This is the First Annual Retro Issue, featuring the decades of the 1920s and the 1930s. It attempts to depict, in words and pictures, what it was like to be around here more than half a century ago. While the slogan of this publication recently (and perhaps foolishly) shifted to "Clinging Hopelessly to the Future," I still hold a special fondness for the past. Sometimes I even think I was a living and breathing earthbound mortal during some of those years, before my most recent birth. Who knows?
I realize, albeit grudgingly, that we cannot even hope to go back to such times. How many of us, as accustomed to life at the Millennium as we are, could even enjoy a leap backward to another era? I mean...what would we do without email and cell phones?
Did I really say that? Somebody slap me.
But seriously, I do think there is some value in remembering what life was like for our grandparents. To me it's important to recall that people could find real happiness and joy and contentment without all this STUFF. People used to actually entertain themselves and each other without nearly as many props and goodies as we demand today. You will discover from this issue that even the question of materialism is a matter of degree. Throughout these pages, you'll see a series of advertisements, pulled mostly from old copies of the Times-Independent and you'll realize that the quest to satisfy our "gotta-have-its" has simply gone from bad to worse to obscene. There is a real estate ad, somewhere in the next 32 pages, that claims: "We guarantee you will double your money in the next 60 days."
Despite the hype of that time, it is comparatively tame and actually pretty funny compared to the media assault on our senses today. I heard an interesting statistic recently. During this most recent Christmas Shopping Season, an impressive majority of Americans, more than 70%, said that they actually despised the greedy and material aspects of the holidays and longed for a simpler and more meaningful way to enjoy the season. And yet, in the very next morning's edition of The Salt Lake Tribune, there was a page one photograph of hundreds and hundreds of would-be shoppers, lined up in front of the Toys R' Us store at 5:30 am. Some of them had been there since four. All of them looking for pre-Xmas deals.
So what do we want? How do we rate the quality of our lives? What is important and what is frivolous? We can't go back to the past, but we don't have to forget its brighter aspects. By remembering what we had, we can see what we have lost, and...perhaps...what can be reclaimed.
The winners of the November City Council election have taken office and assumed their responsibilities and now we wait to see if the changes make any difference at all. I don't want to sound skeptical (who..me?), but it has been a long time since I have seen any election in Grand County tilt the destiny of its citizens in another direction. (Just to be consistently redundant, it was the first elected Grand County Council in February 1993; but there I go again...living in the past.)
In this latest election, from all that I could observe and understand, Moab City actually elected a cartoon character to be a city councilman. I took photos of the posters to see if Gregg Stucki really looks like his campaign image. But other than the uniqueness of the visual aids, I saw nothing to get excited about from any of the candidates. It was campaign business as usual. Very few of them spoke about the issues. It was all touchy-feely rhetoric and vague promises about being trustworthy. I got the sense that the candidates wanted to be loved by everyone and despised by none. They claimed they cared about us, but how did they know what we cared about?
Oh the timidity of it all.
In researching the history of the 1920s and 1930s for this issue, I was reminded of a great speech by Franklin Roosevelt. No politician in the 20th Century was as hated and despised as FDR. He had a way of pushing buttons and enjoying the effects, especially when the buttons he pushed conveyed the unpleasant truth. In 1936, running for reelection, Roosevelt faced the fury of his opponents with a forthright smile.
On the evening of October 31, FDR spoke to a capacity crowd of supporters at Madison Square Garden, but he spoke of his adversaries. First he identified them: "business and financial monopoly, speculation, reckless banking...organized money." The packed crowd roared with approval as Roosevelt said, "Never before in all our history have these forces been so united against one candidate as they stand today. They are unanimous in their hate for me--and I welcome their hatred."
By now the audience was on its feet and FDR paused to let the roar subside. He didn't want any of them to miss what was coming next. Roosevelt continued. "I should like it said of my first administration that in it the forces of selfishness and of lust for power have met their match." As the cheers of the audience grew, he delivered his knockout punch. "I would like to have it said of my second administration that in it these forces met their master."
It's been a long time since a crowd cheered for a candidate like they did that night.
But what about here? Is it hopeless to dream of speeches like that from our candidates? Or that kind of courage? Recently I had an idea that is probably as unrealistic as all my others, but I'd like to pass it along anyway. Next November Grand County citizens will go to the polls to elect four new members to the seven person county council. Running for office is a lonely and frightening prospect. And frustrating. And expensive. But it doesn't have to be that way. Imagine this...
Imagine that there are four of you out there--four good citizens who are articulate and fair-minded and concerned about the long term future of our community. You're not worried about your own self-serving interests. You actually care about the future of our town. The four of you are sick of the campaign bromides and cliches. You're tired of inaction and vacillation. You know exactly what you would do if you were elected and you are prepared to tell the voters precisely what those actions would be.
So the four of you file for Grand County Council. And as the law requires, you file as independent candidates. But you run as a slate. You present a joint plan of action to the voters and you share advertising space in the media.
Imagine that you tell Grand County Voters: "This is what we will do. If you agree, vote for ALL of us. If you disagree, don't vote for ANY of us. If elected we will proceed to put this plan into action and at the end of our terms we will step down. This is a one shot deal."
Wouldn't that be something? It's at least worth considering. And it would certainly stimulate some REAL debate among the candidates and the voters alike about the course our county takes in this new century.
It can also give strength and support to efforts by other citizens of southeast Utah who are striving to save something of the canyon country before it is completely swallowed by trams and motels and McDonalds. For instance, Moab's spectacular canyon rims were recently listed as one of America's twelve 1999 "Last Chance Landscapes" by the environmental organization Scenic America. The announcement was greatly the result of efforts by Moab resident Audrey Graham, who has worked tirelessly to secure the designation for Moab. As a "Last Chance Landscape," Moab's valley will get a lot of national attention, but it needs the support of local and state government to give the "Last Chance" status any teeth. Without government action to protect the red rock rims, "Last Chance" designation may prove to be little more than an epitaph.
In addition, last month The Nature Conservancy and Utah State University County Extension hosted a workshop called "Farms and Ranches for the Future." The purpose was to "explore available options and benefits for keeping farms and ranches in families, or simply maintaining them as farms and ranches in the future." The idea for the workshop came from the Conservancy's Anne Wilson and Mike Johnson from the Extension and it's a good start. But again it needs the support of local government to really be effective.
All this is possible. Maybe not probable. But worth a try.
And if you are shrugging (like I am prone to do) and saying, "Look...everything's screwed up anyway. It's too late now," don't forget that you probably said the same thing five years ago, when Moab was only going to have one tram.
As is the tradition here, the February/March issue of The Zephyr is printed before Christmas, but is not distributed until late January. As a result, it is often a dangerous proposition to commit words to type when there is a six week gap between press day and distribution day. Events can turn words on their ears and make monkeys out of all of us. And so I always include this disclaimer: If there is anything inappropriate or in bad taste in this issue because of events that occurred AFTER it went to press, it is not my fault.
Still there are an issue or two that I don't think will go away in the near future, so here is a quick update.
With the six week distribution delay, I should take my own advice here and be as brief as possible. Things may change, but I doubt it.
In a nutshell, some members of the so-called "Glen Canyon Group" decided that perhaps it was better NOT to fight the Utah Chapter and that some kind of peace could be made with its ExComm. Some members thought they could tolerate the restrictive gag order resolution for now and work to change it from within, once the group was approved.
Since the chapter's own resolution says it will not publicly support Glen Canyon restoration until the Congress "passes a good Utah wilderness bill," and since the ExComm has expressed no interest (so far) in removing or revising the resolutions, I removed myself from actively participating in the group's organizational efforts. A "good Utah wilderness bill" is a decade away. Maybe more.
On December 6, Moab members of the Sierra Club attended a chapter meeting in Salt Lake City. Ken Sleight insisted that the ExComm vote, one way or the other, to approve or disapprove the "Glen Canyon Group." Once again the chapter ExComm delayed the vote. If it waits long enough, there may not be anybody left who gives a damn about Glen Canyon, that gives a damn about the Utah Chapter. And that may very well be the ExComm's strategy.
And that is also all I think I'll devote to ruminating on this very frustrating topic. For now. I think there will be a lot more to say in March about the ExComm. I hope, by late January, it has changed its position, but I'm not holding my breath.
Last summer a handful of kids broke into my office while I was out of town and made a mess of the place. By extreme good fortune, my buddy John Hartley just happened to drive by my house, stopped to retrieve my morning Tribune, and spotted the intruders. They tried to make a run for it (the oldest was eight!) but John grabbed one of them and the police were called. Among the items recovered and turned over to the Moab P.D., according to Hartley, were 12 quarters, a key, and several packages of Chiclets gum. My old friend Herb Ringer, who died more than a year ago, used to special-order that brand of gum and left his allotment to me. And I know that much of the gum was chewed by the little burglars, but not all of it.
But, months later, when the police finally returned the "evidence," there was no gum! I asked the officer where my Chiclets were and he said he knew nothing of any missing gum. I told him I'd been watching carefully for telltale signs of chewing by patrol officers and he pleaded ignorance to any illicit Chiclet chewing.
I know the Moab P.D. cringes at the thought of public scrutiny, but I really want to know who chewed my gum. Maybe they can get the West Valley Police to do an investigation--it did such a good job on the Dinsmore case.