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Show MOAB: WHAT ELSE IS GONE? WHO A Sentimental Journey By Jim Stiles ELSE IS MISSING? The demise of Dewey Bridge came like a hammer blow between the eyes to many of us. It became another one of those lost links to the past. For a guy allegedly “clinging hopelessly” to it, I was particularly saddened. But I found myself thinking once again of all the other changes this part of the world has experienced, just in the few decades I’ve been here. Faces and places. Gone but not forgotten, at least not by me. And lest any of you dare to forget, let me either remind you, or introduce you to some remarkable people and memorable sights. When I think of the Moab I loved, these are some of the underground aquifer. The cottonwood tree took off. By the 1920s, Moab residents were already referring to it as “The Big Tree.” No one had to ask, “Which ‘big tree’?” Among great trees, the First South cot- tonwood was the greatest. The Big Tree became a reference point for Moabites and especially for new arrivals. Almost a century after it found a new home on First South, I saw the Big Tree for the first time. -I still recall its gigantic gnarled old trunk—each lump and bump and scar looked as if it had a story to tell—-but more than anything I remember the cool shadiness it the images that come to mind... TOM ARNOLD...VW MECHANIC/PHILOSOPHER provided, even on a hot August afternoon. I stood beneath the Big Tree and gazed skyward at its soft green translucence as light filtered through branch after leafy branch. In the 80s, there were some proposals to prune the tree back dramatically—-some of its branches had become enormous, and the Big Tree was becoming dangerously top-heavy, but many of us “environmentalists” vigorously objected, including me. We thought it would have been a desecration of this venerable old Moab resident. The pruners backed off He was TK to many of his friends. Tom Tom to others. He was one of the first people I met when I moved to Moab. He reminded me of Frank Morgan, the actor who played the title role in “The Wizard of Oz.” His “Volkswagon Museum,” (some call it a junk yard) was a thorn in the side of obsessive-compulsive people everywhere. No one would ever call it tidy. The interior of his shop was even worse. In the last decade of TK’s life, the place was a refuge for dozens of stray cats. Tom had them neutered and then turned them loose. They could count on him On a for a free meal. brilliant mild afternoon in late autumn, just a few weeks before the Millennium, the Big Tree on First South began to uproot itself. The sidewalk buckled and split in two The One-and-Only TOM ARNOLD, THE BIG TREE in the autumn of 1999, the day after it began to lean, and a week later. The Big Tree was over a century old when she met her end. in 1988 with his beloved VWs and in 2005. Tom Arnold was Ed Abbey’s personal pilot in the 70s, when Ed lived in Moab. Abbey refused to put a phone in his house on Spanish Valley Drive, but it was a two minute drive to Tom Tom’s shop where he spent countless hours arguing with editors and agents. Tom Arnold was a notoriously successful poker player. A few years ago, he revealed to me his secret: “I was the only one at the table who was sober by 10 pm.” More than anything, he was “cheerful in all weathers,” to steal a line from larry McMurtry. The man was unflappable. When Tom Arnold died last year, Moab’s light dimmed. as the cottonwood’s massive root system slowly lost its grip on the good earth that had sustained her for more than a century. Within the space of a few hours, the tree was visibly tilting toward the street. The news rippled from one end of Moab to the other and by sunset, scores of Moabites had gathered to watch and to mourn. City work crews, fearing the tree might topple completely, blocked traffic in both directions and sought advice from tree specialists at the University of Utah. They drove down from Salt Lake City the next day but it only took a short while to assess the Big Tree’s future—-she was going to die. The city decided to put it out of its misery. THE BIG TREE In the late 1880s, a cottonwood seedling was planted at the corner of First South and Third East. Records at the Grand County Courthouse indicate that a man named Leonidas L.Crapo filed on the land the previous November, as a homestead property, but no A few weeks later, work crews dismembered the Big Tree, one limb at a time, until there was nothing left. The ground was re-contoured, new curbing was installed and by Thanksgiving, a newcomer passing by would have had no clue of what had been a Moab Landmark for more than a century. one can say for sure who planted the tree. The tree may have gone into shock from its sudden unearthing and relocation. Her leaves might have begun to show signs of stress and wither in the late spring heat. But with loving care and enough water, the cottonwood survived and began to grow, quite slowly at first, and the planter might have wondered in those early years if the tree would ever provide decent shade on a scorching July day. But as the century drew to a close, the tree's roots had reached deep into the sandy soil of the Moab Valley and tapped into THE POPLAR PLACE FIRE and the MAN WHO SAVED IT In the 70s and 80s, the vortex of Moab social life was the Poplar Place, at the corner of Main Street and First North. The building had been there for almost a century but had been a bar only since the 60s. Of all the “regular customers” at the Pop, the image of Dave 14 |