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Show 18 YEARS AGO: The Zephyr Archives N COUNTRY THE CANYO EPHYR THE Volume 1 Number 7 CANYON October, 1989 50 cents COUNTRY ZEPHYR ZurT | Moab, Utah Volume 1 Number 8 N Ovember, 1989 50 cen election ’89: “AND THE WINNERS ARE....”” TOM the mayoral ~ and city council candidates Tn this Tesue: a toterviews with the Mayortal Candida Redevlopment Controversy ‘ALL. Christensen's “Unity Monument’! Sleight onSa teRecyet Opies Siscereee of ot Atta en JOratetts An Essay on Wilderness 13 years ago, Moab was embroiled in another mayoral election, between incumbent Tom Stocks and Bill Meador. Current Mayor Dave Sakrison was running for city council, and Bill and Robin Groff were wearing tuxes in their Rim ad. Two stories in the autumn issues were about rat turds and pith. Here they are, unedited and for your reading pleasure... lover easy some parties may benefit more than others, overlooking the fact that everyone will profit by hanging on to the coattails of the movers and shakers who are getting the job done. A heavyweight bucket-of pith indeed. But there’s nothing new here worth addressing that you haven’t already heard. And heard. How about Moab being at a crossroads? Pith, yes, but Ho Hum. Ditto on camping problems along the river. The alarms have been sounded about the proposal by the state to sell school sections of land within the Utah National Parks'to the private sector. I’m sure you’ve made up your minds about that one. No doubt about it, there’s plenty of pith there to get excited about, but we have to await developments. Put that one on hold. Maybe I'll put on my political hat (in the picture) next month and go after the election .... probably have to pump some pith and vinegar into that one. You can see that there are many kinds of real pith to be treated. Let's take one final example to show that an unassuming subject, the pithification of an old shoe, can, when viewed sympathetically, become a splendid example of valuable pith. : Lying abandoned and condemned in some remote desert place, an old shoe, dried and curled by time and the elements, can be comfortably compared to an empty house, an anasazi ruin. It can evoke a sense of emptiness, the special emptiness where important things have happened in the past, where lives have been lived, people laughed and cried, dreamed and suffered. And that knowledge about unspecific happenings raises a deep sense of the vibrations of those vague happenings still resonating about the place. A fruitful imagination can produce a wonder of the events that surround a simple, grubby old shoe. How did this forlorn relic come to be here? When life is breathed back Into this sad monument there might be a story worth telling. Years of struggle and hard work beneath the weight of its owner, perhaps, trudging uncomplainingly at the whim of a callous(ed), senseless master. Kicked aside, ignored as an ugly obstruction by battalions of squeaky fresh replacements, never valued as a lesson in the history of the life of a shoe, of all shoes; without honor or respect, rewarded only by cruel abandonment, alone in a mortifying place. Sniff. Old shoes have feelings too. And Pith. There. Now that I’ve written this whole essay on pith maybe | can slide by for a while on punk? : artwork by ms ©lKae by john sensenbrenner Alright. Alright. I’ve been pounded all week with "We've got to get you something to write about, something pithy.” Pithy? What the pith is pith anyway? Thoundth like a lithped word. It looked it up. It means essence. How can such a silly-sounding word have such a heady, high-sounding meaning. | wonder if things are either pith or not, or are there gray areas? Even blue or yellow? : These things tossed around in my head and | found that | had troutle getting It Into perspective. Pith. Presumably I've fallen among the unglamourous company of confused and misguided punk writers by association because | wrote one little unpublished story about distasteful personal habits. So that now | find myself trying to re-establish my integrity by searching for pithulent material. | wonder If pith itself is suitable subject matter for these pages? Well, I’m trying real hard to find something to please the plithophiles. The problem! have Is with getting something pithy that has not been diluted by too much mileage. It seems that when a solidly pithy issue gets too much attention it loses its pith, sometimes becoming non-pith, whatever that might be. Maybe punk? Some things, true, by definition have no pith. However, when analyzed carefully, even a lusterless subject like a.water faucet might seem very pithful to a faucet designer. So how can |rule out the many modest and humble things that come to mind in my search for the holy pith? : That’s the stuff, Pith, | say to myself. Go out and get it. And | usually go out and don’t. I'm easily sidetracked because everything looks pretty pithiable to me. What is it exactly? and which are suitable for expression where? Since it’s clear that one man’s pith is another man’s punk, pardon the cliche, | don’t think the question can be answered to anyone’s satisfaction. So I'll blunder along in the dark, the lonely pithtolero, hampered by the pressure to ferret out pith, eyeing the possibilities. Let’s look at some of the potentially pithous things that can be found around town. Controversial matters are usually quite pithy. Where there’s more than one opinion about a subject, the more passionately felt the better, there is certainly pith to be plumbed. This is not to say that one-sided issues have no pith. Consider child abuse. Yes. Very pithy. Did you ever hear anyone argue In support of child abuse? Sort of leads you to believe that it couldn’t possibly exist, doesn’t it? But it does. So who are the culprits? This, however, is not my kind of pith. It’s best left to the experts, if there are any. 2 Maybe the problems of the physically and mentally handicapped are my ticket Into acceptable, pithy journalism. Here’s good, substantial pith. Everyone says oh yes, special accommodation should be made for these fellow passengers on our Journey. But when push comes to shove and it becomes necessary to demonstrate our principles by a personal commitment, ugly excuses rear up, disguised as indigence (What? A home for the mentally handicapped In my neighborhood?). When righteousness, supposedly over having been given a fast whistle, is unmasked, expected cooperation Is disclosed to be devious hostility. There’s mucho pith here but with more spines than | want to handle. Then there’s pithy Issues like the appearance of the numerous "shared - dwellings” around town. This, too, is clearly pithful but | have mixed feelings about it. On the one hand this trend changes the character of neighborhoods and floats into a gray area of the zoning code. On the other hand, some of the new plural neighbors are preferable to the ones they replace. And, Incidentally, this Is a good example of a two-sided controversy where there will be no happy resolution. Some one will have to be hurt. And | don't like blood. So nix to that one. And there are problems like the Vernal-Book Cliffs Road, the missing link in the Eastern Utah highway system, and its whipping boy, the Special Roads District Board. This one has had all the pith kicked out of It by the forces of boredom, resorting to guilt for denying children their education, playing on Jealousy because Moab’s Complete Outdoor Store . 94 W. 1st No. , 259-5333 Packrat Middens are they a key to our past? by Jim Stiles If we could climb into a time machine and travel backward Into our past, what would it reveal? How far, for instance, would we have to journey before we noticed a marked change in the scenery around us? Standing on a point near Balanced Rock at Arches National Park, a gnarled and tortured juniper stands sentinel over the red rocks. It looks like it’s been here forever. But, in fact, how long have the junipers and pinon pines been a part of the park landscape? A remarkable discovery by a graduate student from Northern Arizona University and a subsequent investigation by its Department of Quaternary Studies have provided some startling insights into this area’s (relatively) recent’ past..... On March 17, 1989, Ranger Damian Fagen was on a routine backcountry foot patrol near the park’s west boundary. He stopped to examine a deep alcove and discovered signs of archeological vandalism. Several pits had been dug by greedy graverobbers and pothunters, who exhibited not only blatant disregard for the law, but for what is moral and decent as well. Fagen reported the vandalism to Chief Ranger John McLaughlin, and a few days later, several rangers returned to the site. ; Ef |