Judy Powell says she didn’t think twice about walking onto the plane at Los Angeles International Airport with a doll that she’d bought in Las Vegas for her grandson. Toenail clippers may get taken away and destroyed, she assumed, but never a child’s toy some 12 inches high. Wrong assumption. The doll was GI Joe, […]
Communities
Posted inOctober 28, 2002: Shadow Creatures
Small-town determination at 25 percent off
POWELL, Wyo. – To people just passing through this town of 5,500 people, the department store on the main street, near the post office and True Value Hardware, must seem painfully ordinary. Inside, customers browse displays of clothing, shoes and jewelry, picking out what they want to buy. But there’s a lot more to Powell […]
Posted inWotr
Retiring to work
Every day I’d leave high school about noon, take the subway to 23rd Street, run down to the basement cafeteria for a nutritious company meal, and then sort and deliver mail. My favorite route was the 40th to 30th floors, up there with the higher-flying Manhattan pigeons. The job was my transition to the adult […]
Posted inWotr
Peace of mind is a social contract
When it came time for me to buy a house, I purposely chose the Old Town neighborhood in Pocatello, Idaho, where I live and work. The neighborhood can be described as low-to-moderate income housing with many homes built as long as a century ago. I love the eclectic atmosphere of lived-in houses, each one individually […]
Posted inOctober 14, 2002: Democrats kick back: The politics of growth
What’s in a name? Just ask Dwayne or Trucklene
I was at a country-and-western dance bar. I felt a tap on my shoulder. “Y’all wanna dance?” My suitor was a short man whose eyes failed to focus. His aftershave was a heady mixture of Jack Daniels and Old Spice. He wore his cowboy hat absurdly high, as if he were smuggling eggs under it. […]
Posted inOctober 14, 2002: Democrats kick back: The politics of growth
Conversation with a cowboy conservationist
Kick a sagebrush and you’ll find one jackrabbit and two cowboy poets, or so the saying goes nowadays. In the last 20 years, the rhymes that were once shared around a campfire under a lonesome moon have attracted a national spotlight. There are anthologies of cowboy poetry, coffeehouse performances, and an annual Cowboy Poetry Gathering […]
Posted inOctober 14, 2002: Democrats kick back: The politics of growth
Heard Around the West
Utah has been making financial news, though the news is dismal. According to a report from the American Bankruptcy Institute, a resident of Utah is more likely to go bankrupt than a resident of any other state. About one out of every 35 Utah households filed for bankruptcy last year, says The Associated Press, while […]
Posted inSeptember 30, 2002: Delta Blues
A new planning tool takes flight
Have you ever endured an incredibly boring planning meeting at Town Hall? Some developer, standing before a blizzard of maps and charts, drones on about how his subdivision will fit seamlessly into your community. You know that the size and location of the project will forever mar the incredible view over the river to the […]
Posted inSeptember 30, 2002: Delta Blues
Idaho seeks a reputation – and a reality – free of hate
Nothing irritates us more in Idaho than our reputation as a haven for neo-Nazis. Our tolerance of hate-mongers in the past brought us this sorry legacy. These days, we can make a case that Idaho has become a place that stands up for human rights. That case was strengthened this summer, when Boise residents dedicated […]
Posted inSeptember 30, 2002: Delta Blues
Heard Around the West
A reader swears he’s seen this bumper sticker: “Support gun control or I’ll kill you.” At the recent sheepdog trials in Meeker, Colo., top-selling signs for the rears of vehicles included: “My border collie is smarter than your honor student,” and “If it’s not a border collie, it’s just a dog.” But for the first […]
Posted inSeptember 30, 2002: Delta Blues
This land holds a story the church won’t tell
MARTIN’S COVE, Wyo. – As politicians in Congress, interest groups and Mormon bishops battle in the far distance to decide the fate of this place, a sad wind ruffles the tall grass and sagebrush here. It’s sad for those who know the story. In this sandy cove nestled amid the rocky hills overlooking the Sweetwater […]
Posted inSeptember 16, 2002: The Royal Squeeze
Toxic fish taint tribal diet
Seafaring salmon are struggling against extinction, but they might be safer than some of their neighbors in the Columbia River. During a recent study, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission found that Columbia River fish – especially species like mountain whitefish and white sturgeon, which spend their entire lives in […]
Posted inSeptember 16, 2002: The Royal Squeeze
Museum collections hit the roof
‘Curation crisis’ could stall construction projects on public lands
Posted inSeptember 16, 2002: The Royal Squeeze
Oh, the things you see
Oh, the things you see when the water drops. Right in front of the Nature Center in Pueblo, Colo., ancient cars lurked semi-submerged and jutting up from the Arkansas River, reports the Rocky Mountain News. Thanks to record low flows, a dozen volunteers were able to yank out a 1950s-era Cadillac convertible and a Depression-era […]
Posted inSeptember 16, 2002: The Royal Squeeze
Working among the West’s newcomers
It’s well past midnight on the first night of my new job, and I’m looking out the window of a Ford van heading north on I-25, radio tuned to Radio Romantica, the undisputed slicked-back pompadour of Denver radio stations. We speed through the city and sprawl of the Front Range in these wee hours, just […]
Posted inSeptember 2, 2002: Backlash
Telling it on the mountain
The mountains, for many of us, are a source of inspiration, adventure, work and play. But for a lot of the world, mountain life means extreme poverty and a rapidly declining quality of life. A disproportionately high number of the world’s hungry and chronically malnourished people live in mountain regions. The United Nations has declared […]
Posted inSeptember 2, 2002: Backlash
No shoes, no problem
With bats in the attic, skunks and marmots under the floor, deer mice in the corners and cluster flies throughout the house, Kathleen Meyer may want to sleep on the deck, but at least she no longer has to shit in the woods. In Barefoot Hearted: A Wild Life Among Wildlife, Meyer, author of the […]
Posted inSeptember 2, 2002: Backlash
The fission of a New Mexican nuclear family
In this richly layered novel, author Bradford Morrow peels back the geography of New Mexico to reveal its unforgiving core of rock and scree. The Land of Enchantment is also a landscape haunted by nuclear testing during the 1950s, and it is within this rough physical and emotional terrain that Morrow sets his tale about […]
Posted inSeptember 2, 2002: Backlash
Heard Around the West
Ten people now have what you might consider a mini-me ranch in Wyoming, thanks to eBay, the on-line auction house. They each bid $25 on July 15 to crowd onto one square foot of land on the Gauthier Ranch near Rawlins. The toehold on what the owner calls a “micro-acre” includes hunting privileges. Thousands of […]
Posted inAugust 19, 2002: The Great Western Apocalypse
Chasing hope amid the hedonists
Odonata was her name, the first woman I met at Burning Man. “Odonata …” I fumbled aloud. “Is that Norwegian?’” NO-wegian, brother. It was her playa name. Odonata, the Latin word that orders insects such as dragonflies. The woman Odonata was deep in discussion about totemic traits as I walked up. The dragonfly totem, she […]