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Show THE ZEPHYR/FEBRUARY-MARCH 2004 TAKE "All the news that causes fits." THE CANYON COUNTRY ZEPHYR Jim Stiles, publisher (435) 259-7773 SC ALAAe Ly cesta s ye. tb pert) cczephyr@frontiernet.net G6 the Heath Monitor Files leat paar cra. Herb Ringer (1913-1998) Zephyr pilot/aerial reconaissance Jeu Reis esi) webmaster ALLWoodruff subscriptions 6 transcriptions ETM Furs iets eigen etden Moat Marianne Apadaca Salt Lake City: Nancy Jacobsen Colorado/Arizona: Ken Hodges G Mark Anderson THEZEPHYR. copyright 2003, EVI Bat dst oe rsaeh The Zephyr is publishedsix timesa year at Moab, Utah. The opinions expressed herein are not necessarily those of its vendors, advertisers, or even, aiom etry Oilag All photos andcartoonsare by the publisher unless otherwise noted. ABBEY’S MOAB DECADE Ed Abbey died 15 years ago this spring, on March 14, 1989. It’s almost unfathomable to believe that a decade and a half has come and gone since Ed left. Or to realize that when I first met Abbey, ona cold dark December night in Moab, he was almost the same age then that 1 am now. Or that the world and the American West could be such a different place than it was, just a blink of the eye ago. I find myself wondering almost every day, as I see the stunning landscape of the Utah canyonlands increasingly trampled by a techno-gearheaded-adrenaline-riddled recreation economy, where solitude and reverence for the rocks play little or no part in the daily ‘adventure’ of thousands of ‘thrill-seekers’... what Ed would make of all this. “To Edward Abbey.’ Now I added, “Wherever you are,” and gave up. ee Fate, however, has a strange way of toying with our lives. I went back to Kanab, tried to get hired by the Kane County School System-—after they got me to shave off my beard, the principal told me they weren’t all that interested. I left town fast, headed east, spent an afternoon at famed polygamist Alex Joseph’s Red Desert Café in Glen Canyon City, where I ogled all his gorgeous and And all of us have, for better or worse, been lured by the temptation to speculate. My own ‘what would Abbey do?’ theory I left empty-handed. Drove back into Utah, over the dam, to Monument Valley and north to the Bears Ears, and finally to warm up on a particularly cold October morning, so many years is quite brief: I believe he would have fled America and ended up in some outback corner of the Northern Territory, chasing gowannas for fun and peeling the bark off of gum trees to make sandals. (Just my little fantasy) It is also remarkable, and a tribute to the greatness of the man, that so many of us still remember Ed daily and feel the need to share with others our memories of Abbey, no matter how small or insignificant those remembrances might be. Elsewhere in this issue, writer Evan Cantor takes a poke at all the acquaintances of Ed Abbey who have, as he says, “put pen to paper at least once to etch their memories into stone.” Evan concludes, “Having known. Ed personally confers a kind of legitimacy that the author might, or might not, otherwise possess, a kind of western moral high ground.” I suppose there are a few Abbeyphiles that are motivated by less than honorable reasons to tell their “Me & Ed” stories, but I don’t think that’s why most of us like to tell tales about Cactus Ed. As we approach the 15" anniversary of his death, I simply find myself missing him and wishing he was still around. And wondering how he’d feel about the Brave New West of the 21" Century. And, more than anything, wanting these New Westerners to remember him and to understand what he stood for. There is a reason why so many of us have personal stories to tell, when it comes to the Life & Times of Ed Abbey. It’s very simple—he was accessible. Incredibly accessible. Abbey may have lived inside his own head for much of his life, and he may have Edward Abbey brilliant wives (“How does he DO that?’ I wondered). Tried to convince one of them to come with me, but got nowhere. I grumbled, “What has he got that 1 haven’t got?” And she just smiled and patted me on the head and said, “You're very cute, honey...but that’s Alex Joseph!” ago, at the Natural Bridges National Monument Visitor Center, where I was greeted by a ranger named Dave Evans. In those days, post-Labor Day visitors were so infrequent that park rangers actually looked forward to seeing them. standards. Wery weird by today’s As we approach the 15th anniversary of Abbey's death, I simply find myself missing him, and wishing he was still around. And wondering how he'd feel about the Brave New West of the 21st Century. Evans, who fancied himself a cowboy but really grew up in the suburbs of DesMoines, took one look at my cold and shivering and disheveled form and said, “Partner, you look like you could use a cup of coffee.” The rest was incredibly good luck. Dave invited me to stay a while and offered his couch when the tent got too cold. I met and befriended the other rangers at Bridges and then heard about a crazed seasonal from the Maze, a legendary backcountry wanderer with three dogs and a penchant for hiking naked while on backcountry foot patrol. His name was Doug Treadway. reluctantly realized that he had become a living icon of the American West, but Ed was still a man who enjoyed the company (Author's Note: This may be boring the hell out of many of you and I of ‘regular people,’ who spurned and hid from most autograph seem to be taking the long way around the barn to tell this story, but easy man to find. was only a hobby. IT... By Jim Stiles seekers (unless they were gorgeous co-eds) and who was a fairly In my case, saving the world OR LEAVE P.O. BOX 327 MOAB, UT 84532 eel Teele Mal Rs KenSleight Barry Scholl Rich Ingebretsen Cactus Rat Scott Silver Wendell Berry Martin Murie Katie Lee Dan Rosen MarkSteen Philip Hyde Chinle Miller Willie Flocko Alexandra L. Woodruff Lance Christie Aon Wendland IT Well...that’s not completely true. My first effort to find Edward Abbey led me ona futile journey, all the way to the Arizona Strip, the once-forgotten wilderness of forested plateaus and red deserts, that lie between the Utah border and the North Rim. He was down there, somewhere, or so the jacket cover of The Monkey Wrench Gang proclaimed, living a hermit’s life, I assumed, working furiously on his proposed “fat masterpiece.” I was looking for a place called “Wolf Hole, Arizona,” and after a dreadful dusty drive in my VW microbus, along miserable corrugated roads, I limped into Wolf Hole. But there was nothing there. I don’t recall even so much as a building. Perhaps a corral. The sound of a squeaky windmill brings back a memory. But nothing I'm having a wonderful time with my memories and embellishing the ones that need to be spit-polished a bit, so if this is just so much sentimental fluff to some of you...well...humor me, will you?) Treadway’s season was over by now (most seasonals were ‘terminated’ as the permanents liked to say, in late October). What I found additionally intriguing about Doug was learning that he and Ed played poker together. And then discovering that Abbey LIVED on the edge of town in Moab, on Spanish Valley Drive, for cryin’ out loud. In fact, he had lived in Moab for most of the 70s with his gorgeous teenaged wife Renee’ (who we all worshiped and adored). I finally met Treadway and showed him the Damn Drawing; Doug assured me Ed would love it and suggested I come to Moab some Wednesday night, when they'd be playing poker, and give else. No Abbey. I had come bringing gifts; earlier that year, I implemented my own crude skills as a cartoonist to produce a semi-professionally the cartoon to Abbey. A month later, I had my chance. In just four weeks I had found ‘employment’ of sorts, unless being employed requires actually being paid. I picked up a volunteer position at Arches National Park and was givena warm drawn cartoon/line drawing of the ultimate fate of Glen Canyon Dam-a blown up, crumbling concrete plug. I thought he might get a chuckle out of it and was anxious to bring an offering to the man who saved me from becoming a Republican (It was that close...Desert Solitaire put me back on track.). _ But the son of a bitch was nowhere to be found. I even looked for “signs”--- a discarded Schlitz beer can along the road perhaps...an uprooted billboard. But I could find no evidence of his passing. At the bottom of my Damn Drawing, I had scribbled apartment and three bucks day to run road patrols and man the visitor center desk. The Wednesday following my first day at work, Treadway called—he and Ed were playing poker that night at the ‘ranch house,’ (now the yupster Moab Springs Ranch); did I, he asked, want to stop by and give Abbey my Damn Drawing? I was terrified. I was sure that I’d make a fool of myself—say something inane, or even worse, perhaps vomit all over him. I was that scared. My friend Conklin, a BLM ranger came along for moral support. We entered the ranch house through the back os PAGE2 |
