The catacombs of ancient Rome served as houses of worship for Jews and Christians. In the early 1800s, the sewers of Paris yielded gold, jewels and relics of the revolution. Closer to home, thousands of people lived in the subway and train tunnels of New York City in the 1980s and ‘90s. Beneath the neon, […]
Writers on the Range
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A Navajo journalist makes it the hard way
On May 11, after much struggle and sacrifice, I received a master’s degree in English. What that tells me is that if I could run a startup magazine on a zero budget, graduate with distinction and win some journalism awards from a national journalism association along the way, then others can do it, too. But […]
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Water does move uphill toward money
Now that I’m out of college, I thought it was time to ask my elders for advice about investing in the stock market. They must have seen how confused I looked, because a week later, an investment letter arrived that promised to answer all my questions, and, incidentally, make me rich, fast. The letter featured […]
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When is a barred owl a red herring?
The draft recovery plan identifies competition from the barred owl, which is not native to the Pacific Northwest, as the primary threat facing the northern spotted owl. – U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, April 26, 2007. That’s right, I’m a barred owl. My wife tells me to keep quiet, keep my beak clean, try to […]
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A cowboy girl still has the power to shock
When Caroline Lockhart wrote a novel about a notorious rustler in 1911, it ended with him thrown into a pit of rattlesnakes. Decades later, she encountered a rustler in real life and decided to have a hit man bump him off. Her contract on the life of the rustler is proving the most controversial part […]
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Who gets to produce electricity is galvanizing the West
Plans are on the drawing table for another wave of coal-fired power plants across the West. But unlike 25 to 30 years ago, during the last binge in building power plants, this time there is opposition from a critical source — local ratepayers. This opposition should not be over-stated. In most areas, the electrical co-ops […]
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When mud-boggers rip up the land, penalize them
Flashing red and blue lights sent me a strong message: I was busted. I’d just passed a truck as I drove into a small, southwestern Oregon town and neglected to slow down to 30 mph. I got a ticket. Deterrents work, yet there are places where deterrents don’t reach, and drivers of all-terrain vehicles know […]
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Open minds and free expression – what a rare treat!
I was nervous. Students don’t understand that teachers are often as anxious as they are the first time a class meets. It had been more than 20 years since I’d taught in a college classroom. I felt rusty and insecure. My biggest fear? That I’d face a group of freshmen with their arms crossed and […]
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Don’t book my adventure, please
Not long ago, I Googled my old hometown, Moab, along with the word “adventure,” and found over 500,000 links. Apparently there are adventures enough to be found in Moab to keep tourists entertained and spending their money until the next millennium. Just to mention a handful, I found the Moab Adventure Center, Moab Adventure Xstream, […]
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A hope for Father’s Day from a divorced father
I will celebrate this Father’s Day by cashing in what’s left of my retirement account so that I can — once again — go to court to request more time with my kids. My almost 10-year status as a non-custodial parent has helped me become accustomed to the almost insurmountable odds and legal fees that […]
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Extreme commuters are maybe even you and me
This spring was a kind of religious experience. A couple of hot days in May, followed by an entire Memorial Day weekend of rain. On a hike, we looked over rolling green foothills and were moved to sing “Danny Boy” melodramatically, into the fierce wind. The lilacs this year were a purple-white fireworks show, and […]
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Going wild in the city
A skunk, red-tailed hawk, rabbits, squirrels, robins — all have dined in my city yard, within sight of Wyoming’s Capitol dome. But when we moved to this corner of a busy one-way street in Cheyenne, Wyo., 15 years ago, the yard was a mess. The parkways, those supposedly green spaces between the street and sidewalk, […]
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The clock is ticking
Last month, we both received the Environmental Protection Agency’s Climate Protection Award. The EPA awards are meant to encourage individuals and institutions leading in the fight against global warming, which has emerged as the greatest threat to planetary security that we face. Selected by an international panel of judges, our fellow awardees included the Rev. […]
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Paint it red and call it fine Western dining
Here in the Western lands, there is said to be a cuisine called Tex-Mex, though some claim that Rocky Mountain oysters is the true Western soul food. Personally, I don’t think a bull’s scrotum is going to appear on the great tables of the world. I have searched for our authentic style and think I […]
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Rhubarb: It tastes like spring
One cup flour. Spring tulips splashed across yards as I morphed into an alley-cruising backyard spy, desperate to find a rhubarb patch. I’d all but given up when I spied a plot of the familiar elephant ear leaves. Three-quarter cup uncooked oatmeal (not instant.) Ding-dong. A skinny boomer in shorts answered the door, as I […]
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Bring on the immigrants
Vanishing towns of the Great Plains and Midwest ought to open a welcoming door for immigrants.
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Epiphanies on the range
They are polite, eager, inquisitive. I can’t decide if they make me feel 20 years younger or exhausted. Every teacher should be so lucky. I’m driving around the West with 21 students from Whitman College in Washington, where I teach, and we’ve talked to ranchers and environmentalists, looked at forests that have been logged and […]
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Global climate change? Let’s go shopping
Out of nowhere, it almost seems, everyone is talking about global warming. Presidential candidates, corporate moguls, media pundits — the news is saturated with the latest climate-change buzzwords. My current favorite is “carbon footprint,” which made me wonder what I’d stepped in….what we’ve all stepped in. It’s a lot messier and more insidious than you […]
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Fees have become a public-lands shakedown
Scarcely anyone objected in 1996, when Congress authorized the Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, National Park Service and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to charge the public new or increased fees for accessing its own land to fish, hunt, boat, drive, park, camp or walk. After all, it was going to be an experiment […]
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Knee-jerking in western Colorado
In 1917, during the height of anti-German propaganda in this country, the essayist H.L. Mencken wrote a history of the bathtub. He said President Millard Fillmore had installed the first bathtub in the White House — a brave act given that medical professionals believed bathtubs to be “certain inviters of phthisic, rheumatic fevers, inflammation of […]