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20 YEARS AGO...in the ZEPHYR
TWENTY YEARS AGO? America was gearing up for Gulf War I. In the October 1990 issue, we reported on the groing media frenzy:
“The NBC Nightly News is sharing ‘video dispatches’ from the Saudi Arabian desert..Democrats pledge their support to President Bush during this great crisis...As Tom Brokaw says goodnight and the credits roll, we see a video montage of scenes from the desert--tanks rumbling across endless dunes...Over these images, the producers have laid in the soundtrack from Tom Petty’s hit, ‘I won’t back down.’ It gives the prospect of war a nice, trendy effect.”
You can stand me up at the Gates of Hell, But I won’t back down!
In our FEEDBACK section, Karen Whitaker of Ashville, NC wrote:
“There are a number of towns which have gone the (development) route and are now crowded, synthetic, over-hyped towns like Taos. It is ‘devel­opment’ run amuck--blind, heedless expansion to capitalize on the dol-lar...Don’t let that happen to Moab!”
THE GREAT ELECTION of 1990
It was hard to call it ‘Old Moab v New Moab,’ but it did have the feel of it as the local campaigns hit a fevered pitch in Octo­ber 1990.
In commissioner races, Old Moab triumphed---Dave Knut-son beat Dave Bierscheid, Manuel Torres defeated Craig Big-ler, David Adams won the state legislator seat over Ken Sleight, and County Attorney Elaine Coates was defeated by...herself? She lost a Yes/No vote when nobody chose to run against her.
Two years later, angry Moabites tossed out the county com­mission and changed its form of government...amazing times.
THE CARTOON ADS: Before he lowered his sights and ran for Mayor of Moab, Friendy Dave apparently took a run at the presi­dency, at least in his cartoon ads. A closer look at the text suggests that the cartoonist/editor may have been borrowing some lines from the esteemed Professor Irwin Corey.
At United Cable, Jim Corwin still ran the business and it was pos­sible to fnd real human beings at their Main Street store next to Back of Beyond Books.
And for the first time in 25 years, I was getting real haircuts from a real barber---Pete Peterson. Another one of those Zephyr trade-outs that was part of the Moab Barter Economy, when nobody had any money but everybody was reasonably content.