tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-43201702213999178792024-03-05T07:32:45.426-05:00Ted Landphair's AmericaThis is a far-ranging, highly personal exploration of American life by a veteran Voice of America reporter and essayist. Ted will focus on some of the thousands of places he has visited and written about as an international broadcaster and author of more than 50 photographic "coffee table" books. They feature the work of his wife, renowned photographer Carol M. Highsmith, whose photos will also appear here. Ted welcomes feedback, questions, and suggested “destinations.”Ted Landphairhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18142247535149425183noreply@blogger.comBlogger82125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4320170221399917879.post-73851336685433711772010-06-30T10:32:00.003-04:002010-06-30T12:33:11.219-04:00Boroughing InLast time was the easy part. I’d been wanting to write about New York City, and I focused on the core of the Big Apple — Manhattan Island, whose power, glamour, and jaw-dropping scale form our image of the city as a whole.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgM3J9jLVvFBXN1_NB0i_uPNa3bJKDRkRBHPNMMYPE5xLZFm3_KyxA0DMw_UA7vhjjOmtEcegWF8fIeMCDIAXWvlpImTgev7jwmSr-u-wgCnswYEEfLK6XKuz5XxoAL_CAyP-_3jxSs7JM/s1600/01+yankee+stadium.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUR8Rjuvi9SqFvqEJsnlYaj9Q5ixclPwOtTAMoCKAWviXt4CHmoYJasdXRjJzDNdD87f8_oF8TdR_KW4qlIaqc5pYQekPgPF_2g5PcrSeVA7Ip9OUcC3iw_RpouBhunBtT7mPFonEiuUc/s320/webready-01+yankee+stadium+copy.jpg" /></a></div>But there are four other boroughs, or administrative divisions, including one that was once every bit as powerful and prestigious as Manhattan. And except for following the New York Yankees baseball team in the Bronx or the New York Mets in Queens — or reliving the glory days of the Brooklyn Dodgers team that split for Los Angeles in 1958 — most Americans don’t give them much thought. <br />
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I’d wager that 7 out of 10 of us couldn’t even name the fifth borough, not mentioned above. Nor could they tell us much about it, even though close to half a million people live there. That puts this mystery borough ahead of entire big cities such as Cleveland, Ohio; Kansas City, Missouri; and Miami, Florida, in population.<br />
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One hint: To a visitor it seems as if as many seagulls as people live in this place. More later.<br />
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In 1898, when Manhattan Island seemed full to capacity before cities knew how to grow up as well as outward, New York City planners simply annexed their neighbors and created five boroughs, instantly doubling the population and tripling the city’s size.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTLrFb6m29vuKLVwA4axkhnp7pimXIUIJ7Vuyh0uxMVZvuvr7qsy8iM1msjQhB0B5EtjUbOsvZXHJDV2zQbCsCn_mdCqZSDZAgRKKM5fCDWAvEfx7DHKQlcf2n8PHVlJiMx01Lmi9BdIA/s1600/02+brooklyn+currier+and+ives+1879.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSRIx33ZJGj_tPzV8Dhh7MdR4dqQ9fUlKvi8iLMTarkGwc-UKwjYW-LOroIMVYBicH5LLBkw8T71dEWZhykYzCU8EV6zdGczpLRr1FNdo3SIuPTVrymmxB9YJE-skEjM3ltTTEvSk3hBE/s320/webready-02+brooklyn+currier+and+ives+1879+copy.jpg" /></a></div>Not everyone submitted meekly. Brooklyn, a proud, independent city of 850,000 people, had been connected to Manhattan, but only via the world’s longest suspension bridge — <i>its</i> bridge, the Brooklyn Bridge — and residents were starkly divided over the referendum to create a Greater New York. Its business leaders favored the idea on the myopic assumption that Brooklyn, with its bustling shipyards, would dominate the giant new city.<br />
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After all, at that point Brooklyn was the nation’s fourth-largest city, behind only Philadelphia, Chicago, and the leaner New York. Even <a href="http://www.sonnets.org/lazarus.htm">Emma Lazarus</a>’s fabled poem, “The Colossus” — “Give me your tired, your poor/ Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free” — chiseled on a tablet at the Statue of Liberty, speaks of “twin cities,” of which Brooklyn was one.<br />
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But to Brooklyn’s dismay, it was Manhattan where money and power would concentrate. Brooklyn receded into a mostly residential, and resentful, satellite of "The City."<br />
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Queens's westernmost villages, just past Brooklyn on Long Island, were already Manhattan’s vegetable garden. Foreseeing improved roads and city services, they agreed to annexation. <br />
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But the villages in the middle of the island declined the invitation to unite with the big brute of a city. In 1899 they formed their own county, Nassau, and went their own way. Ritzy Suffolk County, even farther east on the island, never had to deal with all this citifying.<br />
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North of Manhattan on the mainland, much of the Bronx had already been gobbled up by New York City. When the remainder was asked whether it, too, wanted to join in the fun of building a super city, its residents said no. <br />
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But the whole of the Bronx was annexed anyway. Not sure how that got done.<br />
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The folks on Staten Island — aha! the mystery fifth borough is revealed — succumbed quietly to annexation. <br />
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Let’s take New York City's four add-on boroughs one by one:<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjieIT_-K2Xa9H6rsq_F63ViaZSQ5C1B31ZFQIYiPuQXfSsYWRSF5RX7cXB_x7d9VdEduHkjgm-DDcgSaF16L5CxUlnJEIH2UXIx3_PnKV5ma47bYD-Fwpm7h0DaU6van0sJqlUpPzmynI/s1600/03+brooklyn+%27circle%27+of+fine+homes.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhk1hvL4yHaak61V4NkK8-4enOTClfKzY2AmeXaGIHV1muLZO_twbAgzBC5tnRBBXgMUurZ0dXb0bk1zBqDHb7tpL26KrfJ9gLeB2fyVQH70IgGjc2g_1DNGSiiCBHMO7VOMyVVM3MaEI8/s320/webready-03+brooklyn+%27circle%27+of+fine+homes+copy.jpg" /></a></div>Brooklyn is a far different place from congested Manhattan, for sure. But not an inferior one by any means. In a <i>New Yorker</i> magazine essay in July 1996, Kennedy Fraser wrote, “Roses smell sweeter in Brooklyn [and] even the birds sound innocent, like youths from the old neighborhood singing a cappella.” Brooklyn is New York’s most nostalgic borough, reminiscing to this day about “dem Bums.” They were the aforementioned Dodgers — named for the nimble “trolley dodger” baseball fans who wove their way past Flatbush streetcars to the stadium, Ebbets Field. <br />
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Flatbush is one of many colorfully titled Brooklyn neighborhoods. Gravesend, Bath Beach, and DUMBO — an acronym for “Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass” — are others. How’d you like to live in DUMBO? <br />
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Like the other boroughs, <i>Breuckelen</i> was chartered in 1646 as a place for the Dutch to build country manor homes and vegetable farms. Ferry service to Manhattan was spotty until <a href="http://www.hrmm.org/steamboats/fulton.html">Robert Fulton</a> demonstrated his new steamboat in 1807. Brooklyn’s own city center grew on high ground, surrounded by stately <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brownstone">brownstone</a> row houses and apartment buildings.<br />
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Brooklyn was inundated by immigrants, beginning with Irish and Germans in the 1830s. It was poor Irish — already speaking English with a brogue and trying to cope with American idioms mixed with remnants of Dutch — who first developed the much-mocked “Brooklyn accent.” Hollywood characters like the “Bowery Boys” shamelessly exaggerated it: “Youse meet me at Toity-toid and Toid Av’nue.”<br />
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So fiercely did Brooklyn trumpet its self-sufficiency, even after it lost its independence, that other New Yorkers grumbled about the bristling “Brooklyn attitude.” For decades, its docks and marine terminals were more than a match for Manhattan’s. The historic U.S. Civil War ironclad warship <i>Monitor</i> had been built and launched there in 1862. And if not a landmark, Floyd Bennett Field, the modest airfield that juts out into Jamaica Bay, should be on any trivia-lover’s tour. It was there in 1938 that <a href="http://www.centennialofflight.gov/essay/Explorers_Record_Setters_and_Daredevils/corrigan/EX16.htm">Douglas “Wrong Way” Corrigan</a> took off on a westward flight for California and ended up, 28 days later, in Ireland.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9dvzpg5I7kmXeTAPZA8c1o0p7FawgWACFgZbh0UINDBlnkShyL_oP-Wcm3_rWEvU9fBf_wujhd2oEGU37NiXIdhvKYuK6c4F_sJ0q9aVbzhWuKsdCr0e10-Sh4_XGj4hIZbWMGVAEGPg/s1600/04+floral+steps,+brooklyn%27s+prospect+park,+1904.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhOfP8LZ28tsZgnvoSBx2WmXCVlyWh1KOH5cqwBr_dSDYVyv7-5pUGgQWk3vsCNXcA21rw-EhAsIx3StcO9De13C1ZSP8_YLvXiqERTsmzoDBbLog6gmCvhflFn3VZMWrsjezkXE9NJtE/s320/webready-04+floral+steps,+brooklyn%27s+prospect+park,+1904.jpg" /></a></div>Brooklyn has its own spectacular, 213-hectare (526-acre) green space, Prospect Park, designed by the same men who created Manhattan’s treasured Central Park. Revered as the “City of Churches,” Brooklyn offers a full day’s tour of impressive houses of worship.<br />
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The Brooklyn Academy of Music is the oldest continuously active performing-arts center in the nation.<br />
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The Brooklyn Botanic Garden has an unusual, if not unique, Garden of Fragrance especially for the visually impaired. And an abandoned subway station in Brooklyn was chosen as the city’s transit museum.<br />
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I’ve spent many days in Brooklyn — vicariously — at Coney Island. Along with Atlantic City in New Jersey, Coney Island (actually a peninsula) provided the setting for hundreds of idyllic picture postcards in the early 20th Century, when family fun at the shore was considered exotic.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizsI6goX_XzGWuT4HJJJWCg-TBqmMxVKBC_7LTYrBF4rBqKP7bf1Rp_1xGE_-K_yx5SUAd8UhMEaWHmhEO49J7nTRKwWSeiDEMUC3b_qTHoQwI9aD1lCaNwY1h2cIDo-Mqk3AglELB0mc/s1600/05+coney+island+beach+on+a+hot+day.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDhlxymAKW5tSd88bsvHXebrII_q7V2bpTNFMF6gs3gvw5ciyZzh9HTndEEd8hviwP-_JlP7ChaQZRA47tA9u-3c4F9RbF5cJGy6TWX48gHFX-SViRTlKwzQ_hS42hRTgb15yUojdQh4E/s320/webready-05+coney+island+beach+on+a+hot+day.jpg" /></a></div>People wrote “Wish you were here” to their loved ones and friends from the Luna Park amusement rides, Surf Avenue game arcade, and Dreamland Tower and lagoon at Coney Island.<br />
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And despite the common tale that the Statue of Liberty was the first sight beheld by New York-bound immigrants to the New World, it was actually a huge elephant. Not a real one or a big model. The Elephant Hotel (and brothel) at Coney Island was built in the shape of a pachyderm.<br />
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The Bronx got its unusual name from the area’s first settler, Danish immigrant Jonas Bronck, or more particularly, the Broncks’ family farm. With the building of King’s Bridge over the Harlem River around 1700, the Bronx became New York’s mainland connection. Farm-fresh Bronx produce soon found its way onto Manhattan Island, as did fresh water, piped in from clear springs. Until the 20th Century, the Bronx remained a land of farms, manor homes, and modest factories — including a giant snuff mill.<br />
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The Bronx was one of the first parts of New York to succumb to rampant subdivision and apartment construction that would lead to an oversaturation of low-income housing. The sad cycle of decay and abandonment followed, and wealthy landowners sold off their Bronx estates in favor of places in the “real” country, farther from the city in Westchester County.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTl7ALquJI2nVzgvPNBrz-w7mkhu3cNKMK_ozVzOV25TjGSnFswSR5e9T-pXgvYJ4k9WysIiR0evS0-hTq9DL3nAP6BKLBobnfEf3evygJDhxKqWX4vcb4MPHbovwCDkXZyawbEihh7Kw/s1600/06+bronx+mill+1900.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLGs1wKgSKYooeO2rJqodtfaAIzKwxbSX9yTfzO-v87KElLDJouDbfERHUVjIXSDxG0Fq_KQL7oK2UveA0ZUyWKUELVJw6k5o_3F5df5oyt8K9PIWVklVcGqo6D60pwM8cGWfBRwt3yLc/s320/webready-6+copy.jpg" /></a></div>Years later in the 1970s, when the people who took their place themselves moved farther out, to Westchester or the New Jersey suburbs, whole Bronx neighborhoods were left to the predations of vandals and drug dealers. Even the Bronx’s big courthouse was moved to safer ground, as was the original borough hall. New York University moved out of its Bronx campus entirely.<br />
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But the mighty New York Yankees’ baseball team — the “Bronx Bombers” — remained and triumphed. They have played in the “world” championship series 40 times since 1927, winning 27 titles, including last season’s.<br />
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Borrowing Jerome Kern’s song lyrics from “New York, New York” that “the Bronx is up and the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battery_Park">Battery</a>’s down,” the Bronx is “up” again, and not just geographically. Much of the blight is gone, and new city and private colleges have created a steady employment base. The <a href="http://grandconcourse100.org/brief/history">Grand Concourse</a>, a string of 1930s Art Deco residential buildings, has been renovated. And two New York cultural fixtures — the Bronx Zoo and the New York Botanical Garden — are thriving.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRNVsS9IPuE5BhLY_k4jr14yggoZkViCwzweW6NKPNx4IZTX90ENDL1jphGdlS9XBxKZz5AeWg-5hIhbh795zkYSGtimdPjClBGYb7pJUPz5wtPnnw5r2Dwqt989X3adVo_Z6bY6EUIuU/s1600/07+queens,+rockaway+%27bungalow+colony%27+1940.bmp" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPRIWsp8K8iTGLzREcjBKsqYgBTCg_0qQeS38SAqT5Jhw5lSjypXmbOcX3EhAIXNdb-dwq_45hgsAOlbHQG3Ah49tRIGenA45gikVSgg0ShCw0JT2gUZRLm7RFFYQ30z922GyN7I5AB9M/s320/webready-7-2.jpg" /></a></div>In Queens, the largest and most residential borough with more than 175,000 single-family homes, neighborhood pride has lingered through decades of rapid urbanization. Places like Flushing, Floral Park, and Long Island City have clung to their separate identities.<br />
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Flushing, by the way, did not get its name from some Duke of Flushing or a primitive commode. It’s a rough English translation of the Dutch word for “flowing waters,” presumably from a pretty Long Island stream. <br />
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One of the most fascinating Queens neighborhoods is Steinway — once a company town built by German immigrant Wilhelm Steinweg, who Americanized his name after his brilliance at building pianos was affirmed. Some of Steinway’s row houses are still in use, and the company continues to craft pianos at a factory in another part of Queens.<br />
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Many Queens neighborhoods are 20th-Century creations, their modest homes built to satisfy the demands of returning veterans of world wars I and II. Even after the last farmers departed for Nassau and Suffolk counties, farther out Long Island, the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation retained a 19-hectare (47-acre) vegetable farm. Its barnyard and fields are open to visitors, including amazed inner-city schoolchildren.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj081-QWZx8bi2AeI9YUIiOC-qv7MFj8n2sSvwWbIj5_OSmjKxIuu4l8SH6E6MuEVM0uqlucnOfOiSwOgG1JialNyT59vZdx-UTEQrAM6Sm3RZRCWtBz0RZSjlAiNdOmJHcHpQQFCN0MJs/s1600/08+unisphere.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj69SfizAm6dhYVxjGhwfxeAmXQylBHVStwLaSFOAA4HK46BzaCkCI8N4H8eO0LcgLLdVei9seMyGnqaY5C-LBa5JVLY8M4eo4Hy12f9iqP-o0yT-0Ni57qZHwSD2KT7jL5MPL93-XQ68c/s320/webready-08+unisphere.jpg" /></a></div>Queens’s population explosion was stoked by two worlds’ fairs held in Corona Park in Flushing Meadows in 1939-40 and 1964-65. The first was organized around the Trylon, a huge conical column, and the Perisphere, a giant globe. The star attractions in 1939, though, were the first public demonstrations of television in the fair’s “World of Tomorrow.”<br />
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The centerpiece of the ’64 fair was the “Unisphere,” a 43-meter-high structure that represented “Peace Through Understanding.” It still stands, as does a wave-shaped pavilion that today houses the New York Hall of Science, a hands-on science and technology museum.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwpF5t3sByEEYSYUdkOO18z73tJkrhqdHoRnHGXbV6iIblmwwJCUoNf471nABc6YvlfPIsZVJr4eyZYzgv4Vk8oqGe_9W4F6IHXmUaz-jJN7QPQjB94fIhpZXC-YD8gy5mZuADuDBDYsw/s1600/09+Panorama.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_ADG4BJU3weq8alGL0_BrOxkD0CAPgPl3fe32BXp2QgMUkZycFUhnRsd9wwPP6vjgc6y8siuNvZOnzaxcYib1tJy5CyyZa4pVRoaaYpfRaPAKIRUyvDak8fu6CqHDaAvBzLisnCxoVPs/s320/webready-09+Panorama.jpg" /></a></div>A truly remarkable remnant of the 1964-65 fair is the Panorama of the City of New York, the world’s largest architectural model, which fills a spacious room at the Queens Museum of Art. It depicts — now ponder this for a moment — 895,000 individual miniature structures at the scale of one inch to one hundred feet (about 2.5 centimeters to 30 meters). Not just familiar bridges and skyscrapers, but also smaller office and apartment buildings and even houses <i>in their exact locations in all five boroughs.</i><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdJGdcb1rqcAKgmy9sye2zugA19NxLksdamDAwzqmiHfwIUVr3ON0CSHHpilqC51qKMy3VmcqpsSafxoHk50RrEjj_g3QYGIyDRwU5R4OXh90Ud7KFoUZC33-kSDkRecBF_SAlj9U5uzs/s1600/10+twa+terminal.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtNwjt94WmjOOJSMVC-6KlOvGL-_DiRb_G6xpfgyuvmNlHG9g4y-4iGEBLTB2E3FtaWzY214Ynxpgxe_xXIHAuNPE-HRBe-JI001DoyDmIBl4pQNt4_7LnxP1OqqVioYIIjjiQgOFTIXk/s320/webready-10+twa+terminal.jpg" /></a><br />
Not really Queens tourist attractions, but receiving plenty of visitors each year, are New York City’s two airports — John F. Kennedy International and the much older La Guardia. I’m not counting the mammoth, newer Newark International Airport over in “Jersey.” LaGuardia dates to 1939. “JFK,” which opened gradually to minimal air traffic in the 1940s, is noted for its futuristic terminals, including the Trans World Airlines hub, designed by Eero Saarinen, the Finnish-American who also designed the towering Gateway Arch in St. Louis, Missouri; and “Black Rock,” the headquarters building of CBS TV and radio in downtown Manhattan.<br />
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Nowhere in New York City has the impact of a new tunnel, bridge, or expressway been as dramatic as in Staten Island. Through most of its history, hilly Staten Island, a mere 22 kilometers long and 13 kilometers wide, had been almost an afterthought. It was 37 years after the Dutch settled New Netherland — before they got a foothold on<i> Staaten Eylandt</i> in 1661 following repeated bloody battles with indigenous Lenape Indians. <br />
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The English who soon supplanted them called the place “Richmond” after a duke of the time. The name was changed back to Staten Island in 1976 because, or so the story goes, Borough President Bob Connon got tired of hearing the other borough presidents ask him, “How are things down South” — a not-especially-clever reference to Richmond, Virginia.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMri5xW313EVF6Yfvu2Dl8Hy0NCuRpsScptJqNmaNODFDFNWA2zNcWUg6DY1vd7UbPZlC1yBQkjOMp_qvlkb04m9rHHqIlT5WDOGczufVmO04R9hSODBMvGDNl3sqSbSx52QZAkJiGJVE/s1600/11+staten+island+ferry.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5b3Coh9CtNzKzv0X1h52d8lR1ECm36qUxs8BjEMUYrCAWyS_6FTTgt3r7UjGHaDVBZe4Ix-C6rWek-KqsCDFLYgVQD2O-r4JtU5lI69xZAjA36yUE5-upe2VdF-_19GHVZ-Ged66Xm2w/s320/webready-11+staten+island+ferry.jpg" /></a></div>Well into the 20th Century, Staten Island residents were islanders in temperament as well as fact, savoring their serenity at night and on weekends after ferry rides to and from work in Manhattn. They may have been tied to New York City officially and financially, but the only bridge led to New Jersey. There was plenty of open space around Staten Island’s 62 separate villages and seashore communities. Life was pleasant, safe, relatively undisturbed.<br />
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Then, in 1964, the city completed the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge, named for an Italian explorer who first sailed into New York Bay in 1524. The bridge connected the island to Brooklyn on Long Island, changing Staten Island forever. In the classic pattern of moving out and up, tens of thousands of Brooklynites (and others) moved in, seeking a piece of tranquilty. Over the next 20 years, the island’s population doubled, and resort-like Staten Island was soon awash in strip shopping malls and fast-food restaurants. Its winding roads were overwhelmed by traffic.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzEaRcnjtQGJDy2V0kWQ9URqqWLBvLtyG0bG9E1-pE-vu46WPlT0e6dYv-J7Kk5p7qSOgCleKpmnDRz1VYsHegk-VOQU1rIjRQubwBT2R1b_M4uMsGsaeurTgiZqv1wscCLQ41CVFd6m4/s1600/12+dump+Staten+Island+Advance.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjY-cPzLhY-n6_PxTFxtEbiGCy3sWK9IYHyuryrITFA-ei5bkZ-5DMdU9yp4yKBMJ8HnjCOswGTG9zfWzja5zL3KHbgEhoUvWlmdBRbmv-1HhL_PdY2wYKyF4hLE2DkMzN2B5QZpBoJDds/s320/webready-12+dump+Staten+Island+Advance+copy.jpg" /></a></div>Remember those seagulls that I mentioned way up top? They became a Staten Island institution beginning in 1948, when the city first dumped its household refuse into a landfill in the island’s Fresh Kills wetlands. Its promise, and everyone’s expectation, was that the dumping would be short-term and the garbage pile limited in size. But 50 years later, the scows were still docking, the trucks were still rumbling, and the stench was still rising. The garbage mound grew taller than the Statue of Liberty and could be seen from space with the naked eye.<br />
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But the city has begun converting the big dump into a public park and wildlife sanctuary, Freshkills Park — destined to be three times the size of Central Park. <br />
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In every New York City borough, change has brought stresses and challenges. South Asian, Vietnamese, African-American, and Russian neighborhoods have sprung up where Greeks, Italians, European and Syrian Jews, and Anglo-Saxons once carved out enclaves. “We’re a social laboratory,” one Bronx resident told <i>American Way</i> magazine. Old-time New Yorkers worry still about immigrants taking away jobs, eating away at the tax base, abusing welfare. But by now they’re pretty much used to strange foods from multiple cultures, and sidewalks that are a babel of confusion. <br />
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For all the complaining, the brashness, the cynicism and gruffness, hard-driving, self-absorbed New York eventually accepted them all.<br />
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<div style="text-align: center;"><b>WILD WORDS</b><br />
<i><span style="font-size: x-small;">(These are a few of the words from this posting that you may not know. Each time, I'll tell you a little about them and also place them into a cumulative archive of "Ted's Wild Words" in the right-hand column of the home page. Just click on it there, and if there's another word in today's blog that you'd like me to explain, just ask!) </span></i><b><br />
</b></div><br />
<i><b>Babel.</b></i> A gathering or scene of noise or confusion. The name comes from the biblical Tower of Babel, which was built with the idea of reaching heaven. God foiled this plan by garbling the builders’ language so that they could not understand each other. <br />
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<i><b>Myopic. </b></i>Nearsighted, and often shortsighted, too. One who has a myopic view of things focuses only on what’s in front of him and does not consider the bigger picture.<br />
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<i><b>Pachyderm.</b></i> </b></i>Not just an elephant, but one of several kinds of large, hoofed animals that include rhinoceroses and hippopotami.<i><b><br />
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<i><b>Scow.</b></i> </b></i>A flat-bottomed boat or barge used to haul garbage or bulk freight.<i><b><br />
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<i><b>Snuff.</b></i> </b></i>A kind of smokeless tobacco made from ground tobacco leaves. It is “snuffed,” or snorted, through the nose. <i><b><br />
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<i><b>Vicarious.</b></i> </b></i>Indirect or second-hand. One can enjoy an exciting sports event vicariously on television or through a friend’s description, for instance, rather than in person.Ted Landphairhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18142247535149425183noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4320170221399917879.post-46363342733051394872010-06-21T15:10:00.000-04:002010-06-21T15:10:31.993-04:00The Ginormous Apple<object classid="clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000" height="24" id="single1" name="single1" width="300"><param name='movie' value='http://www.voanews.com/MediaAssets2/player/jw/player.swf'><param name='allowfullscreen' value='true'><param name='allowscriptaccess' value='always'><param name='wmode' value='transparent'><param name='flashvars' value='file=http://www.voanews.com/MediaAssets2/english/2010_06/Blog80.mp3&backcolor=7FA3BD&frontcolor=FFFFFF'><embed id='single2' name='single2' src='http://www.voanews.com/MediaAssets2/player/jw/player.swf' width='300' height='24' bgcolor='#ffffff' allowscriptaccess='always' allowfullscreen='true' flashvars='file=http://www.voanews.com/MediaAssets2/english/2010_06/Blog80.mp3&backcolor=7FA3BD&frontcolor=FFFFFF'/></object> <br />
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As the rocker Alice Cooper once put it, I’ve been “Big Apple dreamin’.” For me and anyone else who’s beguiled by New York City’s grandeur and charms, only a few months — a couple of years at most — can pass before the itch to visit again needs scratching. <br />
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You, too, may have put big, brash New York on your list of dream destinations. So I thought I’d tell you about the place in two blogs: Today, Manhattan, the little island that you’d think would sink from the sheer weight of its skyscrapers. Next time, the city’s four other boroughs, or administrative divisions, where 78 percent of its 8.3 million people live. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9rn1XHpHa4YFxsoDbalcwSRrj9-_voqxazWnx-NbQMmP8-d2jsNweIB84GNTEJYoGe1veCcXkRaBWoEo6TyHXtjNST1iDJpTK428fbKaKYpaKokyOr1Ps5YnrWIHCgQS-OgbpDlIT-0k/s1600/01+washington+oath+natlarchives.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3yEJ1dzu_Lts1M6PUjeEIt7-Tk1oNB2oKxIaPzNm-SzR-2Hw5DMqngP1c2zeINxIuoriwje9dET85bKIDK9Lghx4d3QLYL6l97fCUnok9CIXaZq8f3RdheMYck0mDhtpRC5NhB2cEmW8/s320/webready-01+washington+oath+natlarchives+copy.jpg" /></a></div>New York City wanted badly to be the capital of the new United States, and it was just that for five years beginning in January 1785. Four years later, George Washington took his oath of office as the nation’s new president on the balcony of the old city hall that had been reworked to house the federal government. But when Congress decided to create the entirely new city of Washington, D.C., as the nation’s capital in 1790, then moved operations to Philadelphia while Washington was made ready, Manhattan Island set about becoming the capital of the world instead. <br />
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In order to rival London and Paris and other great cities, New York eventually gobbled up Brooklyn, all of Staten Island, much of Queens County on Long Island, and a foothold on the mainland in a place called “the Bronx.” The annexation was completed in 1898 as part of a “Greater New York” initiative in which citizens of those pastoral boroughs were assured that they’d getter better streets, city services, and clout in the state capital of Albany by helping to form the nation’s first mega-city. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi99rbzLMgKpF3vDXky8DSkjDzm_GVcqs242VHQn2NH18gYWSfKoExNO7EuOa3ow1Xfx-qNwb2opQgLRFpLTy9p_OZuW4QWXQjYUs-u9A63C3cL6vCKu8Kw9H3kgGXwA7WA-CffQy4AKUA/s1600/02+ny+island.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjN_bcD80YMdliJml1gyteK6-AwjVs-jC6mS3G2Pr-yp1BJd7i2ytGXaAmn1SkG5O5AFkPTdxp-yfqTv61KYo88aWCzmdYElco6WVN6pplB5Pb_wI1Sr-zwiP9KZyQs6g63LjL4-Yt7TyA/s320/webready-02+ny+island.jpg" /></a></div>What instantly became the planet’s second-largest city (behind London) of 3.4 million people soon took on the world in manufacturing, finance, communications, and the arts. The other boroughs kicked in shipyards, factories, and the like. But most folks elsewhere, and some New Yorkers themselves, came to think of little Manhattan Island, just 20 kilometers long and 4 kilometers across at its widest point, as New York City. <br />
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No one can say with certainty where the name “Manhattan” came from. The branch of Algonquin Indians from whom the Dutch West India Company bought the forested island in 1626 for 60 guilders’ worth of baubles — about $1,000 at today’s value — had a word for “island of the hills” that sounded to the Dutch like “Manhattan.” <br />
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Or perhaps the name stuck after an unknown Englishman sailed up the Hudson River in 1607 and left behind a map that labeled the island “Manhattan.” He may have met those same Indians. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQlqaNC-sOMkmhKvNshukGudn1wICWv_4UY6rlnH3wRLBlgkWf_MNAM7ZYGUzuoFoUvdzII3ZvJRuyDTKHDKisJZ9TiSP4dRJrlGD21Fg_MNa30gjF24AbNdwXjTWC_cunXcf6vWOTEGs/s1600/03+henry+hudson+half+moon+s.+hollyer+engraving+1909.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2gNJLxtwj4sksCUTIPsFb4EbcYKLY4FnARHeLS8_FKjJg6nyEDnSXghkBgVZbNNcwxw_L_EOSuoIxzzXZPNPLdz_llDt8JEO2oyD1p_IK8IRDTxhLjQYw1h_nGokmxETpMWqE2iW8sXY/s320/webready-3.jpg" /></a></div>Almost a century after Giovanni da <a href="http://www.win.tue.nl/%7Eengels/discovery/verrazzano.html">Verrazano</a>, an Italian sailing in French employ, discovered but did not explore New York Bay , Henry Hudson, an Englishman in the service of Dutch merchants, started off from Amsterdam to find a shortcut to the Orient in 1609. His ship, the Half Moon, sailed around the top of Norway and into the Arctic Ocean. But conditions proved so miserable that Hudson reversed course and headed west instead. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div>Six months out, he was zipping along America’s east coast when he came upon the bay leading to what is now the Hudson River. Proceeding up it, he met and traded with various Indian tribes. When he reached home in Holland, his patrons were intrigued. Perhaps there were riches and a niche for the Dutch in this land to the south of French Canada and north of English Virginia. One thing led to another, as one says while skipping over a lot of history, and a new mercantile consortium called the Dutch West India Company was founding and colonizing “<a href="http://www.nps.gov/history/nr/travel/kingston/colonization.htm">New Netherland</a>,” beginning with the settlement of New Amsterdam on the southern tip of this intriguing New World island. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgT9HXDobGzus5L5tdf3wBLbwxwa6N7j8Q8ZdT7SZUdft0avWC7OeCRiYM2TXWMxFlchv9JAJxPde6P_r8TphqGarb90i9X5hDOEyILv9q6kLAWImYNIbHoHiJ40AbqOj-D5QsnaSXPE3o/s1600/04+stuyvesant+leads+march++loc.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgifA23WubLxCgEvRcrwqBtfebBIYm3Fsi0MznJbMgpZItCSCae8XiBuRPC-dACf9YU3EroBR3Zy_ykWlqAGd4tPFvrPOkuQywPoYRi0uh18bcR4o6SHCBMxZZrMHR8RASZMdS4b5gT6aI/s320/webready-4-webready-screengrab+copy.jpg" /></a></div>By 1630, New Amsterdam was a prosperous, cosmopolitan town — too cosmopolitan to suit New Netherland’s new governor, <a href="http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/%7Enycoloni/biostuy.html">Peter Stuyvesant</a>, who was aghast to find its 1,000 or so residents speaking 18 languages. He expelled many of the non-Dutch speakers and made life miserable for the rest. But he came to regret it when English colonel Richard Nicholls, alerted to the plight of English settlers, showed up in 1644 and demanded that Stuyvesant surrender the entire New Netherland colony, which, on maps at least, had spread to all of what is now parts of four states. <br />
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Since most of the Dutch were farmers, not fighters, the peg-legged Stuyvesant could only sputter and acquiesce without firing a shot. Nicholls immediately raised the Union Jack and changed the colony’s name to “New York,” after the Duke of York, who had sent him. <br />
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The Dutch influence would linger, however, notably when novelist Washington Irving’s fictitious narrator, Diedrich Knickerbocker, detailed a history of the colony. “Knickerbocker,” originally a derisive term for the first Dutch settlers — mocking their baggy knicker pants — came to mean any New Yorker. <br />
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Come to think of it, the players on the New York Knickerbockers basketball team wear longish, puffy pants to this day. <br />
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Irving also borrowed the term “Gotham” from an obscure Dutch story and applied it to teeming Manhattan in a series of sarcastic essays. A couple of centuries later, Gotham would be home to two of history’s most daring comic-book heroes: Batman and Superman. <br />
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Little did Colonel Nicholls know what a strategic place the English had acquired on Manhattan Island. Only later, when exploration moved inland, did they realize that both the burgeoning nation’s heartland and Europe could be reached more easily from there than from any other New World port. <br />
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With trade came banks, insurance companies, investment houses, wharves, factories and — eventually — skyscrapers that became the symbol of braggadocious American capitalism. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcYU2V7SQzC4N9f4sUDNJkgip_7LmBsXyXYjVmkfsJ9PRuRvuapDMHVN4o6GAoy9A_tMFhP8tRzwUBAIf6PE-yg8iw_VibStrTbplXnzr13HAzTx2EIdss05eg2NIDw3sCfq91-gioESc/s1600/05+ellis+island+imm.+arrive+1910.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglJJGIrk3nlz1ege108DwusxfksSS6ijTMhbgbjemBQT08QQmYlUXW7FGKidlRHdbDF7r5-jMXoNQiChPdkg6nf9tShjUQd4QaDfuuUHKh-1_42slA_1235RtCawvfTssKbYDpPYOHF6s/s320/webready-5-screengrab.jpg" /></a></div>And all this commerce required a lot of people. Millions of them. And they needed places to live. In two years alone — 1847, when a terrible potato famine struck Ireland; and 1848, when revolutions resounded across Europe — the call for laborers was answered with the arrival of hundreds of thousands of immigrants. By the time <a href="http://www.biographybase.com/biography/Bartholdi_Frederic.html">Frédéric Bartholdi</a>’s 225-ton Statue of Liberty rose to welcome other “huddled masses” in New York Harbor in 1866, Lower Manhattan was a crowded industrial and tenement district. And an even greater surge of humanity would soon follow as millions of Italians and Russian Jews debarked at the Ellis Island immigration station. New York was not the Big Apple then but what I liken to a Big Onion, with distinct societal layers and simmering ethnic tension. <br />
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Beginning in 1811, city commissioners laid out the mostly empty Upper Manhattan in a logical grid of long north-south avenues and orderly east-west cross streets. As a result, to this day people who can hardly find their way around middlin’ cities elsewhere navigate teeming New York with ease. Multi-unit “walk-up” buildings rose along these arteries. Their apartments were eagerly rented by young couples, large immigrant families, and single “bohemians” such as Calvert Vaux, who, along with Frederick Law Olmsted, had just laid out Central Park. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdEeLhgVdBFE_z7ov_Tjgr6WmcGGi4l5ilmXCnjwf8tunfbHRJFvqO7zJt6y8GfUAzK6YZJQEOMgp_i9ifj87cz_y4La2qLmP7p5nkeumcrZn749KpGwZLpTHUswlF5HQ9ngZZOEz3hyo/s1600/06+easter+parade+5th+ave+1908.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcbuQmiZfiHeXyKvhWaPDwTLJCQhPoF7GNU8xub6ut5vvrTFLeM2c0x65mUhjr-4JEeXz7oSgvsvqsuuro48fBtfDjMZN7_Wem0FGONijYd-dFw2S7djeW8X1e41VeQ3m4WUoX0MepxWU/s320/webready-6-screengrab.jpg" /></a></div>Fancier-schmancier apartment buildings soon followed on Fifth Avenue, the city’s most fashionable boulevard, where promenading in the “<a href="http://www.chiff.com/a/travel-nyc-easter.htm">Easter Parade</a>” was a highlight of the social calendar. Buildings like the 1884 Dakota on 72nd Street were veritable palaces with great iron gates, grand courtyards, hydraulic elevators, and staffs of managers and servants. The Dakota — destined for infamy decades later as the home of Beatle John Lennon when he was shot and killed by a deranged fan — took its name from the very remoteness of its setting on what at the time seemed like the eastern equivalent of the vast Great Plains. <br />
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When the Statue of Liberty was dedicated in 1886, its torch, reaching 46 meters (151 feet) into the sky, was taller than any structure on Manhattan, save for the 83-meter-high western tower of the new <a href="http://www.endex.com/gf/buildings/bbridge/bbridge.html">Brooklyn Bridge</a>. But a year later, the face of the island changed forever when architect Bradford Gilbert erected the city’s first steel-skeleton skyscraper, the 13-story Tower Building on Broadway, on a plot that was barely six meters wide. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCxDRzYjlvq60dqWDHZTy5deV9XNClWhhhdPjBAEfjEDE4lTORZLUN-0jFoqMzPFwWdxzMpzbFYSAMU4VQQFp1fqiPynGZXMYNvUN_mQ6iqndjypHKuFLX2CBeOf_1vMuEbGEbOVapRVw/s1600/07+brooklyn+bridge+currier+and+ives+1890.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgymDJHTtUG2E7GjdcJHd5hBaK2sJ_9MY6Oi67xvKXqqcYQbW_cxkKwxj6VVfGBQjowrIRHtx_B_c9rryWWaxMPlhDEqR9IS9pMdmaWXxGo2P-4t0_MGBm1JzYL6iVopYtZdMr-cht6gec/s320/webready-07+brooklyn+bridge+currier+and+ives+1890.jpg" /></a></div>Within 20 years, no church steeples, no factory buildings, and almost no tenement apartments could be seen in a panoramic view of the city shot from Brooklyn. They were all obscured by soaring office buildings.<br />
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As Manhattan became, in writer Robert Alden’s words, “the cockpit of commercial interchange,” one after another corporate tower became the world’s tallest structure. Eventually the city housing commission had to pass “setback laws” that forced developers to move their skyscrapers back from the street in order to preserve a modicum of light, air circulation, and human scale. <br />
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Who among the Americans who rode a bus or train through a tunnel under the Hudson River into Manhattan for the first time and alighted to behold these canyons of steel will ever forget craning their necks till they hurt, looking upward in awe.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiKoGpS9VwhxkwOrxX0TvMxtc8sdS_izEEtOlDNu3AwNaokwGYy06gCai5quFkftwkFC5ZhG9GXOZ7yvXAoo9uH6GHv7eLYfc3JcEs4ME1eczr7gjcfJxFVnf9kj2aAyKMoCkUQKYHJ9Y/s1600/08+empire+state+bldg..jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmiaNvct3SPYLn2hQLNiIs4fOMMxzMN5Ekp2u4gGkzDeIGAcibBKczeoErA7brNviTog89yOu3398yLU6kRzIYjmYi6eCBzjjzQgiv1KfRbIt1h6A2UT0Ow15SKAosRKgMQuo7trerONc/s320/webready-08+empire+state+bldg..jpg" /></a></div>I was one of the first-time gawkers at the great Empire State and Woolworth buildings after the bus that brought us from Ohio on our senior-class trip unloaded one day in 1960. <br />
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A triumph of Manhattan architecture and prestige, completed in 1953, was the world’s diplomatic headquarters, the United Nations. John D. Rockefeller [7]personally donated $8.5 million to acquire the site, which replaced six blocks of slaughterhouses along the East River. <br />
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Nine years later the city modified its setback law to permit extra floors high above the skyline, provided the owners would add “public plazas” at street level. This, and the growing fascination with glass as a façade element, led to still more cloud-tickling buildings, many of them undistinguished vertical boxes of glass and steel. <br />
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In the early 1970s, the skyline was pierced by the latest “world’s tallest” structure, the Port of New York Authority’s twin, 110-story World Trade Center Towers. Their 929,000 square meters (10 million square feet) of office space were seven times that of the Empire State Building. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVMXXJVS65sDKxnato0Y3J5bpIIL16XXelxHrexHFhAwttNVLbtOwdZyN5nWm9cnJmy3Il1bmqe-Kvv9mZuXtPY5pkAFgfljrGHpdwuoPmLnA8t5o7_j1azMpXNmrzPEkbZ2sa6ZNBNEc/s1600/09+twin+towers.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitNdaNPFzt9KHBoO0Pkz1EvrSsI_jjOqSYrxcHO50n_LBuZEWbhHNi5o_BcpeFF6gYzY0saPk6hL1xvmx4gPpnRrsu_o_xU1jAPODq8YKLZD5Oz-MypcY8Knv80hFVwHWJFMhtQBi7O24/s320/webready-09+twin+towers.jpg" /></a></div>The 1972 book, <i>The Mid-Atlantic States of America,</i> quotes Anthony Lewis, then the London bureau chief of the <i>New York Times</i>, as remarking when he first beheld the World Trade Center, “It was a sight that cried out: money! power! technology!” The Twin Towers so symbolized capitalism that, as Americans will long remember, they twice became the target of international terrorism: A truck-bomb exploded in a basement garage in 1993, killing 6 people and injuring more than 1,000. And in a double murder-suicide mission, Islamic terrorists piloted hijacked passenger jets straight into the towers on the morning of September 11, 2001. <br />
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Much of the world watched the Twin Towers crumple into a pyre of steel, glass, and concrete in which 2,752 workers, rescuers, and bystanders perished. You may or may not know that a 550-meter (1,776-foot)-tall memorial, Freedom Tower, is beginning to rise where the Twin Towers stood. <br />
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Well before our new century, Manhattan had reached the crest of the nation’s economic mountain, and its cultural pinnacle as well. Stage actors can be favorably reviewed and well paid, but they are not stars until they make it on Broadway’s “Great White Way” in the only city with the population, refined tastes, and money to support more than 30 Broadway theaters, Off-Broadway testing grounds, and Off-Off-Broadway amateur (often experimental) houses. <br />
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Even New York’s subway is often copied. The subway’s ingenious system of local and “skip-stop” express trains, running past the same stations on parallel tracks, has been emulated in many cities. The packed, lurching trains carried waves of ethnic succession up the island and into other boroughs. Hell’s Kitchen, long a West Side Irish settlement, for instance, is now primarily Hispanic; and “Little Italy” keeps shrinking as Chinatown expands. <br />
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Harlem, up toward the top of the island, was settled by Dutch farmers and took its name from the industrial city of Haarlem in Holland. But Harlem, New York, eventually became the intellectual, cultural, and symbolic capital of Black America. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_Dub0KG6G5dRPYWJ69RjmBkzsijkPxCxfz7TrD6Nugp3KQp-qCNF8LBl6OHYH-oHhyphenhyphenpyP22qtKTY8ZqpF8RPvs9hCTcipRpl6iIT7RlrOvwTdviClvLjgf7EowVDGDk8k-X3p8k5eRmQ/s1600/10+central+park.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjv5KM2RBwhdDzd95E10ysuyQOY-MMwfZmLezyvz7WCFRX1SbA-C1PUggZ07P_xgbimgoWyDSLXptRkXjFEvCUeA-gK7wYNkZa-KgdZMTPE9LBVnASpT__kJUR5bBZbAfWaqZJPtxgFDg/s320/webready-10+central+park.jpg" /></a></div>Manhattanites take pride — and respites — in the 341-hectare (843-acre) Central Park, one of the most important landscaped green spaces ever created. During the 1850s, the city had gradually bought up a tract of swampland that one report called a “pestilential spot where rank vegetation and miasmic odors taint every breath of air.” Over a 20-year period, architect Vaux and landscape architect Olmsted transformed the enormous bog into a playland of lawns, gardens, rock outcroppings, skating rinks, castles — even a zoo. <br />
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Along the “Museum Mile” on Fifth Avenue, the city boasts a profusion of Upper East Side cultural institutions anchored by “the Met” — the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Western Hemisphere’s largest art museum. The building is owned and maintained by the city, but its artwork is paid for by endowments, membership fees, and admission revenue. <br />
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Even the grand New York Public Library, the 1911 flagship of a system of 82 branches, has become a tourist attraction. People come not just to peruse its 125 million books, but also to gape at its architecture, artwork, and main reading room, which is as long as a football field. <br />
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Above all — just ask a New Yorker — Manhattan is a collection of eclectic neighborhoods. You may have heard of Greenwich Village, long a bohemian enclave and the cradle of folk music; SoHo and the TriBeCa triangle, where grungy tenements have been turned into cozy loft apartments and art galleries; apartment clusters that ooze wealth on the Upper East Side; and Times Square, which is actually triangular. Sometimes called “the Crossroads of the World,” it’s home to pulsating billboards and the famous flagpole down which a 91-kilo (200-pound) lighted ball slides just before midnight each December 31st as throngs below count down the seconds to a new year. <br />
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Except for a few sanctums of relaxation like Central Park or the coffeehouses where you might bump into our VOA New York Bureau buddy Adam Phillips, Manhattan is an urban dervish in perpetual motion, always on some sort of deadline. New Yorkers do not exaggerate when they say Manhattan never sleeps, as anyone who has peered out a hotel window there at three in the morning can attest. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinHkdS_EROAx_J0G7dKCh-j3YFuORH9pS5bK93Fu1LMm_IdLeXriRecacPirViNr7_E0-rQBlfXd_fE7g5wNZlF9UqwlNzHyEZEO4zCWYqXD9n_tetjZvzUscsH3z5ypDIkZdl9oWlPEg/s1600/11+cabs+park+avenue.bmp" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgwfdxo01w2eeZoWG8PsT2T3V-qGC0Dw3o0WTSjUu_Ka4Jw4KknrL3JXmdCm8pMPfTtNA58QLpCBVJWYmiCKzkIr_t_nOMCe4sbhMZwyXJ66Tv7wq-zJo4hw0To1WKzIZKbdqaeUk_72Y/s320/webready-11+cabs+park+avenue.jpg" /></a></div>I’ll vouch for it; more than once, honking taxicabs kept me awake in a tiny Manhattan hotel room whose beds were, I swear, as hard and narrow as ironing boards. <br />
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New Yorkers don’t even notice the din. They walk faster, talk faster and — in order to survive in the toughest town in the land — often think faster than everyone else. There’s never a lack of something to do or see on this island of 1.5 million residents, a million more workers, and a half-million weekly visitors. Manhattan, purchased for those 60 guilders’ worth of trinkets four centuries ago, is today a world capital of finance, culture, diplomacy, communications, and sheer excitement, if you’re up to it. <br />
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<div style="text-align: center;"><b>WILD WORDS </b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-size: x-small;">(These are a few of the words from this posting that you may not know. Each time, I'll tell you a little about them and also place them into a cumulative archive of "Ted's Wild Words" in the right-hand column of the home page. Just click on it there, and if there's another word in today's blog that you'd like me to explain, just ask!) </span></i></div><br />
<i><b>Acquiesce.</b></i> To give in, concede to another’s point of view. <br />
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<i><b>Braggadocious. </b></i>Describing the behavior of one who boasts or shows off to excess. <br />
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<i><b>Ginormous.</b></i> A modern, made-up word melding “giant” and “enormous” into something really, really big. <br />
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<i><b>Miasmic.</b></i> More properly “miasmal,” a description of a noxious atmosphere, say near a foul-smelling bog or open sewer. <br />
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<b><i>Modicum.</i></b> A moderate or token amount, as in “a modicum of truth.” <br />
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<i><b>Sanctum.</b></i> A sanctuary or place of quiet privacy.<br />
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1in;"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>Ted Landphairhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18142247535149425183noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4320170221399917879.post-15707071996343931242010-06-14T13:33:00.003-04:002010-06-16T11:53:39.824-04:00Ch-ch-change<object classid="clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000" height="24" id="single1" name="single1" width="300"><param name='movie' value='http://www.voanews.com/MediaAssets2/player/jw/player.swf'><param name='allowfullscreen' value='true'><param name='allowscriptaccess' value='always'><param name='wmode' value='transparent'><param name='flashvars' value='file=http://www.voanews.com/MediaAssets2/english/2010_06/Blog79.mp3&backcolor=7FA3BD&frontcolor=FFFFFF'><embed id='single2' name='single2' src='http://www.voanews.com/MediaAssets2/player/jw/player.swf' width='300' height='24' bgcolor='#ffffff' allowscriptaccess='always' allowfullscreen='true' flashvars='file=http://www.voanews.com/MediaAssets2/english/2010_06/Blog79.mp3&backcolor=7FA3BD&frontcolor=FFFFFF'/></object> <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRffpn_6iC7mSbqAk-tJkLQKouphopZsTBQ0zf0uv9N6Ux00N1GLoZs-NeiPuZA_PYoSLyDgOu7myfRqGbIpGMCsP8ChwxCH3LJRPXZ4nSHR-2jRxefN-m52RDBP1YXQY884TBhWsmCJQ/s1600/01+labyrinth.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5umuMGg2G4fTA4-eSQzd2pB9NCdDJ1FQpern4ldBhCaQcbQhnOlDsrP_eFTLkD3fI15HcwQeMZjGNoN0KmMZwQ0XmhXvI8U2rb6kp2jQAc6ssCq6Hg5HGTeKQMGO8xBYI3422a9fkHHM/s1600/webready-01+labyrinth.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5umuMGg2G4fTA4-eSQzd2pB9NCdDJ1FQpern4ldBhCaQcbQhnOlDsrP_eFTLkD3fI15HcwQeMZjGNoN0KmMZwQ0XmhXvI8U2rb6kp2jQAc6ssCq6Hg5HGTeKQMGO8xBYI3422a9fkHHM/s1600/webready-01+labyrinth.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5umuMGg2G4fTA4-eSQzd2pB9NCdDJ1FQpern4ldBhCaQcbQhnOlDsrP_eFTLkD3fI15HcwQeMZjGNoN0KmMZwQ0XmhXvI8U2rb6kp2jQAc6ssCq6Hg5HGTeKQMGO8xBYI3422a9fkHHM/s1600/webready-01+labyrinth.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5umuMGg2G4fTA4-eSQzd2pB9NCdDJ1FQpern4ldBhCaQcbQhnOlDsrP_eFTLkD3fI15HcwQeMZjGNoN0KmMZwQ0XmhXvI8U2rb6kp2jQAc6ssCq6Hg5HGTeKQMGO8xBYI3422a9fkHHM/s320/webready-01+labyrinth.jpg" /></a><br />
While daring dashes into the unknown can be exhilarating, humans by and large prefer comfortable routines. Especially as we age, sharp course alterations threaten, scare, even debilitate us.<br />
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“There is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things,” wrote Niccolo Machiavelli 500 years or so ago. The Florentine diplomat was, himself, a provocateur and change agent who approved of using any and all means, including cunning and deceit, to shake things up and get one’s way.<br />
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And dealing with change hasn’t gotten any easier.<br />
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“We would rather be ruined than changed,” wrote the Anglo-American poet W.H. Auden. <br />
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“If you want to make enemies, try to change something,” rued U.S. President <a href="http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/1919/wilson-bio.html">Woodrow Wilson</a>, who couldn’t get his own country’s Senate to approve his League of Nations idea. <br />
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Leo Tolstoy, the Soviet author of <em>War and Peace</em>, understood. “Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself,” he noted.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4d1aKLP16XWPIKWpZklBOy5tIg3EVdKg9l8okWCit7XXWq4ICMD4H1pwc8OhqLx_jm9oE2Wv8sJQS1v7rW9b-mkL9DaUsRaggQoOECIviUBse75pqKbD5BYsEbYs0VpzBaSUdNTv3_Zw/s1600/02+newsroom.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcVS0DyaYkshyphenhyphenq391quEBTDoZXJZqWC_L7XRmSVV8CcaxXlyN36-f46KP-QXyySZa_eAvPYKviA1qO5F9SlZgyzvHamxJ_1DHh36XGxG60IYKFTRYgxaAX-YPE0RhOqsTcTWp9dI6JwPE/s320/webready-02-2+newsroom.jpg" /></a></div>Far from the world stage, entrenched in ordinary jobs and lifestyles, most of us particularly resent and resist change when someone else thought of it and is forcing us to go along.<br />
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For millions of Americans who have lost their jobs in the current economic downturn — or have had to learn strange new skills to keep them — change has rattled their world, assaulted their peace of mind, depressed and angered them.<br />
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My own profession has been tormented by change.<br />
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You may recall my blogs about the once-smug, now-agonized newspaper industry, whose readers and advertisers have fled to newer, more portable media in such numbers that a lot of trusted old papers have simply given up, stopped the presses, and shut their doors.<br />
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Traditional broadcasters have fared only slightly better. There are so many options available on cable, over the airways, even out of the sky via satellite that broadcasting stations and networks are struggling for audience share and revenues. They’re not goners yet, but they’re looking awfully gaunt.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifJ6eupMErnazaNUF0I_6v-Y6vNZuJ7IiT8dajsTX-8VdqNuRei-BPz9BNnDvuW8kut7o_Css73pxldpxk2_pxEe00-VwDb3-LpU-4NblYJUZKoCBKWDKUZKYwUi3lIoEfHfb0dpwrELk/s1600/03+morning+paper.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdALvLMp0w1EBGILv-enWg3AHO4L6DwIknirYKX8I94n77DTwaDQ6kwVJkp8Yl4vlWcgdNH5pTediJtN9YAdnpskEzJmelY4nrhL55dPa_Nqkiiysm0FewE0NBlc6lXonV_wU2k_ujLNg/s320/webready-03-2+morning+paper.jpg" /></a></div>As Jill K. Willis wrote two years ago in <em>South Carolina Business</em> magazine, the old idea of “appointment journalism” — in which you could count on your audience to pick up your newspaper and read it each morning, turn on your radio station on the way to and from work each rush hour, and catch your TV newscast each evening — is not just dying. Willis says it’s dead.<br />
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“People are receiving news all day via the Internet, radio, i-Pods, cell phones, and other mobile devices,” Willis wrote. “So now, seasoned journalists in newsrooms all over the world are scrambling to adapt to high-tech information dissemination.”<br />
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For this old paperboy, newspaperman and radio news manager, this is painful. I’m the king of appointment journalism, beginning with that stoop to pick up the newspaper on the lawn each morning. <br />
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But unlike the dread of today’s newspapermen and women, my own comfort level, and that of most of my Voice of America colleagues, hadn’t been dangerously rattled. After all, VOA funding — and our jobs — don’t directly depend on snaring high audience ratings or scooping up advertiser dollars. While many of us have stuck our toes into the Web world because it’s fun — witness this blog (are you having fun yet?) — we remain snugly rooted in traditional newsgathering, writing and rewriting, and broadcast programming.<br />
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We were, that is, until 15 of us were whisked off to Jill Willis’s stomping grounds in South Carolina’s capital, Columbia — and not just for the mustard-based barbecue.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfTiSAY8dtwPjovGCtJRkAC9b-YnB_1fWULmu9C30ctL40TAZTKJ5zerA8gOQrPV8w6FtvCr1Gp0SFjjg393ZXxg_quMVi5hicKaru8XGlbauiAj9heb2EXvhZ7Ni2hCUFfJUauPv-q8s/s1600/04+chart.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBnCIXQXatAnRrukA25o9kMGm3oLEAHCjj_yMArs_IlJWLVogTqh8q7j_nJ44-Sg1sSQc-26xqC2A1vfGrzfRClKLJu_vsV0RuJ1aW3KcEKhkdorNfRmdZR3AASp33ko461kg0k-6Xv5U/s320/webready-2-04+chart.jpg" /></a></div>We already knew that change is in the wind. Rumored for three years, a “re-org” — a reorganization of our central news and information division — is finally at hand, perhaps while you’re reading this blog. <br />
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In South Carolina, we learned that this will require “convergence,” an updated way of thinking and plying our craft that, at first, sounded kind of ominous. <br />
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For sure, it will mean change — in thinking, newsgathering, job descriptions, perhaps even the seating chart. And change brings angst as well as opportunity.<br />
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You may wonder what our “re-org” has to do with you. How will our nips and tucks and flourishes better serve your needs?<br />
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That’s just it. We’re not entirely sure that we have been serving them as fully as possible while you change your information habits with breakneck speed.<br />
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You are reading and writing blogs, browsing for information on all sorts of devices, and sticking around only briefly once you find it. Forget about “brand loyalty.” If we can’t give you what you want when you want it, and tell you really interesting stories when you’re there, you’re history. <br />
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Enter “convergence.”<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFdEtHTxKMG_0OpJweAMpnVBAweDNgiVM3gKp2yl-oMthmXbnjhe0vpqaTulbiKhA2MPFlVwTdTHoWCqueNc_LZLzTTFvyqAuoM6WJnkmyR_7xtVfQvWAnglu4RLJHQpNTHkwjKtiT2DM/s1600/webready-05+newsplex.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="ttp:https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgikFAwhfMBtUaqv_1YGty0PplVzRqUR2gB7FGJ0kLHuP-gm1BKehKB3QtcF5I1Q2ECMFosUZglQdJpC8iqTRsAVLAVjX8Fz8dMLwpNWzRPMXaA-_gM6NYZVOIXqnEkYOhXjsfac1HsKfI/s1600/05+newsplex.jpg" /></a></div>As I began to explain, 15 of us managers and working stiffs — hard-news and feature types, young and (shall I say) “seasoned” — spent a week at <a href="http://newsplex.sc.edu/about/index.html">Newsplex</a> at the University of South Carolina.<br />
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Newsplex was founded eight years ago by two international news organizations whose owners realized, even then, that you were deserting traditional media for new “delivery platforms” such as the Web and mobile phones that better met your needs.<br />
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To reach you, they needed to bring together — converge — all sorts of human and technical resources and “skill sets.” <br />
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For our part in the here and now, this suggests something that that our executive editor calls “story-based” journalism.<br />
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That doesn’t sound so radical. Journalists have covered stories since Daniel Defoe tramped all over England in the 17th Century, gathering material for his pamphlets. (The author of <em>Robinson Crusoe</em>, about a shipwrecked sailor, he was a pretty good fiction writer, too.) <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj422L_PISakiaOFuTAI_f5kgcvYtP-IzNPmsYpLms6xhIQcbOjFRelawD1s74w16Lj1bNBKdOa_BajTCY2gY_kp8OhJ9hYO9n3-7Ad3gxUGebmmrcazC8x9rKhPUSXyJJzOxWIdPSXn-c/s1600/06+randy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeEAPXgceXalehZyMdJPMLm50vznymrHHEJyOaYqsLYroRQTmcM-JJt3uRJuNewpV3QasmpHwLvqQ8TiPAkpJpzHZ8oUloPeKtD3Kinao2nBIXnSNdvIx2p6-VwqT5cvVmTpLodJ34goM/s320/webready-06+randy.jpg" /></a></div>But focusing on stories across several media that click with you, pique your interest, leave you wanting more — not just in our accounts of breaking news but also in VOA analyses, blogs, videos, slide shows, and audio essays — is rather revolutionary in a newsroom that reveres tradition and has a long one. <br />
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The VOA News “re-org” is almost certain to include a whole new kind of editing position. Randy Covington, our Newsplex training impresario, calls it “story conductor.” <br />
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I can picture the baton flashing and long hair flying.<br />
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As things stand, an array of editors weighs in on the newsgathering and storytelling processes. We have, as my mother might have put it, more editors than we can shake a stick at: assignment editors, duty editors, copy editors, managing editors, Web editors. Once stories are planned, they figuratively bounce along conveyor belts, where their assembly is directed, words burnished and paragraphs tightened, defective parts pulled out and replaced, ribbons such as headlines and lovely images put on them, and the final product inspected and sent off on a journey around the world. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPmMyFEomkrejqQi1o3GLOnxNH-9iJsluXmhuZO0eRMlF_mmREBYLuCM1MQv4NFvr7ivf76Wy_bjXBvN8vrNoIpZl9IlXXLKkS8sSdM-gOjDKTex_YTCdYNWFyc6wYTjwl9IO9guNEEYM/s1600/07+Roger.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggpCr-DjV7M5-KNGZsfJq-zgWEgW8IEr-1ufFcBu4jEu7Q7N8CznhakgLeW5qrMkATME6iTBiJbWbwRm25tjjHZxIjLf43ye1kxxwCytO9YjasNbdyJ55Z49ZIRejLu4QeU854-xLutq4/s320/webready07-4+Roger.jpg" /></a></div>In the convergence model, the “conductor” and the reporter (I’ve got dibs on one of the bassoonists’ chairs) will carry the story from concept to coverage to creation. Together, we will — to use another of our executive editor’s terms — own the story. Devise it. Care about it. Give it life and special meaning. Prepare and deliver it using several of the “orchestra’s” written, visual and audio instruments. <br />
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The product will be, we hope, full and robust and memorable.<br />
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You’ll still see VOA reporters, microphones, and cameras at big, breaking news events, world hot spots, and places where U.S. policy is determined and debated. And people like me will still be poking about in interesting places across America.<br />
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But our story conductors (I still see the swirling hair) will also be guiding unique VOA stories that you can access in many places. I can’t get used to calling them “platforms.” <br />
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VOA’s reporters, videographers, producers, bloggers (ahem!), Web writers, graphic designers, and other journalists will all be challenged to deliver stories so compelling that you’ll want to check in with us again and again and again.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiW2t0GNhon_-Iwdsr-DQ03qJthO-Fh1N2bmdWBDoVW4oK1P9FPbpxygVZ56AawOBXYaDFHTyTcPCXa_OoA10q-QU3hgcZvw61-ofU1dvt0qjbCqWNp1aeyjbaF7DOl7hScGxHd_wp5CgI/s1600/08+Malak.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheI-HPweB89M-8sXLuhHl9JgnVI7Xc71mymgAiZ7Mq2nBx1XZF3oFPSlJPp6fsz44yxToF6uW1NK7Udn5x7tJmOlzcRnk9AoJ7n6jZJHODaArK1ODCNIDW6_RSI_7JHugoJafEfIHRrT0/s320/webready08-2+Malak.jpg" /></a></div>It rattles me a bit to say this, but the truth is that while our “conductors” and we make beautiful stories together, we’ll have a younger audience in mind. <br />
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Don’t fret if a gray hair or two has popped into your head; we won’t suddenly turn cool and cryptic and frivilous. But we want your kids and even your grandchildren as young as teenagers to check us out, and to participate in our information products through comments, social media, polls and the like. <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgErPcLAhuHhdZwtWihHaYIdv5YXsGZ9ORNANGzWnZI8tdhLVyi7MUgQJzGbrmq5tyNC6lvuC5oA7mK6f191zo4nwKZqcODd_nYW52vUAe1WcGV1_7OWOz_yDROj1W19-oKHZEa2mFFFZA/s1600/09+flip+chart.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBrxXRIksxQBxSgWwgkjuzYTpvH3qhk4r-eILlJ_UBp9ZpsIZb-tMlIs_g0ElhoFKd2i9RVx3raxN22j5eGx4wWFV5Iq7k5RtMo5iNAoHzOck43TYlevxeMxi3s6E_Eq99Xjq-xnF-nIo/s320/webready-09+flip+chart.jpg" /></a><br />
It’s a cliché but true: younger information consumers are our future. To be relevant, we need to get with it, and with you.<br />
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Even before the 15 of us who “converged” in Columbia fiddled with newsroom diagrams and flow charts, we identified likely obstacles to change. It wasn’t hard. You’d hear the same grumbling in the face of change everywhere:<br />
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“What if my position is threatened or, gulp, eliminated?”<br />
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“It took me years to get comfortable. I don’t want to work much harder. And I certainly don’t want to fool with all that fancy technology.”<br />
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“This re-org will never work. Prima donnas won’t stand for it, and deadbeats will drag it down.”<br />
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“New media? Story conductors? That’s not journalism. What about our reputation?”<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKuBCBVyGT5k0cMoRPG63cLQbgOkOobvP0Kbhoa6jB8HE0qCn_sGbeaMhy_lOBSsN7Miq88KiQ5ywbA2eCzcCMcV9HRdENqQcjZIu0pLZ-aPsoUWxkOdlkdow35sXyS4TqBBzOTQZK40I/s1600/10+busy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcrWzmHoVRjAbZkHZNwhrKmP9zVybzf8gcFcwiRtFP3OupPgJHYxjzUoxWBUFYMQUvAr-4abTyoaEuGuwOXVcOrx1Jai6JHsjvmHWe3UBoC8NXDRFZhB1iFxvsiEivYCjARFUpo0oe3rw/s320/webready-10+busy.jpg" /></a><br />
I should point out that at least half of the “Columbia 15” — many more than 7½ people, actually, especially the youngest among us — immediately and eagerly embraced the concept of a story-based, audience-friendly news operation.<br />
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They’re already working across many media, seizing every bit of training, and bringing technology to bear at every turn.<br />
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And not a one of us thought VOA’s standards, stellar reputation, or commitment to fairness and accuracy would suffer from a tune-up. As Aristotle once said, “Change is in all things sweet.”<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtX_BVbKktv3j8RpZ1-ZIGjenJUgj2ZCiZTRRvne6Bl3z_SzWtLVCWCRenJILKIgoGvrxm-Wa-5sI5qc6quWP7tjskwzh45tvPRMojOBWd3CvyH0vutvvML-mgNq1ZyE8XkoZ4MlMpVN4/s1600/11+food.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsYgU2Alhjx1hax_p45c4CJXIPTlYhdhkLFHFxMHteuoF1PyJED4OwE1HQ8fQJ1TClPENLIwyBY78E2KEWgBLe1i1BStjZgunL-CQXHRSu3M-z9H5i4uBCJ3UxuDHYfzZQFrkCRlEmkF4/s320/webready-11+food.jpg" /></a></div>I’m no pioneer in these matters. I’m settled, happy. I avoid most change when I can.<br />
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Aristotle doesn’t resonate with me as much as <a href="http://www.ushistory.org/declaration/signers/franklin.htm">Benjamin Franklin</a> does. The great diplomat, scientist, printer, and satirist nailed it, I think, in the nascent days of our republic.<br />
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“When you’re finished changing,” he wrote, “you’re finished.”<br />
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<div style="text-align: center;"><b>WILD WORDS</b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><i><span style="font-size: x-small;">(These are a few of the words from this posting that you may not know. Each time, I'll tell you a little about them and also place them into a cumulative archive of "Ted's Wild Words" in the right-hand column of the home page. Just click on it there, and if there's another word in today's blog that you'd like me to explain, just ask!) </span></i><br />
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<i><b>Deadbeat. </b></i>Technically the term refers to those who don’t pay their debts. But more broadly, it refers to lazy sorts — loafers and slackers who have an aversion to hard work.<br />
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<i><b>Gaunt. </b></i>Emaciated, bony-looking, often with sunken eyes.<br />
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<i><b>Nascent.</b></i> Beginning or emerging, as in the “nascent days of the empire.”<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div>Ted Landphairhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18142247535149425183noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4320170221399917879.post-40558259165821353202010-06-04T14:15:00.000-04:002010-06-04T14:15:44.942-04:00Emancipation Day<object classid="clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000" height="24" id="single1" name="single1" width="300"><param name='movie' value='http://www.voanews.com/MediaAssets2/player/jw/player.swf'><param name='allowfullscreen' value='true'><param name='allowscriptaccess' value='always'><param name='wmode' value='transparent'><param name='flashvars' value='file=http://www.voanews.com/MediaAssets2/english/2010_06/blog78.mp3&backcolor=7FA3BD&frontcolor=FFFFFF'><embed id='single2' name='single2' src='http://www.voanews.com/MediaAssets2/player/jw/player.swf' width='300' height='24' bgcolor='#ffffff' allowscriptaccess='always' allowfullscreen='true' flashvars='file=http://www.voanews.com/MediaAssets2/english/2010_06/blog78.mp3&backcolor=7FA3BD&frontcolor=FFFFFF'/></embed></object> <br />
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What would you call May 8th if you wanted to make it a holiday? Mayth? Would September 1st be Septemberst?<br />
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No such holidays exist. But there is a similar one — in June, on the 19th. It’s a day of great significance to all Americans and African Americans in particular. <br />
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It’s called “Juneteenth,” and a lot Americans, blacks included, have never heard of it.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoYAcUe7IZB8XYJpPO7UFYaqDFFMuclHmeUhdtR5U7A1yyNEnLr8BAdol1X2G654X3cNjkrdJX9BUC4yFfcekl_UZ4CYPVeELcaxGjODu82x4JVrf0-vTs9ZTSaQ4AoWwbO8nXfOflc78/s1600/01+lincoln+and+emancip.lithograph+j.+waeshle.bmp" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqhXLB-x7IqA7MOoLeiUVU39IB9AsNIMevhyF8TktqT0HhERUW7du2nKYtrMkKPc7Q33KkzKksLJnoU6i9eK_bNYVMjZP9SA1RJzVyoXEGcGOMO1INuvZmrkXu5H4SagLSfumwERmZVoc/s320/01-webready-+lincoln+and+emancip.lithograph+j.+waeshle.jpg" /></a></div>June 19th is sometimes called “Emancipation Day” or “African-American Independence Day.” Here’s how it came about:<br />
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In 1863, two years into the U.S. Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln issued the <a href="http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/featured_documents/emancipation_proclamation/">Emancipation Proclamation</a>, declaring slaves in the rebellious southern Confederacy free.<br />
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Lincoln’s proclamation was mostly a symbolic gesture, designed to unsettle the enemy and instill hope in the oppressed. It had little practical effect, since the Union was not yet in a position to enforce it. Slavery had to be wrenched from wealthy white southerners at the point of a bayonet. Months after the rebel army surrendered in April 1865, defiant slaveowners continued to hold human chattel in Texas, the most remote of the Confederate states. <br />
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In June of that year Union general Gordon Granger landed at Galveston, the island city that was then the most prosperous place in Texas. Much of the populace there — slaves in particular — had no idea that the U.S. Civil War had ended 2½ months earlier or that the era of slavery was over.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhi3EreJcwIR8s1Yg-Qqd7tix5ftF9VIHpXchyAXfC3adOgBoyn2MSjM-VnhthZB11sRy-y_T35c8Q6bu54BrpbBJW8k7E0o-iuhooPPNK-k1h38JmkN33taMz0d6LzbK5WbfX28jHLzeg/s1600/02+granger.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfTTVV1g7pNERym9iJ_KIij1DfrOfeh6yNIeBoOhbKloFJpM2jojiVNBkSLciu_8fQD_wvI9U5CopcmWozGflAa8pgjNMjx7lnEwUkJMwvKXdtIWX-8SfoH471db8qIosV9bwzQ7CVltE/s320/webready-02+granger-grab.jpg" /></a></div>There was much speculation as to why Granger took his sweet time getting to Texas. Galveston Island was, admittedly, a “haul” from New Orleans, the nearest big southern city in Union hands. But conspiracy theorists speculate that Granger and his men wanted to give plantation owners time to harvest one last cotton crop before halting their inhumane enterprises.<br />
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Granger’s order freeing America’s last known slaves and read in Galveston’s town square on June 19th, 1865, took note of fears that freed slaves who had relied upon their overseers for sustenance would be set loose on towns and military camps:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgknm584ZDaqC3gcCOJcorFPbNRz6GDaHWv4g0uexFdeB3z4FKM8UUHVwCIydeYpqSAHNCi8UQ1NAVXYIDhq5ZvIwcIAWE38FvZj-rqeM_iEADtnH-h5R2OClB99WWM9aPGVOz7g8hGa2A/s1600/03+freed+slaves+enter+union+lines+harper%27s+weekly+1863.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhw15To9YMgBcLX3rG-LWb8JOb_XmnoR9jwyc_O9Vic4LBbwh8m0zG1wXPstXEU7Fdpx0X3GCPGaeLqPLnmK5b4gvNTwIWhUoXqKlYZcaFkRkRhmSfrDlT4oiHBrbZm62RHbCuSuP80yqw/s320/webready2-03+freed+slaves+enter+union+lines+harper%27s+weekly+1863-grab+copy.jpg" /></a><br />
"The people of Texas are informed that, in accordance with a proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free. This involves an absolute equality of personal rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves, and the connection heretofore existing between them becomes that between employer and hired labor. The freedmen are advised to remain quietly at their present homes and work for wages. They are informed that they will not be allowed to collect at military posts and that they will not be supported in idleness either there or elsewhere."<br />
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Up in Washington, the U.S. Congress was of a mind to punish the defeated South and codify the rights of freed slaves. It quickly passed the <a href="http://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?flash=old&doc=43">14th Amendment</a> to the national constitution, granting slaves — who had been little more than property under the law — full citizenship and all the benefits that came with it. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9a5Yx2EMvrQjghmyOZ-0xje02pnpE0nxNgSQGGhp1jBZ-jL55nFj959HI3KCfWYQG_NWN8DQjIe_z7CSWQe_uWW2pVu3jX2a_6Q2M1qw6_DIlgzJCi7qp_RpNQdWgHovhhIa3Mtv9Qh4/s1600/04+reconstruction+allegory+lithograph+1867.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJGXgn_QXq6T46RU0qRU_MHX-fUD0bZSbZ76Wq_ENQece6U6hQ-1MvERJxX7X0Kh73M1Tc8E-rsvXip7a_XFXWQnnnDRVMOJjLWguh5UjZi9DnRTOxhnKxg6qPLed75m-nBcCGsMC53tw/s320/webready-04+reconstruction+allegory+lithograph+1867.jpg" /></a></div>When most southern states refused to ratify the amendment, Congress declared martial law, dividing the region into five military districts and dispatching troops to enforce what was called the “<a href="http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/reconstruction/index.html">reconstruction</a>” of the South. <br />
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In 1870, five years after the war’s end during the term of President Ulysses S. Grant — the former supreme commander of the Union Army that had swept to victory in the South — Congress passed the 15th Amendment, guaranteeing all citizens full voting rights as well.<br />
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But Reconstruction could not, and did not, last. Although blacks temporarily rose to power in many of the places where they had recently been enslaved, whites scorned them at every turn and maneuvered for a quick return to power.<br />
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President Grant’s successor, Rutherford B. Hayes, gained office in 1877 after an election that he actually lost. U.S. presidents are chosen, not in the popular vote, but by a few electors selected by the winning political party in each state. Deals can be made, and Hayes made one. He got the presidency after agreeing to pull federal troops from the South. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPeR66nwGQrVe3CmUKNh-DYeqj82Tw_4WvB2hmAqIwvyhebkkJgKkLnp0HsuQ5p2EgqsLZwCe6uHv-_e2fPcoptL0i58wx3IY0_j5ZZUvG7yzpgpcrRHd9I1Cxw4gbuaBJOXDvLzna8fo/s1600/05+emancipation+day,+s.c..jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtzAhUCHNfLFIiJFydULeNWw6tjYQKUrO-UxFyE9Vpu5-X3VzEGgbf5w2m905pyRuq6BlG9IClgRCLlivLh3Pth_r_6AAC0zafdZiqCGFYIaTTzAsr6hGFwduzq8US6X2kc2AE4x6D6ys/s320/webready2-05+emancipation+day,+s.c..jpg" /></a></div>The soldiers’ departure brought a quick end to any illusions that blacks would share power. Reigns of terror and repressive state laws ushered in almost a century of systematic racial segregation. <br />
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Nevertheless, blacks throughout the South came together whenever they could on June 19th for home-cooked meals, prayer, fervent singing, Juneteenth stories, and re-enactments of General Granger’s proclamation.<br />
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According to the Juneteenth.com Web site, which describes efforts by American expatriates to spread the celebration around the globe, “Dress was an important element in early Juneteenth customs and is often still taken seriously. . . . During slavery there were laws on the books in many areas that prohibited or limited the dressing of the enslaved. During the initial days of the [Juneteenth] emancipation celebrations, there are accounts of former slaves tossing their ragged garments into the creeks and rivers to adorn clothing taken from the plantations belonging to their former ‘masters.’”<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div>At Juneteenth’s height in 1930, 75 years after General Granger’s proclamation, an estimated 200,000 people attended an Emancipation Day celebration at the Texas State Fair in Dallas. But slowly — especially following the passage of civil-rights legislation in the 1960s — the informal holiday lost its luster as blacks began to feel more a part of the American mainstream. They switched to much more lavish American Independence Day festivities on July fourth.<br />
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Juneteenth slid nearly out of sight and mind, and even history textbooks failed to give June 19th any special meaning. This disappointed acclaimed concert pianist and composer Robert Pritchard of the historically black Lincoln University in Philadelphia. He had led the push to expand “Negro History Week,” begun in the 1920s, into a full <a href="http://www.history.com/topics/black-history-month">Black History Month</a>. <br />
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“The rights and freedoms of the Declaration of Independence referred to Euro-Americans only, because my ancestors were slaves,” Pritchard said. “But by 19 June, 1865, every word — every one of the high principles —really became apropos to Americans of all colors, creeds, cultures, and countries of origin.”<br />
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Texas blacks — and many whites and Latinos, too — however, did not lose sight of Juneteenth. In 1980, the state enacted a bill to create an official June 19th state holiday — the first in the nation — devoted to African-American culture. (There was some justice and balance in this as Texas also marks Confederate Heroes’ Day on January 19th. Not too many Confederate heroes were African Americans.)<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_WywDwAZcvEwqG3ayHTxC6yVFU6NZ6u8ldklLy9E6H0BzT4-Y-gAdhtGjc8Og1rYNisnSu6sgcPuZyY5Glr93DVB8zui2zh6uLnf1qwrYH3GXB4Kd6V8liqR7fOV0IAQ3QnHcCZxmDXo/s1600/07+lilbrary++mySAPL.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKh5Y5CE0NBkwwKSh5hvRoTSTpK5NA1hVWGC_Vztw72C4XUjjllJROPGrrjmLeyWePMaMBtyDalgfkO3aIoxDBsOcmml8U035WReSeUgXTilN9IDdwxN5MOYyqpuMOhjTJXXCW_TEQkIE/s320/webready-07+library++mySAPL.jpg" /></a></div>State Representative Al Edwards of Houston sponsored the legislation that set aside Juneteenth as something more than a ceremonial holiday like Mother’s Day or Valentine’s Day. All state employees — save for a skeleton crew of people to keep the offices open — get the day off. <br />
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On many a Juneteenth, Edwards told me, his father and other parents on his block slow-cooked beef barbecue in pits dug in the earth. There were baseball games and church services. People drank Polly’s soda pop, a sweet red drink with a lemonade base. <br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgr0QPBTtlDvQ6cV9vqFA3Ptv68NfqLU80AbqrJ6ELanQNLKo5eaGT3OpmPvfuUB8C3nx1P6bgLD9m-di4z7TC0wPHAzI5p9EtYbYsuA5nDLIpUPR9kdc-w08DzdBIxmPV3LpESMy2GDdI/s1600/08+juneteenth+statue++%D7%A0%D7%99%D7%A7%D7%95%D7%9C%D7%A1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-KJmPKrJ39ah1aLFyDWp9yvoxP3dZNqB6dvmgcgTQo9jQ_mUg2psZMGY4fcbZgVr7RS8KFlBI22B1sVIDYMWwiJOCaWFqGCg3EkHr2mptGUQ5beUrwBYUqFoMKtAsiwpfE4NZ0VmabsQ/s320/webready2-08+juneteenth+statue++%D7%A0%D7%99%D7%A7%D7%95%D7%9C%D7%A1+copy.jpg" /></a><br />
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In 2005, a small Juneteenth statue depicting a black man reading the Emancipation Proclamation was erected outside Galveston’s Ashton Villa house museum, and there are plans to mount a larger version on the capitol grounds in Austin. <br />
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Not everyone is thrilled, however, that the person depicted in the sculpture is none other than Al Edwards.<br />
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Over time, about half of the other 49 U.S. states declared their own Juneteenth holidays. And for years, the Rev. Ronald V. Myers, Sr., a Mississippi ordained minister and family-health physician, has led a campaign, thus far unsuccessfully, to make Juneteenth a national holiday.<br />
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I remember coming across a plaque outside a building in Baltimore, Maryland. “Juneteenth National Museum,” it read. Inside, I found a cluttered basement office with no exhibits, save for a painting or two. It was a virtual museum only, with an active Internet Web site. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div>When I looked online a few days ago, the site was gone. But on another Web site listing Juneteenth events across the country, the national museum got a mention, along with a notation that it offered underground-railroad tours. (The underground railroad was not a rail line but a network of safe houses, kept by abolitionists and others, for escaped slaves who were fleeing north.) <br />
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I reconnected with the Juneteenth National Museum’s director, community activist Morning Sunday Hettleman, who for years has organized Baltimore’s June 19th celebrations. She told me the museum’s funding has been a casualty of Maryland’s severe budget shortfall. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYmcKP7-8qelSpAVwoDWNVZlWv1NAxdoZT-b8xIQm4wAlDT1xFD9G0686CPCxnai3ZmVGsCf2bDS7edZo16L9JIXqmg0YnaOSXKmaBPdCq8Mwfe0qI0yyGjmDiucuoQaWmLoOkegQ9Owk/s1600/10+ft.+mchenry.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9YPhPGQlS98jDCIMVuhtK-ZcoMUWHKLXGrx5rJNOxB6Dvavi4Fp90rFGxz1UFgySd_kIXpjy4uK6kZZNFi3sggDL9yjC1OjbHQS2MAucBTMX_i7kkxiQUIrDrB_3x6DDpMSO74tEpSkQ/s320/webready-10+ft.+mchenry.jpg" /></a></div>But this year’s celebration will go on as scheduled. It will take place at Baltimore’s Fort McHenry, famous as the site where Washington lawyer Francis Scott Key wrote the words to “The Star-Spangled Banner” — our eventual national anthem. During the festivities, historic re-enactors will tell stories, not of “bombs bursting in air” as British warships besieged the fort during the War of 1812, but of the black carpenters and other artisans who built many of the fortifications there and at Fort Sumter, South Carolina, where the Civil War would ignite 53 years later. They will mention, too, that the servant who alerted Key that “the star-spangled banner still waves” after the British bombardment was a black man.<br />
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Morning Hettleman told me she and others needed to keep Juneteenth alive because northern blacks, in particular, had lost touch with what it stands for.<br />
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“As a matter of fact,” she said, “when I first went to some of the leaders in the African-American community to ask them about helping, they said there had been more freedmen than slaves in Maryland, so celebrating Juneteenth was unnecessary. I went ahead and prepared. I had dancers. A friend of mine had made all this food, and when only 10 people showed up, I was in shock. So I realized there had to be a massive education process.”<br />
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Ten years ago, I met Sharon Pinchback, a U.S. Postal Service worker and mother of three, who had been crowned “Ms. Juneteenth” at the previous year’s event. She had a fascinating perspective on the Juneteenth commemoration:<br />
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“Most African Americans think of their past as slavery, starting from slavery,” she told me. “Not starting from Africa, but starting from slavery. And they really don’t want to relate to that any more. So when you bring something positive to the table, they are really ready to absorb it. They are proud of it, but they just didn’t know about it.”<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwk4L5IzddRM7LvYSCxnGxN4luDMj_Hs27v8gjXcR4oGnoSqRlfMUm3T_5opeA09XnvFlTLLgJx_UZTaYp_ZJazfcYDl6ORPV-e_z-llFpB_-_cYzCvQ3JDkWH000YFNIIJjmX1dTSOQc/s1600/11+HumanRightsSC.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnzALhjUj2d7y0vG554_YU6WpIOQPBAnX0EEAU5g3yTand3IgnqSCSo90TaYEnEEakN-jK2PvB9k9PnRNPITBgHRk3_3BA_SbV61MnQABQwi_VMNxPunvsfkrVO2oIEWBU7mEFVJNq7Ig/s320/webready-11+HumanRightsSC.jpg" /></a></div>There aren’t Memorial Day-style parades or monster Independence Day-type fireworks at any Juneteenth celebrations that I know of. They are modest, prideful affairs. Americans whose ancestors lived in chains on our soil want to remind others that the passage from slavery into freedom is not irrelevant old news or a trifle. Each June 19th, Juneteenth’s supporters mark freedom’s blessings by gathering where they wish, singing what they wish, reciting the Emancipation Proclamation if they wish, and perhaps, if they wish, lifting a can of Polly’s Pop as well.<br />
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<div style="text-align: center;"><b>WILD WORDS </b></div><div style="color: blue; text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-size: x-small;">(These are a few of the words from this posting that you may not know. Each time, I'll tell you a little about them and also place them into a cumulative archive of "Ted's Wild Words" in the right-hand column of the home page. Just click on it there, and if there's another word in today's blog that you'd like me to explain, just ask!)</span></i></div><br />
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<b><i>Abolitionist.</i></b> A reformer who, through writings and speeches, works to end slavery.<br />
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<i><b>Chattel.</b></i> Personal, movable property, including furniture and jewelry, as opposed to “real” property such as land. At times, humans have been chattel as well.<br />
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Ted Landphairhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18142247535149425183noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4320170221399917879.post-47733349151011020772010-05-27T11:47:00.001-04:002010-05-27T13:04:15.740-04:00Here Yesterday, Gone Today<object classid="clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000" height="24" id="single1" name="single1" width="300"><param name='movie' value='http://www.voanews.com/MediaAssets2/player/jw/player.swf'><param name='allowfullscreen' value='true'><param name='allowscriptaccess' value='always'><param name='wmode' value='transparent'><param name='flashvars' value='file=http://www.voanews.com/MediaAssets2/english/2010_05/blog77.mp3&backcolor=7FA3BD&frontcolor=FFFFFF'><embed id='single2' name='single2' src='http://www.voanews.com/MediaAssets2/player/jw/player.swf' width='300' height='24' bgcolor='#ffffff' allowscriptaccess='always' allowfullscreen='true' flashvars='file=http://www.voanews.com/MediaAssets2/english/2010_05/blog77.mp3&backcolor=7FA3BD&frontcolor=FFFFFF'/></object> <br />
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If you’re one of those people who must have the latest news, the hottest song, the newest techno-toy, catch me next time. This posting, I’m going to take my sweet time waxing nostalgic. <br />
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Let’s start up the street, at Bielski’s or Mankowitz’s or Schoeningruber’s store. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_W33qppswU-RGnbJGvT0Ji03bOdwhq-LpJtavjz_-soclBh3SkfMwabdFL9XAEKsyCJvR66YVISvLM6uuA0Z1DVNTyzrPjxBStbTGCTZHdB9cMHUBeZ9jrZf3QEKzGmEEUFkKyPvJGdM/s1600/01+grand+groc.+store,+lincoln,+nb++1942.bmp" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcgZ80RGrwSSknOtljP9drsmakgHnhTGgHz-FGorskkvLvG1U8pbF79iwmFW_H4irArnr0Ym38AR_0avIVQxS4AHwiHFCPJNKibt3ymZ_dz3Mub-fzgoiwwbjWZxNwKooNO7Fi2RWVzLI/s320/webready-01+grand+groc.+store,+lincoln,+nb++1942+copy.jpg" /></a></div>For a century and more, corner stores were an essential part of life in American cities and towns. They were neighborhood social centers — the place where families picked up food, household supplies, and gossip, sometimes several times a day. <br />
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Immigrants got a foothold there, keeping their families together in living quarters upstairs, and earning a decent living. Outside of schools and hospitals and a few offices downtown, the corner grocery store was one of the few venues where women could make their mark.<br />
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The grocer was like family, cutting meat to order, delivering food by bicycle, often selling on credit. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgs8hqT2KfygfAKCKCZL4_j1saNbWP1ntlC-p1bRKb7bEtanpVHkMBBfB3XKpDzHQsrGnA5W_yyRb3FYj76JBNmM7o_OZ9ve4Ss8MK0Cuei8MXJG3Sw_Cn4rPvLtsKF7hjORU6eRi5pp9M/s1600/02+chamfered+corner,+howes+bldg,+1910+clinton,+ia..jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgki9mMUvQRRTs0hqTyvMhY-7_cNcUG0uEsr7LT7PRfoPNbZ5_t4CfVRh2D03gDzowhase7kjNNiydf1EfbKplw-lPfO2LEVBLcxvlixdRKF0HpDYnjsgxtwdPev4h4QRHgVsavQ6yewW0/s320/webready-02+chamfered+corner,+howes+bldg,+1910+clinton,+ia.+copy.jpg" /></a></div>When author and preservationist Ellen Beasley of Galveston, Texas, photographed corner stores and interviewed their proprietors over a 20-year period late in the past century, what first caught her eye was the architecture. Many stores had what are called “chamfered corners” — cut away to allow access from both cross streets — as well as awnings, or what people in Galveston call “sheds,” extending to the street and wrapping around the corner. Beasley said these entryways were like corner shade trees, under which people would sit, play cards, and talk. <br />
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Sometimes you’d find two, three, or even four stores on a single corner. Their proprietors would open early — really early, because customers would be waiting to buy the day’s supply of fresh milk, bread, butter, and meat. With little or no refrigeration at home, they couldn’t stock up for a week. So they’d be back each morning. If the storekeeper was late opening up, you’d throw a pebble against the window upstairs and tell Mrs. Cantini or Mr. Kraftcheck to “shake a leg” and hurry down. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKT9kxKVJyFMtS6gU_z7v9HclsBcnZDO8D27oloYSK_kb-IUHXdCwSS8UBrDaCHmgXxbwvw3AKVdcdBrCDCiXaUa-mF-__TPXVxaOHuQ-fqaU4nmxsCaguVxhwoICX_DMH3UrhM3be8pg/s1600/03+inside,+g.d.s.+store,+wash+1915.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2q0j5dZlLw41W93K4LWrpQ5ualWBz5x_B16ksg11liV69VS9QR1viBeOFpltj2nxla42QcOlat3PaNHrd4h3SzwDFE5poggzd4DsKgTCrmIp8_JPvdxauZKrFrDPCvveOl9XljBZNt_g/s320/webready-03+inside,+g.d.s.+store,+wash+1915.jpg" /></a></div>You couldn’t get a television set or a watch or a set of tools at these tiny stores, whose selection of goods was limited. But people liked the atmosphere.<br />
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Often it was because the father, mother, and kids who took turns running the place spoke your language and stocked the right ingredients for, in the case of my neighborhood, Hungarian goulash or Polish pierogi. <br />
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On the store walls, the owner would hang religious icons, family photos, and school diplomas: homemade, personal touches you won’t find at a Wal-Mart Supercenter. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-fx0jDAQuV3uWUXkQ8ZZlpQMybGMhtyxx4KnXHHDasXWTZzftIiwtMK8_9_60-hUhgBGVLQWWh1jFZ6dmJDuuyOh7QAJNLxm_KeOngmFJ03Na3r9bmwfBuneLTPuxwW6wL5eYXV_Zkog/s1600/04+butcher.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTDt2sPbRvZpjNqlsQ5BXHdFFH4tEcyfix3Og7QMEe3aoPqK8LMGdZLeDdd9t0s4RHSFnaHsBYb11GUfj7Rg1uWOmMl74BlpVp_mi76Ov9BDY22MHHWjdneJKBX2RPGpFn2HwoCkbBVzA/s320/webready-4-butcher.jpg" /></a></div>At the Fisher Brothers’ (I think they were brothers) grocery store up at Madison and Winton avenues in Lakewood, Ohio, where I grew up, the aisles were narrow, the smells were exotic, and you could slide across the sawdust on the floor. If we were having guests for dinner, we could call one of the Fishers and ask him to slice and save us a certain cut of beef or a particular kind of bread. <br />
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The drug store across Atkins Avenue was a family operation, too. The owners knew my mom and grandmother. They knew me for sure, because they put my name on so many prescriptions. They’d take Mother’s calls late at night, come down and open up, and prepare the needed medications. Mustard plasters, even. Not to worry if we were short on cash. We could bring it next time. <br />
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When Ellen Beasley brought some of her corner-store photographs and ephemera to Washington for an exhibit, a woman who grew up in Queens, New York, came to see it. “You knew the people in these stores,” she told me. “They’d be there the next day and the day after that. Now, when you go into the convenience store, it’s a different young kid who doesn’t know you from Adam. <br />
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“And doesn’t care to.” <br />
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Refrigeration, easy automobile travel, and the development of supermarkets killed off most corner stores. Along with your groceries at a mega-store, you can get almost anything. A bathing suit, enormous cans of peaches, a hundred rolls of paper towels on a skid. <br />
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But the people there won’t know you from Adam. <br />
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<b>Tomato Seeds to Rock Candy </b><br />
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“Big box” stores where you can get everything from postage stamps to clothes dryers are not some revolutionary concept. They are updated, upsized re-inventions of old-timey general stores. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglgxRTZDeQ_fdwUTobcYpCPC7BMAzMBVJkefckhZ7Iqs7sAT0s81_BPqe-B89_YLXHekBait4RmI1c9L5McmZaYb6_Y6kzMvzobHJR9wxNX60hwDxytebNe6MV_ucMJNtqucPXbjrx3V4/s1600/05+mast+gen.+store,+valle+crucis,+n.c..bmp" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4nLc8Ini4c-XvLeiNke7TgH5e5uY4yLUYKE8EnDewpmL1u3EoWkQXjrArhdoxBPcCNanmUXuqD27K-gzsib3oF8yau1tW07uOa5A2ZjMJRR9kI5AZSSI28aNINEPdp90v646MQAqZSqw/s320/webready-05+mast+gen.+store,+valle+crucis,+n.c.+copy.jpg" /></a></div>I remember an authentic one — J. R. Jones’s General Store — at <a href="http://www.hfmgv.org/village/index.aspx">Greenfield Village</a>, a historic theme park begun in 1929 in Dearborn, Michigan by automobile magnate Henry Ford. In a scene out of the 1880s — as youngsters rolled hoops, a steam carousel seated its next load of riders, and a boy on a unicycle glided by outside — a costumed volunteer invited us in. <br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMmI5K_YGk-kgXHgqDK-xkvQvsH9y53SZeG0zVn4tuOSWlIJRKJKKBBmv-DyVhjWc7ZW87G12tH251o_zxFzwkv5Enn0LXff83fIOkaUX01kRAnEUAVzs3wtH1ekiS_xGGiIVuSJTYRes/s1600/06+corner+gen.+store,+birney,+mont.+1939.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzoQc3DzfpKwglf5L1wnezfPHIFPp3g9FfkkMf3BcEyUqiCSHIx_nL8GWikIYrOOFXRmPRF7tmttt6TgEJdspYj_eYDPQnr5wVTLm9gtQiOOzAeiX_5kMdh48D23HEhfHo0aOu00klPYs/s320/webready-06+corner+gen.+store,+birney,+mont.+1939+copy.jpg" /></a><br />
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General stores, she explained, were a rural refinement of early trading posts, carrying all sorts of things one needed to keep a household or farm operating.<br />
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This one had once stood along a railroad line in Waterford, Michigan, so James Jones could bring in quite a selection: salt pork, sugar, nails and pickles in barrels, bolts of cloth, pots and pans, chewing tobacco, jars for “putting up” garden vegetables for the winter, and <a href="http://www.hagley.lib.de.us/library/exhibits/patentmed/history/history.html">patent medicines</a> that made you feel better, mostly because of their high alcohol content. <br />
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A big draw at Jones’s store was the telephone — the first in town. People would come in, make a call, and hang out awhile, maybe over a game of checkers. The arrival of a “drummer,” or traveling salesman, would attract a crowd, eager to catch up on the news from Detroit and Waterford’s surrounding towns. <br />
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And just like so many corner-store owners, Mr. and Mrs. Jones lived right upstairs. (The second floor later became a roller-skating rink!) <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZRWHe7eZlFyveFINyywCsPjJXDVrEPHbWWnBK9gcA3kafCo84khOqv2qr1279jKwPd9J-qxIdFB8YOnAVCm6cgwSI22P9-V7exFHgMbFFN3UFv4RFhdF4EzvC1DwV8t-lnL3N_J9utIg/s1600/07+sears+home.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIwRVSuwqs3Mfkk0ZOLQf0ckZYI3EfBo0y2755EfLFZPjvrs6tN5SIJVjl_qUnbBUm5vmUuTtsJ3BjYyJFU_OSaW2JnX_4KF3JMIFjVspjokwP6u401mUBgXV53F4yYKiINPgAcxVz_Gs/s320/webready-7-sears.jpg" /></a></div>It wasn’t monster outlets that put most general stores out of business. It was Sears and Montgomery Ward’s <a href="http://www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/779.html">mail-order catalogs</a>. Ward’s called its “The Wish Book,” from which folks could order fancy goods a small-town general store couldn’t match.<br />
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From Sears, you could even order a brand-new, pre-built home — complete with 600 pounds of nails, 20 cans of paint, and 15,000 asphalt shingles — delivered in two railroad boxcars. <br />
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Mr. and Mrs. Jones definitely didn’t have that in stock. <br />
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<b>Five’ll Get You Ten </b><br />
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I’m mixing my time periods, I know, but the mists of what Carol and I call “Disappearing America” also cover “five-and-dime” stores, which pretty much bit the dust in the late 1990s when Woolworth’s closed its last 400 of what had been 2,500 stores. <br />
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A dime is 10 U.S. cents, and when the Woolworth, Kress, Kresge, G. C. Murphy, and McCrory companies got started toward the beginning of the 20th Century, they sold just about everything for a nickel (5 cents) or a dime. It did not take too many years for prices to go up as these stores became Main Street fixtures, but the “five and dime” or “dime store” name hung on. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5AYHrT3vbMY_iFCamZPN3gWa4LVW66lPaHEZJd2-Zs_UaWoIW2EIXvsZu_8bEWH0iORWj0cy4fyo_kxs3x3TVukIvFWOaLATmuWH_ewZ0FYZHK-nA_CZxFGSBU1NSOHyaHS2ugOG1RVM/s1600/08+candy+Chris+Devers.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-NQGkSdBIafAtXu1qCtUhsD6cTNGlRCXsm-Lj6-4jiYfaT-wYL5fJZOR34BRRqijrQiMSQnvoNtEs9pP_GhBMs5FJ38coM60HJS0o83SfNLSXXx06vCdJOG-KoFeXkO7SsHEq7J2fbnU/s320/webready-08+candy+Chris+Devers+copy.jpg" /></a></div>Five-and-10-cent stores sold candy — lots of candy — in huge bins that sometimes ran the length of a wall. Scissors and women’s makeup and lampshades, too, and cheap perfume, gloves and scarves, underwear and school supplies — even parakeets, goldfish, turtles and, at Eastertime, baby chicks dyed purple or pink. Few of the poor turtles or colored “peeps,” as we called them, made it very far past the holiday once we got them home. <br />
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I remember big meatloaf sandwiches and french fries and banana splits at the Woolworth lunch counter, and the smell of chocolate that permeated the store.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnOExHnwBArUca6Z7HNrOFFdDe_8LKuNe7oPZ_b3udR1zOQaGpq3uKKc2bEcB1SRaGMI-nekdx8GY2qGuUSBvqG-8ufYq9EFKqQArjQ__UdMhETQlg9tSjgXKadGvcQ5Mxf0sCsJe3HRs/s1600/09+Woolworths_shop_frontage.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjASDSq0rnPJyfdnERWVzj1NkzkeVf4aDOu_5HbDhIcJpU6YeK-25rQgShmFFGQVHkV4BiGW6y5BB0ZBVLdXTnbtCtx47u3ckCrgO2RchAVQFFpTZJzXkUI51hx_oZhpn41pzTMcCjvTt8/s320/webready-09+Woolworths_shop_frontage.jpg" /></a><br />
When she recorded the song “Love at the Five and Dime,” country and folk singer Nanci Griffith included this high-school reminiscence about changing buses in downtown Austin, Texas: <br />
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“I always had just enough time to run into the Woolworth store and get myself a vanilla Coke, dig through the record bin, wink at the boys, and get back on the bus.<br />
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The Woolworth stores . . . have this wonderful smell to ‘em. They smell like popcorn and chewing gum, rubbed around on the bottom of a leather-sole shoe.” <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIrVEMRoHY9RQc6Ul4j0vJYJofsRF5gMGEmBmar7IJxH3fP8IYRKmXKaYU1jJl0SfetCRZLB-VlPMVTEDl8FHoFxcDwfreeI3wj5v6IrsC8c3XuWBHmU2DZs_9TiQVqIp13NM6cFZs3xc/s1600/10+greensboro+counter,+smish.+natl.+mus+am+hist%3B+mark+pellegrini,+wik+comm.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzWQXDW8-HOYyabayb73E-URdT9njBNVpBBL0oT9Eym9_NlI_9Ldo6LXzk5BRM984Kkd9rzIz2u7u6emp8dg93yUd7uZ5BDtGhIZBfVy3vArHtCWIOK2-WpD63JSdfbP6n3EUjub_VyFo/s320/webready-10+greensboro+counter,+smish.+natl.+mus+am+hist%3B+mark+pellegrini,+wik+comm+copy.jpg" /></a></div>Perhaps the most famous dime store was the Woolworth’s in racially segregated Greensboro, North Carolina. With tensions rising all over town in 1960, in walked four African-American college students. They quietly took seats at the “whites-only” lunch counter and were quickly arrested and jailed. Some say the “Greensboro Four’s” peaceful <a href="http://www.sitins.com/story.shtml">sit-in</a> ignited a movement for equal rights that soon spread throughout the South. <br />
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Shopping centers and strip malls that popped up throughout suburbia featured discount and warehouse places, not humble five-and-dimes. A few dime stores, offering little or no parking, hung on downtown, but the quality of their merchandise and service declined. <br />
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Dime stores are all but gone now, but on the poorer sides of towns you’ll find some bargain outfits called “dollar stores.” The name, at least, caught up with inflation. <br />
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<b>Eggs Over Easy </b><br />
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I can’t channel musty American institutions without recalling my favorite. It served sorta fresh, sorta prepackaged food, kinda fast or kinda slow, with great or lousy atmosphere, depending on your point of view. <br />
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The name above the door didn’t matter. We just called it “the diner.” <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtCgvEhG3EZjg1Q4IH_5cT9SMVePlojVdu-IuWTImR5IBcGzmky6gUGf5nLLjwlOAYTerUo2fJ3-hUr0i2ak9syV-Z_m_U8gge-prDBxWFnl30kUmSCAWWHkhBu5SSh17jKIo9msImq4E/s1600/web-sketch.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcU1W0ZtMAdByrlPRCvuF58N4XPcvGRd0SMAY_nQQppQh7vzFdDUNP88c2Zen9n5nSGhCKB7-Vo3vkfVW_6qTpwufFndlU-IqWqR5o3BlPb0aF2y-M6NhSK3c3py9Tmw2ZnxMUexzFUQI/s320/webready-11-sketch+copy.jpg" /></a></div>It got its name from the sleek dining cars on passenger trains in the 1940s. Some were actual retired railroad cars. <br />
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We loved their neon signs and old-time rock-‘n’-roll on the jukebox. And the food: cheap, greasy, full of calories. But made to order: Bacon and eggs for breakfast, and steaming coffee all day long. Meatloaf (again), liver and onions, great big burgers — served with green beans and french fries and root beer in a glass. Milk shakes made right in front of you, from real ice cream. <br />
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Diners didn’t have “servers.” A waitress named Marge or Flo, who had a few years on her but a heart of gold, seemed genuinely interested to hear about your big sales meeting or the blizzard out on the highway. She’d pull the pencil from behind her ear, tell you about the meatloaf special and the pie of the day, and pop her gum as she scribbled your order. Beneath his dangling cigarette, Sam, the short-order cook, would fry it up, ding a little bell, and yell out the serving window that your order was “up.” <br />
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We didn’t know it at the time, but diners had many elements of modern art: stainless steel, porcelain enamel, shiny chrome, checkerboard linoleum floors, and bright-green booths and counter stools. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div>Each diner was unique — nothing like McDonald’s or the other formulaic fast-food joints that came along in the 1960s. Most diners couldn’t compete with them. They closed and were busted up and carted off to the junkyard. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRZEvFZJ2kEeiw5f9x851Dj-OwdNOwWMkfyVKU36tss8WxRJrteRpGqnCiB_GTKtzM9nFYor4focvkpP5WAH8UCsW65AVCePWwOvBvArxTMhx_N6zGUqLnc-FiMBWrP30rDzsu6OJarbo/s1600/12+diner,+colo+sp,+wik+comm+David_Shankbone.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdh3quhxwVlicutqqO4jWRgv8Mi4pfXz7eT-2jUKpujsLjHQyS4soPX_Cbj1PNJ1aVy5iHnpb6zA5waW285WXnKYGb1nW2VIgb7fgpRo4n6EYBHJAcLgoPGJSKPi-b5OqxCpf8F0huusU/s320/webready-12+diner,+colo+sp,+wik+comm+David_Shankbone+copy.jpg" /></a></div>But a few survived, and retro versions of the old ones are hot right now. <br />
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Carol extensively photographed the old Modern Diner in the blue-collar mill town of Pawtucket, Rhode Island. On a Thursday night back in the ’40s, we were told, they’d line up around the block to get in there. <br />
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Thursday was payday in the mills. <br />
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The Modern Diner was one of a few “Sterling Streamliner” diners, inspired by streamlined trains such as the Burlington Railroad’s “Pioneer Zephyr.” It was silver, with one end rounded like it’s leaning into the wind. Inside: chromium stools, upholstered booths, abundant neon, and little jukeboxes in every booth. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgu_6xgv_uymFfdEofPCKU8ovLXX2x9r7CRndmP_Dzdd1MFJlZEghyFV9B9gr8fCw2wEkN8psAUYR51VJCFWFRPIjIx9cvWFEAP7b_Nj2C998XfKXO_JPZCDRT5NkkBFfshSAwfGZx000E/s1600/13+modern+diner+interior.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOLrSidDiM-ORvZy8PaxBEQzlmayijtUX8RBffaGQFNZS2ME-33Vcr26ww8WchOGlZuv6x90TXLnCajdyzaZqxr77n1YPKZtlM2XoPhDNmqbAhVdzMFNfvyEHIY4CxCwjtnY9pt78qczc/s320/webready-13+modern+diner+interior+copy.jpg" /></a></div>The Modern Diner closed in the 1970s in the face of competition from new, quick-serve places. It sat empty and vandalized for years. Finally somebody bought it, moved it to swankier surroundings, and fixed it up. Now, believe it or not, it’s described as “a cool, upscale diner.” <br />
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Indeed, Americans are making new memories — still involving grease and gravy and a touch of heartburn — at diners across America. For my tastes, though, today’s Lisas or Kimberlys don’t have Marge’s panache. I haven’t met one yet who can carry off, “What’ll it be there, bud?” then, to Sam, “Cup-a-Joe. Two birds. Flip-‘em. Burn the bread. Hold the lard. Two pigs. Make ‘em holler.” <br />
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<div style="text-align: center;"><b>WILD WORDS </b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">(These are a few of the words from this posting that you may not know. Each time, I'll tell you a little about them and also place them into a cumulative archive of "Ted's Wild Words" in the right-hand column of the home page. Just click on it there, and if there's another word in today's blog that you'd like me to explain, just ask!)</span></div><br />
<i><b>Ephemera. </b></i> Sort of a fancy, academic word for memorabilia, including simple household items that were once here, then gone. Ephemeral, in other words. <br />
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<i><b>Goulash.</b></i> Rich, Hungarian stew, heavily seasoned with paprika spice. <br />
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<i><b>Mustard plaster.</b></i> A poultice made of cloth and a paste of what, to the touch, feels like red-hot peppers. It’s an old remedy designed to relieve chest congestion. <br />
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<i><b>Pierogi.</b></i> Polish dumplings, stuffed with ingredients such as sausage, cabbage, and mashed potatoes.Ted Landphairhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18142247535149425183noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4320170221399917879.post-91598132417077746432010-05-20T12:11:00.003-04:002010-05-25T11:49:26.935-04:00Who am I?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div>As your mother might have told you when she nagged you to scrub your face and comb your hair, how we look and what we wear say a lot about us. <br />
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We make assumptions about people based solely upon their appearance. Disheveled young man: rock-band drummer? Neatly attired older woman: librarian, or maybe a banker? Muscular fellow carrying a lunch pail: blue-collar working stiff. <br />
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But as my mother often said, “You can’t judge a book by its cover.” (She was big on aphorisms.) <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7i6tu8TSpe9K0l3u6YoTqzBKamdiTB9h-aeLVuohewKo4Bln01Ns1-AmYE07h5aOctHJoq3HC6Hf5Zi3Q2JWHa9mCr1obNZ1PmhR5EoECHZuQcvuaLPjpQPezXMN-WXyqrlfP1YZEVrU/s1600/01+bus+driver++opus2008.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3ljNda3IvLF0pJEmfmeo7mpt6Z7PNxaGjmUr48a6NrE-8VPp9qrDkb8rFqDso7Vpe_s4wkm-cm954e-Z3maQ_cUpD3Vng_51GLolSrXkKTSu97xaHqmmdZfqvVNfrOustr7TGID_oFto/s320/webready-01+bus+driver++opus2008+copy.jpg" /></a></div>And how right she was. What if the natty lady is not a librarian but the rock musician, dressed up because she has a day job at an insurance office? What if the disheveled fellow is the construction worker who couldn’t string two notes together? The strapping specimen could be the librarian. He just happens to work out and kinda likes lunch pails. <br />
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Looks can be deceiving, as Mom Landphair alternately advised. <br />
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Without trying, people give us broad visual clues about who they are and what they care about. And Americans, in particular, are quite deliberate about it. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjre2ZtUwnU10wwJwLleRUBRIVH1sGxz45LImCRZZPr6s59IMtPlNl-_5B6TwaGPs4qpRcbd13SErEtvpQMlRhIf1hs4f24Fo6UAnEdh5ioy76Wg5qfoW0FKXUIMW3gGWQ_VaiibUqXcro/s1600/02+red+sox+fan+~K~.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzmR4-EWQChlYJzIQd20eyMo5pJ8DSEiVjw3HN8jposGV_Fzx6sLqU5IA3IbylQDiei022mhef1xiijHRtKHgVTcGCijU_PSbJjSrureiYYR2ZZhjg8O-fXIJmUeQ8kwoDenF5elRqPDs/s320/webready-02+red+sox+fan+~K~+copy.jpg" /></a></div>On the Washington Metro subway each day, thousands of people wear sports gear. A New York Yankee baseball cap, perhaps. Or an authentic Washington Capitals hockey jersey, draping clear to their knees. Maybe a purple-and-gold “Property of LSU Athletic Department” tee shirt. <br />
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Trust me, not all of these folks are athletes. For sure, they’re not Yankee or Capital or Louisiana State University players. <br />
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But there’s a good chance that the guy in the Yankee cap is a Yankee fan — maybe even a New Yorker. He’s as much as announcing it by wearing the blue and white, intertwined “NY” on his head. It wouldn’t be a stretch to peg the tee-shirt wearer as an LSU student or graduate, or at least a proud Louisianian. And it’s a good bet that anyone who would don an expensive, full-length hockey jersey, especially one of the thousands you see with the name “OVECHKIN” and the number 8 stitched on the back, is a hard-core local hockey fan. For those of you in countries that don’t have sheets of ice, Capitals’ star Alex Ovechkin is rated the world’s best, or close-to-best, hockey player. <br />
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Sometimes, too, you see elderly bald men or 150-kilo women in Caps’ jerseys with their <i>own</i> names sewn on the back. I find that a little creepy. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDDoSXUJywYGfXTpjRSCcbNYA_ayzJculzQ6wjhCgItn6RrYgXZLRhl98oQOxXlcbqGESRS3_P7BFxvd-nO69yIwAoIqyAXO54UdZVY5hfiyEcQXiNcSsMzK9MZ6DlE0rwDlg54Vanzw0/s1600/03+grape+crush++victoriafee.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyxcHbcY4eBokVaqUCPX7yW7S-L94L8XwTIYlcvrnIrxqf0bEdSPCjj1KFKw-zG_7hmcnvJ230dU9_IZUr3zVmH518EupnoDNBoLXQgJDrjHhRBGIRho6BIGOdyzH6C3XpNStcSxzULio/s320/webready-03+grape+crush++victoriafee+copy.jpg" /></a></div>Americans openly wear labor-union buttons, crosses and other religious symbols, and colored ribbons that support the fights against scourges such as cancer or autism or drugs. I’m seeing more and more young people of all races affecting a rapper look: garish jewelry, plain dark tee shirt, dark hat cocked sideways. These folks are saying something, all right — something not-so-vaguely hostile. “You wanna make something of it?” <br />
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On my sports coat, I often wear a distinctive red, white, and blue “VOA” lapel pin, ignoring the Voice of America’s inexplicable color-scheme switch to blue and green a few years ago. <br />
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The messages can get quite specific. Americans wear VOTE!” or “Support the Troops!” buttons. We slap stickers on our car windows or bumpers that read, “My Daughter Made the Honor Roll at Millard Fillmore High!” Do they know that this can prompt a hostile response: “There goes another pushy parent”? <br />
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I keep waiting for the sticker that reads, “My Kid’s Just Average at Hannibal Hamlin High!” (Hamlin, in case you’re crazy with curiosity, was one of Abraham Lincoln’s vice presidents.) <br />
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Bumper stickers can be witty and inoffensive: <br />
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“Boldly Going Nowhere.” <br />
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“Stoplights timed for 35 mph. Also for 70 mph.” <br />
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“Honk if You Love Peace and Quiet.” <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMZkmAyNa2DA3u-ZTJQkm9igLinoDqxVEGMj7L0AHo7IaCKdUNXpXRVM4TmwUAxHJSbwUIaAil_4W-b3n7nJ0-_1jEkii8p5woLBYMteowaa229C7i3KQ6jy-wpYTDo9snbJv6EN_2cdI/s1600/04+Christ++MoToMo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikCibWPPiKxzW5b7So7NEuP9gS02ptda72PfWGTtye87hEXCacLBRrPaAPGqQGPfrfcUEnKEN2qP61bVDXoOm0EhmQQXjP9zHRuh-cPoQWnfnvGuZeNHrEFAqmk9OSd4e0X8CxEbZsygw/s320/webready-04+Christ++MoToMo+copy.jpg" /></a></div>They also serve as passing soapboxes: “Save the Whales” — or the Wolves, or the Bay, or the Great Crested Newt. “Jesus Saves” is also pithy, pointed, and popular. “Kiss Me, I Recycle” is both deft and clear. The message has to be simple. There’s no room on a bumper sticker to explain exactly<i> how</i> we can save western wolfpacks. <br />
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Americans also pour a lot of creative energy into devising ingenious “vanity” license plates. In place of the state-assigned plate number, we substitute our own names, mushy nicknames for our spouse or pet, or clever wordplays that are just tame enough to pass state censorship. “DE-WIFED,” for instance, tells a lot about the car’s owner. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg29UcdNp5FyKaM8GslEhB6Zfa498Aj2ZBVMRw9SzSKAbOCeRqLd5xnKnEcYPx2OhD24T6IBlpxXZMqoedK7KImWpMvEW3IM5A1-PHK9bwcymSHTbvvLmhPGGl3aIh4xzfu-ni2ZoYznwo/s1600/05+vanity+plate++Liz+Henry.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJp4jKsPCne9G6nsHCyorQuF48evMhQx3eE5Mf2H87Wp_yqH1rJ9MQimtC0l2cVxYHdk7TUEHvHG1BNu9U57qEp5fWv-TqyKj__HkUBdVBzy3XCehI142CwHeBgofQ9t18yXVbiAar1Og/s320/webready-05+vanity+plate++Liz+Henry+copy.jpg" /></a></div>In our increasingly polarized political environment, our badges and stickers are becoming more strident and partisan. We just got over a spate of “Bush Lies!” stickers and pins, only to see a raft of “Obama is a Socialist” ones today. <br />
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It’s easy to guess how a person wearing a “Hey Barack, I’m Ba-roke” button feels about the president. Or where someone whose car bumper proclaims, “Guns Don’t Kill People; Abortion Clinics Do” stands on TWO combustible issues of the day. <br />
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From my own limited observations abroad, and from what my VOA colleagues who were born and reared in other cultures and often revisit their homelands tell me, this pent-up desire to tell the world how we feel or what team we follow has not yet swept the world. It is largely an American passion — or fashion.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIZi44CIhT4EsKAxzkNHXobyXL1xVICcodOmuReemugVOKSusqmC9ll28o_4yB1etlp54M06tcttZqLzHZmLs0ieZ4l-3vlFzckNEGf1X-T0yobFiu_okd8qLneClhprc8ixztFWF7CAE/s1600/06+Oriole+fan+in+London++DG+Jones.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFWAKF0Rq6D6JPfU3hSxzOqfImxFQ0MWSfUV3EyCY8SxkxU9sKQdyXeqEVYVjxQSfU-V-qVXa52BEo1geuxxrMfrv7n34c4m-_kJ_8sR7ddsatzR5cs56E_jMlHIdHs0YUrvKlDOOkLB8/s320/webready-06+Oriole+fan+in+London++DG+Jones.jpg" /></a></div>A fellow in Delhi might wear a San Francisco Giants baseball cap without even knowing exactly what the “SF” on the cap stands for, what sport the Giants play, or much at all, if anything, about San Francisco. He’s wearing it because it’s American, modern, or sharp-looking. <br />
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Needless to say in a dangerous world, not everyone feels as free as Americans to walk the streets wearing more provocative symbols or slogans. <br />
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If I wore an “Impeach Obama” pin around Washington, it’s highly unlikely that it would convert an Obama supporter into a conservative Republican, let alone help trigger an impeachment drive. Likewise, an “Obama is Beautiful” button would just draw a snigger from a “Tea Party” ultra-conservative. <br />
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But wearing our emotions, preferences, or hometown pride on our sleeves, lapels, or bumpers — or atop our heads — can increase human contact.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfJt4gkWrOD4kSxYy8cOcPjktN3rOtFbEUrgr5TzdH-gvnjV_FYpIpLi7sAYUuE16ylwGi5OKz6LSNh_1IqXhZ-61_d-cg230aKZ9OFFvlGBRqGdeAcQu8dufjPt4YdUzFfn_DL-IvrHg/s1600/07+harold+lloyd+subway+1920s++++Annie+Mole.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzIcjQ2ZhrDyK64bX7eeO6Fa-99-35iNxvhyr_jbm-K-sym8o3hATNZH-MsBvn-19VqEU8K0cYYc_dODC0X7ruaftBmxUDU1h4SroIyHLNQ_7rLe8RiR4Sq7qbqD47q22BcKYL-trW9QU/s320/webready-07+harold+lloyd+subway+1920s++++Annie+Mole+copy.jpg" /></a></div>I just assume that a Metro rider who’s wearing a St. Louis Cardinals hat is inviting me to ask if he’s from Missouri, or Cardinal fan. If the answer is affirmative and friendly, it won’t be long before we’re talking baseball, Midwest geography, or<a href="http://www.schlafly.com/history.brewing.shtml"> St. Louis beer</a>. And I’ll likely give this fellow and his family all sorts of tips for their visit to the nation’s capital. <br />
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Of course, as a kitty lover, I wouldn’t know what to say to a person on the Metro who was wearing a pin that says, “Cat. The Other White Meat.” <br />
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<b>Where Am I? </b><br />
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If you’ve been with me since I started blogging two years ago, you may recall that I grew up in a lower-middle-class household where no one owned, or even drove, a car. So my chances to explore the country were limited, my geographical curiosity outsized, and my longing to travel profound. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvHX2h0gpxSz5z-my1CkcOAJZEJm7m8F3kpojAroJM84BcERZrWsUJunioeLOuB5bjNTmHBXcm5sMG96i379lUx6FVrSrTXSrhGu71n_EjDGSuKGL2V9yFs6P0mb6XZrN7yw34pZbdkdE/s1600/08+u.s.+map++back_garage.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1YDnDanZUha9i_56A_dgviAb4tUf-GgKXbC02sHFpMOl-jCu3PLC3yZXswbWEYlqQFmGBMHDCzO_SVBX_Tk1trecwgsGp594-OgNL-WoOsQQPzgnptI6eU_0WbixHWo3I25ijZtdSi9Y/s320/webready-08+u.s.+map++back_garage+copy.jpg" /></a></div>When those chances arrived in adulthood, I jumped at them. One of my early jobs — covering the odd combination of education and sports for the <i>National Observer</i> newspaper — took me to towns across America, whose museums and historical societies I couldn’t wait to explore. On a big U.S. wall map at home, I stuck a pin into the name of each place I visited and even strung twine to show the routes that I took to get there. <br />
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It was a proud moment when I could inform all who would listen that I had at last visited my 50th and final state: <a href="http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0108256.html">North Dakota</a>, on the Canadian border in the often-frigid, rather empty northern plains. <br />
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Craig Wilson, a creative <i>USA Today </i>newspaper columnist, awakened those memories in a recent column when he asked a simple but difficult question: “What constitutes a visit?” <br />
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Does it have to involve an overnight stay? A drive-through? Of what duration? Would sticking a toe into a new state count? How about dropping out of the sky for an hour or two on a connecting flight, perhaps never leaving the plane. For it to count as a visit, must one have a meal or a drink? <br />
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Wilson, drat it, never answered his own question. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipbynSQpybaRhQO1C0UBeI-a7WlLWugyeiMrMsRlMtst6edCmIPHlKa2Geepj0yMO4noRzN_i1b83kMYMzu8A8PF2HJOHYQFbHdNc_N2OXJCigSR_STEPYOh4anbkR27iTVIQBfpFLlvo/s1600/09+stateline+avenue.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjS_mVX8Xl5ysDcUG_tKEQS0xLHUxNawRLTWAqCgS64-EgULx9WSYViXD0RVN9Jd9lcoQPoHOaV8SlyY_6qH7WsySUr2E44ij8_Zqc2nuGx4DjTAKoaqMymZ7XjChIp1cYkrNYdyDK6KqU/s320/webready-09+stateline+avenue.jpg" /></a></div>I can’t remember my own criteria when I strung the yarn from pin to pin on my map. Today, I’d say that one has to get enough of a glimpse of the terrain, and talk with enough people in at least <i>part</i> of a state to be able to discuss the state some time later. Merely stepping across Stateline Avenue from <a href="http://www.arkansas.com/city-listings/city_detail/city/Texarkana">Texarkana</a>, Arkansas, into Texarkana, Texas, in order to check off “Texas” on your list of states visited wouldn’t cut it, since one side of Stateline looks pretty much like the other, and because you’d still have almost 700,000 square kilometers of Texas to see. <br />
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By the way, the only state left on Craig Wilson’s “to visit” list is also North Dakota. If I were on the North Dakota Promotion Council, I’d push for a new tourism slogan. <br />
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Something like “Save the Best for Last!” <br />
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<b>What Am I? </b><br />
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Ethnicity and ethnic heritage are hot-button topics in the United States. Witness the furor over legislation in the Southwest state of Arizona that’s aimed at identifying, prosecuting, and deporting illegal aliens, nearly all of whom are Latino. Arizona’s education chief also advocated, and the governor signed, a measure aimed directly at the city of Tucson, near the Mexican border, where more than half the school population is Latino. Schools there have long taught a course in Mexican history and culture. <br />
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Those who oppose such a course say it perpetuates ethnic separation rather than assimilation. You’ll recall from my last posting that, for much the same reason, the State of Louisiana ordered that all school instruction, even in primarily French-speaking “Cajun” districts, be conducted in English. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdqNYKDxdPKRnsoRUK5ht0uF_wa7Su7zsvwlJBQfgQN-U5Y6ToYsPBcYsD0srmn7EpWhBtdrFDR_EuaxU7wv5AZQYsmaWnIGDd6QoH_jYD0gYTArnGpBRCNpFmf7Miy_2oJBqyzGmNl74/s1600/10+little+norway.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjV3ieXDu7milPAWVNB9EWF_MOFsNQjjR4dUgFBOfEpQZVv-w-xbNOEzzFfKsQ6nh-eU3-dFqiQ7WkRNoJr1nyKLWuUOno4nSWT-u-oA_sl79WQ2U3cAxISzf-yoFAy7piNYlsMU9wA7E8/s320/webready-10+little+norway+copy.jpg" /></a></div>There are hundreds of ethnic societies, museums, and cultural centers across the nation. A few that I’ve visited include “Little Norway” in Blue Mounds, Wisconsin; the Balzekas Museum of Lithuanian Culture in Chicago; the Museum of the Cherokee Indian in North Carolina; and the Gullah Heritage Trail in South Carolina’s Sea Islands. (The Gullah people, who maintain a distinctive African language, are descendants of slaves, mostly from Angola.) <br />
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Critics of Tucson’s Latino-heritage program argue that there’s a big difference between those cultural programs and what Tucson is up to. They say a Scandinavian village in Iowa, say, enlightens outsiders — non-Scandinavians — about a culture. Tucson’s program on the other hand, they argue, teaches Latino children things they already know about themselves and foments cultural separatism. <br />
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Supporters, as you might expect, counter that such programs foster ethnic pride within a population that is often stigmatized as second-class. <br />
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Washington, D.C., is packed with ethnically-oriented national museums. They include the National Museum of the American Indian, the United States Memorial Holocaust Museum, and the Smithsonian Institution’s Museum of African Art. <br />
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Among them is a small, new one that is raising some eyebrows. It’s the German-American Heritage Museum, installed in a downtown Victorian row house. The museum tells the story of — and this would surprise a lot of Americans — what is historically the nation’s largest immigrant group. <i>Washington Post</i> writer Marc Fisher reported that the museum’s supporters — rebuffed 20 years ago when they offered to help finance the national Holocaust museum if it would balance its exhibits on Nazi atrocities against Jews with a section on the positive, democratic changes in postwar Germany — “counter[ed] the Holocaust museum with one of their own.” <br />
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Reudiger Lentz, the German-American museum’s director, adamantly denied that putting the Nazi era to rest had anything to do with opening his facility. He insisted that “its focus is on German immigration to the United States since 1607,” not on whitewashing an odious chapter in German history. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhx-u7twKU-SpmQ-vlDe23cBylHAMd6_JxH4WbNxactKfDGkJIlIwSb93JyJKCf4hKYCFOAcKcLejHJT0jGyZMm3Z1VmUveL3jZjEZIyGEqV3U2C0m0NqHUgPuAH4rI9WmeoznbgHfVaU0/s1600/11+multicultural+++brainchildvn.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1VW0PzafyE0F9GxVZV1Hz1ZB-6jMOV3LH1-Nj8sjeDtABTnqr76tIbFPYLOOkly-0ZrUK9w0dTfdTyaEecggW-5PBarbftW706_XaJm03uAcFdUDXIHNGc6yzLzle1dIzl1GUa0JMniM/s320/webready-11+multicultural+++brainchildvn+copy.jpg" /></a></div>I’ve long wondered if some of the suspicions and friction created by ethnic-solidarity efforts could be assuaged with a simple flip-flop of words. If the first word were always the same — “American” — and the second identified the nationality being preserved, explained, and promoted, might a greater good as well as ethnic interests be served?<br />
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The unique heritage of American Irish, American Africans, American Italians, American Germans and the like — just like that of American Indians — would be maintained and highlighted. And so, too, would the home that they share today. <br />
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<div style="text-align: center;"><b>WILD WORDS </b></div>(These are a few of the words from this posting that you may not know. Each time, I'll tell you a little about them and also place them into a cumulative archive of "Ted's Wild Words" in the right-hand column of the home page. Just click on it there, and if there's another word in today's blog that you'd like me to explain, just ask!)<br />
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<i><b>Aphorism.</b></i> An easy-to-remember saying, carrying advice on how one should conduct his or her life. <br />
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<i><b>Impeach. </b></i>Formally, the term refers to an accusation or indictment by a legislative body. The term is often mistakenly thought to refer to the conviction, or even removal, of an officeholder. More loosely, to impeach something — say one’s credibility — is simply to challenge it. <br />
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<i><b>Natty.</b></i> Dapper and up to date in one’s dress or appearance. <br />
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<i><b>Pithy.</b></i> Simple, direct, to the point, using few words. <br />
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<i><b>Rebuff. </b></i>To bluntly and forcefully reject or refuse something. <br />
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<i><b>Soapbox.</b></i> While a soapbox can in fact be a box holding soap, the term more broadly recalls the pre-amplification days when speakers would have to stand on raised platforms in order to shout their messages to large crowds. “Getting on one’s soapbox” means to vigorously rant on a subject.Ted Landphairhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18142247535149425183noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4320170221399917879.post-33009251472522636492010-05-12T12:54:00.003-04:002010-05-12T17:16:08.118-04:00Heartbreak ParishIt’s no longer news that on April 20th, the catastrophic explosion of an offshore rig sent an undersea gusher of oil boiling to the surface of the Gulf of Mexico off Louisiana. Or that winds, tides and time have overwhelmed efforts to contain a slick the size of Cyprus, spreading globs of emulsified goo to the very edges of the tender marshes and bayous of Plaquemines Parish, and onto the barrier Chandeleur Islands. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAQGJoJUvc7fdp_w-A7GdWW6TqmEd0excWovgRETvukwYjh_dF5HmFS1eng9Y4EyZTbq2W-O40FFa2x700BiG3UuU9SwISYysMpYue0xjm3SA7GgsJqDSZWt1XvAtnca0HXZpz_CyXv0U/s1600/01+shrimp+boat+fleet.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTvUbtwvJBVG5q8REk6jq5HaMMst1P1cbVQaxafUAE_RtDVhdL2hGH09NE_d41gdKRHGV3MeO5wjfH-Jbe3lwKjoGcKkDJoKzOPzXLYNHMsxJBJWqxO0cWnhC0E_N_vm0Vxju8flLxc3Y/s320/webready-01-shrimp-boat-fle.jpg" wt="true" /></a></div>Other VOA reporters are keeping you abreast of developments and the science of it all. I want to tell you, instead, about the place where oil threatens the wetlands and wildlife — right at the height of the spring breeding season — and has grounded an armada of small boats that in normal times pulls from the deep, 44 percent of the nation’s shrimp harvest. Thirty-six percent of the oysters, too.<br />
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Louisiana also leads the country in crawfish, crab, and alligator-meat production. And the recreational saltwater fishing industry, now idled as well, pumps another $41 million into the economies of the Gulf Coast states.<br />
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Up the road, restaurants are, together, exotic New Orleans’ largest private employer, and two-thirds of them prepare and serve seafood. <br />
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I could go on and on about oyster po-boys, shrimp étouffée, or catfish meuniére. When I wrote about New Orleans’ insatiable demand for seafood a few years back, I added, “Of course, seafood is abundant in Louisiana.”<br />
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Not right now, though, and there are fears that, to keep up with demand, Louisiana restaurants and fishmongers will turn to cheaper, imported shrimp and fish and oysters — maybe for good.<br />
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So these are tense and tenuous times in Plaquemines Parish, a place where misery has all too often dwelled. (Parishes, if you’re curious, have been the Louisiana version of counties since the days of French control, 200 years and more ago. The Catholic Church, not civil servants, set the boundaries, and many parishes are named for saints. Louisiana has held onto French ways with the law, too, preferring the <em>Code Napoléon</em> to English common law.)<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFg0GccpM_vYsmGoRSWpwYQu4WFIIedHXt6lscE7cRG6a6AcYzBo5dTkit08dCS5FZDB6RVQ5Ik8G9_TOpUkfIDEeOK-kkAkQMvAefqTigi9maukEVzJNkEjLCJl3w0MFm4z6KVHYJ_ko/s1600/02+map.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTsejKhAD4orPzp35beZ1tCSNDWlPSzqrd6KYFUQuIk98jpBuzK9C528MvhQVo8bxH_A6UXQoREjq19JaME_-JffkiGlFMMiiMHtLGNNlJ3Bz8wgGjDsT8CScXQQmDfm2qXUqjiTbAF2I/s320/webready-02-map.jpg" wt="true" /></a></div>Plaquemines’ name derives from an Indian word meaning “persimmon,” for the trees that grew outside an early fort. As you can see on the adjacent Louisiana map, it is the exposed, southeastern-most toe of the Louisiana “boot.” There, 4½ years ago, Hurricane Katrina howled ashore and flattened just about everything. Almost 2,000 people died in the neighboring parishes downwind, but just 3 stubborn Plaquemines holdouts lost their lives. Knowing all too well that there is no escape from floodwaters in a place with no high ground, most everyone else in the sparsely populated parish abandoned their farmhouses, tiny businesses, and livestock and fled inland. <br />
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About 3,000 of the parish’s 26,000 residents never came back.<br />
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Plaquemines’ fishers and beauty-shop owners and oil-rig roughnecks know something about calamities. During the “Great Flood of 1927,” parish and state officials ordered a levee dynamited in order to relieve pressure on the swollen Mississippi River that was threatening to swamp New Orleans’ French Quarter. <br />
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The Crescent City was saved, but half of Plaquemines was inundated, and thousands of people lost their homes. Many were African Americans who never returned, instead joining what’s been called the “Great Migration” into northern states, looking for industrial jobs.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjD75RhcGEVq3S9iGzBNWYbYeMP_S_8ZzbDGOufFR2L6sXu8On079YhnBi2JfHjQP4_njN8oreST14K9PYVoPUZQzrAYkMQ7ZBHlUL6rtXn-ZLrxOCiB_P4SqNXcrOqfgoweMe1X0xkiBo/s1600/03+fish+truck++fema+andrea+booher.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMF0OtSj0G-9zkWmNiCDYQ20kPzW8MNYYJ2Qu7LKy-gsgoYsTIeB1Xfl5NSMByL2sJtY2iTjSsOYjXi6L4TTY09_l8Fvqt-brNFVTk04V2TUM7akJNOyY-HOdR3EseqWJm1PqSGriEjMs/s320/webready-03-fish-truck--fem.jpg" wt="true" /></a></div>It’s a good thing just about <em>everybody</em> left Plaquemines when Katrina struck. <br />
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Ninety percent of the parish’s long, narrow landmass — bisected by the first 110 kilometers (70 miles) of the Mississippi River — ended up under water. Half the shrimp boat fleet was destroyed, thousands of citrus trees went unpicked, seawater ruined many a rice field, and an untold number of farm animals drowned.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div>“New Orleans filled up with water slowly,” Manuel Roig-Franzia wrote in the <em>Washington Post</em> shortly after Katrina. “Davant [in Plaquemines Parish] was swept away fast.” <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghUbzeLnzUARUOpgsQqc6aKIr4X04p54i6lm0RS2qekC5Nqg2ow-tyjrWHX7qo3XRF2MBiAyRXC84Y2U_XhAF-10AuBoQbwiGu68P2WS4V6Ghi5Q76JLlFe0HmLBiPTeFGMKsApqeovZ8/s1600/04+buras+water+tower+fema+robert+kaufmann.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEn9l6zVweQSkP2drArNqtT18cWvL6xXToKniX5x6-dmBZqRD_J5Ipg1GPM8dRU6h1DqhRuK-Ierw9MRl27ycu3IiRsDMqxs1upBmZsit3mAvVoIsPJSFDwucc-JhzDmLZecC4kqfqMG8/s320/webready-04-buras-water-tow.jpg" wt="true" /></a></div>Katrina acted like a tsunami, he continued. “The Mississippi River came roaring through, frothy and white and mean, up over the levee on one side of town, and the salty marsh water broke through the levee on the other.” All that remained on several blocks of the town of 900, Roig-Franzia reported, “are concrete stoops.” <br />
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In Davant and throughout the parish, wood-framed houses that survived the hurricane winds “were ground into kindling” by the water surge.<br />
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Davant became a ghost town, and Plaquemines a ghost parish that years of sorrowful rebuilding had only just begun to bring back to life.<br />
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“Katrina dug a hole for us,” Louisiana shrimper Charles Robin III told <em>Time</em> magazine. “We’re laying in this grave, trying to dig out, and [now] this spill comes along.”<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcQN-eR_bH5_ruprBQUKg0qIhWqst_fcvFw4U4g4H30nTs0UnfOZRR5l2i5e043Isp0tNnSEjmAGxuPn_WCKfE8swMyPOqmIR7w-ir_YtbLBJO5tqrkd369O2WsjvUSy9Ui_SsHK0LyPY/s1600/05+PilotTownTwain1883++Life+on+Miss.++copyr.+expired.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_y3Q56jXkCBfnb7-GZHcg6XF16-_5KoeBgpmU5mJKomkvJOem_IXrD9fcHoKisJ7FXFYy8v-1XNnlSVmpznJOReTJ8YLKbGCbiVQ_ptsnzPAFIL2TE76crVIFZ5YE-Lq3eFYngS4kfVk/s320/webready-05-PilotTownTwain1.jpg" wt="true" /></a></div>A couple of years before the storm, Carol and I had taken a boat ride down to what’s called the “Head of Passes” at the mouth of the Mississippi, where the mighty river splits into several channels as it works its way through the delta of rich soil washed downstream from as far away as Minnesota. We were off to photograph “Pilottown,” a quaint little settlement built on piers that was the base of offshore oil exploration and home to the river pilots who guided oceangoing ships up the treacherous, serpentine river to New Orleans.<br />
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Katrina pushed Pilottown completely off its foundation, and the pilots decided not to rebuild it. Only 20 or so people live in what remains. Piloting operations moved upriver to Venice, a real, terra firma town.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhL0Snv5EXwaFfarwoKl-OXPXvjP6QPpkQ24V4hd4xLBQJHBYDXPhwG8BjOtLu0uyYUqxhirMpbIkHg8UuIk5j1h-qEihjcNukv6SqG_xYNNYIP2iTcdpwUnhYUMdr-3HMcnqiPFz-9zI8/s1600/06+pilottown.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVqzftGFd1kXdPHfUE_8ODTlykYumkP0zbHiyUrKLBdBqZzFPadT-gxnGOPtaH2J9T06jcu2snurxkUIW7N8Lpc-X_LI4phCTgpqjOt5jcNb3-43HJk5d0AZxxvFYrNIICfuYDfG_is6c/s320/webready-06-pilottown.jpg" wt="true" /></a></div>Seventy years ago, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/1984/09/14/obituaries/harnett-t-kane-73-author-of-books-about-the-south.html">Harnett T. Kane</a>, the author of 25 books about the South, wrote that the bayou country, of which Plaquemines is part, “is a place that seems often unable to make up its mind whether it will be earth or water, and so it compromises.” <br />
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Semiaquatic, somebody else described it. Almost half of the parish lies under a meter or more of water. Shorebirds, alligators, and muskrats — large, smelly rodents long pursued by Plaquemines trappers for their water-repellent pelts — live among its cattails and cypress stumps in places where salt and fresh water, silt from the great river — and now the tentacles of an oil sheen — do battle.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeJs4sf04z7F8LX7GfvwkEPrAjjE9DrspaPpiUgUyJaTOfd5ZkUhPO2NW-1ezxEvg7xggneOaiscMLtfW8ttgEg1RwOyDhiOK_mH_UEveECX_1sZsXQ6oAh3VYfJsfnQ_YbvygUTf82hw/s1600/07+cypress+trees+at+sunset.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjInqv_wj7_L9RrGmdRJH2TMOKIPBKhRmUiXCoMfb6cnJ5ykyDzrwORoXWV-vZOZkj9ZshcLgXA2dW3bKUom5O0gq3lp5ZCMn6kAaARMaGUGZlBciLth57JJ_IYGrEJYhWXluscWQJOT2s/s320/webready-07-cypress-trees-a.jpg" wt="true" /></a></div>This is a labyrinthine world, back among the reeds and purple water hyacinths, the live oaks and overhanging Spanish moss. It’s an easy place in which to get lost, sometimes on purpose. But the people here know their way, even on the darkest night.<br />
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Although the most famous part of Louisiana’s French-speaking Acadian population lives farther west, near the cities of Lafayette and New Iberia, there are plenty of multi-generational “Cajun” families among Plaquemines’ human population as well. They are the descendants of French speakers who were <a href="http://canadianhistory.suite101.com/article.cfm/from_acadians_to_cajuns">expelled</a> from Canada’s maritime provinces by British authorities in the early 18th Century. <br />
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Today’s generation speaks a French-English patois, often with a sort of double emphasis: “I’m so happy today, me,” or “I don’t care for any, no.” They might have held tight to French had not the state required English-only instruction in school, or had so many Cajuns not found work in the English-speaking oil patch.<br />
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Plaquemines’ Acadians join with Italian Americans, blacks, Vietnamese immigrant shrimpers, and Isleños to form a generally neighborly ethnic pastiche. Isleños are descendants of Canary Islanders who came to Louisiana during Spain’s 30-year <a href="http://www.nps.gov/archive/jeff/lewisclark2/circa1804/heritage/SpanishInfluence/SpanishInfluence.htm">rule in Louisiana</a>, which ended in 1802. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXCfkiKbXcDQ_xee1LMhO66n8RHsd2xOsXVEPVb07hKjEVu5IpUb-oWwD9tlljtecN5ry6l257n0Z6jIlORDhNjRC-mTViGhkBXo3zqqGYtOKSryogfEbRWxXq3Fs3e9fm6ybkWNojJZw/s1600/08+rural+cabin.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqSdRTSn5QjjbAqYmeytSJGE6qKLwEsvD_RL9QI8msN0jh4_N3uxwpyxZdXZSCvfkVqXlni8UkH4Sf0NP50vz3zJn9oxocuvshzFuvRXu0PDE5S4C26uDc0qlytbAXi6kRroppCbPbyTA/s320/webready-08-rural-cabin.jpg" wt="true" /></a></div>Most all of the parish’s citizens, living in simple frame cabins, sometimes high on stilts in Louisiana’s “wet front yard” — Kane’s words again — are Catholic. Witness the popularity of ritual blessings of the shrimp boat fleet by the nearest bishop prior to gala, waterborne processionals that usher in seasons of bounty on the sea. <br />
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They used to be bountiful, at least. <br />
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So many of Plaquemines’ people keep to themselves that the parish hasn’t a single incorporated town. The largest village is the parish seat, Point-a-la-Hache (“Point of the Hatchet”), with fewer than 700 people.<br />
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Although Plaquemines has always been more of a passage from the sea to the heartland than a destination, it had one early, shining moment. In 1682, the French explorer Rene Robert Cavalier, Sieur de <a href="http://www.sonofthesouth.net/texas/la-salle.htm">La Salle</a>, planted a cross near the Head of Passes, claiming the entire Mississippi Valley and all the area drained by its tributaries for France. He named this vast, mostly unexplored territory “Louisiana” in honor of his king, Louis XIV. <br />
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The British had designs on the great river, too, but lost because of a bold but simple ruse. In 1699, another French explorer, Jean Baptiste Le Moyne, Sieur de Bienville, was heading downstream in a small boat when he met the captain of a British man-of-war that was heading upstream. He convinced the Englishman to turn tail and head back out in the Gulf, explaining convincingly that the French had built a sizeable fort up ahead. Surely its cannon fire would destroy the British ship. There was no fort, and the French kept control of Louisiana for a century thereafter. The spot where Bienville delivered his lie has since been known as “English Turn.”<br />
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Real forts along the river in Plaquemines, built by Americans after the “Louisiana Purchase” from France in 1803, were captured by Confederate forces in the U.S. Civil War of the 1860s. They would soon be blasted into submission by Admiral David Farragut’s Union fleet, thus wrenching control of the entire Mississippi River from the rebels.<br />
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Over time, Plaquemines Parish became Louisiana’s favorite source of seafood, rice, navel oranges, and satsumas — a type of mandarin orange.<br />
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But a different sort of crop — corruption — has been a mainstay as well. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiI-bPwPxpxAWaA6mTesQDNT2BvBHFfoGgDx_8NEDeZS0bB1Ns0u1edIsBB-mDvnEozDauLWzD1peoyU5NRR4-Tz1KRiKyOljkYdy1ukr03lY18p_UKoG3tWVTjiKCqwdi144QU7XYv3lE/s1600/09+blacksmith+shop.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjq7NiwSRdMfcbj_jYE0stVDvH9t6l3x0retr0sxiaemdB8suVOFIW8Eondq-J7yqMOy_E9ILZAt3tIRzkyDeQPDGUDm6E9sD-xdl3h1XWahHQPRcWBcf2d1n-XYSJTAXPhvMEQvwI7kI8/s320/webready-09-blacksmith-shop.jpg" wt="true" /></a></div>If you consider piracy to be a form of it, the tradition goes back to 1807, when the pirate Jean Lafitte and his smuggler brother Pierre set up operations on an island in Barataria Bay. Both were actually more middlemen than pirates. They outfitted the brigands who plundered ships in the Gulf, then bought the booty and sent it in batches up to New Orleans in flat-bottomed <em>pirogues</em>.<br />
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In a more traditional exercise of corruption, in 1844, 970 Plaquemines residents cast their ballots for U.S. presidential candidate James K. Polk. Problem was, only 272 voters were listed on the entire parish voter roll.<br />
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Slavery is certainly a corruption of human dignity, and Plaquemines saw its share on indigo and sugar plantations. The great manor homes of two or three of them survive as tourist attractions. <br />
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In the middle third of the 20th Century, Plaquemines slipped into the firm grip of a notorious political boss and rabid segregationist, Judge Leander Perez. "Do you know what the Negro is?” he once asked. “Animal, right out of the jungle.” The American civil-rights movement was, he said, the work of "all those Jews who were supposed to have been cremated at Buchenwald and Dachau but weren't.”<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFwETmHxvFRzdRm4yRCaUa8bqybPiHhaD2J_25VQfpsPPegp4yxdHj9qZYlf_9Ayd4ZPUlwleIbDVea9KNJPnwg6L07moBEKwqjRitH1ra1WVdI-ZH9uyfHs2z4RAQ5y8kSYc0vabnHAc/s1600/10+perez+book.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjshjWBrYT3ni0gKJrbwHLNqBPrbsGcntP8AbRWHwXqat3DHXpseEFqI4SRx5yLba0SIYplvJYU1n1Gq2szI1CsTbGCpFEMdPYBfa-swcbu62b2MF31BKPW8p40JbPBP-dG8H9H7rJKCp0/s320/webready-10-perez-book.jpg" wt="true" /></a></div>Leander Perez and his cronies bribed voters; put nonexistent, deceased, or famous people such as the baseball star Babe Ruth — a resident of New York — on the rolls; and pocketed bribes from oil companies in return for drilling rights. After Perez’s death in 1969, his heirs settled a lawsuit by returning $12 million to the parish government.<br />
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For better or worse, the names “Plaquemines” and “Perez” remain intertwined in Louisiana’s memory. Nonetheless, Leander Perez was posthumously elected to the Louisiana Political Museum and Hall of Fame.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7G1Nz8m5343Fwk5jlFYzshGOIu-FWVWHmLJOmydvdE3qYmwlVV72QtXcsuVBWTEM_MMpbqQTrtCOn7cLSo1ZN9y_H0njw3M987h7I0qHhCkruToBz0gGRDVmss9mPzDNs7t8ihQkpnQc/s1600/11+derricks.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNs3ZIaRVnxG32aZMzmi-2uDjzLwOvruwk97gwmvTCe2nzL8LANqKIGzvUhzxZ5_x7vRbok-dWaUUrQP2ZvNvd59VNyS3o2EA4_JyxUL6wgZ56NxrAE0uOc_RgnOewLxfaLWfv9ypjkhw/s320/webready-11-derricks.jpg" wt="true" /></a></div>So corruption found Louisiana, and Louisiana found oil. Big corporations have drilled among the thick Louisiana marshes for 90 years. Their crews followed canals called <em>trainasses</em>, cut by Cajun trappers. <br />
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By the 1940s, the companies had built an array of unsightly derricks just offshore. And in 1947, the Kerr McGee Co. erected the world’s first offshore well truly out at sea. Soon, rigs were tapping the seabed, 3,000 meters (10,000 feet) or more down. The BP company-leased rig that exploded in the Gulf on April 20th is, fittingly, called the “Deepwater Horizon.” <br />
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As I mentioned, offshore oil exploration spawned a cottage industry among Plaquemines’ blue-collar workers, who ferry food, equipment, and crews to and from the rigs — which they are usually adept at maintaining and repairing as well. <br />
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It’s too easy to say after the recent, tragic oil spill that Plaquemines residents will bounce back as they have following other disasters. But if the pellets of sludge work their way deep into the marshes and seep into the bayous that are the parish’s lifeblood, cleanup would be a nightmare. These are not the scrub-able, smooth rocks of the Alaska sound that were coated with oil from the broken tanker Exxon Valdez in 1989, or beaches whose sand could be excavated and replaced if worse comes to worst. They are intricate, interdependent, incredibly fragile ribbons of nature.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuYYcaOL_5vnN-MWfSl4TPdhUHygDit9qBvpCuYEOYCCURYtl5Ky5WrJdNcz5Rb6LBzGuKPmA7Nrt0gbzn9TH_4l3TccvXKXWfWp5DjZkftq9xPZKnCYUGqNeEyG18MsrF5FGJdcdMxMI/s1600/12+fine+day.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTdF1Fxi6JRQvHnn1XHxC9DIwQ1YpwtcQ-VqhIBpdh9AIcQnEqa2pGS8bIj6kQAUHMozOo6VjoEw-ZlIbpYS979uWDFob3IMRYqEAwdvaoGuChXm_6YbCSL5WhIElAepHXNes9jdxSClk/s320/webready-12-fine-day.jpg" wt="true" /></a></div>Equilibrium is everything in bayou country, Harnett Kane wrote. It’s “an agency of balance . . . among lakes, rivers, marshes, bays, and swamps.” Could there be a more unbalancing, destructive agent than choking, cloying oil? <br />
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Let’s just say that it’s a different, sadder kind of bird-watching going on right now at Plaquemines’ numerous wildlife sanctuaries. And that you won’t find the usual <em>joie de vivre</em> among the watchers or the rescuers of oil-covered birds. It will be some time before the good times roll again in Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana.<br />
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<div style="text-align: center;"><strong>WILD WORDS</strong></div>(These are a few of the words from this posting that you may not know. Each time, I'll tell you a little about them and also place them into a cumulative archive of "Ted's Wild Words" in the right-hand column of the home page. Just click on it there, and if there's another word in today's blog that you'd like me to explain, just ask!)<br />
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<strong><em>Bayou.</em></strong> Pronounced “BY-you,” this is an extremely slow-moving stream, often surrounded by or filled with lush vegetation. <br />
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<em><strong>Emulsified.</strong></em> A mixture of two normally unblendable liquids, such as oil and water.<br />
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<strong><em>Pirogue.</em></strong> Pronounced “PEE-rogg,” this is a small, lightweight boat with a flat bottom and a shallow draft, famously employed by the residents of Louisiana’s swampy “Cajun Country.” <br />
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<strong><em>Stoop.</em></strong> Originally a covered porch with room for seats outside a front door, it has come to refer to exposed steps on which people sit and chat with their neighbors.Ted Landphairhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18142247535149425183noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4320170221399917879.post-60109578445054459742010-05-05T12:20:00.003-04:002010-05-07T12:11:54.422-04:00Surprise CityHere’s a classic non sequitur: <br />
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Watercress and rockets.<br />
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Let me put it in the form of a question: How did Huntsville, Alabama, once a dozy little southern town whose notable claim to fame was its reputation as “The Watercress Capital of the World” morph into a globally renowned “Rocket City” almost overnight? <br />
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And how did it evolve still further into a wide-ranging technology center whose 180,000 residents bustle among military and space installations; gigantic research parks, including the nation’s second-largest by number of employees; and high-tech plants such as a Toyota facility that builds the only four-cylinder engine made outside Japan?<br />
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How? With determination, a little bit of luck, and a sophistication that those who would stereotype the South as stuck in the 19th Century would find surprising. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div>And there are many more surprises. Here’s a second: In the midst of breathtaking demographic and technological changes, Madison County, of which Huntsville is the seat, has managed to remain an agricultural colossus. <br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyDaY6gsUZXS7GNxfUjCMOIZqIkzRLwxtOx0rkoqyqRpmFXxod0mJavtYHo5nMn7kTO2IB7lUmVfh9kjgaS9UqsQ9NN1mFVLkf7hfTb8AZrqmyZIqrCvnAP7UvBvvGPMICROD9lxrrR3A/s1600/01+cotton++ala.+farmers+federation.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzeFLrvba0WuOSm2E3bOPgnRQcVbHo6_4lhFHuF_1btVHraiI0y9Y6BWA6u8Zshk2JxYs4zO6QubaeuHbCNFMuw1GoZ5cfLhk7NpycxvI96ozz9s_SOrDb8qleZ501XILv-4comU2FIiU/s320/webready-01-cotton--ala.jpg" tt="true" /></a></div>It ranks first in Alabama in cotton production, second in corn and soybeans, and among the nation’s leading producers of popcorn, of all things. Not much watercress any more, though, even though, 60 years ago, Madison County grew and shipped it all over the nation. <br />
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Cotton, not watercress, was King in the South, of course, and Madison County was its throne. The rich alluvial soil near the Tennessee River, which curls to the south of Huntsville, was ideal for cotton cultivation. Cotton gins dotted the countryside, brokers sampled the crop along “Cotton Row” across from the courthouse, and, eventually, thousands of workers ─ including children by the hundreds before <a href="http://www.continuetolearn.uiowa.edu/laborctr/child_labor/about/us_history.html">child-labor laws</a> and compulsory school attendance put an end to it ─ toiled at 12 textile mill “villages,” as they were called, making cloth and thread.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQgLhAyX0fPwd70pByLsXvbJiNS1K7of_BITyeOrDFrZzyEbFvYPxrqIFy4eRMAuRSvcYbDF52fafoXXmNgtZfM8o0-LvrJUo22FAM7YrS-irnSG24u8Rn6yO8swgoiouqKFs5WdlKvb4/s1600/02+mill+workers+merrimack+mill+1913.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5Xhr5xViXTWzyYTi_7oY74ubf0gzOLbwrLVuyQZ2pmyE7fPYmd36biQO4XbeO9Pe12gDdadxSJEMHgB0iWib1bQpZFYxW179qWkyO9Bwc_ShBDPLUQhsM-OtPKCsNQitlHyX1Igw4Dm0/s320/webready-02-mill-workers-me.jpg" tt="true" /></a></div>Then came World War II and Surprise No. 3 for anyone tempted to cast Huntsville in a sultry southern tableau of white-columned antebellum mansions, fragrant magnolia blossoms, and fancy cotillion balls. <br />
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Only the sultry part of that image really fits this city at the base of the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cumberland_Plateau">Cumberland Plateau</a>. Huntsville is hot as the dickens from June through September, for which the cotton farmers are grateful. But spring and fall are delightful, and winter even brings an occasional snowstorm. Huntsvillians get a taste of all four seasons, in other words.<br />
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In that regard, and in another of much greater significance, Huntsville is a lot like Washington, D.C.<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjCmjwfZul97zhRuy1bT23MLWl5t17Lyb8Qtq2UybWlBpQ4chOy_Hsj1aGkDO5XgjgMGgO-tQU5J5KomyHji4OX60qKp78A7kmNYgiq6diZFNf4-qP9ypc5fv_ohY6MpGQWbumIRzdcao/s1600/03+Madison+County+Nature+Trail+Covered+Bridge.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcDhkDL8THmdl7y0hUwNkCLUAdtKZMyNSjSGURDGVDSY2AtXZ4nxmN6hfNVTGatHujWjT5PClDZ0oZFYocmbYIfYuHb6PjfYL2DlXQdxYhkdbeYib3PNoXK3qJoOJdaDo2NqPCQQSN0QE/s320/webready-03-Madison-County-.jpg" tt="true" /></a> Washington, a couple hours’ drive north of a former Confederate capital —Richmond, Virginia — is a “federal city,” separate from any state. Three in 10 jobs in the nation’s capital are federal ones ─ not even counting the hundreds of thousands of government-dependent and contracting jobs there and in the adjacent suburbs. <br />
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Huntsville — two hours north of another former Confederate capital in Montgomery — is what Alabamans, with some derision and a hefty dose of envy, call “the federal outpost.” According to several folks I met, the Alabama Legislature in Montgomery assumes that Huntsville and Madison County are rolling in federal dollars and don’t need as much state money for roads and schools as they’d normally get. Why, grumble the folks farther south, Madison County even has its own electric utility company that gets (relatively) cheap power from dams built by the federal <a href="http://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h1653.html">Tennessee Valley Authority</a> on the Tennessee River in the 1930s.<br />
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So Huntsville is sensitive to its reputation as a prosperous place apart. Although Huntsville’s new motto is “the Star of Alabama,” former mayor Loretta Spencer told me, “We need to be careful not to come off as elitists.” As Mike Gillespie, the longtime and current Madison County Commission chairman put it, “Our last name is ‘Alabama.’” <br />
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Still, there’s no denying that the Huntsville metro area accounts for almost half of the net new jobs created in Alabama since 2000.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgW2SVfjajJS8qAhSMPRkiB-BMvwTEOHHG7_39ls6mLbIVHRNXV1f8Nuw-dRupxTFq9WcyDGqoANiJVl34_3iwoXfDj_ExQFtSEFCPF4pQDhvLmLTjlrWltH9T6MpwNOXQwVSKO1w9rqRw/s1600/04+redstone+arsenal+airfield+1967.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHaK6DzUPjbxJNcD5vq-SEz-LYN9jgQ801_4OyagV8vyzvIzhNJ-q_6xZNUTCyluZNWf0OiFlDqffVa_YMMKulrB3Kzf15U1_pVMHHGCTJbKSnB0LsKajyWD0y3jj5BKtOr7IDl6ewRJA/s320/webready-04-redstone-arsena.jpg" tt="true" /></a></div>Those who remember cotton-town Huntsville, population 13,000, in 1941 still can hardly believe the transformation. That’s the year, with war raging in Europe and imminent at home, that the U.S. Army picked 15,000 hectares (38,000 acres) of river-bottom land outside Huntsville for a huge chemical-warfare manufacturing and storage facility and, soon, a munitions operation producing bullets, artillery shells, and “burster” explosive charges. Redstone Arsenal, it came to be called.<br />
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Move over, watercress. Enter assembly lines and military supply convoys.<br />
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But at war’s end, with no active combat to support, Redstone virtually emptied. Troops and brass left town, women we called <a href="http://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h1656.html">“Rosie the Riveter”</a> — who had taken jobs in the munitions plant while their men fought abroad — went back to their homes, and “For Sale” signs ringed the arsenal’s perimeter.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRxuLF-eAua6ikEGKQ-dEDZ1Lb2VI3vqlnIa-YyCYIEHuQSQAsJKp4ztBcAm_OAU7toHCz48Y5I1GoLhMAOduyowaQHtYsNJTHbQT3h6eo0T1kJFNJ-0ZYMne0z5MRghV5t17feE_7y4k/s1600/05+sparkman_john_02.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDuoB-0L2PqpP7Dxxpv1Lu8k0Jf3AH4kV3qJKgXAvjoLCumwT86Z8GR4fPDXoGWTzMuccNJa-NFkHGZLKa1xrRZCydRH8GS1u3Gn3RgzBkSN0lnCS_IGXA55a_NkNGp79iZ8COJJMpWHg/s320/webready-05-sparkman_john_0.jpg" tt="true" /></a></div>Powerful U.S. Senator John Sparkman — a Huntsvillian — scrambled to find a new Redstone occupant. He worked hard to land a promising Air Force wind-tunnel project but lost out to a town up in Tennessee. <br />
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Things were looking grim for Madison County, Alabama, until the biggest surprise of all startled the entire South.<br />
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Three states away, at Fort Bliss in the hot, scrubby Texas desert near El Paso, and at the even hotter White Sands Proving Ground in nearby New Mexico, 120 German scientists and engineers led by Wernher von Braun were hard, but rather unhappily, at work. They had developed Nazi Germany’s deadly V-2 missiles, been captured by Allied forces, and recruited during <a href="http://www.conspiracyarchive.com/NWO/project_paperclip.htm">“Operation Paperclip”</a> by American agents to produce U.S. ballistic missiles. Bavarians mostly, the Germans longed for some lakes and hills and an occasional cool zephyr. And the U.S. Government was looking for a place to accommodate them.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjK9vA_uJLpEJmNBNujxodxi-C45RFQoTxHbfMmpkQGJa_FTDwVQSma-x4eJsqJmCJ6U6juCC5usOIuS6gSdh2rlDz3vMovc3AA90Y0vh0lyJ2anwz2U5z2whcQSBfXnxSgPPJOxSMDvxI/s1600/06+operation+paperclip+at_Fort_Bliss.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHGge-0d9DfdB9cIiCB-7pNrMlZj7OXm-QkG0_QIdKRW-0lDh2-5KrHD6zy9xzi1mwlPs-PA367vh5aE0VR0uMbxWZRLbstnx6_aBNvmHXA26_VFzY44BWmfrgU_x5j6xelsXUVMIyhx0/s320/webready-06-operation-paper.jpg" tt="true" /></a></div>Huntsville’s nearly empty Redstone Arsenal would be chosen, not just to please the German engineers but also to move their rocketry near the Tennessee River, which provided a fine shipping channel for rocket components, eastward to waterways that led to the assembly and launch site at Cape Canaveral in Florida. <br />
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Ed Buckbee, who worked with von Braun and later became the first director of the Alabama Space Camp; Rocket Center — which I’ll describe in a tad — told me about the first trip of a 24-meter (80-foot)-long Saturn booster from Huntsville to the Cape in 1963. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRQMS9YJWypDgZxmQgD7SXXdFSI5sc_sPJjQ2s0LdoQmAmjkXLfqWQq5jpZcBtRyXih5XVf5uYV1H_00IcjYNgbJJCbJl7Gq19Lsxy-nQ99HXvsFFmtK4-N-jH9X4RRpNP7P8N7ppfZms/s1600/07+buckbeeIMG_1591.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4nTKsmNLtGGhvGeMAd5o_amDR27vHFynv81fGqhh0bIr3xk2DCsfGUJQCHRpoUToQc9hnkwlc1CBcrcJueogxKwe8n8-7qv_AivoGnMDr4D31SYO-QlMDQoJEwfJPS-MYaS_xiM8b42g/s320/webready-07-buckbeeIMG_1591.jpg" tt="true" /></a></div>Things went smoothly until the enormous barge carrying the monster rocket arrived at a dam that had broken. Workers somehow lifted the rocket and carried it, portage style — though not on their shoulders — past the dam and back down to the river. <br />
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Then the fun began! Buckbee and others escorting the rocket to Florida had to duck when backwoods yokels fired rifle shots at the passing booster. Admittedly, such a thing must have been a terrifying and tempting target.<br />
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Back in Huntsville, change — and noise — were in the air. (Have you ever heard a Saturn rocket test fire or blast off?) Happy to be in high country, the Germans and their families assimilated eagerly and seamlessly, taking up residence on Panorama Drive near Monte Sano — though the “mount” was but 488 meters (1,600 feet) high — funding numerous cultural programs, and even starting an astronomical society with a planetarium that they opened to the public several times a month. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPvR9b3XA4EkgduCQqLSZ00lrkq-YYwyyeJT1uGbrbAxIAdMENoj6dUe_2Ma7e77ZzxEtOHYO7cxnpZv_7bxnQmkl6VMeGaIQH9HsRONbyw5_b2ytp_oeIYOTMl9L_Z8qvMxzfaMZDlAE/s1600/08+kennedy_vonbraun_19may63_01.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJvhRSOGpAG6RkXhRoYaGdCy9VNyv0jMlEFqcOKFcZ0W5MF2PuelPZbeaNDaHPSPt6q5fXVt0herlw68URtR0bpmPyVxqbSF84eCyxc47GWpNQko3UNaLP8eGjclORAmgZBUO5D3drGEo/s320/webready-08-kennedy_vonbrau.jpg" tt="true" /></a></div>Huntsville became a powerful magnet for even more of the “best and brightest” minds from the world over once President Dwight Eisenhower created NASA, the national civilian space agency, in 1958, moved rocket propulsion operations at Huntsville out of the Army and into NASA two years later, and renamed the civilian portion of the Redstone complex the “George C. Marshall Space Flight Center.” <br />
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Then, in 1961, just after announcing the dramatic and ambitious goal of sending an American safely to the Moon by decade’s end, the nation’s new president, John F. Kennedy, made Marshall the destination of his first trip of out Washington.<br />
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Since then, the Army’s own rocket research effort and a huge helicopter program have migrated to the military portion of the Redstone complex. <br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxGKRrp9GL3Yr6hT-Fo6igs4OPrYJKDMbwDMi-O4kYVdY9tLcb8sw3tERbpfhw9JiJOPp6pLoEPBgbaeRGei-iNWvUdc_kI2V03oJITQNh95-8hqlWvxMrbYupHAy9U-O3nKf2P-XKnJg/s1600/09+Gen_Dunwoody_2008.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiokcdsEMtDiT1kP8kbnbh1x4aGe4v2oO-9Oqp_JOPYoWKFakp_arm8TIJj3uPwizV1ema4Bp_jVumeQzLZcBeRKt9ZCHiVWIY0MChHAQqA9jBdy-J8WzMHR4M3qOc411et5xRkH5AnwXM/s320/webready-09-Gen_Dunwoody_20.jpg" tt="true" /></a><br />
Just this year, the Army Materiel Command — including its commander, Ann E. Dunwoody, the U.S. Army’s first female four-star general — have begun a transfer to Huntsville from Fort Belvoir, Virginia, as part of the military’s base realignment program. That will mean almost 5,000 new military jobs and a similar number of contracting positions for burgeoning Madison County.<br />
Redstone and the Marshall Flight Center are off-limits to most visitors, of course. But those with a taste for space have plenty to awe them at the U.S. Space Camp; Rocket Center. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCOhj0Ng3zGE8ZOis92oALm3-ey25phD-WTHtjtsQfIdVLscZ-F1AzGeSoKjSGvRejHKVvtqHUved2Jg7a1PI77rYgyGWYI8BXmHVORwUVd9dx8KG-1x4cqqxMyCFazGCsCK8qZ53GxDU/s1600/webready-10-saturn-tl.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCOhj0Ng3zGE8ZOis92oALm3-ey25phD-WTHtjtsQfIdVLscZ-F1AzGeSoKjSGvRejHKVvtqHUved2Jg7a1PI77rYgyGWYI8BXmHVORwUVd9dx8KG-1x4cqqxMyCFazGCsCK8qZ53GxDU/s320/webready-10-saturn-tl.jpg" tt="true" /></a></div>Featuring more than 1,500 artifacts — including a NASA shuttle and an array of rockets outside and a gargantuan Saturn V rocket that looms overhead inside its exhibition hall — the center, funded almost entirely from admission receipts, has a colorful story and a mission that goes beyond showing off very, very big space toys.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBBHeWk9Af28TTwRhprvFyyOkx-IsF6PI5mH0eKwfx935DAcoL9LAc6lZ74Czv5ctJ9ea1aIuzUsJLXhjlz7-5rL3SAG5QMtA5Ox3PxlYMMfUAgfewjgN-2-tWjoOl39fzrXHujMBlX00/s1600/11+Space+and+Rocket+Center.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxs-M2uD-npK4o6bjAPsQdTgkS5Ojm0i7-6I9_ZA_GG3rxb1wUtuHmBaGTaF4MFAKKvJOGi6GzGoAPU1R4oD6yYOyYUa5VEzrSE026j50xrsSPvBq2iSaNfZHZVS3WEvUpsS0CaIfnUas/s320/webready-11-Space-and-Rocke.jpg" tt="true" /></a><br />
When <a href="http://www.justdisney.com/walt_disney/biography/long_bio.html">Walt Disney</a> decided to build a futuristic theme park in Orlando, Florida, in the mid-1960s, he and his design team visited von Braun, who had advised Disney filmmakers on three space-related movies. <br />
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As he listened to the famed Hollywood animator’s plans for Disney World, von Braun came to realize the value of involving the public in the nation’s space adventure. <br />
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He found state land and NASA support for a decidedly hands-on space and rocket museum. And something else as well: “space camps” and “space academies” that would take children and teens — from 40 countries to date — into the world of an astronaut, including math and science instruction, flight-deck training, and even rocket-building. The camps began in 1982 with 471 participants. By 2007, total enrollment had passed half a million young people. Three women graduates of the program went on to become U.S. astronauts. <br />
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Incubator research and biotech companies popped up in people’s garages and basements or moved to Huntsville, too, to the point that the city soon boasted the highest concentration of <em>Inc. </em>magazine top-500 companies in America. At Redstone Arsenal, the F.B.I. and U.S. Army located a joint Hazardous Devices School, at which civilian bomb squads — including the New York City outfit that dismantled the car bomb recently found in Times Square — are trained. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbRLCcuxhDOtiJ0-hJkF4yTVTludFGPzkRyIsM399qzF9Ajcddeu1siv3UnvpL18vvW_k-oh8m-XP_dWofBNYvt2ayrTMXUH-5Qj5PL3D6kKRfzX_EjTa4PqSpTFn2BKJhntRDwZ2zWKw/s1600/12+harrison+bros.+hardware.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiw97vbaVL4Avr9F7AoVZnpMhkshIDJAV5T6DxJn6Sdr1zmepum6E9JI8AKBV0GD17qUY2DZMey79nhVtqh8ve6tQPSClwhnTekgOe6ZzgoIS6zBbR0VYBA-0E2vQzU9BtNDH6cpIHdfPk/s320/webready-12-harrison-bros.-.jpg" tt="true" /></a></div>More accolades: <em>Kiplinger’s</em>, another authoritative financial magazine, called Huntsville America’s best city, period, in 2009, and this year Huntsville became the first Alabama city ever to make the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s list of a “Dozen Distinctive Destinations” that offer “experiences different from those found at the typical vacation destination.” <br />
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<em>Forbes magazine</em> named Huntsville one of the 10 U.S. cities best poised for recovery from the long recession. “Initially we chose not to participate” in the economic downturn, joked county commission chairman Gillespie. Unemployment, once at a 2.3 percent rate that meant just about anyone who wanted a job could get one, has crept above 6 percent, but that’s far below the national average.<br />
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It’s a brainy bunch, by and large, who do have jobs. Huntsville boasts the highest concentration of engineers, and Ph.Ds generally, in the entire nation. I overheard one local tell another over lunch, “Ever’ time I bump into somebody, I just naturally say, ‘Excuse me, doctor.” Somebody else told me that Madison County is growing so fast that “our largest crop is subdivisions.”<br />
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And Robert Reeves, a veteran, beloved television anchorman and “Robert on the Road” storyteller, related a tale that might strike you as yet another surprise: <br />
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Like neighboring Mississippi, Alabama is still working to overcome history’s black mark for its years as a slaveholding state and, later, bastion of racial segregation. “Back in the ’60s, ‘integration’ was a word, and that’s all,” Reeves told me. “We all remember 1963, with Governor [George] Wallace standing in the doorway at the University of Alabama,” symbolically blocking two black students from enrolling. <br />
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“Well this wasn’t our way here in Huntsville. The very first college in the state to integrate was Alabama A&M, the historically black school. The [white] University of Alabama at Huntsville was second, a week later. No photographers. No police officers. A black graduate student walked in, enrolled, and went to class.<br />
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“Not too long after that, our city school system told Governor Wallace, ‘We’re going to integrate.’ He sent state troopers up here to block the schools. Twenty-five white families walked through the state troopers to keep the schools open. Four black children went to four different schools. The next day’s headline in the paper — huge line — read, ‘Huntsville Integrates.’ Right down below it: ‘Birmingham Riots. Bull Connor Releases Dogs.’” <br />
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Theophilus "Bull" Connor, Birmingham’s notorious police commissioner and staunch defender of racial segregation, employed fire hoses and attack dogs against protesters.<br />
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In short, for anyone who imagines the South as “barefoot, backward, and bigoted,” progressive, aggressive Huntsville is quite a revelation. As Mike Gillespie put it, “Change is not something that threatens us.”<br />
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<div style="text-align: center;"><strong>Way Back When</strong></div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTEY8lmjBD8Yg-SX4Y1JsNP9tKlyeyKBXTRGEmTkau8XJ4cR16U_udSfkBBsVSCOOM7ggMoO5lsPBaAg9HN3JJB09xen-L93OGxg6yzGSwzZQz4s0XbjDnvlK4r7RxZRIaydvMqC9LsnE/s1600/13+ppark+tlIMG_1556.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGAOj3JWQqfADvuX7Zd5Aw3ykKt_MzO0tMPYsTQc18ZyHq_GouzX-rwaXEu0SChIIXHMJ_HNx9D8hOgpTddMKOImXfgiw4HaUlZNU83-yAfk6YeFNj8iXKkLt7_5vWpat-_2d40U3FMmQ/s320/webready-13-ppark-tlIMG_155.jpg" tt="true" /></a></div>Huntsville was the first settlement in what began as the Mississippi Territory, immediately west of Georgia. Genteel Georgia had been one of the original American colonies and states, but this was brambly wilderness. <br />
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When the area was thrown open to settlement after the colonists’ triumph in the Revolutionary War, a war veteran and trapper named John Hunt built a cabin near a refreshing spring — now the centerpiece of Big Spring Park in downtown Huntsville. A more influential settler named the place “Twickenham” after the hometown of English poet Alexander Pope. Other frontiersmen found the name prissy, and when anti-British sentiments bubbled during the War of 1812 they insisted that it be renamed for their good friend Hunt.<br />
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Huntsville was briefly Alabama’s first capital before state offices moved south to Cahawba, and then Montgomery. <br />
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As the largest cotton producer in the Southeast, Madison County was assuredly slave country, and the marauding Union Army occupied it at the first opportunity in 1862 during the U.S. Civil War. They sacked plantations and sent their owners packing, but Huntsville was largely spared from Yankee depredation.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJ7Lyg98P3NHhfZca1_hBp6sIDXU3dCZ6D6V3aJPrmajNTHZj_ChlfUYLGxlbaEb_ybqbRNpdAUIxyNFen3i7QIWCDvry2QjuwWyGMh5P3JJtth1hWhTP5hTbGT07tnH6OUv-WxrCTgpc/s1600/14+cummings+research+park.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1Go1pyeZ2O9HvhXWq9JfysNvdro9tNmbwrb_To8qT9O1AFV50zpFSecsRdzX07UFS5ZSckl0LklgJT0JjIYfHRI4WXnUUgjtOW-l7sgYRDbRA1G3CueRNrxW_wMnI_P85JW9-_DeLVf8/s320/webready-14-cummings-resear.jpg" tt="true" /></a></div>Madison County moseyed through the next few decades largely unnoticed, growing its cotton and watercress, and it looked to be heading toward relative oblivion when textile mill after mill closed in the teeth of the 1930s’ Great Depression.<br />
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Then came the war, von Braun, and the implausible ascent of Huntsville, Alabama, into the forefront of high technology.<br />
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<div style="text-align: center;"><strong>Waterwhat?</strong></div><br />
You may have been wondering all this time what “watercress” is. It’s a leafy aquatic vegetable, prized as a salad accent and — especially by the British — as a sandwich fixin’. It’s also a main ingredient in the widely sold “V8” vegetable juice. Watercress grows in precisely the kind of cold, high-country springs that you’ll find in Northern Alabama. But watercress devotees need not plan a pilgrimage. Only one or two farms cultivate the plant in Madison County these days.<br />
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<div style="text-align: center;"><strong>WILD WORDS</strong></div>(These are a few of the words from this posting that you may not know. Each time, I'll tell you a little about them and also place them into a cumulative archive of "Ted's Wild Words" in the right-hand column of the home page. Just click on it there, and if there's another word in today's blog that you'd like me to explain, just ask!)<br />
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<strong><em>Cotton gin.</em></strong> A machine that separates seeds and husks from sticky cotton fiber. “Gin” is short for “engine.” <br />
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<strong><em>Genteel.</em></strong> Civilized, refined, cultivated.<br />
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<strong><em>Mosey.</em></strong> To amble along in no great hurry.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span id="goog_730346549"></span><span id="goog_730346550"></span></div>Ted Landphairhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18142247535149425183noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4320170221399917879.post-10072009076572944872010-04-27T11:47:00.002-04:002010-04-27T18:39:44.808-04:00Who’s Counting?I received, completed, and returned my 2010 Census form the other day. This was Carol’s and my part of the decennial, or every-10-year, count of adults and children — citizens and non-citizens — living legally or illegally in the United States. <br />
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“Count” is the operative word, for the Census is not all that it used to be. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipp0PKbbRI5ROyt9K_rlOfz3udF5YqbAEi0petyBfCJ9hrbe8gDU-K3iVXhwFZ7XcCJ75DSDjxrTt-Z_nlgwENeCCDSnPgYnOrttyRPKTUry-6s57xNVfahZ1iSWAsVPi7rYsS5ZSgIPA/s1600/01+punch+machine.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieccPbMXunRACyH3iDc6RemNCcmSs2o9a_IeoCfVZ3sYISStX75o5ffpRqFLEpkQNCqpxWHSUZy-YtzMZl25YWer9_rgwowv9OhnUxY0jQoXFpoo3pqwSlK5QKD3HrPmA1Lpz3P9eykT8/s320/webready-01-punch-machine.jpg" /></a></div>Over the years, I’ve written about various analyses of the American population that the Census Bureau developed from its mail surveys and door-to-door visits to people’s abodes as far back as 1790. I say “abodes” rather than “homes,” since some people live in trailers, prisons, school dormitories, and even on the street. <br />
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So I was surprised to open the 2010 Census mailer and find 10 simple questions, including <em>How many people were living or staying in this house, apartment, or mobile home on April 1, 2010?</em> and <em>What is your telephone number?</em> <br />
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There was a bit more, asking about the gender and race of each person in my household. But no detailed questions of the sort that I could have sworn were part of previous censuses — about everything from our level of education to the number of bathtubs in the house. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5rxC-sAW1tuntx87bNzsUma78wuHRPBm7YlDP7Gn6JT5qWwtIDJsMJLIuV56SQwqTLJF_sStVVQ2UWMJpKqldCrjSo4tVoeaAByBz6N13QK74XAolXaDEmHfM_W0ZP62s3SO48tf42fQ/s1600/02+washington.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEielcTBLrFsd07sKhsIbOozev0NQQ9BqhvxB6pqOVhskTxuzjSGI37-6u_LskNVPuOkT7ovf_oh9xzVcwx0KMu3c2hXl2S1I49U0cTCSyEwPRbNjmzrRHDQTMy38Zp7MuEpMwkVvv-muHQ/s320/webready-02-washington.jpg" /></a></div>In an expensive ($338 million) advertising and public-relations campaign, the Census Bureau has reminded Americans that an accurate count of who’s living where can influence the amount of federal funding sent to communities. And if enough people have moved to or left a state, it can trigger the gain or loss of a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. <br />
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Important, yes, but what about those bathtubs? <br />
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Turns out that, these days, detailed “lifestyle” stuff is gathered in a whole different way, not via the Census. It’s obtained in a comprehensive survey that the Census Bureau conducts each and every <em>month</em>, not just once every decade. <br />
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That’s because in our fast-changing world, information collected only once every 10 years quickly grows stale and inaccurate. This isn’t the 1790s, during George Washington’s first presidency, when most people lived on farms or in small towns and stayed there for a lifetime. <br />
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More than two centuries later, no decennial census can keep up with population and lifestyle trends. We cannot rely on 2000 Census results, for instance, to describe who’s residing in New Orleans, or what their living arrangements might be. In 2005, levee failures during Hurricane Katrina unleashed deadly flooding that erased whole neighborhoods and drove more than half of the city’s population from town. As a result, the old Louisiana city is nothing like it was 10 years ago. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtHpxXdvcBdvqiB5ZFC917Bw5P-6upMx_qTASs3kUPuD16ybCIr0RASv9NcUdNM9PkigU1vbukqpBp4NkXlD1tB3T9nrb2z5EjRJhH-2YLME0aXbVX-tmWSqnqdGbsy5RB2PAGpE8xKYY/s1600/webready-03-2010_Questionna.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtHpxXdvcBdvqiB5ZFC917Bw5P-6upMx_qTASs3kUPuD16ybCIr0RASv9NcUdNM9PkigU1vbukqpBp4NkXlD1tB3T9nrb2z5EjRJhH-2YLME0aXbVX-tmWSqnqdGbsy5RB2PAGpE8xKYY/s320/webready-03-2010_Questionna.jpg" /></a></div>So the Census Bureau’s “American Community Survey” takes monthly demographic snapshots of the nation. It’s sent to a statistical sample — 250,000 — of “housing unit addresses.” In the bureau’s words, this survey is “designed to provide communities a fresh look at how they are changing.” It’s a lot like the “long form” Census questionnaire that I remember, with many more than 10 quick questions. It asks U.S. residents to tell the government about their farm acreage, their utility choices and costs, the nature of any businesses on their property, not only their current marital status but also their marital history, and my favorite: their plumbing facilities. <br />
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This is where I’d have gladly told them all about our two bathtubs. <br />
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Truth be told, too, the Census Bureau was pressured into shortening the decennial Census questionnaire and finding another way to obtain detailed population information. Too many irate citizens growled about what they considered time-consuming and intrusive questions from the feds every 10 years. <br />
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But the monthly surveys are no more popular with some Americans. U.S. Rep. Ron Paul, a Republican presidential candidate in 2008, for example, grumbled that the nation’s founders “never authorized the federal government to continuously survey the American people. More importantly, they never envisioned a nation where the people would roll over and submit to every government demand.” <br />
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<em>Really</em> strident critics of what they consider federal snooping call the American Community Survey the “American Community Interrogation.” <br />
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I, as a curious and chatty fellow, on the other hand, <em>love</em> to answer poll questions and take surveys if I feel they’ll do the country — or my family — some good. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsf2nGgQuWlsa9aEDokHfjbmf_UQsrUxk5vV7FTiJv-ROR5NimEJkp28oEoorD0Ct8ZWCRrvzrSJCsHGY3vEcukFPuk5_Sj3TMOCRHefi5Dm4TJjhA2PcgkfhSquEv6UX88RxOK2kfVZY/s1600/04+bathtub.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgi5q2voWRcr2hZqGpWFX_-IFsw7ALbBaGEIjOgiEHFxvNhcGFBsO8gUQ3TYqmXzyccp-q0_sCNIFL09hEb4WQJdtZwUsICxq71D3o3lueNUldVO7of9iZY7vATw6weytTh3Myx9Hy8_us/s320/webready-04-bathtub.jpg" /></a></div>Where shall I begin? One of the bathtubs is an old, clawfoot model. It’s upstairs, and when we moved in, we put old-fashioned shower fixtures and a frilly Victorian curtains above it. Now downstairs . . . . <br />
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<b>A Little Bird Told Me </b><br />
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Urgent tweet: <br />
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<em>Attention, people of the world in 2060: Running late this morn. Only coffee and juice for bkfst. </em><br />
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Why would anyone care about my personal minutiae now, let alone 50 years from now? <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgc6TQfj6BOLoOrX6apg1bDXfQybuj0vRNzkbYUvf1uVvjP3UgmKxa7KckSZmS-bKIaTB7tnWjc1neOrUDlrg9hyhgZV-051Y5Xkp2ztEOfoUQPdkvEXtZlffVB7hkaUcwCVsApGP-_TK0/s1600/05+LOC.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgI6leAGHQ_dh5NhGWW13uYdh_m2MOlQMwYpOpLAXFVT_amCAhsRvLHPx5AqaW9azNVXtUDAAJx2jCTc4GhyR-bWBAWaHwHqKiUrzx2x8os3vaRgGWwsopIQqvH0G73LFBkA2VAUtRlXAU/s320/webready-05-LOC.jpg" /></a></div>No one would, probably. But the mega-prestigious Library of Congress — the world’s greatest storehouse of accumulated knowledge and the place that’s called “America’s Memory” — has announced it is establishing a public archive that will capture and display EVERY TWEET ever sent since Twitter was established four years ago. So I want to be sure a record of my time on earth is included. <br />
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There are 50 million tweets a day, or about 73 BILLION little word bursts sent to date, about to be archived and opened to the world to read. <br />
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Might this make the cut?: <em>Brought big lunch. Chicken sandwich. Mayo. Piece of lettuce. Whole tomato that I’ll cut at office. </em><br />
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The great library must think that Twitter is here for the ages. Or just the opposite, that the messages should be grabbed and stored now so that some 22nd Century anthropologist can ponder this curious passing fad. <br />
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<em>Forgot to mention that morning juice was fresh-squeezed. Makes all the diff. </em><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8vTWcH21st_LYMOfS4CKJGtDUoYKQCAyDn7hKcbN2ESq-XjUkkxz6FN1pKJAQwMogGRz-pF2jVh30lrRjCEC8jQSjvKPo9iDhua8gupvP7hpMt9NfjNUZ_76XqmGiedLq41cKJcvrZuo/s1600/06+juice+wa%C9%AA.ti%CB%90.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwVMQw2crp6CNwgo7WRQzmCiRcNCZA6KExgzcwyOrXHb1b2jTlg4O07jNWbvuFlYhUO15toanKFZO91NNfqPl3yk0DmO5o7XQTzmRKA9B5mxo0IvcxqG_z3mC1yELAVfEREO79D17vmCQ/s320/webready-06-juice-wa-.ti-.jpg" /></a></div>The announcement from the LOC — Twitter-ready shorthand for “Library of Congress” — concedes that most tweets are, in the words of <em>Tech News Daily’s</em> Dan Hope, “inane.” The great library plans to, in Hope’s words, “highlight the culturally and historically important tweets.” <br />
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Now there’s a job for somebody: pawing through 50 million electronic tweets a day and deciding which ones are “historically important.” <br />
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Do you think that if I’d had a full breakfast — say bacon and eggs and some toast and jam to go with the coffee and fresh-squeezed juice — my tweet would have historical significance? <br />
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Doesn’t matter. I’d never have been able to keep all that fascinating information under 140 characters. <br />
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<b>Money, Honey </b><br />
<br />
America’s moneymakers have been busy beavers. Not banks or big corporations, mind you, but the folks who print and mint our money. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj31SrPUmlsStvmk3sCGB9tUlCLTie6FHbKM7lSv7wxX-8Bb0P8RY-4FietiH5lmtHoEXPR8cBoJNKpw55jYKk9k-ZzytySnEa96QoCkYRlbodIkEk3Yi-MXphWdz4ckJHuXORnTzr-Hj0/s1600/07+coin.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIv13Iyl5ljQmmTMpoNnxF9BJllnp5OP7EACYPIY1WOrUYRhvo8Lk3Ta59aEAcpqDMlYrvJU-MbCaoDh3omPS2KdPyDc_MY6ELodJwJbOKG_eQbOVJuLllBrSWlIMYCVoCJCaZKx7dfP0/s320/webready-07-coin.jpg" /></a></div>In the most successful numismatic program in history, the U.S. Mint just spent 10 years creating and issuing 56 new <a href="http://www.usmint.gov/mint_Programs/50sq_program/">state and territorial quarter-dollars</a>. As before, these 25-cent pieces feature our first president, the aforementioned George Washington, on the obverse. <br />
<br />
That’s the front in minty lingo, but I always get it mixed up and think “obverse” is the <em>back</em> of a coin. <br />
<br />
Appearing on the reverse side, in place of the old eagle with wings unfurled, is the name of a state, the District of Columbia, or a U.S. territory such as the distant <a href="http://www.nationsonline.org/oneworld/northern_mariana_islands.htm">Northern Mariana Islands</a>, along with a scene that suggests that place. <br />
<br />
The Maine quarter, for instance, depicts a lighthouse. A saguaro cactus is featured on Arizona’s, the Wright Brothers’ pioneer “<a href="http://www.nasm.si.edu/exhibitions/gAL100/wright1903.html">flyer</a>” on Ohio’s, a bison on North Dakota’s. The Marianas coin shows coconut trees, Polynesians guiding sailboats, some sort of stone pillar, and soaring seagulls. It’s the last in the series, and I would guess that a coin devoted to this obscure set of Pacific islands will be snapped up by collectors. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmmsswXwijhg9K41MXuc6vNGKvFHJQ6_zg3TrRuLS6hyphenhyphenXyEEOZGpUpzqA_QwSkK3tvKaTNzuYu6f-DnKLoLXHPayK0tEs-Cg86mK0qWKZFlB_6CjwMmTFcp6sqcdYEcsMX7zhxHUfFnFk/s1600/08+marianas.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXDDSw0FIGUvybPFtZCAnCTViXCKpkvnhzRMNX2vO1wCp0-0MmRT_CIHY-kfQ79XZ4H6Wd4gO7ydUN5-N0tEH0m_6GXLZvfe5yoKVIaMdzuD-gZ8_819fwaXn-ulsKessAeCQuGaRA8BA/s320/webready-08-marianas.jpg" /></a></div>But the mint is not stopping to admire its work. It is introducing yet another <a href="http://www.coinnews.net/2009/09/09/america-the-beautiful-quarters-introduced/">set</a> of 25-cent coins. Called “America the Beautiful” quarters, they will depict national parks and wildlife areas. <br />
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The initial offering, issued earlier this month, salutes the very first “federal reservation,” set aside in 1832, and I’ll bet not one in a thousand of you could guess where that place is. (I guessed wrong, too.) <br />
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Naturally, I’m going to pause to tell you! <br />
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It’s not Yellowstone in Wyoming, the nation’s first national park. Or the first national forest, Shoshone, next door. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyuL4CExXBfCqZk46Q6ICe3YlWGVTCgX0h9dcLuWK7DcY1fOcOWAbaEANc_m05O9StndTbOMSM0rYzvd3_8CbWmSeF4iRGpFQwB5oVpKj9o71XAIDsJcyt0G3mIXTHCGUrZOlL80QQjrU/s1600/09+ozarks++OakleyOriginal.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCkP5Zkajm9bkLquxESLbRTRubmiX7QA6J5JIhXxtqBPiVerqfr8aA8ZKd1iW-BLJzF1wAriR7ff0higJ0xKRT9qCIAVZm46KDIEIV8_49VA8NNEDRkdfkK_zVwtMzR86YCahGQ2YcL6o/s320/webready-09-ozarks--OakleyO.jpg" /></a></div>The first national preserve, Hot Springs in Arkansas, was designated by President Andrew Jackson in 1832, 50 years before Yellowstone was established. Like other sites that the government would later move to claim and safeguard, Hot Springs was chosen for its unspoiled beauty — lush-green bluffs, trout streams, lovely waterfalls, and, especially, piping-hot natural springs, deep in the Ozark Mountains. <br />
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But years later, Hot Springs became better known for its manmade attractions, one of which is featured on the new coin. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFr3OScBjokb3qTxRGvqiaCXkgULjDBHKrQzdq1F10SXo6iOG7l9WeX4e9LGVLMdhT_OMBvhBpAEHBhLB4miaN1Sx2aYGbUW5fTlNXPLj54OJnYSANggwJWS9QZ5M0Mcn0kQyZ4P5OAjU/s1600/10+fordyce.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6YmHp0i3m59dS_YA-gGDKhkEs9auAumwjYsFbWRZhw1FypffIF8okVA78-_ONpj-Z6vmkt3f3IwlsVkPEhbdUz9Oms2Xd9ldolJClG_A0v3VM20O9R8vXNlQ5Hy7LzoWPseNvEmkasX0/s320/webready-10-fordyce.jpg" /></a></div>The turn from the 19th to the 20th centuries was the “golden age of bathing,” when people of means flocked to bathhouse palaces for pampering, especially at beach resorts. Others ventured to bathhouses in remote mountain towns in the belief that their mineral-rich waters, bubbling from springs deep beneath the earth, offered curative powers. “Treatments” at bathhouse spas were said to palliate everything from nervousness to gout to syphilis. <br />
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In 1915 in remote Hot Springs, a fellow named Samuel Fordyce built perhaps the most luxurious bathhouse since the <a href="http://www.livius.org/ro-rz/rome/rome_baths_caracalla1.html">Roman Baths of Caracalla</a>.<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhriLc8z3fXQ-boThrE5TRz44hXrG9p2jJ0MOZVnPeWtaFYO6yoaLaDOD2FU-Uk7CUvL7RoWTX0mos98B6L5YLznRG0nJdogV_u2CQEKtPEsgdL4ZXcQeKrFMT2DZINQ7tKaSKzz5YPzo/s1600/11+foyer.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjk9O7JZC8EeECKtW746-P43PHmyn36FRoenkNVapQBexrwCTEv1OrS4KScYVRGXLy4hACqPnie3AzLt9RgiFpCJxpgdD5UkRfRkzCHjcR2ieAxtv9Qms6bauDd56OvdGkGFQmjT_iXVA/s320/webready-11-foyer.jpg" /></a><br />
In addition to whirlpools and hot tubs, the Fordyce Bathhouse offered massage and napping rooms — even a music room. In the Spanish Renaissance-style men’s bath court, patrons gazed at an 8,000-piece stained-glass ceiling depicting mermaids and Neptune’s daughter. There and in the women’s hall, customers shed their clothes and stepped into tubs, where attendants administered vigorous scrubs. Next came a long sweat in what was called a “vapor box,” followed by a needle-like cold shower. <br />
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Advances in medicine killed off most bathhouses. So did less-strenuous alternatives such as golfing resorts and theme parks. <br />
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The Fordyce Bathhouse closed in 1962. But the National Park Service took it over, gave it a multi-million-dollar facelift, and opened it to public tours. No longer can one take a gingerly dip in Fordyce’s tubs and pools, but down the way a few other, private spas still pull in Hot Springs’ famous steaming waters. <br />
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One of “Bathhouse Row’s” thermal spring fountains appears on the Hot Springs National Park quarter that kicks off the “America the Beautiful” series. <br />
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Not to be outdone, the people who make U.S. paper money at the Bureau of Engraving and Printing have been scurrying about as well. They are making what the <em>Washington Post</em> calls “high-tech Benjamins.” <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUrfzVXBVHsFmsBpB-YlVJ51Gm92S3b_iol7MIMV1TnuRDQvlhzjoULcFsGTUuclRH4qxz3cpRsGxVE8pGMdudsamL7eYK_yp9BiOTAe6TG8zfwt9vGItbuqGeDGnmamRMvoowi3zopZM/s1600/12+new+bill.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZo8HEjCDAGmSxZWpypmBHo8ObZp5F603LvldgLN4kpy4poJE-yO1dMelaZ2eDS5_3gVx7PyQRntcQBR0AEAuOQ9VSE9eLAO0V4qjDClvaKk3bgL2mvBScl7iN8qICjuhziGclqV_2JPE/s320/webready-12-new-bill.jpg" /></a></div>The reference is to new $100 bills. Like the old ones, they feature the image of colonial statesman Benjamin Franklin. This batch is high-tech because of the elaborate anti-counterfeit features — far beyond previous efforts — that are incorporated into the currency’s threads. <br />
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These C-notes — the nickname comes from the Roman numeral C, for 100 — include a three-dimensional “security ribbon” running right alongside Ben’s left ear. Within it, images of little bells alternate with the number 100, depending on which way you tilt the bill. And embedded inside a sketch of a Revolutionary-era inkwell is a sketch of the Liberty Bell. That’s the bell with a famous crack, acquired the very first time it was rung, that summoned citizens to Philadelphia for the reading of the nation’s Declaration of Independence in 1776. On the new $100 bill, the bell’s likeness changes hue from copper to green, again depending on the angle at which you behold it. <br />
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As I said, these 3-D holograms are designed to outwit ever-more-sophisticated counterfeiters. The $100 bill is the largest U.S. denomination still in use — government engravers stopped printing $500, $1,000, $5,000, and $10,000 bills 41 years ago, though your Aunt Mabel may have one stashed in a drawer. C notes are heavily circulated overseas, too, so they’re a favorite of those who craft and crank out fake money. <br />
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I’ll bet you a Northern Mariana quarter that criminals will be among the first in line when the new “Benjamins” go into circulation next February. <br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><i><span style="color: #999999;">(These are a few of the words from this posting that you may not know. Each time, I'll tell you a little about them and also place them into a cumulative archive of "Ted's Wild Words" in the right-hand column of the home page. Just click on it there, and if there's another word in today's blog that you'd like me to explain, just ask!)</span></i></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><i><span style="color: #999999;"> </span></i></span><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><b> </b></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0in;"></div><i><b>Hologram.</b></i> A three-dimensional image made from microscopic laser light waves that, when viewed, seem to make the image turn, twist or hover. Thus, holograms are extremely difficult for counterfeiters to copy. <br />
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<i><b>Inane.</b></i> Idiotic and empty of substance. <br />
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<i><b>Numismatic.</b></i> Pertaining to the serious collection of coins, paper money, tokens and the like. <br />
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<i><b>Palliate.</b></i> To the lessen the effect of something. A “palliative” relieves pain without really curing the condition.<br />
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</div>Ted Landphairhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18142247535149425183noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4320170221399917879.post-77746396120000244602010-04-20T08:24:00.002-04:002010-04-20T12:01:43.929-04:00More Meanderings<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkDQwIZrwjQmjRcxLgiBbNYJKgZaZt5ZOAuk4FlOhkpQlNvHymno5Ykhm7PB2BHTysGU01iFuPRwcgEuw6hAReL5tbzv6VRLGHrRaxS8Zj11APQodkz218gel1WaupAYsou5E7LUtMpHs/s1600/01+anatomy+kim+gee.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjq0MfszU9Y0GsT_hPafjV0glEuz2p81bIBOwNAr86Yke2F2CWrPAN2UEqJjAXFVd1i6Sb6qcAmymi8BI-mNyPbLotPh_NBOQEQK6f-Kz6iAdG2z5zl-fZrTRZys6Na1OEg7SEp3J3Ox8A/s320/webready-01-anatomy-kim-gee.jpg" /></a><br />
I have discovered the latest medical fib, on the order of “this won’t hurt a bit” and “the doctor will be with you shortly.” <br />
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I recently went under the 21st Century equivalent of “the knife,” involving assorted probes and scopes and zapper devices rather than scalpels. But the prep hasn’t changed: Strip buck naked and “slip” into a gown that exposes your backside to inspection by medicos, cleaning staff and startled hospital visitors.<br />
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Shiver on a gurney, toes a-wiggling, stare upward at chilly-white lights, and await your doctor’s pre-surgical pep talk. While prone, sign enough forms to insure that the HOSPITAL’S backside is covered in the event the coming sleep is your last. Agree with the nurse who is digging into the top of your left hand to tap a vein for the saline and anesthetic drip that — ouch — yes, the Spring thaw has been — yow -—lovely.<br />
<br />
Then follows the medical equivalent of the “perp walk” in which criminal suspects are paraded before cameras on their way into or out of jail. This, though, is the “patient roll” down the hall on the gurney, as passersby avert their eyes and wonder what you’ve done to yourself.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOCC_u3tW1dNH9atnFNEnsvBHo3Oa7YhZ-utHrQe2VTlbfxmK2msPUZN0eek9FuScD9moiPw25XlA6tKxTMjtNq3mjYRRoIAJSo8RJF3u-xGHLEOoLk6FioT7ZtVnlXI_l83hcJBHjDYE/s1600/02+operating+room++Wilson+Loo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizbepCMunA6vN7Wn5UlF-ircmltySUOGV02y0utDRpZ73q-qMqZTEaIC-fRttoyO2sZDeB61cdd8O_zIQRP5gRxc5DPm_7_9JscH3ZGOKhqIM8V0bMuTXwU9J38QMhiX3hA5cgjIcRHm4/s320/webready-02-operating-room-.jpg" /></a></div>Soon you’re in the “surgical suite,” not to be confused with honeymoon quarters at the Mandarin Oriental. Through a surgical mask, the anesthesiologist introduces him- or herself. Mine happened to have sung in a quartet with a former VOA colleague of mine. So as he hooked an ominous-looking bag to the drip line, we compared notes, so to speak, about “The Pirates of Penzance.” He had once been Frederic, the pirate trainee. I had sung the “Modern Major General” patter in high school and might have shown off with “In short in matters vegetable, animal and mineral, I am the very model of a modern major general” had not the surgeon, standing nearby, glared at both of us. At least it looked like a glare behind his mask.<br />
<br />
There would be no facemask or tanks of stinky ether for me. Just that medical fib to which I referred earlier, as the singing anesthesiologist turned a lever and assured me, “I’m just going to give you a little something to make you drowsy.” <br />
<br />
Drowsy, as in instantly insensate.<br />
<br />
The instant lasted two hours, after which, batting my boyish eyelashes, I awoke groggily in a recovery room, surrounded by other surgical survivors and their relatives. <br />
<br />
“Recovery” is a relative term. There’s no lolling or snoozing. Chop-chop, there are decisions to be made: ginger ale or Coke? Regular or diet? Feel like a cookie? (“No, I feel like a stuck pig.” My weak sense of humor was coming back.) <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgENAHlamV-dAiiIgWZQ6bZsShVZDL_nxhhgC6Bq62DNehsmst3Jg0Oa2skotIICzdUTlttcFDqkjJxQjGsRpyeRZ3LeklnX7O7397OA5gPbcmMnD33Ggul1a71Y9guCnYmIyrkhCQBsaA/s320/03+wheelchair++Ed+Yourdon.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6gs2Kwm-pOp-3ZEiyWFirS-VcuegZDZzkPw9Le_aOwXpgy7zB7ndGXGV0oW-U094FvUz6FzEUTFoPG_FaeCG8n0a-JY4PC61c6ARKoRA0epw4lxlBfPh-meHk5ha8DSqqVI9ggkHr6qA/s320/webready-03-wheelchair--Ed-.jpg" /></a></div>Then came the drill straight from the old “Rawhide” television show’s cattle-driving theme song: “Head ‘em up. Move ‘em out,” driven by today’s tight budgetary, insurance, and bed-space demands. Here are your undies and pants. Put ‘em on. Sign this. Initial that. Get you a pain pill for the road?<br />
<br />
My doctor was just as soothing “post-op.” As he cheerfully outlined my rehabilitation regimen, I couldn’t help thinking, first, “Easy for YOU to say,” and then of the old Vaudeville gag: <br />
<br />
“Will it hurt, doc?” <br />
<br />
“Only when you get my bill.” <br />
<br />
<br />
<b>Not in the Bag</b><br />
<br />
Now I know how expert jugglers feel. If you visit Washington, D.C., and see somebody exiting a grocery or drug store with his arms piled high with products, say hello. It’s me. Or more grammatically, it is I, but how geeky does that sound?<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYgYsx22_RhRB0o4RMOVAwBcFCUJGaltEbQpJB7hn8UPyg8UVYrLrjBV2USoOY8wkglR5GtBNEX9leUQ6mNCD0BSzrOuofbnZ-cn57n2voSlczpwA6M9LvJ3zBoeGiozR5f0UDHh2n2O4/s1600/04+groceries++travelingmcmahons.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijG1TJCHRCXMnm3jlR5IxLzaZK30K5EKgsEA4MObqX9eZ39k2GeAPhJF-b9v3aSyz33wRBSzly1ob203lKGaNBbJhUb33zXAEY2OYgbeN8PvhV47BiVVr33mDWLio5CvkMZNaKtA9-VNg/s320/webready-04-groceries--trav.jpg" /></a></div>I’m balancing a bag of catfood, a jug of milk, a six-pack of beer, one or two prescription bottles, a container of fresh salsa, some sort of crackers, and the daily newspaper because the District of Columbia — whose near-doubling of parking-meter fees has not produced enough pain to close a budget deficit — has ordered retailers to charge five cents for each bag that they dispense to customers. Paper or plastic? Doesn’t matter. Each one will cost you an extra nickel.<br />
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This is a <a href="http://www.examiner.com/x-16393-DC-Environmental-News-Examiner~y2009m7d9-District-of-Columbia-bag-tax-to-go-in-effect-January-2010">“green” initiative</a>. The money raised is earmarked for periodic clean-up of the Anacostia, a polluted branch of the Potomac River. We’re not talking agricultural runoff in this urban stream. It’s household trash — including plastic bags that take a few millennia to break down, discarded wood scraps and oil filters and enough tires to run the Indy car series for a year, and various unmentionables. Let’s just say it takes more than a swimming-pool skimmer to clean up the worst of it.<br />
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In January alone, D.C. pulled in $150,000 from people who paid the new bag tax. <br />
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But it didn’t get a nickel from me. I’m too busy and forgetful to become a Green Warrior, toting one of those biodegradable bags. And I won’t pay for a plastic or paper one at the store. So feel free to laugh at the guy with parcels stacked to his eyebrows, stooping to try to retrieve a dropped item. That would be me.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgb0IJCIl5NUOObs-_cgMb7mmuyj8bnWefd_5QlUV6jrkQ14oGoZd8T08ACGxuZQR5RiHfgQuxOD2QAVaX5sxLxWZVzhqJzJN_aQlnclsuDiEH9pr_Lzd3gHBwamuwcjp5-D1blGzHXUh8/s1600/05+bag++Archie+McPhee+Seattle.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggWIw0-dg5XCG-ua20R6kpox_bFOviAKPTuytOgjA3x39UeDJwZ5oO1yFcIx-RaUUg8f0blBBNvtin4NojUvsKnFNzNugTvAsP1Kk9HMn-kmvKCWB81lBmjG9Zw7brNxUaY7RZ9PLfapo/s320/webready-05-bag--Archie-McP.jpg" /></a></div>All I know is, I’m not alone. Washington stores and vendors dispensed an estimated 22.5 million bags each MONTH in 2009. But in January, when the bag toll took effect, they passed out only 3 million. That’s 18.5 million fewer bags filled each month. Or 390 million nickels that stayed in our pockets in the District of Columbia alone. <br />
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I’m not too cheap to pay the nickel. This bag tax is the straw, the breaking point in the onslaught of government and private-sector surcharges: connection fees and “early withdrawal” tariffs, penalties for using or not using the Internet, fees for checking suitcases and even, from one airline — Spirit — a $30 charge to carry one’s own bag onto its planes.<br />
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Other passengers had better hope that I don’t have to book a Spirit flight any time soon. I’ll be the guy in 22C with no suitcase stowed overhead but his shaving kit, underwear, three days of clean shirts, six folders bulging with newspaper clippings, a large soft drink, two news magazines, the daily sports section, a sandwich, and a big bag of peanuts in his lap. <br />
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And since I won’t pay even a nickel for one, none of those items will be in a paper or plastic bag.<br />
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<b>Bouncy, Bouncy</b><br />
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I’m fascinated with obituaries. Not out of celebrity fascination or as some morbid countdown of the dearly departed in my age group. Rather, I like to read about those who have brought something unique to the world.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg54n_wNtM7HPPvPZXZpgDanPhIepshyphenhyphencvPWqT4pi6dV7K9qUuHjxFbell__thOYeyFDmKnc5fn7gsbv7Eqcn62nD4Iu0Jtab_D-r-EaoDnWRNxGQIEl4TZOA-eP1lyh0pZOmvCMxCS57Q/s1600/06+circus.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgN9-sBV_BeNAiAKohNVbxgNxPW2ow0oRl7vFebAGCZSb2QxfpjOhENsMvMRijUGcwh_rjIu0ygeq6j5fl6zTR3NDskc3Bpu_Nq1Pfxg3WtssJfzEXYaaLkENvfH7hyphenhyphendbtVfmVI5ORkd2E/s320/webready-06-circus.jpg" /></a><br />
I’ve written about the demise of the inventors of TV dinners, flying Frisbee discs, hula hoops, blinding Day-Glo colors, and the children’s sport of T-ball.<br />
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Now, farewell to George Nissen, who died in California at age 96. Though an American, he is best-remembered as the fellow jumping high into the air for the cameras alongside a kangaroo.<br />
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They were bouncing on a device that Nissen had invented. As a young gymnast and diver in rural Iowa, he loved to watch as visiting circus acrobats sprang from springy safety nets onto their perches. This looked like good exercise, so he built his own bouncing contraption out of rubber inner-tube straps. Before long, his University of Iowa swim team pals were having a ball, somersaulting on Nissen’s “trampoline.” He patented that name — Spanish of sorts for “springboard” — but it soon became the generic term for this bouncy platform. <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg22obIOFbQ6H563FqtGK0BMkaLMBvOcAD2bUUBJVjPYDyz-G2nxUV28wt0xDgVB6dx3M2GFQy14hQlQ4dcez_NJd8ZQ0V_iM8WWZBXlOegd0PpkNVLfOrm2kEu5SaI69WnCPtQEtTlUWs/s1600/07+fun++JeHu68.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglhByhxSAPljuY_URTcZpYHc3Hy_AAl2ujc9l10mAOWiOg0MMf65I8Tw8Nv2CL1RJvXC-50zdyeGB8LHJ04rYm9lcCxgKUXs-F9v4kBxIN6cu9UqZ4aGtkPdi20ptDY6lNwB1a2UI8BL4/s320/webready-07-fun--JeHu68.jpg" /></a><br />
With two friends, Nissen toured for a time as “The Three Leonardos,” bounding up and down throughout the Midwest, before quitting the road to concentrate on making and selling trampolines.<br />
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In 2000, trampoline debuted as an Olympic sport, fittingly in Sydney, Australia. Russians won the men’s and women’s gold medals. An Australian, a Ukrainian, and two Canadians won silver and bronze, besting, for all I know, a couple of <a href="http://www.outback-australia-travel-secrets.com/">Outback</a> kangaroos.<br />
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<b>It’s Not a Diet, it’s a Lifestyle</b><br />
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I learned something the other day from Nicholas Kristof, the New York Times columnist. And not about international politics, global economics, or human rights, his usual frames of reference. <br />
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Kristof wrote about the wild dogs of Africa. As he pointed out, people bond with cute, fuzzy, or imposing creatures — pandas, ducklings, tigers, whales. But while turkey vultures, tapirs, dung beetles, blacksnakes and the like look marvelous to their kind, they’re plug ugly to us. <br />
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African wild dogs were among the scorned — um, hounded to near extinction, Kristof noted — until a part-Brit, part-Zimbabwean named Greg Rasmussen began re-branding the breed. He found one endearing attribute in these snarly, big-eared pack hunters that chirp like birds rather than bark like hounds: <br />
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Their distinctive, spotted coats. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi48F4dB7_lWw55mwZQBII9C7QReCL7acuf-DRjG5eWbVy5ST3lF8zH5HujAEf3SmM7VOJnQH7QAm_pGPCYmpXoKhZNpUL6e2jjU85-Bb1HGiJWDRV-EZJ3MLSWQjNxFGMPyt-KeApldz8/s1600/08+african+wild+dog+++newagecrap.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivBQyCmWiD0N9ZPUQ91IMzKLZ2iPUj-NrU8IlcbfLsEAuZxVVMfQkykIaY-K2nKwXbRjLVYNSsZ7b7cHPFBJAQyhBW-M5Y5HztRJSTwAFVmvOeoOiD-cqlJNWygdlpfQhlKcjU9q6lOFY/s320/webready2-08-african-wild-d.jpg" /></a></div>Rasmussen and others throughout Africa began calling these canids “painted dogs.” He opened the “Painted Dog Conservation Center,” and a remarkable thing happened. Contributions began pouring in from around the world. Soon the African painted dog was no longer threatened.<br />
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This got me thinking. What if, with a few strokes of the pen and a crafty press release, we could burnish the sour perceptions of other unfashionable critters, reviled human professions, and undesirable products. With zippy marketing, we could take clumsy euphemisms — such as calling used cars “pre-owned vehicles” or toilet paper “bathroom tissue” — to a higher level.<br />
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This has been tried with moderate imagination and little success. Lawyers are “attorneys,” but we’re still not wild about them. Politicians prefer to be called “lawmakers.” Owners of steely-jawed pit bulls would have us call their beasts “Staffordshire terriers.” Or even “Staffies.” <br />
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Cuddly pit bulls. Nice try. Hasn’t caught on.<br />
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Here’s the same idea, writ large: <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgynzd7g2Of6QjUJjqR51WitxiYVeKOnyDzSEIj_6Rc8h0bOrVzEbmyfY2_0Gmi-P5QbGH_WZrTSbUPuCDBSttOVL4vdfQKWhe6uek3RLgenHdKKP7H0brZTxeq-ZXOc71267PpHdTaUC0/s1600/09+catfish+++photojenni.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0Odn4aJB5YeVT-TqBX1Gusc5-f5WT60BhTIIRZbYBV717daLybknW4kUGF0ZBInU3CoUWTt0WDDBxYuRl7LunXB051WTvxkU35jhC9PYp4A0qTJTdAHhL0GrfDJBX0cpH8DsAQrjj_y0/s320/webready-09-catfish---photo.jpg" /></a></div>PETA — the ever-controversial People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals organization — thinks fish get a bad rap. (And a bad wrap on occasion.) We think of them as slimy, bug-eyed, and brainless. So we’re content to harvest, gut, broil, and eat these dullards of the deep. <br />
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PETA thinks we should call scaly, cold-blooded, aquatic vertebrates something chummier, if you’ll pardon the word, than “fish.” It suggests “sea kittens.” <br />
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Who, it asks astutely, would want to hook, harpoon, fillet, or fry a kitten? <br />
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True enough. So I say, let’s start calling worms <em>wigglers</em>.<br />
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Wolves could become <em>grandma dogs</em> (everybody loves grandma). The connection? Check out the Little Red Riding Hood children’s story.<br />
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Even though I consider them rats with wings, I’d turn pigeons into <em>coobirds</em>. Spiders into <em>octobuddies</em>. Cockroaches into <em>skitterdoodles</em>.<br />
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Skunks? <em>Striped weasels</em>! (This may need more work, since weasels have their own p.r. problems. How about land otters? Anything to draw attention away from skunks’, shall we say, chemical defenses.) <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div>You have to agree that, like Greg Rasmussen, I’m having decent luck tidying up the images of lower beings but haven’t come up with a single zippy new term for scorned human subsets. I’m having a hard time buffing up <em>bankers</em>, <em>stockbrokers</em>, <em>chief executive officers</em>, or <em>financial advisers</em> in today’s economy. I haven’t a clue how to rocket car salesmen up the popularity charts. Or how to help <em>journalists</em>, who seem to be held in even lower regard.<br />
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It would be in my interest to think of something for that last one, though. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijv907wntPTj7mIs99DE7mOZrPs-MJxGDOIlG9zE0iNdSjSGu7uKzia5rETUTD8Z2umKZpraqqtx5R2VmSrOdz1Hsbz27iHoXE1creFMJMzBAt_gij2VtWcMGneYOfDcl04qyZobQAXHE/s1600/10+pack++sibtigre2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5e0kDgjB77-GHSqsnibJCWmRZaoSVR9HFQ5H2lQAgruRyJWeJ1Hxxya3L0LiB3HHD3L8-O7qphSH5uN4YFQQU_zUS_Nb7VnwtUYfpwyo_dcJW3LYkBdnNvpV0qyUG2kjXihgzwmVyxzs/s320/webready-10-pack--sibtigre2.jpg" /></a></div>Let’s see: I consider journalists to be <em>storytellers</em>. It has a nice ring, but critics already believe that we make stuff up.<br />
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<em>Lifewatchers</em>? Obscure, a reach, would never catch on.<br />
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<em>Objectivists</em>? Objective journalist? An antiquated, currently preposterous concept.<br />
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Here, I think I’ve got it:<br />
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Journalists . . . <em>painted writers</em>! <br />
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If it worked for smelly wild dogs, it can work for us. <br />
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<div style="text-align: center;"><b>WILD WORDS</b><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><i><span style="color: #999999;">(These are a few of the words from this posting that you may not know. Each time, I'll tell you a little about them and also place them into a cumulative archive of "Ted's Wild Words" in the right-hand column of the home page. Just click on it there, and if there's another word in today's blog that you'd like me to explain, just ask!)</span></i></span><b> </b></div><br />
<i><b>Canid.</b></i> A canine. The word comes from the scientific name Canidae, the family of carnivorous mammals that includes wolves, jackals, and domesticated dogs. Insensate. Unconscious, almost lifeless.<br />
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<i><b>Insensate.</b></i> Unconscious, almost lifeless.<br />
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<i><b>Perp.</b></i> Short for criminal perpetrator, or rather, in most scenarios, alleged but not yet convicted wrongdoer.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div>Ted Landphairhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18142247535149425183noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4320170221399917879.post-25774837798288595312010-04-09T08:02:00.002-04:002010-04-09T08:47:12.854-04:00This ‘n’ ThatOver the weeks that you and I have been figuratively tramping around the American West together, I’ve been stuffing clippings and notes in my pocket. At the risk of revealing how diffuse and cluttered my mind has become, here are four of the items that caught my eye.<br />
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<b style="font-family: inherit;">No Sweat</b><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">With the nation still scuffling to pull itself out of a prolonged recession, every trend is scrutinized to smithereens. And something is puzzling:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Many, if not most, businesses have laid off some workers or cut their hours. Yet as a whole, U.S. companies are producing only 3 percent fewer goods and services than they were before the steep economic downturn began. </span><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcPRaPMM1oA8_hW1oX9RCsfv_0QM3Iu63nO8vbOZZZaGDbBgZ384BuFN4dH7OAMchTC72y399qggBpcWxRyjhH0Rr_yDCVQIU3V8r6vyzPsdgFVKxRfrMn7oOGe6CUDR7TQ-wtmcbZoZk/s1600/01+breadline.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGx0TN-_t3jg_HrBXdOIJSUoyTEAyh0ciPofX11qKNVrOKfQrKCGC3vaJZgNH_45ldC_VVS-NT0PcGVkgiVHhnmFZHqoAcidctHKAacWHcT9w6qvPrOx0qz_ifluI6JrNDzcI1HtQhP00/s320/webready-01-breadline.jpg" /></a></div><span style="font-family: inherit;">This is in part, perhaps, because those who’ve been lucky enough to hold onto good jobs panicked. Grateful to have avoided the fate of friends who lost jobs and have been fruitlessly looking for work for months, they are cheerfully toiling longer and harder in order to stay in their bosses’ good graces.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Older workers, in particular, believe they’d stand little chance against younger job-seekers in the “cold, cruel world” where even a menial job is pounced upon like a meaty bone tossed to growling jackals. Companies can leisurely pick from among hundreds of eager, desperate, applicants who are willing to work cheap. And old-timers are not the likely ones to be picked.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">As the Washington Post’s Neil Irwin reported, those who still have desks and cubicles are meekly acceding to stated or implied demands for more hours, greater output — even benefit cuts, if need be. Smaller bones are better than no bones at all.</span><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJMSRmH7OcocCbRteHwO8JD7q4KWqxIKHJObliwZ5tLPP8Tp3Ho_XpUC2eqLNkwT3VF-BHjYdwuhiJ0xXnZDHXvKXX3lYQPNAjuEDvdiQMPjd2-SHyPpNLGXVVOP9Pyj_1UQFxRcsOR_k/s1600/02+hard+work+pwinn.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjbmul9KJi2Nz63pLu40aZq2y_T0jCn2QmJbZPztSNu3RgZZAgqCq_XS-1qfMoFvkePsGat0NTnD3yh2TBaXkqmlOVPRVpOF_XoFwpkhpRhgJyOKyaz4qgzODIIXIoUInsTaA0qVNm9mM/s320/webready-02-hard-work-pwinn.jpg" /></a></div><span style="font-family: inherit;">So healthy companies would seem to have it made. They can downsize and fill vacancies with affordable newbies — often part-timers or contract employees whom they don’t have to pay health or retirement benefits. Or they can let vacancies stand, knowing that the remaining staff will be so thankful to have jobs that they’ll work longer and harder and produce just about as much as a larger workforce did before.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Sweet!</span><br />
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<b style="font-family: inherit;">A Rise from the South</b><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">It’s said that time is the best healer. But every once in awhile, something pulls away a bit of the scab.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Recently, Virginia’s new Republican governor, Robert McDonnell, declared April “Confederate History Month” in his state. </span><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8sfo41gsa9LI02AeYy0sD2iwO8kWjlAnG1ePXtL_Ldo29ETT5XK6Tuutv1A0xvJGrtXEh6R2Yan54JngO_rUtVHwG1aepIYruxR1xfUdki8jvw5RM_S-8bBoHNVKcwLEpuAtgZNoLsiU/s1600/03+confed.+white+house.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiviSJppS3iVd7XU-rw2lwVh-Z00gTP5DwXTVEMkECmQPc4vP3EIa-WuoRqOrhjWAmmkqg1QzKJCogsaHXooS8I8AkgaB4lycvHOpg_qvvxrlpr-ruFBIM_LeuEn6_RV1ZKMbGTKBMCyhs/s320/webready-03-confed.-white-h.jpg" /></a></div><span style="font-family: inherit;">Confederate imagery abounds in Virginia, whose capital city, Richmond, was the last capital of the rebellious <a href="http://www.civilwarhome.com/csa.htm">Confederate States of America</a> in the U.S. Civil War of the 1860s. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Virginia named one of its main thoroughfares “Lee-Jackson Highway” after Robert E. Lee and Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson, two of the South’s most prominent generals. “Lee-Jackson Day” in January is still a state holiday. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">From 1984 to 2000, in an odd effort to promote racial harmony, Virginia added Martin Luther King Jr.’s name to the holiday, then uncoupled it when it was clear that the black civil-rights leader would soon get his own national day.</span><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhWOvbONRxV5h8Aam-hv8swkMl6ewD6DhGN7Gu4G0JVg26opkUwZwTPymrvgoCsdqqnAyH2HecBTkr3Sao-jKSxf0SBrklD7ZRxFUVwM9Xar4KLrpIEXPAfBOD4MUy4eo7XXHtbRkOWdU/s1600/04+confederate+statue.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1sY0-JDIgDbL8rkgLEPZWxJsXtyFDjFpy0hL46XKCqiMF031mSdiq2wRgcYDXigL6E3ih7oW7UjQpzMgzPVVEDYRN9K3Wrw3Ay9iKucHcBTrDRsQSW6tJsuxd0111G78IqpOxHDoY_2I/s320/webready-04-confederate-sta.jpg" /></a></div><span style="font-family: inherit;">In the town squares of hundreds of southern county seats, including many in Virginia, statues to ordinary Confederate soldiers stand tall. Carol, who’s spending three months photographing in Alabama, and I even found one in little Tuskegee, home of the nation’s most famous historically black university. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Throughout the South, too, you’ll see defiant symbols of what some southerners call “The War of Northern Aggression” (or “Invasion,”) “The War Between the States,” or — more mirthfully — the “Late Unpleasantness.” It was not until 2000 that the Confederate flag came down from its perch atop South Carolina’s capitol building in Columbia. Civil-rights groups’ calls for boycotts of South Carolina events and attractions were only slightly muted when state officials lowered the rebel flag but then planted it on the capitol lawn.</span><a font-family:="" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZWQYC_YfrrE1CPY6PCSJ3oYCOyg-4v7S8sQCMt3nGaFxka3AcN8xQvQ4OotQYUBd-5fCk8LFskcPAXPMi-IyY6YHLd5QCC0Fu6tHLJUm671Pr_vVJfUz59wPiSMEc6SxF_ZK2eakQ7EU/s1600/05+confederate+flag++eyeliam.jpg%20%E2%80%9CDixie%E2%80%9D%20battle%20flags%3C/a%3E%20and%20decals%20sell%20briskly.%C2%A0%20The%20%E2%80%9Cstars%20and%20bars,%E2%80%9D%20or%20%E2%80%9Csouthern%20cross,%E2%80%9D%20still%20appears%20on%20Mississippi%E2%80%99s%20state%20flag%20and%20is%20suggested%20on%20Florida%E2%80%99s%20and%20Alabama%E2%80%99s%20flags.%C2%A0%C2%A0%3C/span%3E%3Cbr%20/%3E%0A%3Cbr%20/%3E%0A%3Cspan%20style=" inherit;=""><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZWQYC_YfrrE1CPY6PCSJ3oYCOyg-4v7S8sQCMt3nGaFxka3AcN8xQvQ4OotQYUBd-5fCk8LFskcPAXPMi-IyY6YHLd5QCC0Fu6tHLJUm671Pr_vVJfUz59wPiSMEc6SxF_ZK2eakQ7EU/s1600/05+confederate+flag++eyeliam.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiq50FlIDMKtEeDbWfAfedOPj3JicEz0cIzzQTCVOigiB-nMblDznaKQdK4Sz36TjdqVBSYGxgYozZNKpX01HjvvzXRWr3dSMgHIUTFI5RonIPIT_X7WPtSCbxpdwPgSLHcOUFHyt3wvac/s320/webready-05-confederate-fla.jpg" /></a></div><span style="font-family: inherit;">Virginia’s past two governors — both Democrats — had allowed Confederate History Month to go dormant by simply ignoring the usual proclamation. In reviving it, Governor McDonnell said Confederate History Month would promote tourism in a state where battlefields and Civil War re-enactments are huge historical draws. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">In his remarks, though, McDonnell never mentioned that the bloody war that tore the nation asunder was largely fought to preserve or eliminate human bondage in the Confederate states. Former governor Douglas Wilder, an African American, called Governor McDonnell’s omission of the word “slavery” anywhere in his proclamation “mind-boggling.” But the governor’s supporters endorsed McDonnell’s assertion that the special month helps Virginians “understand the sacrifices of the Confederate leaders, soldiers, and citizens during the period of the Civil War.”</span><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXF8CguczJITWREgsKup0Cvc4VXuV1W9z0DdvEyD5CWEN14XKFrlEY5Z1yxhPp5KGI2zG0CTqs9GMp58tUsulRX9qLVks5iWpr8gUfT0gYeKAit4s1o6tVNU3a6OdChwKP6ofbp2qH2rU/s1600/06+Price,+Birch+%26+Co.+1862+dealer+in+slaves.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8KNiXVIXkGO_JRPjc1t5lHPPr7hdNdcKB9-BF2YOIt1ntL1KcGSefcTL9o5QFLsAoRov-1xHZQKicqOrY7mOm6LvcXuX4UXDxN6KMe-zZpLFLfmDReHg7JeqWLodSOUcvYBxe9TXcDTU/s320/webready-06-Price,-Birch-%26-.jpg" /></a></div><span style="font-family: inherit;">Ordinary rebel soldiers, many of them already poor and barefoot, certainly sacrificed — their lives, in many cases. Citizens lost their homes, crops, and livestock as Union forces slashed and burned their way through the South. The sacrifices made by Confederate leaders — whose “fire-eater” rhetoric and romantic appeals to chivalry sweet-talked an undermanned and poorly armed region into a foolhardy war — are harder to fathom.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Two days after he issued the Confederate History Month proclamation, Governor McDonnell apologized “to any fellow Virginian who has been offended or disappointed” by the failure to mention slavery. It was, he said, “an evil and inhumane practice that deprived people of their God-given inalienable rights, and all Virginians are thankful for its permanent eradication from our borders.”</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">The flap over Confederate History Month brought uncomfortable questions back to life: If just about everyone can agree that slavery was the South’s economic underpinning, and that its states went to war to preserve an evil institution, should that period be expunged from the national memory? Should the Confederacy be venerated? Or can Confederate History Month artfully comingle the two points of view — saluting the bravery of southern ancestors but condemning the institution that 620,000 Americans died trying to end or maintain?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">My southern friends tell me that some white southerners — relentlessly preoccupied with righting what they see as a terrible wrong from a century and a half ago — still fight the Civil War in their hearts and minds, while the region has moved on: growing, modernizing, and building upon its racial diversity. </span><br />
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<b style="font-family: inherit;">Gotcha</b><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkBuVMtVacWtmOI7j3BTIOpRyglN-XuQ_eAAdI3fCeeaOoqoqK6hKRbl8TkuJR9kWb6Dk1CwK8DYcH_O_fo8PwLLJWuHYHxFApoSUspNo_RGItDQfH3kqhRuEn-N2GRLpl6fAa9fRyy9E/s1600/07+peter+newell+april+fools+and+april+showers,+1896.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGE2rvH38P0om2lrsYZbGestwexVLcdLMr2Gdhx8y5yg9w8L8IiRTLGMoT-o6pnR5gxmBwld2KfN3BLFahjNdGGyeIljZ_DcmKeUzAh1OdtE-wN1bhYLAT3F1mH2n6VVZnkz3zNtQqL7Y/s320/webready-07-peter-newell-ap.jpg" /></a></div><span style="font-family: inherit;">If you live west of, say, Istanbul, you’ve probably heard of April Fool’s Day. It’s April 1, the day when French and French-Canadian kids sneak up and slap a picture of a fish onto their friends’ backs. Then they yell, “April Fish!” and laugh uproariously. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">People also play April 1 pranks on each other elsewhere in Europe, out of some hoary tradition having to do with <a href="http://www.answers.com/topic/pope-gregory-xiii">Pope Gregory XIII’s</a> decree in 1582 that the new year would no longer start on that date. Each April Fool’s Day Americans, too, get perverse pleasure out of telling false stories while striving to keep a straight face. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“D’ja hear? Vice President Biden just resigned!” Stuff like that. When the victim replies, “Really?” with a gasp, your cleverness is confirmed. “April Fool!” you announce, and laugh uproariously.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">When I was a kid, I thought it was incredibly inventive each April 1 to whisper to whatever girl sat in front of me to stay still, VERY still. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“What?” she would respond nervously out of the corner of her mouth, holding herself stiff as a board.</span><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmjFaAbZ7mYzets8lz93ZeYJlKRqfGLW1YhH7H5EykDbjthoaaKV93O3JPSzSA4q5LSViJz5xIhu7w_qPuwtL9ihfiZEskHPasNiGF2zD2vuY1jbW0ejsXe5FHn852vudRQLONUnWWBUE/s1600/08+jumping+spider++Thomas+Shahan.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAd6ayNYl9P5T6p7bj4cQ11CQrks7B9v0PxLvuEY4BpkCJvuO2YKnF38Rj200398rPoeCzf0J4fzY4aT1LcB-ml2oW-unYXC1vN64L3I_SaS7K3zaw7JxdlpIoarGxqdDrxSLetPwokbU/s320/webready-08-jumping-spider-.jpg" /></a></div><span style="font-family: inherit;">“There’s a spider on your neck!” </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Her shriek, leap from her seat, and frantic brush of her lapel pretty much coincided with my smug announcement of “April Fool!” </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Some April Fool’s Day stories are classics. In 1957, our friends at the BBC ran a TV piece that showed Italians happily harvesting spaghetti from trees. This prompted predictable inquiries on the telly, such as, “Do you know where I could get some vermicelli-tree seeds?”</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">In 1998, rational mathematicians across the United States panicked when an obscure society reported that the State of Alabama had changed the value of the mathematical constant pi. The alarmed whizzes completely missed the significance of the April 1 date on the announcement.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Many a radio disc jockey, stretching cleverness beyond its limits on April 1, has solemnly reported the death of a prominent figure who is actually alive and about to get angry. After a dirge or two is played and stunned listeners call to convey their shock and sadness, the jock cries out, “April Fool, you idiots!” He then laughs uproariously, closes out the show, and is fired.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">In a famous April Fool sports hoax in 1985, author <a href="http://www.georgeplimpton.net/index.html">George Plimpton</a> raised the flickering hopes of New York Mets fans when he reported that the baseball team had signed an amazing phenom, Sidd Finch, a pitcher who could throw a ball at 270 kmh (168 mph) with unerring accuracy. Not only that: Finch had studied in Tibet and practiced the art of “siddhi” yogic mind and body control. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Girded by all these whoppers to be wary, we in Washington, D.C., did not for a moment buy a story that appeared in the Washington Examiner this April 1. The newspaper reported that the hometown Washington Redskins football team had acquired Donovan McNabb, the star quarterback of its hated rival, the Philadelphia Eagles. And what made the deal sweet, the paper added, was that all the ’Skins had to give up in return was a second-round prospect in the upcoming draft of college players. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">The story was preposterous — an obvious fib: McNabb was an all-star performer and an acclaimed leader of men. The Eagles would never send him to an arch-foe that competes in the same division. Besides, the story appeared on . . . April 1. Duh!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">The Examiner quickly fessed up. The lame story had been the best April Fool’s tale it could come up with.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Then, three days later, sports fans’ tranquility on a beautiful Easter Sunday was shattered when word pinballed across town that Donovan McNabb had in fact just been traded to the Redskins for a second-round draft choice.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">No fooling.</span><br />
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<b style="font-family: inherit;">We’re Not in Kansas Any More</b><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Speaking of April Fool’s Day, if you’re a Google user, you’ve probably noticed little touches that the search engine adds to its home page every once in awhile. A green motif on St. Patrick’s Day, for instance, or a goblin face on Halloween.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">But for the life of me, I couldn’t understand why, when I opened the site on the morning of April 1, the word “Topeka” appeared — without explanation — in place of the usual “Google” trademark.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Why the name of this city in Kansas, out of nowhere?</span><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjECLECw6OeGJ0EryzMMbNPEQEfYiN2nrCrBSSsOWZwbsUkcMthybZTpJnpTnFeD9jJj7hTKbO_7uMDDwYFpjF7Turd8ooH0abYDYUO2YhzzjeKt99a4oP2Fv-73H9U5zOxviUnKjLz9Iw/s1600/09+kansas+capitol,+topeka.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgb9KoIZ5hegT398Y85T7dXPSQfSOYYiVFstMTWUzV2uq-nkCp7HUr-ndcfbq0kLSIhWGbHaMfwtewj0KB3vxUaV50savAWr8PWfpi4gfQJJgN4af9YHJnyA6tpTG_JfYBMeVnM4tN8M8/s320/webready-09-kansas-capitol,.jpg" /></a></div><span style="font-family: inherit;">It was another April Fool’s gag of sorts, and a clever one. With his tongue firmly planted in his cheek, Google Chairman Eric Schmidt explained that “Google” became “Topeka” for a day to honor the Kansa Indian tribe, which, he said, was famous for digging potatoes. His site, in turn, is known as a good place to dig for information.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">The switch was a good-natured reply to Kansas’s capital city, which has been lobbying to become the testing ground for Google’s new ultra-fast fiber-optic network, which will dramatically improve access to the Internet and bring jobs and hundreds of millions of dollars to some community, somewhere. At least 22 cities had mounted expensive Facebook and other Internet page campaigns aimed at catching Google’s eye and contract. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Topeka’s mayor issued a proclamation changing the name of his town to “Google, Kansas,” for the entire month of March. Had I been there, I’d have run over to the train station and changed the name of the famous line to the “Atchison, Google, and Santa Fe.”</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">“Whether we get the Google Experiment or not,” wrote the Topeka Capital Journal during “Google, Kansas” Month, “the excitement alone has been a ton of fun!”</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><b>WILD WORDS</b></span></div><div style="font-family: inherit; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><i><span style="color: #999999;">(These are a few of the words from this posting that you may not know. Each time, I'll tell you a little about them and also place them into a cumulative archive of "Ted's Wild Words" in the right-hand column of the home page. Just click on it there, and if there's another word in today's blog that you'd like me to explain, just ask!)</span></i></span></div><div style="font-family: inherit; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b><br />
</b></span></div><span style="font-size: small;"><b style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
<i>Hoary.</i></b><span style="font-family: inherit;"> Gray or whitened by age. </span><br style="font-family: inherit;" /><br style="font-family: inherit;" /><i style="font-family: inherit;"><b>Pi.</b> </i><span style="font-family: inherit;"> Pronounced “pie,” this is the mathematical ratio of the circumference of a circle to the circle’s diameter. It’s approximately 3.14159265 to 1.</span><br style="font-family: inherit;" /><b style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
<i>Smithereens.</i> </b><span style="font-family: inherit;"> Small fragments or bits, as in “blasted to smithereens.” It comes from the Irish “smidirin.”</span><br style="font-family: inherit;" /><b style="font-family: inherit;"><i><br />
Vermicelli.</i> </b><span style="font-family: inherit;"> Pronounced “ver-mi-CHELL-ee,” this is round and very thin spaghetti. The name in Italian means “little worms.”</span><br style="font-family: inherit;" /><i style="font-family: inherit;"><b><br />
Whopper.</b></i><span style="font-family: inherit;"> Something really big, as in a fish or a highly exaggerated joke.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: 10pt;"></span>Ted Landphairhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18142247535149425183noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4320170221399917879.post-23738323035208066972010-04-02T10:56:00.001-04:002010-04-02T11:04:23.084-04:00Arid ArizonaLet’s conclude our odyssey through the West with a look at dry yet surprisingly green Arizona.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSei-S4chF5UtAKzdvf1o_u6ig6g6RHVdlzhym2pLDUpTmYlo0xt0J1eWuptgMT71chfPypIYBDV0Yy3yg8qRXhAOliswkpO_ajDZn3TljKlu7oqPU1UM-RKo0rRoCB_tBR68w2m_dUeg/s1600/webready-01-n.-ariz-country.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSei-S4chF5UtAKzdvf1o_u6ig6g6RHVdlzhym2pLDUpTmYlo0xt0J1eWuptgMT71chfPypIYBDV0Yy3yg8qRXhAOliswkpO_ajDZn3TljKlu7oqPU1UM-RKo0rRoCB_tBR68w2m_dUeg/s320/webready-01-n.-ariz-country.jpg" /></a></div>Green, thanks to irrigation and irrigation alone. Without it, the bulk of Arizona would still be brown and barren. There’d be no Phoenix-to-Tucson mega-city, no spring “Cactus League” Major League baseball games, no farming to speak of.<br />
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The West is America’s driest, but also fastest-growing, region. Arizona, its most parched state, alone is crammed with an astounding 67 percent more people than lived there in 1990. For all of them, there’s been a stampede of new businesses, golfing resorts, and housing developments — especially those geared to retirees, who can’t seem to get to Arizona fast enough.<br />
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These people and enterprises use a whole lot more water than the roaming sheep, coyotes, and the mere 3.7 million people who lived in Arizona 20 years ago.<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOv3dDiD_CyZ3u0sJwDURmJhbUJvGT_hHVYkRe0e8Ui12tjJbmb9mSvbqN5YLTB7fjMRT4K2CHxghXP2vCVekdNsl1rvZdoOcqJReTPMESBtngcdkZ8Buf5Z4pDegbXIC0Lpa3c1-i5nA/s1600/02+horseshoe+bend,+colo.+river.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2YW36C0cD7K0CfZaKQsBHDpHasV0AS7oKhSjp0M-zXQ52aWMjfVAhmBap3d5tv2EO3FWF9zzpIFSn9WAQpBngeQSR9YHpBr5gd5gzvPyZM4MItmDO1H2QmWciE8Z3tsBoaDEZtGUqPBY/s320/webready-02-horseshoe-bend,.jpg" /></a><br />
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Thanks to modern engineering, Arizona cities can tap into precious river water and vast <a href="http://ag.arizona.edu/AZWATER/azmap/ground.html">aquifers </a>deep beneath the porous soil. A single rushing river, the<a href="http://www.blogger.com/%20http://www.bobspixels.com/kaibab.org/misc/gc_coriv.htm"> Colorado</a>, which formed and still courses through the Grand Canyon and then becomes the border between Arizona and neighboring California, supplies water to 40 million people in seven states. In 1922, those states signed a compact in which those in the upper reaches of the Colorado agreed to allow enough flow to supply hyper-growing states like Arizona to the south.<br />
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The Colorado (“Red” in Spanish) River gets its name from sediment washed from layers of nearby rock. So much over the centuries that — get this — it formed Mexico’s long Baja Peninsula, south of California.<br />
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Prolonged droughts have dramatically reduced water levels in reservoirs, including Arizona’s Lake Powell. “We live in a desert state and, some would say, in a state of denial,” Arizona Republic reporter Shaun McKinnon wrote in 2005. Because of all the irrigation needed to supply fertile farms, beautiful lawns and lush gardens where only cacti and red ants would normally be found; and the showers, toilets, and washing machines of Arizona’s boomtowns, he noted, the state’s 6.2 million people use the amount of water that would normally supply five times that many people. <br />
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In the five years since McKinnon’s article, the capital city of Phoenix alone has grown by 200,000 people. The 2010 Census, currently being conducted, will likely show that 1.65 million people live in this city where, 2,000 years ago, native people we call the Hohokam had to create 217 km (135 miles) of crude irrigation canals from the Gila and Salt rivers just to make the Sonoran Desert arable. <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcyF0K5-ZCVISxYQ1fMlmGGIOyNeVJ4lvYy_DnZOHEekZTSaAu5uZOvbUobXyD17RrLFccOORXU1HGoZgYwOjAi__3RWzKtjMn5InZaYGElwCaRRVyVYRDsM32LLwV2egs-Fdnzy7T4Ns/s1600/03+lake+powell.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjy0qx7QwQQrxCImg0pQnAU0tfzHbVf7gMatBqivmXwdolFyc8qmji7x1CAXDrHXU4QQ4hNDeUjyLztXsNMzUvUD9bPKZ7FUe-OV5bNsEFWYqiea_2UDpfMweDMoEWEoh5JSdyvHHXLjw4/s320/webready-03-lake-powell.jpg" /></a><br />
In modern times, farmers — who control many of the dams and reservoirs and canals — have become “emergency water bankers,” as reporter McKinnon calls them. They hold back water reserves to get them through dry times. “But as farms give way to subdivisions, the reserve is shrinking, and water once used in fields is now claimed by homes and businesses.”<br />
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And tensions over water are mounting. People in Arizona’s welter of subdivisions say that farmers are lavishing precious water on thirsty crops like alfalfa and cotton. The farmers insist that they’re the frugal ones, and without their careful water conservation there’d be no array of new communities with catchy names like “Sun City” and “Surprise.” Arizona’s innumerable golf courses alone consume two-thirds of the state’s commercial water supply. Why do you think Arizona looks so green from the air? <br />
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Then there’s the intense evaporation toll exacted by Arizona’s nearly perpetual sunshine and legendary heat. One day 12 years ago, the mercury hit 53° (128° Farenheit) at Lake Havasu on the California border. On an average summer day in Phoenix, the temperature reaches 39° (102°).<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_XxnQjYQfpY31RHsduc-YdTfhYZ5bNUzmyEX27Z0anNSKToM71gzWsKNXfYzGYl9p-yjtz_jV-2eICKBd3terFr7C-TqOA_7bJ5RlqWE1hoSNjLSnZUfzmyvMxJuahe09AH-Vg2vztn0/s1600/04+slot+canyon.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpP1IAjATP9I48Qymsv3mBFiQSi9IM2Mt8tMISOeGufk-uI1EbVVWiRcetlub92PTxjOw0kwsGU01RBjknOjfjPLhOnswNwd_rnAD45hlZM11xAtes5SwZVKWXXn9z7SkkyqGzy-nLdx4/s320/webready-04-slot-canyon.jpg" /></a><br />
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One has to wonder what early Indians, two millennia before air conditioning, saw in such a place. In 1540, Spanish explorer F<a href="http://www.lsjunction.com/people/coronado.htm">rancisco Vasquez de Coronado</a> led an expedition out of Mexico as far north as the Grand Canyon. He was searching for the legendary “Seven Cities of Cibola,” supposedly Zuni Indian strongholds full of riches. Finding only drab villages and hostile Zunis, Hopis, and Pueblos, he and his men moved on to what is now New Mexico, where he had no better luck. <br />
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Still later in Arizona, U.S. soldiers would mount costly campaigns against migratory Chirichaua Apache Indians, led by Cochise and then<a href="http://www.legendsofamerica.com/na-geronimo.html"> Geronimo</a>. Unlike the Spaniards, the bluecoats persisted and prevailed. More than 5,000 soldiers and 500 scouts hunted down the feared Geronimo and his band. They were shipped to a fort in humid Florida on the distant East Coast, where many died of malaria or tuberculosis.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXPiQmAnus2Ye6sVNrGGXpqMe8jV_677tbvSQ86u5AOchFHqG50vopXxKz_1yVER1-7UmGk8JojUJXirSdVcq3gcZ3EW5jeBmQCrfVJtziCP5fY9ahWsqaxvfpPNu_N-JnuajveMp12VQ/s1600/05+geronimo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXeoup_9ZQ8xTDNjialDpVeGSrWMXTfHdN6uSjkn5fAJ6TIQynk7gm0gcFv07S4akodqaVIXn2HnAHZpvVKDkN7-6zv4WDSjoQ3xUWna1-L95KHWnD5TM3sN6owU2XXKVlLqxGxpwCGBY/s320/webready-05-geronimo.jpg" /></a><br />
Geronimo himself was moved twice and eventually released, though never allowed to return to his Arizona homeland. Like some other Indian warriors and chiefs, he became a celebrity, appearing at the St. Louis World’s Fair in 1904 and even riding in President Theodore Roosevelt’s inaugural parade a year later.<br />
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Geronimo, by the way, was not a skydiver. But the actor Chief Thundercloud (born Victor Daniels) playing him did yell Geronimo’s name when leaping off a cliff in the 1939 movie of the same name, and members of the 501st United States Parachute Division adopted the call for their freefalls: “Geroni . . . MO!!!” Some people jumping out of planes still do likewise, as do kids bouncing off diving boards into pools.<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglbgXnOYRoXUh2MkcpZQDofsDomaPGyMivQN82LXQbEU6TC3B_OM1LLAoM1ybJK695CSqJh5CPChoEBTMwxqLV_7pyH4VWxv3RVjcYb0k2rL4x2xDYZNVUBIIw88e-wWFBUxBqFywIMuE/s1600/06+monument+valley.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfQtOMHCyJl47_5unAD-8pZto3kEz422zK0QVFuPoERc5Q0KiczAyjEVJYXhFgUrIfaLmi3twSZ3UkBGYfO3YUzdC0x_Yooa7Lar8sEeb97Ighg0PtHKl0Ka1b0E5hYRkJZOJjZXowF6g/s320/webready-06-monument-valley.jpg" /></a><br />
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Except for missionary priests bent on converting native populations, the Spanish and Mexicans (after the latter’s independence from Spain in 1821) spent more time and energy in lovelier New Mexico than they did in scrawny Arizona.<br />
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The latter came under American control in two stages — the northern three-fourths as part of the large new territory of New Mexico after a victory over Mexico in a short war ending in 1848; and the remainder via the <a href="http://www.progress.org/gads.htm">Gadsden Purchase</a> five years later. The only reason the United States wanted that hot and desolate sliver south of the Gila River was to gain land for a transcontinental “southern route” railroad line.<br />
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It would be almost 60 years before New Mexico Territory was deemed worthy enough for full inclusion in the Union in 1912, as the separate states of New Mexico and Arizona. They were last among our contiguous “lower 48” states.<br />
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Irrigation — that word again — this time by Mormon settlers and federal dam-builders — pretty much explains the only reason Arizona grew much at all for awhile. Then between 1940 and 1960, its population doubled, and the boom was on. Why? Still more irrigation, air conditioning, and the discovery by many Americans that Arizona’s dry air ameliorated their allergies.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRAHykdSMC2Sg5qlAW86U46WqHZtSscLpTE1v8OWVXsosD1Xt995rDtpGloIOY_GHS5LU4EyYwtPSF0LNwyuiSl3x37ltYnIeN9iM0Y03lgZ9bk0xqQQP5y-x5Oe6LqePzTGRq-CpPxLU/s1600/08+saguaro.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqad0R_Z6fh05yGx6DQgvgA5CrEObBQPtphzEKM3eP4XLqEFEWN9DsKzhTRm78d0Tr9aXX7oDK1Qq-gIHIqbnzIIFD1EesjS7zwq000S_j5YjDyIe2HY5-PYEn-I4369LgcYQgw0k53eI/s320/webready-08-saguaro.jpg" /></a><br />
Tourism explains the population explosion, too. People came to see the Grand Canyon, amble among the giant saguaro cacti down around Tucson, take in some Spring Training games, or putter along what remained of historic U.S. Highway 66 on the northern edge of the state. Some of them fell in love with the rugged place and moved there.<br />
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Healthy, tree-sized saguaros — pronounced “su-WHAR-ohs” — whose night-blooming flowers are the Arizona state blossom, live for 75 years or more. With their single central column and uplifted “arms,” the saguaros are sometimes used to symbolize the entire Southwest, even though wild ones don’t grow outside Arizona. Woodpeckers and golden flickers drill holes in saguaros, and all sorts of birds, spiders, and scorpions move in. Unfortunately, other holes are created by yahoos who think it’s hilarious to use the spiny cacti for target practice.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSeonhUNknI4MrWjCgVoBPZjcugD3RHCVPk7rG4S6s1z4E09M9kJyXQGcx1835R_PutBK5bnlaY3_ErC9PAwBWEAtXl-v-LKadoZFVtUdyIDEl9qwdqqeQH2N5mzvx5YDcrrEnGr7CpN0/s1600/09+here+it+is.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgb-a5QaqnafTW9StLKFUb_veT4YkdhMYGES7YZKnedn53WCZliR-ebQD32sstJQVEgwxopuU7mGexEprZoDh4-iB7K0NbdMfNP7vLuiJuHXUqOZrvuTYQoOn-j-uz1u6KG-Z8u2YQbWCI/s320/webready-09-here-it-is.jpg" /></a><br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijYPsVk0OW2Js0_hqZZvTZWzdAf_fYrOPkTRdF4ehLz12MJNCqeOftUR2aBwB-xNLZP40pPfvqsddAb-hsM1bva4TTqZwXhpdoGW2wzq-05SIzBkJa306dwYat1JN6FHHve3C9jEJbGxc/s1600/10+jack+rabbit+trading+post+jos.+city.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_D8UZGkN9UeUeq7zArzHcjLq_Di1NzIZDcdkM97D8-2FI9TuOdWtYmFgAt7uTciHeVC1kCZpqx9ptcmQs1Cm-9K5cI8JSjvrcprc4iZx47Xqfu_nYA6wiaszc1MQ6lwVhCM-RFT_hQOw/s320/webready-10-jack-rabbit-tra.jpg" /></a>Arizona boasts the longest portion of the original Route 66 still in use. Instead of just paving over and widening a lot of the road to create modern Interstate Highway 40 from New Mexico west to Nevada, engineers chose a whole new route, leaving much of the old, two-lane pavement intact but isolated.<br />
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Along it today, you’ll find delightful anachronisms from half a century ago, when people took carefree spins on the “Mother Road” between Chicago and Los Angeles. If you’re into old motels and gas stations with working neon or rusted remains, funky tourist attractions such the “Meteor City” trading post and a giant fiberglass rabbit, or lonely sections of road, a detour onto nostalgic Route 66 is worth the extra time.<br />
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One last historical reference that is not Arizona’s proudest moment: During the panic and paranoia following Imperial Japan’s sneak attack on the American naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, in December 1941, President Franklin Roosevelt ordered more than 110,000 persons of Japanese ancestry removed from “war sensitive” areas” — broadly defined as the entire West Coast — as “disloyal Americans.”<br />
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Whole families, including American citizens, were uprooted and forced into <a href="http://library.thinkquest.org/TQ0312008/bhjic.html">internment camps</a>, some of them in the brutally hot Arizona desert. Cherry Tsutsumida, a longtime federal health worker who became executive director of a memorial to the internees in Washington, D.C., later told me, “Some of our Chinese friends began to wear little tags that said, ‘We are not a Jap,’ which reinforced our isolation and our feeling of being guilty of something that we did not understand.”<br />
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President Roosevelt ordered the camps closed in 1944, and by war’s end in 1945, the interns had regained their freedom. But more than four decades would elapse before President Ronald Reagan signed legislation apologizing for the internment that, the bill stated, had been based on "race prejudice, war hysteria, and a failure of political leadership.” The government also paid internment survivors or their heirs $1.6 billion in reparations – a sum that worked out to about $20,000 per person.<br />
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There’s no logical transition that I can think of from that misguided episode to a Grand Canyon adventure, so let’s just abruptly refocus on America’s most popular national park.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjokn0Cc92ffPOdLYY3OFmiQ_z9wQv2IAvWuC4rj7-5JFUXghUNC16O-doEtm4hO_YmumE_ISXj7BB4jAAtDuOhTZsVDaWxB9C6lo1f1obUNnNhyfBoLeFS5IEdVcuBiPTuan6u6-Tnss/s1600/11grand+canyon+splendor.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgW2LYhrOMDiGlFD02C49eo8D9AnDeZX_Ql13wEq5Nln4N8kyWk-QO_OZ3Co0o1TLxmacoNpQMxHc30F2DpfpqvpZ0VYeeb5SPPu7FpoPDu519pKagOHFqB_5nKzYEJDBWQ-eoZ7ZZD2Sc/s320/webready-11grand-canyon-spl.jpg" /></a><br />
About 5 million people visit the awesome, 1.6-kilometer (1-mile)-deep canyon each year. Most come by car, charter bus, motor home, or motorcycle, sit in long lines at the admission gates, and scramble to find a scarce parking space inside the park.<br />
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But there’s another way in that’s much more fun. It’s a 2½-hour ride aboard the Grand Canyon Railway, a scenic steam train out of Williams, Arizona — once a big maintenance center on the Santa Fe Railroad’s Chicago-to-Los Angeles route.<br />
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The railway made its first run up to the canyon in 1901. But the old rail line through the juniper forest stopped carrying passengers in 1968. It simply could not pry enough people from their cars to make a profit.<br />
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In 1989, though, Max Biegert, who made a fortune in the crop-dusting business of all things, bought the decrepit line and overhauled it. The engine of the train that Carol and I rode was sitting in a Michigan museum when Biegert bought it, and eight of the nine cars were what the crew called “rustbuckets,” abandoned and vandalized in a California scrapyard.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibQy2TXniBjdsvw5kVAxyOyaaC9UZY1ycNKj8S9nftfh7OKteObjQKxUBO6Yhrtb6I_JtyB18xyhSivmxM0W70VK-ufy716q0W14NWJbthu8nWov6rqfjEK0myg7eUYwVY7YKcMVwk_PI/s1600/12+train.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0UoQAx04kT0D7Vdsk4oVdF8C4cZv8xDuTfi64T0SGNYJOhRoSfxSy27NQiSeLihVwhQcYfbSQ1NFrgr_5Ngn39cXwCIbIh9kpvyvENKaZFBqIlxirAEWMbJ-n3VlB_L6B6HaK4k3d1s4/s320/webready-12-train.jpg" /></a><br />
Onboard the richly appointed steam train nowadays, it sounds and feels like the Old West. The train lurches to an unexpected halt mid-route when “robbers” appear and shoot it out with railroad “guards,” to the delight of camera-toting passengers. Troubadours stroll the aisles. “If you listen carefully,” one of them tells the riders, “you’ll hear a train in the background.” And of course he’s right.<br />
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More than 120,000 people make the run up to the Grand Canyon’s 1906 log train station each year, theoretically displacing more than 40,000 cars from the park. Of course, other visitors’ vehicles quickly take their place. <br />
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What everybody who makes it to the canyon encounters is a spectacular, winding gorge that’s 450 kilometers (279 miles) long and almost 17 kilometers (10.5 miles) wide in spots that gives a stunning light and color show each sunny day — especially at sunset.<br />
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Carol and I were fortunate to hook up with an old friend, Tom Glatzmayer, a jolly Canadian who had moved to Grand Canyon Village and was leading bus tours along the South Rim. “Remember what they say: it’s not the heat, it’s the humidity that gets you down,” he reminded his boarding passengers on a stifling, 33-degree day. “There’s very low humidity up here, which means you won’t even notice that you’re sweating profusely!” That earned Tom the first of many laughs.<br />
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Once, Spanish explorers peered down at the canyon floor and thought the rushing Colorado River below was only three meters across, he told them. They got it wrong because the river is so far down that it’s hard to judge. <br />
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One reaches the canyon floor by foot or mule along narrow and steep trails, via boat from a point far upstream, or — in lifesaving emergencies only — by helicopter. Those who pick mule rides — some of which take half a day and include an overnight stay at a lodge down below — must be at least 1½ meters tall, weigh less than 90 kilos, not be visibly pregnant, and speak good English. Apparently the beasts don’t comprehend Slovakian or Thai, though you’d think they’d understand full-throated screams in any language. Nancy Smart, my former editor here at VOA, rode a mule down and back and said it was the scariest experience of her life. Once the mule starts down the steep paths along ledges an arm’s length from the abyss, there’s no turning back, and you’re staring straight into the canyon the whole time. Riding back up is apparently less frightening because the end of the ordeal is in view. <br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXNd-kkSeMtbF4QGWYeONin1Em-i2Df0gpJerG17PHrdm7xL8Djdqg0Yb63VY1n3lY3hHLEuCh7yB7xWm_nv0X5NWkQro9JOPLDxaPP8jg3DmCCDqyJEzON5U6Ws9wZZaWv9yo1cqu34I/s1600/13+mule+ride+loc.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLus-z92DVa422wplo3jXmi9A57ZPFKu_Qs6KQvjj1JdQN-ZYW3hlove93swiNfgj9Q53YmBK4baphE-uJZWVNey32o1G-YG8nMRzGWHj9iUR6MipVHH4nN6eRaix5iR841_u0yUX3QWg/s320/webready-13-mule-ride-loc.jpg" /></a><br />
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To date not a single one of the sure-footed mules is known to have tumbled over the cliff, with or without its rider. But you can buy a little book called Death in the Grand Canyon that will curl your hair. It describes the demise of foolish folks who stepped off the canyon rim while posing for photos or wandered into the wild ravine and lost their way. <br />
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Last year, too, following a fatal collision between a sightseeing helicopter and a small, fixed-wing plane over the Canyon — the latest of several such calamities over the years — officials banned flights below the rim and established specific corridors for tourist air excursions.<br />
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The Grand Canyon has existed for 40 million years, or what Tourmaster Tom called “an eyeblink of geological time.” It was formed when one great tectonic plate slid under another, forcing the land upward. The river then began cutting a path deep down to its old level. Boulders that fell into the Colorado produced the 160 rapids that make a rafting trip so hair-raising.<br />
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“A lot of people ask whether you can take a bus or car to the bottom of the canyon,” Tom Glatzmayer told his audience. “The answer is yes. But only once!”<br />
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As Tom — who, to our sadness, has since died — was loading his passengers into the bus for the return trip to Grand Canyon Village, he couldn’t resist one more wisecrack. Like most employees of his company and the National Park Service at the canyon, he lived inside the park, a rock’s throw from the South Rim. <br />
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He called it “living on the edge.” <br />
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<div style="text-align: center;"><b>WILD WORDS</b></div><i><span style="color: #999999; font-size: x-small;">(These are a few of the words from this posting that you may not know. Each time, I'll tell you a little about them and also place them into a cumulative archive of "Ted's Wild Words" in the right-hand column of the home page. Just click on it there, and if there's another word in today's blog that you'd like me to explain, just ask!)</span></i><br />
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<b><i>Ameliorate.</i></b> To sooth or make something more bearable.<br />
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<i><b>Arable.</b></i> Suitable for farming or other cultivation.<br />
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<i><b>Welter. </b></i>A jumbled pile or collection of something. <br />
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<i><b>Yahoo.</b></i> Pronounced “YAY-hoo,” this is a rube or a fool who’s likely to behave stupidly.Ted Landphairhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18142247535149425183noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4320170221399917879.post-58894467390947707222010-03-30T10:38:00.002-04:002010-03-30T10:51:09.224-04:00Hugging the Left CoastLet’s get back to our California expedition, starting at the beach.<br />
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A quick factoid: 54 percent of the people in the United States live within 80 kilometers (50 miles) of our shorelines. That makes historical sense, since settlement naturally began on the east, west, and Gulf coasts and moved inland. So you’d think that packing all those people near the coasts would mean that everybody’s always going to the beach!<br />
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Well, not so much in sunny California.<br />
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The summertime water temperature in Manhattan Beach — pretty far south on the California coast, where I lived for a year in the 1980s — is 21° (70° Farenheit) at the very most. Usually it’s a few degrees cooler. And prevailing winds off the Pacific often howl, meaning that even on a July or August day, the coast is ideal only for seals and surfers in wet suits.<br />
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To clarify, just the surfers wear suits. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGLPCDpg4K07wjYKjxT6m34_mxCaI7zGn4XIZwLth0zucAfjNvSDjerDWp2JsEY4ir4Jto6yKVwfwBF1oLDlvkg6dXK2MTo-8L_9U03IztwvRRhQoh6_8ASX8ToBVoEhww7EW64RA0gyA/s1600/01+surfing+in+surf+city++mnapoleon.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIjirSawUkDBdGQiLpkIstCcEpPCtVzR0NKH5iPuUBRPd3e3exl14E-D0igBbOoaNEfWgPH4eg0AEj6Vi7WtXtg2mHRDEhxhZdXPu0NY_egZEG4nil4JoJ4W7iCcT0VBJMfKfbQcH8cbQ/s320/webready-01-surfing-in-surf.jpg" /></a>California popularized the “surfer dude” culture, romanticizing its sun, sand, and aura of freedom. Remember the Jan and Dean song “Surf City, USA” from 1963? “You know we're goin' to Surf City, gonna have some fun!”</div><br />
The song was so popular and came to epitomize the youthful beach scene so perfectly that the City of Huntington Beach, just down the coast from my beach, trademarked the “Surf City” name. <br />
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Conditions along the 2,000-km (1,242-mile) California coastline may be ideal for catching a perfect, hollow “barrel wave,” but not so much for sunbathing or tame playing in the water. Relocating Mark Twain’s famous line about San Francisco: “The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer on the California shore.” As a mobster might say, “fuggetabout” bikinis, anywhere north of Santa Barbara. A frigid, nasty ocean current courses along the shore all the way from Alaska to the Central California Coast.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgd9SVo8DTuqKL5SfceZXwKVyTvVic_hYu8yAAHQmiCVf__YqC1ThYMFLl3U_LJ851ZZ8LPqtBFC8zlxQQ7vaV8ZTH9XRRl2_3-EVlT4Rbi26zLJgoyro1zEmricqGUvrjHJ2bSAIozbDw/s1600/02+inlet.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjh7018pQgyTkTaD_S4vFtC9glV_gp5jlVLOzllOKwEiJJ-54v2tC1CmUIvQ2p_ONOHlxPujUNaH3ejMRyEhs2PMDKmNdiu8Q0gYDHwXQoV9m2lgvlrIOm9pKR6f1Yd26etp-xIE2AIt0c/s320/webready-02-inlet.jpg" /></a></div>Throw in the treacherous boulders that poke out of the crashing surf and the sheer cliffs practically rising out of the waves, and the Pacific works best as a postcard backdrop rather than a comfortable swimming hole.<br />
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And I neglected to mention the blankets of fog and mist that often anoint the stretch of shoreline abutting the northern rain forest. “Rain forest,” as in “not exactly beach weather.”<br />
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The California coast is, however, a wildlife-watcher’s delight. Pelicans, herons, crabs, sea lions, two varieties of seals, and a half-dozen kinds of whales frolic in plain sight just offshore. Seals and sea lions, of course, attract sinister denizens of the sea as well. Think “shark!”<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjg2ZG1ijCAkaY88V3rwzvyj1hh02BMM92xS-DX1feHXL7H-4gX-SB286ctL9uH68_s8JUTLNihGlDzgwIEiDTBWnwtS6aPHRZkMaNmHpU0qzSuGac0IQ0PUY1I-sMenuDv5tjI-9WDnk/s1600/03+San+Diego.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzzZ_mYIsjW37E8fIz4RMFBoZw7BS5ocpI-tFlxUhowrvbIifFG_58jIMBXl6IvjICu9PPZxnmqcU9_uVf7RwyFydazTWFS35kwmiv4diDsr869xfUy8hYQaI1qmdz1mesy3ZN3Tx4Vbk/s320/webready-03-San-Diego.jpg" /></a></div>The southernmost point on the coast, San Diego, is a beauteous place. San Diego County stretches from the Mexican border at Tijuana to the U.S. Marines’ training base at Camp Pendleton, and eastward from the ocean to the fringes of the Anza-Borrego Desert. But the county is surprisingly mountainous. California Institute of Technology’s acclaimed <a href="http://www.astro.caltech.edu/palomar/">Palomar Observatory</a> looms high in the Cleveland National Forest.<br />
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Balmy San Diego has some of California’s premier man-made marvels, from its world-class zoo and stunning collection of yachts-at-harbor to three old Spanish missions and the grand Del Coronado resort hotel. One of the nation’s most restful places for a quiet interlude, too: Balboa Park, named for the Spanish explorer who first spotted the Pacific Ocean in 1513.<br />
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Orange County, sandwiched between San Diego and Los Angeles, might well have been written off by visitors as a humdrum bedroom community had not animated-film maker <a href="http://www.justdisney.com/walt_disney/biography/long_bio.html">Walt Disney</a> selected 30 hectares (75 acres) amid an Anaheim citrus grove to build Disneyland, his first amusement park, in 1955. Combined with the rides and ghost town of nearby Knott’s Berry Farm, which preceded it, and the surfing allure at the shore, Orange County morphed into the sizzling tourist destination it remains today. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXR0WKJ4R7EZajzJBhVQbFEqFQAGUhXkWyAVQZaga6VVHgamrGEMpTm14CWjzSno8e6_GOnsAB-rtsGGp95kPGi_gEtUTmJ2RED96as34NomygG07pbLXnlpZNldmBvV3Ky7ILyvIuyuw/s1600/04+crystal+cathedral.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikFNNt2FHbjUy6-mLgIjBgsVzqMbiWmwPHlvZnqIvkQdg0RRvdPg4dkt6pFMjph0fkQKDISK2E6lVdBrqBGSJukq6rTz-wVazvGGWonX4iBzJ996hRnMN0cYRxq-8Xf8L1a9JyEQpdgd4/s320/webready-04-crystal-cathedr.jpg" /></a></div>Orange County has also served as perhaps the West’s mightiest bastion of conservatism. Its international airport, named for the late macho actor John Wayne, supports that impression. The county produced conservative president Richard Nixon at a time when it was home to outspoken members of the ultra-right-wing, anti-Communist John Birch Society. County residents have voted Republican by an average 56-44 percent margin in 12 of the past 13 presidential elections. An anomaly was 1992, when conservative businessman and independent candidate Ross Perot got 24 percent of the vote; Republican George H.W. Bush still won the county’s support, though, over Perot and Democrat Bill Clinton. Spectacular, evangelical megachurches — including the Crystal Cathedral and Saddleback Church — have become tourist attractions as well as conservative-leaning sanctuaries in the country. <br />
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One might think that the growing influx and influence of Hispanics and Asians in Orange County might mitigate the conservative tide, but even their party affiliations skew Republican.<br />
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A century ago, Los Angeles County, just to the north, was maligned around the state as the “Queen of Cow Counties.” Grazing cattle and lemon groves marked the landscape where today Los Angeles — with 70 independent cities packed within and around it — spreads the blanket of twinkling lights, visible clear to Arizona, that I described in an earlier blog.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9nt4fCBouxSffRVmVkXfmWabhmCzo42TJhnvU_j0Yv95zjMF9Z-2yhYZHXdnkr2rDhhPj3DiEgoz5OrpGmrgcOGLXwNJE-aiJRD-K_RwTiD8_y46EwLQl7Ms1Q_lfiG4Z2BS7j-jyVgg/s1600/05+queen+mary.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEQOg5nuLS38k0I_32VyiOd_5qoGz5qgrdahph2rs9AuFeqrxiCBWzwoTWU6sxKBb4uW1CVvkG2CukOaPbD6C2khr8r5-byJF2ajm91S9SeICHyXDaAIz6dx_YS4CqsvmNIyQvw67kRw8/s320/webready-05-queen-mary.jpg" /></a></div>Some of them belong to Hollywood dream factories — great movie studios that spread across chaparral canyons and elegant neighborhoods throughout the city. “L.A.” also connotes the swank Polo Lounge inside the “Pink Palace” Beverly Hills Hotel, vibrant shops along old Olvera Street and the “glam” shopping arcade of the rich and powerful on Rodeo Drive, luminaries of the silver screen pressing their palm prints into the wet cement at Hollywood’s <a href="http://www.seeing-stars.com/Theatres/ChineseTheatre.shtml%20">Grauman’s Chinese Theater</a>, jazz under the stars at the Hollywood Bowl amphitheater, a Ferris Wheel ride at Santa Monica Pier, an elegant trip through history inside the <a href="http://www.queenmary.com/">Queen Mary</a> ocean liner permanently docked as a hotel off Long Beach, and a chance to commune with great art at the J. Paul Getty Museum on a cultural campus high in the Brentwood Hills.<br />
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Los Angeles also boasts something that I never thought would appear: a subway and light-rail system. Since the city spreads so far and wide, mass transit was long thought to be impractical. But things got so intolerable on the city’s clogged freeways that mass transit caught on. Nowadays there are more than 300,000 daily boardings at 70 different stations on five lines each weekday.<br />
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California’s Central Coast calls itself the “Middle Kingdom.” It is a place of staggering beauty and unlimited charm, as old, zigzagging Highway One — still two lanes along much of its length — winds past historic lighthouses, craggy oceanside cliffs, working wharves, and a half-dozen historic mansions. Sun-drenched cities like San Luis Obispo and <a href="http://www.santabarbaraca.gov/Visitor/">Santa Barbara </a>— the “American Riviera” — are Mediterranean-style masterpieces where life seems like a perpetual festival, and deep valleys and rocky bays carve the coastline. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfnuoeuNNW8-OBXnNFY9tDhyphenhyphenKdJCbOMOJOiqmg5niyccen2ZBLtPqYzLo7ENDrk0shJZ_BaHU6W3lcHB9EOmH6FQG7BSLuS9DXpHLQSUmQjgWJitp8dDtOz_4-8MCav2Ev2t_cXDlri10/s1600/06+big+sur.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnP2zZ0QLU5D3rgPTYQWHbF4qBwoRRRMLdIA8OwbH9ECQ7Du3Hz-USvkLUHxW2vfWzRRJ_qDm5mNhKC0RKBLzi1n6rGY-JK5KrQNnx2aY9qbDrK5jT6sMZm6qoUOC7Q2KCgTnpNA99gg0/s320/webready-06-big-sur.jpg" /></a></div>Northward, that coastline turns wild. “It’s nearly impossible to get to California’s violently inhospitable Big Sur coast,” wrote the Washington Post in 1998. “That’s why everybody wants to.” The newspaper quoted author Henry Miller, who was awed by his visit: “If the soul were to choose an arena in which to stage its agonies, this would be the place for it. One feels exposed — not only to the elements but to the sight of God.” <br />
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Big Sur got its name from Spaniards living in nearby Monterey, a provincial capital of New Spain. They called the rugged coastline El Sur Grande — “the Big South.” A collection of small cities defines the good life there. The climate is agreeable, the wines, restaurant fare, and museums exquisite, the sunsets over the sapphire Monterey Bay enchanting, and prices, well, pricey! There are more than 60 fine art galleries in the town of Carmel-by-the-Sea alone. Even the sea lions, crowding onto rocky outcroppings off the scenic, private, but tourable (for a fee) “17-Mile Drive” can’t help but take it easy.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAVKMCfA-n4uOeVdQ7QqxooaJWmRNrfE50Jrh60aE0KkLryz6qnVuGCn3XcyeHXsy_XA93A3mjuU928XvOda9MNb863D7aM6ySbQWaAXN3x9biFkXmsaQNV05TLmqpsgLspk-FLc-5Y-E/s1600/07+neptune+pool.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpKhYqFDUPYGYV2OrcuQrqExsYe1KuP09-4ux4dIoW34vx_fMMY29jJ6s4eDV_zR3-ev7P9_jal8nkEMOQG3_4ZUTVEt7by4aSmpt8lbxGyarqD-HnrekLBVnEiAbjJWTL-pNVPg-8x6k/s320/webready-07-neptune-pool.jpg" /></a></div><br />
The famous newspaper publisher and “yellow journalist” William Randolph Hearst certainly did at his “Hearst Castle” at San Simeon, in the mountains high above this scene. Over 30 years beginning in 1919, Hearst and Paris-trained architect Julia Morgan designed and built a lavish home that he called “Casa Grande.” It became the nation’s most elaborate, and most envied, Shangri-La. Hearst installed his mistress, Marion Davies, and exuberantly entertained Hollywood stars at Casa Grande, in the estate’s enormous “Neptune Pool,” in its sumptuous gardens, and in guest houses the size of mansions.<br />
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Like California’s “Southland” that we explored last time, Northern California has an ugly smudge of urban sprawl. Its “Bay Area” stretches from San Francisco southward through the Silicon Valley to San Jose, then back up the east side of the Bay to Oakland and Berkeley. Unlike the case in the Los Angeles area, though, there is no need to search for a core. Sophisticated San Francisco is “The City” for the whole region.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjT61D1g7XGsJgmrp1KGuAi_p70TmtQZCbk6JqzTN4-BWsRgX9wwiCANTO1Uo3u1HNCOwmVBltOCvWvLTuL1_VA6zXVtAyfj9yeaq1A8yMSeiGrWDXLOE_bqjF2F4CgcauGSYKAk8xWHDM/s1600/08+napa+valley+jimg944.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8oOa9lq3rQnpQVm9qrNUcjVYYdqh8f8Lqh8PluVzXn1F9Zae9rahPiK3b4niFpa20dC_VSvY1zHth4FEcVtbMIrsp3L9W0xaSJETt_0N-u7S5tR6_iNnCbvGwNFacUoyovtc_fOF0q0o/s320/webready-08-napa-valley-jim.jpg" /></a></div>Grapevines were introduced to the ranchos surrounding Northern California missions by Franciscan friars in the 1770s. Later, more than 300 varieties of European grapes — from chardonnay to pinot noir — thrived in the sandy soil of the Napa and Sonoma valleys north of San Francisco. California introduced the deep-red and fruity Zinfandel, the only California grape varietal grown exclusively in the United States, so far as I know. I can’t swear that some international visitor didn’t snip a vine or two and stick them in his suitcase.<br />
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California’s more than 800 wineries still dominate the U.S. wine market. There is even a Napa Valley brandy distillery. Awaken at a hacienda-style inn in California’s Wine Country, look out upon the sunswept hillsides planted in arrow-straight rows of vines, and you will swear you were in Greece or the south of France. You can take a “wine train” ride out of Napa and enjoy gourmet dining and a wine tasting along the way. <br />
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A Mustard Festival is celebrated throughout the Napa Valley in the late wintertime, too. It’s yet another excuse to drink good wine.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiU2EFvW3yZ61b3n6afQvQzsbd1g_59MeewN7BjBnHcG2WqGKxUJVzbmYA4PEFtpUCg0j66RI8NMkl3OoF8VfyolpKw3OFcyTgC7tXqo6BbK3UlicBk1elXJL9rH0shap8EFh2H9VL_lt0/s1600/09+storm+in+the+mountains.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGIrA3Nq-IeDHhk42dwj9bncbhyFqsO2vKEwaZwCu60TXliVXMqPP1oFqQ8qWtl1J7WasX2YXNyJb9jz8_TaaQBHkW3bLILaan5LQCcYZ8t82I0E9F-TrjekqYINpJ9UPK56P2FpBDx0A/s320/webready-09-storm-in-the-mo.jpg" /></a></div>California’s northernmost counties are heavily forested, save for the northeast corner, where oddities like lava tubes — natural conduits through which lava still flows — dot the otherworldly landscape. The coastline of Mendocino County is so unspoiled that it is called the “Lost Coast.” Not irreparably missing, though; Carol and I found it! <br />
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Aside from quaint fishing centers like Eureka, abundant freshwater lakes, and the majestic Cascade Range, extreme Northern California is marked by boundless stretches of ponderosa pines, Douglas fir, spruce, giant sequoias and redwoods. Some of the redwoods and sequoias are simply colossal. Cars look like toys, and you like ants, beside the giant redwoods, some of which have been dated to 500 A.D. or earlier.<br />
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The California Northland does not lack for rain or snow. The dominant landmark is massive, usually snow-capped Mount Shasta, and the region abounds in ghost towns, historical museums, and Victorian homes ¬— 75 in little Yreka (not to be confused with Eureka) alone. Nearby Gold Country — site of the mineral’s discovery and a frenzied rush by prospectors 161 years ago — features old Folsom Prison, still operating next to a modern penal institution. You can pan for gold (good luck finding any!), ride a stagecoach, and sip sarsaparilla in Columbia State Historical Park at a preserved mining town.<br />
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Wait a minute!! This just in regarding your chances of striking it rich: I’m now told that geologists speculate that 70 percent of the gold that once lay under California has yet to be discovered. Carol, grab the suitcase and my pick and shovel!<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgklHbpkwRezbynzP9UGpt3YJZlH0F6YyjLrL2RjTVFyZYHP8l062ExGd-pOYJ8l8FkQ7up2_ll4SXqZiKGcT4h7bz9KYbrbHmHd358Trh8N9TJof910sFg0bovk5jEE3CMS5Rs2N4SdHI/s1600/10+mount+shasta.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4eBAlVGwfKK6JCebhrDFIPIHIL_3Oa4jiz6gvRK5frLJn1MbCv8OwunjLpeO9RRFtpyyKuZ9OOMfcMgWZNQxf9jJ6bb1AJSXjpYqtLUihltceS3DBxsLBQ-b5V1xN-oJN5bLZo6WDpAs/s320/webready-10-mount-shasta.jpg" /></a></div>To sum up before I head for the hills, California is variegated, unpredictable, delightfully wild, and suave all at once. As I indicated a couple of postings ago, though, part of me sides with radio and television comedian Fred Allen’s assessment half a century ago when he remarked that “California is a wonderful place to live, all right — if you happen to be an orange!”<br />
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Speaking of San Fran<br />
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(The locals will tolerate that abbreviation, but never “Frisco.”) A couple of postings ago, I indicated that I’d devote an entire blog to the City by the Bay — forgetting, during a prolonged senior moment, that I had done so some time ago. Rather than repeat myself, I invite you to check out my <a href="http://tedlandphairsamerica.blogspot.com/search/label/San%20Francisco">impressions</a>. <br />
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<div style="text-align: center;"><b>WILD WORDS</b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="color: #999999; font-size: x-small;">(These are a few of the words from this posting that you may not know. Each time, I'll tell you a little about them and also place them into a cumulative archive of "Ted's Wild Words" in the right-hand column of the home page. Just click on it there, and if there's another word in today's blog that you'd like me to explain, just ask!)</span></i> </div><br />
<i><b>Chaparral.</b></i> Scrubby desert land, dotted with low bushes.<br />
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<i><b>Denizen.</b></i> An inhabitant of a place.<br />
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<b><i>Glam. </i></b>Newspaper tabloid slang for “glamorous.”<br />
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<i><b>Sarsparilla.</b></i> A drink similar to modern-day root beer that derives its flavor from the roots of the prickly sarsparilla plant found throughout Latin America. <br />
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<i><b>Variegated.</b></i> Multi-colored. <br />
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<i><b>Yellow journalism.</b></i> An early name for sensationalized, even made-up, stories printed by viciously competitive newspapers in New York City in the late 1800s. The name was taken from a character, “the Yellow Kid,” who appeared in a popular comic strip in one of the papers.<br />
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<i><b>Zigzag.</b></i> To travel ahead making sharp turns in alternating directions. Lightning bolts are often depicted to make such jagged turns on their way to the ground.Ted Landphairhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18142247535149425183noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4320170221399917879.post-33320978587907336642010-03-24T14:29:00.001-04:002010-03-24T14:50:40.687-04:00Good as Gold<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjH2FF5Nbbdg5z3hpUY4ueXp4kUWwlK1AMlJLZUecyQUGC7aT6HQp1aTxARqPr1DHcV0VYOhX2bq5GsTkPxOe7WHrUVh7vAlZ8YTye_qrsnybj_WKaf3VPP7m6Aau3I-k97LSh9IjQhSIk/s1600/01+gold+rush+figures+boone%27s+farm.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" nt="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2lSGn6QJsVhCyQH_556IAEhklwx8CcbEwr8criHrL0HXUSBuDuRarXQmg1zVcPRTlxW0Df0geIpy6piawZ1DBOHJhdRk70J942s3vR8eRqwPNW1WLG8j5qkJ1NS77XAWavgQ3nL5XA70/s320/webready-01+gold+rush+figures+boone%27s+farm.jpg" /></a></div>We already stuck a toe into California — and quickly pulled it back out when it landed in the searing Mojave Desert. But let’s tough it out and take another look at the Golden State. Golden, as in sunny, and golden because of the fortunes made by the lucky few who found gold high in the Sierra Nevada Mountains a century and a half ago.<br />
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California is often described as two irreconcilable entities, north and south. In 1859, nine years after statehood, the legislature voted to slice the enormous, elongated state in two, somewhere around Fresno. The measure died only because the U.S. Congress back east — which would had to approve such a radical idea — was nervous about creating new states as a drumbeat for civil war was growing louder. So it ignored the “two Californias” proposal. <br />
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Today Southern California, in and around the Los Angeles Basin, is called the “Southland.” Funny, since nobody seems to refer to San Francisco and its environs the “Northland.” That might conjure up wacky images of ice-fishing off the Golden Gate Bridge.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0OMzz8ijsX89Ra6AcCgNe1nD4EYfUU_mD0eZuPVOchnNx9a6fZwGfQPRSpJvEzGsdNRnZPe_JmueLfZpbUqvP9-ZQDT7sxXq185z7g6pFXgU3pJcRrpZLwcjQYGhSxPBmB7U5f0zdT6w/s1600/02+paramount+pix+gate.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" nt="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUw6OH2OYC9PUxo0qnttfKF8MtMXZAx1ba675e1Lu9oge4Wpz6twjlz9eKvuLQrhMhX8rhP8LUihHt_xEX4sDB-rvHP0-e_xX4X7qFrnMabFXZWiSFBy77Zv9di3UPtAl9TPAHpAxo3Bs/s320/webready-02+paramount+pix+gate.jpg" /></a></div>California is warmer and colder, higher and lower, more rural and urban, more heavily populated and sparsely peopled than many Americans realize. And it’s bigger, drier, more forested, agricultural, ethnically diverse, historic, and beautiful than even some Californians imagine. There is plenty of room for paradoxes, since it’s a long, long way — in distance, culture, and lifestyle — from San Diego on the Mexican border to the Oregon Coast, 1,250 km (777 miles) to the north.<br />
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Rambunctious California defines the New West, but it retains countless elements of the old one as well. Far-right conservative in places, wildly liberal in others, California boasts “genuine article” cowboys, lumberjacks, roustabouts, and miners. But it also has its share of what the <a href="http://www.centerfornewwest.org/">Center for the New West</a> once called “cow-free watering holes for weekend cowboys and coastal yuppies looking for a shake-and-bake wilderness experience.” California politicians who hold statewide office must somehow meld the interests of ranchers, fishermen, farm workers, actors and filmmakers, business executives, environmentalists, minivan-driving suburbanites, and almost every imaginable ethnic and gender interest group.<br />
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California has never stopped being a state of immigrants. Not just the highly publicized legal and illegal newcomers from Latin America and Asia, but also an influx of American arrivals — lately slowed by the long national recession — looking to “reinvent” themselves or their lives. California offers what Time magazine in 1993 called “liberation and excitement . . . as the ultimate, myth-making destination, tantalizing the daydreams of restless souls itching to pick up and move.” <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkVdQQe-7UqlCXiE0PyLhj45F53Xi3Kv6x_R5d8Sp7bxSJ8r-SEJ7fViPm7XsM5iecn_WPw_PEXjJW-Qga6IaEE-XXxln4DC_NqOD4GHakbL2QvxQ1HRJMpy3Pv9_aqs3R_sd49dv3VOU/s1600/03+turbines.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" nt="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYk3zaGP25DyKBoOsgO-7f8LRk2XA2Hv7szQjZqFDIpTT7DblOkKbazaIVl2Jx149Xj0ryN8MZm9_i7dv_2YhtWugJjIEFuz02vXYt1yRLiE9yQjpbpvblHReUWugYtRIzlHlrTZNRDFA/s320/webready-03+turbines.jpg" /></a></div>California’s terrain is amazingly diverse as well. More than 50 peaks in the Sierras top 1,500 meters (5,000 feet), including Mount Whitney at almost three times that height. I’ve already told you about the other extreme: blistering Death Valley, where the Badwater Salt Flats lie 86 meters (262 feet) below sea level. Besides the <a href="http://geology.com/articles/san-andreas-fault.shtml">San Andreas Fault</a> — the world’s largest fracture — there are other geological battle lines along the earth’s tectonic plates beneath California, or just off its coastline. There are also dormant volcanoes in Owens Valley, whose mountain passes are now adorned with turbines to harness the ever-blowing wind, and a lush interior basin drained by occasionally raging rivers.<br />
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But Life magazine once wrote that the state’s golden sunshine is “the most valuable ingredient of the California way of life.” The golden poppy is the state flower, and the golden trout the state fish. The name “California” — “abounding in gold” — first appeared as a mythical island east of Eden in a 16th-century Spanish romance novel. The name was at first applied to the Lower (Baja) California peninsula, which that sticks down below the state in Mexico, and later extended to all of Spain’s new holding along the western Pacific Rim.<br />
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Like other western states, California is a series of what Phillip M. Burgess and Richard F. O’Donnell of the Center for the New West call “urban archipelagos and large city-states surrounded by vast empty quarters.” Paradoxically, again, California holds both America’s biggest county (San Bernardino) and the world’s most sprawling city (Los Angeles — often lampooned as “a hundred suburbs in search of a city).<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCKZCWtavkC09KTZl6N8iNLGUZwSm3jlhIQhq-KGHCIpver4RKrvc9ypdW4vnK1xPOTOmnTzcXMFaKBDv_3KTS-yeOufS_MGNnd62RcdhXK9ikD4gySV4J07fOvKwRO1Kdyt8XnIH8HQY/s1600/04+chinese+immigrants,+custom+house+1877.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" nt="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAhddT7FoczbnTREwjPx5hr8ybqWWWhNz3TNhGhfRlphA1B1ElPqb1xDmARjoAZkvu1zruRvnB4BJMmP9B0vKNd0SCV12ydWbBCWnEgRNFRugOHHrqpQnVN1sgWN_j4Le0_uBFbNH1_Ks/s320/webready-04+chinese+immigrants,+custom+house+1877.jpg" /></a></div>California has been an ethnic mosaic from the moment in 1770 that Catholic missionaries ventured north from Spain’s Mexican colony and built missions in an effort to convert the mostly passive American Indian tribes. In 1812, Russians established a foothold at <a href="http://www.parks.sonoma.net/rosshist.html">Fort Ross</a>, north of present-day San Francisco, but they were fixated on hunting sea otters, not putting down roots; when the otter supply was all but exterminated, they split. <br />
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Mexicans continued to filter north into California after their nation gained its independence in 1822. And, 27 years later, Americans of many heritages broke down the doors to fertile California in a frantic search for gold following its discovery at Sutter’s Mill. Asian migration began with the 15,000 Chinese laborers brought in to work in the mines and on the railroads soon after statehood in 1850.<br />
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Still, by 1960, non-Hispanic whites accounted for 80 percent of California’s population. Today, five decades later, the decennial census may reveal that the percentage of non-Hispanic whites will have been cut in half and that Hispanics will have caught or topped them.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpItzE0K4gL9OfJ2UVOu18CWnf2dfVx3iqVTFRhoRPwJvvRq4L1VWP0GXSSbTSW5ooDxWEnspGqWHFPnu9sIv7bi7T5MeQKJYvyPS4-uUN-E3HNlz20touSulisxkuOBk7wTc7oHw_LkM/s1600/05+okies.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" nt="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBfxmJYK3URVyWXl1__7dL6DmvtpY8-vSBoVS-yzzc1qDiSUaCVE2oqpMH4-LoW7HE0k__L2DouA2CYJNgFLvpTy6qB3dzv32cxob2CGQ_icqAL3_Evjsb_qad2U67vskmpM4qYAsEHxI/s320/webready-05+okies.jpg" /></a></div>As I described last posting, hundreds of thousands of Midwest farm families packed up, fled unbearable “Dust Bowl” conditions, and headed to California in the 1930s. Then for three straight decades as America’s south- and westward “automobile migration” went wild, California’s population erupted. Everything new and improved seemed to start there: big-budget motion pictures, modern weapons design and production, transcontinental television, the personal-computer revolution, and even “surfer” music that extolled carefree “California dreamin.” <br />
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California has also become a magnet for individualists, nonconformists, and eccentrics. As New York Times correspondent Walter Duranty wrote in the 1940s: “Iowa gets here and goes crazy.” “Beat” poets encamped in California coffeehouses in the 1950s, and “peaceniks” and runaways hieing to San Francisco in the ’60s were reminded to “be sure to wear some flowers in your hair.” In their Book of America. Neal Peirce and Jerry Hagstrom called California of the 1970s “an unstratified society made up of communities of strangers.” <br />
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In large measure, it still is.<br />
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California politics has been marked by a passion for ballot initiatives and referenda driven by citizen outrage — including Proposition 13, the largest property-tax-cutting measure in history, in 1978. The state has had a colorful procession of dissimilar governors, from genial future president Ronald Reagan to distracted “Governor Moonbeam” Jerry Brown to the incumbent, Arnold Schwarzenegger — an Austrian-born former bodybuilder and, like Reagan, B-list actor.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTTeD5q9Wb0QkvSei_kOqbvj8OKGFvhyphenhyphenJZ2N4wTGIUfELTYMN7GwNmleXDR0x53l_EhMCTtmPhBKLMmN613uT8mrtQxsbD_qTCTpoJcMP33HqUPC1X7hl8rJgw0ttl1C1d1pAk72KKk_g/s1600/06+cabrillo+statue.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" nt="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmYMgB77OeYtVnKZF6kSNXTBCvizD28V17htv-1auPxdvTb-iSteg1jGhVMLKnCaJ08c9WpnTvGF_rdjJsfWEQ1cF2vqKcnfrKdj-J7NyhouNGLxLzFLKnbC0qfXtr0xZpZtwMkfVZICk/s320/webready-06+cabrillo+statue.jpg" /></a></div>All of this is relatively recent history, as is much of the California story. Early Spanish explorers advanced just above present-day Mexican border. But they turned tail when they encountered Mojave Desert. Imagine them in those pointy metal helmets in the unremitting, hot sun!<br />
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It was left to Spanish seafarers to sail the California coastline. <a href="https://www.sandiegohistory.org/bio/cabrillo/cabrillo.htm">Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo</a> landed first in San Diego in 1542, and Spanish galleons called at San Diego on their long, trans-Pacific journeys. <br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhG5n_pFvdHWL9V9KU5my7vYaYih13K02L2r9ISBqoZh8pZx_tKP2eeo4-Fv4moJIhmYKexcY1X6IvZY5M-35G3NYBWHNbd84gHFbEK02EgaIQok-NXxGYmusMBGKfuv8RO3n-vMJRLVPE/s1600/07+capistrano+interior.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" nt="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVsLtoT-KijwRIq0TICa2qNHOghbYC5Eg8IPVlMzXGlIbAEuJuQDtxL6Sv1_GaIkrZH_dYsBYG9Mu9uyaFw3n9s-iiwj1VZLcbSoC78aMcvpKQ5aA6f0CTa-HwSBMUR-4FnLUQMZ7VZHc/s320/webready-07+capistrano+interior.jpg" /></a><br />
Missionaries spurred settlement along <a href="http://www.missiontour.org/related/elcaminoreal.htm">El Camino Real</a> — the King’s Highway — a trail that wound all the way up to San Francisco. Their missions along it, including the famous San Juan Capistrano, visited by returning swallows each spring like clockwork — are marked by roadside mission-bell signs to this day.<br />
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Westward American expansion was bound to reach California. As John Gunther wrote in the 1940s, “the United States without California would have been as ridiculous as France without Brittany or England without Kent; the impulse to fill the great bowl of the West was unavoidable and irresistible.” Defeated Mexico formally ceded California to the United States in 1848, the same year that ranch hands found gold along the banks of the American River. Legend notwithstanding, it was not one of them who shouted “Eureka! I have found it,” but the Greek mathematician Archimedes, 21 centuries earlier. <br />
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“Eureka!” is, however, the complete and official state motto today.<br />
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Much of the gold left California and helped finance the nation’s rise to superpower status. Overnight, San Francisco — which I will describe in a posting down the road — mushroomed from a sleepy fishing port of 1,000 people to a Queen City of 50,000 — at once rich, raucous, and refined.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4EQg1Nk94Njt_IlCWmKu4ed9xiBJplLYYUE34u1UuT5iq8xkN4vapqQSpN9Cwp0_iZiU1kPB4EQXoPPuv9rxnicg3p_vzg2DKzR-pD9VwWyeP6Fokj1hwZExXK1nBFE7W2LEtGnGBhF4/s1600/08+orange+picker+1902.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" nt="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeek_iksH6LsE59MtfwKll6DI4eBhBpEm9sLKIUBIbhDjlFmnFcvTRpOCib2un-5GcQu117-dkFpHyfJKtChKQ96J5NPAmlIsZQT5CtAFrGphmNrqsvhZhxLq6bIT0fgRl3bbF0xvVIp8/s320/webready-08+orange+picker+1902.jpg" /></a></div>Irrigation helped create an aromatic, floral, and citrus potpourri in California. Two seedless orange trees imported from Brazil in the 1890s would lead to a giant industry built around thousands of orange, lemon, and grapefruit groves. “Cali,” as the woman who serves me California roll sushi from time to time calls it, also became the nation’s leading supplier of almonds, walnuts, prunes, apricots, eggplants, olives, avocados, raisins, melons, and garlic. So many vegetables and fruits grow in the Imperial Valley along the Mexican border that it’s been called “America’s Truck Farm.” Beef cattle, too, grow fat every day on the lush, irrigated grass in this desert.<br />
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One onion field there produces about 160,000 large sacks of onions each harvest. There are 50 or so fat onions to a sack. So that’s 8 million onions from a single field. Pass the breath mints!<br />
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Something is always being harvested or planted in this breadbasket in the sweltering desert, where, in mid-summer, daytime temperatures routinely top 40° (104° Farenheit). This agronomic paradise was made possible by an ingenious system of irrigation canals diverted from the Colorado River over in Arizona. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJF75OKBjzOOF_9MTVcCB23PzYk26pTLwE2Re0ROR-HYLbfxfV7WQEJIQhvMby73AN7GbFKqKKWnyTWdHSYDwSr6Xx_oKuGLB3N0JPV8E0u1jb6lilK2kT41SGnLyFrbAQF01gTJHJCBw/s1600/09+raisins+in+sun,+imp+valley,+1903.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" nt="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhY2synH7ctYBKrZNh1_SF6W_1XJD_g88mQh5Fgk4dApanmrp9qa1M3dN3uEcKPwTpYyW6Sy9HAltlBmyVICedwetNB8F-_2RSCJUVP4ZrKz-qiDxmufnHeA8CvFqKEONwxeA0lloslPWM/s320/webready-09+raisins+in+sun,+imp+valley,+1903.jpg" /></a></div>Water flow is controlled by gravity alone, starting with great gushes and ending in a steady flow into cement ditches alongside California’s fields. Nearby giant cities have long coveted that bountiful water supply for sure.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjj4gMZ_DDiApQqMDqH36KCFJ7Sw7E57uSDB_4fGvyQTL2AvH_m-ez8cVU_863j1mrHS4Epmu04RNvdFSlCQiKFw0UpKPeHek5oHdsrO-4scrJj_36fXsElQDElgRuBq9zRWRgw8Mekme8/s1600/10+salton+sea+avocets++mikebaird.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" nt="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhC3O57UYYHMAynGtO2P32Ok3Al_LR1Jm5pQrH8BBhro2tz0sU3O4-z_pYuMNKlRH6XrpS8qehne6zyFm7J6-_mbGDBopCUeRmlk6dqt7ojxvTDaK9FfLB5e-10igvEfLJuWVgmWshosIg/s320/webready-10+salton+sea+avocets++mikebaird.jpg" /></a></div>A couple of other landmarks in the California’s Southland: Imperial Dunes, blinding white, ever shifting and changing, but a favorite haunt of daredevils on dunebuggies. And the Salton Sea, which stretches from the Imperial Valley northward toward the posh resort city of Palm Springs. This is actually California’s largest lake. Devoid of life because evaporation created salinity levels in some spots that are 25 percent saltier than the Pacific Ocean, it was formed by accident in 1905, when gates to the farmers’ crude irrigation ditch collapsed, flooding the entire Imperial Valley. <br />
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This did have one positive effect: the flood pushed millions kilos of good topsoil into the valley.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVr8U8eiTkxZ3rUE_L8L50c2SGHnYyghAS4qKDtXPWlVvzJc__-06yKcLb7WZnjLVz4SPlxs012l5Zbu7h17Jdiyh4zW47ybTd58FV7aq-E99bCCZcbSQBngqFggvoQpRw1t3mmmORgXY/s1600/11+magnolia+avenue,+riverside,+1903.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" nt="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1Ia9dFoHQ-TawpFjgKbHU77FP3gSI0_CX7rbeaWUXrkWJDV9hrTlfXHHOIOGqPVFwkx755RM-PBvpWEMjTe17xH8SEcmLaPwse46xgib_pGI4ym1Tq0vEC1icwnLnDVUYtxVhAq-O_hc/s320/webready-11+magnolia+avenue,+riverside,+1903.jpg" /></a></div>Closer to the Southland’s bloated population centers of Los Angeles and San Diego, the earth still looks brown and unappealing. But it could not deter the march of civilization — if you consider row after row of tract houses to be civilized. The “Inland Empire,” some clever promoter called this oft-baked place far from the sea. The U.S. Census Bureau even cobbles together the “empire’s” 4 million people in cities like San Bernardino, Riverside, and Rancho Cucamonga and considers it the third-largest metro area in California and the nation’s 14th-most-populous place. <br />
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How many Americans could guess that Greater Rancho Cucamonga would be bigger than Denver, Colorado?<br />
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Yup, in a place where, as California crime writer Raymond Chandler once wrote, hot winds “come down through the mountain passes and curl your hair and make your nerves jump and your skin itch,” millions of people have pushed out most of the cows and lemon growers. <br />
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If you’re in the construction business, even this dusty, brown patch of California has become golden.<br />
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</div><div style="text-align: center;"><strong>WILD WORDS</strong></div><div style="text-align: center;"><em><span style="color: #999999; font-size: x-small;">(These are a few of the words from this posting that you may not know. Each time, I'll tell you a little about them and also place them into a cumulative archive of "Ted's Wild Words" in the right-hand column of the home page. Just click on it there, and if there's another word in today's blog that you'd like me to explain, just ask!)</span></em></div><br />
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<strong>Covet.</strong> To long or wish for something, often enviously. <br />
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<strong>Rambunctious.</strong> Incredibly active, exuberant, full of energy.<br />
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<strong>Roustabout.</strong> An unskilled laborer, often on the docks or in oilfields or railroad yards.<br />
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<strong>Unremitting.</strong> Persistent, never-ending. To “remit” is to reduce the intensity of something, but unremitting intensity never wanes.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div>Ted Landphairhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18142247535149425183noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4320170221399917879.post-43123947953808386312010-03-19T12:59:00.001-04:002010-03-19T13:28:41.682-04:00Hot and HotterYou name it. If it’s beautiful, California probably has it. Too bad the first view lots of people get of the state is bleak and monotonous. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfVSD2Vl1aA0lgFL8GRLWrl4MNdTbP2xvZ34180NmwnvbnTPbJM3YNYumJSrPCziY-H8YTbl5czPzj2OZ_46GEmOFbLWefftpmCuQ6vlVFQSD5Mh3Ka1YbvlOiV5WINbRyWLzD48scY4M/s1600-h/full-01-migrant-mother.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMRSfwqM-9opS8wRaleaqQxRRYaDrOYZAuje704RZm12prH520X9UvEBNd8S1awsZOLbcuvPxFcWJZkXkDy88_V4lejI2g9OjLNeHcXWMVw1uCti8YOVd-CnM7EJP7TiOvfwvn3jyqQeI/s320/webready-01-migrant-mother.jpg" /></a></div>I’m talking about the <a href="http://www.blogger.com/%20http://www.blueplanetbiomes.org/mojave_desert.htm"><b>Mojave Desert</b></a>, which people driving into Southern California run smack into. Every time I’m there, I think about Tom Joad as well as the waves of economic migrants called “Okies” who passed that way during a traumatic time in American history. <br />
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These were the one million or so unfortunate folks in the 1930s and early ’40s who abandoned their homes in places like Oklahoma and Arkansas to escape the unrelenting wind, dust, and drought that had descended upon them.<br />
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In battered old trucks and automobiles that we call “jalopies,” they carried everything they owned toward what they imagined would be a California paradise. In the eyes of local sheriffs and other hateful people along the way who ostracized these downhearted and weary migrants, “Okie” was another word for “scum.” <br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfAoPv6DeFEN5ddkENy4IWzzUyomoZMkUwMjHqVe4FXsqzYsf8A7IVRNVV35ec3Zl5gY8QuJfJhOO7ZH23RafkpIJIqS0mDrkvWz5e9mVOYo1wh144Jb-30nzinyeMhZeBAGAEzA5yDMM/s1600-h/full-02-dust-bowl.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgw8cpovSau7BwyHHIYmnikmRj5gkkCbDQ7Ovdh2D_GRgDpnA9xxXizNhifXe9mRhsXo_bwiFa5jsCmdmUH6XkpTwHCT3L8glkFCm0kOUKZW30x-X3UNufJGtb4GcyeKZamoDE6Ypq7OpU/s320/webready-02-dust-bowl.jpg" /></a><br />
Writer John Steinbeck wrote a book, "The Grapes of Wrath," about these <a href="http://www.ccccok.org/museum/dustbowl.html"><b>Dust Bowl</b></a> travelers. It became a classic. So did the movie based on it, in which Henry Fonda played Tom Joad, a gritty Okie who organized the hungry, hated migrants into unions once they reached California. <br />
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I’ll tell you about a precious few remnants still left from those days in a bit. But let’s return to their point of entry: the desert that confronted the Okies as they reached California. <br />
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When you’re in the Mojave, often spelled “Mohave,” all your stereotypes of California — the tangled freeways, fancy homes and swimming pools, giddy theme parks, and sandy beaches — disappear. That is, all but the sand part. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDY_1ervmXssn8rPjqDjVuU4_o6exMwySWnDdf0Q_Jmbu3kX09sH2eok9Q4mIZKTZLipt4m1xKtMJyhXPHERn2-I2DlkKoTpcdklgxbQf8TabrqnhtUtEeOZO4S0NW2Xhyphenhyphen5c1w8CDSsU8/s1600-h/full-03-desert.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwVnLvilRPLpsQGvDibBRIdxkviWhJZvxLd11oKkaVMWF_JW_RjCBth_6x2ggOwdPAwAMuwO-kTMPabMD3yNRYwwHiXZHxptjrKwiFk5ihCDW_PxDBzKdBk5EE1gtdwEPY4YTLehxCDq0/s320/webready-03-desert.jpg" /></a></div>As far as the eye can see are scruffy little plants; rumpled, chocolate-colored hills — and did I mention the sand? It’s the perfect place to pull out your “Guide to Western Flora” or some such, and brush up on vegetation such as . . . <br />
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. . . the sagebrush, a word you’ve heard if you’ve seen western movies or read “dime novels” about cowboys. This is a scrubby little bush, dusty green in color, that pops up in sandy soil. One of the differences between the windswept, treeless deserts of the Middle East and California’s Mojave is the color that this little plant adds to the horizon. It also holds loose soil in place and helps keep precious — and infinitely rare — rainwater from running off and being wasted. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg32uF2tu-1zvf1gxTCoxg9nYHBLCCe_TW222gv1A9V1eezlsVRcLrfSlE1WCz57arpXjctOQ1uOEYenkT8aBundekkRXwguOhJ8tdwtDTCpDlpWoi-uZLJrG5g9nxgZXSJ8N4U3EpTi9g/s1600-h/full-04-joshua110.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0TR0PEsxIbGzW_AWbBZiLykcMeXtOGOamha_E3VJWiAjpN5tWIMowoMZD1N_hWJpPngBnEd_HV4EuzwIU8zDUNPxeUgQiAP6HPsVf4BqCodhgUm_dVLwhiC8jcdnPHyoVB5MYZqiU3r0/s320/webready-04-joshua110.jpg" /></a></div>Palm trees, mesquite bushes and cacti dot the Mojave Desert as well; there’s even a tourist town called “Twentynine Palms,” which has more like 200 Washingtonia palm trees and backs up to Joshua Tree <a href="http://www.nps.gov/Jotr/index.htm"><b>National Park</b></a>, where many more palm varieties grow. <br />
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Cacti come in more than 600 versions. It feels like I’ve bumped into or stumbled over the prickly thorns of all of them. <br />
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The mesquite is a tree of life for small desert creatures. It provides shade for animals in places where refuge from the sun would otherwise be impossible. And its seed pods drop nutrients like nitrogen into barren soil. But since burning mesquite wood gives off a fragrant scent that Americans love to smoke into their grilled steaks and chicken, scavengers rip mesquite out of the ground to sell to dealers, severely damaging the ecosystem. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7CRRbs0yePF0lt3zB-CQx4DMVErjR1GOutIOtmErBjLS0tSZ9rbFwomVSbhtvzHINp-RN3wCAGccX8Zp0pjz-dXpko0YohcT63bRHJbk-KKa3g8oA63RHqt5Pv3vUm8mIZT54NPyYGF0/s320/full-05-suguaros-at-dusk.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2NU2_Zh4lM27DT4pT2uzcav9LA3Z5wfcS8WhjBhc0fgYI3GVfm8d9_1GAcwY8NeCKo60Zwelt7_lmv4Lw3k5z3dycgUui0Whhs39PJAH9knu8-gabUs2E3_gAUkzaUJ36WL1NKCf3EwM/s320/webready-05-suguaros-at-dus.jpg" /></a></div>You’ve probably seen photos of the mightiest desert cactus, the giant saguaro, but it grows in one place only: the hot, sandy hills of southern Arizona, one state away. The saguaro cannot tolerate more than a night or two of freezing temperatures. After routinely subjecting plants to temperatures greater than 38° (100° Farenheit), the Mojave Desert can drop below freezing for days on end weeks later. <br />
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For a few days each spring, the Mojave explodes in color. Normally drab plants sprout lovely blooms, and vivid wildflowers pop from the rocks and crunchy soil. That’s when a clicking noise disturbs the desert solitude. It’s the sound of thousands of shutters snapping in cameras from Needles to Barstow. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkJG_JwjMeSwZAiMhgxeClSXuWUiwnL_Dy3fNU5w0FDsBaTA4UImM6OYKiCBIXj5ORVFv_A2ftu94v5E66w8CVL9S8HfMRd4KRHDezMivJm2scR5D8Km35hb8Tm-nsxMNtCBm6xTBs8lI/s1600-h/full-06-barstow--Jingletown.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBQhwH6B9mcPEja1Z4fgO2LdKmBCByoFnJUs2E7DVKpKbUzm4b_O8mcP9ZCqSQap0-oN7sfh71KgJi7XvnCbTVOT3I0IMAU7Hj4CU-cMEWMAK4uYhzdaT_ndDkgEn2oFp-ozg7gP474PM/s320/webready-06-barstow--Jingle.jpg" /></a></div>I spent a month in Barstow one day, as a stand-up comedian might say. It’s a dusty piece of shade where 24,000 people and uncounted lizards and scorpions, tarantula spiders, and the most poisonous rattlesnakes in the world — the Mojave green — get along just fine. The locals advise you to ignore these “critters” unless one gets in your shoe. <br />
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You see a lot of box cars in Barstow, for it holds the world’s largest rail classification yard. There, sweltering workers shuffle cars among the hundreds and hundreds of freight trains that roll west to Los Angeles, south to San Diego, north to Seattle in Washington, or east to who-knows-where. <br />
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Why would anybody want to live in these parts, where it’s so beastly hot that gets only about 8 centimeters of rain — I repeat, rain the depth of your thumb — each year? A pleasant woman in a cowgirl outfit who was venturing out in the withering middle of the day reminded me that it’s clear and refreshing once the sun goes down. “Dress warmly if you’re riding your horse out in the gulches under the stars at night,” she advised me. <br />
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Out with the critters after dark? Surely she was jesting. <br />
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It takes a rosy eye to appreciate the cruel Mojave. “Devil’s Playground,” they call one bleak stretch of brown earth and sand where you can see heat shimmering off the desert floor. There’s “Fiery Gulch,” too. <br />
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And let us not forget America’s most ominous place: the aptly-named “Death Valley.” <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjv9rEEsjjHWuVIlpSkJAn4PBNUeupacHbD9d1uZFbrTRQLy7Wfu5N03MqNHwmi2ngD_DK9lA4gDBPUFJk2fi5RlGhsXde4O0yxrYsA7x4R122DojLsSQE3af6P65r2Vvja-30fedRL98o/s1600-h/full-07-death-valley.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEo2l_NsTgxCSUmLNOg0Xol2d0vhz7Ke0VQZjhY5fSSz-jss4EflTsEZnS9X7STCYBYZWMzlaEmgwV0RuPYsdv_ynR-FzxBU0iobegx-UlB_YwAWNsHzADDwyjCUoIWvOEyyuOiuO8oo0/s320/webready-07-death-valley.jpg" /></a></div>The lowest spot in the Western Hemisphere, Death Valley is also the hottest and driest part of the United States. There’s no creek, for instance, in Furnace Creek there, save for the rare times that a cloudburst spawns a flash flood. But there are certainly furnace-like temps. Fifty degrees (122° Farenheit) is a common reading in the heart of the day. So is 38° at MIDNIGHT. <br />
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Dervish winds blow sand in your face from great, rippling dunes. Salt, too, from a long-dry lakebed, 86 meters below sea level. It’s this wind that inspired classical composer <a href="http://www.naxos.com/composerinfo/Ferde_Grofe/26084.htm"><b>Ferde Grofé </b></a>to write the fourth movement of his “Death Valley Suite” about sandstorms. <br />
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Even hardy American Indians steered clear of Death Valley. Whites discovered it the hard way in 1849, when prospectors, hurrying to the goldfields in the Sierra Nevada Mountains north of there, almost died en masse crossing the blistering-hot desert. No one but lizards, kangaroo rats, sidewinder rattlesnakes, scorpions, and coyotes would have bothered with the place had not borax been discovered.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkgcyv9V85B82qUOShZaqNOR9iU6oC2ZEWlfruZPYMMc4pTSBVd8jkxdG4AmWsYOZ4Wq8MadWTYeN-ty1U6UZIUNJk8kbMzvD4WvKYS_sIAxrDqaqTWmYkdH6WmHwoWh_53M_jkLsIWRU/s1600-h/full-08-machine107.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6Sx91IKq6jN5NHuC666Y8QkN6yBXjtFbmI1SkABPba7LYrgwkN3FIr3uisroy4oNHhyphenhyphenvwfVbVqymRI-MjWhDqh7cyl0ZiRoUiNCDP4ZdLMx4blCkvsSow0x5CcAlyww8CwwgrjYV4Scg/s320/webready-08-machine107.jpg" /></a></div>This borate material was called “white gold” because it could be used for everything from soaps to pottery glazes. Death Valley’s famous “20-mule teams” — actually 18 with two horses — pulled wagons full of the stuff out of the desert. The bigger horses, posted last in line, had the strength to get the heavy wagons going from a dead start.<br />
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To this day, a 115-year-old borate laundry “booster” that sponsored the TV show “Death Valley Days,” starring future president Ronald Reagan as the “Old Ranger” in the 1950s, is called “20 Mule Team Borax.” <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQ53w5FkircSLLh2A5y0E4v2FA8jw3GTiJNBaB6EGSxqvfNz9-gvcBeXuJGoV0vnTe06NY3aSp34D6rj8CGspmYnBFaRHSEdfTyxs5Atj00u9CEWBI8j5pVt1mKXCsbOhkJYJ-D5ZYpfw/s1600-h/full-09-scotty's-castle---c.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhx2QMflPtM09n_Gx2N5nbv0HeUjKne6DVj-uCS84i0V86XSciqDRQM1TOMisLF857MegzWsOdNBfL980lfCk3z4iWn7SO5sAAgJDc8nk78xhuMVOWEVjynqYrVz-ZUh922NkDDhnY9Xis/s320/webready-09-scotty's-castle.jpg" /></a>But you don’t have to rough it in Death Valley. Visitors swim in the pool at the expensive Furnace Creek Inn, scout wildflowers such as the evening primrose, and play golf — if you can believe it in such fiery air — on a course called “the Devil’s Golf Course,” which is full of fantastic ridges and pinnacles of salt. There’s even a huge, 1920s-vintage Mediterranean-style villa called<a href="http://www.nps.gov/deva/historyculture/scottys-castle.htm"><b> “Scotty’s Castle”</b></a> in Death Valley. Its story is remarkable; check out the link! <br />
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The closest city of any size is Las Vegas, Nevada, 150 kilometers (93 miles) away. On the same day in the winter or early spring, you can leave four meters of Yosemite National Park snow in the Sierra Nevadas and descend 3,000 meters to 40-degree Celsius heat below sea level in Death Valley. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQXjVCx-VaOQgW4B4ZPsWC4xxYb8_fQdk8NCGy5dQg5xk6cnf9sE8GQAM4Em_zJlz96M8DwccjLFxGGa1nj2npt5f1xqeadLH0ls9PnAJwTl9IiofSWgo5avRilMX2Wq-rnp25bX_psv8/s1600-h/full-10-dunes108.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2cjp4GoSWSDJogLSXTlRVvKvfHF28fUgoQTFNpyC8mSYfJrWvhzO2vY6D_cU8U6q7715D3jQsxe_eI-XLABKU2y3k9rVycLUGOtHmWHa0VcpFQ9eznQurjKTXmwCohhCSfY8Q5OrFPlo/s320/webready-10-dunes108.jpg" /></a></div>There, National Park Service rangers keep a sharp eye out for visitors who would take home rock or plant specimens or tear up the fragile desert. A good example is the Eureka Dunes, the largest dunes in California. Sandboarding down them using boards similar to ocean surfboards has become popular, but it’s endangering small plant species that live on the dunes. Dirt-bike riders are a menace, too. In too many spots, they have so compacted the fragile, porous soil that precious raindrops cannot get to plant roots. The water runs away, and the vegetation dies. <br />
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There were once fearsome stories about Death Valley — that it was ruled by Satan or that there were monsters or poisonous gas in the desert that would kill those who dared cross it. But gold and borax miners — and now tourists — tamed this hottest of America’s hot spots. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEha7cXRz7CKTAmf-eq8SWgTqcHqTL4Gnw5U73BD5jh1uoRobz0ogdnHn44mdlxpPTWrxRAr7RD4Dya0jDYKPn9Y4GlxIj0xQg39z2B75pzrXhIjfQpytvgs-JY6v6ud9fb1VJZiERNJReQ/s1600-h/full-11-yosemite111-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiu5JsyKTTjV1kyi7mO8sL5KCabHlSRAkFllihA-sWFVO0JDrg_WTjiYM2kGG97D0kOeN27X0fEqeap6wq_QLoo2T5XEK1l9CIf1HsYf5Clu6htUPzkBk1l-OgNPZkLKKLJN2Nh-FVmKUk/s320/webready-11-yosemite111-1.jpg" /></a></div>Carol and I were among those tourists who made that amazing descent from snowy cold to boiling hot one day. We arrived at the Furnace Creek Inn well after midnight, but it felt like high noon in hell when we stepped out of the car and inhaled the hot, stifling air. <br />
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Then we made two poor decisions. Carol turned on a bedstand light in order to read for awhile. (Having driven for hours, I fell right into deep slumber). Little did we know that a door to our balcony had been left open a crack, and as Carol likes to put it, what seemed like “everything that slinks, crawls, or hops” snuck in from the desert. Soon after she turned out the lights and fell asleep herself, Carol awoke and let out a blood-curdling scream! One of the slinkers had dropped from the ceiling onto the bed covers. I jumped up like a jack-in-the-box, certain that the police would come running. No one did. Folks there in Critterville must have been used to ear-piercing screams. <br />
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The other dumb move was mine. In order to gauge the severity of a sandstorm that had whipped up as we were leaving Furnace Creek, I buzzed down the driver’s-side car window. The extent of the storm was immediately recorded by the couple of centimeters of sand on the front seat and bridge of my nose. <br />
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Speaking of sand, let’s return to my opening story about the migrating Okies. “Every moving thing lifted the dust into the air,” John Steinbeck wrote about the Dust Bowl days of the 1930s that had shattered so many lives back home. “It settled on the corn, piled up on the wires, settled on roofs. Men stood by their fences and looked at the ruined corn, drying fast now. The men were silent, and they did not move often. After a while, the men’s faces became hard and angry and resistant.” <br />
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Having endured so much sand, and so many indignities on the road west, they were then greeted by the inhospitable Mojave Desert when they arrived in California. Right there, their dream must have seemed like a nightmare. <br />
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I met a man named Earl Shelton, who was four years old in 1937 when his mother died on the family’s Oklahoma farm. Then the cotton gave out for lack of water or fertilizer, and Earl’s father, Tom, eked out a living catching and skinning skunks and opossums for ten cents a hide. But he gave up and piled Earl, his brother, a nephew, and himself into a rickety 1929 Model A Ford and set out on what the Okies called the “Mother Road” — legendary U.S. Route 66 — to California. <br />
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In early 1941, the Sheltons made it through the forbidding Mojave and then crossed the last pass in California’s Tehachapi Mountains. There, at last, they beheld the fertile valley of their imagination. “Hey, you could see ever’ vineyard, ever’ orange grove, ever’ alfalfa field,” Earl told me. “Potatoes. No pollution. It was absolutely a fantasy picture.” <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLNTm_du0pjX1DCaFIn69SYVV1sx3uMW-IHG9BkQIhTEcXDqfEzlOQI5gaoujd7XuMQz73SKLCVHZkg2FtXkMEC1G8ni4OS0Vwpww9TWeF7vD6qYBJ2bszS3rW9H-JpnEFoXaHpAS5rNU/s320/full-12-shelton.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjY26dyCqx940si5cyyq43h0-6PqoMb4xOL_SNJHOqVWIly2FgMyUmRW9WU5acm5jO8voVyAgR7ddiqpvPpLDMbPbWLZbMlpkiQ3A1u4taJYw67JjBtD17aKbzrPodzAZ0mLStlveIPilc/s320/webready-12-shelton.jpg" /></a></div>Like the fictional Tom Joad and his family, the Sheltons were fortunate to secure a spot in one of 17 refugee settlement camps set up under President Franklin Roosevelt’s “New Deal” administration. It was the same camp near the tiny crossroads town of Weedpatch, California, that Steinbeck described thusly: <br />
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“Got nice toilets an’ baths, an’ you kin wash clothes in a tub, an’ they’s water right handy, good drinkin’ water, an’ nights the folks plays music an’ Sat’dy night they give a dance. Oh, you never seen anything so nice.” <br />
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Tom Shelton and the boys were first assigned a tent amid the sagebrush, then a better tent on a concrete slab. Eventually they got their own tin shack. Earl told me he had fond memories of a childhood spent in the Weedpatch camp, where today the only three remaining wooden buildings from the entire California resettlement effort of 70 years ago still stand. He remembered dances, pie suppers, “sewin’ by the women,” church services, and cakewalks — prancing steps by couples for which the best performance won a cake or other prize. <br />
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It was plenty hot in the tin cabin. “My brother and my dad would take a bedsheet out,” Earl recalled. “And there was faucets for ever’ four cabins. Well they would wet that bedsheet, and we’d use that for covers. Well hey, that wet sheet would keep you cool!” <br />
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Since there was no woman at their place, the women of the Weedpatch camp helped with laundry and kept an eye on Earl and the other boys after Tom Shelton sank into alcoholism. “For eight years, he never drawed a sober breath,” Earl told me. “And so after I was 12 years old, I raised myself.” The Shelton boys traveled the migrant circuit, picking crops and eating pork and beans and free fruit. Sardines, too, since they were cheap, rich in protein, and high in salt content — a helpful asset when stooping to snatch beans in the hot sun. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjY55K8wnvKXBoDl-tCaHyLcRPfqaWVvfhtQIds0lc9zW5XngxaYP-IH5wHxooFT5B6YGdbYrwfq-AIJ7xZoNTz5JQAfGBcHu8mBtsHKQnfBNV7-XNeP8A_7923QdxVZEGdgwMQYNPI_pw/s1600-h/full-13-fieldhands105.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgha5r9pNNVvjrgzIAW0VIcgSYuoJYbMq6AtD2P8a38UtqxmNoQwCykak2XFTjwUHsGo2HVf8ikORmfb8W9z5iw9eMS_YEtRAJwWTaS4k5RhoP4fbUIEG8RkL4s3p0cqGackE5djNTugAk/s320/webready-13-fieldhands105.jpg" /></a></div>It was hard child labor. Earl Shelton harvested potatoes into what were called “stubs,” or sacks that held 25 kilos (56 pounds) of potatoes. For one stub, a kid earned a cent and a half. “I prolly made 30 cents a day or so, you know,” said Earl, who added that he wears the name “Okie” as a badge of pride to this day. <br />
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Each October, some of the few hundred Weedpatch campers still alive come together for a “Dust Bowl Festival,” in which everybody revisits Weedpatch’s little buildings and washtubs and cotton scales. There’s dancing, too, though few folks are nimble enough to cakewalk any more. <br />
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In the same place where tents and tin shacks once sheltered the displaced Okies, tiny cement cabins stand today. They are home to another wave of migrant workers — Mexicans — who pick beans and onions and melons in the hot California sun. <br />
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<div style="text-align: center;"><b>WILD WORDS </b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><b><i><span style="color: #666666;">(These are a few of the words from this posting that you may not know. Each time, I'll tell you a little about them and also place them into a cumulative archive of "Ted's Wild Words" in the right-hand column of the home page. Just click on it there, and if there's another word in today's blog that you'd like me to explain, just ask!)</span></i></b></span></span></div><br />
<b>Gulch.</b> A narrow gorge carved by a river. In the hot, arid Southwest U.S., there’s often no stream remaining. <br />
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<b>Ostracize.</b> To banish, exclude, or expel someone from a group. To be ostracized is to be shunned by others. <br />
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</div>Ted Landphairhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18142247535149425183noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4320170221399917879.post-62839870566647861352010-03-16T13:29:00.006-04:002010-03-19T08:49:43.805-04:00California, There They Go<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgawZ0xTLndvoSsgPWp0QcxQJMApPqieP7iOtEN-n8C3lS9VmckEHeR44cMFsbN8xZPIc6Nrx9RDZQ4Eh2HMgURyhTKGIlv8ilB__uEaYSaVqUoHm-qhMVSfPwt7err0ppHvr4OTgIUYkQ/s1600-h/webready-01-redwood.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgawZ0xTLndvoSsgPWp0QcxQJMApPqieP7iOtEN-n8C3lS9VmckEHeR44cMFsbN8xZPIc6Nrx9RDZQ4Eh2HMgURyhTKGIlv8ilB__uEaYSaVqUoHm-qhMVSfPwt7err0ppHvr4OTgIUYkQ/s320/webready-01-redwood.jpg" /></a></div>On our journey through the American West, it’s about time to mosey into California, America’s most populous state by far.<br />
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To give you an idea of just how popular this “land of milk and honey” became, California is only 1½ times bigger than another western state — Wyoming — but it has 74 times more people. Of course Pacific Ocean beaches, gorgeous fruit groves, a mostly snowstorm-free climate, 14 major-league sports teams (Wyoming has none), six PGA golf-tour events (none, again, in Wyoming), enough vineyards to qualify as “wine country,” more world-class universities than you can count, several theme parks and gorgeous zoos, and the workplace and playground of movie stars make California awfully enticing.<br />
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I didn’t even mention the entire forest of awe-inspiring <a href="http://sunnyfortuna.com/explore/redwoods.htm"><b>redwoods</b></a> — the world’s tallest trees. <br />
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So why is everybody leaving?<br />
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That’s a rank exaggeration, of course. But alluring California, where easterners were once assured “the streets are paved in gold,” is barely holding steady in population. Many of its moderately wealthy elite are leaving or are gone. <br />
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Here are some reasons why:<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2uok4Ei5mdS1rD2f1TKYRaClYMLo01tWGp4GfkG1DLwsNlTnw_MwZ4zx6GVSn5-ngNpHa7Liwjvg0ti70acHSx_CmOAiZ9nIYND6rEkEBDClZMPUeXZTlaU51854j1VyWRpWDMTnmgd4/s1600-h/full-02-stockton-foreclosur.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjel4jZ4nLCKcR65XuIhvvODAXJgGo0WdPwXX6NQB6CfmAHtdp9tfmI-6JObzMMkDQIYbJpP55tMhrVJLRzRZGen8tAEDovtJlTZGpbWj9ilpNJkg6GKJE8N_ogiWyiWne71AvgJkAmXSI/s320/webready-02-stockton-forecl.jpg" /></a></div>In the 1980s, California accounted for more than one-quarter of the growth of the entire U.S. population, in part because of a massive influx of legal and illegal immigrants from Latin America and Asia. But since 1991, caught in the crash in home values and the loss of millions of jobs in two severe economic downturns; daunted by increasing gang lawlessness in some of California’s biggest cities; and fed up with earthquakes, killer fires, and <a href="http://www.consrv.ca.gov/cgs/information/publications/cgs_notes/note_33/Pages/Index.aspx"><b>mudslides</b></a>, an estimated seven million people have left the state.<br />
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In the early ’90s, a Bekins Company executive reported that the moving company was loading three times as many trucks heading out of the state as it was unloading in California. The exodus has slowed, but even last year, according to the American Movers Conference, the percentage was still 60-40 in favor of departures.<br />
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Californians have relocated in droves to the brainy, beautiful Pacific Northwest and in the sparsely settled mountain states. States like Colorado and Utah encouraged the rush by actively luring high-tech firms away from California. Utah, Colorado, and Wyoming enjoyed population spurts of about 2 percent — at least twice the growth rate of most other states — from July 2008 to July 2009, the last period reported by the U.S. Census Bureau. So, to quote the New York Times and reversing a popular phrase of the 18th Century, the new rallying cry is “Eastward, Ho!” out of California.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtllRbIJLR9EVqWT6l5Rko_XQlH0WVCdAOIxVmCcqk1TzH9yZpFbVctwBB64uluuMlT5zR7hOmO4FcZJp6GmDOnjNjr6KxmaZykPkRwcTJ2pZKIhPdc-Hx0u4vFRWiqf45ZI_d8oEHHlk/s1600-h/full-03-bumper-sticker-car-.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDPUP7fiyuoz_RwlNLvmCQLGC1yXehBSfWBBrxfNeiJwCfwmXf0TbLRvMQ_PzoGRzhv90bQLwbZvNlYoeSGI2nCEnIpWeBfIX56zkiXA-i6IJET5xU2Q1g-IQlAL1kvXw2A4CW_H68rPo/s320/webready-03-bumper-sticker-.jpg" /></a></div><b>Out With the Rich, in With the Poor</b><br />
<br />
Thomas Cargill, an economics professor at the University of Nevada at Reno, has observed the California exodus with interest. “The people who are leaving the state are the more highly educated, the upper-income groups,” Cargill told me. “People who are entering California, especially from outside the United States, are what economists call the “low-wage category.” They are not all poor people, but people who because of their educational and skill levels can’t command very high wages in the marketplace. And that has a very serious long-term impact on the state budget.”<br />
<br />
Cargill told me this long before the current economic recession made things even worse. Just ask Gov. Arnold Schwarzenneger, who today is battling a $20-billion budget deficit and 12 percent unemployment. <br />
<br />
Not the kind of rosy circumstances that keep people in-state.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizSNhIKDQP_0x8qKfKTYanbs5P85qFHakKuQNzTjDX12wU45qmWja-Zej_dN5m3qJynBR39u4UOONNaz7_f7ah4a34mExTY-wH8TuvariGLdFuH4s08PJXN1qGMtOpz4LW1aCHmBfqp5o/s1600-h/full-04-sf-crowd----graymal.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmXJb547pregJLGOjdpaOREPY6fONG3f4UUL_tBZI2uFaIL5KpY4NHrootrePe-bsNwzaSP6h_VefDm5Ay753FcASlb5MiPuz-Xj9Jfmh-MvosQJWoX0gqMrrAubtYJITBlQGYvmeM66I/s320/webready-04-sf-crowd----gra.jpg" /></a></div>Experts say some of the departures are due to “white flight” from California’s ever-growing racial diversity, or disgust at the state’s regulation of everything from tent specifications to CO2 emissions. As a grocery company executive told me after he left California for a more quiet life in little Scottsbluff, Nebraska, “There’s too much social nonsense out there.”<br />
<br />
Another transplant, Bill Beck, took his family of four from fashionable Newport Beach in 1991 and moved to Idaho’s bland capital city, Boise, where he got a good job as president of a development company. He told me — and this was years ago — that his family’s cost of living had exceeded $100,000 a year in Southern California. A lot of the money, he said, went just to keep up with his neighbors. At parties, he told me, a favorite topic of conversation was getting out of the California “rat race.” <br />
<br />
“They used to call them ‘ABC’ conversations,” he said. “It meant, ‘Anywhere but California.’” <br />
<br />
<b>Perhaps a Bad Match</b><br />
<br />
I can relate. My family and I lived in a beach suburb of Los Angeles in the early 1980s, and we found lots of annoyances that made it, shall I say, bearable to leave California after one year.<br />
<br />
At the first cocktail party that I attended, a fellow came up to me, shook my hand, offered his name, then asked, “What do you do, man?” I started to tell him about my new job at an L.A. radio station. “No, no, man,” he interrupted. “You do grass, coke, what?” <br />
<br />
He wasn’t asking about my lawn or my preference in soft drinks. Such encounters, and rising drug problems in our kids’ new schools, left us to wonder where “laid-back” L.A. ended and “stoned” began.<br />
<br />
My neighborhood was lovely — full of flowers. But it seemed that everyone, including me, was from somewhere else. On our first day in town, a chipper older man who lived across the street stopped by with a plateful of cookies, welcomed us heartily, and invited us to stop over any time to borrow a rake, a cup of sugar, anything. I thought this was quite neighborly.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmpvk5_57Jm_SHMw8uVZ7HbZzkqJGIww2B5cfWRQOb-TYPTk5_ya-MBArQ_wwDkXzTNzg6sLh8AbbpAr3Eh9FirRvFfJb4aSghn8HT1V8bhOTLTKSBKgw9Hc1O_WXWAX8mryIS3Gcv5jU/s1600-h/full-05-welcome-to-calif--S.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEhV8vyDsOO8NtGcc50pYFzFKUgFtmHGWIRWOdjahk1orzYimaF3Xctz_jGPZLkSmbvTBCiUllCrUL9mZn_jw5AC54sLHlxXQQUnfdWqoKGJ9E1rjI9JxkN9YOKA5F59zLcp4SgayM0M8/s320/webready-05-welcome-to-cali.jpg" /></a></div>But he was back the next day, and the next, and the next, asking if there was anything he could do for us. Pretty soon it was evident what he wanted in return. “By the way,” he finally told me, “I’m an Amway distributor, and if you need any soap suds, shoe polish, lipstick for the Missus, I’m your man.” (Amway products are sold from people’s homes rather than big-box stores.) Before long, he was pestering me to come over and watch a video about becoming an Amway products salesman myself, with him as my supplier. Finally, I had to tell him to leave us alone.<br />
<br />
The very next day, a note in delicate calligraphy appeared in our mailbox. It read something like, “Hi!! We saw the moving van and knew you must have come quite a ways. We live just down the street, and we’d like to help make you feel at home in Manhattan Beach. Please stop by!!! We’ll tell you all about the community.” The note was signed with the couple’s name and their address a few houses away. <br />
<br />
Then came this postscript: “By the way, we represent Amway products, and if you ever need something, we’ve got it for you!”<br />
<br />
The town was crawling with Amway salesmen!! An anomaly, no doubt, but the experience was the first of many that gave us the idea that, to get ahead in fast-moving, competitive California, you had to have an “angle.”<br />
<br />
<b>On the Road to Nowhere</b><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSDuIrz6GZsHso2q3uaxhuROPF5mk8f6AUwC7YzRJ-vznOV9ew5J6KBxjUgcQADobtoDUqHn9RsBEy3INvZgtucPoRJCLMASq1ndCMBGGkzwqcNmkiJmjncBnwvSQEbTJiwckjlN0Vzus/s1600-h/full-06-l.a.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHITBj6xGw1LHu2s9oIb-XAzAtpASy06GLpoPtpJNSWnope640wOZkiNZR5FyJA231-b1hJyHeasNGKlO6H-2DaV6DRbiawmJT1J6ej0Y9UlTmPpzds2VWEL-EU0-RrBx4pRK4BM8onrw/s320/webready-06-l.a.jpg" /></a></div>Our home was 40 kilometers (25 miles) from my workplace in Hollywood, north of <a href="http://www.brookings.edu/reports/2003/11_livingcities_LosAngeles.aspx"><b>Los Angeles</b></a>. L.A. is ginormous — gigantic and enormous —as you can see if you fly in from the east at night. After hours of virtual darkness, you cross the San Bernardino Mountains and behold a dazzling spectacle of lights below, clear to the Pacific Ocean.<br />
<br />
A 40-kilometer commute to a really good job would have been tolerable if the spaghetti tangle of freeways between south and north L.A. had been passable. But even five or six lanes on each side of the road — it’s seven now in some spots — were not sufficient to keep traffic moving. So I took what Los Angelenos call “surface streets,” as if freeways don’t have surfaces. Each day was a cat-and-mouse game, trying to beat this light, get the edge at that intersection, find new shortcuts through somebody else’s quiet streets. <br />
<br />
No wonder people at the radio station were cranky before their work even started. Only when they talked about their avocations — their skateboarding or surfing or wine sampling — did their countenances brighten. They had daydreams if not dreams, none of which made the job of motivating them any easier. <br />
<br />
One day, a Manhattan Beach patrol car followed me for three blocks as I strolled down to the beach. I wasn’t a menacing figure, I didn’t think, but the patrol officer pulled alongside, buzzed down his window, and asked me what I was doing and where I was going. When I told him, he replied, “OK, no problem. Most people drive around here.”<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpfgUSlMlmAb-7xCPJdK6JGpFFlucxtr78x-RLdI1xLb8J2iC4BXEsubejXaTfy-AqUoCx47WKTnZ9uOtu3lK30R97RQaFpv2f5sH-YDWwvpvqIUfyX9qpDNKKOlHRb-ZX5VD1uzY83gg/s1600-h/full-07-freeway--Atwater-Vi.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAK7sVUusdj3Aso-6iQfDbnKKpB5Bw5SSfVhONJjZ8EeLGO2sKjleVs91hQgV8ohNIwn4mFfZBvPWkEu4LSeJAQcCXUCPDBnAExNITF6Te0VyPMVTuzJ-OdYx9dcLLXcN_6xaAfNHOS18/s320/webready-07-freeway--Atwate.jpg" /></a></div>Californians even have their own lingo about it. They speak of the 5, the 99, the 405, the Santa Monica, the Pomona, and so forth. Freeways all — the “free” being a misnomer when it comes to open lanes or making good time.<br />
<br />
“They used to call them ‘ABC’ conversations,” he said. “It meant, ‘Anywhere but California.’” <br />
<br />
<b>My Kingdom for a Maple</b><br />
<br />
I also longed for eastern greenery and even humidity. And for seasons. Los Angeles has three of them:<br />
•A perpetual spring from March through December, when daytime temperatures are moderate, nights are ideal for barbecuing, but the air is often afoul with automobile exhaust. • A quick, cool winter in January and February, when storms off the Pacific prompt mudslides that can send fine homes sliding down the bluffs above Laurel Canyon and Malibu. • And a week or two of summer sometime in July or August, when broiling “Santa Ana” winds off the desert blow westward, blocking ocean breezes and turning the L.A. basin into a terrarium of smog. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHlF99VmLd3jChoSAtFT6o9e43P5B6dXXkHQ4GqHwnaQRCQcTqT4LQNruSazVzFi6HE6xy6n-cLreSeScbDLNgBhuYR_SrepOAjlSX56zeiAWpuIzhx3CU85DL6oPhDWgiXYBF1K6lfRM/s1600-h/full-08-l.a.-smog--dailymat.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfiS0_oiCWQnaMvgn7FWTl2pVw-5Okf9Sih3NM29DGCLvPzm_sGRKXK6mE5U1-1dQzZ9h3zMzq-HBOxEsbDYgFv5LEDhou-ANsajHI9HVq8vuYYNsxUle7JVvCfN0N_C7AJfSuAjpaR38/s320/webready-08-l.a.-smog--dail.jpg" /></a></div>For decades, most Californians had gladly put up with it all in return for the state’s amenities — not to mention the astronomic increase in their savings and home values. Yes, the cost of living was high, but ordinary people grew extraordinarily rich. At least on paper.<br />
<br />
Kelly Peterson, a commercial banker who left for a better job in Las Vegas, Nevada, in the mid-1990s, described Southern California as “a love affair gone bad.” “Growing up elsewhere,” he told me, “I always thought California was the perfect place to live. For [our family], I guess the dream was broken. It let us down. In the end, it had gotten to the point where I don’t think the California that most people think of in their minds really exists anymore.”<br />
<br />
Others told me they left because they feared gang violence, the spread of drugs into suburban neighborhoods, and what some described as a “valley girls” mentality. “Valley Girl” was a 1983 movie that depicted a bored, spoiled, hedonistic California lifestyle and gave us phrases such as “totally, dude” that, like, you know, made the whole nation, like, seem like slackers. <br />
<br />
For two decades now, Californians have taken what, in many cases, was considerable money that they accumulated in California and moved to cleaner, safer, less crowded, more scenic mid-sized towns elsewhere. There, they easily qualified for good jobs and bought magnificent homes dirt cheap, by California standards. That left enough money to open trendy boutiques, gift shops, art galleries, and fresh-fish markets that seemed an odd fit in the dusty towns of the Old West.<br />
<br />
Their free spending drove up the cost of housing for everyone else and turned many of their new neighbors against them. “If they want to come to our rural states and tell us how to live our lives,” a Pocatello, Idaho, electrician told me, “then they’re not welcome.”<br />
<br />
Emmett Watson, a Seattle, Washington, newspaper columnist, groused to me that “Californians come up here, and what they’re like, they’re like a cat that adopts you, you know. He comes to your doorstep. Well, that cat comes in and just takes over. And it never occurs to the cat, or the Californian, that we can do without them very easily.”<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhf_s7niAme2lK5sg-qDhWTyTThcSdmSlWgMcWjdI5T_7A-12gGXFtm6AKVFWPCJGS2DSlEK3BQGTy-OqZpeg0EImetsnrSNm8yVRwyd-aHqMb0R5VEfBmLcz_vBekpl6aIL3xvdx8hM2g/s1600-h/full-09-tycoon.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj24Ph97nAT5fAncT60jNsExP3fedDNqjVbHFIVqR9kMdgTZYPoSQpNPsEz_d5YONLlzHyzWhVTnNutUy2rLxT_vj-f3kObkFiuK3rXVXMkAz7b6evUMyLhdOucuOOlW4RTy7KtDe13ZDk/s320/webready-09-tycoon.jpg" /></a></div>On the other hand, even Kelly Peterson, whose disillusionment with California led him to leave for Nevada, got his back up about California stereotypes. “I have every right to move to a place just the same as anyone else does,” he says. “I’m sorry if I’m from California and been exposed to whatever culture I’ve been exposed to. Wherever I’m from, if I choose a new place and try to make a lifestyle that’s comfortable for myself and for my family, I would say to those people, ‘Deal with it.’”<br />
<br />
There’s a Catch-22 at work here. The influx of Californians raises the sophistication, cultural and educational levels, home values, and product options in what had been rather ordinary western towns. But the newcomers’ very presence destroys the beauty and solitude that drew them there. Wildlife habitats have been disrupted by the intrusion of housing tracts. And pristine valleys fill with traffic and pollution, just like the smog clouds that Californians left behind.<br />
<br />
“It’s not a good idea to say you’re from California,” Bill Beck in Boise told me. “Californians tend to tell the people in Idaho, ‘You’re a country bumpkin, you’re a hick. I’m going to show you what a nice house is like, how to run a company, what makes a good restaurant.’ Pretty soon, people resent you.”<br />
<br />
Despite all these troubling vibes about California, I look forward to sharing stories of some memorable — though not all beautiful — places in the “Golden State.” <br />
<a href="http://www.consrv.ca.gov/cgs/information/publications/cgs_notes/note_33/Pages/Index.aspx"></a><br />
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</div><div style="text-align: center;"><b>WILD WORDS </b></div><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><b><i><span style="color: #666666;">(These are a few of the words from this posting that you may not know. Each time, I'll tell you a little about them and also place them into a cumulative archive of "Ted's Wild Words" in the right-hand column of the home page. Just click on it there, and if there's another word in today's blog that you'd like me to explain, just ask!)</span></i></b></span></span><br />
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<b>Calligraphy.</b> Practiced and beautiful handwriting. Some people actually make a living by writing in delicate, florid longhand. <br />
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<b>Catch-22.</b> A predicament in which no option or solution really works. An example: You need a car for a certain job. But without a job, you don’t have money to buy a car. The term is taken from the name of a 1961 satirical novel by Joseph Heller<br />
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<b>Garrulous.</b> Talkative, gabby, especially about trivial matters.<br />
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<b>Terrarium. </b>A bowl, glass box, or other confined container in which to grow plants.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div>Ted Landphairhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18142247535149425183noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4320170221399917879.post-63181592379984301702010-03-12T08:47:00.003-05:002010-03-15T07:13:08.984-04:00Enchantment<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh33TrPfI8oxAlYGByWkqdjQVplakkEnESrVdFOVQDGlM6QlaNkvhtKaZxaKAGp06e2sxvFEx-ZpOLBLSXLIHaMfaeToZOVoX0idJxY6CYljCGrze_7OHPmPAUJ8hmQM0DGkn63mX4Jv6k/s1600-h/full-01-san-miguel,-1610-ol.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNp7gC04yKVW9r5sy1qjBbnVKeVWPVpkFj3VRWezeC-8A5g91dQ3TCWdWbNYHFvGksZeTKeGJ8nfGK7CWNeJj7tf_AucG3Q4q038f0wfz-lDp-kcZeQUx7jGPY7xMKfl14xlOh4ZSY-b0/s320/webready-01-san-miguel,-161.jpg" /></a></div><br />
You get your history first in this posting. <br />
<br />
The oft-told stories of America’s development often paint an incomplete picture. Schoolkids learn how the British, French, and Dutch colonized the East Coast of North America; about the slow but steady subjugation of native tribes there and beyond the Appalachian Mountains; of Spanish missionaries’ seeding the faith in what is now California; and about pioneers’ migration through and eventual settlement of the desolate inland West. <br />
<br />
But Spain’s other adventures on the continent get short shrift. In 1565, 42 years before the first British settlers even reached North America at Jamestown, Virginia, Spanish admiral Pedro Menendez de Aviles dropped anchor and settled down in what is now St. Augustine, Florida. He planted the Spanish flag and claimed all of Florida for his king and queen. <br />
<br />
Menendez and his troops quickly obliterated Fort Caroline, a meager fortification that French Protestant Huguenots were trying to establish nearby, then set off to explore the rest of the Florida Peninsula. In time, Spain would claim and halfheartedly control the entire Gulf of Mexico coast as <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Florida#Spanish_era"><b>far west</b></a> as present-day Louisiana. <br />
<br />
By that time other Spaniards were entrenched in the Far West as well. Santa Fe, New Mexico’s capital city, was founded in 1610 — 166 years before Americans got around to declaring independence from their British colonizers. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpkxQ-d73wiW1qY0fPh5Pet3TwpDT2VR9mzKUagezT61-vXP6aL9DIOOiHc6RPpeFVq4BBxksdN-ybXhzd7OzxXTaRFjCtpFxdvpUfhp7f6FO0LK7ruBWH5_4VD7sX2IQy4mFmKzR1c4A/s1600-h/full-02-Los-Pueblos-de-Taos.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiprRl5geYKnNGaCqtsLPNa2kEssqmcHYeKMxBjRgMN6iNDI3SAPo8vdVBPZ50ykeKTV-04vq8xd4lvwtCh3tHUFXd5nMs-ERfLBYbfssPWuiXVH_w5ewnS7wxC4kBa1b1Xoa60242bhBY/s320/webready-02-Los-Pueblos-de-.jpg" /></a></div>So for a couple of hundred years, Spanish, as much as English, was the language of the land, and a string of <a href="http://www.americancatholic.org/messenger/oct1998/feature1.asp"><b>Spanish missions</b></a> ran all the way from Texas, across New Mexico — which included what is now Arizona — and up into California as far as San Francisco. <br />
<br />
But today, let’s zero in on New Mexico. Again, it was the very northern part of New Spain above the Rio Grande River, and later Mexican turf, long before Americans got hold of it via a brief war with Mexico in 1846-47. <br />
<br />
To this day almost half of New Mexico’s population speaks Spanish regularly, many as a first language. And the people who preceded the Spanish — American Indians, primarily <a href="http://www.americanwest.com/pages/navajo2.htm"><b>Navajos</b></a> and Apaches — are an integral part of the culture. Living primarily in 19 pueblos, or villages, they make up 10 percent of the state’s population. Indian pueblos are tourist attractions, and the native people’s turquoise jewelry and multicolored, hand-woven rugs are spectacular. <br />
<br />
Much of New Mexico was so empty and arid that the U.S. government felt free to develop the atomic bomb at Los Alamos and White Sands in the New Mexico desert in the 1940s, and the personal computer was invented in the state’s largest city. That’s Albuquerque, a place of half a million people whose name few people I’ve met can correctly spell. <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjF9-JwP8d5NVRHMSzw7h3ItIki27bFYrtpoGM1yF3sbfHe-KJ8NY7gDPWMl_mrL6KtG1tv8oWg0AOtaEh0373FeN1AzmvcSj_B6NlcUo-l5NFUakuSbLXz7MkcIQ3l0BlrPopchSbeO4M/s1600-h/web-ready-new-mex.-flag.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjF9-JwP8d5NVRHMSzw7h3ItIki27bFYrtpoGM1yF3sbfHe-KJ8NY7gDPWMl_mrL6KtG1tv8oWg0AOtaEh0373FeN1AzmvcSj_B6NlcUo-l5NFUakuSbLXz7MkcIQ3l0BlrPopchSbeO4M/s320/web-ready-new-mex.-flag.jpg" /></a></div>Nor can New Mexico itself, apparently. The name is borrowed from a Spanish town, Alburquerque. That place got its name from the Arabic “Abu-al-Qurq,” or "Land of the Cork Oak” from the days when North African Moors controlled the area, on the Portuguese border. <br />
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The story of how New Mexico lost the first “r” in Alburquerque is an interesting diversion: In 1706, the settlement in the New World was founded and named for a duke from the Spanish place, and spelled “Alburquerque,” with both r’s, just like the duke did. It was only after gringos — the Americans — took over the little New Mexico town two and a half centuries later that the first “r” disappeared on maps and signs. Apparently we, today, aren’t the only ones who find the name hard to spell! <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQF9WQVJQp68Q4pwxGZyU2ml4NigqUcBhTNL6eLoJzbHd07sR1ydiAzFOGZT52j1AHe6V2iChmQ0bqKiK1m4EWLw9TfQegY-_ERqpYpTq1eoHaS_YKMHwbq3ve8yyxaRhOd8X6-SjTPvE/s1600-h/full-03-dawn-sangre-de-cris.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7ACdvhsZrWK_4H75SuyO_cArPJPqMeLiq91_wAy2fB61ZEizbAarLB5WZUU3YZAYQ7g3IzUoDwkq63k81r7mFd-exy9CI452Y5dfV0mA78NcOaQhqGp67eQK-mpD7mjeqBXBucVif088/s320/webready-03-dawn-sangre-de-.jpg" /></a></div>As you read on, visualize a “Land of Enchantment,” as New Mexico justifiably calls itself. Every clear day in full view of many lucky New Mexicans, the shimmering sun dances among low purple mountains and the higher, redder Sange de Cristo range. Sangre de Cristo: Spanish for “Blood of Christ.” Red rays even stretch in four directions on the New Mexico flag to emphasize the state’s reverence for the sun. <br />
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Years ago, Tim Gallagher, then editor of the Albuquerque Tribune newspaper and now a California public-relations man, traveled extensively across America and enjoyed it. “But,” he told me, “I love no land like New Mexico in the morning.” <br />
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Each morning when he watched the sunrise over the Sandia Mountains above Albuquerque, he thought of the English writer D. H. Lawrence, who once visited New Mexico and was enthralled. “‘Touch this country,’ Lawrence wrote, ‘and you will never be the same again.’” <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPttu1qndHgrfMTvFxsYgUYrF0amcOYh1m1vKYb2OEeBGE6N_3qrsR0vK1vcHglTmMOgMdg4-6HXzdx4NdDM85SwCl_ruEfh-PLyAL1Xo1CfQwVEsZ6W-rQWtMDpYgTgEgz9tLBgUX1k4/s1600-h/full-04-o'keefe-1918--alfre.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgioDXCJsU4Q2lRNtf3OxHtRuaj-XF6ZgLHNe9jh-MfsvAUD-j2ksr34sQR00ysXNifUjnfjdagbj1oJZ6hvMoB22ws8QYOP2mCaeP3u8FD4r6Gcqf8UyXCEmxs40LDU71TX09_4n3hDoc/s320/webready-04-o'keefe-1918--a.jpg" /></a></div>Thousands of artists have moved to New Mexico just because of its vivid, yellow light. <b><a href="http://www.ellensplace.net/okeeffe1.html">Georgia O’Keeffe </a></b>— the legendary painter of weathered cow’s skulls and flowers and desert landscapes mixed into the same painting — was one of them. <br />
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My VOA colleague Bill Torrey, normally a fairly hardboiled reporter, effusively described his first New Mexico visit. “Thirsty trees, mostly cottonwoods, crowd the riverbanks,” he reported. “And an emerald ribbon of irrigated fields leads you south, right into the heart of Albuquerque. Like Santa Fe, it’s a city of tans, golds, and browns.” <br />
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Colors again. Colors everywhere, in New Mexico’s art and jewelry, its mountains and missions, and what seems like a sea of adobe in Santa Fe — much of it a faux knock-off of the original. Impish colors, too, on the hundreds of hot-air balloons that waft over Albuquerque during its Balloon Fiesta each October. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6Q4VaPHfPuxAvlGAqrASG667WjP8wA6frEbI5ACJXrPNSHRJtCpMhu3NZKR7omJCA81EUB_s7h7qSnTngqoGVrbySVX7aEb1JGtfaBcrlA8ClTtu8D5lngxlCe6xqc0VEaN79LXnrNE8/s1600-h/full-05-balloons.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdj5ULN_92lGrGdf_vtuj_NrAbxUcfqNZw2QM62P5lEULzdQ4nqIJJ3P2t5CpMxllCm1aA296NCrk-LlrxCQhZBez5MEaJ_HMu54nxW1yqPtVRiqUfSvd9HSgSpAMglL0yZvIel-mNfpA/s320/webready-05-balloons.jpg" /></a></div>The state delivers culinary fire in the palate-searing green chili served in Spanish-speaking villages. Savoring it — slowly and carefully with handy glasses of ice water or beer — you can almost feel the march of the Spanish conquistadors arriving from Mexico. What I like best, though, is New Mexico’s unhurried pace. You don’t see many suits and ties or people with briefcases rushing about. It’s laid-back Louisiana with a Spanish accent. <br />
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But there’s a less idyllic side as well. There is wrenching poverty and unemployment in New Mexico’s Indian and immigrant Mexican populations. Ongoing problems with illegal immigration, too. And lots of alcoholism. <br />
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<b>Little Spanish Church in the Vale </b><br />
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As Americans retrace our path toward complex ethnic diversity, it’s easy to overlook the small, isolated Spanish settlements in the New Mexico mountains. As I mentioned, the colonial civilization that had intruded from Mexico was well entrenched among the piñion and juniper trees before the American republic was even an idea. <br />
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Among the early villages 2,400 meters (7,800 feet) up in the Sangre de Cristos was the farming community of Las Trampas, first cleared by 12 families in 1751. Why it’s called “The Traps,” in English, is not clear, since beaver trapping was not introduced until the 19th Century. The name may refer to the Spanish settlers’ first assignment. Though they were bean and corn farmers, they were asked by the Church to build a barrier against marauding Comanche Indians. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiB0XOcMC84mxoxAwBHWOSBRXcgM9enTnDHC2oaLHeXhdBbc3BK4cFH5sjXfbFrifEy_QilLUhuuVXfkO-eMoW9_Aksw2AcrUNUqaFz2R4zmtdSBBhioiono2Y2SKq_suSqVOXC2sjdd94/s1600-h/full-06-las-trampas.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKDV35wpby-keEftR89I_nGI5ZG2EMXFUj6Z2r9wzyEpK29BnBsDZe2b8vd17ktljcmX54WL_mqZd2G_w3gxE_lGF5_2NxWxoajj3GBYkveNRRzi9VMQAUUzphK7EdBtm86UPuXq9rd9s/s320/webready-06-las-trampas.jpg" /></a></div>These simple farmers also erected a modest chapel, the Church of San José de Gracia, on the Las Trampas plaza. The church’s adobe walls and crude wooden roof, slathered with mud, were influenced by the nearby Pueblo Indians. But inside, the ornate nave, choir balcony, even side chapels that they somehow squeezed into the tiny sanctuary were high Spanish. <br />
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Today Las Trampas, which snoozes on a lightly traveled mountain road between Santa Fe and the stylish art and skiing colony of Taos, is so small that you won’t find it on many New Mexico maps. A few simple house trailers and cabins, a gas station, and a little café form the community. Spanish is still the working language, and residents have resisted efforts to integrate them into the larger, English-speaking society. <br />
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Years ago, they even fought attempts to have their little church declared a historic site, for fear Anglo entrepreneurs would open souvenir shops or interrupt the serenity of the mountain with tours. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwgNozKz_LbMpqBsJFYEp1j99ZlvY2kErDjtejbXlcNEqJ7cFAetWV1zhzIZNRSusQHsPcjQnxkkw2YV85B00YeZ9xgaof2IaH3hymCGDLt5MPZBEfv0swDgq3or-GtnlQZacNWrmcovw/s1600-h/full-07-cemetery.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgV7p0Db0Fqv3DVa87URJqWYty9uWOpyh_geQe8rkEnRuQnoqGmKqOqcElzoo9UZZGT9SP4KECpyxNijmMQZ5lt8dTjOBQTlfC1goLCsqlwoByiIat6MD1Woa7ardXaRWjYzufG9zDubHo/s320/webready-07-cemetery.jpg" /></a></div>The little adobe church has survived, thanks to villagers and volunteers who have periodically stepped forward to save its sun-dried bricks from caving in. The walls regularly crack because of microscopic undulation caused by the extreme winter cold, followed by blazing summertime heat, in the New Mexico highlands. <br />
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Twice in 20th Century, prominent American architects who had fallen in love with New Mexico and retired there stepped forward to direct the restoration of the chapel. A few years ago, with help from outside volunteers, San José de Gracia parishioners made new adobe mud, repainted the interior walls, and cleaned the icons and artwork. <br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdQ79lTr0Lo7a_N9XezwoOAfF0uwVcR_NlCanb_lBFEIyAdFJD8v-HbRZs1eDBC1UDdQqanJnpns1FZJK-vdTCFjp8eiNUwBdvNkmwyZ7cQtOPu4M7bCTl93X__vTNHxDNWHeYKq1-NL8/s1600-h/full-08-interior.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9kE2QfI6GpBGDImaBpLck_z7vXfQti2_MkoveGlEsCDRBuGmDqyhqn5IHPab5FBuwm4GeQR0vSni4j9ynFPsiGVq6O48RRRg-qEZUFxjWPuTR8YofsDTdWFzCzX8Iu8YNi0J513t9ios/s320/webready-08-interior.jpg" /></a><br />
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Outside, the old fortification wall long ago crumbled into dust. Weeds shoot up around the chapel and amid the weathered headstones of the tiny church cemetery. A circuit priest drives up from Chimayo to say mass on Sunday. And even though Trampaseños are still suspicious of strangers, in the summer months visitors are allowed to take a peek inside.<br />
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Those who do are amazed at the simple beauty of the ornate wood carvings and icons, and the magnificent painted altar screen, in such primitive surroundings. <br />
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Turns out the church at obscure Las Trampas is no trap. It’s a treasure. <br />
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<b>Spooky Theater </b><br />
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Let’s close with the story of another special New Mexico place, this time in the big city: <br />
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Across America, you’ll find beautifully restored theaters — movie palaces from the golden age of motion pictures in the 1920s and ’30s, or the original homes of great <a href="http://xroads.virginia.edu/%7EMA02/easton/vaudeville/vaudeville.html"><b>vaudeville </b></a>and musical-stage performances. Many boasted a stylized neoclassical, Egyptian, or Royal French décor, complete with crystal chandeliers, statues and urns, intricate plasterwork and gilt-leaf moldings, and ceiling paintings copied from the masters. <br />
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In those glory days in bustling Albuquerque, an Italian immigrant named Oreste Bachechi made a fortune selling liquor, some of it to movie stars whose cross-country trains stopped to refuel outside of town. He became a movie aficionado and resolved to build Albuquerque’s first palace in which to show films. <br />
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But he wanted something different, something in keeping with the Indian influence of his New Mexico surroundings. So he sent his architect, Carl Boller, through the state to inspect native artifacts. And then Bachechi (bah-KECK-ee) built a movie house unlike any other in America. Boller textured plaster ceiling beams to look like logs, disguised air vents as Navajo blankets, shaped light fixtures like war drums, and put down genuine Navajo rugs in profusion. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnkgYxIAYn_RevX6jPMi4uYXxcW-c3RvEsfqtfyeMbCAvdHV9uGIMZL7cdkYS-mx7pHDzzGGDSYC6M6AePRbxU0NxpACwkDXZXX1GPgBA5_MyEyG0B3WS5ifhOBgzsUopkWtDipA6-qeA/s1600-h/full-09-swastika.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhABSEPUFd1AtTlpI2toYpbeKwgcpkPmGDIjaXej51E828HV4ElqMFWV5Za-GsIm7BiizGOulmkcmYwgSnghuiwscDyrfzsBFDcNwOHkh9n0oQs6G9Ig4Rv_QEfL-iNFDnenpBxzy7kWpY/s320/web-ready-09-swastika.jpg" /></a></div>That was just the beginning. Around the theater, Boller placed amber lights inside buffalo and longhorn-steer skulls, which glowered menacingly at patrons through empty eye sockets. Albuquerque natives remember the terror they felt as small children as the lights went down and the skulls began to glare. Painted thunderbirds and sunbursts adorned the walls and lampshades. <br />
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So did swastikas — the American Indian symbols of happiness, life, and freedom. I imagine they sent shivers throughout theater audiences all through World War II, when documentary newsreels were screened showing swastika armbands on goose-stepping Nazi soldiers. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHCTfKY_VmKMwvhSoy2S4gAwJNg2HREVbtufdHk_aGnbKhFLjk6nI54RePfWHG7_D1c5cHJhFTnjGK_6GmPEN_hqa6UWjW98VQBNKCUfjHEX7O0x3GbdTjkAZn8IJcsqVMKW-Vmur1uvg/s1600-h/full-10-exterior.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9ms3Se9xSqIlgvo-SrDKuUky9lzh9HcNjz4pQdLh5WNiGEi5STehCAzbbZS1lHZvG58BQuE4oaLNfuVrlMWiaNyF10nls4h-96zpx2l1xe0SBtptxyE31E488zZ5L6eHt06RvEzadPB8/s320/webreadyfix-10-exterior.jpg" /></a></div>“America’s Foremost Indian Theater,” Bachechi called his creation, though no one could think of any other Indian theaters. To name it, he held a contest. The winner was “KiMo,” which in the Tiwa Indian tongue translates as “mountain lion” but broadly describes anything that is “king of its kind.” Bachechi even gave the snack bar and gift shop Indian names. And he hired 10 “usherettes” in Indian garb to work opening night in 1927, when an Indian baritone was among the featured acts. <br />
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Three years later, the KiMo added the state’s first neon lights to its marquee, and it drew capacity audiences during World War II.<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjn67gt4eqS2l5vemYzSZWEDnPe-ASAvgqjZzNVOUsaGZdznjBEjQ5wpTEcDX37yKDjA5yY9o0pUB6zisEuGc9IooA094ZySBQIU1iixG0zsXXjsUNNGyHIyqgwJme5bE_8MQ4s7obInKo/s1600-h/full-11-steers.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBFhEuLyCpK77JMeNf5TLQWZ9OzT29V1aYzflJHAXXt9XBjh4XqjPao-IBjg12mnuyGFarlQvYUULeMunlYo0ITEGjPTXR6wE07CR_ORk8RsiDGVamUAKa7lsMCMfekDpUNq3GfprG3NA/s320/web-ready-11-steers.jpg" /></a>Later, as in many other old movie houses, the quality of both the films and the audience declined, and the KiMo survived by showing pornographic movies. <br />
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The nation’s “foremost Indian theater” closed in 1968, then sat empty for more than 15 years until Albuquerque’s mayor pushed through public financing that led to a glorious restoration. Today the KiMo Theatre shows classic movies and offers its stage to regional theatre and musical performances. <br />
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And the steer skulls glow eerily again. <br />
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<div style="text-align: center;"></div><div style="text-align: center;"></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b>WILD WORDS </b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><b><i><span style="color: #666666;">(These are a few of the words from this posting that you may not know. Each time, I'll tell you a little about them and also place them into a cumulative archive of "Ted's Wild Words" in the right-hand column of the home page. Just click on it there, and if there's another word in today's blog that you'd like me to explain, just ask!)</span></i></b></span></span></div><br />
<b>Gringo. </b>Latins’ disparaging term for English-speaking foreigners, especially Americans. <br />
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<b>Mesmerize.</b> To enthrall someone with almost magnetic charm. <br />
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Obliterate.</b> To completely destroy or do away with something. <br />
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Slather. </b>To thickly spread something, such as suntan lotion on your back. <br />
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<b>Vaudeville.</b> A zany form of stage entertainment, popular in the United States from the 1880s to the 1930s. It featured comedians, dancers, magicians — even animal acts. The origin of the name is in doubt. Some say it’s taken from the French voix de ville, or “voice of the city.” Or it may have come from the Vau de Vire valley in France, known for its satirical songs.<br />
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"></span></div>Ted Landphairhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18142247535149425183noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4320170221399917879.post-22658002693945920732010-03-09T09:20:00.000-05:002010-03-09T09:20:04.547-05:00Foreverland<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div>Is a grain of sand just a tiny rock? If so, we’re about to leave red-rock Utah, about which I’ve been writing, for the rockiest state in the Union. Nevada, largely an uninhabited, alkali wasteland pocked with gambling and golf resorts but mostly ramshackle towns built around a few gas stations, taverns, and cafés, is the living definition of wide-open spaces. Motoring through much of it, you can crank up your cruise-control setting, select a satellite-radio station — there are few, if any, local, terrestrial options — and watch the sagebrush and jackrabbits whiz by.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCp3dcOfJr21wdTqnjf2ovt_BozpQkpoCnhCEqIPRqSqqS_upm6eL-zd3HmJiVTClUCB9DCJF6qb8Rv2E3-k-M2R3s6NJnfKm814YHKM4ivcDVrnjduDz78nmXGsS-i4hlz-h96VTnzJg/s1600-h/full-01-nev-from-air--jscat.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOscm0X3ItAkAuvkld03mqf6_ZvCXabOThp9N2S_Ba0NIoW7NhZlFhILfCzfUbFhidKg_e-mwEyM1sd5Y5QnaUH02kpa6R_jtepbrqWOXHynJgIwS4JqQgT-CwP-nRYqWlEozf4euNOC4/s320/web-ready-01-nev-from-air--.jpg" /></a></div>Nevada is that place you see out your airplane window on a crystal-clear day, when nothing but empty washes and bluffs appear for minutes on end, and there’s not a road or building in sight. <br />
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It is monotony in Technicolor. The sand is often a dull gray, interrupted by prehistoric dry lakebeds blistered by sun and sulfur, borax, and iron residue. Streaks of red and orange and brilliant yellow are burned into the hillsides like a vivid illustration of the Periodic Table of Elements. One state park in these badlands is called the “Valley of Fire.”<br />
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If I haven’t yet convinced you that this is the most desolate place in America, just ask the American Automobile Association travel club. It calls a 462-kilometer (287-mile) stretch of U.S. Route 50 through Nevada “the loneliest road in America.” Gasoline and a soft drink at seven tiny stations along the way are its only manmade pleasures.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrAi-J9GEG0Zw3LWXN_mNp6gZl2iakoio5yocK7jmLr2oUKDAxduTXTR-_7WeExlKckLfRBc1dZg4g7JlVzki4MwNtvIx_FWMt6e4pMBs-OUZQX5J2mF8ahCZRLG4vjZJmJT1tdpkuMRg/s1600-h/full-02-remote--cmh.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7f8YUEyLipjp340EdZPOYCPW8Zc4Pc1lQjgZz7gIeS2Y1LpyesL1KvHJ5qmQCxth-Kd8R4HzREzJzbTQ5pmGzAT858eCNgWCPRgH5CLvMbq9OWU2gOnBTOsiPZUl9NT3xRKeiwkf0clA/s320/web-ready-02-remote--cmh.jpg" /></a></div>It’s lonely in the Nevada desert, all right — and hot. So sizzling, they say, that even the lizards stop to rub their feet. It was here, as I mentioned a couple of postings ago, that the United States felt comfortable testing atomic bombs. Back in the barren hills are old, boarded-up mines and ghost towns — real, empty, decayed ones, not make-believe places built for tourists. They’re remnants of the days when some of the same men who rushed to California in the 1840s and ’50s to search for gold scrambled into Nevada as well, <a href="http://geology.about.com/od/geology_nv/a/nevadasilver.htm"><b>looking for silver</b></a>.<br />
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They found plenty close to Reno and Virginia City, near Lake Tahoe in what became the “Silver State.” <br />
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At any place that passes for civilization in Nevada, down to the most meager truck stop, you can turn a card, roll dice, or, for sure, pull a slot-machine lever and take your (not very good) chances at hitting a jackpot. Even in the little border town of Mesquite, next to pious Utah, casinos of varying prosperity light up the desert night. Like most towns in Utah, Mesquite is an old Mormon farming settlement. But it doesn’t hesitate to remind passersby that this will be the “last chance” to gamble for hundreds of kilometers. The local Mormon church calls gaming — the industry’s word meant to soften the tarnish of wicked gambling — “socially questionable.” But it tolerates it because gambling is legal throughout Nevada, and because it brings in enough money for the town to afford good police and fire service and a larger-than-average-sized hospital.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbl0LDEKsoAAfVZFROvADYu1CSJLteRFqTx0zXbZB15rFU4eb06trkoUamvgPzfS7h7vd4mFWbBw_h569bq1rq1vx194hgrmcUip-KczLQ284vItBSXbshv3DIBQKDrqb3aSyD8HzYlOM/s1600-h/full-03-mesquite-be-OH-be.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieaEQus17a-RFqNJYgAMrwAw08jUMZwA2kgZBOk70F0WADtYkTTbHPA5FJQS8TnHSyPu9Ot28-lSyMBT-u_2rLRwPt4XjQr-AxNPfsiHq9OtxIYjagsM6f8iUivhslp-VZKv2AeaMlFTY/s320/web-ready-03-mesquite-be-OH.jpg" /></a></div>You won’t find “high roller” gamblers in Mesquite. It’s more of a tour-bus town, where older folks on their way to Disneyland in California or the Grand Canyon in Arizona can stretch their legs, buy a bucket of quarters to lose at slots, and walk into a big tent for a cool drink and a game or two of bingo. That’s a low-stakes game in which you hope the numbers on your card will match those called out by a dealer. If all of your numbers hit during a round, BINGO! — you’ve won.<br />
<br />
Back in November 2008, I devoted an entire blog to Las Vegas —Nevada’s world-famous “Sin City.” Like many others, I called it “Lost Wages.” You’ll find that posting in the archive to the right. Here’s a teaser from it to demonstrate that Las Vegas bears no resemblance to Mesquite: “Like Circe, the alluring witch of ancient mythology, the shimmering gambling palaces of Las Vegas can show you a good time and then turn you into a pig, or in this case, a pauper. You can see the city’s lights 40 kilometers away, beckoning, in the arid Nevada desert. Indeed, you can see the lights of Las Vegas from space.”<br />
<br />
I could be a wise guy and admit that you can see the<i><span style="color: black;"> light</span></i> of Mesquite from space as well.<br />
<br />
<b>Looks Like a Million</b><br />
<br />
Speaking of out-of-the-way places, let me tell you about Pioche, a town of 900 people that sits off by itself, “hanging on the side of a mountain in Nevada’s high desert,” as its own chamber of commerce puts it, two parched hours from Las Vegas. By rights, the place should be pronounced like the French pastry, the brioche. But Piochians call it “pee-OACH,” like “coach, There are a couple of bars there, a little café where locals come for breakfast, and some motels.<br />
<br />
At one of them, the 1940s kind with a few units squeezed in a row, guests are greeted by a note from the proprietor. “The key is under the mat,” it reads. “Leave the money in the Bible” — the traveler’s <a href="http://www.essortment.com/all/gideonbible_rcwz.htm"><b>Gideon Bible</b></a> that one finds in the drawers of bedside stands across the country.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-0XktQZRo5ovwsHiZPZ6YM3u4czD7uZcnawoV2D1U8s197ubhOzC37ayk_rnsXlFJmNgOHmcKrq-iwVnFMQYbGf9HJNxdxnjqtJ9XIS0e4ZNbb4HVt4E7TZv6QxL9UXpL6Sk8aEdKpYM/s1600-h/full-04-mining-remnant--pio.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjx7r78Xsjm6UVVv99dEitX8AWxXxcAH43xgVqsHXMM5pxem1yGaky5PMpcGb_HGqpYiraCZUZubVmc4tS0poQTWdK3NoemgfXr4MZlPZyrq4O08Zny5yGQXFc7p-WdrxXp8n8zakynto4/s320/web-reasdy04-mining-remnant.jpg" /></a></div>You’ll find working lead and zinc mines in the bone-dry hills outside Pioche. And because of the nearby minerals, 10,000 people briefly lived in this place! That was 130 years ago, after prospectors had struck silver up in those hills, and aerial tramways carried silver-flecked rocks from the lode down to a mill in town. Quite an overnight boomtown it was, with saloons, stores and brothels — even an opera house. Big money flowed like bad whiskey, and Pioche was made the seat of a gigantic county that spread beyond Las Vegas.<br />
<br />
Folks in town figured they’d better get themselves a courthouse and a jail — fast. So they put up a two-story brick-and-rubble building with an even tinier pokey for the town’s lawbreakers out back. It did dwarf the crude homes and tents and miners’ shacks that surrounded it, and Piochians were proud of it.<br />
<br />
A million dollars’ proud. Little Pioche could not really afford the $80,000 it took to build the courthouse. But it would become, in local legend, the “Million-Dollar Courthouse” nonetheless.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjR0hLEMZ2s1V57LaeVlvCCPD6YJkiH3-iLRai4DYCgHc3cR2PBn88W6bYqK-tVdbCys1GySETEJ_NN3atdPWU7CKQcjGmwwgN0Km3kzSLTpWk4Iwf7IY0F4BYHwUXRltaqHC9Q-uD2__Q/s1600-h/full-05-courthouse-Pioche-C.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyfPhvMobaXGyoOQ8aKj2kDjtvVD3vcgQJTgvV2X5SX1GXwd0jr-MsWxJrncjwaB9AQeNLI1O2QYfQDuOtjbEgFOVoKQEbqy1bdeRURxpy8v2iD7Qlb74mbNysdZwZFs9mY3XozkSNUWI/s320/web-ready05-courthouse-Pioc.jpg" /></a></div>Here’s how: Just as the town took out a loan to build the courthouse in 1871, the silver mines played out. Most of the people left, and suddenly Pioche was a little tumbleweed town again, stuck with its showplace and a huge debt. Interest on the loan mounted at the bank, and over the years the county commissioners kept trying and trying to pay it off. But it was not until 1938, almost seven decades after the courthouse opened, that the last payment was made.<br />
<br />
By that time, someone calculated, Lincoln County had spent $800,000 on the building. If you’re a storyteller, that’s close enough to pump that figure up to a full million! In the 1990s, public-spirited citizens fixed up the Million-Dollar Courthouse — even put in some life-sized models of an old-time sheriff, judge, jury, and outlaw defendant in the courtroom upstairs, just in case a tourist came along.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwGcyOxx0gqVGcPD1gGZrWkGCH8yGDcyUxpYyL83sw0WJBQJTTyHcPEigQp0CS90oVz_NACkQY07xb6lLf4pzwSJHxVgyiE61xb8EnVCJ67aftAIvoKcox6AnZ9q8OGNIn4mW60gPefEI/s1600-h/full-06-jailer--cmh.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigeAzqy58rMArsNjCEnF84zPsl5De83twj9BHQbIfFtJD2XOJ40M4odQAVrTSWGSFelxZsFb6jxnCKj_epQtFXCNIWvmcfct6JS9NgJLfHHoHLJ_lLVk-gHFoaJZ7U_I3u_2_G2AWZKa8/s320/web-ready06-jailer--cmh.jpg" /></a></div>Sometimes you see visitors who had heard about the fabulous courthouse in this obscure part of the state and pulled off the highway for a look. They stare at the building and then at each other, maybe scratching their heads. <br />
<br />
You can almost hear them saying, “A million bucks for THIS?” <br />
<br />
<b>Boomtown Redux</b><br />
<br />
I have one more boom — and sort of bust — town to tell you about. A modern one.<br />
<br />
It’s Henderson, Nevada, which earlier this decade was nothing less than America’s fastest-growing mid-size city — a place people called “Boomburg, U.S.A.”<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitQuOxl4tpy2_um8c0pd2sht5tSKvKy-Ri42sSRiLBsshq_7kUPWg72fILcm_RxMXtvD0zjZYaufuGZJiiLVYgauepGIrkhjccWxWEPRJT244B3Q57UNZARJgmsWGu2zGwkfk7m-_06rc/s1600-h/full-07-hoover-dam.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinyjJXpjbed1imep1-GDcCLklvInDkEFZb8IWOV8kms0hV1bi0wzPzR633Kj8KXJAzKJaS0blCqlD02eNxnMckVDia1978rCWkCVLWuvKQxpL45c38gVEzwt_AUcoB-XC_Y-aBKR8BOMI/s320/web-ready07-hoover-dam.jpg" /></a></div>Until the massive<a href="http://www.arizona-leisure.com/hoover-dam.html"><b> Hoover Dam</b></a> was built in the 1930s, only scrub desert and cattle ranches could be found between the damsite and Las Vegas’s casinos. Then rowdy bars and houses of prostitution sprang up. They served Hoover Dam’s workers, whose housing project near the dam permitted neither gambling nor the sale of alcohol. The federal government built the first housing in what became Henderson in 1942 after magnesium and titanium deposits were discovered in the surrounding chocolate-colored mountains. Government contractors used the minerals to make fighter jets during World War II.<br />
<br />
Henderson, named for a U.S. senator who never set foot in town, was meant to be a temporary settlement that would be torn down during after the war. It consisted of compact, one-story homes whose flat roofs, it was hoped in the hysteria after the Japanese attack on the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, would blend in with the surrounding desert should Japanese pilots make it to the mainland. The streets even zig-zagged so the enemy could not use them to draw a bead on the airplane plants.<br />
<br />
But the little houses did not disappear. People kept them and added onto them. As late as 1980, Henderson was still a grimy mining and manufacturing town that some people called “the armpit of the Valley” in which the annual city celebration was called “Industrial Days.”<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcsfyPDGrWrHkz4lISeSVOinLKaErb8BNyW_gy_LYCBWYXCTAqIpQvmsLPQGHg8xiOIYx9DiPN0F0HyfjjIQ3lPZ-WPktk4LeUj4OhSQs11diWBC0rAhOgXd-o6270CQdIozXxB2E6q54/s1600-h/full-08-henderson-Spitwater.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqn9ERZDWuC51xn0BuF-kHx5InMu2KNtCjwPrEh8oEX4uxTpx5ofHqS3hoxQzc9JVvjLw94zZd43rlJK_ZVAEVXM1N3u94gz_c3uEEPOdOs3psaMXNv1ju4yitrhVv2_hJoXIpro3BDKg/s320/web-ready08-henderson-Spitw.jpg" /></a></div>By 1990, though, Henderson was beginning to evolve as a Las Vegas bedroom suburb, and 65,000 people lived there. But there was still only one main road — through its shabbiest neighborhood — carrying people to Hoover Dam. <br />
<br />
Then came the boom. Over the next 11 years, Henderson’s population more than tripled to 225,000, overtaking Reno as Nevada’s second-largest city.<br />
<br />
It began with a debt owned by<a href="http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKhughesH.htm"><b> Howard Hughes</b></a>, the reclusive Hollywood producer and aviation pioneer. He owned all of what is called Green Valley, which includes most of Henderson. Hughes was feuding with a Las Vegas newspaper publisher who ran disparaging stories about him.<br />
<br />
Hughes pulled all of his advertising, the publisher sued him, and the newspaperman won. As Wayne Bernath, a publicist for several Las Vegas showbiz stars, told me, “Hughes said, ‘OK, I’m going to pay you in this barren land that’s not worth anything.’”<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXSQ072KEVG_deom7QzDsDPGZD_eYavDl-8wz-dbZ2938svo-epoCP2HG3BujU0Qm3KF1DvKpj946aoiU0n1zqHkOS5az2FgBcZYrjrAc8pGMf-2rKC5Yfe6M9db-A3iAjh2J5v7BVid0/s1600-h/full-09-howard-hughes-loc.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOEratfZFMxROFE2FM-xSbttUzeXCjOi_EULhMxOdkOLgk5xZHwk3xZevTMMqyILpNGPo6zM3nzXwY_oSg5gQj2HjQUbAAIFmN5Gi8Z8TEPGsw9mcK_iyf8eo7NiMn8ADCLPieY0n3Xlo/s320/web-ready09-howard-hughes-l.jpg" /></a><br />
The new owner turned the land “not worth anything” into one of the most upscale golf- and swimming-pool neighborhoods in the world. And real-estate speculators soon threw up modest places nearby. “You can drive by an empty lot, and a week later go back and there’ll be an open store there,” Bernath said in 1991.<br />
<br />
Lots on Henderson’s hillsides, with their nighttime views of the lights of Las Vegas — just the land, with no houses — sold for a million dollars or more.<br />
<br />
Money magazine called Henderson the nation’s top retirement destination. Subdivisions sprouted so fast that the fire chief told me his crews had a hard time finding some of the places that were ablaze.<br />
<br />
Green Valley became “Old Green Valley” — old, as in 20 years ago. The “armpit of the Valley” had become its jewel.<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUihlqtB_Sxm8N0bTuvLSqeadCXe9C9_HTqjsqc8zrGjKSZcgyISu7qoPkDyFj2k2MAK5_2nJykn9zagGZRGlnxNLmMeZALQafwGkgvsr8J0mQgwrcjDufVjabJzQ3Z_Jg2q0_gKj1iZk/s1600-h/full-10-henderson-view-Clat.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjndWJ_vCmnk77YohOdKT7duM-j_Ysiw7PglcLwa3L4vknTIlCjdNbKSicn3DPiAeHaM9RJe3Wf-dtH_V1h9X71CrCl6dNPjC5_Yqs7NujcYICOtgiNin-GSRQnNVSdyIc2l3hfOpbAr7s/s1600-h/web-ready10-henderson-view-.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjndWJ_vCmnk77YohOdKT7duM-j_Ysiw7PglcLwa3L4vknTIlCjdNbKSicn3DPiAeHaM9RJe3Wf-dtH_V1h9X71CrCl6dNPjC5_Yqs7NujcYICOtgiNin-GSRQnNVSdyIc2l3hfOpbAr7s/s320/web-ready10-henderson-view-.jpg" /></a><br />
There is a not-so glittering postscript, however. Search the Internet for “Henderson foreclosures,” and you’ll get page after page of listings of homes, bought by the financially overextended, that now sit empty — some of them next to five or ten other foreclosed houses on a subdivision street. Some, like a 28-room mansion with four fireplaces, three balconies, two wet bars, several chandeliers, a pool, and a spa, are advertised as “luxury foreclosures.”<br />
<br />
Henderson, where a lot of Las Vegas executives and mid-level casino workers live, is doing far better than more modest communities farther north in the valley, though. The area, where unemployment ranks second-highest in the nation at 13 percent, isn’t a ghost town by any means. <br />
<br />
But Henderson is not Boomburg, U.S.A. any more.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><b>WILD WORDS</b><br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><b><i><span style="color: #666666;">(These are a few of the words from this posting that you may not know. Each time, I'll tell you a little about them and also place them into a cumulative archive of "Ted's Wild Words" in the right-hand column of the home page. Just click on it there, and if there's another word in today's blog that you'd like me to explain, just ask!)</span></i></b></span></span><b> </b></div></div><br />
<b>Alkali.</b> A harsh mixture of soluble salts, often found in arid regions, that makes land unsuitable for agriculture.<br />
<br />
<b>Borax.</b> A crystalline chemical containing the element boron, often extracted for use in soaps and other cleaning agents. <br />
<br />
<b>Lode. </b>A deposit of valuable ore confined to a particular location from which the mineral can be extracted.<br />
<br />
<b>Pokey.</b> Slang for a prison or, more often, a jail where one is confined only for a short time. It was first used in the 1840s as an adjective, spelled “poky,” to describe confined accommodations. Sounds like a jail, all right. <br />
<br />
<b>Ramshackle</b>. Poorly constructed or maintained. A ramshackle structure is literally falling apart. Believe it or not, the word comes from the Icelandic, meaning “badly twisted.” <br />
<br />
<b>Tumbleweed.</b> A plant, often the Russian thistle, that dries each fall, becomes light and brittle, and breaks away from its roots, only to be rolled and bounced by the wind.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div>Ted Landphairhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18142247535149425183noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4320170221399917879.post-38108109962697841322010-03-05T07:12:00.002-05:002010-03-05T09:22:10.531-05:00Land of the Utes — and MormonsWriting, as I did last posting, about Utah — an American state named after the <a href="http://www.onlineutah.com/utehistorynorthern.shtml"><b>Ute Indians</b></a>, the “People of the Mountains” who once controlled that territory west of the main spine of the Rockies —brings back a vivid memory.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFtwrM3NiOw4_kOybZFc_nO5n0DaUqkEONCGM-JpB6-vilHlVl6-BPfDlL0Vmx3St3enAs_KoohK94MoBoSkUBGLmb_wmwj5Ru8pbgrYCPkjojFjFm6osjqL4Gy8bIsJcvvNCm-f_oo2c/s1600-h/full-01+grand+canyon.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJ4ZBGV93IVtZcuCdlg9wg75hzLgRfueGBhKOSZGN9QWyPAxSJRrxwwfb3hI3WKTalwLKn8yanfZVexTYFBDnJeLozg6P1WMckDaVEAr9R6G4ePVUemY0h7xiy45FFcAOZOCjW4qBve-c/s320/web_ready-01-grand-canyon.jpg" /></a></div>Carol and I were interviewing and photographing at the Grand Canyon in Arizona, the state just below Utah. We knew that our next day’s schedule would put us in Ephraim, smack in the middle of Utah. In that town of 4,500, pronounced “EE-frum,” we had reservations at a bed-and-breakfast inn whose identity I will disguise slightly. <br />
<br />
Let’s call it the Antebellum Inn.<br />
<br />
As things sometimes go in beautiful places that are hard to leave, we lingered far into the afternoon at the magnificent canyon. By most reckonings, Ephraim was a seven-hour drive away — a “fur piece,” as we liked to say, after a long day’s work. We knew we’d be pulling in late in the best of cases, so I called the B&B’s proprietor and told her not to wait up. She should leave the key and directions to our room under the doormat or a flower pot. We’d tiptoe in, “hit the hay” — another of our unoriginal sayings — and meet our hostess in the morning.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div>The sun set not long after we pulled out, and we soon realized something that should have been evident: there is no direct route from the south rim of the great canyon up into Utah, unless you can get your car to fly. You must skirt the Grand Canyon by driving east quite a while, then north into Utah, then west and north again. By this time, the roads were narrow and, by the time we reached them, darker than dark. If there was much of a moon, towering evergreens blotted it out. <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjk1IMD9UhGIALv7NsfCHyPm5Vbk82SucE4SzkzNpFPB-CImWKQ5mZPsKp4See_HCKsYVACcBMrtRqaUnMOdrT7deeqh7itxFRzQNyuZYf5Mxt7qLFEgAEYiuibiD5uHQ5IKk0n-Cy0eFs/s1600-h/full-02-deer-eyes--Scooter-.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUuKbQM7iNzTGkaXli7ok4Y4HIvAJFgXOiKy9iw11HDx2afFUMKVsCABMwFsW9Vmszl2gvjRcyD2dKQ9ksoBs2gipgfiNh0nPE5NFzkCppPK0QmN9qpyxkd2L5zvJFLODuDF4L0-l85fY/s320/web-ready-02-deer-eyes--Sco.jpg" /></a></div>Worse, every deer west of Colorado peered out of those trees — their eyes glowing like red-hot coals in our headlights. Enervated but suddenly on adrenaline deer alert, our eyes the size of egg yolks, we crept onward at half the posted speed limit, certain that an amorous buck would come bounding out of the brush and into our grille. Aside from that gruesome collision, we could think only of what seemed like a mirage: the large, cozy bed with fluffy pillows and soothing comforter that beckoned at the end of the ordeal.<br />
<br />
It was 3:32 a.m. when we pulled into the little inn’s driveway, drained but delighted that the embrace of Morpheus would soon be at hand.<br />
<br />
We trod lightly up to the door and began pawing around, below, and behind every object and crevice, searching for our room key. Finding none and resigned to waking the poor innkeeper, I reached forward to knock quietly.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBa12PhGDcz3BZ5pBUDs62JSCCmc8VcN_fh5fVAmEkTypt_8z_wsfs1GrI0VVRi_IRaKY6i6mKr4ylYaimexIDFltSvtxDN6P_O_-7ItanjB5EqI4_EHUDKPgRs4N8srClJyYXpUyT-2E/s1600-h/full-03-belles--loc.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitLMfy5naL5UdYK-gBrWY37h7QaYlNe7KDkppYoK79hUQi__6aho_JCxYlobFSdh06JQbZt7HsLyE2-AYUl1LxyjaDzD4hJRgKaGKbS39-WbrKIZHdNkim10OUyqn3abPP_T8CgrBhQcM/s320/web-ready-03-belles--loc.jpg" /></a></div>Literally before my hand reached the door, it flew open! “Welcome to the Antebellum Inn,” a belle in full costume — petticoats, bustle and all, right out of a Gone With the Wind casting call — announced in a dripping, faux- southern accent. I could swear she curtsied slightly and fanned herself as well.<br />
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She insisted upon helping us with our considerable luggage, and — despite our cordial protestations that we had not meant to delay her bedtime — began a room-by-room guided tour, down to the smallest knickknack. So much for the fluffy-pillow mirage! <br />
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It was, I remind you, now 3:45 in the morning and would be 4:27 before she turned us loose. I know, because I was sneaking looks at my watch the whole time.<br />
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This was a Mormon woman — a factoid that’s irrelevant to that story but not to the next one.<br />
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When, over breakfast the next morning, I told her that we were history buffs, eager to learn about little Ephraim, she professed to know little about her hometown beyond what was in a tourist brochure. She then hauled out five or six fat scrapbooks, filled with clippings, letters, and photographs. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2RWX7PK7dRfIoZLVtRW5p5q1s-UaToDkxvbO6X5d85f9Cw0_7KEZpjznmCg86qsES9niCbEWop5aJSE9F2rjwwdAXK8CdfZXJb3WxbLbt8w5pVdU-yyeXnHk8x0Vj8pbF1LVCTIm1f84/s1600-h/full-04-migration-from-nauv.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwpmB7Po-6QPMxHycZKMcM_CSULCUKNTzYeSv7bc363sMQCoN-AQYTNaYy586HZKv6u_EdcCaSCvM3k1Nr__WpKNsY06icIjVdfJwlhRkKjiF1JYGAUEqrxsSgeTf9SQugwsC4GTodLHU/s320/web-ready-04-migration-from.jpg" /></a></div>They told plenty of history — of her own family: who married whom, who begot whom, and who had crossed the country with whom in the <a href="http://www.nps.gov/mopi/historyculture/index.htm"><b>Mormons’ 19th-century migration west</b></a>. They had fled persecution and come to the valley of Utah’s Great Salt Lake, where their leader, Brigham Young, would proclaim, “This is the place.”<br />
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Mormons’ interest in genealogy should not have surprised me. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints — the proper name of the Mormon church — has carefully accumulated billions of family records on paper and online. And not just of LDS Church members.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8rF8a_TGIlUxjwPSGn9Hdyc2sYEG1PkmUy4dRDSefWRxbOliv7zooIev5no6hy12tG7-xHArSP86l3FFLdz0eFAwcw5aubP5oAKVmuQ2aish5FxKiqMulc2ir0SZEzm9YuhlO6ccRA2k/s1600-h/full-05-family-tree--loc.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbkz4bPzTnv3DKky34LLS_4WaCXg1AfrWly7wm3VZQwiqR0bDL71Bfif3LwnfOsBa841m-8HVrHLOi3HNExzgvkkX6m48qHdBnpnbhX-RZkfOIwL9pnRY3RBelKbYGjDSYczVCjjIx1NM/s320/web-ready-05-family-tree--l.jpg" /></a></div>I recently told our VOA audience about hard-to-find traces of African-American slave family records, first gathered by the national<a href="http://www.archives.gov/research/african-americans/freedmans-bank.html"> <b>Freedman’s Bank</b></a> after the U.S. Civil War. Utah prison workers under Mormon direction had meticulously transcribed these records onto microfilm, then, more recently, indexed and transferred them to a single compact disc. <br />
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I am completely unqualified to explain the many unusual tenets and customs of the LDS Church, though I would heartily encourage you to study the complex Christian sect that, even to other Christians, seems full of eccentricities. <br />
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Mormon children are taught that “families are forever.” As LDS Church President Gordon Hinkley pronounced in 1995, “The divine plan of happiness enables family relationships to be perpetuated beyond the grave. Sacred ordinances and covenants available in holy temples make it possible for individuals to return to the presence of God and for families to be united eternally.”<br />
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Even distant relationships of living family members are held in the utmost regard, and Mormons are taught to learn all they can about earlier generations whom, in the afterlife, they will one day encounter. <br />
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<b>Diversity Rising</b><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizPjnfh7SzdFLk86Jai8x2ndM9Npl7fNuESbeprNz-O2jtyzHljKn8zl57UsOfo-_zbLRewyDS5HhsKmKD9lRx-N4w-kgF92Enrfb8iffvisQQRHN8wX66x2FdLqdtfHj3Z32bCelwuVc/s1600-h/full-06-mormon-temple-slc.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6gtyYXE2K5XUOV3wr5mM1l7bGKxb9GvgY9mA2wZmBx6Zo1VU_ucmafTTP95TmoNo0zV53167-VidAh9mAgGJimUvvKuqZEsJpRsKYwFsRntwbY5OKczzYTR_uCazfH1I3IFXdU7drztU/s320/web-ready-06-mormon-temple-.jpg" /></a></div>By the way, if you are curious, the percentage of LDS Church members in Utah — once almost entirely Mormon after the Indians were driven out — has been steadily declining. It’s now about 60 percent. But Mormon influence is still strong. You don’t see many — I don’t recall any —billboards for beer or cigarettes, and non-alcoholic clubs are common and popular. <br />
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<b>Co-operation</b><br />
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The rest of our stay in Ephraim was no less interesting. It centered on a single small building: the Zion’s Cooperative Mercantile Institution, or ZCMI.<br />
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The idea of cooperatives, or “co-ops,” is as old as America. It used to be a sort of group barter system. Say you carved furniture, and I grew wheat. We both would take our products to a central collection point, where other people’s goods of all kinds were also stored and displayed. Then we helped ourselves to what we needed. If I were running low on cloth to make dresses, I took some home from the co-op. If you needed firewood, it was yours for the taking.<br />
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Others, in turn, were free to haul home your furniture and my wheat.<br />
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The co-op idea was strong among early Mormons, who colonized not only Utah but also parts of adjacent, rugged western states. They considered the merchants who sold goods in towns and mining camps to be profiteers and tried to avoid doing business with them. So, beginning in 1869, they set up a system of retail cooperatives that soon spread throughout Mormon settlements as far north as Canada.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div>To these Zion’s — or Heaven’s — Cooperatives they added a twist: They stipulated that those who could not provide their fair share of goods could work off the difference in various jobs around town.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj73vNRZRI7uYmCq4Oo1wAF9WbaxEQ1qzeVpOdOdnZT_oxVDEtJqmrMbvNrVXtrZNIqTkx7EXm6YT2Y-DsHhUZxbP1mXAQdzd4Kbt2_Ow8g6knxZrRf150_K2sJzmLEEbGfi4sw0kKHFWM/s1600-h/web-ready-07-coop.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj73vNRZRI7uYmCq4Oo1wAF9WbaxEQ1qzeVpOdOdnZT_oxVDEtJqmrMbvNrVXtrZNIqTkx7EXm6YT2Y-DsHhUZxbP1mXAQdzd4Kbt2_Ow8g6knxZrRf150_K2sJzmLEEbGfi4sw0kKHFWM/s320/web-ready-07-coop.jpg" /></a></div>One of the hundreds of Mormon ZCMIs was set up in a modest, two-story limestone building in the little alfalfa, hay, and sheep-raising town of Ephraim in Utah’s beautiful<b> <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanpete_County,_Utah">Sanpete Valley</a></b>. Above the doorway was a semi-circular sign, reading, “Holiness to the Lord,” and containing a large drawing of a beehive. You see this symbol on buildings all over Utah. It stands for hard work. Indeed, Utah’s nickname is “the Beehive State.” The hive appears on the state flag and seal as well, and the honeybee is the state insect. These people are busy as bees!<br />
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The ZCMIs did not last long. The railroad brought in goods from California and the East that even the pious Mormons could not resist: beautiful cloth, exotic foodstuffs, decorations that made the hard frontier life a little brighter. The co-ops lost customers, and — human nature being what it is — those who stuck it out took more from the ZCMI than they put in.<br />
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By the turn of the 20th Century, Ephraim’s co-op building had become a school. Later it was an auto-repair shop, then a roller mill where grain is crushed. It was packed into the old building until it bulged and cracked, and when the mill operation shut down in the 1950s, no one else wanted the place. The old co-op sat empty for more than 30 years, but people who loved the building kept up the mortgage payments, and no one had the heart to tear the ZCMI down.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisP_fdS-4isnsd2niNkhKodVrsiJVEv7W2NrljI6v-uxSlqYma-KAxaIUN2-cLhDDVnkHTJTyNY-DuNMwXlx8VgWBRF2kd_aijnFDkkOnWU09rjzcrhLkNaZOWGnV_E87qpfAqwgV-Dbc/s1600-h/full-08-beehive--Cassi-G.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEif0c3xWF2VOqN3eOchz4ufA5Oz_u2yFBz4IpwwS0jQnoAFHp7nYK-nzXcjhgbH9LQPwVZW7E7rm_7RA2y7AnrY6CZHjALkfnWw3_laBCBFrEeRkxmzwtD1CpnsdDvEEE5FDFIO2w_slLk/s320/web-ready-08-beehive--Cassi.jpg" /></a></div>Finally, in 1989, a city council member who had some experience raising public funds got a grant to pay for a complete overhaul. Three years and more than $650,000 later, little Ephraim had its historic structure back — as a crafts store — complete with the beehive sign over the door.<br />
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There’s a big difference from the old days, though. The folks in the store don’t want your wheat or furniture, and you have to pay for the stuff you buy.<br />
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<b>Heavy Lifting</b><br />
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One other quick Utah story, also involving a building:<br />
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Some densely populated areas that have endured strong earthquakes have come up with ingenious ways to reinforce buildings — “earthquake-proof” them, up to a point.<br />
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To be clear, only relatively affluent places have been able to do this. Haitian cities, and towns in the Chilean hills that sustained catastrophic damage in recent quakes, had no money for earthquake stabilization.<br />
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But engineers have learned how to dig cavities all around the basements of tall buildings, erect webs of reinforcing steel beams inside the holes, then fill them with concrete that connects the steel to the building’s masonry. <br />
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They’ve done this in Salt lake City, Utah’s sprawling capital. To some people’s surprise, it lies close to a fault line in the earth’s crust and has felt plenty of tremors. University of Utah geophysicist James Pechmann puts the odds that Salt Lake City will suffer a devastating quake at 1-in-3 over the next 50 years.<br />
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Obviously it’s easier to strengthen structures while they’re being erected than years after they’re built. But in Salt Lake City, I found an astonishing example of earthquake-proofing that goes far beyond digging trenches and filling them with concrete.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioEHdH8gys523Zp2dPdg8OAZ5G5PS_7iPmxMHsW5DVU9JODIRYksTw1pQjZUpHnNvS-dHnXcHfjlpAMubUZt6-RgC-nZB24ivEd3jHvm_wwL_DtqAFeXzQ89It-zmwqnZQXj_f-j8U3WM/s1600-h/full-08-City-Bldg..jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSpmVzMOo0XpSs_2Z3qcM_J5Kz5Y5w8MNgPR_1tEie7opQfak2Hs1aqTuJzAzvg8sNqGL0DEd8Nwhu0cEFynU2ZrlnCLlF97An2tinkNgtXvigH9Yvl1lWVgCnABoVdKHeGGA2clIkZNw/s320/web-ready-09-City-Bldg..jpg" /></a></div>The project involved the ornate <b><a href="http://www.slcgov.com/info/ccbuilding/default.htm">City & County Building</a></b> — the seat of local government since 1894. With its clock tower and statues, this massive, gray-sandstone beauty looks like it belongs in London or Cologne. All big buildings are heavy, of course, but this one appears positively ponderous. I’ve seen good-size houses lifted off their foundations and moved down a street, but I cannot imagine raising this monster so much as a centimeter.<br />
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But that’s exactly what seismic engineers did over a period of years in the 1980s. They completely lifted the City & County Building so that a system of steel and rubber springs and girders — something akin to shock absorbers — could be fitted underneath. This was all part of what’s called “base isolation” that separates the above-ground structure from a substructure that shakes like mad in an earthquake. The idea is that the building will sway but not tumble.<br />
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Of course if the BIG ONE hits, well . . . .<br />
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<div style="text-align: center;"><b>WILD WORDS</b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><b><i><span style="color: #666666;">(These are a few of the words from this posting that you may not know. Each time, I'll tell you a little about them and also place them into a cumulative archive of "Ted's Wild Words" in the right-hand column of the home page. Just click on it there, and if there's another word in today's blog that you'd like me to explain, just ask!)</span></i></b></span></span></div><br />
<b>Antebellum. </b> Before a war, particularly the period before the U.S. Civil War of the 1860s. <br />
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<b>Beget.</b> To produce children. Biblical references such as “Abraham begot Isaac” are examples.<br />
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<b>Bustle.</b> As a verb, this word is familiar; it refers to moving quickly, really hustling. The noun form is more obscure. A bustle is a frame, or sometimes a pillow, worn underneath the backside of a woman’s fancy dress. It supports the heavy, drapery-like material and keeps it from dragging on the ground. You’ll see such gowns in Victorian or Civil War movies.<br />
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<b>Embrace of Morpheus.</b> Sleep. Morpheus was the Greek god of sleep, and those longing for some shuteye are said to be seeking his embrace.<br />
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<b>Enervated.</b> Depleted. Exhausted. Soil that has been planted with the same crops year after year, for instance, is often said to be enervated.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div>Ted Landphairhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18142247535149425183noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4320170221399917879.post-22773282544998529162010-03-01T09:06:00.001-05:002010-03-02T07:28:39.552-05:00Color Country<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHvUwK28Jf0eXwnifIVrHVdGCpyzq2G1Y4H9EwCugILIZVyLuQIVMzrVYDzIXw13XNKCOx9rXmZ9uqkG7sa3oINvmQHJZR7bQve7XC3xw8jZgnUS94yk9BEdoiKJO7FRg4BqTbjOoLTuU/s1600-h/full-01-wasatch--jurvetson.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2jp1PziRfhJLODry5YTLiwSofGJ08kii7Z6LstY-ulGCX3mE10nOSK58frIYrrK1KVntE7AyWeCgdI_VYeKY920wRfFH5KZWrJABdhFPCp0aeWtqQBVZeQKyjZMLHzcdi-5W6SGfHtS4/s320/web-ready-01-wasatch--jurve.jpg" /></a><br />
The Rocky Mountain states that I’ve been describing in this blog over the past several weeks project a breathtaking majesty when their massive, snow-covered mountains are beheld from the arid flatlands below. But while its Wasatch Range is formidable enough to have hosted the Winter Olympics eight years ago, one of those states displays an even more vivid masterpiece of nature. <br />
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In Utah, towering and jagged rocks jut out of the earth like broken teeth —shimmering red teeth when the sun beats directly upon them. Weathered boulders balance on tiny fulcrums of rock, narrow spires stick like pins out of a clifftop, and stone gargoyles shaped like ships or faces turn orange in certain light — or a slick and sinister yellow when sudden mountain storms pelt them with needles of rain. <br />
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Civilization comes upon you by surprise here. You’ll be winding through a canyon, round a bend, and find yourself in a little town of red-brick stores and red-stone houses, red-dirt yards, and a bright-white Mormon temple. <br />
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Utah’s Colorado Plateau, on which all of this sits, has been rising every year for millions of years — and it will nudge upward again by a few millimeters this year. In the process, rivers like the Green and the Colorado have eaten into the soft sandstone and grown wilder. So has the wind. That’s why jagged spears of stouter rock that resisted erosion appear almost out of nowhere on the horizon. There’s even one place, far from any road, where you can hike down a 600-meter canyon that narrows to just four meters at its base. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIhmnoeLlnys1LPGinT3GAs_T90IJsK_SUIrs_K0PhcI6TK8nHt3-0pDsq4UNSs3Vq2f4wR8jPqImn54A5UHBy5IroCLg369lqi_lulPp37K0iGPjs0CM0iSmEewN8HD7m4pl6vity6cU/s1600-h/full-02-red-meets-gray-chec.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3AeVs9RBdg-gO6J_P2grj8x5RBKTccwd1ZLzmVd0QMOW2HJjhftCuEEVNRo5CjtjMFONsPMqR6Q8o8QFz7u3uEbr7YVYsAWGyGiIpOjXIbUlS82V4IbOzO3gdi41u4C70986d18gqLgA/s320/web-ready-02-red-meets-gray.jpg" /></a></div>The rocks are bright red because, long ago, iron deposits in the sandstone oxidized as they were exposed to air. Ripples of gray limestone, once submerged in prehistoric seas and now interspersed in the sandstone, also weave through the hillsides. Where geological shifts were sudden, you’ll see red rock on one side of the road and gray on the other. <br />
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Hidden among the jaw-dropping formations are little Utah state parks with names that suggest Color Country: Coral Pink Sand Dunes State Park, Kodachrome Basin State Park, Escalante State Park — escalante, the Spanish for climbing, climbing — escalating — through these stark hills. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQHtxEQrBNRQZ0-bP4dfSFds-WF30LnidYPMdZiNZmLUStr8VFVnT0_DM_uayAx-__8IF1wr3ZuhSfgPnjUd9SdQU7-b37q3kXejEOC7eOFwIADiL2w2dXJClBDiDDyd29vFiTORaU7E8/s1600-h/full-03-delicate-arch.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGWtEkcRT5GGz2JVTuneH1jNbigM_UEEytFF0ZqmIVxqYFcMjBI-h1bhytr00_1A83qY3zJwRKCVrbjiu0DiYhDd7eHtgu6TYBKaMmMgJ4meWjItD_oba_mx0I0HPcDX-JltEuGPLVmfw/s320/web-ready-03-delicate-arch.jpg" /></a></div>But most tourists head for Utah’s remarkable concentration of national parks: <a href="http://www.utah.com/nationalparks/">Zion, Bryce Canyon, Capitol Reef, Canyonlands, and Arches National Park</a>, Carol’s and my favorite, where the wind has whistled clear through boulders, creating bows of red rock rising into the sky. <br />
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They are all overtures to the most awesome natural wonder of them all — the enormous Grand Canyon, 200 kilometers to the south in Arizona. <br />
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In Color Country you’ll see human rockclimbers but not much wildlife beyond a lone eagle or a skittering lizard. Way back in the remote <a href="http://www.utah.com/playgrounds/henry_mtns.htm">Henry Mountains</a>, however, the intrepid backpacker can find America’s only free-roaming, huntable buffalo herds. In the blistering heat of summer, hikers had best be wearing wide-brimmed hats and carrying plenty of water, for the shivers of dawn can turn to sweats and delusions under the baking midday sun. Been there. Done that. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvWai-ZN32kMmf3Zrt3oTDIqPKl1V-lPEEGJuKUf0JJTiTv5yIjiGti84a-7N2mCkT2L18J2SBTmU1SPohJNFfydSFo3sAHw00ff8rsQ3T7tX-KyrZyoNIeKZJIM7fqb6zuzvwuJPKJXQ/s1600-h/full-04-hoodoos-bryce-canyo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyCKTLGGnKq1ocBiUVolKAxMnNmdoUyDSfzRY2LovC0SZ6qACye0deuIkzAox98H9fNM5WntDQfFKT8z7AP0QvI63Adv6DeKGhvaYd14XfbUyk_gOLBHbVY_6nE6ZQ8lVzcnM9z3lrxlA/s320/web-ready-04-hoodoos-bryce-.jpg" /></a></div>Skiers flock to Color Country in wintertime, not so much for downhill excitement but to glide along trails cross-country style, past formations such as the “Fiery Furnace,” the “Delicate Arch,” and mysterious clusters of rock spindles called “hoodoos.” <br />
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Then, come late spring, much of Utah turns bake-oven hot and vibrant red once again.<br />
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<b>Little Hollywood </b><br />
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What do these American films have in common: “The Green Grass of Wyoming,” “Fort Yuma,” “Death Valley Days,” and “The Badlanders”? <br />
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“The Green Grass of Wyoming” was not filmed in Wyoming. <br />
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“Fort Yuma” was shot hundreds of kilometers from Yuma, Arizona. <br />
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“Death Valley Days” was recorded nowhere near Death Valley in the California desert. <br />
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“The Badlanders” was produced far from the Badlands of South Dakota. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKo0eFV6_QM5sF2qKSHqa62VX5MHoIr1qI9G1P5YO25C0b0vJyjx88O3Ud0alBVzyz6auwxQPoU6wmOlm7PqMFrDBl1PagUll6wwJxlDpjWbwTQhbX8WIWYkeFqWGmNlxVesZxAz02Mmk/s1600-h/full-05-canyon-view-b&w-loc.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhn_VUmZb3FFv1E3SZOhw_3Qo59T7yiXmaVQZXakA7joK_d3nzRgUdB8vVBheQpfjN4FqG1sVAqylIJ4klGDlOA0C2G3aIc-76nPumhxLfQ83l3PQ71stDpacSrHhxLs6iU2g1YihmG2Nk/s320/web-ready--05-canyon-view-b.jpg" /></a></div>And not one of them was shot in Hollywood. <br />
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All of these “westerns” — and about a hundred more — were filmed in Little Hollywood, in the deserts and canyons near the tiny Utah town of Kanab. So were non-westerns like “The Planet of the Apes.” Many television episodes have been shot among the red rocks, too. <br />
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Why there, more than 1,000 kilometers from the real Hollywood? <br />
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About 80 years ago, three brothers — Gron, Chauncy, and Whit Parry — were running a small bus company offering sightseeing trips past the rocky gorges of what became Zion, Bryce Canyon, and Grand Canyon national parks. This was a time when Hollywood producers were looking for more realism in their movies than plywood sets with phony rocks and painted skies could deliver.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2JA3xZVsfG24se7__5c7eMdy27ge1jk74uoPjrkrQzGmbnvliT0nUpJoEpiNoJifmHgVF_PNwHhjdQ8nK1D6zxH-zpPA1O9_gnzGJAHL4YeufZLi_0-dN30z81ebwTN-xdZHW_70jUVY/s1600-h/full-06-old-paria-movie-set.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFqiXITtc3C6P2SCx45wqtSs6s1vJ6Q5yXDSMPNCZOz6H4E0omCbYsTbxvPzrBFd7gYUw6MXkAOoVU7kOWRLjZOyO7MtOpeCtyws1WxveqMYW2-1UkthoE3J1-Ex0XG5eN_FpuDAp3yWI/s320/web-ready-06-old-paria-movi.jpg" /></a></div>A big-shot producer who happened to take the bus trip fell in love with the incredible vistas. Even though movies were still strictly black and white, he figured Utah’s spectacular cliffs and canyons would be the perfect backdrop for the stagecoach robberies, cavalry charges, and Indian wars that are staples of western movies. In 1924, the first film, “The Deadwood Coach,” starring cowboy hero Tom Mix, was shot near Kanab. <br />
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Whit Parry gathered up photographs of the filming of that movie and drove to Hollywood, where he convinced other producers to bring their casts and crews and props to Kanab as well. <br />
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Back in Utah, his brothers bought an old cabin and turned it into a lodge where actors, directors, and film crews could stay during shoots. The Parrys recruited people in town to feed the cast, build Old West sets, and provide horses and mules for films starring actors like Clark Gable and Henry Fonda. The Parrys also brought in the “extras” — men and women without speaking roles who walked “Main Street,” rode Indian ponies, and drove cattle past the cameras. Gron Parry once boasted that he could supply “an 80-year-old man, a six-month-old baby, a buffalo, or a chipmunk.” <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkRaPLq2Qe96i6KwOk1-4fj_msvmOW9MppFei3RT0LIrfG_Va7yhe-0dEbXf0DjzqzmCZ3gTRR13G9nHOuQcF-SMEKOU3M8N55gk-MP_keCOhpeUyjmupBMseTKZGqBWOSzXhl5tGlRb0/s1600-h/full-07-parry-lodge--mhowry.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhY1riVlfZUqH1V3Gfla_AglC3b5Oofu7A5emfkKkEM5hnEO6AC4Uo-xcyhILXhiLT39oxirWr_JRjvM4ueqhm7kHjgdgNl4F0CGF6YCvDy1rLeUYkk_blZzJ4xgZUPgTFihwtQygv8m0/s320/web-ready-07-parry-lodge--m.jpg" /></a></div>By 1980, the popularity of westerns had dipped — and the cost of shooting in the wilderness grown so high — that producers found cheaper alternatives closer to Hollywood. Though most of the old movie forts and corrals and ranch houses have blown to the four winds, <a href="http://www.kanabguide.com/articleDetails.cfm?recordID=20">Parry Lodge </a>still stands. It’s a guest house, full of photos of the glory years. And occasionally, when somebody’s making a TV commercial or a low-budget film, there’s even a call for an 80-year-old man, or a baby, or a chipmunk. <br />
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<b>Downwinders </b><br />
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The wind blows most of the time in Kanab, and off to the west as well, in the middle-sized city of St. George on the Nevada border. Still farther west and south, too, where — in the 1950s and ’60s at the height of the Cold War — the federal government exploded more than 80 atomic bombs in the atmosphere above the Nevada Proving Site. Authorities were careful to conduct these tests when the winds were blowing northeastward so they’d miss populous Los Angeles and Las Vegas. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjw2Mbwwp3C-_Xf6o29btx4wJlV6eWBO9KWUsqtgr8el9QZEU5ZutiKuNgv3mQpQUE-WGe6Qtf9oKHKqERKEr5U5paWILlKQYdmrVdVqhs3YsGlfDByxlZiYvFrSJq8i4wW-RKpbElLSoE/s1600-h/full-08-nevada-test-site---.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtA_NwC_FrhdpBPsDZIp53eFoqXTtx3bnpBNt176_Y10ii463o0JSdCaEy1wYgdJ3P3hG8QGWMR9pQOCb0_peVJrBBOJZUAcpsq_l90JuDz350-PbSP0TyKkC3hsjhAq1pAjkDnGW_0Vo/s320/web-ready-08-nevada-test-si.jpg" /></a></div>But the radioactive breezes did not miss all civilization. Shoshone Indians lived nearby, ranchers grazed sheep, and a few thousand people lived quietly in little St. George, right in the line of the prevailing winds. <br />
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“Downwinders,” they began to call themselves. Locals remember gathering on high ground for the perfect view of the <a href="http://curezone.com/forums/fm.asp?i=1208562">distant mushroom clouds</a>, and visits to their schools by men carrying Geiger counters. <br />
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They remember sheep born deformed, and proven reports of increases in human deaths from terrible diseases. One woman, Claudia Peterson, lost a daughter to leukemia, a sister to melanoma, her father to the after-effects of a brain tumor, classmates to Hodgkin’s Disease and bone cancer, and a half-dozen neighbors to other cancers. <br />
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In 1955, cowboy film star John Wayne shot his only costume epic, “The Conquerer,” in red-rocky Snow Canyon, 18 kilometers (11 miles) north of St. George — just as fallout from a nuclear test wafted directly overhead. Wayne, co-star Susan Hayward, director Dick Powell, and others associated with “The Conquerer” would one day die of cancer. Coincidence? <br />
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Claudia Peterson told me there were no widespread protests about the atomic testing because St. George was a quiet, patriotic little Mormon community that believed military officials when they said the town and its people were perfectly safe. The U.S. Government subsequently admitted some responsibility for the deaths downwind of the Nevada Test Site. In 1991, it awarded $200 million in victim compensation. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEik5qTDHmq5gVto2kStJuPjTTlMbIj6i15rM5FGQMbSCPJ3SvPMsXSbAWdwXgwI76Vg2HdEC-WZVHAPnBti9c6VzJa4osj8hu5a93pEz8bGLc9WNlqqlKNosjW6U6wiWD2vhdLpXL3bVAg/s1600-h/full-09-st.-george--chris-r.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCL0-ZA7sQKTBiw1gPTvzJLsWpgk8sFDH8t8gFv6fdTatm-arPerd4F9JDip1JEu_nphJke7e-ybtRH6BpIjHeuXjfm50q5E_rqfnYM5cyhXeKsfxbMlFkctxybSoKmdU2YV4uydsnZa8/s320/web-ready-09-st.-george--ch.jpg" /></a></div>Today St. George is a boomtown for golfers, skiers, and retirees. The downwinders’ story is told in two books: "American Ground Zero: The Secret Nuclear War" and "The Day They Bombed Utah". You won’t, however, find these books mentioned in the St. George tourist and retirement brochures. <br />
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<b>Charburgers </b><br />
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A quick addendum to my recent blog about American bison, or buffalo. My friend and poker buddy Walker Merryman, a South Dakota native, wrote to tell me, “My first job was in the concession stand at Wind Cave National Park, where our featured item from the grill was an exceptionally tasty buffalo burger. We didn't tell the tourists that about a third of it was ground beef. Buffalo meat is so low in fat that it is almost impossible to successfully cook it without burning it to a cinder. You have to add some meat that isn't so lean.” <br />
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So if your buffalo burger crunches like charcoal, it’s probably genuine. <br />
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<div style="text-align: center;"></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b>WILD WORDS </b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"> <span style="font-weight: normal;"><b><i><span style="color: #666666;">(These are a few of the words from this posting that you may not know. Each time, I'll tell you a little about them and also place them into a cumulative archive of "Ted's Wild Words" in the right-hand column of the home page. Just click on it there, and if there's another word in today's blog that you'd like me to explain, just ask!)</span></i></b></span></span></div><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0-JALqRvC7z8UU52QC0NDpDxMxNF3b6eV8BnMHJzmKqKPHKXRisNfZDIgchQ74AUTiuxXA5BUw6LJrzFjLC5PuFM7FYKfY0yKY4XrtHeYpcAqAe0EDee-Efct0IJc9-iGjNhejUOiRBc/s1600-h/full-10-gargoyle-MsAnthea.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXUI9qgdSFXmQ8Sx1tJvaKOG-Hh_lX7dXcIu9LqYRTbdjJJaFfm8n6zwQ39-Q8OHJPpuhboxKS1tS8G2ljxQwo4Z3TGFQJ83R4bkNCX3qE3lx8AXW7LQtJxhzprr-4ABac8hDXw4cxo9w/s320/web-ready-10-gargoyle-MsAnt.jpg" /></a></div><b>Gargoyle.</b> A decorative, carved water spout resembling a grotesque dragon, famously mounted around the roofs of castles. This word as well as “gargle” come from the French gargouille, or “throat.”<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif";"><o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<b>Geiger counter.</b> You know the meaning of this word if you’ve seen one of those low-budget, black-and-white space-invader movies. It’s an instrument, full of dials, that gives off static sounds that grow more insistent closer to the radiation source. German physicist Hans Geiger and a colleague developed the instrument in 1907. <br />
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<b>Oxidize</b>. To introduce oxygen to another chemical or metal, creating different substances called oxides. Oxidized iron in some rocks takes on a rusty hue. Some metal surfaces are deliberately oxidized as a preservation technique.Ted Landphairhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18142247535149425183noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4320170221399917879.post-17319944081813632622010-02-24T13:25:00.000-05:002010-02-24T13:25:07.790-05:00Rockin’ the RockiesA few weeks ago, I devoted a blog to the enchanting state of Colorado. But we must tramp that way again on our current excursion through the Endless West. So I’ll offer a few more glimpses of what seems like the “Top of the World” when you’re winding among Colorado’s “14ers” ― the 53 Rocky Mountain peaks over 14,000 feet (4,267 meters) high. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGXtZ_cO0CO2DvsYm8gjfgVBFx3eA5ItzB3hlfmQ8CUsRAaDVZkhrOBPHqENycaCFFQm1A9KqGMHh2drfznX_FZZrkNQHIXk91Bg_tQdXZwAsMWvChWeN6wIyZKEEurc9MhRLNLCwRCsM/s1600-h/full-01-san-juan-range-wik-.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXS0CuJw9BcLlEr9FRi1DtmSRsVmFLv2wgRAuu8zBIVMV4QcnmLh9VGIl3cah5WMCLfrihaBiTU9o9LqVFJm2Y_ZyOKVpAZWiGLSI4I4UFSa5NR2nKR2TfXpivPKdn_zowNInzHau_QRQ/s320/web-ready-01-san-juan-range.jpg" /></a></div>One of them ― Sunshine Peak in the San Juan Range ― is said to rise exactly one foot above 14,000 feet. How that was calculated, anyway? Did somebody climb to exactly 14,000 feet and then use a ruler for the rest? <br />
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If you’re ever in those mountains, I suggest that you stand perfectly still and listen to the wind, whistling or moaning or barely whispering ― but ever moving ― through the evergreens. I once took my kids across the country, including a white-knuckle drive up a one-lane, gravel “scenic route” through a corkscrewing Colorado pass. Somehow, through the sheer terror, one of my daughters thought to ask me, “Bops [an affectionate version of “Papa” from her childhood], why does the wind blow?” <br />
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Up here, I told her, it blows just about all the time. Even on a clear, sunny day, anyone who has ever flown in a small plane above the crests knows the distress of bouncing and dropping, and bouncing again, on churning ripples of air. Some wind currents can produce downdrafts so powerful that they smash airplanes into mountainsides. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzq_YqpULKncRmSn_Skl99_nUDzctoDGMuC-FEUiGaYtaKAPBAgORm50_2ajFQtRTAXpgwXi5zzlMhSqFkEYp15t-n5BhHa8why-uEA1Exq5GMPPilR7thWqLI4mftBhbYvRh8ZzuNBp0/s1600-h/full-02-albert-bierstadt-18.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0cLejsUOvFftiecrqO4vyfv2rVlg9NGVMtoAYtR-pxIvxMaxqUAOkw9iMtoy9YkhivNjN0aBjtBzuSLyGFvKnhcmcc5dzSl5yGDWqKaB5XyCPz2JpoXKidmngp1WJfaEvIXFOfu1wTx8/s320/web-ready-02-albert-biersta.jpg" /></a></div>The wind howls in snowstorms and in violent thunderstorms that spring up in an instant, sending terrifying peals of thunder echoing through the canyons. Coming down off the eastern slopes of the Rockies, surges of cold air have been clocked at 180 kilometers an hour and higher. “Chinook,” or “snow-eater,” winds, they call them. <br />
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Yes, but what makes the wind blow? (Hush, I’m stalling.) <br />
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OK, here’s my best shot: <br />
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The atmosphere would be deadly calm everywhere in the world, I’m told, were it not for differences in air pressure as measured on a barometer. When there’s high pressure and pleasant weather here, there’s lower pressure with unstable conditions somewhere next to it. Air is drawn from here to there, causing it to move like, well, the wind. The greater the difference in pressure, the faster the breeze. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIHj1oQCL57wePeXsOpq573spFMai4SM_URDkq9hiZ7-1tRQNTU-XUx-4I6P21BWOhcYtubD9h280I86cfugdsabayjBpBIxkvFFBRIkXNLcCF5OTbEjW92wFfBFTr9_mg0jZYqvDcCko/s1600-h/full-03-view-from-royal-gor.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh56MpHD9uMk3CCa92umtqCnajtY33dVn5dooXWmGcHTFqYTtpX4WX5sutqYq4NnWVYXcvD2Xet0k5g1pftse68Hia9Xazi6ifH11K3SAz_S248AV7YrMsavC-TB3BNXpj5nzy8ExJElb0/s320/web-ready-03-view-from-roya.jpg" /></a></div>Once that wind gets to blowing in the mountains, it’s magnified by the funnel effect of canyons. I can testify that it swirls through the deep slit called the<a href="http://www.royalgorgebridge.com/"> Royal Gorge</a> ― our destination that scary day years ago. It’s a slice 316 meters deep and only a few meters across, gouged into pure granite by the rushing Arkansas River. <br />
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Differences in temperature can stir the air as well. So, high in the majestic Rockies, you have just the recipe for strong, almost nonstop winds. <br />
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We made it safely to and across the gorge and on to even steeper country at <a href="http://www.sangres.com/features/wolfcreekpass.htm">Wolf Creek Pass</a>, on winding U.S. Highway 160 near that Top of the World. <br />
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Save for the wind; the babble of a cold, rushing creek somewhere below; the cry of a hawk or rustle of an unseen deer; or the grind of gears shifting as older cars and motor homes labor to negotiate the 10-kilometer-long, 7-percent incline, it’s uncommonly still there. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjm7jzsdXZW15tc9v9VFDkxIycSJ5r5Bj31OAhugRBHQQNLNxnLQ75hLujdZO2jDwrFFpPamsVges4yBrAImTj0vm2Dla82CTkpJ5da_zt1-z4KTd412avckcWv69LlLf1mK-DtaW68_2M/s1600-h/full-04-wolf-creek-pass.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYWZ4KuPnPbj5w-IKN1IVvADeJUzFXG2o62hkbCjRtFEMvpVXBsjBEw3GHhylEWzMfLdfiXE1y930dp0tGDFg7mzfRbrFk9Jphts0h6wiZdIuVnUdMTx61CH6rYsaT4c2dK3vyl2UDsno/s320/web-ready-04-wolf-creek-pas.jpg" /></a></div>They call it a pass, but for much of the winter, when snow falls so hard that plows cannot push it fast enough, there’s no getting through Wolf Creek Pass at all. You see, it snows into June and starts again in September ― so much snow that they built a steel shed over part of the road to catch the avalanches. Driving under them and thinking about tons of snow cascading down, the overhangs look kind of tin-roof flimsy. <br />
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Not all the snowslides come out of nowhere. The Colorado Department of Transportation sometimes closes the road and sets off avalanches on purpose. Men take aim at the mountain with old Army howitzers or newfangled nitrogen guns. Sometimes they drop explosives from a helicopter. A fun job for action-lovers! <br />
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All the long wintertime, highway workers and their families live up there in green metal sheds, right along the road, so they can get the plows moving before too much heavy snows build up. Imagine what it must have been like when there were no trucks, no bulldozers, no helicopters, and the road through Wolf Creek Pass was little more than an Indian game trail. Mules and wagons provided transport, and then only in summertime. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidWEHqs9km5BsaKcyHT6G7xCNnAzyuUe0bdA_xj81LuY-B8UbsZ5YcTxH_zuFhBBjYeJhptEcRR-YV0N1NPizY2RjQQ_P-qHeNOe2d9KWF1y-rkBptoX3JIAN7N75BHwZrf7iflU0-DkE/s1600-h/full-05-continental-divide-.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhN9jATxtK8fM6-kfWAqaWQYiqL9PJOsNfOHWXm4hsMlmyyHpVoHToRNZNz6EQbqooM_HUva5ArvVo8vi0KQuieEWGSh6fmjI-Nh7NM3Lmc1pWdUmtemC0us4MF1M_xsstytIJaS_olDSU/s320/web-ready-05-continental-di.jpg" /></a></div>If they wanted to cross the Rockies, the Indians and early “mountain men” trappers, and then pioneer white settlers, had no choice but to push through this or some other high pass. Did they know, as they paused at the summit, that they were literally standing atop the Western World, on the <a href="http://www.nationalatlas.gov/mld/condivl.html">Continental Divide</a>? <br />
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The Great Divide, Americans came to call this spine of the Western Hemisphere that runs from Alaska, through Canada, and all the way down to Patagonia at the tip of South America. <br />
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Look to the west, down into the San Juan National Forest, and the water from every river, every brook, every sewer pipe in pockets of civilization eventually runs to the Pacific Ocean. And to the east, down into another sea of green, the Rio Grande National Forest, every drop of water that does not evaporate finds it way into streams that head east and south, toward the Mississippi River or Gulf of Mexico. <br />
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Europe and Asia and Africa ― even Australia ― have continental divides as well: their own Tops of the World. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnf39LfQ4NKw-Y98NDq0ob_al8yASO8MSKwNzjTEI5tb-7wlwSB4nNeXSiUWJQOLJso5VQp2zc05r_ARQpzLbutYHa3xoguJLtjNBSJCekV6xd_ZZ2UynF9s8-R8Rzxx0oa5icIhGrfwM/s1600-h/full-06-dur-silv.-steam-lo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZArhGWVbw-nW-MM3AIDf72jthx8TQRsuQ3T_klQU8Vf6RFky80yQ1N1uRTQlFZ2K3FINWhwC2BnwV5a_ob1zOCtlip3XEXsmRLeyUWEdtYJLIpQvkDGaCnVxBAOkWC0FmTp9xXJr8kQY/s320/web-ready-06-dur-silv.-stea.jpg" /></a></div>In high Colorado valleys, you’ll find colorful Old West towns like Silverton, which got its name when a miner told a friend, “We may not have gold here, but we have silver by the ton!” Scenic, narrow-gauge, steam trains bring tourists up to Silverton from<a href="http://www.colorado.com/Durango.aspx"> Durango</a>, hub city of southwestern Colorado. <br />
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Legendary characters lived in these high, rugged places: men like Bat Masterson, a fierce saloonkeeper whose reputation was so nasty that, it was said, he never had to draw his gun; and Calamity Jane Cannary, a cigar-smoking drifter with a heart of gold. The outlaw Butch Cassidy, made famous generations later when Paul Newman played him opposite Robert Redford in a stylized 1969 <a href="http://www.blogger.com/%20http://www.filmsite.org/butc.html">movie</a>, made his first unauthorized bank withdrawal hereabouts, up in the town of Telluride. <br />
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And then there was Alferd Packer, the only one of six prospectors who went into the snowy San Juans one winter and came out alive. He was found guilty of murder ― and cannibalism. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj18-TShmX36XGMATp6rbe3S9z7sZVJwZr9kcAKRmIB0Wk1xn0Yt-ow03-0C4szUbKqYO3k40s8fkOMK82pFz80lRpAfFy_ISUCEQul5J2IOk4BXdrU9G1Q7w7i5fEAG-Ys5TWEv-kJg5c/s1600-h/full-07-BatMasterson.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEik9uZs5XLxO89L_eW0_uFa7jaCgjNpHb0SU0yGQx0wwLjR-rCkZkssCXfKdMj-o0C_ZOM3b9nXRbaY7L4jVqBACWtxWAr_vFr_huGA5s3mG5urCGDComT69Y2nvC0KG05n-zLBIxLO_v0/s320/web-ready-07-BatMasterson.jpg" /></a></div>This is also a region with a real mystery. <br />
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Up near the top of a red and tan cliff called <a href="http://www.nps.gov/meve/index.htm">Mesa Verde</a>, there’s a wide, horizontal slit in the rock. For reasons unknown ― to defend itself, maybe, or to find shelter from the searing summer heat and winter blizzards ― a civilization called the Anasazi ― the ancient ones ― carved a secret, rocky trail down to this slit in the mountain and built a sophisticated city of stone. It had brick and stone dwellings with walls and windows, ladders and burial pits. <br />
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That was back about 1200 A.D., as the Magna Carta was being written in England, Constantinople was being sacked by Christian Crusaders, and the European trader Marco Polo was visiting Mongolia and the warrior Genghis Khan. <br />
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It would appear that the Anasazi lived comfortably. They dragged down small game and crops from the top of the mesa, and there’s no sign that enemies bothered them. In fact, there are few signs at all, for these people left no written language, no cave drawings, no carvings in the stone.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvNvVn5XmjRidUZvA_PGDvnCoe4a3CskMseeSte-wq6X5UvH06lsAXWWd-rWyat8mNv0aZFeSX_j4B3lYNW_WqcjXViGnw2Wc5Uv60bdsz1K-6Mxr3Kv9WfirWXO3w5InE78L3tXY6KTI/s1600-h/full-08-mesa-verde-cmh.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFQj7O_ctoi1Ozuu2SJ4U39B1ocScMXsSiYhflz2ezOe_FJRJYl3xW9HPRmsEwa0lptlrfIluCFjLsMVnENxpW6ugCuIuU1X5TWWCd30HQYIDqvUJam3zbVINeoAmNC8eRgT1R8HD-wc4/s320/web-ready-08-mesa-verde-cmh.jpg" /></a></div>About 75 years after they constructed their elaborate city in the hillside, the Anasazi abandoned it ― just up and left! ― leaving behind only their ladders and a garbage dump. <br />
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Not even anthropologists know why. Where did they go? Probably south, where it was warmer, where they blended in with other tribes. But who knows? It’s part of the mystery of Mesa Verde. <br />
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And of the charm of “Rocky Mountain High” country, as singer John Denver called Colorado. <br />
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I’m pretty sure he was talking about the view. <br />
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<div style="text-align: center;"><b>WILD WORDS </b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"> <span style="font-weight: normal;"><b><i><span style="color: #666666;">(These are a few of the words from this posting that you may not know. Each time, I'll tell you a little about them and also place them into a cumulative archive of "Ted's Wild Words" in the right-hand column of the home page. Just click on it there, and if there's another word in today's blog that you'd like me to explain, just ask!)</span></i></b></span></span></div><br />
<b>Howitzer</b> A large, high-angle, muzzle-loaded artillery piece that fires shells high into the air but for short distances. Its name, from the Dutch, first referred to catapult-like siege guns of the 1700s. <br />
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<b>Newfangled</b> Not just new, but a recent fad or fashion. From a Middle English word meaning “addicted to novelty.”Ted Landphairhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18142247535149425183noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4320170221399917879.post-30242263298074926912010-02-19T06:51:00.000-05:002010-02-19T06:51:15.045-05:00Connecting a Nation<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiB6ALbDkFxo6qfQGjD8wKnc8DVT39UVb_B6YVhCBB15z1OHR0OW-Mt9mDm02KLP6HuDy2l0ycl7W-vFGM9-l7_w2vZYhFz4A_m8n1dT3bYCRGpSBacKQFhEI1QFE1jz49u4u10G0jTGLI/s1600-h/full-01-California_Clipper.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJ2heLltoQNhOmMcNqHma3yghweMQySm79kXal4MaI1qcuDROh6YxrFv0Pbli99bVvdlIokc_6y38OYJ1lUnmEZn_xB8xq2mWDJkVSKUqh9hkAKhbFtjJgWtqaBTm1Tn7mBBTGOnwBYrM/s320/web-ready-01-California_Cli.jpg" /></a></div>As you’ve read in my recent posts, the American West is a crazy quilt of regions, beginning with rolling grasslands and lonely prairies and extending westward across a spine of high mountains, wasteland plateaus and wide deserts to the sea. The East had been largely settled, and fully developed cities bustled along the Pacific Coast. Only nomadic Indians, for the most part, occupied the great gap in between. During the U.S. Civil War of the 1860s, prosperous California, rich in gold and silver, was even a full-fledged state, aligned with ― but no more than a distant and unconnected cousin of ― the other states of the Union. <br />
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It wasn’t until four years after federal troops subdued the rebellious southern Confederacy that a stunning technological achievement tied East to West, riveting the attention of the nation and inspiring a momentous westward migration. <br />
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On May 10, 1869, railroads from the west and east met in the barren highlands of Utah. The dream of a transcontinental railroad was at last fulfilled. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div>The meeting of the Union Pacific line from the east and the Central Pacific from the west profoundly changed American life. What had been a two-month trip from New York to San Francisco by wagon ― or a three-month ordeal by ship around the tip of South America ― now took just five or six days by rail. <br />
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Bill Kratville, a consultant to the Union Pacific Railroad, which is still in business, reminded me that prior to this amazing rendezvous of lines people generally lived their whole lives within a few kilometers of their homes. “The railroad opened a chance for everyone to go somewhere,” Kratville told me. “Clear across country even, reasonably easily. There was great romance in this that the writers and photographers and artists eagerly portrayed.” <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmcJYSWiN4OmdNMWDk7dlarJgnsz70Hr8L7QAMb1TArAY66MrhRFExJ1RjemGYH2FIcDUoJhyvetK2MrYPAf-0MKlvgzMhUsw4Z3iTOrrSHcgjfSuAV5ZAf2pug0_4amBtP1n1k4SV3RY/s1600-h/full-02-currier-&-ives-1871.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgql-BalmMxdXex-3eLe13d5J9yyN4zROuBvNe_AZvmf7S6ewS4UynmUFEJIdzkZV1ZU4wQMmYOTDmKJOjBA5Y7AHsnfmHPu3eQ2Qk0JUMJvxXbOgHUUVUbPVDH3aq3_zKqLHPBxtx3De0/s320/web-ready-02-currier-&-ives.jpg" /></a></div>This was not a luxurious journey, mind you. Passengers sat on hardwood seats the whole 2,858 kilometers (1,776 miles) from the Missouri to Sacramento rivers. But it beat the teeth-rattling trip by horseback or stagecoach or wagon. <br />
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Kratville and I talked in a little park in Council Bluffs, overlooking the Missouri River on the western edge of Iowa. This was once Milepost One of the Union Pacific, with freight yards, a hotel, and a building where mail from farther east was sorted for the journey to California on the transcontinental line. <br />
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Only one little shed remains from those days, but among some picnic tables stands a seldom-visited, 17-meter-high cement <a href="http://www.roadsideamerica.com/story/2512">monument</a>. It’s painted gold and shaped like the ceremonial Golden Spike that linked the Union Pacific and Central Pacific rails 141 years ago. More about that in a bit. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6-3_BmTf1bS9mMCx3TRF8v1eP3J1E9a_-lx_7mIBz4LSl0R66we57zpNOcZA_jIxKrUZwbjUaORsq0tPwUFdPfvHuRNrLpQho0ikwuY7CQnlRzvHJ17azJs8S8N0j4RcOPFCSJXdvz5A/s1600-h/full-03-golden-spike-monume.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaaRw-6ZSHwBS1w4LidI-MB_eMDGGxS51c3PEjSXNwsTdxzPENPxDdSVEtMNxSNTPpKjVgBe94M7KD8wlLhVqD5caVrXU6AaTZNIa174qGeKlyJGRRRHLMrkRVRqrzvy9manBvrutP6Vc/s320/web-ready-03-golden-spike-m.jpg" /></a></div>The Union Pacific’s locomotives, passenger cars, and iron rails had to be carried to Council Bluffs on steamboats, because railroads had not even crossed all of Iowa when construction of what President Abraham Lincoln called the “Pacific line” began in 1861. <br />
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“They would lay track ahead of the train,” Bill Kratville told me. “The men would take rails and ties off flat cars and spike them into the graded ground ahead. The train just kept building westward, rail by rail and tie by tie.” Indeed, the crews included muscular specialists, including “tie men,” “rail men,” “screwers,” and “spikers.” <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgM8M_nHvlqHUSsafLClui11LaK653dCRFdzl3tLSDzNfqIBJLro5WIdOsyDiVFeF466s9zKNcORCh4Bl2E0WHCaQQsef9ONqM3t6bGobVQktO1RgO03950hZt2VRMK-c6AUJmBJRpxGB0/s1600-h/full-04-engine-no.-1---cali.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilI5M_lDDVei9EmZGOZONR9y03KLdNjwLJQJ2VH9ga_oA43tTZXpadPBtpVpVGQqYbGgXkcAsz4jyqULf0nfcMWLdn0UBsEYf9eqf8SxZTZKtJWplWooRvluKgsAiK8EDQR7CF1cCUhRI/s320/web-ready-04-engine-no.-1--.jpg" /></a>At the other end of the line, in Sacramento, California’s capital city, the state in 1976 opened the <a href="http://www.csrmf.org/">California State Railroad Museum</a> where the Central Pacific started its way east. There’s early train stock there, and a display showing the work of poorly paid Chinese laborers, whom the Central Pacific hired by the thousands. Museum vice president Paul Hammond told me that these “coolies,” as they were unkindly called, pushed the railroad through the rugged Sierra Nevada Mountains using only picks, shovels, and treacherous blasting powder. <br />
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“It was a great workforce of dedicated folks who kept to themselves,” Hammond told me. “They were small people willing to do the most dangerous tasks. And they didn’t get ‘likkered-up’ as much as the white miners and laborers did. They simply boiled some water, made tea, and kept on working.” <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiebzpe_-Da-hk11_lPTVTCDABLu_lP47LfKKPgVkDBxa3R0URkQPAKIDG9AEFkeG51Kw5wj9SnxKYWqlB4ewq79Ocvx7AkLPwkdTlMNEW7vbKbmB99V0N9mLN8lsimKsKt1ok3JpaJ3us/s1600-h/full-05chinese.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyZfWWEwWnw5W2d8Ehwbl4zPJK1VR9wUJUdMA3EWMlOgUqP2ydhbboAThXY2Dte9rhr97M-ot-nlsEWPf_FAggv9MO6nCAQjU1m6S_-IHNL3gFa8bDC5etx6p_xZxeS7mIy5X6czKRi4o/s320/web-ready-05chinese.jpg" /></a></div>The Central Pacific was eventually absorbed into a larger line and then purchased by the Union Pacific in 1996. Today the UP runs 1,500 or so freight trains a day through 20 western states. Each is controlled from a futuristic dispatch center in Harriman, Nebraska, that would amaze the trainmen and “gandy dancer” track workers of the transcontinental railroad. Every train is tracked on what dispatchers call the “Star Trek Wall” and on six computer screens. Not only that, but you can home in on each train and tell what each of sometimes 100 or more cars is carrying, where the load originated, and where it’s going. <br />
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Today, UP freights and Amtrak’s “California Zephyr” passenger train follow the route of the old transcontinental railroad. A good stretch of Interstate Highway 80 also runs along these historic rails. <br />
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And it can be argued that the change in the American West, from a desolate and daunting “empty quarter” into a “New West” of big cities, high-tech centers, and tourist destinations, began on a single day. <br />
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One of American history’s most famous photographs caught the moment on May 10, 1869. It’s called “The Wedding of the Rails.” Amid the sagebrush, hundreds of men pose around and atop the Central Pacific’s locomotive, “the Jupiter,” and the Union Pacific engine 119, which stand, cowcatcher to cowcatcher. At the focal point, CP president <a href="http://www.inn-california.com/articles/biographic/lelandstanford.html">Leland Stanford</a> ― for whom Stanford University in California is named ― shakes hands with UP vice president Thomas Durant as two railroad workers reach forward from the engines to exchange bottles of champagne. <br />
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It was a glorious and improbable moment beneath remote, black-limestone Promontory Summit in Utah ― one that would herald a new day not just for travel and convenience, but for the U.S. economy and defense as well. Troops could now move all the way across country in days rather than months. Ore and produce from irrigated California fields could reach eastern markets. And what had been scrub land all the way across the country became highly prized. Towns along the track thrived; others, just a few fields away, withered and died. <br />
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Remember the Golden Spike? What is commonly thought to be the single, real, ceremonial spike that brought the two lines together in Utah is preserved at Stanford University. Leland Stanford took it with him back to California. <br />
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It’s engraved with a prayer: “May God continue the unity of our country as this railroad unites the two great oceans of the world.” <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDt-je2QsIZsTqKPg_GQdbE8Tjbzqu-j6wpbMIXG9sLFgWva9uso3Wb8oHleKbgFA7DYeiqZgO-NfTPQd20SWmcHAtUsfBs06PpmV7WttyWkB_hyCvNkejkpSFNYMHyKSoovy3aFUy_fw/s1600-h/full-07-state-quarter.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWC0wYrEBIRzNMTZZYWA-jlwjL9_qwzXCdH_oY1VM5lRlsLj_1F0AlQ0xQzJncBH5CWtgadgqjKpdPxtvJMXsNfy8V0UjHEHeQ-ujFQLahMha9TmS9jVghQ5AHSRSplommAtDinrtQkCE/s320/web-ready-07-state-quarter.jpg" /></a></div>In truth, four spikes ― two gold, one silver, and a silver-plated spike with a golden head ― were driven into the rails with a silver sledgehammer at the Wedding of the Rails. The second gold spike ended up in San Francisco, then disappeared, it is thought, during the catastrophic earthquake of 1906. The other special spikes probably rest in some rich person’s curio cabinet. <br />
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A little town grew up at Promontory Summit. But when the railroad moved its main line south, across the Great Salt Lake, Promontory, as they say, dried up and blew away. In 1916, the railroad erected a modest, concrete obelisk at the site of the meeting of the rails. Hunters found it handy for target practice. <br />
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After awhile the old, original rails were ripped out, too. They were donated for scrap during World War II. <br />
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But nowadays in temperate months at the Promontory site, visitors get quite a show. Ever since government funds and citizen donations funded a new <a href="http://www.nps.gov/gosp/index.htm">Golden Spike National Historic Site</a> there in 1965, gleaming reproductions of the black and maroon, coal-burning UP No. 119 and the CP’s blue, crimson, and gold, wood-burning “Jupiter” roll together so tourists can snap pictures. And each May 10, there’s a complete, full-costume re-creation of the historic event. <br />
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The convergence of these great lines may have been the world’s first live, coast-to-coast “media event.” Somehow, accounts from the time tell us, the ceremonial hammers and spikes were wired to a telegraph line beside the rails. Each stroke registered as a click at telegraph stations nationwide. And when the hammering of the first golden spike was complete, a message was transmitted to the east and west coasts. <br />
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It read, simply, "DONE." <br />
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<div style="text-align: center;"><b>WILD WORDS</b><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"> <span style="font-weight: normal;"><b><i><span style="color: #666666;">(These are a few of the words from this posting that you may not know. Each time, I'll tell you a little about them and also place them into a cumulative archive of "Ted's Wild Words" in the right-hand column of the home page. Just click on it there, and if there's another word in today's blog that you'd like me to explain, just ask!)</span></i></b></span></span></div><br />
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<b>Coolie</b> A derogatory slur for unskilled Asian ― especially Chinese ― laborers employed in mines and on the railroads of the early American West. The term was borrowed from British colonialists’ word for Indian servants. <br />
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<b>Crazy quilt </b>A patchwork cover sewn from irregular scraps. The term is often broadened to describe places ― even ideas ― cobbled from odd sources. <br />
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<b>Candy dancer</b> A laborer on a railroad work crew. The term is thought to have followed the introduction of the first track-laying machine by the Gandy Corp. of Chicago. One can picture the workers dancing out of the way of such a contraption.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div>Ted Landphairhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18142247535149425183noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4320170221399917879.post-65098706095235095742010-02-12T12:33:00.001-05:002010-02-12T13:26:44.078-05:00My Bison-tennial<div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><i>I’m beginning a new regimen today, aimed at increasing the frequency and reducing the length of these blogs. It’s a challenge, since I can really get cranking on these stories from across America. Quite a few foreign students of the English language have praised the extended narratives, colloquial insights, and word definitions as delicious, five-course written “meals” and first-rate language-learning tools. But after weighing feedback from readers and editors over the past year and a half, I’ve come to see that the average, time-crunched Web visitor hasn’t the time or patience to digest an epicurean feast. So, knowing full well that it’s harder to write short than write long, I intend to post thrice weekly. When a subject hollers for greater depth, I’ll break it into a tray of short, tasty courses.. So keep a sharp eye out for new postings! </i></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><b>My Bison-tennial</b></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">The first distant peak is in sight on our odyssey through the Endless West. But before we head into the imposing Rockies, a pause to admire an old and formidable companion to Plains Indians and westbound white settlers. </div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><b>One that numbered in the millions </b></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfwlXsr4wnUosUdA668ZhMEZNSB0ippHgtzRHTV-BMyuWqUtGVEyx1b4vGeA_XamWhTRn61EKDoIeDvgaOWAbE67wrhF6t-pNGRYBqvR3-uGQH6o8xY8-Ojn-2RYhI2Xh234TtXQFgyQ8/s1600-h/FULL-01-stampede.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;" target="_new"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhckWzBs9BoYH3FapdUcHVg0iztPhgj2hzOvzifGVWbYxnzxbTW4VFFLbP2zlwL16wjkCaiQVL1zzWFAZo_DECCF2Pa0E4nMo7zqbovez0-abHGzP7-jxrEB3z5i9FzDmxB9vxZoE9QSFw/s200/WEB-READY-01-stampede.jpg" width="182" /></a></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">More than 60 million brown, shaggy, hump-backed American bison, better known as buffalo, once roamed from what is now Pennsylvania to the Rockies out West. Their name, adopted by what is now New York State’s second-largest city-- also way back east-- attests to what was once the creature’s enormous, unfettered range. </div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">By 1830, however, the march of white settlement had driven the great herds west of the Mississippi River and cut their number by a third. </div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">For many tribes of nomadic Plains Indians, the buffalo provided meat for food, hides for clothing and shelter and trade, sinew for thread, even dung for fuel. The source of their survival, in short. Before Spanish explorers introduced the horse to the Great Plains, lodge-dwelling Native Americans stalked the buffalo on foot. Disguised in buffalo hides, they snuck up on their prey, often driving the startled beasts over cliffs. </div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: center;"><a 1="" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGTma31YytyBMsM09E94NMPztFIp-a52AX4OvZ8_u4dIlOHd5Zs6ETVxD5ItrZVUf1vNsCOZVb85Ba3R5_ZQe8HOmZHF0vc1BFl_JIf0esv5ehK43VhF1iLMrn6Gr81crOzohgUdwGxek/s1600-h/FULL-02-indian-buffalo-hunt.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;" target="_new"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSKVpUN0HocHCbqWpwpVLPjnD7xtXtfkUCMGhf68bOE_vndIzDxc4QQnPGnfhFx9I-7yQWy2QhjrqAL_ZL78mj-TRXXu4GWp3X56-tTa9Tc-XHLPQONCLAHUuuXSfwMy8yBADIjgU_tZw/s200/WEB-READY-02-indian-buffalo.jpg" width="177" /></a></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">As Ben Red Elk points out in a videotape that I picked up at a trading post in Nebraska, the Indians honored the great bull who led each herd, calling him “Tahtonka” ― father. “Tahtonka would come,” Ben Red Elk told us in one of the captivating stories passed down orally through generations of native people. “But [to make him appear] the vision must be danced and sung. Tahtonka would come, and they danced the vision of the food.” </div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Once tribes got the horse, or more often, smaller, faster <b><a href="http://www.blogger.com/%5D%20%20http://www.thefurtrapper.com/indian_horse.htm" target="_new">ponies</a> </b> captured from herds of wild mustangs, the hunt grew easier. Then whites with rifles moved into the plains, slaughtering buffalo and bringing whiskey to trade for hides, which were soon floating by the millions down the Missouri River to St. Louis. </div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Next came another horse ― the “iron horse,” as Indians called it: scary, smoke-belching trains across the plains. “They brought gentlemen hunters who slew for so-called sport,” Ben Red Elk notes with sadness. “The prairies began to rot with wasted carcasses.” </div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgygRod6HdBicqdtvtAl-YjNdQQxcKgKIo27PeNg3ToW6qjfDLwC0QmWtzLL1B1MovFyaa_AQfcGzMrfBNawhne1L8MhYsJQ-KeQZ4OetMpMZhHiF2SWgMgu6fM-MMhPeedXGTiD7o6gqU/s1600-h/FULL-03-shooting-buff--harp.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;" target="_new"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbtZJ0ztNlZ4ZU4wnmUilnmcOWModpu5uDH1B4gc8r6aFYzrbEjHt6jIlnJR8XS1xLD-bHoHOCe_UIL4RA9PD96oD2c37oU-uiON-CIFmhmKx2j4gDEHU5C853Uk45X-pp0N3pweHm038/s200/WEB-READY-03-shooting-buff-.jpg" width="186" /></a></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Sport-shooting from the windows and observation decks of trains provoked Indian skirmishes in the iron horse’s path. But it was a mild outrage compared with what lay ahead. The U.S. Army, committed to protecting pockets of white settlement, migrants heading west, and prospectors seeking their fortune on Indian land, vigorously pursued a devastating strategy: exterminate the bison, and the warring Plains Indians could not survive. </div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><b>Remember that estimate of 60 million free-roaming buffalo? </b></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">By 1890, fewer than five hundred remained throughout the West, mostly in scrubby back country, in zoos and rodeos, and in make-believe, cowboy-and-Indian pageants like <a href="http://richgros.com/Cody/the_wild_west_show.html" target="_new"><b>Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show</b></a>. Bison bones scattered across the prairie were gathered to be ground into fertilizer. </div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfhPncCVlbwSujVh4esadn1rV-oTSJxl-0h-DXjHwyKsBdiENfF-mkHEaX2pg5bPhWm-MOaiUjlAOdQQ-c91TUTyNS6fgnZd2fqXJXdUEapjZdgJ0_Zytr5iGs1Zdvh8voBx3vysbEvqY/s1600-h/FULL-04-buffalo-bill's-ww-s.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;" target="_new"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUv8Z2yj2yJ14Yv41wruJbKJtirAv4VNNVoRkj4-5ZAvaIn8GaCN8mPn_nfwuT98osK-htcoiXEOz0KpbzhX4-RsV1xXuYURF1kVzitKm-eZxjv7ofXTik9pCqzAk9cz31YOo5T4stJco/s200/WEB-READY-04-buffalo-bill's.jpg" width="185" /></a></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">The Army proved right. Nomadic tribes could not survive on jackrabbits. Close to starvation and enfeebled by whiskey and the white man’s diseases, Indians were driven onto reservations far from home. Their warrior leaders were killed, chased into Canada, or forced to surrender. </div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Today, many Americans get their first and only look at buffalo in the wild at Yellowstone National Park in northwestern Wyoming. There, amid erupting geysers and stinky mud pots, bison herds run free, right through the brutal winters and head-high snows. </div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Come spring and summer, when the tour buses arrive, ignorant or foolhardy visitors sometimes coax these temperamental, horned animals right up to their cars. Park rangers describe clueless parents, seeking the perfect photo souvenir, trying to hoist a child onto the backs of resting buffalo ― even “tame” bears that have learned to beg for treats. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2epziSu_DJMiB1thN-D7AFATgw1dlfl0kzwh9aO7tomLPZOvUnJ8giRNwygJopPojCnc6N0vqyBSjAsyA3HGS6mCwu1Z_ed8hXXUBKzcNRQ8yEv0RUiSXrJEj5Rk2YsUygDB0K-veT1s/s1600-h/FULL-05-Buffalo-on-road-yel.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;" target="_new"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuwnw6paG9YfG5yxatKdmYRK4PyU5MkVTej44Rwo7lgc2-dKUfNTnCLclj60PN2y5PHk555r4F9Tzyy_fXQG9MFJnoFiown4wkaMJQWOw_aMkoFkrCjKishZ-cx5Ir0TI1F1kcVU5zoT4/s200/WEB-READY-05-Buffalo-on-roa.jpg" width="165" /></a></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">At Yellowstone and elsewhere on the Plains, you’ll sometimes see a curious, stationery cloud of dust. The dust ― or clods of mud if the ground is wet ― are kicked up by bison, wallowing on their backs and sides in an effort to ease the sting of flies and ticks, or to relieve the itch that comes with the shedding of their winter coats. Deep, unexpected depressions in the earth throughout the prairie began as such wallows. </div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Several American coins, including the “Indian head nickel” produced from 1913 to 1938 and the new Kansas and North Dakota state-series<a href="http://www.usmint.gov/mint_Programs/50sq_program/?action=designs_50sq" target="_new"> <b>quarters</b></a>, depict the buffalo. Indicative of the boundless early range of these creatures, the buffalo also appears on the Manitoba provincial flag in Canada and on the coat of arms of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. </div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDs84uY_oygr-qwuKQz0gKcl_KCx0M-Q5Q4735TGXPoz1euUOD6YXxuYIH1XUBzylysH7qKoSEW4qZjNPq3YVBv5FQJHX2O_IEV94ZOQSmvubGwguCIKNvcztJ9L2BmNcnC3VwflQ9THM/s1600-h/FULL-06-buffalo-nickel-jame.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;" target="_new"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHilNcoo_LlXS3uqb6XffGC4l0zgUSc3YThyphenhyphenYDAikpnKdj8lOIP24jQtsGw8M7-LpEy0VcO1OnG6GltVIStAWKaVj6fI90iE55VbLx0tO6Cy_93mAlE81vBJIoZswWp2mMONdc8scYzek/s200/web-ready-06-buffalo-nickel.jpg" width="165" /></a></div>It’s easy to see why one feels “buffaloed” when intimidated or stymied, for a single American bison, snorting and pawing the ground, is a regal and dangerous figure. Why getting “buffaloed” can also mean getting tricked or fooled makes less sense, since the buffalo falls toward the dimwitted end of the animal-intelligence scale. (See running off cliffs, above.) </div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Carol and I got a close look at American bison south of Manitoba and far to the east of Yellowstone, on the windswept Dakota plains. </div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">In 1958, little Jamestown, North Dakota, looking to lure tourists off the east-west Interstate-94 superhighway, crafted the “world’s largest buffalo” ― a three-story, 60,000-kilogram beast ― out of steel-reinforced concrete. A living adult, male buffalo weighs “just” 900 kilos. </div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">A restored frontier village sprang up there. And then, in the early 1990s, the <a href="http://www.buffalomuseum.com/" target="_new"><b>National Buffalo Museum</b></a>, dedicated to the massive herbivores whose herds once stretched to the horizon. </div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5cpteGN7rRc4phWXdQ-Honigrrnvl4X0B92_VMtr0PxRMO9fX6fpk_WDkLra8BBcJiYnTLesEDSlkCbnRNU8vEA7w93JFf0erqqX0-EXM8Jfpl7hZeER_m8F7w2BpsdPhp4mGhk8zyO0/s1600-h/full-07-white-buffalo--ronk.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;" target="_new"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYiyzHssIcX98dBv_yTYFtqjsfkL4J0z7QBAABIvEQEOBWJ2gdOjP1ysGAJ0AkQ7JnOy5tGL4Di2DG-lAsA5rCJeTPaUGPMyqNhA6tDPju1V3M2A2QvtK9j8c5Fr4gaXvR7tvqtPTXyqs/s320/web-ready-07-white-buffalo-.jpg" width="177" /></a></div>At the museum, you’ll see mounted buffalo heads, warm buffalo robes so big that they’re now used for rugs, and, out back, a small herd of live bison. Among them, the biggest attraction: White Cloud, a 13-year-old albino “white buffalo” ― so rare that many Indians consider her sacred. </div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">The museum’s owners also operate a wholesale bread store in town. So, to spice up the animals’ boring diet of grass and hay, the museum’s founder, banker Bob Mountain, told me, about once a week the bison are fed a truckload of bread and rolls. “We drink the coffee while we serve them doughnuts,” Mountain said. </div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwsLnHtHXLqKwgZCVRqx5y-35rcvkctSlNtPwqZ4lAJL77WdioUIyBMLE2zwhb9Bx1lP3RWoWgx4k8mNGrT7J9fL_qmqf6qnOc84qZam8o5i3DCs6TWnHkym4JBVJ6jL3zQpS5o-J-39A/s1600-h/full-08-buffalo-meat-ad.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;" target="_new"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZIRuHA8P-aRs2JGmq32nTDF0mt1HUc_-FnX7k1DnVzS_0SS_aQcFRJHco0doSvKVbM1fp-wYTnkgpDtuSs81LrjvlbCKwlGcp8ruZUxd9vMrUtCeRTJBHjQWnXOuV-oimqI_yLaJK588/s320/web-ready-08-buffalo-meat-a.jpg" /></a></div>The buffalo is no longer an endangered species. Besides herds that run wild in Yellowstone and other national parks and a few other clusters like the one in Jamestown, more than 300,000 buffalo are raised domestically for their meat, which is leaner and lower in calories and cholesterol than beef. And speaking of beef, only 10,000 or so buffalo are purebreds, thanks to a couple of centuries of inbreeding among roaming bison and cattle. </div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">All in all, the buffalo is back and thriving. Save for those who prosper from casino revenue, however, the same cannot be said for the Indian tribes whose survival was tied to these shaggy stampeders of the Great Plains. </div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
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</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><b><span style="color: #990000;">TODAY'S WILD WORDS</span></b></span></span></div><span style="font-size: x-small;"> <span style="font-weight: normal;"><b><i><span style="color: #666666;">(These are a few of the words from this posting that you may not know. Each time, I'll tell you a little about them and also place them into a cumulative archive of "Ted's Wild Words" in the right-hand column of the home page. Just click on it there, and if there's another word in today's blog that you'd like me to explain, just ask!)</span></i></b></span></span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><b>Odyssey</b> A long and most eventful journey. The word is taken from the wanderings of Odysseus in Ancient Greece, who took ten years to reach his home in Ithaca after the Trojan War ended.</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><b>Unfettered</b> Unchained, unencumbered. Fetters are shackles, especially of the feet.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div></div>Ted Landphairhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18142247535149425183noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4320170221399917879.post-4125487066410144452010-02-08T10:40:00.002-05:002010-02-08T16:16:45.921-05:00The Endless West II<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEJ-GdnZqe-WQHYZmAuvBf31MW2v3Pq2ACOsOUFO3Uwj_MIstcARd9S0Rurc7LpafI50y6mPjGaPEts55pb8eRrivM1mvZ4BVOX5-dckfmHs1Fh_3v8zF1lAJS0Q9R4lzk1FBZMWjq0Ww/s1600-h/full-01-pumpjack-cmh.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;" target="_new"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxXKkmWhNJxILyZ-Yij5HrBac9RuN11Jf4_IME17UpYSerx7be7-sQsC8-PW2ldPo0xbhvuAPuca-lhWfhKNZn4IYEfMnuPU-4yAtGw7Px_i3Y6abd1Ka8JlllBhDH_23W823Mt_Jfl44/s400/web-ready-01-pumpjack-cmh.jpg" width="222" /></a><br />
Saddle up! We leave Texas in our dust on our trip through the vast American West. Time to head north, across the Red River into Oklahoma.<br />
<br />
<b>Boomtown</b><br />
<br />
The West is full of ghost towns, once abuzz with miners, merchants, and even fancy concert halls with gas lamps and red-flocked wallpaper, then abandoned to the elements once the oil or ore played out. <br />
<br />
But one boomtown still thrives. Bartlesville, Oklahoma, is one of the most prosperous and sophisticated small towns in the land.<br />
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All over Oklahoma, scattered across the sagebrush, one used to see thousands of simple oil rigs called pumpjacks. Driven by “bullwheels” hitched to powerful engines by long thick belts, pumpjacks look like giant praying mantis insects. They bob up and down, up and down, day and night, day after day, sucking oil out of vast pools under the ground.<br />
<br />
As long as the oil holds out, that is. Today in these parts, the pool has pretty much dried up, and most pumpjacks sit idle and rusting.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div>But once, one of the world’s largest oil reservoirs — the Mid-Continent Field, reaching up into Kansas and as far south as Mexico — bubbled directly beneath eastern Oklahoma and the rough-and-tumble town of Bartlesville. Though the region used to be official “Indian Territory” -- where the federal government had forcibly resettled whole tribes of native Americans from distant homelands -- Indians had paid scant attention to the stinky, foul-tasting, black goo seeping from rock formations and the dry prairie itself. They used some of it in balms but mostly avoided it.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgM8UMxFXLq40f37gwNbkOvxYdmdM-Oe9-yaGLp6xhySqjShCmCTu6jZ4VXWuM0TQVw-slaBWTpiVCUhrLO6tWV9ELsS63JiCLkjb4HYYiVIuYpYA16CcBLmtsBsieeJJgiLNyNeJnvuU4/s1600-h/full-02-indian-fantasyLand-.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;" target="_new"><img border="0" kt="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgx9m4fH1EhjlT0-G0apfQB6RQV9Avigd1e2a9tRSpdFEEf-sWO5qAA70GgjMNW72BigBuGpwRS1yOhO_01CND75NmJ7zpUN7CoLkCqbTRFAvizB9Y0NOTubYjOqnzplM610d44IKT1k2A/s320/web-ready-02-indian-fantasy.jpg" /></a></div>But whites knew all about its other, lucrative uses — for kerosene, petroleum jelly and, by the turn of the 20th Century, the gasoline that powered a transportation revolution. Ever since Edwin Drake drilled the first well back in Pennsylvania in 1859, prospectors were looking everywhere for oil.<br />
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In 1904, a former barber named <a href="http://digital.library.okstate.edu/encyclopedia/entries/P/PH006.html" target="_new"><b>Frank Phillips</b></a> moved to Bartlesville from Iowa. He founded a bank and had the good fortune to strike oil on his land. Phillips became a millionaire overnight, and he and his brother formed their own oil production company. Phillips Petroleum became the giant, international Phillips 66 oil company that merged with Conoco Inc. in 2002 and moved the company headquarters to Houston, Texas. Still, little Bartlesville thrived and produced an array of fine homes and cultural attractions.<br />
<br />
The native tribe thereabouts did well, too. Much of the oil was discovered on Indian land, and whites who wanted to tap it had to negotiate leases from the Osage. It wasn’t long before Osage Indians were the richest tribe in the United States. This was long before casino gambling enriched a number of tribes, including the Osage.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhknH41ojlr0V1OX_Uax204UnAZ2_d3QKZoWuGsHuOLBbkZW1gbecQcLIAju0S50haCV197ueBsSrBt3HdTuBGICgPHW3sTfby38L3wtIwB_RsDwkkeJTefoCaPwvOQ8G9OEqSiu1PSh9M/s1600-h/full-03-route-66--cmh.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;" target="_new"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMzMEK4Jn16ArKJdMSx6ydYU_SUsdmFJ4BJ-53ww4Ywdj4uXvUskS4OsGElrPucXrXdqNINx4qe5xfrHWoDgjvP7o08zCpvUOj_LiKWEGORUexWAZtf8s6wg612jqKrFzcUp6n7k3zf9Y/s320/web-ready-03-route-66--cmh.jpg" /></a></div>South of town, Frank Phillips bought a big ranch that he called <a href="http://www.woolaroc.org/" target="_new"><b>Woolaroc</b></a> (for its woods, lakes, and rocks). Today it’s a museum, wildlife preserve, and cultural center that tells the story of the Old West. And of the “Mother Road,” the now-romanticized, two-lane U.S. Highway 66 from Chicago to Los Angeles that runs through these parts and from which the oil company got its name. <br />
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But Bartlesville is known for more than oil. From the 1920s into the 1960s, the Phillips 66 Company sponsored the most famous semi-professional sports team in American history. The Bartlesville Phillips 66ers basketball team was composed of former college stars who took jobs with the company. They regularly defeated top collegiate teams and other semi-pro teams like the Ambrose Jellymakers, named for a Denver, Colorado, producer of jams and wines. The Phillips 66ers even defeated a U.S. Olympic team that would go on to win a gold medal in London in 1948.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiV9RlY2QepyaijGu7jLhiDHphFqWGXHNDqo1AH-AE4-ad4DFMEVFykE6RS1Rjw2sihkvpTUpsM9v3onJwTsEbSNHUJFAOiugFS27BU3Fw3GjfHe2T8mSy8F0WcGLT8KpoUKF4uM76TuIM/s1600-h/full-04-price-tower-cmh.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;" target="_new"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggaU1CrKV0V5K6l4ThbCZYTa8gAd7-12e2LjTf07ntfldSkRXVd2InMZSD6N5OrSuyEScc17hCANzkeMu7hY0fvq3x_MWJQjdtuWsdaKTa3wpDWFfIr3Y7XjbzLMaTLy5C9sXE8cNl-uU/s400/web-ready-04-price-tower-cm.jpg" width="233" /></a></div>And Bartlesville is home to an odd-looking building designed by America’s most famous architect: <a href="http://www.cmgww.com/historic/flw/bio.html" target="_new"><b>Frank Lloyd Wright</b></a>. It’s a 19-story skyscraper, largely made of copper. “Price Tower,” Wright’s only tall building, was built in 1953 for a company that made pipe. The quirky Wright delivered a cantilevered design, inspired by the structure of a tree. Inside, one finds few right angles. Special furniture had to be designed to fit into it. <br />
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In Frank Lloyd Wright tradition, the building leaked and was drafty. He was an imaginative architect but a lousy engineer. Nonetheless, the folks in Bartlesville call Price Tower, now an arts center, “innovative” and “the tree that escaped the crowded forest.”<br />
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You won’t find many city slickers out on the Woolaroc Ranch, though. Indian exhibits, 30 varieties of native and exotic animals, and a Colt firearms collection are the draw. And a big bullwheel in the oilfield engine house, which the hands fire up for visitors as a noisy testament to the world’s richest oil boomtown.<br />
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<b><br />
A Piece of the Prairie</b><br />
<br />
One-third of North America, stretching from what is now Indiana in the Midwest westward to the Rocky Mountains, and northward from Texas deep into Canada, was once uninterrupted prairie, where Plains Indians hunted free-roaming bison, elk, and antelope. Much of that prairie has since been obliterated by cultivated farms, cattle ranches, and bustling cities and towns. <br />
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But two stands of the ever-shrinking tallgrass prairie remain in the state of Kansas.<br />
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A “sea of grass,” the first Europeans called the never-ending grasslands. Others called it “Great American Desert,” though its rolling, sandy hills were often lush with flowers and grasses. Seeing few trees, the first visitors thought the region unfit for most cultivation. These days, the tallgrass prairie is the rarest and most fragmented ecosystem in North America.<br />
<br />
One piece survives in the <a href="http://kansasflinthills.travel/" target="_new"><b>Flint Hills</b></a> of eastern Kansas, whose limestone and shale eroded into grass-covered hills too rugged to farm. Millions of American bison, called buffalo, roamed freely there, and then ranchers brought their cattle to graze.<br />
<br />
In 1996, the nation’s only tallgrass preserve was established when the owners of the 4,000-hectare (9,900-acre) Z Bar-Spring Hill ranch sold their spread to a private organization called the National Park Trust — and deliberately not to the state or federal government. If the feds got hold of it, the ranchers grumbled, they’d want more, adding, “We do not want anyone to tell us what we can or can’t do with our own land.”<br />
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So the Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve became the nation’s only privately owned national park. Don’t tell the Z Bar boys, but it’s managed by a federal park service ranger!<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxB60HSoW09UOQZUpOlrGZOdrlXYYDPg9b9dILyHLievWQMuPa1cv6fHw37_XT6yKQuNesUf6uhggn69ytmDjuWNhfSPHV0zXSNOhqQGS0zZCyWFjMN8kghQxEtAWs1f3HUavaj_7HDRM/s1600-h/full-05-prairie.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;" target="_new"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4PxW5yASrB-lc77Y5Pn1ub7zKBiXPB5sDDMIVpdSUETYVc-vCYnPaABMzSkyJb057pmQG-qjD23UgYpdHiVcBxTEIqETEoRLZFUPQ1Gr-dt7_7DEx3_minPu669uTFLetqvw1w9zEzaU/s320/web-ready-05-prairie.jpg" width="246" /></a></div>Tallgrass shoots can reach your waist, depending on rainfall but the individual plants aren’t much to look at. It’s the totality of it all: the wildflowers, arrays of big and little bluestem, switchgrass, or Indiangrass — and the sunrises, sunsets, and summer storm clouds roiling above — that give the place its lonely, majestic character. <br />
<br />
Ninety kilometers to the north, on another former cattle ranch, lies a larger remnant of the prairie. This one gets few visitors because it’s operated as a research facility by Kansas State University and the worldwide Nature Conservancy.<br />
<br />
This Konza Prairie Biological Station is named for a Kansas Indian tribe. Scientists there study three critical influences on the sweeping prairie: grazing by large ungulates like buffalo and antelope; the effects of the region’s fierce climate (blizzards, droughts, gully-washing thunderstorms); and fire, which the researchers deliberately set from time to time. Controlled burns are useful because nitrogen-rich shoots, tasty to roaming buffalo or cattle, emerge in the aftermath.<br />
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I can picture an antelope outrunning, and a meadowlark flying far from, a prairie fire. But a gopher or grasshopper or shrew? I’m told the lucky among these small creatures burrow underground before the flames race overhead. And one species of hawk flies right into the smoke, looking for unfortunate critters that are scurrying for shelter.<br />
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Fire, even more than a scarcity of water, is the reason why one sees few trees on the prairie. Grasses and flowers regenerate. Woody plants are toast.<br />
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Like parts of the African savannah and South American pampas, the Konza Prairie and Tallgrass National Preserve have never been plowed. And the conservation groups that own them intend to keep it that way.<br />
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<br />
<b>Middle America, Precisely</b><br />
<br />
Even though a lot of Kansas feels “western” — towns like Dodge City were notorious hangouts for cowpokes and gunslingers and loose women — when you reach Lebanon, Kansas, you’re only halfway to California. Or to Florida; Maine; Washington, D.C.; or Washington State, for that matter.<br />
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You are literally in the center of it all: America’s “centroid,” as scientists call it. A milo field right outside tiny Lebanon is the precise center of the U.S. land mass, ignoring separate and far-distant Hawaii and Alaska. <br />
<br />
Twenty years ago or so, the milo farmer, Randy Warner, mounted a GPS device onto his truck and drove around his fields, looking for the exact spot where 39 degrees, 15 minutes north latitude crosses 98 degrees, 35 minutes west longitude, as calculated by the U.S. Geological Survey. The USGS told Warner it had put a brass plate there, but he couldn’t find it. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYVGKWy3ZBIBgAmNHQvhvTgSo8wf2WPt2maIYEO_trTBc6o5U02tJkBKFgF1EbQX4gxibLgRyqElcW7DxgU3vWmv5k-9wq6EPndLJxi8_pkrFqq-Xj8V72FKV7_lUt5yW6C5TuD_FymfY/s1600-h/full-06-center-of-usa---sou.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;" target="_new"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6dFX5J-fYqA-WpJBg9ft7IcBfpKhYLc3n-lFr5WWFqY3JPdHEiTSnUAP7tV_J8QYZJj6y4u8qtl_F_wmE7yjBFiCQQoL1GJNOoeW3gsb_L23qVnrgjdpE07dj58UNVgopGLHZvRzKJaY/s320/web-ready-06-center-of-usa-.jpg" width="246" /></a></div>Aside from occasional geography nuts (e.g. Carol and me) who search out such places, there isn’t much excitement in these parts. In 1999, though, Warner helped crews spread 700 bags of marble dust in his milo field as an “X marks the spot” representation of America’s midpoint for “The X Files” science-fiction movie. About 100 folks from Lebanon helped out. That’s a third of everybody in town.<br />
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Indeed, Lebanon could be the model for what some call “dying rural America.” It has steadily lost population, lost its grade school, car dealership, and even the community hall where movies were once shown. The town gave up its annual Lebanon Anniversary parade years ago; not enough people were interested in planning or walking in it. So the pace of life is slow. A typical headline in the local paper, the Lebanon Times — circulation 540 — reads, “Dorothy Fisher Has a Wonderful Birthday.”<br />
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Talking with Randy Warner, I got to wondering how geographers pinpointed his field as the precise center of the far-flung United States before global tracking satellites soared overhead. They did not, certainly, do what I would have done: stretch a string tightly across a U.S. map from northwest to southeast, and northeast to southwest, then stick a pin where they crossed. That wouldn’t have made sense, since the nation is anything but a rectangle. Not only do our borders wiggle, but the string from Florida would have to cross a lot of water in the Gulf of Mexico.<br />
<br />
Later, a retired USGS field chief told me that in their spare time, six veteran topographers laid a map of the United States onto a thick piece of cardboard. Then they carefully cut along the outline. Finally, gingerly, they kept setting and resetting the cardboard cutout on a thick pin of some sort until it balanced.<br />
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That very point, tracked down in Farmer Warner’s field, was declared the midpoint of the country. (Sounds to me more like America’s center of gravity, but what do I know?) Amazingly, computer and satellite studies later confirmed that the spot pinpointed in Lebanon was correct! <br />
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So I can’t tell you how many angels can balance on the head of a pin, but I know where your cuticle would point if you could lift up the original United States and balance it on your finger.<br />
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<br />
<b>Oregon or Bust</b><br />
<br />
What is by many accounts the greatest peacetime migration in world history took place in the expanding United States in the 1840s and ’50s, when there were only three states west of the wide Mississippi River. <br />
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From way across country in the Pacific Northwest, both a government-sponsored surveying expedition and trappers working for John Jacob Astor’s <a href="http://www.legendsofamerica.com/we-johnjacobastor.html" target="_new"><b>American Fur Company</b></a> had sent stories back east of lush, green valleys ripe for farming. When the American economy slid into two straight depressions in 1837 and 1841, thousands of families pulled up stakes and headed west to Oregon in covered wagons, bent on finding them.<br />
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This delighted the federal government, which was seeking settlers in the Great Northwest to keep it out of British hands.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHbGHycnNbmuEzaI4jAwsz7seFKQyix27FOwgpZ9RIRkSNKmnCP4iOcuYG44qXEpbu1gDhMcMfRqxhrtLICPOpAxb5MuDg1Q1pNmwYZuvsgh5gqktrOu-6QeSM_22aH4l1xZS1NK9bE2A/s1600-h/full-07-OregonTrailRutsPhil.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;" target="_new"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwxMIH9oCSBtz_B30LFCCkwsuol6N81tSw7EGpT0lEPoo3KjpjNRvzu66ddbEwDLSJBaROp1cFGoQi4XjPYfD2asoD8_0nHRg7c_6aNbrcc19WY3jPrmnSJWimAiGKcAjJPAtA8zSbS_s/s320/web-ready-07-OregonTrailRut.jpg" width="260" /></a></div>An estimated 400,000 people made the trek from Missouri to Oregon. Throughout the West, their wagons wore ruts in the earth that are still visible more than 150 years later. The migrants jammed their wagons with tools and food as well as bedding, plows, rifles, and meager family treasures. Their loads often weighed 700 kilos (1500 pounds) or more. <br />
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Little did they know that they would have to discard many goods beside the trail in order to lighten the load through sucking mud and up steep mountain paths. They learned how to hitch their livestock, ford rivers, and spread out and rotate positions in line so that fewer of them had to breathe the choking dust kicked up by the horses and oxen that pulled their “prairie schooners,” the bony milk cows that tagged along behind, and the many family members who walked beside their wagons, all the way to Oregon.<br />
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The voyagers started in early Spring, when grass was green and plentiful. They pushed hard, six days a week, knowing that they had to reach the Rocky Mountains before the deadly winter snows. Hostile Plains Indians killed some of the migrants, but many more died from cholera carried in contaminated drinking water.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgubjeczDqPf0r9rfo8FmNPNcAfOZZOPFcpeLX9hfsRzYCi6d09eyoKOfuj6dmJ1JSE5ZKdXi6Ht50sMKgkgvhe_yhUQf9hViq0aKNPOrHpi4d15kMW-xrI7mjY8VRfrb-Xl1mnChqmLNc/s1600-h/full-08-crossing-the-platte.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;" target="_new"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFv3tXJtbZyU2GdjOk_YBy84_A_BqJ5hyphenhyphenQfR9E9fo8tP85rU50Y6tEo62oo59Qu6OtZQgWZECsGR1cxY6_jB9ZNE0WpQs9Mx9FlmbuvcOKsqs0Ib3rQdJXVm7fi0qXM5QpArAqHfIQfkc/s320/web-ready-08-crossing-the-p.jpg" width="249" /></a></div>Nebraska rivers like the Platte, wide and shallow, were quite passable until it rained. Then they would rise and rage and sweep away settlers and animals and wagons. When the sojourners reached <a href="http://www.nps.gov/scbl/index.htm" target="_new"><b>Scotts Bluff</b></a> in western Nebraska — still a landmark that the Washington Post newspaper once called “an American Gibraltar above the Great Plains” — excitement abounded, for the travelers knew that the great mountains and a big trading post for restocking their wagons lay just a week ahead in Wyoming. <br />
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Nebraska has erected signs marked “Oregon Trail Auto Route,” and many landmarks of the old trail can still be seen. They include Windlass Hill, so steep that settlers had to lock their wagon wheels and almost slide down to next valley. <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKfAPLO7nA_OM62Ax1JZwkXoaVaYgAhyp1v__Go36w30Wm86z1riPEhiVm66L4FFguNcCXnCOHMFdK8eaG7xzmKgtUF5Q5m0PdRgA4xPTpkiAuX2jKORXyCqxkL9Wg-gOn74z2-8wm8HI/s1600-h/full-09-scotts-bluff--nps.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;" target="_new"><img border="0" height="149" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnxHoGMXSiubXjB7BhjZRGGfl4x5BmeH8W8fyl9uXMceEDrbG6VyjcWMMi617bH2JbJ62HCjNjGKRcwMddF2GirgJjGK0w8uvKWRtan-gHyjUIcCvo0XmW6YFud70tA2aVNVjny8SyoYU/s200/web-ready-09-scotts-bluff--.jpg" width="200" /></a>It is one of many places in Nebraska where neither pavement nor plow has buried the Oregon Trail. <br />
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<br />
<b>Soddies</b><br />
<b> </b> <br />
Have you heard the story of the Three Little Pigs? The one in which a big, bad wolf tries to huff and puff and blow down the pigs’ houses? The first two, made of straw and sticks, were child’s play. But the third was made of brick. No matter how hard he blew, the wolf could not topple it. So the story ends happily — for the third little pig.<br />
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There have long been lots of such sturdy brick houses back east. But recreating one was nearly impossible on the wild Great Plains, which had rich soil but little clay to make bricks. As in the wolf story, tornadoes and howling winter winds made short work of anything built of sticks or straw. Lumber was out of the question; there weren’t enough trees.<br />
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So the prairie newcomers built homes out of the land itself. Ordinary, everyday prairie sod. Or what the locals cheekily referred to as “Nebraska marble.”<br />
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These cheap, safe, and warm houses became “soddies” — strong as a brick home and equally fireproof. Here are the specs:<br />
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Sod, first of all, is not dirt. Or not all dirt. It’s mostly tufts of coarse grass, clumped into the soil and held together by the grasses’ tight, twisted network of roots.<br />
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A homesteader like William Dowse, the man who built a Nebraska sod house that I visited, took his “breaking plow” and sliced long strips of grass and earth into rows about 35 centimeters wide. Then he took a sharp spade and sliced these long rows of grass and earth into slabs a little less than a meter long. <br />
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Though they were nothing but earth and grass, these were called “bricks,” so in that sense, pioneer houses were made of bricks! Grass ones, weighing about 45 kilos (99 pounds) apiece.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnEF0ru_Q9OWwlYTZBR6_T2fFztFRn5TqSr7SFj6HygMKpyv-x6C6M4mVmUEk7XpwF90OZpQVSP3Q9h5vS81lkFN2MsIHQLLeyk_5CTEdLGwrgI93o_HnEQHjuZkalvNtdaEyh8vGaaZ8/s1600-h/full-10-sod-house-neb,-1886.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;" target="_new"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnQQVl_yUPiLj4YwnyJUUgQWMVvn68WPO9KbSoVz4TEhV_MjC6JdIOKtwXqGiUSa5CfzifXIJLlhB-Ncezf_iKpPkqAFUBXwZrhszl2l7QGz013gDT9rSBA1fUL-4pCcMymBJOgwEWIqQ/s320/web-ready-10-sod-house-neb,.jpg" width="258" /></a></div>Settlers stacked the sod bricks atop each other, grass side down — first rows straight, second rows crossways and so on up — to form the walls of the house. Where they wanted a window, they’d put a heavy plank between rows to hold the sod above. <br />
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Somehow, somewhere, the builder would find enough trees to cut wood for windows, doors, and a frame for the roof. The last was the tricky and dusty part. The homeowner would lay the last strips of sod across the roof frame. As a result, one of prairie housewives’ biggest complaints was that little clumps of soil would keep falling from the ceiling onto their nicely swept dirt floors. And into the soup! To catch them, the settlers would tack muslin material beneath the joists.<br />
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Talk about sturdy. When a tornado ripped across the Dowse property in 1941, it blew a barn, a windmill, a chicken house, and some sheds to bits. But the soddie was unscathed.<br />
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Over time, families up and left most these soddies and moved on. By the time others arrived, society had advanced enough that they could write away to the Sears or J.C. Penney company and have a whole new, <a href="http://prefabcosm.com/blog/2007/12/17/historic-prefab-how-identify-sears-kit-home/" target="_new"><b>wooden house shipped</b></a>, in pieces, to them on the prairie.<br />
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Never again would dirt clumps in the soup be a worry.<br />
<br />
<br />
<b>Last Nebraska Stops</b><br />
<br />
Nebraska contains both Midwest-style cornfields and the dry, dusty canyons of the Old West. And you know you’re in the West when you get to the town of Ogallala and see the sign for Boot Hill.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEim9YnOxptS_HCM_AoqDHd4cmINvj7VQo1UZa2l_-7wAaSjHuGHi-bs1vnhHDs-I6IMmjmwZ1BxMU9bX-Tsf1YqDp1-vuY38hdZC3SVBE9rFPBbOGp-KJb8H04lz04cWvih1rozf286g6M/s1600-h/full-11-ogallala--downtown-.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;" target="_new"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRvQYUpFFdJ5QdP_4rbNh3kiQw3Kgs0srj8Lm-UcI2Ou1PhoHQhO4blPcitGcbAlGtESl1OoUkfWIE_apyeU7pWG4oHBTppVez-DiO8tEZeFBrt6QLhLVu1NKBHYyTX07MU9T8BM2woFo/s320/web-ready-11-ogallala--down.jpg" width="256" /></a></div>Back in the 1870s, Ogallala was a boomtown like Bartlesville, but not because of oil. It was a cow town, a raucous marketplace for steers on the long cattle trail up from Texas. From there, the Union Pacific railroad shipped the steers off for slaughter in Kansas City. “Shooting up the town was quite a common sport,” wrote Ogallala pioneer settler Harry Lute, of the alcohol-fueled violence that often ensued among the heavily-armed cowboys, in town after their long cattle drives. <br />
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Boot Hill was the crude burial ground of 100 or so people — a remarkable number for a town with a permanent population only slightly higher. Some died of snakebites or typhoid or in childbirth, but most were the unfortunate recipients of western justice at the end of a gun or a rope. Horse thieves, card cheats, and gunslingers too slow on the draw were buried with their boots on. Thus the name.<br />
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“No church spire pointed upward here,” wrote cowboy Andy Adams in 1875. <br />
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Which is precisely why author Larry McMurtry went to Ogallala to research what became Lonesome Dove, his best-selling novel about the legendary cattle drives. And why a TV network produced a highly rated mini-series about the drive, the drovers, Ogallala, and Boot Hill.<br />
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“Nebraska’s Cowboy Capital” has grown into a tame town of 4,400 people, not counting tourists, passing hunters, and visiting boaters. Once a year, thousands of cattle, worth millions of dollars, are still sold at Ogallala’s livestock auction.<br />
<br />
But Boot Hill has not grown in more than a century.<br />
<br />
Something else in Nebraska that hasn’t grown, either, surprisingly, is an amazing procession of sand hills, up near the South Dakota border, 2,000 kilometers from the nearest ocean. There are more than a hundred of these hills, some 125 meters high and (get this!) 30 kilometers long.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwo0fZBf7naCg0pmBRVjie8K3xWkxdieds1X5CXYcRDMpQsX3CQMaq47DPqTux4iorAIHIUQnywBvwuLVf_DklaU6R5LWyY68o-Cuphthxl8TPWoBt7p98E9xwckX5VLkgzqhDFwwWre4/s1600-h/full-12-sandhills--kody-uns.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;" target="_new"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQwcpdGJ2FiM5kl9DMtTGFs2v5uvxDKrHu74zMu1ATxe6ri5PePSD_B78bH8CHEgMZ1jC5MItRGe8Y7PYB5748FjMSkZrU87gk-0t3YjXbwWVQgl3cOTkt-ANRhFCgsHm-ESNX6-YezHs/s320/web-ready-12-sandhills--kod.jpg" width="215" /></a></div>These are far different from beach dunes or the great sand seas of Saudi Arabia or China. Many are covered with hardy grasses and flowers. If spring and summer are particularly rainy, you’d swear you were in the lush, green hills of Ireland.<br />
<br />
But it’s a fragile beauty. The soil is so loose that cattle wearing a trail, or off-road vehicles vrrooming, along them can tear open the earth’s skin and cause a “blowout” in which sand re-emerges and overwhelms the vegetation. To keep their porous land from eroding or washing away in a flash flood — and fences and telephone poles from falling over — Nebraska Sand Hills residents have adopted the curious custom of tying old tires together. You see strings of them everywhere, and they’re not exactly a scenic wonder.<br />
<br />
The sand was formed less than 10,000 years ago during a period of warming and drying, when wind gathered up grains of rock that had broken off the Rocky Mountains and carried them 640 kilometers (400 miles) east across great flatlands before depositing them in huge piles. Because this sand is too heavy to be carried more than a short distance by the wind, the grains actually bounce along the landscape. Since hardy plants (or tires) hold most of the sand in place these days, you don’t run into many sandstorms. But geologists say it’s only a matter of time before another warming period (sound familiar?) kills off vegetation and loosens the Sand Hills to drift far and wide.<br />
<br />
Make no mistake: this is barren country. To this day, even counting all the people from little towns, fewer than 1,000 people live in some of the counties that touch this inland sea of sand.<br />
<br />
As one Sand Hiller, as they’re called, told me, “When you’re here, you’re nowhere.” <br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<b>WILD WORDS:</b><br />
<br />
<br />
<b>Flocked</b> Flock is a small tuft of fiber, and flocked wallpaper containing flock is not flat as a result. It is decorated with colorful patterns of flocking that one can feel.<br />
<br />
<b>Homesteader</b> An American pioneer who had been granted a parcel of land in return for settling the vast expanses of the American West.<br />
<br />
<b>Prairie Schooners </b> Heavy pioneer wagons with arching wooden bows that supported billowing canvas covers that gave the wagons a vague shiplike appearance.<br />
<br />
<b>Raucous</b> Loud and disorderly, and often a bit lewd, as in some of the hootin’ and hollerin’ inside a western saloon when dusty cowhands reached town after a long cattle drive.<br />
<br />
<b>Specs</b> Specifications, as in the blueprints and other particular requirements for an engineering job.Ted Landphairhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18142247535149425183noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4320170221399917879.post-86954363098042714592010-01-21T18:34:00.027-05:002010-01-25T10:09:29.526-05:00The Endless West<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a _new="" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjA5NhTZ_Qa3MR18qzdzv8Hrwcx-sDjN0Ni1tE4DjYZviFCHSrqdtDzvHki7e5MqstejdEX7pfWiJMbKDsKhIVeILND5AGp73OJSkgs-A3J8Y4UqekpjMRA6BFlhE8g8k6fcWnTunDvN44/s1600-h/Full-05-Midland-Dancers.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;" target="_new"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiCglaB_791fq7xYhmljlaJ6HZS0jOfDAV-9yZPS3g3VRPFflOzxHNmL7cLXQLijmXC7Ui7A9VY-aXf6bZGJx0SV4PEe7WnwxGi2PkLXwV74TlqVU7XTqKoaspaAOsObGyF1xYOTRf-9XA/s320/05-Main2-Midland-Dancers.gif" /></a><br />
</div><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">Many moons ago, I posted a blog called “Where the West Begins.” It pointed out that at one time or another, just about every town west of the Mississippi River has claimed to be the jumping-off point for a trip through that immense region of romantic legend.</span><br />
<div style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">My choice was Fort Worth, Texas, since, as I wrote then, “Fort Worth emerged from the prairie sod as a classic ‘cow town,’ a cattle-drive stockyards stop on the great Chisholm Trail. And even today, Fort Worth’s ‘uptown cowboys’ in white and black Stetsons still holler at rodeos and ride mechanical bulls and line dance to the ‘Boot Scootin’ Boogie’ at clubs like Billy Bob’s” </span>—<span style="font-size: small;"> in stark contrast to the sophisticates in Dallas, just to the east.</span><br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9pF6WOJoFwBiaSKP6BQF2fxqS5uWhUfFhSE5-kQygmLffL53NbWtPo0P13czo33tR7Y_HIPe1vMeSFpjJQiqVt-qCT-8BlHmAhNuhn9Q3q_zPgGctFJyPRtQgIkknCFDTLk1cHKxqy98/s1600-h/Full-01-cowboy-at-sunset-lo.gif" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;" target="_new"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6W0F1Gt6Xxod-vWwl3jGZr0AC2cFilszy3PSNwMaCXX2nt7SX7-p5ORqn14L8RU8WMhmVvVjxQbJ_bFeDiDgM3QMihuTCkp4LF0ONPrKbrb1bDbwrMEJljvTcMCQDFQJ432uGV6-OLZw/s320/C_3_01-cowboy-at-sunset-loc.gif" /></a><span style="font-size: small;">Throughout West Texas, huge stores sell nothing but hats and boots, belts and western shirts, jeans and even saddles. In places like <b><a href="http://www.visitamarillotx.com/index.cfm" target="_new">Amarillo</a></b>, the hub city of the panhandle-shaped protrusion of northwest Texas, folks wear their broad black or white hats just about everywhere but church. The wind’s usually blowing there, and I asked a cowpoke how he kept his big hat on. “I make sure it’s good and snug and fits ever’ crease of my head,” he replied.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;">If you draw a straight line from Fort Worth up to Canada and down to the Gulf of Mexico, the West takes up about half of the United States. That’s about four million square kilometers (3.1 million square miles) of breathtaking rock formations, arid wasteland, snow-covered peaks </span>—<span style="font-size: small;"> but also ubane metro areas.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;">To give you a sense of this enormous and diverse place, I’ll relate a few stories from my travels. It will take me more than one posting to do so.</span><br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">***<b> </b></span><br />
</div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>Down Mexico Way</b></span><br />
</div><br />
</div><span style="font-size: small;">Let’s start down around Brownsville, at the very southern tip of Texas, where the United States, Mexico, and the Gulf of Mexico converge. Lots of ordinary people live there, raising spinach, strawberries and such. But this is also very much the turf of the U.S. Border Patrol, whose agents are on the prowl for illegal border “runners,” contraband, and smuggled humans. It’s also home to predatory bandits on both sides of the border who pounce upon illegals, stealing what little money they have and sometimes killing them for good measure.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;">From Brownsville, the U.S.-Mexican border snakes 1,300 kilometers (807 miles) northwestward along the Rio Grande River to El Paso. Then, with a couple of jags, it mostly straightens and shoots west through the desert, all the way to the Pacific Ocean. In all, that’s a 3,700-km boundary that needs watching. Despite the talk of a double fence and hi-tech network of security cameras the whole way, only about 19 kilometers’ worth are in place.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;">In the scrub brush far from border cities, there are no barriers at all. One can simply walk over the line </span>—<span style="font-size: small;"> admittedly into forbidding terrain.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;">So U.S. and Mexican agents drive rugged off-road vehicles, scouting the border as best they can. Each month in the Brownsville sector alone, they nab 2,500 or so illegal aliens. Most are young and looking to cross into the United States for just enough time to earn money at odd jobs or to steal goods to sell for U.S. dollars.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"></span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjz5sZlFfz521IkzncvlrbH-XnrevnNlMa9gWKZtFgZOixN_0x_J_s0v3e7Wboxz5DwcNLw5-a3L4kZ3rUW9RKslHiT9OALUIeMuxkKaqloZ55Db0KKHB7PSxPYaauQg9b8nKgC81t38LU/s1600-h/Full-02-rio-grande-bluffs.gif" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;" target="_new"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLKPdy6BA39XZS3c2bj3pFe8sZ6YcYgf-4X-zerv8ZQ7bfnm1rwlLwhyphenhyphen1DLdFmcr_AynF-f4LqIBo2zYtyOk23gRiV5ypfreCtrMlTqv9UFK3_51pJJQUeb7T2rkpc4eP1iz9FFg4UcLo/s320/C_3_02-rio-grande-bluffs.gif" /></a><span style="font-size: small;">The Border Patrol used to send out lots of roving patrols, rounding up whatever illegals they could find. More recently, in hopes of discouraging illegals from even <u>trying</u> to cross over, the strategy has been to saturate the boundary in populated areas with agents in stationary positions, illuminated at night by lights so powerful that their posts look like desolate football stadiums.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;">What happens when people are caught dashing across these no-man’s lands?</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;">Almost nothing, which helps explain why so many young Mexicans and Central Americans try to sneak across, over and over again. They are taken to a holding cell, where their identities and criminal records are checked. If they’re not on a wanted list for serious crimes, they are driven to the bridge across the Rio Grande and set free. They simply walk back over to Mexico.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;">Others, often older and determined to start a new life in the United States, pay <i>polleros</i> </span>—<span style="font-size: small;"> Spanish for “chicken herders” and also often called “coyotes” </span>—<span style="font-size: small;"> exorbitant sums to help them elude patrols and get over the line. This has led to tragic accidents </span>—<span style="font-size: small;"> and mass suffocations in the blistering summer heat </span>—<span style="font-size: small;"> involving illegals whom the heartless coyotes wedged into trucks like cattle. So border agents hunt coyotes with special ferocity.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;">It’s hard, sometimes deadly, often sad work. “You have to believe in what you’re doing,” one Border Patrol agent told me. “Your heart really has to be in it.”</span><br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">***<b> </b></span><br />
</div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>Some Like it Hot</b></span><br />
</div><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">Extreme South Texas could fairly be called Mexican-American. Ninety percent of the residents of <b><a href="http://www.brownsville.org/bcvb/index.php/about-brownsville" target="_new">Brownsville</a></b>, for instance, speak Spanish as their first language. So it’s not surprising that there are little Mexican restaurants on many a corner as far north as cosmopolitan San Antonio, where spicy “Tex-Mex” food is actually a tourist attraction.</span><br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVnfdZmswhwKPE54MD3eOPjoneZalQ4iUGLeT4BmHc7c5l-qn4K5QKhXTf9Ppw1qOEm5nT57GJXcwHvKm3O8pVcfWd67PQ3P4CanIrkV4qpYQTmoR5bdSeqmryfDRjAUf16SJaYXkhGiw/s1600-h/Full-04-tex-mex-in-paris-ph.gif" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;" target="_new"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKRE9pdRxZ60PH17du-Vz7baTNT33_IjkBvfvqNt5SzceR1h5YhXiszKl_zYEJH7ABTNIXFn2qZ8rLKef8Ae_ssX_QAR2bjQHC1bvKPr7S5zabMeMWCViD1cl206my3vs3x25RIK7nRYs/s320/C_3_04-tex-mex-in-paris-pho.gif" style="cursor: move;" /></a><span style="font-size: small;">Tex-Mex combines such staples as flour tortillas with hearty Texas-style barbecued meat that’s been broiled over an open flame. Since Mexico’s many regions offer endless varieties of peppers, there’s an infinite choice of recipes. Mexicans use a lot of pork, but Texas is beef country, so that’s what you’ll get in most eateries. Fajitas, made with steak, shredded cheese, and piquant salsa, for instance, are a San Antonio invention. Two other staples on many a Tex-Mex plate are rice, seasoned with a few tomatoes, onions, or peas; and a gloppy concoction called “refried beans.” Like tamales </span>—<span style="font-size: small;"> stewed meat stuffed in ground cornmeal dough and cradled in dried corn husks </span>—<span style="font-size: small;"> these beans are fried in lard and are incredibly fattening.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;">Little wonder San Antonio routinely ranks in <i><u>Men’s Fitness</u></i> magazine’s <b><a href="http://www.mensfitness.com/lifestyle/215" target="_new">listing</a></b> of “America’s Fattest Cities. In 2009, it placed third, and two other Texas cities </span>—<span style="font-size: small;"> Houston and El Paso </span>—<span style="font-size: small;"> also made the Top 10.</span><br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPNTHhUfz8HvQSQ35k3I2npT1uzjxq1AVDwR9wdKhzZ_j8C69tG6dLsJ6z8osHJZMkfnTT7MK3zQpnokxG1OFJGrUBlrZoweAbeSvaaBzmB30vwbWFqigOyDe4jYwKFZ6d4D2-a5qfrN8/s1600-h/Full-03-West-Texas.gif" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;" target="_new"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoGrpZhjly9woNMzHJxlUodEVjSYriCsO2oaPkVPEB4OjcnfUhf4uFIJs-y0-dpNBJ-enFU8dLDKKJNm8EpuEzmT8IXbgHR3XozLSxwFyB8g1la61pGMUL72NHVRmqsuZPSLaojbw78DE/s320/C_3_03-West-Texas.gif" /></a><span style="font-size: small;">All sorts of Texas immigrants influenced the tradition as well. Germans and Czechs inspired the popular habit of serving Tex-Mex tacos and the like with lots of good beer. There’s even a strain of Tex-Mex <u>music</u>, in which the accordion </span>—<span style="font-size: small;"> originally a Northern Europe instrument </span>—<span style="font-size: small;"> joins the traditional Mexican trumpets, fiddles, and mariachis.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;">Décor is one more part of the experience. A typical Tex-Mex place is festooned with colorful hanging sombreros, <i>serapes</i>, paper flowers, and quite often, Christmas lights all year long. Somehow, these vivid and lively surroundings, enhanced by a frozen beverage made with tequila, make what one San Antonio chef called “the rich food of the poor” all the tastier.</span><br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">***</span><br />
</div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>The Hangin’ Judge</b></span><br />
</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvx5vIm6TjgxFSYMZAva0at80UyW_JQGCI-88_8NX8WsHGw-eMZ0MaYeI2rLibmRlIN0qtkk_wehlD4AG_ekqaIpYXDTIZhfx_vlSFciU25mLmQfZCFEeAG_Wt_W6AtkwaFu2wYPLzLbw/s1600-h/Full-06-bean-saloon.gif" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;" target="_new"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIQV9BPYnrLA1J5Xk4EgMDgHfE8wMiWMvzW0mxnqoKSAvxcVK2sCkLXxUVLYYWRtWGTE-SUueyXd5PAuY-AVJTSAXMvNOtaVNsI1exTdY8ejhKRDYhvGDaPrnCqoKwfm5XDfZsrtUWU-Y/s320/C_3_06-bean-saloon.gif" /></a><span style="font-size: small;">One of the legendary figures of frontier justice was a crusty old frontier judge whom actor Paul Newman played in the 1970s movie “The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean.” Bean was known as “the law west of the Pecos” </span>—<span style="font-size: small;"> a river in Southwest Texas that in the 1880s separated civilization from the truly wild West. So firm was Judge Bean in his rulings that everybody called him “the hangin’ judge.” There was even a hanging tree out front of his saloon, which doubled as his courtroom. The bar, plus Bean’s home in the opera house that he built, and a cactus garden out back, are now part of a Texas welcome center in the tiny town of Langtry, near the Mexican border.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;">Most of the time, Judge Bean dispensed justice while sitting in a rocking chair on the front porch. His law library consisted of a single volume of state statutes. Often as not, according to accounts, he’d have the book upside down and just pretend to read from it. The illiterate defendants didn’t know the difference.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;">After his verdict </span>—<span style="font-size: small;"> guilty, mostly </span>—<span style="font-size: small;"> he would fine most offenders, stick the money in his pocket, and invite everyone, including the defendant, in for drinks on the house.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;">Even though he was the “law” in West Texas, Bean made a dollar any way he could. Once, he staged a world heavyweight match that had been banned in Texas. He moved it to a sandbar in Mexican territory in the middle of the Rio Grande River.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;">Bean named his bar the “Jersey Lily” and the town “Langtry,” out of fascination with actress and singer <b><a href="http://www.biographybase.com/biography/Langtry_Lillie.html" target="_new">Lily Langtry</a></b>, from Jersey, England. He never met her, but he saw photographs and read articles about her. The old bachelor stayed up late into the night, writing Lily letters.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;">Sometimes she wrote back!</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;">Judge Bean built the opera house in hopes that Lily would one day come visit and sing. No luck there.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;">At one time, 1,700 people lived in Langtry. They were railroad construction workers who soon moved on, leaving Roy Bean as the only permanent resident.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;">Even though it’s still in the middle of nowhere, the town is growing again. When I visited a few years ago, 30 people lived there!</span><br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"></span><br />
***<br />
</div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>Ouch and Double Ouch</b></span><br />
</div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><span style="font-size: small;">Wide-open West Texas spaces aren’t good for much other than drilling for oil and raising cattle. The latter is more of a sure thing, so Texans raise millions of “cows,” as they call them all. Something like 40 percent of all the red meat eaten by Americans comes from cattle raised in West Texas.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;">And just as in the western movies, ranchers still brand their calves to make sure the ownership of each animal is clear. Afterward, however, they don’t usually get together and sing the way Roy Rogers, Gene Autry, and the <b><a href="http://www.cmt.com/artists/az/sons_of_the_pioneers/bio.jhtml" target="_new">Sons of the Pioneers</a></b> did on the silver screen and TV.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"></span><span style="font-size: small;"></span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi80QcD20qalGVZhw0oHduhr5EVWwo2oS1LVh_dUy1TTZUq4DNNMiwJf6VvqdoJlduyAscrXw0SleHCWfA_Y-JLIshYTlD_rcJUtrK1CQ63n5xxIr0JQblBCXRMijlmHgqt2TsO1YmPfyk/s1600-h/Full-07-branding-1903-colo.gif" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;" target="_new"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqWF4Ur3BYod-aao1bi9tUtYy-K3noWkfa5ZJ3ItVESh3_lNvDDSAQswgjhXaC7aZm6iUjkxVX7-JFgKAp_YB6G5tKqTaTtOEAPl-lzDaZg1BJlx5pNFFluHRF0KDKOgOQdy1XpCzVJAI/s320/C_3_07-branding-1903-colo-f.gif" /></a><span style="font-size: small;">Clint Eastwood played a cowhand in the television show <b>“<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rawhide_%28TV_series%29" target="_new">Rawhide</a>”</b> that glamorized cowboy life. But the “rope, throw, and brand ‘em” part of a cowboy’s responsibilities referenced in the show’s theme song is anything but glamorous. It can be downright unnerving to visitors, since cows, separated from their calves that have been herded into a pen, are bawling mournfully for their young ones the whole time.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;">The first task is heating the branding iron </span>—<span style="font-size: small;"> not in a crackling fire, but using a butane torch. It’s cleaner and easier, and there’s not much wood to waste on fires in West Texas anyway. When the iron’s ready, a cowboy opens the gate into a big ring, and a single calf is driven out.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;">No sooner does it think it’s off for a romp than a skilled roper flicks out his lasso and snares the calf around the neck. That brings the young animal up short and puts the first glint of terror into its eyes.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;">Then two other cowboys hustle over and toss the unfortunate calf onto its side on the ground, while a third cowhand ties another rope around three of its hooves. In a flash, it’s dragged to the cowboy with the branding iron, restrained with more ropes so it can’t kick anyone, and seared with the hot iron. Not red hot, since that would leave an open sore that would get infected, but hot enough to leave a permanent mark on the calf’s tough hide.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;">The idea of such a mark is an ancient one. Egyptians branded oxen on the rump as early as 2000 B.C. Today in Texas, famous cattle brands are as well known as corporate symbols. Slaughterhouses carefully check for them, but a clever rustler can alter one. A “1,” for instance, can easily be made to look like a “7.” That’s why many brands are deliberately elaborate.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;">But back to our miserable calf.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;">In less than a minute, the creature is branded, vaccinated, gets its ears cropped, and, if it’s male, endures castration. The neutered bull-calves will become gentler “steers,” content to grow fat and tasty. Calves’ ears are distinctively clipped so the hands can quickly tell the males (right ear notched) from the females (left ear cut). In large Texas herds </span>—<span style="font-size: small;"> some reach 2,000 head </span>—<span style="font-size: small;"> each animal also gets a numbered “bangle tag,” similar to a plastic luggage tag, stapled to an ear as an individual ID.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;">An aside: You may have heard the cowboy song that trills, “Yippy ti yi yo, get along little doggies. It's your misfortune and none of my own.” These doggies, pronounced “DOAG-ees,” aren’t canines. They’re orphan calves whose mothers died, perhaps while giving birth.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;">To top off branding day, there’s one more procedure that must seem like a pastureland frolic compared to what the calf has already been through. It’s a huge injection of vitamins and antibiotics.</span><br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiW-5qQumsciTKv435HNKG5mXyuAtujK5T-3gEjGI2fuQaex5Vwca3cxApe_fGzc83VaIrn80dgzvWnVGY6eBzsAn7JRSryi6fzOK-dBoNuW8Yi0LWsfrtWqvK86nzuHAq42eCOejRWUOU/s1600-h/Full-08-cattle-feedlots.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;" target="_new"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiG8dgt4qXEdVtj1NimpE7a6Gmwxe1y4TNHkg5LliXu88NHWj0mtWd9Up_RNUL4jXcposh1bhTZHyXsUpp7qBapc6DUHmHtadRHqFF0pTGvw2DSVgdOlD7FzbhxBJNUU3gSo7pAh0Mw4zk/s320/C_C_C_Feedlot.gif" /></a><span style="font-size: small;">About a year and a half from this day, when the calves have grown into fat and sassy adults of 450 kilos (almost 1,000 pounds), just about all of the males, and some of the females, too, will be sides of beef, hanging in a processing plant. Many heifers </span>—<span style="font-size: small;"> female calves who have yet to produce their own calves </span>—<span style="font-size: small;"> and a very few unneutered bull-calves will live on as breeding stock for future generations of beef on the hoof. But these days, most ranchers rent bulls with proven bloodlines for stud.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;">All in all, branding day is a most unpleasant occasion on a calf’s calendar, and no treat for squeamish visitors. For ranch hands, though, it’s just another day to rope, throw, and brand ‘em!</span><br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">***</span><br />
</div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>Don’t Fence Me In</b></span><br />
</div><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">It has often been written that the Colt pistol tamed the American West. Others say it was the plow, which turned empty grass prairies into cultivated farms. Or the railroad, which brought refinement east from San Francisco and west from Chicago.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;">But a strong argument could be made that it was, instead, an object no bigger than your second toe that truly gave men and women mastery over the rugged western countryside. It was a sharp metal barb, tied every few centimeters along two twisted strands of wire.</span><br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZxzGkZEuncq5cArnNZfE89qEaRKPnrfIpNOh2IYs4wdKNq3saqudtXy7bo-mW_Y5tMNzU_rGt3F7rhpIhyRQ7x8oWIxOn0zX3JqAmCOtTn8Re5AXdAOlcrtwzfTzxiLjuCC7rkYeAdKw/s1600-h/Full-09-barbed-wire-obenson.gif" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;" target="_new"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjejtcjagq6OxqfLnYhIccxIX1JnjS7F27AYejXeOqNnxYbWlVF0GoIO0hM_K21d81ok1dMRgEh86KtK2bmeTHPMnru7V8lCHWfBgfwNFF8AH-hQ-IW-0TIS0SYZdntSFyn1QZSyq6dIQk/s320/C_3_09-barbed-wire-obenson.gif" /></a><span style="font-size: small;">Barbed wire, or “bob wire,” the white settlers called it. Plains Indians, who had roamed the prairie freely for centuries, called it “the devil’s rope.”</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;">Farmers who had moved west wanted to protect their precious water and keep great herds of cattle and American bison called “buffalo” from trampling their crops. They wanted fences. But there was not enough wood in the West to build the quaint rail fences they were used to </span>—<span style="font-size: small;"> not enough stones for walls, either. Stringing plain wire did not work. Burly beasts easily trampled it and rumbled on.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;">The settlers found their answer in barbed wire. An Illinois farmer named Joseph Glidden had invented the most successful variety. A young farmhand would climb Glidden’s windmill with a strand of wire in hand. He’d slide the sharp, curled barbs down the wire from on high. Others below would space them and hold them in place with a second piece of twisted wire.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;">Barbed wire was a big seller. A man named John Gates sold 12 million kilos of it a year in Texas alone after a simple demonstration. He herded about a hundred longhorn steers into a corral in the San Antonio plaza and bet everyone that not a one of them would break out. The crowd whooped, dogs barked, and the steers were scared half to death, but none broke out of the pen.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;">Ranchers loathed barbed wire. Their herds had always run free, since steers need endless stretches of the dusty plains to search out vegetation. During cattle drives to railheads, cowboys simply picked the shortest route </span>—<span style="font-size: small;"> never mind whose land they had to cross.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;">Deadly <b><a href="http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/Range_war" target="_new">range wars</a></b> were fought over barbed wire. Sometimes fencemen would drive in posts and tack up wire from huge rolls on their wagons, only to have cattlemen follow right behind and tear the fences down.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;">Barbed wire would first be used in wartime by both sides in the <b><a href="http://www.pvhs.chico.k12.ca.us/%7Ebsilva/projects/scramble/boer_war.htm" target="_new">Boer War</a></b> in South Africa at the turn of the 20<sup>th</sup> Century, and thousands of men died among barbed-wire entanglements along the trenches of World War I. Barbed wire was also a haunting symbol of suppression at the Berlin Wall during the Cold War.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtqcZEKGIgz0m71C2JuMF19hY1AA1Fbl2WA_crKxQIiEJ54HMivk4mCATkqeXrbCdhiI-gASiIKxtQNj3wxSZfa400NLC16dh1EVUOw0pGUBOrUq7OCw5boiPOo927Qq3EEDMLuXyIAOE/s1600-h/Full-10-devil's-rope-museum.gif" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;" target="_new"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUTkWaTPQwIFExPLlU0A6BID1MDESS5WJnYFgHtxItbyrTAQJCZwFxzLnji_IhyQyNJaMI_8-YlEyJfnQi6Ulqe5GiMbbzaZA23sHE0yTBY55_Arbp1zGx59uyj-Y82nt9UZcWAgyK_7Q/s320/C_3_10-devil's-rope-museum.gif" /></a><span style="font-size: small;">You still see it throughout the American West, doing the same job it did a century ago. And if you’d be absolutely fascinated by 200 or so varieties of this prickly wire, take a trip sometime to the little Texas Panhandle town of McLean and tour a museum devoted to the devil’s rope and some artifacts of old U.S. highway 66 that runs through the Texas Panhandle.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;">While you’re there, you’ll also get a good look at historic artifacts of Route 66, the old, two-lane highway from Chicago to Los Angeles that’s been subsumed by modern interstate highways in many places but still runs through McLean.</span><br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">***</span><br />
</div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><b>Little Armored One</b></span><br />
</div><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">Well, we haven’t even gotten out of Texas on this first leg of our western expedition. I thought I’d close with a personal story that amused me.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;">One day, Carol and I were driving down one of the forever-long roads that folks in Texas are always building.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;">“Eeek,” Carol shouted. “An aardvark!!!”</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;">Of course it wasn’t the little burrowing African animal whose long, sticky tongue snatches termites. Texas has millions of termites, but likely not a single aardvark in the wild.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;">What we saw and nearly turned into road kill was another odd-looking animal that ranges from Texas all the way down into South America.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;">It’s an armadillo. There may even be a country song about the armadillos of Amarillo.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;">The locals call them “Texas speed bumps” or “anteaters on the half shell,” referring to the ugly little creatures’ scaly bands that look like a lobster’s belly. But these are more leathery than brittle.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;">Ugly? Check out their rat-like tails.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;">Even though they’re sturdily plated, few armadillos survive an encounter with an automobile. While they can scoot pretty fast, they kind of hop when they’re excited –</span><span style="font-size: small;"> right up into your bumper.</span><br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9rF1AKWvU1r3cF8YA7_CkQTEjmLY57iwZgpn2kQPHl0aRVf1gsUetUAKheFzTV30Cwt0RQi7yOsZuGP4bnPpFG2B61PDHsGygS0ebNsFi-sONglxSWlt7i-ONgGg34_AV9b-ZKSDKQLk/s1600-h/Full-11-armadillo's-revenge.gif" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;" target="_new"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4wtSTSnZJSNw_9QVBYqwCcRaSiUYyFT4QR7_vmAHUR-5XDLgXlG02sPthmA6Jj9sL5B61790m561UWMkdB44jEazI6OvwrWYCZNY9k8pXwMUAescSZUk-CFlBBQZfxPRfDb7eOIhITWA/s320/C_3_11-armadillo's-revenge.gif" /></a><span style="font-size: small;">Armadillos are prehistoric creatures, 300 million years old. In his famous 1980 book on Texas, American author <b><a href="http://www.achievement.org/autodoc/page/mic0bio-1" target="_new">James Michener</a></b> devoted a whole chapter to them. Perhaps, too, you’ve seen Charles Russell’s classic Old West <b><a href="http://www.1artclub.com/indians-hunting-buffalo/" target="_new">painting</a></b> of Plains Indians on horseback, shooting arrows at fleeing buffalo. Somebody made T-shirts out of this, but on it, the Indians are shooting at giant, galloping armadillos.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;">Truth is, armadillos are more fright than flight or fight. Attacked, an armadillo will curl into a ball, hiding its little pink head and soft belly under its armor.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;">The reason that I know a bit about these pocket-sized dinosaurs, other than Carol’s alarm at encountering one, is that we ran into a fellow named Jalepeño Sam.</span><br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhG0M5WFI-ddeVrtKnDQdgFWM8LhqzNgH0PgPm8HATVkQNewk5mSKWgdmz71iDvIKLnCzMY_6Lf0zdxOdD2YwCW7CHUj35Xp30Ze0DL5fx4lwG7kaKh_I11n8bL9cDrvb0TSCSCCn1pHKE/s1600-h/Full-12-Jalepeno-Sam.gif" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;" target="_new"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdPlPxLkjwajjShU_PiKzNgD66x4LN7EQFMeTKcSwDg3tGwCs7Tm7xZrWI6uX88za8IVOGB_UNLRVqJybhsK7o6YdqRX3MwkjzjLmOz1Tgd6GFNNX4DQhEcYzPs1rQ-m_RjniZhLovXqw/s320/C_3_12-Jalepeno-Sam.gif" /></a><span style="font-size: small;">As his name suggests, Sam Lewis makes great chili. But he also <u>raises</u> armadillos near San Angelo, Texas. Not as food </span>—<span style="font-size: small;"> though I have heard that some Texans toss armadillo meat into their stew </span>—<span style="font-size: small;"> but as pets and to race.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;">Sam showed me an armadillo up close. I declined his invitation to cuddle one.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;">These mammals have no teeth, but their long snouts and powerful front claws can quickly burrow into sandy soil to escape predators or paw after food. “They’ll latch onto a worm with their sticky tongues and suck him out of the hole,” Sam told me, “just like a kid eatin’ spaghetti.” Armadillos also eat bugs and lizards and little snakes.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;">Sam races these critters at county fairs, chili cook-offs, and that sort of thing. He brings his own portable wooden racing pen, about 12 meters long. Set a couple of armadillos in there at one end, and the first thing they’ll try to do is dig. They can’t tunnel through the floor, of course, so Sam gets them off and running.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;">How?</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;">“Well, you get in there with ‘em and blow on ‘em,” he told me.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;">“You blow on them?” I replied, amazed.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;">“Yup. An armadillo doesn’t look like he has hair on him, but he has coarse hair. You excite the hair on an armadillo, and he’s gone!”</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;">Armadillo races. Little doggies. Boot scootin’ boogies. Jalepeño chili. Part of the American West, Texas-style.</span><br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">***</span></span><br />
</div><div></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><b><span style="color: #990000;">TODAY'S WILD WORDS</span></b></span></span><br />
</div><span style="font-size: x-small;"> <span style="font-weight: normal;"><b><i><span style="color: #666666;">(These are a few of the words from this posting that you may not know. Each time, I'll tell you a little about them and also place them into a cumulative archive of "Ted's Wild Words" in the right-hand column of the home page. Just click on it there, and if there's another word in today's blog that you'd like me to explain, just ask!)</span></i></b></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><b><i>Festooned</i></b><b>.</b> <i>Festoon</i> is a French word for a wreath or garland, and originally to festoon a room was to hang many of these decorations. The term has since been broadened to describe lavish interior decorating of all sorts.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><b><i>Railhead</i></b><b>.</b> The end of a railroad line and often the staging area for the shipment of materiel in war zones or livestock in remote areas. In the American West, cowboys sometimes had to drive cattle thousands of kilometers to reach a place where they could be loaded onto trains heading for eastern slaughterhouses and markets.<b><i> </i></b></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><b><i>Rustler</i></b><b>.</b> A livestock thief.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><b><i>Serape</i></b><b>.</b> A long, colorful shawl traditionally worn by Mexican men.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><b><i>Tequila</i></b><b>.</b> One of several potent Mexican “mescal” liquors made from the fermented juice of the spiky-looking agave plant. Legend has it that you’ll find a worm in the highest-quality tequilas, but this is a marketing gimmick by certain brands. </span><br />
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