“Evidence of the power and effect of jokes can be seen in the fact that dictators and totalitarian regimes – and occasionally also thin-skinned politicians in democracies – fear them like the plague.” – Paul Watzlawick As is so often…
Edna Fridley was a good friend of the canyon country of southeast Utah for more than 30 years. Every year she returned to the slickrock from her home, back east, to wander and explore what was then one of the…
Do you remember reading in your histories of World War II about the concentration camps set up by Hitler and Stalin? They incarcerated many of their citizens without benefit of due process because of these peoples’ political beliefs and racial…
Herb Recalls Shorty Yarberry & the Grand Canyon… One of the great characters of the Grand Canyon was Shorty Yarberry. His whole name was George Armstrong Custer ‘Shorty’ Yarberry. He was born on the day of the Battle of the…
It was deathly hot, 104 degrees, the day the four of us (Norah, Rose, Olivia and I) arrived at Delicate Arch trailhead to join other parties clustered at their vehicles, gathering cameras and stowing bottles of water, food, who knows,…
Part One 1926. The sheep are looking good and a few lambs are big enough to ship. Bob is going around them and once again showing them to the baby. She too is growing and feeling good. Mary and Jack…
“After several centuries of experiments and false starts, the foundations of modern Puebloan society emerged from the crucible of post-Chaco chaos: egalitarian, ritually based, anti-hierarchical.” – Archaeologist Stephen Lekson, 2008 It was one of those old motels, shaped like an…
Our friend martin Murie left us in January, but with the permission and blessings of his family, we would like to re-print some of his best essays from the past decade. Here is one of Martin’s first contributions, a…
BACK TO JACKSON HOLE… Approaching my old home grounds, Jackson’s Hole, I start gearing down. Deep breathing, concentrating on traffic, letting all else blur by. But a parking place has to be found and by then I’ve remembered the sagebrush…
EDITOR’S NOTE: For Part One of: ‘The Calm before the Swarm,” go to: http://www.canyoncountryzephyr.com/2011/12/01/the-calm-before-the-swarm-by-jim-stiles/ After decades in operation, the Atlas Uranium Mill, once the lifeblood of the community, ground to a halt, closed in 1984 and never re-opened. The domestic…