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Show Page A6 Thursday, November 11, 2004 '(Hfre Idle Thoughts from Mt. Waas Many Trails by Adrien F. Taylor LOCK, STOCK AND BARREL Tucked inside this week's edition, local readers will find a grocery bag. For several years now, the Times has taken part in the Utah Food Bank's statewide effort to fill the food pantries so that those less fortunate among us will have plenty of food with the holidays approaching. We urge readers to fill the bag, and take it to our local food pantry, looted at 56 North 200 East, phone They also accept donations. There is a coupon on the bag for that purpose, but if you feel especially generous this year, fill the bag AND send a check to either the Utah Food Bank, at the address on the coupon or the Grand County Food Bank, at the address above. 259-636- by Ollie Harris stories. We would mined, we will do more like to hear community feedback as we get going on this, so dont hesitate to drop us a letter, th -a- ft- We join the rest of community in saying goodbye and thanks to Chief Deputy Sheriff Doug Squire as he and his wife, LaRee, pack up and move to Pleasant Grove. They've lived in Moab for 30 years, and he's been with the sheriff's department for 25. Carrie Switzer did an interview for a feature story on Doug, which you will find on page 2. A-- -a- 3. ft- For several months now, we have included the regional newsmagazine, American Profile, in our weekly edition. Oddly, nobody has said anything -a- ftWe are also introducing a new feature this to anyone here either pro or con the magazine. It doesn't cost us much to include it, as those businesses which advertise in the magazine pretty much cover the costs, however we would like to know if people are reading and finding things of value in it, or if it's just automatically thrown out (like much the Sunday daily newspaper). Here again, drop us a line, or give us a call, Just tell whoever answers the phone that you vote "yes" or "no" to American Profile, and we'll keep a running tally to help us decide whether to continue bringing it to you. readers will remember Alan week. Long-tim- e West's Police Blotter. can't think of anyone who would want to assume the humorous cloak Alan as able to pull off with his blotter. But Chief Mike I Navarre believes in the philosphy of community policing, and that when citizens are aware of what's going on, they are more able to help each other and the department. Chief Navarre will provide us with a weekly log of department activities, which you will find this Where we find trends in acweek on page tivities reaching a certain level, yet to be deter 259-752- A-- 8. 5. The way Sam Remembers by Sam Taylor Moab a One advantage of living a mind full of memories of people have lived and worked with over the years. Unfortunately, many of those people are gone, but my memories of them are vivid. I remember Edgar Wilcox, the cobbler who lived just off Main Street and put new soles and heels on my scuffed shoes from time to time giving them new lives. Edgar grew a great garden and irrigated it from a ditch that ran along Main Street. often lean his chair back against the south wall of the pool hall and snooze. When he slept, his is long life in I mouth fell wide open, and he wasnt bothered at the noise. The management, Im afraid, was always concerned that he might catch a fly while sleeping. Earl Martin was also a regular at the 66 Club, and was generous about giving pointers to beginning young Snooker players. have clear memories of him hitching his body up onto the big pool table to take a long shot, when his short legs wouldnt let him reach far enough. Once when he missed one of those long shots after lengthy preparation, Earl said, Well, strained my milk but didnt get no cream. My Dad told me when came home from the Army to take over here, that there were a half dozen men in Moab, friends of his, who would come in occasionally to borrow a five or a ten. Give them the money, Dad said. They will always pay it back. And they did. never lost a penny on those transactions, although one of the crowd would pay me back in the morning, and borrow it back in the afternoon. The list is so long that it wouldnt fit in this column. may have to remember more of them from time to time, with my readers indulgence. must; however, remember Howard Lance. School Board President, LDS Bishop and Stake President, and a darned good farmer and orchardman. Howard's help to me personally over the years will always be appreciated and never be forgotten. After Adrien and bought our minifarm over twenty-fiv- e years ago, we cleared and planted about six acres mostly in alfalfa to provide feed for our animals over the winter. My first planting came late in October, and worried whether or not is was too late. One morning spotted Howard out in the field on his hands and knees inspecting my new crop. Fearful that one of the serious, successful farmers in the valley was down to snicker and tease me about my folly, approached him with some apprehension. was worried about your new hayfield, Howard said. The alfalfa has three leaves on it and that means that it's going to make, he concluded. He was there out of concern for my efforts. Once again, there to lend a helping hand and words of advice. Who could ask for a better place to grow up in. Lessons learned here made the challenges of maturing in a big outside world pretty easy. all by - I I I I I I I I I I I er 10-ac- re I I I tmes-(3lnbepmb- I mt 1538-183- 0) address: editormoabtimes.com 435-259-75- Member Times-lndependen- or FAX t, P.O. Box 129, Moab, UT 84532 and Circulation Manager, T--l Maps Press, Production Manager Staff Writer Contributing Writer Contributing Writer Contributing Writer Conributing Writer foul-smelli- non-existe- High Country News Writers on the Range Colorado snubs coal for all things renewable by Ed Marston Not long after Enron, one of our larger humpty-dumptiehad its great fall, I heard a s, supporter say he missed its CEO, because Ken Lay was a visionary. He wanted to cover parts of Texas with wind turbines and export that clean energy to the rest of the country. Yeah, a visionary. Wind or natural gas or hog manure was all the same to Enron: vehicles of enrichment. But Enron's biggest crime wasn't financial trickery. It was its betrayal of the nation's stab at electric deregulation. Until Enron and the little Enrons turned deregulation into a scandal, it had the potential to break apart monopolistic utilities and open the way to innovation, as happened in the telephone industry. Once Enron and the gang of energy traders almost bankrupted California, the restructuring of a stodgy industry came to a halt. To understand what electric utilities are, and why they must be shaken up, imagine that Thodead since 1931 comes to life mas Edison d and tours a modem power plant. It would all be familiar to him except the computerized control room. The plant would be bigger and hotter and operate at a higher voltage, but the underlying technology would be the same. Worse, a recent report by the industrys research arm, the Electric Power Research Institute, says that for every $100 Americans pay to a utility, they spend another $50 on losses from outages, brown-outvoltage fluctuations and the like. As if the industry didn't have enough problems, this fall in Colorado along came ballot Initiative 37, which, now that it has passed 53 percent to 47 percent, requires utilities to begin selling electricity from renewable sources such as wind, solar, flowing water, the burning oil. My local electric utility, of used french-fr- y on whose board of directors I sit, voted to back the initiative. Electric AssoThat made ciation part of a tiny minority. On the other side were Colorado's major utilities, spending millions of customer dollars. For giants like Xcel, it was about family values: They are happily married to coal, and another partner in the bedroom is anathema. They have a point. Winds start and stop d without a moment's notice while flat-oucoal a Ask best work plant power plants to quickly change speed to make up for a drop in wind generation elsewhere on the system, coal-fire- s, se and you will see a spectacular pile-uBut rather than figure out how to add renewables to their mix, and rather than think, Maybe we should begin phasing out of coal and move into wind and efficiency, Colorado's utilities spent their customers money begging voters to let them remain in the early 20th century. The utilities are not the only ones wind power will trouble. It will give lots of us fits. I live within a few miles of three mines that produce 1 percent of America's coal. But if not for train whistles and crossing gates, I wouldn't know I live in a coal valley. Underground mines occupy few acres above ground. By comparison, wind turbines take up lots of land and are visible from far off. Ask the people on Cape Cod who object to possible turwho bines off their shores. Ask fear that whirling propellers will knock hundreds of thousands of birds out of the sky. Why then did I half utility beast and half environmental beast back renewable energy on election day? First, because integrating wind into the electricity mix will force utility executives and engineers to innovate, or to make way for those who can. With deregulation dead, wind is the only modernizing tool for a industry. Second: Wind is not a utopian idea. Wind is pragmatic, central-statiopower, like coal. solved. be can Its problems Third: After seeing photos of melting polar ice caps in National Geographic, I believe in global climate change. We must cut our use of fossil fuels. There is also beauty. I visited a large wind ranch on the arid, windy plains of New Mexico recently, where 136 turbines snake for miles along the edge of a low cliff. Except for a recurring whoosh, the machines were silent. What I most remember are the shadows of the immense blades sweeping across the ground toward me. I stood in the near silence and in those racing shadows until our tour bus left. The wind machines added to the beauty of that land, as windmills add beauty to Holland's coast. I could live among them, as I now live among coal trains. All I ask is that some of the electricity the turbines create out of thin air The Times-lndepende- nt, your community newspaper Dorothy Anderson Jed Taylor, Jose Santana Ron Drake Ron Georg Oliver Harris A.J. Long nt p. bird-watcher- s, horse-and-bugg- Room Supervisor Backshop Castle Valley Columnist Columnist Columnist Distribution .. Mail published weekly, with breaking news updated on the web at J www.moabtimes.com I y n comes to me. Ed Marston is a contributor to Writers on the Range, a service of High Country (hcn.org). He writes in Paonia, Colorado. Get the scoop from a reliable source Samuel J. and Adrien F. Taylor, Publishers Adrien F. Taylor, Editor Sadie Warner, Assistant Editor .... ht t. UTAH PRESS ASSOCIATION Tom Taylor Zane Taylor .... Carrie Switzer Lisa Church.... Jeff Richards.., Marjorie Miller Jeannine Wait When it came my turn to speak in class I began with a description of the rifle and the working of its parts. That particular rifle was a caplock. Its lock was comprised of a simple arrangement of hammer, dogs, spring, trigger, and nipple. It was fired by a percussion cap that was placed on the nipple and struck by the hammer. The caplock was a vast improvement over the flintlock. A flintlock was fired by sparks caused by a piece of chert that was clamped in the hammer and scraped across a metal surface, igniting powder that was in the pan. The powder flashed, burning through a tiny passageway into the powder charge that was inside the barrel. The stock was a nice piece of oiled and rubbed walnut wood with some attractive natural patterns in it. The rifles barrel was thirty-si- x inches long with a twist to the riflings. The rate of twist tells how many times the ball or bullet spins in a given length of travel down the barrel. Modem bullets spin much faster, at a rate of once in about sixteen inches depending on other factors. But my old muzzle loader was designed to spin a inches. round ball only once in each forty-eigThe spin was necessary to stabilize the ball so that it could slice cleanly through the air rather than wobble about like a knuckle ball. The ramrod was a nice, straight piece of ash wood which was carried in a set of ferrules under the barrel. The ramrod was used to force the ball down into the barrel and to seat it. I told the class that several of the expressions we use in our language can be traced back to firearms. Someone with excellent posture or standing at attention might be described as standing straight as a ramrod. We use the expression, lock, stock and barrel, to describe the whole of anything. And, someone who makes a lot of fuss and noise but doesnt really accomplish anything is just a flash in the pan, meaning that the powder in the pan ignited but didnt burn through the passageway to ignite the charge under the ball. Next came my reason for requesting to be the last speaker in the class. I demonstrated how to load the rifle by pouring a bit of powder down the barrel. I placed a small patch of cloth that-coulbe lubricated with a very small amount of grease or saliva over the end of the barrel. I produced a .45 caliber ball. I deftly palmed the patch and ball but pretended to force them down into the barrel, creating a blank. I placed a percussion cap onto the nipple, aimed the rifle up toward the back of the classroom and squeezed the trigger. There was a satisfying boom as the powder ignited and a great, white cloud of sulfurous smoke blew from the barrel, filling the air with a smog. All heads spun around to ball impacted. see where the It was great. They swallowed it hook, line and sinker. Oops, wrong metaphor. They fell for it lock, stock and barrel. Immediately after the shot, we exited the room, leaving it somewhat unsavory for the next class. coal-fire- 435-259-77- NATIONAL NEWSPAPER ASSOCIATION iltf good. Delta-Montro- 8 ISSN (UPS) 6309-200Entered as Second class Matter at the Post Office at Moab, Utah under the Act of March 3, 1897. Second class postage paid at Moab, Utah 84532. Official City and County Newspaper. Published each Thursday at: 35 East Center Street, Moab, Grand County, Utah 84532 Postmaster: Send changes of address to: The forty-somethi- I He used to go along the ditch (curb) on irrigation day, raking up and burning the trash that had collected there. When Moab went big time during the uranium boom, grateful city fathers thought he should be compensated for his work, so they gave him a hundred dollars a month and a title for keeping the street clean. Edgar was offended. He resigned, saying that wasnt nearly enough money for the job he did. They sheepishly gave him a raise. Edgar wrote poetry which published on occasion. When we first set foot on the moon, Edgar wrote a tribute to that astronautical endeavor, but allowed at the end of his poem that he had no desire to visit. Its just too darned far away from Moab to ever amount to a damn, he concluded. Ive thought a lot lately about Maggie Stryker. Maggie lived in an apartment overlooking Main Street where she raised three fine daughters. She kept track of everything that happened downtown. She was a frequent visitor at our office, bringing us bits of newsworthy information and some that couldn't be printed. She called a spade a shovel, and didnt hesitate to give you her take on things. She came in the office one day looking for that G D Adrien. My wife had made the mistake, when sending out subscription statements, of suggesting that Maggie might like to take advantage of the senior citizen discount. ought to take you out in the alley and kick your butt for that, Maggie told my young wife. She meant it, too. Maggie was fiercely independent, and had a heart as big as a watermelon. She taught me a lot about living in a small town. Pete Borreson was an who helped me irrigate my orchard on occasions when we had a really big head of water. He never asked anything in return. Pete used to be a regular in the 66 Club, where had a lot of neat growing-up experiences after turned 18 and could legally go in the place. learned to play Snooker from experts of the billiards game. Pete would old-tim- it . There were throngs of students purposefully striding between classes. They scarcely gave me a second glance as I walked among them, griprifle in my ping the barrel of my muzzle-loadin- g across rested rifle The hand. my long right shoulder. I carried it like a shovel as if on my way to irrigate a field. Instead, I wa$ taking the rifle to a speech class where I was scheduled to give a demonstration speech. I had already arranged with the professor to be the last speaker that day. It was important to be last, . From this vantage of years, it is noteworthy that almost no one paid me any attention as I walked across campus with the rifle. There were a few who were interested in the rifle as an artifact and perhaps a few others who were curious. I doubt that there was the slightest twinge of fear in anyones heart. It was inconceivable that I might be up to no |