a. THE ZEPHYR/DEC-JAN 2008 : Safe in the nighttime embrace of the Redwall, Suns fantastic setting scattering beauty, Light becoming sacred hues on the temples and thrones: more PERFECT MOMENTS... Krishna, Wotons, Vishnu, Eternity falling off every cliff face. March 1997...Grand Canyon GARY ESCHMAN...SANTA FE, NEW MEXICO MELINDA PRICE-WILTSHIRE...BRITISH COLUMBIA I remember a day in Baja at the end of January, 1977. I was seventeen, and I'd wandered off and found myself on the terrace of a hotel that looked like an Aztec ruin. There I was in my bare feet and ragged jean skirt, feeling the purest kind of crazy joy as I watched the spray ~ jutting up from the rocks below. I was alone ina strange country, standing above the spot where the Pacific meets the Sea of Cortez. I had about two pesos to my name, and my friend had run off with the Mexican mob, and I felt like flying. There was, what I suspect, a superlative “perfect moment’ in my parent's lives. It took place in West Point, Iowa in April 1936 about four months before I was born. As the Depression was coming to an end, my father Omer Eschman, acquired a job with a road construction ‘outfit’. My mother, Evelyn, was pregnant (with me) and living with her parents in Southeastern Iowa. I was scheduled to be born at the end of July. My father wanted his wife and future new child living with him close to his jobsite in Radcliffe, convertible from LA to Yuma, Iowa, about s dred miles away. Another perfect moment happened out in the California desert. We were driving a foolish red ~ two-hun- Therefore, he and his father-in-law, Bill Wilson, built and :decided to a trailer house. (They weren't until take a detour through the Imperial Valley. The sun had gone down, and dark was coming on quickly. I got out of the car and the sand was whipping against our tires, and all I could see were the shifting peaks and crevices of a vast dune field. The awe of that moment remained pure and untarnished, even after I learned that the place was overrun on week-ends by recreating sports-bike kids from L.A. # available materials .. . nary lumber, wainscotings, trailer hitch, steel-spoked wheels with pneumatic tires and a white gas Coleman stove. It was complete with three windows, electric lighting, one door, one bed and a crib attached up on the wall in anticipation of my impending arrival. This trailer was the antithesis of the modern-day McMansion. Upon completion, my grandfather and Dad hooked it up to his 1934 Chevrolet, and along with my Mom, pulled it up the Radcliffe and parked it. My parents lived there until July when my Dad drove my Mom back to her parents where I was born in July in my grandparent’s bedroom in their small house. A couple of weeks later my father came back from his work to West Point. He picked up my Mom, his new son, loaded us all up in the ‘Chevie’ and the three of us took off together to begin our future adventures as the Eschman Family. LARRY LINDENBERGER...SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH I searched my memory and found nothing. I don’t think about perfection, don’t strive for it and don’t expect to find any. I don’t even like perfectionists, they seem petty and elitist whichis bad to be around. Since you gave me a few clues, I kept thinking,“ golden moments that make the BS worth it .” You're ao about the things that inspire satisfaction and gratitude. Now that describes how I felt when I saw that grizzly bear a few years ago. We where just loafing in the car on a rainy day in Yellowstone when a guy came up to the window and says “do you want to see a grizzly?” “Can I LAURA PASKUS...ALBUQUERQUE, NEW MEXICO A few years back, when I was living in western Colorado, would frequently bust out to Utah, seeking respite from the doom news we were penning and feeling eager to actually were covering. We'd cut out on Friday afternoons, then drive two fellow journalists and I environmental gloom-andconnect with the places we like mad to reach Utah at a decent hour --- okay, so Jenkins would drive like mad, and Zaffos and I would harass him and take control of the stereo. More often somewhere to go but all day to get | there. He went right by the fishermen. Passed a group of hikers with barely a aS glance. If that’s what you mean, I’ve got more. Rainbows, waterfalls, new snow, cirrus clouds, thunderstorms, than not, we'd get to a spot long after dark, toss down our bags and throw back enough _ beer to knock off the road buzz. I still miss the murmured — by then, often nonsensical — conversations we'd have, dozing off next to the fire and beneath the stars. One perfect morning in particular sticks in my mind: we'd parked at Muley Point long af- birds, hummingbirds, : : the colors of wildflowers, the way the color 0 y bleeds down onto theroad at the horizon. I'm already feeling satisfied but I have one more golden moment I'd like to share, because it’s so typical. One autumn ter dark, en route to a trip into Grand Gulch. Waking up to stone all around pocked with afternoon years ago we went up in the San Juans to paint the aspen trees. Whole mountainsides of gold leaves dancing with the spruce, so eye catching it’s dangerous to drive. tinajas was one thing. Catching up to Zaffos, already awake, was another. I'll never forge The same wind that quakes the leaves made painting impossible, flipping the paper, dry- the bliss and vertigo I felt looking down on an unexpected sight — an unexpected sight I hadn’t known was there in the dark all night: The Goosenecks of the San Juan hundreds -thousands? -- of feet below the lip of the cliff. In the daydream version of that moment, I can spread my arms and leap — the air rushing up fromthe river below cus. my jump from cliff to cliff and into the water. In the real version, 1 think I probably fe od all teary, prompting a smirk from Zaffos. ing the paint too fast. Giving up, we settled for a walk on the hill above town. With our hats tied down, our eyes tearing up from the wind we were stopped speechless. The wind was stripping the leaves from the trees and funneling them up into a spiral so high that they disappeared into the clear blue sky. I wonder where they came down. MARY REES...CASTLE VALLEY, UTAH The moon shone at first light As the Colorado swept its bed of sand, Gathered our verbena laced dreams, And gave the dawn Morning, MARK STRAKA...FISHER, ILLINOIS Around September of his 12th year, our Shepherd-Akita mix, Jake, stopped eating for two weeks, unheard of for this stubborn bully with a bear’s appetite. His vet thought his chest x-rays suggested aggressive cancer, similar to what took his brother Barney in 1999. There is time to wait for the sun to higher - And shine brightly on the trail of goodbye To the bottom of the earth and sky, She and I wait, relaxed like pack mules, I asked then, “So, if he’s still alive by Thanksgiving, then it probably isn’t cancer?” The vet agreed. With small talk and long gaze into the day. High on Tanner beach, I proceeded to prepare every disgusting food i could imagine: liver sausage, bacon, chicken hearts. I held with waiting over, ascend exposed them to Jake’s nose. Jake tentatively took a few pieces, Gentle now in spring with Phacelia, purple flowers growing on red slopes, We are moving with the rhythm Of good things coming _ started coming to the kitchen again, waiting for me to open the loaf of bread. We planned a trip to Moab, still knowing that it might be his last. Eight weeks later we were scratching and clawing up the slickrock to Corona Arch. We had to shuttle Jake up and down the Moki steps at the approach to the final bench. His nail marks remained in that rock for weeks. We had Thanksgiving together under perfect autumn We e summertime”’s furnace, gradually gaining enough strength to walk again. His eyes, windows into his soul, came back to life. He to an end, ORO The steep in the Bright Angel Shale, Where I see them waiting at the pass, Taking in the long view Across the Colorado of Lava-Chuar. Shivering, but light hearted we nourish this final cliff, Up into the shaded ledges in the Tapeats, skies. Jake will be 16 in January. He is retired from technical climbing but still loves bread. MIKE “THE CHIEF” RITCHIE...GUNNISON, COLORADO In Dallas, where I once lived and worked, I had a friend who, when the occasional celebrity came through - on a book tour, perhaps, or a political campaign, was in the sort of position that required him to gather together a dinner party, cocktail hour, something 18