February/March 2013 Volume 24 Number 6

THE BIGGEST PUBLIC LAND GRAB

Industrial Strength “Green Energy” A Solution? Or a Destructive Boondoggle?

(above) “The Old & the New”...a 300 ft turbine & a Farm Windmill (below) INDUSTRIAL WIND FARM ZONE at NIGHT...from 40 miles away THE ZEPHYR/ FEBRUARY-MARCH 2013 months in 1980, when its most famous—or per- haps most notorious—resident prepared to sell his home and move south to Arizona.

Ed Abbey called Moab home for seven or eight years in the 70s, when he and his wife bought a ranch-style house on Spanish Valley Drive. I met him soon after my own arrival. [email protected] But eventually, Newell, notes, the changes Abbey, always trying to lend a hand to young were for the better. Better services, improved artists, convinced his publisher to use some of ‘OLD MOAB’ vs ‘NEW MOAB— schools. More substantial infrastructure, paved my cartoons in a book he was working on (ul- Ed Abbey, Chilled Red Wine & roads. Moab would never be the remote pasto- timately called ‘The Journey Home’) and I saw When to Clap at the Symphony. ral community it had once been. him occasionally for the next five years, usually at the post office or at the Westerner Grill. In 1952, when Charlie Steen discovered But by Spring 1980, Abbey was ready for a uranium and turned Moab from a sleepy little move. I heard he’d bought a home in Tucson village to the most famous Boom Town in Maxine Newell was born and in early May, a friend told me that Ed was America, many residents were not happy about in Dove Creek but came to loading up a U-Haul truck and planned to be its sudden transformation. Moab was tucked Moab with the boom; gone by the end of the week. I figured it was my last chance to say goodbye, so I drove out to his away in one of the most remote corners of the she remembers the animosity country and was better known for its wind and home, expecting half the town and a cluster of dust and heat and mosquitoes than anything of the old Moabites. Abbey Groupies to be there helping out. In- else. The uranium boom changed all that. “Every time I gripe about stead, I was surprised to find him alone, trying Maxine Newell was born in Dove Creek but bikers, it reminds me of to wrestle a large wood dresser out the door. came to Moab with the boom; she remembers what people said about us. I spent most of the afternoon there as we grappled with the rest of the furniture. Most of the animosity of the old Moabites. “Every time The old timers were I gripe about bikers,” she recalled in a 1995 it fit, but he pointed to an impressive cache of Zephyr interview, “ it reminds me of what just furious.” timber in his garage, 2 x 12 lumber that must people said about us. The old timers were just have been 20 feet long. furious.” “Damn,” he muttered. “I’ll have to leave the beams behind. They’ll never fit in the truck.” In 2012, the Moab of mid-20th Century is I asked him what he planned to do with them. rarely recalled, much less missed or revered. Abbey grinned. With a few exceptions, even the ‘Old Moab’ of “You know...for the houseboat on Lake Pow- 1980 fails to stir much interest for many of its ell...the adobe houseboat. That part of the story new residents. was true.” My own memories of my old hometown of almost 30 years go back to the late 70s, when Moab’s energy boom was on the wane and its tourist economy had not quite taken off. To coin a phrase from the title of a wonderful book about Jackson, Wyoming in the 50s, my early time in Moab was its “cocktail hour”—the town was still reeling from the collapse of the uranium industry and its more entrepreneurial Maxine noted that when thousands of fortune elements had not yet geared up in earnest for seekers descended on Moab, there were only a future that would take Moab, for better or four or five telephones in the entire town. Peo- worse, to the place it has become. ple stood in line for hours just to make a call to Is Moab a better place to live in 2012 than their families. Water was only available every it was 60 years ago? Or 30? It was certainly a other day. Trailers sprung up in backyards to more provincial town back then, less diverse, I drove out to his home, accommodate the overflow. less cultured. I will always remember a few expecting half the town and a cluster of Abbey Groupies to be there helping out. Instead, THE CANYON COUNTRY I was surprised to find him Z E P H Y R alone, trying to wrestle a large Planet Earth Edition wood dresser out the door. Jim & Tonya Stiles, publishers PO Box 271 Monticello, UT 84535 Colorado Plateau Bureau Chief DOUG MEYER www.canyoncountryzephyr.com Later he invited me to dinner at the Sund- [email protected] Contributing Writers owner (now Buck’s Grill). He asked me what [email protected] Martin Murie Ned Mudd Chinle Miller kind of wine I preferred and I suggested he Scott Thompson Edna Fridley Ned Mudd All the News that Causes Fits Paul Vlachos Dave Wilder Terry Weiner choose. I was loathe to admit that my knowl- since 1989 edge of wine then was limited to Boone’s Farm The Artist and Cella Lambrusco (it’s only improved mar- THE ZEPHYR, copyright 2013 The Zephyr is produced six John Depuy times a year at various global locations and made available free Historic Photographs ginally since). He ordered a red wine and a big to almost 7 billion people via the world wide webThe opinions Herb Ringer sirloin steak and we talked about Moab and the expressed herein are not necessarily those of its advertisers, Webmaster future. its Backbone members, or even at times, of its publisher. Rick Richardson All Cartoons are by the publishers A year earlier, the accident at the Three Mile 2 THE ZEPHYR/ FEBRUARY-MARCH 2013 Barely a year before he died, Abbey spent his Island nuclear power plant in Pennsylvania last summer in Moab. I took him up to the Sand had cast a dark and ominous cloud over the Flats one day to see the recently re-discovered industry and the price of uranium ore started to “Slickrock Bike Trail.” Moab was on the verge plummet. Layoffs at the Atlas mill were forth- of being transformed once again. Soon we coming and some thought Moab might just dry would become the “Mountain Bicycle Capital up and blow away. Abbey fancied the idea of a of the World” and the old “Uranium Capital...” small self-sustaining “artist community.” How sign would be relegated to Woody’s bar. he thought such a community might escape the commercialism and hype that goes with such a self-proclaimed designation---well, he hadn’t figured that part out yet. The wine came. I’ll take a guess and say it was a good merlot. But the staff at the Sundowner had seen fit to place the bottle in a bucket of ice cubes. Abbey was gracious enough not to embarrass the waitress but when she’d left, Ed grabbed the bottle by the neck and pulled it from the bucket. New Moabites.. will someday “For Christ’s sake, “ Abbey moaned. “Typical find themselves waxing Moab. Doesn’t anyone in this town know that nostalgic for the things they’ve you DON’T chill a red?” lost, as the world continues He dried off the bottle and put it under his to turn over, again and again. jacket, hoping he could at least take the chill Each generation loses off. Then he realized that trying to warm the something and gains something. “Distant Duet” is a new collaboration wine by wedging it in an armpit might be just A never ending trade-off. between two old friends. as offensive to some as its temperature. He de- Since we live on opposite sides cided he was too thirsty for the merlot to await of the country, it can be a challenge to its return to 63 degrees. But Ed had once promoted the idea of replac- make the music happen. As we sipped our icy drinks, Abbey recalled ing cars with bicycles and was annoyed at first But it is worth the effort. another recent Moab faux pas. by my lack of enthusiasm. Our goal is to produce interesting, In those days, the Utah Symphony made an “Hell, Stiles,” he complained. “You’re more original tunes that have something to say annual trip to some of the smaller southern negative than I am!” and engage the ear with tight harmonies. Utah communities, usually in February and the “Well, “ I defended myself. “Have a look first.” We are pleased to announce that our first dead of winter, and performed for the locals. Abbey and I drove his old Ford truck up the CD, In 1980, a visit to Moab by the orchestra was switchbacks above the town and he saw the an event. Moab was still a working man’s town hordes of pedaling recreationists who had then. And yet, Moab music lovers turned out made the pilgrimage to Moab. We watched the each year in record numbers. crowds fill the parking lot as the bikes fanned “Not Just Anyone” The turnout in 1980 surely exceeded a thou- out over the vast expanse of sandstone; Abbey is now available through CDBaby. sand. Wives dragged their cowboy or miner noted some of the cars and license plates–lots click this ad to visit our web site and look husbands to the high school gymnasium where of BMWs and Saabs and Audis. Many Califor- for the direct link to cdbaby.com the symphony performed and even forced them nia plates...Marin County. A rash of yupstermo- to dress for the occasion. The number of un- biles from Crested Butte. Ed flashed back to our http://www.distantduet. comfortable males that night who spent much conversation of almost a decade earlier. com of the evening jerking nervously on their neck “One thing’s for certain, “ Ed said. “When tie knots cannot be overestimated. Still, every- these people drink a red, they know not to chill Please visit: one, even the reluctant prospectors, seemed to it.” enjoy themselves. http://cdbaby.com/cd/ But we rural Utahns were all novices to this. Moab’s not the town that it once was, nor distantduet Abbey recalled the moment when the sympho- is it the town it will become---New Moabites, ny came to the end of the first movement and bewildered and amused at the sentimentality to purchase the CD or downloads. the audience broke into applause... of people like me, will someday find themselves “How can these people not understand? You waxing nostalgic for the things they’ve lost, as do...not...applaud...between... movements!” the world continues to turn over, again and I nodded solemnly. I didn’t want to tell Ab- again. Each generation loses something and “Here’s to the sunny slopes bey that I’d only learned the error of my ways gains something. A never ending trade-off. of long ago.” a couple years earlier, when I committed the Is it worth the pain to lament what’s gone same sin and my ranger buddy Jim Martin forever? Is it even worth remembering? For me, Augustus McRae to Woodrow F. Call practically snapped off my hands at the wrists. remembering is what keeps the fire alive. With- But finally, Abbey shrugged and laughed. out it, in many ways, I don’t even know what “I guess it doesn’t really matter if they drink the point of all this is. Still the world lurches iced red wine and clap between movements. If forward. they’ll just leave our canyons alone, Stiles.” I finally gave up ‘clinging hopelessly to the Years later, in a mild put down to the gentri- past.’ My own life is beyond excellent these Lonesome Dove Larry McMurtry fication of camping, Abbey would write,” We days as we try to create our own reality and blot don’t go into the wilderness to exhibit our skills out those parts of the ‘real world’ that are too at gourmet cooking. We go into the wilderness overwhelming to contemplate on a daily basis. to get away from people who think gourmet But I can’t help but bask from time to time in cooking is important.” the fond memories of Days that no longer exist. Someday, I think you’ll understand. THE ZEPHYR/ FEBRUARY-MARCH 2013

remember watching, perched atop a stump, as my parents felled trees. Each BUCOLIC MEMORIES of a time I wandered too close, they both pushed me away, expressing in their most SNOWY CHILDHOOD serious tones how dangerous it was to stand in the path of the falling tree. But I was fascinated by their work, by their industry and their deliberate sawing. I Lately, I’m preoccupied with the thought of snow. It has been near sixty watched them portion the trees into small sections and then set up each to be degrees the past few days here in Kansas, and what little snow we accumulated chopped into the recognizable stalks of firewood. By the end of the summer, the in a fleeting New Year’s storm melted weeks ago. It could be any season, save stack of wood was impossibly large. for the bare-limbed trees. The green winter wheat is sprouting up in the fields “So much work,” my mother tells me now, remembering the years of heating like a manicured lawn. The native grasses are brown, but then they were brown with wood. “It never ended. The chopping, the stacking, in the summer. And, in August. I recognize that much of the rest of the country would be thrilled to in the winter, constantly feeding the wood stoves.” All the same, she seems have my sunny, warm weather problems. But I read articles about the blizzards pleased to recall those years. “It felt good,” she says, “all the work.” roaring through the upper Midwest and Plains and I’m jealous. But, when I was about five, we retired one of the two large wood stoves and When I was growing up in South Dakota, February was always snowed-over from then on, save for power outages, we heated our house using electricity. and icy. The morning radio would announce the wind chill, counseling parents Less romantic, perhaps, but more effective. And considerably less work. But on how long to allow their those blizzard days, the children out of doors before family gathered near the they need fear frostbite. In one remaining wood stove the backseat of my parents’ in the basement as it re- car, I would tune in at- turned to its work. While tentively to the local news snow drifted outside, report, hoping each day it mom and dad would haul would finally be too cold in firewood. Dad would for school to open. It never open the door of the stove, was. We would arrive and I prodding the fire, and would join my friends run- when he looked back at ning over the salted pave- us, he was warm-cheeked, ment, past frozen drifts of his beard dark with snow, to reach the school cinders. The wood stove, doors. Inside the class- roaring to life, pumped room, pink-cheeked, we out impressive amounts laughed as sensation tick- of heat. The snowflakes led back into our fingers. from our outer layers, Winter isolated our hair, and eyelashes melted house. On six heavily into puddles on the floor, pine-filled acres, tucked up forgotten until later, when against the National Forest, some stockinged foot my family kept a safe dis- unknowingly traipsed tance from the rest of the through. world. The steep, winding One winter night when I dirt road from the highway was older, after my sister iced over with the first bliz- Jenni had given birth to zard in late October and some years remained treacherous into May. We didn’t her first child, we all tucked in around the wood stove. We had made it through invite over friends much, to save their cars the trouble. In my memory, the a couple of winters without much use for the old stove, but now the power had UPS truck attempted Christmas deliveries to our house twice, and both times been out all day and, come nightfall, we needed the warmth. My Mom con- it got stuck, frantically spinning its wheels against the ice at the base of our structed makeshift beds for each of us, heaps of blankets in an assortment of driveway. As the UPS driver thanked my father for helping him free his truck, chairs and on the floor. Jenni and the baby tucked in together on the couch. he counseled us to pick up our packages in town during the Winter months. Dad poked at the fire, expressing concern over the state of the stove and its years of neglect. I waited for sleep, listening to my parents’ quiet voices. Was it safe for us to sleep with the fire going, my father wondered. My Mother pointed out that half the family was already asleep and the fire didn’t seem to be smoking badly. Winter isolated our house. On six heavily Meanwhile, an oil lamp on the shelf lit shadows across the ceiling. The baby pine-filled acres, tucked up against the breathed heavily in and out. The wind whistled outside, rustling the trees, shak- National Forest, my family kept a safe distance ing loose the snow which fell plop plop plop to the ground. I curled up in my from the rest of the world. armchair, warm under the blankets. I was aware, even then, how rare this night was. How the feeling of having all my family, safe and close around the fire, was something precious which I would wish to recapture in the future and find im- possible. A one-time magic. In the morning, we woke to find our nostrils were March often brought the harshest blizzards, which could drop multiple feet of ringed with black soot. My parents were horrified, and especially disturbed by snow overnight. Waking, we would find our driveway completely impassable. I the sight of the black-nosed baby, but I was still grateful to have had that night, loved those times best. Especially when the snow fell for days, snapping power cozied up together, insulated by the snow. lines, dampening the sounds of the outside world. All electronic noises ceased, That is the feeling I associate with snow: a feeling of insulation, of safety. It’s save for the occasional bleats and droning announcements of the battery-pow- counterintuitive, I suppose, given how easily cold can turn to death. My par- ered weather radio. Walled off, we dipped into the stores of canned food, and ents, in philosophical moments, frightened me with their ideas of “walking out cooked soups over a camp stove. My parents carried matches and lighters from into the blizzard;” their chosen location to meet the end, when compared to the room to room, lighting candles and oil lamps. The flickering light cast supernat- slow wasting-away of old age, would be propped up under a Black Hills Spruce, ural shadows through the house. I would sit reading by the window, huddled in bottle of whiskey in hand, as the snow drifted in. In retrospect, they could have sweaters and blankets, squinting under the gray, snow-filtered daylight. kept that information from me, spared my small child’s psyche that particular I can’t remember this very well, but my Mom has told me that for the first contemplation. But the snow made us all thoughtful and we talked more hon- five years of my life, we heated our house almost entirely with wood. I do estly, as a family, watching it fall. 4 THE ZEPHYR/ FEBRUARY-MARCH 2013

It’s the thoughtfulness of snow, the quiet, that I miss most. Beneath the waiting for me inside that house, pots simmering on the oven, Dad’s favorite smooth white surface, all that riot of wildflowers and flying insects and chirping symphony playing in the background, everyone talking and laughing over each birds that would come with Spring lay in anticipation. But, for now, it was still. other, I felt, for the first time, apart. Distant. The mind could rest. Thoughts could move in smooth, logical, lines; each could I worried. Not just that I might not ever find that secure feeling again, but be examined carefully and individually before each was placed aside. And when that I might forget it. Running up to the house, I was relieved to open the door the thoughts piled up, I carried them outside. and discover my life still inside. My family. The music playing and dinner cook- Certain freedoms were allowed to a child raised in the forest. When I was ing and some political argument brewing between my father and sister. The still far too young for my parents to allow me alone into the town, I was always place, and the people I knew so intimately. I was at home. And it is that feeling, free to roam into the woods. I never learned to ride a bike, but by Elementary warm and sentimental and a bit mournful, that returns to me each year with school, I could put on my cross-country skis and glide into the trees alone. the desire for snow. It was common for me to disappear for hours at a time. As far as I know, my parents didn’t worry. Where could I go? Even without skis, I enjoyed the slow progress of hiking in the snow. I dispersed the weight of heavy thoughts as I trudged knee-deep past the treehouse, past Bonnie and Clyde’s car, (or so my Tonya Stiles is the sister and I called it, left to rust, far from the road, with birds roosting in the co-publisher of the backseat and multiple bullet holes testifying to its criminal past.)Up at the Canyon Country Zephyr. Bluff, I looked down over a large snow-filled valley and out over hills stretching for miles. There, the whole world emptied.

It’s the thoughtfulness of snow, the quiet, that I miss most. Beneath the smooth white surface, all that riot of wildflowers and flying insects and chirping birds that would come with Spring lay in anticipation. But, for now, it was still. MICHAEL COHEN The mind could rest. Reno, NV

It was a place to feel small. It was our family’s spot, the place from which I could always orient myself in the forest. Home behind the left shoulder. Even after logging scrambled my landmarks and rearranged the deer paths I’d be using for years, I could sense my way to the Bluff. In the summer, we packed picnics and flung sandwich crusts over the edge into the valley. In the winter, I sat and looked out into the emptiness, and felt comforted. Even now, when the place holds some grief—memories of my parents selling their house, moving away, the loss of my father—I return to the Bluff in my mind as a touchstone. It was the place where I formed myself. I took one last winter hike. It was the early Spring, my senior year of High School. Everything was changing. I was preparing for college, preparing to move away. I set out into the woods without purpose, killing time before a fam- ily dinner celebrating something I no longer remember. It was colder than I’d expected and I wasn’t moving fast enough to keep out the chill. The snow was deep and I stumbled through it awkwardly. Within a mile, I turned back. Stan Urycki Retracing my path, I came back within sight of the house. The windows Cuyahoga glowed against the gray afternoon. Despite the numbness of my extremities, I Falls, OH stopped to look at it. I sat down on a stump. My sister’s car was in the driveway. Everyone was inside. And, without being told, I knew that we were at the end of something important. The end of childhood. I didn’t know yet that my parents would sell the house, but I did know that somehow adulthood would conspire GARY FERGUSON to take my home away from me. That I would be forced to make new magic, TOM WYLIE Red Lodge, MT a new family. And I didn’t feel up to the task. Knowing the warmth that was Centennial, CO

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5 THE ZEPHYR/ FEBRUARY-MARCH 2013 The WILDER WEST... the Art & Wit of DAVE WILDER

Theodore Roosevelt by Dave Wilder On January 11th, 1908 Theodore Roos- evelt used the powers granted the Presi- dent by the Antiquities act to create Grand Canyon National Monument in Arizona Territory (Arizona did not become a state until 1914). Using these words, and the stroke of a pen, he sought to set aside this wonder of nature forever: “Leave it as it is. You cannot improve on it. The ages have been at work on it, and man can only mar it. What you can do is to keep it for your children, and for all who come after you, as the one great sight which every Ameri- can should see.” Then he went and shot something. Of course, nothing is ever protected forever. We have to keep on fighting the same battles of conservation over and over again. Today, the Western Grand Canyon is threatened with a ludicrous develop- ment scheme to bring tourists down to the Little Colorado and Colorado River confluence via a Disney-esque arial tram- way and river-walk. The excuse used is economic development for the Navajo Nation. Some Navajo’s seem to be in favor of development while many that live in the immediate area are deeply apposed. The Hopi, who also hold this area sacred, are not at all crazy about the idea either. Back in TR’s day there where any number of cockamamy ideas to develop the Grand Canyon, up to and including an impos- sible railroad to be built through the inner gorge along the Colorado. Guess they’d never seen it during spring flood. But the Great Outdoorsman’s words are just as true today as they were back in 1908. We can only mar it. My plea to the noble Diné is, please, let’s not do that. Let’s agree to never do that. - DW

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6 THE ZEPHYR/ FEBRUARY-MARCH 2013

In Notes on Paper, Falke walks us through the landscape of one man’s mind, which contains both his past and an aware- ness of our common future. From within private memo- The home ries the narrator reaches of the out to us with ‘we’ and ‘you’, “DON’T and each spare line invokes WORRY, the hope that we, like him, BE HOPI” are worthy of return to our T-shirt most longed for places. And if to return is not our fate, and really it never can be, the narrator bids us survey our own memories, taking time in the present for the A unique selection of traditional Hopi arts, crafts, and cultural items including over 150 Katsina dolls winds, and the words, that move the world. done in the traditional style, as well as baskets, ceremonial textiles, N o t e s on P a p e r jewelry, pottery and more. We also have complete visitor information (including Damon Falke connections for knowledgeable & articulate guides) to make your visit to Hopi a memorable & enjoyable one. We are located 1 1/2 miles east of the From Shechem Press Hopi Cultural Center at MP 381 on HWY 264, http://www.shechempress.com in the heart of the HOPI REZ 928.734.2478 POB 234 SECOND MESA, AZ 86043

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7 THE ZEPHYR/ FEBRUARY-MARCH 2013 ‘THE BIGGEST PUBLIC LAND GRAB’ The ‘Green Energy Boom’ & Mainstream Environmentalism Jim Stiles

Sometimes the endless open spaces of the West impress me most when I can’t see corporations investing millions of dollars in this public land grab for green energy are them at all. names we know— One night when I was a ranger at the Arches National Park campground, I en- * British Petroleum (BP), who plans a 48,000 acre wind farm in northwest Arizona. countered a woman so terrified she could barely speak. She was from New York City, * Nextera, an energy giant based in Florida, builds fossil fuel, nuclear plants, wind and camping for the first time in her life, and had pitched her tent next to the campground solar farms. They recently destroyed a bald eagle nest in Ontario, Canada to make way “comfort station.” She felt comforted by the 200 watt security lights. When our genera- for a wind farm. tor failed that evening, the lights in the toilet went out as well and the woman was on the * Duke Energy builds coal and nuke plants but are testing the green energy market verge of a breakdown. Through stifled sobs, she explained that she had never been in in Wyoming and Texas. They want to build the Searchlight Wind Project in the Mojave total darkness before. Desert. “Never?” I repeated. * Pattern Energy built the Spring Valley Wind Farm next to Great Basin National “Never!” she replied. Park, Nevada and the Ocotillo Wind Express Wind Farm near Anza Borrego State Park, What a tragedy. I can’t imagine anything more breathtaking than a night in the desert California. They are owned by the Carlyle Group, with ties to coal, oil and military (Iraq or out on the high plains or, best of all, up on the flank of some mountain, with nothing oil wars) but a big dome of starlight and * The search engine giant moonshine to show the way. GOOGLE recently announced There are still places out here plans to invest $55 million in a where you only realize just how Mojave Desert wind farm. empty and untouched parts of the West are after the sun goes The driving force–an down. It’s the absence of lights. economic one–behind wind I can still name a few places, development is the Wind even in 2013, where I’m stunned Production Tax Credit . It was by the perfect darkness. due to expire at the end of Those light-less vistas are get- 2012. But a last minute deal ting rarer every year as more and to extend the tax credit kept it more development comes to the alive. A letter supporting the rural landscape. Not long ago, Wind Production Tax Credit I was up at Arches at night for certainly helped. It was signed the first time in years and was by The Sierra Club, Natural shocked at the changes. I once Resources Defense Council, loved doing night patrols when I The Wilderness Society, De- was a ranger and practically wal- fenders of Wildlife, The Nature lowed in the dark of the desert Conservancy and the Audubon evenings. Even on the higher Society. And so, while there is ridges, there was a notable still serious debate that these absence of horizon glow. All that “green” developments can even has changed—it’s easy to discern begin to make a dent in our the city of Grand Junction, 70 insatiable hunger for energy, miles east as the crow flies. And the subsequent environmental now even Moab brightens the damage to public lands cannot be understated. And yet suddenly, environmentalists night. The 2000 foot cliffs of Moab’s West Wall practically glow with reflected light from don’t seem to notice...or care. the city. Opposition to the tax credits and to the “green energy” steamroller has been left to a A few hundred miles north of Moab, satellite images recently picked up an odd glow handful of honest and dedicated grassroots local organizations with a lot of courage and near the Canadian border in North Dakota. Photo analysts were puzzled at first; the limited funds like Basin & Range Watch, the Desert Protective Council, the Center for glow suggested a metropolitan area comparable to Denver. But there’s no city within Biological Diversity and Western Lands Watch (look for list of groups who support and hundreds of miles.. oppose this elsewhere in this issue). What the night images revealed were gas burn-offs and drill rig lights from thousands Kevin Emmerich and Laura Cunningham, founders of the very grass-roots group and thousands of gas and oil wells that have been developed by the oil and gas industry Basin and Range Watch have recently wondered where their allies went. They’ve been in the last few years. Environmentalists were shocked and a national movement to shut fighting plans to exploit large parcels of desert land in Nevada and California from solar down fracking makes headlines daily. projects and have felt a bit lonely. They noted recently: “Seems like 20 or 30 years ago, folks were concerned about protecting their local places, that specific mountain, the river nearby, those particular named canyons near The Interior Department is leasing vast where they lived, and the wilderness they hiked in. Today the shift among environmen- acreages of public land for the development of talists has highlighted the global, the abstract, even the corporate model of ‘saving the wind and solar projects. These aren’t mom & pop proposals to build rooftop panels... This is about the mainstream environmental They represent the wholesale destruction of vast areas of the West. movement insisting–if you can believe this— that we can GROW our way economically out of this impending global disaster. But go elsewhere, from the Great Plains to the Intermountain West to the Mojave Desert, and you can’t miss another industrial blight, on a scale comparable to North Dakota, if not bigger. It is taking a dramatic toll on the landscape, and becoming more Earth.’ We are often lectured by this new hybrid of industrial green energy environmen- pervasive by the month. And worst of all? It proceeds with only minimal opposition talists about how our attempts to slow down these large industrial energy developments from the mainstream environmental community. will expedite the warming of the planet and the extinction of the polar bear. We find it ludicrous that these same people would support actions that could lead to the extinction The Interior Department is leasing vast acreages of public land for the development of species like the desert tortoise in an attempt to save the polar bear. Who told them of wind and solar projects. These aren’t mom & pop proposals to build rooftop pan- that they were justified in choosing which species get to survive and which do not?” els; instead, they are being planned and constructed on a scale that should stagger the Last year, they attended a local BLM scoping meeting for the NextLight Silver State sensibilities of anyone with an environmental conscience. They represent the wholesale South project. They could not help but notice all the empty chairs. Their old nemesis, destruction of vast areas of the West. the ATV crowd was there in full force to protest the construction and to speak in defense The money behind Big Wind and Big Solar comes from Big Money. Many of the of the desert tortoise, but members of the green community were conspicuously absent. 8 THE ZEPHYR/ FEBRUARY-MARCH 2013 Emmerich and Cunningham observed, “One by one, the big name environmental off elsewhere, painting mustaches on the Mona Lisa? This is precisely the hypocrisy of organizations fell like Dominos.” the environmental mainstream when it goes ballistic over one form of vandalism while As Emmerich noted, some of the Big Greens insist that the loss of habitat and the turning a blind eye to their own. destruction of the deserts and mountains and plains from these “green” projects is the price me must pay—the necessary evil---to “save the planet.” They insist that these are The global threat that mainstream environmentalists fear is real; for them to trivialize the kinds of regrettable choices we must make to keep climate change from turning that threat by embracing such a dubious solution is an insult to the planet they seek to Earth into another Venus. If I really thought that was their motivation, I might just go save. Whether there is ANY real solution now is doubtful, but to take the easy way out of along . But it’s not. this mess by becoming the enemy they claim to oppose is surely the beginning of a very Instead this is about the mainstream environmental movement insisting–if you can bad end. believe this—that we can GROW our way economically out of this impending global disaster. The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), one of the groups that signed the POSTSCRIPT: These green groups actually signed on to a letter with the American letter of support for the wind tax credit, said recently, “Reducing global warming pollu- Wind Energy Association requesting the the Wind Production Tax Credit be extended. tion will have an imperceptible effect on economic output….We can stave off the biggest Here is the list: environmental and humanitarian crisis without disrupting economic growth.” NRDC, in fact, believes we can expand the economy and fix the environment simultaneously. The Wilderness Society, National Audubon Society, Sierra Club, National Parks In other words, at least some of us can save the earth and get stinking rich at the same Conservation Association, Western Resource Advocates, Natural Resources Defense time. Council,Defenders of Wildlife, Nevada Conservation League, Nevada Wilderness Project It’s embarrassing, it’s insane and it’s wrong. and Sonoran Institute Yet most of the major environmental groups stand shoulder to shoulder with this kind The letter can be referenced here: of twisted and dangerous logic. http://wilderness.org/resource/letter-conservation-community-calling-extension- There is none of the urgency expressed recently by Sir David Attenborough, one of the production-tax-credit-wind world’s most respected environmentalists who fears we stand at the edge of a very real brink. He noted last week, “We are a plague on the Earth. It’s coming home to roost over the AN INTERVIEW WITH next 50 years or so. It’s not just climate change; it’s sheer space, places to grow food for this enormous horde. Either we limit our population growth or the natural world will do it for us, and the natural world is doing it for us right now.” TERRY WEINER And there is none of the honesty expressed by Wendell Berry who reminds us: and the grassroots battle over ‘green energy’ “...this is what is wrong with the conservation movement. It has a clear conscience.... TERRY WEINER is the Conservation Coordinator of the Desert Protec- To the conservation movement, it is only production that causes environmental deg- tive Council. DPC is one of a relative handful of environmental groups that radation; the consumption that supports the production is rarely acknowledged to be has openly expresed concerns and frustration with the ongoing massive at fault. The ideal of the run-of-the-mill conservationist is to impose restraints upon development of alternative energy projects that being planned and built production without limiting consumption or burdening the consciences of consumers.” across the American West. THE ZEPHYR talked to Terry about those con- cerns... In the end, I struggle to take mainstream environmentalism seriously. They speak in defense of the land and the water and the air and the habitat that resides within or upon Are the big green groups staying away from this battle about “alterna- them. They claim to be worried about the survival of the planet itself. But really? Their tive energy?” opposition to environmental damage is frequently based upon a flawed, irrational, er- The national so-called environmental organizations are not staying out of it: indeed a ratic, pick-and-choose nod to aesthetics. Consider... couple of them (NRDC and The Wilderness Society especially) are engaging in the plan- ning process by sitting at the table and collaborating with the Department of Interior They fight tooth and nail to oppose the extraction of oil and gas in North America but and the solar and wind developers to help them site projects on lands they refer to as stay silent on the issue of consumption, failing to even acknowledge the connection. “low conflict zones”. Instead of promoting and lobbying for policy changes to incentivize They condemn habitat loss from energy exploration but somehow find a way to ignore rooftop solar and distributed generation in the built environment, they are speaking in the greatest destroyer of habitat loss–population growth and the expansion of Urban support of these remote large-scale solar and wind projects on public land; they are in America. (When a once wild section of desert in southern California was opened to mas- some cases colluding in their development. sive recreational use and a mountain lion attacked and killed a bicyclist, there wasn’t a Sierra Clubber in sight to speak in behalf of the cougar---green groups defend wild What’s their motive? animals until they start eating their members.) They seem to continue to believe that we can stop climate change and that industrial They claim to support wilderness and then do everything they can to turn it into a renewable energy projects are the way to do it. The national organizations have confused money machine via an obscene cash cow–the amenities/tourist economy that demands, the public and we have to spend a lot of time trying to explain to the public that many by definition, the massive consumption of fossil fuels. smaller grassroots organizations do not agree with them and that we support renew- able energy development close to the cities that need the energy. They seem to ignore And remember those lights that could be seen from outer space? Those burning gas the EPA’s recommendations in their “Repowering America’s Lands” initiative: in their flares in North Dakota and the illuminated rigs? The same night skies are in jeopardy comments on the BLM’s Solar Programmatic EIS, the EPA stated that if, after the nation from “alternative energy” projects as well, and they continue to expand exponentially does all it can to develop renewable energy projects in the built environment, then the across the American landscape. As hundreds and thousands of wind turbines are nation could look to development on the 12 million acres of brown fields, abandoned proposed, planned and built across the Great Plains and the Intermountain West to the mines and contaminated ag lands around the country before looking to our public lands California Mojave and the Pacific Coast, nobody knows what their effect will be on the for industrial energy. wildlife. But because the impacts come from “green energy,” few care. So, in other words, after we’ve tried to create roof-top solar and sort of de-centrailize the alternative energy business, then and only then would we consider these kinds of projects now being proposed and built? The big enviro groups, including the Sierra Club are particularly ignorant or uncaring about the hideous destruction of 10s of thousands of acres with wind turbine projects. NRDC, TWS, the Sierra Club are based in D.C. and they do not know the desert. They determine their support for various projects from afar. I have many photos of the Oco- tillo Area that I have taken for the past three years which document the beauty of the place and the utter destruction of habitat to 20,000 acres from the Ocotillo Wind Energy Already, clearly, the “aesthetics” of these projects Facility. It is so sad. Not only will these turbines kill birds and bats, but the impacts of are taking their toll, as thousands of red warning wind turbines on non-volent species have not been studied. lights blink constantly in what was once It is such a shame that the Department of Interior and the State of California, with an undisturbed and pristine night sky. the Desert Renewable Energy Conservation Plan (DRECP) have put these projects on fast-track status when we have inadequate information on the cumulative impacts of scraping and fragmenting such large expanses of the southwest deserts. But at night...Already, clearly, the “aesthetics” of these projects are taking their toll, as Here is a short excerpt from a report in 2012 from the Independent Science Advisors thousands of red warning lights blink constantly in what was once an undisturbed and to the DRECP process: pristine night sky. So much for the aesthetics of a harvest moon on the West Desert. “Desert species and ecological communities are already severely stressed by human changes to the landscape, including urbanization, roads, transmission lines, invasive Despite the contradictions and the hypocrisy, do aesthetics matter? Of course they species, and disturbances by recreational, military, mining, and other activities. Addi- do. Would we ignore graffiti on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel? No. But would we tional stress from large-scale energy developments, in concert with a changing climate, complain only if the vandals used ‘red’ spray paint? Would Krylon ‘green’ ’ somehow portends further ecological degradation and the potential for species extinctions…We… provide an acceptable alternative? Of course not. strongly advocate using “no regrets” strategies in the near term—such as siting develop- Would we have the right to condemn the vandalism of the Sistine Chapel if we were ments in already disturbed areas—as more refined analyses become available to guide 9 more difficult decisions.”…In most cases, translocations and transplantations have been THE ZEPHYR/ FEBRUARY-MARCH 2013 deserts for remote solar and wind projects was not in the best interest of the desert. DPC had also around that time helped fund a report by local engineer Bill Powers that Terry Weiner (continued) documented how San Diego, for example, by employing principles of conservation, ef- ficiency, rooftop and local generation, could become energy self-sufficient by 2020! used as “feel good” actions that are generally not effective at sustaining populations. In March of 2010, Janine Blaeloch, Founder and Director of Western Lands Project Moreover, the practice has the potential to do more harm than good to populations of contacted me about this broad plan to privatize our public lands and said she wanted to rare species by increasing mortality rates and decreasing reproductive rates and genetic help fight this. She said this looked like the biggest public land grab for private profit she diversity.’[2 had ever seen. I know some activists who were already researching rooftop solar and al- What a shame to destroy or imperil many species, 10% of which have not even been ready aware of this new potentially worst threat ever to our deserts and I talked to them discovered yet. There is so much more I would like to say. I’d like to include a link to the about forming a coalition to fight this public lands grab for corporate energy develop- article on Ocotillo and the Ocotillo Wind Project that I wrote for the September issue of ment and Janine and I and five others of us created Solar Done Right. the Sierra Club CA/Nevada Desert Committee ‘Desert Report’ . Most of the founders of the large environmental organizations, certainly John Muir, would be appalled at the way their organizations have lost the courage to fight for pro- http://www.desertreport.org. tection of our public lands heritage and have chosen to cooperate in the fragmentation and destruction of our desert ecosystems while trying to make themselves believe that It looks to me like you and a handful of small grassroots groups are the this is the best outcome they can hope for. It would have been so powerful if all of the ONLY opposition. national organizations joined with communities and grassroots groups to oppose this We grassroots activists have been alternately puzzled and infuriated by the willingness process and lobby hard for federal and state policies to make rooftop solar affordable of the national environmental organizations to go along with the program as laid out and required on all new construction. Some of the big enviro groups got money from cli- by the powers-that-be instead of throwing their weight behind the principles of 1- con- mate change organizations and foundations which required them to sit at the table with servation of energy; 2- retro-fitting our homes and businesses to be much more energy the solar developers and the government. One of the benefits of being small with little efficient and 3- rooftop solar and distributed generation and local solar development on overhead is that for example, DPC and Basin and Range Watch are beholden to no one. abandoned industrial lands next to cities. A bit more history: Three years ago when it was clear that the Obama Administration Where do you see this going? Is there any hope that the national envi- ronmental groups will see the light and join you in opposing these kinds of industrial ‘green” projects? And do you think the public will catch on to Most of the founders of the this? I think somebody called it the greatest land grab in history. The challenge for those of us who love and know the desert , along with our desert large environmental organi- botanists, desert ecologists and desert soil scientists, is to figure out how to launch an zations, certainly John Muir, educational campaign about the critical importance of our desert ecosystems We need to bring our policy makers and representatives of the D.C. environmen- would be appalled at the way tal organizations out to our deserts and show them the beauty and diversity of plant their organizations have lost and animal life and explain how scraping the deserts’ fragile and ancient crypto-biotic the courage to fight for pro- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryptobiotic_soil crusts releases carbon from the soil, thereby undermining the goal to minimize greenhouse gases. tection of our public lands Big wind projects in particular require the building of back-up natural gas or other en- heritage and have chosen to ergy generation. We need an analysis of how much carbon and other greenhouse gases cooperate in the fragmenta- are spewed in the building of these remote projects. Pertaining to your final sentence below, when Janine Blaeloch of Western Lands tion and destruction of our Project in Seattle called me in early 2010 to ask how her organization could help the desert ecosystems. Desert Protective Council and others to fight the oncoming juggernaut of large-scale HERB’S ‘WOODY’ OVER the YEARS... energy projects on public lands, she reminded me of Western Lands Project’s mission to “keep public lands public” and told me that the current trend is the “biggest public lands and the DOI were planning to move ahead with fast-tracking energy development on giveaway for corporate profit” that she had ever seen. public lands, I participated in a focus group involving Defenders, TWS, the Sierra Club My other thoughts on this are rather bleak Jim because until we Americans are will- and NRDC, the purpose of which was to organize a response to this juggernaut. I was ing to assume personal responsibility for radically reducing our energy consumption the only one on the conference calls who wanted to come out in straight opposition to through conservation and requiring our homes and businesses to be energy efficient and the administration’s plan to direct the public lands managers to come up with a plan to until we make our cities more walkable and bike-able, and until we stop trying to foist accommodate large-scale solar and wind development. our extravagant lifestyle on the rest of the world, I don’t see any hope of even putting The Defenders’ representative declared that since this juggernaut was happening and on the brakes of the climate crisis. I and DPC in coalition with other organizations will could not be stopped, the most effective action environmental groups could take was to do what we can to fight these projects, one by one but other than with litigation, I don’t become involved in the process in order to work with the BLM and solar developers to see us slowing this down much. But given that humans are predisposed to not chang- steer solar development to the least sensitive lands. And of course, there the slippery ing comfortable habits until forced, what I see is a continuation of our ‘too little too late’ slope begins: who is qualified to play god and say which lands are worthy of being saved policies toward protecting our natural and Native American cultural heritage. and which can be trashed? Although I had trouble convincing my DPC Board that it was in the best interest of DPC’s web site is: http://dpcinc.org/ the DPC to NOT become “players” and get a “seat at the table” with the large national They can also be found on facebook groups; eventually they relented and agreed that validating the process of scraping our

10 THE ZEPHYR/ FEBRUARY-MARCH 2013

HERB’S ‘WOODY’ OVER the YEARS... Lately I’ve been posting a lot of herb’s images on the Zephyr facebook page. Readers seem especially fond of Herb’s 1950 Ford Woody. I’ve put together a collection of that wonderful car, at various locations around the West from 1950 to 1953.

HERB RINGER came West from his home in New Jersey in 1939. Camera in hand, Herb captured the American West, from the Cana- dian Border to the Rio Grande and from the Big Sur coast to the High Plains. We believe Herb’s collection of Life in the West is one of the finest. His work has been published in The Zephyr for 20 years. I am pleased finally, to offer Herb’s photographs in color. We are also building a new ‘album’ of his work, elsewhere on this site. My dear friend died on December 11, 1998... JS

South Rim, Grand Canyon. 1952 The perfect traveling kitchen...the Ford Woody somewhere on the western Plains...

DEATH VALLEY, Texas Springs Campground. 11 THE ZEPHYR/ FEBRUARY-MARCH 2013 NOT Sarah Palin’s Alaska By Scott Thompson

“It ain’t wilderness unless there’s a critter out there that can kill you and eat there was diminished, gray light, no trace of orange or red as at Anchorage. you.” The next morning the midnight sun had kept the low temperature to 50 or – Doug Peacock 60 degrees. Behind the motel, across our field of vision, was a range of grace- ful, symmetrical mountains, snow-suffused down to the base. The kind you stand and stare at. A glance at the map later showed that they were within the At 9:30 p.m. on June 12, 2000, our Alaska Airlines jet lifted off in the black, boundary of Denali National Park. A non-descript dirt road led from the motel rainy gloom of Seattle, Washington, as I watched rain drops beading across the parking lot toward the mountains, between scattered black spruce. window. This was an ordinary segment of the Alaska Range; nowhere near Denali For an hour this technologically competent but bat blind commercial flying Peak or close to its 20,320 feet in height. They were not mountains that tour- tube tunneled through rain clouds and darkness at 600 mph. Nothing for Gail ists hear about; there was no scenic pullover on the highway. But I think if this and me to do but shut our eyes and hold hands, absorbing the soft bumps of was a mountain range in the Lower 48 it would draw visitors from all directions turbulence, comfortable in theory in our padded seats. I’d been on plenty of and that photographs of it would be hanging in dentists’ offices and decorating flights like this, but even so I mused that we humans didn’t evolve to hurl our- place mats in chain restaurants. selves through space without feedback from our eyeballs. My point is this. I suspect that Then it happened. At first I it’s the pervasiveness, therefore was only aware that an ob- the ordinariness, of heart-stop- scure, gray light had filled the ping beauty throughout Alaska cabin and that my eyes had that gets so much into the un- drifted left across the aisle. conscious of the people who live When I stood for a good look there. For example, why would the western horizon was filled you bother building an upscale- with red light. I glanced at my looking motel beneath moun- watch: 10:30 p.m. tains like that, unless you’re a I can testify that flying into franchisee in a motel chain that daylight will enliven your requires you to? You know that mood. We chatted merrily with whether your customers realize a middle-aged woman from it on a conscious level or not, one of the suburban towns nothing you could construct near Anchorage. In a pleasant within a reasonable budget tone she said, “Oh, you know, would draw attention from these we had two killed last year by mountains, and that you’ll do grizzlies,” as if it were a cus- just as well financially by serving tomary body count. your customers’ basic biological Not to single out grizzlies, needs and leaving it there. In however. As she explained, moose kill people, too. fact, why even bother paying for an expensive sign? The tourists already know they’re not in California. It was after 1 a.m. by the time we landed in Anchorage, secured our rental car, and were cruising along the flat, wide streets. The sky was suspended in *** shades of red, orange and purple, between sunset and twilight. It was a city of At Denali National Park visitors were only allowed to drive as far as milepost 260,000, situated on a broad peninsula, framed by serrated mountains that 15. To go the other 75 miles you had to file onto the shuttle bus, which Gail and were snow-covered to the base. I did. Somebody in the Park Service with clout, who was determined to protect I was too excited to sleep. the sanctity of this land, must have won a battle to make it so. As Gail drove us toward Denali National Park the next morning it became We saw several grizzly bears (Ursus Arctos Horribilis) from the road, lumber- obvious, even before we hit the outskirts of Anchorage, that Alaska is a rough ing across the tundra at a considerable distance. Thoughtful, cautious creatures place - and vast - and that any encounter with it is visceral. The overwhelming on that day. Evidence of Ursus unpredictability, however, is the presence of landscape and forbidding climate seem to channel what people focus on with bright red signs on dumpsters in campgrounds across Alaska, bearing these an intensity that is unknown on the Outside. warnings in large print:

Then it happened. At first I was only aware that an obscure, gray light had filled the cabin and that my eyes had drifted left across the aisle. When I stood for a good look the western horizon was filled with red light. I glanced at my watch: 10:30 p.m.

*** In summer the water-logged bogs sire hordes of mosquitoes that whine like Do Not Run. (Because bears will chase you down.) World War II fighter aircraft. We humbly left our tent in the duffel bag. Thus holing up for the night in the LAZY-J-CABINS-CAFÉ in Cantwell, Back Away Slowly. (Hoping the bear allows this.) Alaska, population 222, twenty-seven miles south of the entrance to Denali National Park. The big, black, hand-painted letters on the motel sign were If the bear approaches, play dead. (A long shot.) farther apart on the left, jammed together toward the center, and then farther apart again on the right. Did the painter think he was running out of space at Fight back only if the bear continues to attack. first and then change his mind? Whatever. We looked at a room: window, bed, toilet, shower, bathroom sink. We liked the package. (While preparing yourself for the afterlife.) I got up at 3 a.m. to pee and afterward peeked through the curtains. Outside 12 THE ZEPHYR/ FEBRUARY-MARCH 2013

The meta-message in this is that whether you get ripped apart is up to the bear, unless you have a rocket launcher or its equivalent in hand. Thus it is a native Alaskan survival skill to be alert for bears and to study their movements. The authorities, however, are forced to treat humans from the Outside like three year olds. For our own safety.

Also: bears claw the bark off aspen trees.

*** On the way to Fairbanks, well north of the Alaska Range, the land turns low and green. Parking on a bluff to gaze across the expanse of trees and lakes, I could see sixty miles in one direction and forty miles in another. Nowhere in view was there a road, house, building, telephone pole, vehicle, airplane, or any other human accoutrement. Nothing.

It was stunning. Not because there were magnificent geographic features from up here, although what I saw was lovely, or because this was all big and empty in the way Wyoming and West Texas are.

This place was endless. So endless that it wasn’t a place. “Jim Stiles holds up a mirror to those of us *** living in the American West, exposing issues we The high temperature the day we stayed in Fairbanks, elevation 446 feet, was may not want to face. We are all complicit in the 73 degrees. Yet each parking space at the Super 8 Motel had a metal stand several feet shadow side of growth. His words are born not so high with sockets in a box atop, so that the motel’s patrons could plug in en- much out of anger but a broken heart. gine-warmers to keep their engine blocks from freezing. A guy told me that they He says he writes elegies for the landscape he loves, start plugging ‘em in during October, after the equinox has banished the sun. that he is “hopelessly clinging to the past.” I would call Stiles a writer from the future. Brave New West is a book of import because of what it chooses to expose.”

-- Terry Tempest Williams SIGNED COPIES OF Brave New West are now available directly from The Zephyr PO Box 271 Monticello, UT 84535 $20.00 postage paid checks only at this time www.canyoncountryzephyr.com

JEFF WOODS The meta-message in this is that whether you ‘On the Road” get ripped apart is up to the bear, unless you have a rocket launcher or its equivalent in hand. Thus it is a native Alaskan survival skill to be alert for bears and to study their movements. The authorities, however, are forced to treat humans from the Outside like three year olds. For our own safety.

*** The highway forks at Delta Junction, population 840, ninety-six miles southeast of Fairbanks. To the left was the renowned Alaska Highway, cutting HOPE through the Yukon Territory and British Columbia. We forked right onto the BENEDICT Richardson Highway, due south. For almost 140 miles, with the exception of Salmon, ID Paxson, population 43, this road didn’t near any human habitat. It followed a gap in the Alaska Range and as it did so mountains patched with snow shouldered up above us, beyond the rock-strewn flat, under gray, lower- ing clouds. The mountains here didn’t form a contiguous range. Instead they ran up and down like ragged incisors, isolating the neatly shaped peaks. Ahead of us the flat curved into a low, green hill studded with dark spruce. The wildness here was infinite, except for one thing: the Trans-Alaska pipeline. It ran above-ground along the flat, held up by an elaborate series of stands several feet high, snaking up and over the low hill ahead. For all the oil it carried, it was more slender than I would have guessed and there was a sinister DON BAUMGARDT DAVE YARBROUGH NEXT PAGE... 13 El Paso, TX Waddy, KY THE ZEPHYR/ FEBRUARY-MARCH 2013

At least a century before the Industrial Revolution the desolate mindset that NOT Sarah Palin’s Alaska fostered genocide against Native Americans and is now undermining the stabil- (continued) ity of our climate was already ingrained. *** gracefulness to it. I have studied the photographs that I took here many times. Because, when I In Alaska a good cup of coffee seems to be fundamental. Thus we encoun- saw this pipeline running eerily beneath these brooding mountains, I felt a cur- tered the plentiful Espresso coffee stands of southern Alaska once we got down rent of relief within me. Which I found both interesting and disconcerting. to Glennallen, still over 200 miles out from Anchorage. The first of the series Disconcerting because feeling relief, especially at the sight of this particular was a tiny stand along the highway with nothing else in sight except open pipeline, was incompatible with my consciously held beliefs. In psychological ground and spruce trees. As though it were perched on an iceberg. lore, this is known as cognitive dissonance. While at the time I wasn’t in a state We pulled in as much out of curiosity as for a fine cup of joe. Beneath the of alarm about global warming – that came later - I had been concerned about ample “Espresso” sign the rectangular wooden hutch was twelve feet long, it since studying the subject in 1994. The Trans-Alaska pipeline was a vital just wide enough for a door on the back, and seven feet high. Painted on the artery in the very system of fossil fuel production that I knew was destabilizing customers’ side beneath the service window on a broad, white background, in the planet’s climate. flowing detail, were six Fireweeds: tall, pink-flowering plants with long, green- leaved stems. Being pollinated by two swallowtail butterflies. Interesting because never before had the simple presence of a human struc- ture in a wild setting felt emotionally reassuring to me. My previous experienc- It was a good cup of joe. es had all run in the opposite direction. For almost 35 years I had treasured the way wild places engender solitude, yet these very places, all in the Lower 48, We found numerous Espresso stands as we were unrelentingly threatened with desecration or destruction by the escalating got closer to Anchorage, some adorned with cycle of human economic activity and overpopulation. That had always been my painted Fireweeds in different styles, one with frame of reference. Put another way, all these wild places in the Lower 48, even a purple moose. when they were huge, had been encompassed by some boundary I was able to Summing up, when you come to Alaska sense, perhaps unconsciously. Up here, by contrast, I was enveloped in wild expect the quirky and the weird, as well as areas so enormous that they obliterated any perception of that kind. When that a passionate experience of wildness. And happened I began to yearn for hints of a human presence. because being there deeply penetrates the I have realized that the way I reacted to the pipeline’s being there was a unconscious, expect insights as well. symptom, a trace, of alienation from the wildness of the land. As Carl Jung once said, people can get dirty from too much civilization. Even when we don’t want to be, I’d just discovered. Jung added, however, that whenever we touch nature we get clean. As much as I loved being in Alaska, I think I’d need to be immersed in it for awhile longer, maybe for a year, to give those endless ex- SCOTT THOMPSON is a panses the time they need to cleanse that trace. regular contributor to The Zephyr. He lives in Speaking of alienation, consider the following quotation from an editorial, Beckley, WV “The Desolate Wilderness,” that The Wall Street Journal has printed every Thanksgiving since 1961. It’s from a 17th century Pilgrim account describing their arrival in Massachusetts Bay in 1620:

“Besides, what could they see but a hideous and desolate wilderness, full of wilde beasts and wilde men? and what multitudes of them were, they then knew not: for which way soever they turned their eyes (save upward to Heaven) they could have but little solace or content in respect of any outward object; for summer being ended, all things stand in appearance with a weather-beaten face, and the whole country, full of woods and thickets, represented a wild and savage hew.”

Granted that the Pilgrims encountered delays and other mishaps that threw them in the path of a harsh, protracted winter they hadn’t prepared for, and that a lot of their people died as a result. Nevertheless, such a belligerent reac- tion to both the landscape of North America and the indigenous people who were living there was an asteroid-sized symptom of alienation, an indication of how completely the culture they came from had lost any bond with wildness, and the destructive potential it unknowingly harbored in consequence. While the Pilgrims’ looking skyward may have brought them spiritual solace, religion in that sense isn’t a substitute for the capacity to look with care beneath one’s feet and find splendor there.

“Renny Russell’s Rock Me on the Water is at its heart coura- From Renny Russell, geous. To return to the same power of nature that took his brother thirty years previous—to be with it, to confront it, to take solace in the author of... it, and to be inspired and healed by it—is remarkable in itself. His book is, as well, a testament to the evocative rhythms of the wilds. In this complicated dance, this profoundly personal journey, Renny Russell also gives us an amazingly spirited tour of one of the truly great landscapes of the American West and a keen understanding of its power to shape a life.” Robert Redford

order signed copies at: http://www.rennyrussell.com/

14 THE ZEPHYR/ FEBRUARY-MARCH 2013

New BACKBONE Members for Feb/Mar 2013 UNCLE DON B. CHRIS CARRIER MELINDA PRICE-WILTSHIRE FANNING Paonia, CO & MIKE WILTSHIRE Flagstaff, AZ Vancouver, Canada

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PLEASE JOIN THE BACKBONE $100 yearly TIM STECKLINE Spearfish, SD Includes cartoon & signed copy of Stiles’ book, BRAVE NEW WEST.

PO BOX 271 MONTICELLO, UT RACHEL 84535 WHITE or at our web site SLC, UT with your credit card via PayPal... SCOTT THOMPSON Beckley, WV GREG SAYERS & ALISON KENNEDY SAYERS Hagensborg, BC Canada

the footprints TOP 10 LIST For FOOTPRINT’S LATEST 121 East 100 South... Moab, Utah 84532 TOP 10 LIST GO TO THE WORDPRESS VERSION OF THIS ISSUE

15 THE ZEPHYR/ FEBRUARY-MARCH 2013

Last Float Down Glen Canyon--Sept/Oct 1962 The Last Leg...PART 5...

The hike to Rainbow Bridge... 16 THE ZEPHYR/ FEBRUARY-MARCH 2013

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 11, 1962 Slept like a log 8:00 to 3:3o AM. Got up at dawn... Lunched in boat opposite the river mouth of the San Juan. Went to Music Temple for water in pool... Dellenbaugh 1871-1872 inscription here.

Hidden passage not too accessible so I stayed out---poison ivy. At Twi­ light Canyon..here a a petroglyph of elk with lotsa horns & figure with fingers. Then back into what Harry says is the largest cave on the river. Ceratinly seems to be tho’ I haven’t by any means seen enough to make a comparison. Curve of overhang is perfectly immense horseshoe.

Stuck in the West channel of river--got out. Pushed us into the east channel and out again...Getting late but Harry stopped to pick up some drift wood again--why, I don’t know. We were all too beat to sit by any fire... Camped at At Greene’s camp at Aztec Creek. Beautiful moonlit night but warm. A couple mosquitoes made my Twilight Canyon night miserable.

Edna Fridley was a good friend of the canyon country of southeast utah for more than 30 years. Every year she returned to the slickrock­ from her home, back east, to wander and explore what was then one of the most remote and isolated parts of the United States. In the fall of 1962, Edna set off on her last trip down Glen Canyon. The dam, 150 miles downstream, was almost complete. Within months the Bureau of reclamation would close its diversion tunnek and stop the free flow of the Colorado River. Edna had been invited to join a party of friends to celebrate Harry Aleson’s wedding, which was to happen during the trip. She flew to Salt Lake City, then rented a car to Page, Arizona via Zion National Park. At Page, after checking in at the Page Boy Motel, she arranged a flight to the dirt airstrip at White Canyon. She took thousands of photographs of her pack and river trips with leg­ endary guides Ken Sleight and Harry Aleson. But she also kept journals, often scribbled in small spiral notebooks. Here are excerpts from the final leg of that trip---Edna’s last journey down Glen...and, of course, these amazing, never-before-seen photos..JS

Words & Photographs by EDNA FRIDLEY 17 next page THE ZEPHYR/ FEBRUARY-MARCH 2013

HARRY ALESON

Trying to stay dry in a cold October storm on the river...

The world’s most scenic toilet.

Approaching storm. 18 THE ZEPHYR/ FEBRUARY-MARCH 2013

Rainbow bridge...a six mile hike from the river in October 1962

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 13, 1962

Well this is the last day. Up shortly before dawn--lovely pink clouds. Went for a walk. Even a little climb. EGADS! Back. Breakfast. Packed...we’re off. Too bad I don’t have more film. Saw pregnant women petros again. And I swear some lizard was wait- ing around to have his picture taken....Day is good bit cooler--need sweaters and jackets on the river. Beautiful here but cloudy--almost complete overcast downriver. Later...Has heated up some now. Navajo cliffs on both sides of the river with Wingate plus other (formations) set back and rising...Won’t be too long before the trip is over. Gunsight Butte now in view. Supposed to be only 14 miles. This last day has brought some spectacular formations into view...all sorts of castles in the air. Tired...Wonderful trip.

End of the line...the takeout at Kane Creek. THE ZEPHYR/ FEBRUARY-MARCH 2013 T h e L o n g R i d e H o m e Fiction by Chinle Miller

river canyon. Jim swayed with the motion, lost in a deep sense of regret, a profound feel- Glenwood Springs, Colorado ing in a place where Jim hadn’t felt anything for a long time.

After quickly pausing one last time to gaze at the sheer maroon-red cliffs and forested He’d felt this regret since early this morning, when Natalie told him she’d taken the ridges high above, Jim Bone stepped onto the train. pup to the pound—the little leopard-spotted Heeler puppy he’d found by the county Worried that Jim might change his mind, the train made a clanking sound, lurched road up near the old Sunlight Mine, the pup who’d been riding next to him in the road a bit, and began slowly moving, pulling out of the station. The massive engine let out grader for the last two weeks while he promised Nat he’d find it a home. a series of sharp whistles that echoed all the way up-canyon to the little valley of Four Last night, Natalie had taken it to the pound on her way to work at the Riviera Restau- Mile Creek. There, the sound bounced off the cinderblock walls of Jim’s house, then bent rant. Jim had gone to bed early after a 16-hour stint working on a bridge abutment that around to the back yard where Jim had often sat in the evenings by the choke-cherry was trying to wash out. Even though Natalie had warned him, he felt betrayed when he bushes and iris, listening to that same haunting sound, wondering where the big silver found the pup missing this morning. But deep inside he knew it was more than the pup train was going, who was on it, what stories they lived. that was wrong. Now he’d find out. Walking out the door without a word after she’d told him, he Jim settled into one of the drove his Olds down to the dog seats in the almost-empty car, jail, that dingy yellow building as far from any other passen- that used to be the people jail. gers as possible. Train now “Jim, I’m not supposed to picking up speed, he looked tell people where the pets go, out the window at the big river cause sometimes it can cause alongside the tracks, then raised problems,” the shelter cus- his eyes just in time to catch todian, Joe, stumbled on his one last glimpse of Glenwood words. “Usually we have dogs Springs, his home for the last in here for awhile, but that 10 years. That glimpse was an pup was picked up last evening accident—right now, he wished right after your gal brought it he were anywhere else. in. It was taken by a woman As the train worked harder goin’ through on her way back and faster on making Jim’s wish over to Utah. That pup seemed come true, the white-tipped to really like her, Jim, if it’s waves of the Colorado River fell any consolation. She said she’s behind, engulfed by the deep out a lot in the backcountry. maroon-walled canyon. The chi- That pup will have a good life, ka chika of the tracks drummed chasin’ bunnies.” songs of rambling adventure. A “What was her name, Joe? mile or two out, Glenwood was Where can I get ahold of her?” already in the rear-view mirror “Jim, I can’t tell you that, of Jim’s memory. cause I don’t know. It was late and I didn’t do the paperwork Back at that little cinderblock house on Four Mile Creek, Jim’s girlfriend Natalie was like I should’ve. She drives a little old Willys jeep—green, beat up, Utah plates. Nice talking on the phone to her best friend Patsy, no idea that Jim was on the train. The day lookin’ gal, sandy-colored hair. That’s all I can tell you Jim. I’m sure sorry.” after tomorrow, Natalie would receive an envelope, postmarked Green River, Utah, with the keys to Jim’s old Oldsmobile and a note asking her to pick up the car at the train Jim silently walked out of the pound, got in his Olds and sat there for a minute, then station. The note would be scrawled on the back of a California Zephyr ticket to Salt Lake drove around town for awhile as if he might see the old green jeep that had taken his City. Natalie would cry for a moment, then call Patsy. pup. Finally, for no real reason, on impulse, he turned into the parking lot by the train

Worried that Jim might change his mind, the train made a clanking sound, lurched a bit, and began slowly moving, pulling out of the station. The massive engine let out a se- ries of sharp whistles that echoed all the way up-canyon to the little valley of Four Mile Creek.

The train, finally up to speed, emerged from the deep ruby canyon of the Colorado station. River and rolled through the middle of the little coal town of New Castle, rattling the Just as the passenger train rolled in from the east, a sense of futility crashed hard in pop bottles in the old faded-green tarpaper-wrapped grocery store near the tracks. A few Jim against a deep feeling of bitterness, like two massive train cars coupling. more miles and the train slowed at a yellow-brick station with the word “Rifle” above the Jim really had no intention of leaving, he hadn’t even considered it. But something door. drove him to walk over to the ticket window and get in line behind a fellow in a well-cut Jim rose to get off. He could call the county road shop from the station phone here deep blue suit who was arguing with the ticket agent in a subdued voice. in Rifle and tell Jerry he was sick, then hitch a ride back to Glenwood, go back to work Turning from the window, the fellow asked Jim. “Would you like a ticket? They won’t tomorrow, and nobody would ever guess how close he’d come to leaving. give me a refund, and I need to finish up some business here. My bad luck is your good The train stopped long enough to take on the mail, no passengers, then slowly started luck, sir, if you’re wanting to go west.” up again, taking its time, waiting for a small herd of mule deer to cross the tracks on Still feeling that searing sense of hopelessness, Jim took it, but he really didn’t care if their way to the river for a drink. Jim had plenty of time to get off, but as the train he got a free ticket or not. He didn’t care about much of anything right then, except his picked up speed, Jim finally sat back down, unaware of the gray-haired couple in the missing buddy, little Blue. rear of the car who were watching the back of his blue-and-brown plaid wool jacket—the man wondering why Jim hadn’t gotten off the train, the woman wondering why this But maybe the free ticket was a sign, a change of direction somehow in a life that had handsome man in his prime seemed troubled. long needed bearings. Jim had been wanting to go back to the desert for years, but his Gathering momentum, the train rolled through sagebrush flats and headed for more life in Glenwood just slipped by, day by day, a haze of routine comfort, never getting 20 THE ZEPHYR/ FEBRUARY-MARCH 2013 ahead enough to do anything else. And now little Blue was way ahead of him in making a new life, going west to Utah in some old green jeep. And that train sitting there, that train he’d heard every day for 10 years—that big silver train was going west, too, to Salt Lake City—Temple City, Utah, on the other side of the Zion Curtain. And so, unexpectedly, Jim had stepped onto the train. Now, as the train left Rifle and continued west, Jim could see the engines curving around way ahead, following the rolling river into De-Beque Canyon. He’d heard there were wild horses here, but the odds of seeing them from a noisy train were slim.

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Maybe he should get off in Grand Junction, he thought. It was only 85 miles from home—he could still make that phone call and get back to Glenwood today. But maybe he should just keep going—it had been years since he’d been in Utah, and that had been just a quick visit to Bluff, the little town along the San Juan River where he grew up with his brother Roger—they’d been raised there by their mom’s brother. His uncle was now in heaven, having been an Episcopal priest, and his brother Roger was now in hell—Green River, Utah, that is. Jim smiled wryly, thinking of all the times he’d razzed his brother about living in the remote town out in the middle of that sweep- ing empty desert.

He hadn’t seen Roger in three years. Maybe he’d just go on over there for a few days, then head back home. Hell, maybe he’d just go the run of the ticket to Salt Lake, become a Mormon, get a job, and start a new life there. He liked toying with the idea. He was feeling a little better now, and as the train edged next to the yellow cliffs of De- Beque Canyon, Jim started singing to himself softly. next page... 57 S MAIN STREET in the McSTIFFS PLAZA 435.259. BEER (2337)

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www.eddiemcstiffs.com 21 THE ZEPHYR/ FEBRUARY-MARCH 2013 detached, now reading about Paris hairstyles in a magazine someone had left on the next seat. Jack loved to read, but his standard fare was either Louis L’Amour or the Blue The Long Ride Home (continued) Mountain Journal from down in Monticello. He’d never seen Vogue Magazine. Now this was different! -----Chinle Miller Soon the train was on its way, dropping down through the drainage of Salt Creek into Horsethief Canyon, there meeting its old friend the Colorado River once again. Hors- ethief Canyon soon merged with the multicolored walls of Ruby Canyon, tall ramparts Ramblin’ rose, ramblin’ rose, How I love you, heaven knows. Wild and windblown streaked with desert varnish, inky black on crimson. Jim saw a huge Bald Eagle rise That’s how you’ve grown, Who can cling to a ramblin’ rose. from the river with a fish in its talons, scattering a flock of smaller birds before it like prismatic speckles against the sun. Behind him, the gray-haired woman heard the tune, looked out the window, and Huge ancient cottonwood trees bent over the river like monks, blessing their beloved began humming along. The gray-haired man, immersed in a story in the paper about and holy water with outstretched gnarly arms wearing a hint of spring green. Flotillas of old-timers, didn’t hear anything. early-arriving geese left snowflake tracks on the thin-edged ice before hopping into the Hearing her humming, Jim turned. The woman smiled. He touched his hat brim in river, oblivious to the cold water in their comfy down jackets. return. He must be feeling better, the gray-haired woman thought. As the train rattled on, Jim caught a quick glimpse up Rattlesnake Canyon, narrow and deep, elegant arches carved high above in the Entrada sandstone. Someday he The river canyon suddenly opened into a wide valley, and they now passed by peach would come back and hike up there, walking out onto the highest arch of all, standing orchards interspersed with picturesque farm houses, just on the outskirts of Grand with arms outstretched, just to see what it felt like to be out in thin air like that eagle Junction. Soon the train began to slow as it negotiated the streets of the city. Jim looked he’d just seen. down at the drivers in the passenger cars waiting at each crossing and wondered what their lives were like. He waved back at a couple of red-headed kids on bikes. As the train rolled to a stop, a voice came over a scratchy speaker: “Folks, we’re in Grand Junction, Colorado. We’ll be here for 20 minutes. There’s a snack bar here and telephones. If you get off, please have your tickets ready when you Huge ancient cottonwood trees bent over reboard. Thanks for riding the California Zephyr with us. Our next stop will be Thomp- the river like monks, blessing their beloved son, Utah.” and holy water with outstretched gnarly arms wearing a hint of spring green. Flotillas of early-arriving geese left snowflake tracks on the thin-edged ice before hopping into the river, oblivious to the cold water in their comfy down jackets.

Suddenly the light coming in through the windows went dim, then bright again, then dim, and Jim realized there must be another set of tracks here, as another train was passing them only a few feet away, going toward where they’d just been. It was a freight train, its huge round cars painted with the words “Corn Syrup.” The California Zephyr slowed almost imperceptibly as it began the climb back up out of the river canyon, up onto the Mancos flats of the Cisco Desert above. Following the river would soon be impossible, for its course churned its way wall-to-wall through Westwater Canyon, thundering and driving its spring snowmelt through places like the Room of Doom and Skull Cave, places where trains weren’t welcome. Jim now noticed a rough two-track road, almost a trail, paralleling the train, following the turns and bends of the tracks so closely that the train would surely brush against any The gray-haired woman stood and got off vehicle there. Someone had recently driven it, leaving narrow tire-tracks in the soft dirt, tracks that still had a soft dusting of unmelted snow. Jim wondered why anyone would the train, long skirt swishing and be way out here—it was too early for a rancher to be grazing stock. cowboy boots clicking on the wooden floor of the car. The smell of coffee floated in As they neared the little settlement of Cisco, the whistle sounded. Train clattering over through the open car door, and Jim decided road crossing, Jim caught a quick glimpse of a little olive-colored jeep waiting for the to go get a cup. Glenwood was forgotten, train to pass. In it were two passengers—the driver, a woman with sandy brown hair— at least for now. and a little merle dog, black and white spots blending into a dusty blue color, eyes wide at the sight of the big blue train. The image was quickly gone, left behind in the clacking of the rails. Jim jumped up, The gray-haired woman stood and got off the train, long skirt swishing and cowboy “Blue! It’s Blue!” boots clicking on the wooden floor of the car. The smell of coffee floated in through the At the same time, Mattie said, “Look, Davis!” She nudged him, “Pops, we just passed open car door, and Jim decided to go get a cup. Glenwood was forgotten, at least for Callie!” now. They soon reached the station at Thompson, where Mattie helped her husband Jack On the sidewalk in front of the station was a little portable snack bar with sandwiches collect his new-found assortment of reading materials. Mattie paused as she passed Jim. and drinks.The gray-haired woman was ordering muffins and tea. Jim ordered a ham “Come on by sometime, Jim, and I’ll introduce you to our friend Callie. She comes by sandwich and black coffee. Up close, the woman looked to be in her early-70s, Jim our place quite often, especially when she needs to write up her archaeology reports. See thought. She was slight and wiry, and her tanned and lined face spoke of a life in the ya soon.” outdoors, a life in wind and sun. A half-hour later, Jim stepped down off the train, finally back home in the desert.

The woman smiled at Jim and asked, “Are you enjoying the ride?” Jim replied, “I am. He felt suddenly free, carefree, no luggage, no baggage. Waiting in the dark by the I haven’t been on a train since I was a kid.” closed station with its art deco glassblock windows, he watched the train slowly disap- “We’re getting off soon, in Thompson. It’ll be good to get home. Where are you pear around a curve to the west. He quickly kneeled down, putting his ear to the rails. headed?” Standing back up, Jim shook his fist in mock anger. “Lying Hollywood bastards!You Jim surprised himself with his answer, “Green River. My brother has a melon farm can’t hear the train through the rails.” there and I’m going to go work for him. I was born and raised in the desert, and I’m kind Down a dirt street with a faded “Broadway” sign, Jim walked slowly toward the lights of in the mood to go back for awhile.” of downtown, where he could barely make out the flashing neon sign of the Robbers The woman extended her hand. “Nice to meet you.You know, we’re only about 25 Roost Motel. He soon neared a little bar with “Billiards” painted in ten-foot letters on its miles from Green River—come on over and visit us at the Rancho Not So Grande, about dingy white clapboard side. “Back at 1,” said the hand-scrawled curled-up yellowed sign a mile up Thompson Canyon. I’m Mattie Davis.” in the window. Jim smiled—the owner must’ve got on the train and never came back, Coffee in one hand, Jim stuck the sandwich in his jacket pocket so he could shake her just like that, no luggage, nothin’. Probably over in Glenwood Springs right now, eating hand. Back on the train, Mattie introduced Jim to her husband, Jack Davis. Jack seemed linguini at the Riviera. 22 THE ZEPHYR/ FEBRUARY-MARCH 2013

As Jim walked by the desultory old bar, he noticed two skinny little strays watching him from the alley, eyes shining in the dark. He stopped and called to them. “C’mon out kids, what’s up?” The dogs hesitated and started to run, then turned back and watched him, warily. Jim called again, then, remembering the long-forgotten sandwich he’d bought in Grand Junction, took it out of his jacket pocket and tossed a small piece in their direction. CHECK OUT One little dog turned tail and ran, but the other quickly snatched up the piece of bread, OMAR TATUM’S gulping it down. The dog then sat and watched Jim as the other dog, obviously from the same litter, slowly came out of the shadows. AmeriCandy Jim, now engrossed with the little strays, tossed two pieces of bread midway between the dogs and himself, then lay down in the middle of the dark empty street, pretending in LOUISVILLE, KENTUCKY to ignore the young dogs, talking softly. Only in Green River, Utah, could you lay in the middle of the street and not get run over, Jim thought, smiling. Smelling the sandwich, the dogs eventually came to him, warily eating from his hand, finally letting Jim pet http://www.americandybar.com them, still half-afraid.

Jim stood and began slowly walking in the direction of his brother’s house, a mile or so away towards the river road. The dogs hesitated, ready to run back to the shelter of the dark alley, knowing their luck was too good to last. After a moment, Jim turned and looked back, and suddenly a strange sense of peace flowed through him. ROSCO He whistled to the dogs gently. “C’mon, let’s go home—it’s way past time for us to go BETUNADA home.” The dogs followed, wagging and dancing happily while jumping up to gingerly WhiteWater, touch cold noses to his open hands. Colorawdough

Several months later, nearly two hundred miles to the east, Natalie soaked luxuriantly in the steamy waters of the Glenwood Hot Springs Pool, watching the last failing rays of sunset above those inspiring maroon cliffs. Her new boyfriend sat on the edge of the pool, feet dangling in warm water and a shroud of steam floating around his straight black hair. Tony was the cook at the Riv- iera, the restaurant where Natalie waitressed. Now Tony paid the rent at the cinderblock house on Four Mile. In the afternoons, be- TIM STECK- LINE fore he and Natalie would go to work, Tony relaxed in the back yard by the chokecherry Spearfish, SD bushes and iris, wondering where the big silver train was off to this time, who was on it, what stories they lived. That same day, down in the Glenwood train yards, the flattened hulk of Jim’s Olds was loaded onto a flatbed on the eastbound freight, headed for the smelter in Denver. The old car, impounded from the station parking lot and unclaimed, had finally been sold as scrap. No one ever found Jim’s note to Natalie in the console. Natalie, honey, let the next poor bastard have a dog. Love, Jimmy

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swers to these questions vary, depending on each terrain’s degree of erosion and grazing, its fire regime, floral composition, soil CHEATGRASS structure, weather pattern? The pamphlet had only a color photo of Dalmatian Toadflax and five words of description, “...extensive A July day in Horse Canyon, northern Nevada. Cheatgrass and deep root system.” It’s noxious, never mind the details, take was abundant, especially along the cattle trail. Barbed “florets” our word for it. That was the message. snagged my sneakers and socks and worked into the fabrics and stabbed. Dozens of them, and they were hard to dislodge. Lacking A tad irritated, I turned contrary, began a list of other invad- forceps I went after the worst ones with my teeth. Humiliating, ers of these mountains, beginning with myself and my gear and time-consuming. I tried walking barefoot, but the trail was too vehicle and my fellow campers who were lounging at creekside or rocky. There were no alternate routes, the narrow canyon bot- under RV awnings, wetting fish lines, fussing with fires and grills, toms being literally choked by a noisy stream and its tall jungle. giving their four-wheelers a workout.I recalled the wealth of Finally, I simply held a steady pace, accepting pain. information that turned up in my previous cheatgrass research. Fascinating stuff. Soil and climate and altitude preferences; Cheatgrass, Bromus tectorum, invaded from Europe in the growth habit; season of danger to grazers; fire hazard; experi- 1880s and found ideal conditions on roadsides and other exposed ments in progress to determine where it might be a threat, and places. It competes with native plants, but does not necessarily where possibly not. displace them. It can be beautiful in early summer, pale green and silky in shimmering masses. Grazing animals can use it then, Come on, BLM, trust us, give us more data and the big picture. before it dries and polishes its armament. We might take an interest. With what you’re giving us so far you can’t really believe we’ll go all bushy-tailed to make ourselves The canyon broadened and branched, cheatgrass dwindled, activists in the war against aliens. We’ve got enough troubles. Oh, having met the fringes of a new set of conditions: alpine-like we might refrain from picking and transporting beautiful strang- meadows. I stopped at the creek bank and worked on shoes and ers, but I don’t see many of us making sure that “within 96 hours socks. The sun was low. Decision time. Should I run the gauntlet before entering back country (we) give pack animals only food again? I drank from the canteen. Not much left. Afraid of Giardia, that is certified weed free.” I didn’t take water from the creek.

I decided to try for the spine of the range and follow that down and out. It was hard traveling, heaving upward through aromatic A tad irritated, I turned contrary, began a list brush. The ridges ahead began to reveal their complexities. Too of other invaders of these mountains, beginning much unknown territory up there, and I’d be moving in thirst and with myself and my gear and vehicle and darkness. Not wise. my fellow campers who were lounging I retreated, took the cheatgrass way, settled into a steady grind. at creekside or under RV awnings, Pain, some bloodshed. I made it to the car and poked it along a wetting fish lines, fussing with fires and grills, two-track road. Erosion ruts, sounds of sifting dust and ghostly giving their four-wheelers a workout. dry brush scraping by, and then the highway embankment loaded with shimmers of pinkish-brown Bromus tectorum, ripe and ready. Not long after that encounter I holed up in a Bureau of Land Management campground in Wyoming. I brewed coffee and read a glossy little BLM pamphlet called Noxious Weeds. Come to think of it, I wonder if the battles against noxious aliens A Growing Concern. Ten of the aliens were identified. Spotted are already being lost because of reckless building of logging and Knapweed, Leafy Spurge, and so on. They are bad because they mining and oil/gas roads into back country, under your supervi- “displace native plant species that provide habitat for wildlife sion. You can’t blame us for wondering why you and the Forest and food for people and livestock.” One of them is poisonous. Service don’t get together and wipe out a few thousand miles of The pamphlet tells us that we can all help with invasions by not old roads and two-tracks whose total mileage now exceeds that of transporting unknown flowers, by not giving our horses feed that the entire interstate system. might contain noxious seeds, and by driving only on “established roads and trails.” Cheatgrass wasn’t mentioned. Next day was a Never mind, I’m out of here. What’s this? A little brown enve- good one. I followed elk and deer and wild horse trails and log- lope into which I forgot to enclose the camping fee. Damn, this is ging roads to a fine view of Whiskey Peak. Back in camp I re-read really irritating. If you feds need more money, and I’m sure you Noxious Weeds. Some of the swatches of yellow color in meadows do, and I’m all for it, go get it from taxes and you know which and old clearcuts had looked suspiciously like one of the aliens, brackets to hit. This is our land, you know; this is public land. Dalmatian Toadflax. If so, I wanted to know if it is really serious, Okay? Oh well, thanks for not charging me a trailhead fee. or moderately so, and what are the realistic chances of defeat- ing it. Will it exterminate Paintbrush, Geranium, Phlox, Wild Buckwheat and the other good, solid Americans? Or might they MARTIN MURIE died in 2012. His words live on here in The all arrive at some sort of coexistence and in the process add a bit Zephyr. more color and variety to the ecosystem. But wouldn’t the an- 24 THE ZEPHYR/ FEBRUARY-MARCH 2013

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From the 1995 Zephyr Archives... An Interview with MAXINE NEWELL...part 2

with Jim Stiles They had never grown much grass with it, but as soon as the water was limited, they all wanted grass. They all lived better. A lot of them cleaned out their attics In October , The Zephyr re-posted an intervoew with longtime Moabite and rented them out for 40 or 50 dollars a month, because it was tough find- MAXINE NEWELL, from the summer of 1995. Here is the link to that story: ing a place to live. Anyway the oldtimers griped all the time about the influx of people. I remember when the city put in parking meters; that started a real http://www.canyoncountryzephyr.com/2012/10/01/an-interview-with- furor and it wasn’t very long until they took them out. And the phone service maxine-newell-by-jim-stiles/ during the Boom was something else. Five or six years before the Boom, there were only five or six phones in the Here is Part 2... entire town. But by this time, everybody had a phone in their house. They were After World War II, Maxine married Hub Newell. They lived in Green River all party lines and there’d be four or five people on your line. It got so congest- for awhile where Hub, an engineer, worked on the construction of the new ed, the phone company couldn’t handle it, so they put in a three minute maxi- Green River bridge... mum...you could talk three minutes and then you got cut off. people got used to that and it worked real well when you were talking to a longwinded friend. Zephyr: Once the war was over, when did you move to Moab? You didn’t have to hang up on her. After the three minute limit was lifted, the Maxine: I moved to Moab in the early 50s. Charlie Steen had already hit the phone company manager said he got more calls wanting the three minute limit strike, but nobody knew how big it was. My dad said, there’s something inter- put back on. But you absolutely couldn’t call in to Moab and people who had to esting going on down there. They tell me this man named Steen has hit some- make a lot of calls out of Moab would sometimes go to Grand Junction to make thing big. And he said, history’s history...try to get acquainted with him while their calls. We just didn’t have enough lines. you’re in Moab because I think he’s going to write some history. By the time we got here it was already getting crowded. But it was Charlie’s announcement What were the schools like at the time? that really created the grand rush. They had been mining the uranium here all When we first came, my daughter Janie went to the first grade at what is through the war for the atomic bomb, not knowing what they were mining it now the middle school. All twelve grades were housed in that building. It was for. the only school. Then they started passing bonds for new schools and built the

I moved to Moab in the early 50s. Charlie Steen had already hit the strike, but nobody knew how big it was. My dad said, “There’s something interesting going on down there. They tell me this man named Steen has hit something big. And he said, history’s history... Try to get acquainted with him while you’re in Moab because I think he’s going to write some history.”

When did you meet Charlie Steen? Helen M. Knight School and later the Redrock Elementary. My daughter went My birthday is the same as his; we were born on the same day of the same to every school in town eventually. year and that happened to be mentioned one time, so we had a party. It sort of destroyed my faith in astrology, he got rich and I didn’t. Didn’t Steen donate a lot of the property for the new schools? He did. And the way he told it to me, as long as it was used for school pur- What was Moab like during the Boom? poses, it belonged to the school. But if they ever decided to sell the school, the If anybody asked me about Moab then, I’d say, I hate it. It took a long time ownership would revert back to the Steen family. So Charlie gave the land for for me to grow to love Moab. It was hot and the red rocks didn’t appeal to me HMK and for some of the churches as well. Now the Redrock school land was and there was no grass or fields or farms. I’d rather have seen a field of cows donated by Bud Walker. At one time my husband’s father owned all this land than rocks. But anyway there was one grocery store and a small neighborhood where Walker subdivision is. They lived in a house where the Redrock School store. But the Millers had a big store and they sold everything. Then as soon is now. But all this area was once just a big ranch. It’s no wonder it never really as Steen hit his strike and moved to Moab, his partner Bill McCormick built made it as a ranch; this is all rock down here and not very good farm land. another store where the downtown visitor center is now. Bill was a grocery man at Dove Creek when he built the store here. He ran it for years. Where did you go eat when the Boom began? There was only one place to eat in town in the beginning. You’d go down to Do you mean the old Foodtown? Fern’s Cafe’ which is where the Circle K is now. It was sort of a big wooden ho- Yes that was the one. When they opened it, they had a dance. tel and cafe’. And then somebody put in a restaurant close to where Main and Center Streets are. And there were only two motels and Steen bought one of So what did it do to the town to have thousands of people descend- them for his offices. The other motel was down by the old hospital. ing on it like that? Every time I gripe about bikers, it reminds me of what people said about us. Later there was the Arches Cafe’ in the same building where the barber shop The old timers were just furious. We even had to go on water turns for awhile; and the Hotel Off Center is now. It also had a big dance hall. And they had we had water every other day. They had always had all the water they wanted. about a five piece orchestra with Krug Walker and Agnes Summerville and 26 THE ZEPHYR/ FEBRUARY-MARCH 2013 Freddie Markle played the drums. It was great music and whenever they had a dance at Arches everybody would go. The whole town would turn out. When the first movie companies came in, however, the dance hall was closed and they The first issue of put in a mess hall for the movie people. Finally Stan and Ruth Walker put in the THE CANYON COUNTRY Arches Cafe’. It was as nice as any you’d find in town today. The same painting of Deadhorse Point that’s in the bank today used to hang in there in the back ZEPHYR of the restaurant. Later they built on to the back of it and called it the Town & went to press on Country Club. During the Boom, that was the place to go. It served drinks and March 14, 1989. it was very nice. Eventually though, everybody ended up at the Uranium Club; It contained that’s where the Elks’ Club is today. If you didn’t stop at the Uranium Club Ed Abbey’s before you went home, you hadn’t had a night out. last original story.

In the old days, before the Town & Country, when the dance hall was there, We have a small it was just a public dance hall and you’d go in they’d stamp your hand so you cache of that first could come and go. And there was a lot of coming and going, because all the issue available for guys had a bottle out in their car. That’s where they got their energy for the next purchase. dance. When they got tired you went across the street to the Wagon Wheel beer parlor. It was a pretty good sized place and you could sit there at the window $55 including and watch the people come out of the dance hall. Now, right in front of the postage. dance hall was an open irrigation ditch and the ones that were drunk fell in the ditch and the ones that were sober stepped over it. It was a picnic to sit in there and watch.

send a check or money order to: Now, right in front THE ZEPHYR of the dance hall PO BOX 271 was an open irrigation MONTICELLO, UT 84535 ditch and the ones that were drunk fell GREG CAUDILL in the ditch and the our pal Louisville, KY ones that were sober BILL BENGE stepped over it. It was a picnic to sit in there and watch.

From the stories I’ve heard about Charlie Steen, it sounds like few people were ambivalent about the man. What was your take on Charlie? Goodness, we knew them quite well. We didn’t go to all the parties we were invited to up on the hill, just because they were at our house more than we were up there. There were so many hangers-on, we didn’t want to be in that class. But we were always invited. I don’t know why some people didn’t like him. They didn’t even know him that well. He never did anything but good. But I think you can’t be the only wealthy person in a small community...they had MATT ROBERTS to live behind locked gates; they had to protect their boys. They had received Austin, TX threats. But anyway, you couldn’t just run up the hill to say hi and go for coffee. There was no way for people to really mingle with them. And there’s always a little envy when people make money. As far as I know, I never heard of Charlie OMAR TATUM doing anything but good; he donated a lot of his money to the town. Of course, Louisville, KY he got blamed by the oldtimers for the influx of people. I’m not protecting him just because I know him.

Sometimes Moab received national attention. What was that like? BILL SUE GREEN It just went in one ear and out the other. I was in my 30s and so were most STOKES Flagstaff, AZ of my friends and we were just having a ball. I wouldn’t like right now to live St Petersburg that life over, but I wouldn’t mind being 30 and live it again. We did something FL every night.

Was anyone even slightly aware of the health risks associated with exposure to uranium at the time? The danger of uranium wasn’t even known then. The government sent a man to Grand Junction and they had an inkling of the radon and the dangers. He lived real low-key and ran all these experiments, but they didn’t want to spread a panic because they needed the uranium. I still think if it hadn’t been for Moab’s uranium, we’d be speaking Russian or Japanese today. Later they started talking about ventilating the mines and I think Charlie’s were the best LEWIS PAISLEY ventilated mines out there. Lexington, KY

What made the Boom turn to Bust? The Government had been buying the uranium and stockpiling it. They got SAM CAMP all they needed and suddenly there was no market. It was a quick bust. There Big Bar, CA Chris Carrier were no jobs and people who moved here just for the uranium folded up and Paonia, CO NEXT PAGE... 27 THE ZEPHYR/ FEBRUARY-MARCH 2013

Maxine Newell MAXINE NEWELL still lives in Moab. She is 93 years old. The Times-Independent ran an excellent piece on Maxine just a few Interview...part 2 weeks ago: went away. We even rented our house out and moved to Monticello. Hub was a http://www.moabtimes.com/view/full_story/21241049/article--Genera- county engineer up there because there was no work here. We stayed there for tions-Maxine-Newell-? a couple of years; finally when the Texas Gulf operation started up in the early 60s, things started to pick up. It was good to get back because I was bored to For more on MAXINE, there is a wonderful interview, conducted tears in Monticello. We’d had a pretty exciting life in Moab and up there, there in 2003 by JEAN McDOWELL and the Dan O’Laury Moab Museum. wasn’t anything to do but church, and I didn’t go to that church. But I did get a Here is the link: job with the Monticello paper for awhile. When we got back to Moab, I walked into the Times-Independent one day and he gave me a job. I stayed there for http://centralpt.com/upload/345/2871_Newell,%20Maxine.pdf four years. I was the news reporter but it was just the title they gave me. By now Moab was back on its feet. It was during that time that the big explosion occurred at Texas Gulf. It was national news and reporters were hare from all across the country. Later, after the other reporters had left, Blackie Eslik from the company invited me in and started telling me the story. Seventeen people were killed. It was a real trauma for the town; it affected so many people.

When did Charlie Steen finally leave? It was in the early 60s. Charlie’s sister-in-law was a real good friend of mine. She stored some things in our basement; she was going to move to New Or- leans. By now Charlie and M.L. had left. You couldn’t blame them for going somewhere else if they could afford it. We missed them a lot. And I guess you could say it was the end of an era.

ANNIE TUELLER PAYNE Salt Lake City, UT BRIAN CATLIN Grand Canyon, AZ

(above) An ore truck rumbles down Center Street past the courthouse. (below). Charlie & ML Steen survey the contruction of their new home. Mi Vida, on a hill above Moab.

PAUL VLACHOS JOHN NYC, NY TYMOCHKO USA

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29 THE ZEPHYR/ FEBRUARY-MARCH 2013 ‘Toots’ McDougald & the Summer of 1940 Jim Stiles

In the summer of 1940, Toots McDougald was a blissfully married young hands until it was all blended. Then he could just pinch off a piece to bake... woman, living at the end of the world. When Dick Wright asked her to the there never was a single lump in those biscuits.” Junior Prom in 1932, she fell instantly and forever in love. They’d both grown Toots and the family stayed at the cabin for weeks at a time, just down the up poor and remarkably happy in a remote and forgotten corner of the Ameri- trail from what would someday become the most famous natural stone arch in can Southwest and that suited Toots just fine. In many ways she could not have the world. Most locals called it “The School Marm’s Bloomers” but Toots had asked for a more idyllic life. her own name. “I called it the ‘Old Man’s Pants’ because it looked like they cut She was born Marilee McDougald, but her Uncle Ab always called her his the top off a man and just left his feet and legs.” Later the Park Service named “little Tootsie” and the name stuck. Seven decades it Delicate Arch. “We used to horseback up to the later she was still listed as “Toots” in the Moab phone arch. We never saw anyone except other cattlemen directory. Whether Time sweetened Toots’ memories from time to time. Jim Westwood had some cattle or she just loved Life that much, only she can say for out here and a man named Frank Graham did too.” sure. But at 80, she could find little fault with her When the National Park Service hired her step-dad childhood. as the monument’s first custodian the pay was not “It was wonderful. We went on hikes and picnics too lucrative. “In those days, they called them ‘dol- and chicken fries. We had great watermelon busts; in lar-a-year men.’ You sure couldn’t make a living on fact, a man named Ollie Reardon planted a field of wa- that.” termelons, just for us kids to steal. He said we could . By 1940, Toots had set aside her riding jeans for steal from that patch all we wanted, if we left his other a dress and domesticity. But the real world seemed patch alone...Everything was so free and easy. No very far away. It was hard to imagine, standing at pressures. No traffic. We didn’t know anything about the corner of Main and Center Streets that much of drugs. We thought we were pretty wild if we got a sip the “civilized world” was embroiled in yet another of homemade beer. My father’s friend was a bootleg- world war. Radio reached Moab, even in the 1930s, ger...I’d tell you who it is, but they’ve still got family and Toots remembered hearing her first broadcast here.” on Bish Taylor’s old Crosley radio. They could hear the news—-Hitler’s Blitzkrieg had crushed most of The Big Cottonwood Tree on First South was, by Europe that spring and in June, the Nazis marched 1940, already a local landmark. Toots could see it through Paris. Roosevelt was preparing the nation from the far side of the rodeo grounds which in those for war, but it all seemed so abstract in this remote days was in the heart of town. Years earlier a circus red rock outpost. had pitched its big top there and she and her friends The November elections were approaching and had been amazed to see elephants and camels coming Roosevelt faced Republican Wendell Willkie. South down Main Street. But a few weeks later, a strange of Moab, sculptor Albert Christiensen was so im- and noxious weed began to sprout on the lawns of pressed with both candidates that he proposed to nearby homes. It looked like a green wagon wheel, she build a massive Rushmoresque bas relief tribute to said, with “yokes” stretching for ten feet or more. Each the two candidates. He completed a working model vine produced hundreds of spiny seeds that stuck in near his “Hole n’ the Rock” home and Toots and Dick the soles of Toots’ bare feet and even punched leaks drove out for a look. It was the last time anyone in in her bicycle tires. Moabites called them goatheads Utah felt compelled to honor both a Republican and and later it was decided that these nasty weeds were a Democrat in such a fashion. Later, when the gov- left behind by the circus. “Well the damn things must ernment land agency obliterated his work because have been mixed up with the hay, because pretty soon it was on public land, Albert reluctantly gave up his those nasty little goatheads were popping up every- plans for a giant sculpture and hated the federal where. I’ve got no use for goatheads at all.” By 1940, goatheads were a plague government thereafter. on Moab’s lawns and gardens and its citizens would still be fighting them a half President Roosevelt had won Utah’s votes in 1932 and 1936 and most century later, with Toots their most ardent foe. Utahns felt safe and secure under his leadership. But a few years earlier, FDR

“It was wonderful. We went on hikes and picnics and chicken fries. We had great watermelon busts; in fact, a man named Ollie Reardon planted a field of watermelons, just for us kids to steal. He said we could steal from that patch all we wanted, if we left his other patch alone... Everything was so free and easy. No pressures. No traffic. We didn’t know anything about drugs. We thought we were pretty wild if we got a sip of homemade beer. My father’s friend was a bootlegger... I’d tell you who it is, but they’ve still got family here.”

In 1940 Toots had fond memories of her summers at Turnbow Cabin, in had created some animosities with southern Utahns that would last for de- what would become Arches National Monument. Her stepdad, Marv Turnbow, cades. His Secretary of Interior, Harold Ickes, proposed a vast 4.5 million acres a prominent rancher in the 20s and 30s and the first custodian of Arches when national monument in the heart of the Colorado Plateau. It was to be called it became a monument in 1927, filed the first homestead papers on the ranch “Escalante National Monument” and would have straddled the Colorado River around 1915. for more than 200 miles, from Moab all the way to Lee’s Ferry. Its boundar- “We used to leave Moab in the morning on our horses and ride up Court- ies would have encompassed all of what is today’s Canyonlands National Park, house Wash for five or six miles. There was a good horse trail that would lead Grand Staircase/Escalante NM and Glen Canyon National Recreation Area—- up to Balanced Rock and down into Salt Valley and the cabin...and we’d bring all that and with one significant difference: the 1936 monument would probably most of our food. We’d bring canned milk, and to this day, I can drink canned have stopped any serious consideration of a dam at Glen Canyon. milk right out of the can. And flour and salt and coffee. And things Mother The issue dragged on for years, with Utah officials like Governor Henry canned. We couldn’t keep chickens out there or the coyotes would get them.” Blood fearing a behind-the-scenes maneuver by the federal government. Blood “And Dad used to make flour sack biscuits. He never used a pan. He’d roll would sound a prophetic note when he warned the Utah congressional del- up the sleeves of his long-handled underwear which he wore year-round. He’d egation in 1939: “Some morning we may wake up and find that the Escalante scrub his hands and he’d get this sack full of flour and roll the edges back. Then National Monument has been created...and then it will be too late to forestall he’d form a hole in the flour...just smooth it out like a big bowl. Then he’d put what we in Utah think would be a calamity.” in some baking powder, some salt and some shortening and mix it all around. Elsewhere few Americans thought the new monument would be a calamity. Then he’d start adding water, a little at a time and just keep working it with his 30 THE ZEPHYR/ FEBRUARY-MARCH 2013 Very few Americans spent much time thinking of southeast Utah at all. Most would change. had never heard of it. The 1940 census showed that Moab was home to 883 In 1940, the road to Moab from Crescent Junction was still dirt and gravel residents and was the seat of government in Grand County. Roosevelt’s Works and was “still slicker than snot on a glass door knob” when it rained. Plans to Progress Administration put unemployed writers and photographers to work, improve and pave the highway had been announced in 1939, but the coming compiling travel guides to all 48 states. Among their observations in the Utah war put everything on hold for “the duration.” Nobody went to Moab for the Writers’ Guide: weekend. It took a weekend to get there, even if they only lived in Salt Lake “Moab is the commercial center of an extensive sheep and cattle country, City. Kids rode their bicycles but the bikes only had one gear and coaster and since 1930 has achieved importance as a point of departure for scenic at- brakes and the frames were not made from titanium alloys. They didn’t cost tractions in southeastern Utah. Though isolated, it has a small business district, $3000. selling everything from hay to gasoline to malted milk and liquor—--the only As Toots cut through backyards and orchards to Ollie Reardon’s melons, ‘legal’ liquor in the county. Squat red adobe houses stand neighbor to more she would not have seen men and women on the streets wearing skin-tight bik- ing outfits of Lycra or Spandex. Toots was grateful to have anything to wear at all. Usually faded overalls and a cotton shirt were good enough. Nobody did the Slickrock Trail except for the cattle that roamed the Sand Flats and the occasional rancher who was rounding them up. Nobody did The Daily but a few of Toots’ friends who fell in to the Colorado River when they got too close to the eddies that swirl near Moose Park. More fishing poles than can be counted lie in the deep holes near the old stone picnic tables. And nobody did Satan’s Throne except for the ravens that floated effortlessly by it and built nests in its crevices and watched the world below with casual scorn. Backyard hot tubs with super-turbo-power jets were nowhere to be seen, but by late summer, the potholes in the slickrock above town that still held water could feel very warm. Toots was glad to share the potholes with the thou- sands of frogs that hatched each summer and sang her to sleep at night. A fairly decent cup of coffee could be had at the Club 66, but skinny- double-decaf-mocha-lattes were unheard of and unpronounceable anyway—- still are. Beer was available and it might have been home-brewed but it wasn’t micro-brewed. And it was usually served cold but regular power failures drew occasional complaints from Moabites. Hardly anyone in Moab owned a new car in 1940. The Depression made sure of that. Old cars and trucks limped along, held together with baling wire (Duct tape had not been invented) and horses still provided conveyance for many. Toots depended on her feet to get her just about anywhere her heart desired. Hummers and SUVs and ATVs and ORVs and even Jeep 4WDs were beyond the realm of Toots’ imagination. Toots McDougald’s summer nights were unfettered by credit card debt and staggering mortgage payments or time-share condo schemes. Or late night indigestion from a Big Mac, or a Whopper, or a Soft Taco Supreme, or a Lean Cusine frozen dinner. Her evenings were spent with Dick, watching the twilight fall over their little town, listening to the croaking and humming of frogs in Mill Creek or the rustle of a summer breeze through the towering branches of a cottonwood tree and believing that it would be this way forever. Her life was a quiet adventure in the best sense of the word and the experience didn’t cost her a penny extra. She was blissfully ignorant of a future she would live to see and it would all happen within the span of her remarkable life.

CHRIS HELFRICH Salt Lake City, UT STEVE LESJAK

TOOTS McDOUGALD in 1987 pretentious firebrick houses. In the evening, neon lights illuminate the busi- ness district, but after midnight, except on Saturdays, the town does a complete ‘blackout.’” At Arches, Custodian Hank Schmidt filed his monthly reports to Southwest Monuments Superintendent Hugh Miller, whether anybody noticed or not. Southeast Utah’s “importance as a point of departure for scenic attractions” was sometimes lost on Hank. “The majority of our visitors are of the hardy vari- ety and don’t seem to mind desert roads,” Hank noted. “It is possible that with the help of the CCC maintenance crews (Civilian Conservation Corps, another JOHN FDR-invented agency), we will be able to keep the sand dunes from causing the BECKY DINSMORE visitors too much trouble...The Salt Valley road, to Delicate Arch and the Devils MORTON The Other Garden sections, is passable but very rough.” Oakland, Side Still, to Hank, it looked like business was picking up. In late May 1940, Hank announced, “Two of our previous visitor records were broken this month. The total number of visitors, 553, is greater than that for any month on record, and the number of people, totaling 224, who visited the Windows Section on May 11th, set a new record for a single day’s travel into the area.” A half century later, 553 visitors might enter the park in 30 minutes, if they could pay their $10 entrance fee fast enough.

The Depression had reduced mining to a trickle but occasional stories in Bish Taylor’s always optimistic Times-Independent suggested that a min- TOM PATTON ing boom lay just ahead. Oil exploration picked up some as the threat of war Lawnchair Point, UT seemed more likely. In 1940, Howard Balsley still managed to eek out a living, JOHN selling uranium to Vitro Manufacturing Company, which used pigments de- HARRINGTON rived from Balsley’s product in ceramics and pottery. Nobody else was inter- SLC, UT JUDY MULLER ested in competing with Balsley for the uranium market. A decade later, all that 31 Pacific Palisades, CA THE ZEPHYR/ FEBRUARY-MARCH 2013

from Mudd, Stiles & the Heath Monitor Files...

Rolls-Royce, long considered the ultimate ultra-luxury car, The International Energy is more popular than ever before. The British automaker set a Agency (IEA) says that coal global sales record in 2012 selling 3,575 cars.This is the third will catch up with oil as the straight year Rolls has grown sales around the world. It is also world’s leading energy source the most cars it has sold in one year, surpassing the previous by 2022. In a report, the high 3,374 in 1978. Agency says that increased demand from India and China are fuelling the push. BBC News http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-20770245

The top ten best places to be born in 2013:

1. Switzerland 2. Australia 3. Norway 4. Sweden 5. Denmark 6. Singapore 7. New Zealand 8. Netherlands 9. Canada Geneva, 20 November (WMO) – The amount of greenhouse 10. Hong Kong gases in the atmosphere reached a new record high in 2011, according to the World Meteorological Organization. Between Yahoo 1990 and 2011 there was a 30% increase in radiative forcing http://shine.yahoo.com/ – the warming effect on our climate – because of carbon diox- healthy-living/best-places-born-2013- ide (CO2) and other heat-trapping long-lived gases. 175300116.html http://www.wmo.int/pages/mediacentre/press_releases/pr_965_en.html

For many years, Americans have been dying at younger ages than people in almost all other wealthy countries. In addition to the impact of gun violence, Americans con- sume the most calories among peer countries and get involved in more accidents that involve alcohol. The U.S. also suffers higher rates of drug-related deaths, infant mor- tality and AIDS.

http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/01/10/16446720-americans-far-more-likely-to-suffer-violent-deaths-than-peers?lite

From Tanzania to Cameroon, tens of thousands of elephants are being poached each year, more than at any time in decades, because of Asia’s soaring demand for ivory. Nothing seems to be stopping it, including deploying national armies, and the bullet-riddled carcasses keep stacking up. Scientists say that at this rate, African elephants could soon go the way of the wild American bison. ...In a growing number of communities here, people are so eager, even desperate, to protect their wildlife that civilians with no military experience are banding together, grabbing shotguns and G3 assault rifles and risking their lives to confront heavily armed poaching gangs. NY Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/30/world/afica/to-save-wildlife-and-tourism- kenyans-take-up-arms.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

32 THE ZEPHYR/ FEBRUARY-MARCH 2013 Self-love: New data suggests students to- day are convinced of their own greatness regardless of whether they’ve accom- plished anything....

Young people’s unprecedented level of self-infatuation was revealed in a new SEE THE analysis of the American Freshman Sur- vey, which has been asking students to WORLD! rate themselves compared to their peers (while it’s since 1966. Roughly 9 million young peo- still here) ple have taken the survey over the last 47 years. Daily Mail (UK)

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2257715/Study-shows-college- students-think-theyre-special--read-write-barely-study.html

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Obama’s drone attacks will come back to bite America... MSNBC http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CgCuIU2OyIE RICK LARSEN Santa Cruz, CA Approval ratings for the 112th Con- gress dipped below 10 percent last STEVEN SMITH year, meaning the institution was about as popular with Louisville, Kentucky the public as switching to a Communist regime, accord- ‘The World’s Most ing to Gallup and Rasmussen polling data. Bloomberg Interesting Man” http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-01-09/con- gress-liked-as-much-as-communists-getting-no-better. html Approval ratings for the 112th Congress dipped below 10 percent last year, meaning the institution was about as popular with the public as switching to a Communist regime, according to Gallup and Rasmussen polling data. Bloomberg BILL STOKES St Petersburg, FLorida http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-01-09/congress-liked-as-much-as- communists-getting-no-better.html

(NPR) Global health advocates often argue that the tropi- cal diseases that plague many countries, such as malaria and dengue, can be conquered simply with more money for health care – namely medicines and vaccines.But a new paper is a reminder that ecology also has a pretty big say in whether pathogens thrive or die off. Using a statistical model, researchers predicted that countries that lose biodiversity will KEEAN & DANIEL have a heavier burden of vector-borne and parasitic diseas- Salt Lake City, UT es. Their results appear this week in PLoS

33 THE ZEPHYR/ FEBRUARY-MARCH 2013

(from AFA) Ray Garner – Producer/Director/ Cinematographer/Writer

Born in Brooklyn in 1913, Ray Garner began his photographic career in 1935, filming a Boy Scout climbing expedition in the Grand Tetons. This 8mm effort has been lost. In 1937, he was appointed to the position of staff photographer to the New York University Rainbow Bridge-Monument Val- ley expedition sponsored by the American Exploration Society.... From 1955 through 1958, Ray Garner traveled as a lecturer, illustrating his talks with his films. He began making films for NBC News in the early 1960s, and directed various segments in John Secondari’s ‘Saga of Western Man’ series for ABC News in the early 1970s, including the film ‘1898.’ Ray Garner passed away in 1989. He was a true auteur, whose greatest contribution to acadmic film was in his breathtaking cinematography

For more follow this link: http://www.afana.org/garner.htm

Academic Film Archive of North America

NOTE: The Zephyr recently received a DVD of a 1949 documentary film by Ray Garner. The film is silent; Mr. Garner exhibited this film to audiences around the country and provided ‘live’ narration. The film is now in the public domain and I’m happy to present some still images from the film. In this issue--images of downtown Moab in 1949 & camping out at the Devils Garden at Arches National Monument....JS

(for more stills, check out the WordPress ver- sion of this issue on our web site)

34 THE ZEPHYR/ FEBRUARY-MARCH 2013

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http://insuremoab.com/ THE ZEPHYR/ FEBRUARY-MARCH 2013

From When Thirsty Drink Green Tea THE POEMS of JI BO Translations by Ned Mudd

Breaking News Planet Earth oldest species - bacteria newest specie - computer smartest species - cockroach top general has dream fastest species - photon drop atom bomb. slowest species - mountains loudest species - politician preacher has dream deadliest species - mosquito burn down church. funniest species - clown bus driver has dream unknown species - others side of black hole give everybody free ride. Willie Nelson has dream Latest Fashion Trend sing cowboy opera. prostitute has dream surgically reshape entire body become nun. into perfect physique seen in magazine. nun has dream implant genetically modified hair, become prostitute. teeth, nails; swap old eyes for TV eyes, flying saucer has dream replace brain with digital hard drive. toss Earth into black hole. no more need for internal organs. feed body nuclear power. relocate to gigantic beach resort; what is dream? plug-in; turn-on; enjoy robot life; big mystery. no more indigestion, headaches, menstrual pains.

when latest fashion trend is complete all humans will live in peace one big happy resort family.

200 years later: too many robots use up all nuclear power. gigantic beach resort turns into ghost town.

300 years later: world’s forests return world’s rivers return world’s whales return world’s lions and tigers return world’s jungles return.

circle complete.

36 THE ZEPHYR/ FEBRUARY-MARCH 2013

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38 THE ZEPHYR/ FEBRUARY-MARCH 2013 Vlachos’ Views Paul Vlachos is a New Yorker who understands The West. He also understands New York. His work celebrates the differences and the similarities. Here is volume #5 of Vlachos’ Views... Copyright © Paul Vlachos 2013

The back of “Paul’s New Mexican Take-Out” restaurant. Carrizozo, NM - 2012.

Paul’s was closed at the time - Meg and I had awoken early at the Valley of Fires campground and were on the way to somewhere down the road when I passed this place, liked the sign, and shot these chairs, which I choose to believe are the most sacred spot in the world to at least one person, and probably to the person whom that one person regularly converses with, as well. I like to think that somebody who works or eats at Paul’s looks for- ward to sitting in one of these chairs every other night, maybe lighting up a cigarette and staring way past that dumpster, into the open desert beyond, and thinking big, empty thoughts. Maybe thinking nothing at all, but enjoy- ing a very pleasant time doing so. We were just passing through, on our way, unbeknownst to us at the time, to a great breakfast, ten minutes later, at a diner next door to the mini-mart in Carrizozo. I ended up buying a jar of the local hot sauce and carting that jar back to New York City. Meg went into the mini mart to use the bathroom while wearing her pajama bottoms and elegantly lit up a cigarette as she got back into the van, with me urging Hollis, Queens, New York City. her to not linger with it lest she blow us both up as I finished pumping the What might be called “micro-advertising” gasoline.

I took this in Hollis, Queens, a part of that vast borough that I know little about but which, I have learned, is considered by some to be the birthplace of Hip Hop. Try telling that to people in the Bronx. Anyway, I’m sure there is a lot to recommend Hol- lis and to secure its place in history but, in this case, I was there to morally support a friend who was going to driving school. He’s in his mid forties and was terrified of driving, so I was also going along to make sure he didn’t chicken out on the journey. We discovered that driving schools get cheaper and cheaper the further you get from Manhattan. You could graph it and it would probably come out to be a perfect curve. I accompanied him on at least two or three trips out there, then I would leave him to learn the fine motor arts while I’d walk among the wig stores and discount marts of Hollis. I was walking on the main drag out there one day and heard a relentless carnival barker on tape being broadcast on the street through a crappy little speaker. He had a West Indies accent and kept reciting goods - all different goods - with the droning and hypnotic refrain “Just two dollars in the back.” I then found this little sign pasted at the entrance to an alley. No, I’m sad to report that I did not go “in the back,” but I kind of wish I had.

Wyoming - 2009. Sideways sun at the end of the day. Always great if can catch it.

My endless fascination with crumbling signs, mixed messages, big sky, plywood and desert scrub all combine so easily in Nevada, Wyoming, Mon- tana and the other western states. Over and over, I look at photos like this and wonder why I remain in New York - city of my birth, my friends, my roots - all of my past. Let me not get too glum and drugstore philosophical here. Let me just close my eyes and try to conjure up a quick whiff of what the wind in this picture tastes like if I lick my lips.

Abandoned drive-in movie theater. Yerington, NV - 2009

Another shot taken on the way to someplace, almost certainly one of those godly Nevada hot springs. Abandoned For more Vlachos western drive-ins are almost too easy. How can you NOT look at this without thinking of past romance and joy? Of big images, visit the empty places? Of lives lived outdoors and hot summer nights spent in the car, watching the latest flicks? How can you WordPress version NOT dwell pleasantly in the past, living in nostalgia - the true death of the moment? But, maybe a brief romantic escapist of this issue. memory is not such a shameful thing. Maybe we need it occasionally to nurture the moment. Maybe those who command to always be in the moment are being a bit too harsh. I don’t know. It looks like the sound posts - the poles you would park next to with the small speaker - are gone from this drive in. Maybe somebody bought them when this place closed down. I wonder where they are now? I wonder if that drive-in has closed? Hell, here I go again… 39