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Show The Park Record A-16 Sat/Sun/Mon/Tues, September 3-6, 2005 MORE DOCS ON M A I N STREET By Tom Clyde • Katrina hits home \i\ a very harsh reminder that when it is mankind versus nature, nature is going to win every time. Disasters bring out the extremes in human nature^ though, that it was just the cold. Inside the house, it was A national relief structure has been put into action, down to 58.1 had closed the windows before going to with government, organizations like the Red Cross and bed, and that kept things from really chilling down. It local churches all coming together to make sure that was cold enough that I had to put a sweatshirt on while there are shelters for the homeless and basics like eating breakfast. Of course there is always the option of drinking water available. Utility companies from turning the furnace on. The thermostat isrightthere on around the country are preparing to send in crews and the wall, and I walked past it several times, I couldn't equipment to reconstruct the power grid. Strangers are help looking at it, with its little electronic read out helping strangers. There is a sense that people will get flashing 58 degrees. But turning the heat on in August, through it, and repairs will be made on a schedule that or, for that matter, before Labor Day, is a sign of moral will surprise everybody involved. You can help at weakness and the kind of decay that threatens civiliza- www.redcross.org. tion. T\irn the heat on before Labor Day and the terOn the other side, there are people .looting. rorists have won. Or something like that. Businesses are as blown apart as homes, and people are So I resisted out of principle. It's probably a stupid roaming through the stores gathering up whatever they principle, because as I'm writing this, my teeth are actu- can find, dragging big-screen TVs back to their partially submerged and ally chattering. There powerless homes. are only a few There was a long story absolutes in life. Not / don't know which is more disappointon looting at a wearing ski goggles in April is one of them, ing -- the fact that people would use the disas-Mississippi Wal-Mart and not turning the fur- ter of the hurricane to go on a looting spree, orI dont know which is more disappointing nace on before Labor Day is another. But if that they would choose to loot a bunch of the fact that people would use the disaster the sun doesn't start cheap Chinese crap out of Wal-mart" of the hurricane to go warming things up pretty quickly, there is ^ ^ ^ M M M B ^ B ^ ^ M ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ H M M ^ ^ ^ M ^ M M ^ H on a looting spree, or nothing wrong with that they would running out a full tank of hot water in the shower. choose to loot a bunch of cheap Chinese crap out of We have no room for complaint. The news video of Wal-mart. I mean, if you are going to cast off the the devastation along the Gulf Coast is incomprehensi- veneer of civilization that completely, I would have ble. One of the cable news channels showed a 12- expected people to aim a little higher on the food chain minute piece, unedited, from a reporter in a helicopter than Wal-Mart. Don't they have Target? I suppose flying over the area. He covered a distance of about 20 there was some upscale looting as well, but the video of miles in that time, narrating what he saw below. Wal-Mart looked like one of the typical pieces on the Though he knew the area well, he struggled to figure day-after-Thanksgiving rush of Christmas shoppers. out exactly what he was looking at because the whole People were happy to pause and talk to the TV camera landscape was so changed. He paused over a large while filling their shopping carts with stolen stuff. "Hi, building that looked more or less undamaged. Just as I Mama, I done stole you a big TV." was feeling a little relief, he pointed out that the buildThe Gulf Coast is a part of the country I've never ing was in fact a floating casino. It was supposed to be seen, and don't know much about. The size and conmoored at a dock out in the bay. The flood had carried centration of the petroleum industry there took me by it about a quarter mile inland, across a freeway, and set surprise. The main port for unloading the super it down on what had been a neighborhood of little tankers is there. A huge percentage of the nation's oil wooden houses. The neighborhood was now a pile of refinery capacity is clustered along the coast. The end toothpicks. result is that the whole energy system in the country is If these scenes were coming from Bangladesh, they out of whack. They can unload the tankers, but the would be almost routine. Natural disasters and piles of refineries are shut down, so there is no place to rubble are almost the norm in the Third World, and it's process the oil if they unload it. So the storage tanks sometimes hard to distinguish between the "before" will be full, making it impossible to unload the next and "after" photos. But this was in the U.S., where, at tankers. The pipelines can't move the refined product least in theory, things are built according to some stan- because the power is out. Because the power is out in dards, and there is basic infrastructure in place. Mile New Orleans, gas stations in Chicago and Newark after mile of waterfront towns have been scraped off. have empty tanks. They are talking about several weeks, if not months, to Tom Clyde is a former city attorney and author of get things put back to some sense of normal ~ at least "More Dogs on Main Street" He has been a columnist to a point that people can begin rebuilding. for The Park Record for 19 years. ednesday morning it was 30 degrees at my house. If there had been a drop of moisture in W the air, there would have been a heavy frost. It's so dry, SEASON PAS'SES AVAILABLE NOW! Choosing where to ski and ride is a game of high stakes Make sure you're holding all the right cards Renew or buy online at www.thecanyons.com Or call up the dealer at 435-615-3410 and say "Hit Me." SUNDAY IN THE PARK By Teri Orr • The real difference isn't the tissues Pay only $100 now! 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UTAH 1b» C a w s and 7h» Canyon* m a r t * logo are mgtotend twJemwto o( ASC Ltoh. O2006 The C«iyon». Alrightsraswvod. Si I might have taken it as an "off the cuff' offer from support the newly extended Sultan chairlift - now anyone else. But over my nearly 20 years of knowing detachable - high-speed quad. It adds 1,000 more feet Bob, I've learned there is rarely anything he does with- to the ski run and the whole project has opened up 75 out thoughtful consideration. So, when I ran into him additional skiable acres. We are standing at 9,400 feet and Chuck at the Deer Valley Resort and he asked if I and I feel rather like an eagle myself. I can see my little knew what Chuck was up to this summer, and had I world, known usually by a series of paved roads and seen the work in progress? - I confessed no, I hadnt buildings of varying heights rather two dimension ally, been hiking or mountain biking this year He offered to now with a 360-degree aerial view. There, the take me on a tour, and I jumped at the chance. We set a JordaneUe Reservoir, there the new T\ihaye golf course, date and I penciled it in, knowing how these things can the road to Heber, the high school, the junction, homes change. Bob, I suspect, wrote it down in ink. He's that at Deer Crest. From that lofty perch, the area looked green and open with clusters of houses andribbonsof kind of guy. We agreed on a morning tour, which I knew was a roads. good time in his world. My idea of morning is the 10 Back in the truck we looked at acres of a kind of batminutes before noon. Still, I was eager to see the ting, holding back hillsides encouraging new growth. In improvements underway at the resort Ski magazine a clearing where tree stumps had been removed, they consistently ranks one have been ground up of the top three in and made into a sort of North America. I was • • Inside, the truck was equally as pris- mulch to go back to the prepared to hike, earth. In fact, everywhich is what we had tine. I was acutely aware of this the first where you look you done years ago, the last time we hit a bump and the teaf in my tacky understand this is a time I had taken a where respectpaper cup I brought with me, went flying. I resort behind-the-mountaining the land and tour. But we had far managed to catch most of it on my pant leg. returning to the land too much terrain to are not just corporate Bob pretended not to notice." cover so we hopped statements but workinto one of those shiny, ^^•M^MHBn^^H^ni^H ing principles. After a clean, white Chevy buzz to the "bone pickup trucks with the familiar green striping. Inside, yard" where old timbers are recycled and a quick check, the truck was equally as pristine. I was acutely aware of where the sewer lines and snowmaking lines crisscross a this the first time we hit a bump and the tea, in my new housing project, we are in a mid-mountain shop tacky paper cup I brought with me, wentflying.I man- area. Bob asks if I mind if he takes a minute to wash his aged to catch most of it on my pant leg. Bob pretended truck. And with a giant spray wand herinsesthe red dirt not to notice. off the wheel wells and from underneath the bumpers. As we headed up the dirt roads that make up the It is a small, telling gesture, this attention to detail. inner labyrinth of the resort, I was surprised how quickWhen we return to the lodge there is a hubbub of ly we left civilization behind. Quickly, we were in the activity - a movie crew is setting up, the jazz festival is forest, watching an army of 100-ton trucks, fully loaded hours from kicking off, Bob's daughter Emily, a high with dirt, navigate their way past newly-graded ski runs. school string musician, is being featured in an afternoon It was, at first, dizzying. I tried watching outfront,the set. Bob appears to float from one potential crisis to road was rutted and went straight uphill. I looked out another. He listens, nods and lets his staff make the the sides and tried to pretend I didnt see thefirstaspens decisions they have been carefully trained to do. turning. All around, the trucks took turns waiting, then As I drive away, I feel a piece of Bald Mountain still passing, moving dirt. Every time we stopped to check with me. I want to see it next covered in snow on an on the progress offillinga sinkhole or grading a run, equally bright, bluebird day. But I also leave, underBob would address the truck driver, backhoe operator, standing a great resort is only as great as the people who guy with a shovel, by name. He knew all about the job care for it. Who understand you never really own the at hand, the one before and the one ahead. The crew land but you are always the steward of it. All of it - the responded with a mixture of pride in their work and animals, the trees, the wildflowers. If you also manage respect for their boss. You heard that in the simplest of to be a good steward of the talents of the people who exchanges. work with you, ah, then you have created a life/work At the top of one road was a fenced reservoir built to relationship that is both rare and enviable. service their snowmaking needs a few years back. Bob If you are just a civilian, like me, who has lived in explained the lined bottom of the manmade watering town since before there was this resort, you understand hole was dangerous for wildlife and hence the fence. the Deer Valley difference was never about the tissues But because they knew the water would be an attrac- at the base of the lift, nice as those may be. It is about tion for the animals they built a separate, unlined pond the team of dedicated people who collectively know a bit further out in the forest. they work in a spectacular environment they are all Bob talks about the wildlife on the mountain often. responsible for. So to Chuck and Luke and Julie and He is aware they came first and need to be looked after Colleen and Ginger and Chris and Molly and Karen by the current tenants. Ditto the trees. Years ago, Deer and Terry and the other hundreds of folks who work Valley Resort invited the ForestService to jointly come there full- and part-time, thank you for the good humor up with a plan to maintain and protect the vast, private- you show while taking your jobs so seriously. ly held forest lands that make up the beauty of these And to Bob, who has managed to weave together his mountains. You see the results -- healthy trees and lush, work and life with matching integrity, thanks for the new growth. Places for eagles to make nests and white- time and the tour. It is something I will reflect upon, tailed deer to bed down and moose and elk to lumber anticipating, then relishing, on gloriously snowy through. Sundays in the Park... At the top of Bald Mountain we check on three new Teri Orr is a former editor of The Park Record and towers, airlifted just days before, that are in place to director of the Park Citv Perfnrminu A rts C*nt»r |