Note: This essay is part of a special HCN magazine issue devoted to travel in the West. On this October morning in southern Idaho, the air is dry and frosty, and the shifting sand dunes reflected in the lake at Bruneau are soft and curvy –– feminine shapes. The woman I love becomes one with […]
Stephen Lyons
Posted inNovember 11, 2002: Behind the gate
Freedom of the press is eroding before our eyes
On Sept. 1, the Idaho Statesman ran a fascinating expose of local CEO salaries. The amounts of money, stock options and the all-encompassing “bonuses” lavished on these public company executives were staggering and obscene. Not to mention, according to Statesman reporter Julie Howard, “generous severance, salary, pension and retirement packages.” Many of the companies the […]
Posted inAugust 14, 2000: Meth invasion
Meth invasion
America’s drug of the moment wreaks havoc in the rural West.
Posted inAugust 14, 2000: Meth invasion
‘There’s not much to do out there’
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. Erec Hopkins, 20 years old, is serving a year of work release for third-degree sexual assault. He works 6:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. four days a week at the Whitman County shop, where he assists in maintaining county vehicles. When he’s not on work […]
Posted inAugust 14, 2000: Meth invasion
The makings of a meth lab
Note: This article is a sidebar to this issue’s feature story. Mike LaScoula makes sure I correctly write down the following quote: “Not everyone associated with meth is a dirtbag,” says the Spokane County Health District’s chemical and physical hazards adviser, “but they are all dumb asses.” To prove his point, LaScoula takes me to […]
Posted inMay 8, 2000: After the fall
Why I ride the bus
Only one other passenger waits to catch the 6:47 a.m. commuter bus from Pullman to Moscow, Idaho. She is pleasant looking, well dressed, with Walkman headphones snaking up out of her sweater. Because I ride this bus regularly, I’ve learned some details of this woman’s life. Whitney Houston is her favorite singer. The woman has […]
Posted inSeptember 13, 1999: Troubled Oasis
Save the Earth! (Drop dead)
I have a plan to get us out of this environmental mess we’re in. But first I’ll need some volunteers. I’m looking for anyone who thinks there are too many of us, that our consumptive tendencies are squeezing the life out of this planet and that our very presence is a cancer. Environmentalists and zero […]
Posted inAugust 16, 1999: Standing up for the underdog
An ugly message marches down an Idaho street
COEUR D’ALENE, Idaho – The teenage kid standing next to me at the start of the July 10 Aryan Nations parade here had worked hard on his anti-Nazi sign. Using a variety of colors, he had painstakingly drawn the leader of the north Idaho neo-Nazis – Richard Butler – having, let’s say, non-missionary intercourse with […]
Posted inJuly 5, 1999: The new faces of the West
Out of the fields: South Idaho’s Hispanics create acommunity
Note: a sidebar article, “Inspired by Cesar Chavez,” accompanies this feature story. “We did not cross the border, the border crossed us.” –Erasmo Gamboa CALDWELL, Idaho – The front room of Manuel Garcia’s tiny apartment at the Farmway Village labor camp resembles a flea-market booth. Stacked from floor to ceiling are toys, dolls, blankets, model […]
Posted inJuly 5, 1999: The new faces of the West
Inspired by Cesar Chavez
Note: This article is a sidebar to one of this issue’s feature stories. Maria Gonzales Mabbutt nurses her four-month-old daughter Marisa in her Canyon County home while she tells her story. She is 43 and grew up as many Hispanics in her generation did: migrating. From the Rio Grande Valley town of Elsa, Texas, Mabbutt […]
Posted inMay 10, 1999: My beautiful ranchette
Enough nature writing already!
In a column by Anne Lamott in the online magazine “Salon,” she made the following proposal: “Rather than make perfectly good writers crank out new books every few years because they need income and are otherwise unemployable, what if we gave them subsidies not to write any more books, like they give to tobacco growers?” […]
Posted inMay 10, 1999: My beautiful ranchette
Why I’m a poor writer
For almost a month now I’ve been trying to collect $55 that a national environmental magazine owes me for a 400-word book review. That’s two 20s, a 10, and a five. Three polite e-mails have yielded the following one response: “Thanks for reminding me. I’ll look into it.” This proves my first rule about free-lance […]
Posted inNovember 23, 1998: A patchwork peace unravels
It’s a good day to be indigenous
From this moment on kindly refer to my family as “indigenous.” Or, if you prefer, “First Peoples.” With the discovery of what could be my long-lost European relative – Kennewick Man – it’s time to respect my elders. Kennewick Man, found in 1996 on the banks of the Columbia River near the town of the […]
Posted inSeptember 28, 1998: A senator for the New West in the race of his life
God to Helen: ‘Do I know you?’
The fall of 1998 will undoubtedly go down in history as a record year for confessions of infidelity – followed by professions of contrition – from politicians. The latest comes from Idaho Rep. Helen Chenoweth, the ultra-conservative Republican, who recently admitted to a six-year affair with a married, former business partner. The Idaho Statesman decided […]
Posted inMarch 16, 1998: Olympic onslaught: Salt Lake City braces for the winter games
Idaho stubbornly remains what America used to be
In Coeur d’Alene, Aryan Nations’ leader Richard “I hate you” Butler and his merry band of racists make plans for a “One Hundred Man March” through the city, while the mayor wrings his hands and wonders what he should do. Kootenai County commissioners declare the county an English-only territory, then wonder why its citizens object. […]
Posted inFebruary 2, 1998: Looking at dams in a new way
Heart of Home: People, Wildlife, Place
For many years I was a vegetarian, an avid anti-hunter, who cursed the arrival of the orange-clad mob in the fall that violated everything that was pure and gentle. I was cheered on by many writers, including Henry David Thoreau and John Muir, who urged a gentle alliance with nature, not a violent blood sport. […]
Posted inSeptember 18, 1995: The West's fisheries spin out of control
Don’t worry: Have a Kokopelli day
“It’s a Kokopelli kind of day,” a Coldwater Creek catalog announced in a T-shirt ad. “Spirit lifting, mischief-making Kokopelli is here to remind you not to take life so seriously …” No thanks. I’ll pass on buying the “buffalo on an eco-friendly tee,” the Comanche bow and arrow, the Tapiz range belt, or the petroglyph […]
Posted inJune 12, 1995: The Southwest's last real river: Will it flow on?
Learning the trick of quiet
Some 50 years ago a bachelor farmer paid tribute to his mother by giving land to Idaho in her name. The park, named for her – Mary Minerva McCroskey State Park – is only 4,400 acres balanced on a narrow ridge called Skyline Drive. No one would ever mistake it for wilderness. Logging clear-cuts border […]
Posted inJune 13, 1994: A doomed species?
Low-tech ants give a high-tech Idaho lab fits
It’s nature’s equivalent of David versus Goliath. In this instance David happens to be 7 mm long and Goliath is the U.S. Department of Energy and the scientific community. Their battleground is the Idaho National Engineering Laboratory (INEL) in southern Idaho where harvester ants are stymieing waste disposal efforts by doing what ants do best […]