I recently realized that my kids have become old enough to be nostalgic. It was a strange feeling. We were driving past the old brick house we lived in five years ago, when my 16-year-old daughter said: “Remember when we used to swing under the old maple tree and see how far we could jump […]
Nostalgia is a moving target
Posted inMay 29, 2006: 'Clinging Hopelessly to the Past'
‘Clinging hopelessly to the past’
The cantankerous gospel of Jim Stiles and The Canyon Country Zephyr
Posted inWotr
A real rain is what happens in New Mexico
It is a short flight from one extreme to another. My plane takes off in lush, green Portland, Ore., and lands two hours later in Albuquerque,N.M. As the plane comes over the Sandia mountains, another passenger, making a first trip to New Mexico, is startled to see a panorama of browns shining in the sunlight, […]
Posted inWotr
Raising Bella in springtime
Spring can be a time of quirky deception in the Rocky Mountains. All manner of creatures are born into this seasonal maelstrom, where soothing sunshine one moment can give way almost instantaneously to a howling snow squall. I pity the frail calves and lambs born wet on the High Plains. They trudge dutifully behind their […]
Posted inWotr
A silent victim of illegal immigration is our public lands
Just three miles north of Arizona’s border with Mexico, the Coronado National Forest is littered with the leavings of people on the run: empty plastic water bottles, opened tuna fish cans, sweatshirts, jars of foot powder. Near a scattered pack of playing cards, some turquoise underwear lies in an undignified tangle. A pair of small […]
Posted inWotr
Wamsutter: This Wyoming town never seems to die
Wamsutter, Wyo., population all of 261, is the poster child for Western boomtowns, though if you Google it, the computer asks, “Are you sure you don’t mean hamster?” Wamsutter used to be a rough-and-tumble railroad town, named in 1884 for an obscure Union Pacific bridge engineer. The promise of the railroad first brought surveyors, tunnelers, […]
Posted inWotr
Praise the Lord and pass the pancakes
Drive across the West along the Interstate and you’ll get the impression that sleeping, eating and filling up the gas tank are the activities we hold dear to our hearts. Of these three, however, the greatest seems to be eating. I’d stayed overnight at a motel no driver could see, much less imagine, just off […]
Posted inWotr
Ego climbing at Delicate Arch
In mid-May, the print and electronic media in Salt Lake City, Utah, reported the first ascent of Delicate Arch in Arches National Park. Delicate Arch is one of the most revered and recognized features in Utah, and if any natural feature deserves to be called an icon, it’s Delicate Arch. But on a recent Sunday […]
Posted inMay 15, 2006: The Immigrant's Trail
The puzzle of plate tectonics
Few people forget their first visit to the Grand Canyon. The chasm does not reveal itself until you are nearly at its edge. And then it appears, over a mile deep, with a barely visible Colorado River winding through its heart. Geologist and writer James Powell was as awestruck as anyone on his first-time visit. […]
Posted inMay 15, 2006: The Immigrant's Trail
It ain’t easy getting old
Cormac McCarthy discards his bitter nostalgia to tell a story set along the border in the 1980s.
Posted inMay 15, 2006: The Immigrant's Trail
Finding hope in a new land
Mexican-born author Rose Castillo Guilbault first saw America from the window of a Greyhound bus. The 5-year-old sat next to her divorced mother, Maria Luisa, who had taken a distant cousin’s advice to heart: Head to El Norte. “Get out of this cesspool. It will pull you down and drown you. You’re still young. Start […]
Posted inMay 15, 2006: The Immigrant's Trail
Looking good, HCN
I’ve been meaning for several months now to compliment HCN on your superb graphic design. HCN has a remarkably handsome and easy-to-read look and feel. That may sound trivial. However, given the visual mess made on the pages of much bigger and better-financed publications in our region (Rocky Mountain News, are you listening?), I’m continually […]
Posted inMay 15, 2006: The Immigrant's Trail
Terrorist sympathizers
Yes, Mr. Amon, I have noticed that 12 young people have been charged with arson and conspiracy to commit arson — and I am ecstatic about the possibility that they might go to jail for the rest of their lives for their crimes (HCN, 4/17/06: Eco-terrorism and the trial of the century). You may want […]
Posted inMay 15, 2006: The Immigrant's Trail
Destruction is not a valid protest
Regarding Robert Amon’s views on eco-terrorism, I must stress there are valid means of protest, and burning down buildings is not one of them (HCN, 4/17/06: Eco-terrorism and the trial of the century). Martin Luther King Jr. and Mohandas Gandhi did not sneak around at night, wearing masks and committing acts of destruction. Yes, they […]
Posted inMay 15, 2006: The Immigrant's Trail
Tombstone forest
Regarding your recent essay “Mute, riven, blessed” (HCN, 4/17/06: Mute, riven, blessed): Headstones, crosses and other symbols used to mark the passing of a life are prohibited on national forest and Bureau of Land Management lands. Although well-meaning mourners find comfort in placing memorial markers in a beautiful setting, others find the memorials intrusive. One […]
Posted inMay 15, 2006: The Immigrant's Trail
We don’t need no stinkin’ GPS
I so hoped “Waypoints of the Heart” was part of your recent April Fools’ spoof (HCN, 4/3/06: Waypoints of the heart). I was chilled by the words, “the unwavering locating and decoding of geocaching is like finding a rubric for the universe …” Here, in the increasingly mapped, sanitized and sold Southwest, geocaching is on […]
Posted inMay 15, 2006: The Immigrant's Trail
Timber crews should ditch tree-farming ethos
Regarding your recent cover story on the Healthy Forests Act (HCN, 4/17/06: The war on wildfire): The biggest impediment to legitimate hazard fuels reduction on the Forest Service district where I work (South Park, in central Colorado) is that the project units are laid out and marked by timber personnel. The main goal of the […]
Posted inMay 15, 2006: The Immigrant's Trail
Heard around the West
THE WEST What makes Mormon crickets run? More than just the lust for protein and salt. The insects hustle because they’re afraid they’ll be gobbled up by the cannibalistic cousins trotting behind them, reports the Reno Gazette-Journal. Researchers from the United States, England and Australia who studied cricket migration in southern Idaho found that the […]
Posted inMay 15, 2006: The Immigrant's Trail
Repo Manic
“An ordinary person spends his life avoiding tense situations. A repo man spends his life getting into tense situations.” — Repo Man, 1984 At 5 foot 9 inches tall, Gary Autry doesn’t cut a towering figure, but his broad shoulders and bulk give the 42-year-old former high school linebacker a commanding presence. He wears a […]
Posted inMay 15, 2006: The Immigrant's Trail
Isn’t it time to bury the hatchet?
It’s time to take a blockhead to lunch – and listen to what he has to say.