackfeet. Gros Ventre which means Fat Belly. Nez Percé which means Pierced Nose. Flathead. Dirt-Eaters. Even when explorers didn’t insult a tribe by calling them Flatheads, they got the name wrong. They called the Raven tribe Crows and the Basket Weavers, Snakes.” “I see what you mean,” I said. “It’d be like if the explorers came through here and asked, ‘What people live over those mountains?’ and we said, ‘The ferocious Spud-for-Brains.’ And they marched into Idaho Falls and said, ‘All hail, you Spud-for-Brains.’ ” Sandlin p. 5

“Or if they went through Rock Springs first on their way here, and after we all gathered in the town square to welcome them, the leader of the expedition said, ‘We bring you greetings from the President of the United States to the Trust Fund Babies of Wyoming.’ ” “Tourists say that all the time, now,” I said. “Except the part about Greetings from the President. Jackson Hole needs a new image, something other than home of the trust fund babies.” “Which brings us back to Come to Jackson Hole — We Don’t Hate You.” “You think people paying fifteen dollars for shellacked elk poop earrings are going to believe that?” “Don’t scoff,” Peter said. “If I sell enough elk poop this summer, next winter I’m taking the family to Andorra.”