Ellen Jo Knows

Be Mine, Arizona

2012-01-16T09:51:00.000-08:00

Be Mine, Arizona!

The 100th Birthday of the Valentine State

The Outs- February 2012

The Noise

Ellen Jo Roberts

Upon return from any out-of-state road trip, the first glimpse of the “Welcome to Arizona” sign always chokes me up, teary-eyed with joy. Everything feels right when we see the warm sunset stripes of the state flag beckoning us along the highway home. Like many Arizonans, I was not born in this place, but I love it as if it were my own mother. It’s a land of extremes. As one flatlander visitor declared to us, “Arizona is not for beginners.” It is a place that can have both the hottest and coldest temperature of the nation, on the same day. Curvy back roads mix with the ever changing landscape and elevation. Ecosystems change from Canada to Mexico in a two-hour time span. Chock full of public land, there are 3,928 mountains here--more than any one of the other Mountain States. Route 66 and the sun- baked neon and kitschy artifacts of the Mother Road continue to be mythologized in films and publications. It’s fantastic how commonplace it is to pull up at a stop light next to vintage cars and trucks, because this fine dry climate preserves the old metal.

Even in the bigger cities, people here are friendly open-faced and helpful in a small town way. I love the vibrant blend of cultures here, ranging from the great population of native tribes, to Mexicans (who once called this land Mexico), to the melting pot mix of retirees and transplantees. Clarkdale, founded in 1912, shares the centennial with Arizona, and our 98-year-old brick bungalow was built during the United Verde Copper Company reign. Our views from home are steep angles to the mountains. The Verde River winds through our neighborhood, bringing with it ancient cottonwood trees and a wealth of wild and rare critters. The quality of light here is so phenomenal that when certain seasons and atmospheric events conspire it appears that everything is aglow, even us. These are some of the things I am in love with about Arizona.

For the past few years I have spent countless minutes defending my state from being a cheap punch line to a thousand political jokes. We are stereotyped a lawless desert, full of gun crazy racists.

“In Arizona, it’s illegal to be black!”- NBC’s 30 Rock.

Last summer the NYC-based website Gawker named Arizona “the worst state in the USA” as the finale to a week-long countdown, awarding it the grand prize. Written by an urban hipster in Brooklyn (who had apparently only been to Arizona once, to visit the Grand Canyon) the article was an mean-spirited, over-simplified attempt at comedy (insulting pretty much every state along the way).

“Arizona is swiftly devolving into a dystopic free-for-all of armed mad men patrolling the state with guns, often to disastrous effect…Arizona is a hissing snake pit of angry old white people (they are angry because they are literally being cooked to death) yelling at the immigrants and others. Others whom they fear and loathe, and it is probably going to explode someday soon into a bright ball of orange fire and we will know that either the end times have come for us all or thank god we are finally rid of Arizona.”- Gawker.com

This assessment of my state is inaccurate. These are not the people I know. Arizona is home to a wild variety of ecology, geology, ethnology, politics, culture and climate. In lumping Arizonans all into the right wing nut-job category a vast population of liberals, hippies, artists, and new-age, left wing nut-jobs is slighted. We demand equal representation! The reality of our surroundings is complicated. Arizona is more than a political punching bag, or a stock photo of the Grand Canyon. As we celebrate Arizona’s Centennial, I asked local folk about their complex relationships with this state we call home. Consider it a love letter, a valentine for our Arizona as it celebrates its 100^th birthday on February 14th.

Ona Ziegler is a world traveler and a clothing designer who grew up in Jerome. She finds a lot to love about her native state, “I love the sky as my ocean. I love the animals, birds and coyotes. Tarantulas. I love the heat! I love the blue water in the red desert I also love the murky brown dirt water. I love the space above my head and the earth beneath my feet! The sunsets and sunrises. I always thought as a kid that it was where God lived in those times of day in Arizona. I also believed and might still do that the aliens and their ships use our Arizona clouds as perfect camo transportation devices. I love the saguaros and prickly pear and the snakes that sleep beneath them. The I-17 I love. I've always imagined the saguaros were in motion until a moment before I saw them! Just laughing and cuddling and gesturing to each other. You'll notice they do mainly live in family groups.”

When asked what she doesn’t like so much about Arizona, Ms. Ziegler says, “So the biggest things that standout, as far as not liking goes, is the governor, Jan Brewer and all the immigration laws surrounding her and her cronies. The lack of heart and love that goes into electing people like her and the laws she enforces.” She also calls Sheriff Joe Arpaio “embarrassing and creepy”. Back to the things she loves (because there is a lot to love!), “The night deep dark starry sky and the full blazing sun. I love Arizona with my whole being and feel amazingly blessed to be able to call it my home. And as for being raised in the town of Jerome, with the weirdos, the artists, the drunks and the free. My family! I've always thought I must have been a kind and good person in my last life to have been able to have experienced that in this one.”

I know lots of Illinoisans who migrated to Arizona, myself included. Seeking big sky country, wide open wilderness and freedom from sour weather, many Midwesterners relocate to Arizona, perhaps initially inspired by watching our baseball teams romp in their metro-Phoenix spring training grounds. Flagstaff resident Jim Buthman grew up in Chicago’s north shore suburbs, and lived in Florida and Colorado before arriving in Arizona in 1995. Here he earned his PhD and is an instructor in Politics and International Affairs at Northern Arizona University. About his adopted state, “There's lots I like. The abundance and diversity of nature. Lifestyle, specifically the Northern Arizona lifestyle. Attitudes: friendly and neighborly people. Libertarian ideals: anti-authoritarian-self sufficiency.” There’s not much Mr. Buthman doesn’t like about Arizona, though says the Libertarian ideals are a double-edged sword, as they also exhibit an “obliviousness to reality.”

Sarah Harms, a Camp Verde jewelry artist and mother of two, also came from the Chicagoland area. “Since moving here what will be five years ago in July, I fall more in love with Arizona every day. Obviously, I love the weather and scenery and the ability to get out into the middle of nowhere really fast. Lack of traffic, and the general good natured-ness of the inhabitants here are also on my love list. Arizona had a rich and colorful history that I am loving learning more and more about. I guess if there is anything I don't like, it's some of the politics.”

Artist Brice Wood has been a full time Arizona resident since 1988. He and his wife bought a home in Jerome in 1979, and later moved here permanently from Los Angeles. It bothers him when folks visiting for the first time remark, “I was so surprised the people here are so nice!” “It bothers me,” he explains, “because that’s what we all used to think about the [pre-Civil Rights] ‘Old South.’ Beware of places with this reputation.” An unabashed liberal, Mr. Wood finds the state’s right-wing politics discouraging. “As a conservative state, I think our priorities are wrong. We should spend more on education.” Mr. Wood finds much to love about Arizona, “The beautiful air. The landscape, the open space. I live in Jerome. I think Jerome’s a great place.”

He rhapsodizes over the “blue haze” in the horizon, caused by big pine forests exuding oils into the atmosphere, coloring everything in the distance with deep blues, and tinting reds into deep purples.

“I hated Arizona growing up,” says Jennifer Epperson, a vivacious and popular bartender at Jerome’s historic Spirit Room. Growing up in a dilapidated Cornville trailer park, Mrs. Epperson remembers always being teased about her neighborhood at the end of Loy Road, known as “PIC”. “Pukes in Corntown is what most kids liked to call it.” She thought Cottonwood was “a big fancy city, especially when Wal-Mart came. And Phoenix blew my mind! Arizona was not cool at all to outsiders, especially to Californians it seemed.”

“Now, I love Arizona to the core of my being. I love sharing all the stories with the other locals that I grew up with. Like the recently retired Jerome officer, Chuck Harris, laughing about the trouble his kids and us would all get into. And laughing with other locals about the PIC jokes, and proud now to be a ‘Puke in Corntown’. What was then the low-income area, I now can't afford!”

As youngsters she and her pals grew up playing with scorpions and centipedes, building forts, having “boonie” party bonfires, and wandering Jerome’s dangerous ruins, including the old United Verde Hospital before it was reinvented as the Jerome Grand Hotel. In later years, she and husband Josh enjoyed their honeymoon at the Jerome Grand, after marrying at a friend's ranch in Cornville’s Page Springs area, not far from where she grew up. “It was the most beautiful barefoot wedding ever. I love that he and I are both born and raised here and can share in all the memories of yesterday's Verde Valley to today's.”

True “local yokels” are a rare species, and I always value their opinions on my adopted land. Mrs. Epperson finds a lot to love about Arizona, “I love Arizona sunsets, I love the monsoons and lightning shows. I love Jerome and working there and love that we have a lot of great restaurants there, and Old Town being fixed up.

I love that there are still real cowboys and ranches here. I love how you can drive for three hours and see Saguaros, then red rocks, then pine trees. The diversity in the geology is incredible.”

Brian Mitchell has lived in Arizona his entire life. “I love Arizona because it is truly a state with everything!,” he exclaims, “I live in Phoenix, and in a little over two hours I can be snow-skiing. Or I can be fishing in an hour. The desert landscape is gorgeous, there is nothing like the smell of the desert after the rain. You can pretty much count on a breath-taking sunset every day!”

Blake O’Neill is a Cottonwood resident, retired from a long time career in the U. S Navy where he was a navigating quartermaster on submarines. Though he spent many years living on coasts, he was born and raised in the wild open western spaces of Idaho. His favorite thing about Arizona life? “There’s nothing I don’t like about Arizona.” Prior to arriving in the Verde Valley in 1994, Mr. O’Neill drove a tour bus for Florida’s Disneyworld. “The humidity chased me west. I had to squeegee off my bus every damn morning at Disney and then one morning I said, ‘Blake, let’s go home.’ Home to me is anywhere west of the great rock pile that goes all the way up into Canada.”

“What I love best about Arizona,” says Clarkdale Mayor, native Arizonan and nature photographer Doug Von Gausig, “The beauty of the land. The dramatic open spaces, the juxtaposition of red rock against blue skies.

The stars – the sheer number of stars in the sky, so clear and so bright that we see the color of each. The birds – nowhere else can I find the diversity and numbers of birds like I can in Arizona. The pristine Verde River – a treasure unique in the desert southwest – miles of clean flowing water winding its way through wilderness and farms, habitat for some of the richest diversity in the country. Otters play while beavers work in its pools and native fishes still thrive there. The desert in bloom – nothing compares to such a starkly beautiful landscape painted with so much color!” Mayor Von Gausig is a big fan of sustainability, and continuously working on a plan for his community to create a viable future for the historic town. He also appreciates “the people who care, who work hard every day to see that our children and grandchildren will still have these things to appreciate and value in their lives.”

With all those positives, the Mayor still sees some things that need work, including our ongoing struggles with water consumption and “the polarized politics that lock us into inaction at a time when action is so critical.” He feels some have a far too easy disregard for the limitations of living in the dry southwest. “Deserts are austere places with limited and precious resources. Water, plants, trees, open space, clean air – all the reasons we all live here – the reasons we moved here - are being depleted so quickly and so easily.” Mayor Von Gausig doesn’t like “the fact that we must struggle to convince people that we need to educate our children, preserve open spaces, nurture our river, and conserve the limited water resources.”

As the nation’s 48th state and the final within the continental U.S., Arizona is considered young, with great riches that ironically contribute to its drawbacks. The fine climate and brilliant scenery attract more residents than can ideally be sustained, unless the newly arrived from wetter locales can abandon their carefree old ideas of water use. As the population continues to diversify, however, the state’s classically right-leaning politics will level out somewhere more towards middle ground. Happy 100th birthday, Arizona. This land of great contrasts and brilliant light, I am proud to call you my home.

Ellen Jo Roberts and Bike Daddy Chad arrived in Arizona in August 1995, with Illinois license plates and brand new wedding rings. Read all about it ellenjo.com

Mogollon Calendar

2011-12-15T11:21:00.000-08:00

The Mogollon Calendar

Ellen Jo Roberts

The Outs

The Noise

January 2012

      Remember the Y2K Bug, the boogeyman of the new millennium? Because early computers were programmed with a two digit code for year rather than four digit, the change from 1999 to year 2000 was a cause for concern. Everything coordinated via computers would go haywire. You’d better get your survival skills in order, and stock up on drinking water, gasoline and toilet paper. Electrical grids will shut down. Planes will fall from the sky! You’d better take all of your money out of the bank and stuff it in your mattress, because all records of your savings will vaporize! People will be rioting in the streets! As we know now, none of that happened. What a ho-hum the Y2K Bug turned out to be. In 2012 the world is predicted to come to an end. On December 21st, 2012, the Mayan Calendar screeches to a halt. Is this just another failed Rapture? Another Y2K-style Boogeyman that ends up a non-event? Or is 2012 truly The End of Times? Like, This time we really mean it-End of Times? We are so not joking-End-of-Times?

      The Mayans actually operated off of three different calendars, all of them cyclical. December 21st, 2012 is considered the end-date of a 5,125-year-long cycle in the Meso-American Long Count Calendar. Many New Agers interpret the calendar’s finale as a dawning of a new era of positive transformation. Gloom and doomers (and Hollywood film producers) imagine a catastrophic end to planet earth, as it enters a black hole or collides with a global-killing asteroid. Scholars of Mayan culture refute predictions of catastrophe, as such events are not evident in any studies of the culture. The mere notion that the Long Count Calendar can end is contrary to Mayan history and culture. Astronomy scientists also refute the proposed cataclysmic end of earth, negated by simple facts and observations of the cosmos.

I cannot deny I feel big shifts in our world in a way I did not in the 20th Century. More uncertainty. More wild weather. More tragedy. These things all happened in the 20th Century too, but we were younger and more foolish. and we didn’t pay so much attention. We got our information more slowly so there was less to be worried about.

In addition to potential apocalypse, 2012 is also an election year. Election season generates its own special kind of stress, and the hoopla leading up to it is well underway. Rather than concern ourselves so much with the surly mix of ancient glyphs and alarmist instant news, we at the Noise interviewed locals about their hopes, dreams and fears for this new year: a Mogollon spin on the Mayan Calendar.

         Alex Rovang is Director of Education and Community Outreach at Sedona Recycles. “As a resident of the fine city of Sedona, I have noticed an emphatic attention to some arbitrary Gregorian calendar dates including the most recent ‘11/11/11’ gathering,” observes Mr. Rovang, “While much can be debated about the accuracy of calendars and how this one lines up with that one, I think that the logical fallacy behind these announced alignments is that it gives people the impression that something tangible will happen on these dates. That's why I find it silly. I like some things about it too, though. I feel that there is a universal consciousness, and that no matter what the date is, if people are meditating on a particular concept or idea at the same time great things can be achieved. Maybe even ascension.” Mr. Rovang feels that a group effort of positive thought, focused on a single idea or even a single word, can bring about positive change in the world. The power of positive thought has been proven at mass transcendental meditation events around the world. “So, the date need not be significant just the intention. I feel that ascension for our collective consciousness--plants and animals too!-- is possible, whether through a soft peaceful revolution or a violent cataclysm. The trick will be to work together. Meditate together. And we don't have to wait till some arbitrary date, we can practice meditation everyday starting right now.”

             A recurring thought sprung from 2011 is the need for unity as a nation, and the power of positive thought. Jason Benatz is an artist and owner of Ace’s Clarkdale Tattoo. His family has a long and illustrious history in the Verde Valley. Grandmother Dorothy Fain Benatz was Mayor of Clarkdale in the 1980s.

“With all the changes in our country and economy I hope we can all reevaluate how we live and spend, and what we value as people, as families and as a nation,” says Mr. Benatz, "I hope we can learn from the Occupy protests that this is not a bi-partisan issue, it is a national issue. 99 % of our nation is controlled by big business and is not dependent on our political views or party lines. Consumers have the power in 2012 to remind big business they work for us. 2012 is a great time for artists and craftspeople to strike out on their own and live their dreams. With the recession, I hope the value in the arts is revitalized from school age child to retired adult. I hope 2012 brings a renewed sense of human value, and solidarity.”

         Continuing on the theme of creativity, Mr. Benatz’s lady love and lingerie model, the very clever Miranda Gunnell chimed in with her “Classy Lady” fashion-forward (and amusingly tongue in cheek) predictions for the new year. For 2012 she predicts stiletto shoes for cats, designer duct-tape, and “Bedazzling” to the max. “If you don't have a lot of money, the trick to looking wealthy is to make your MONEY look expensive,” suggests Ms. Gunnell, “The rich have been doing this for years with their ‘platinum card’ this and ‘Black Am Ex’ that. You can do the same by bedazzling those one dollar bills and putting glitter in your coin pouch so that a spray of sparkles explode each time you open your wallet!,” says Ms. Gunnell, “Everyone will be so blinded by your bling money (and maybe the glitter in their eyes) that when you leave the Dollar Store they will be talking for days about the Classy Lady with the expensive pennies.” A floral designer and the chief proprietress of Peacock Flower Company in Clarkdale, Ms, Gunnell predicts 2012 will be a great year for mash-ups, celebrating interesting combinations of juxtaposed elements, “Beach weddings with an Old Hollywood Glamour theme. Backyard BBQ weddings with a Sexy Moroccan theme. Elegant weddings on industrial rooftops. Elements that traditionally would not be paired are being beautifully infused to create endless possibilities for unique weddings in 2012.”

          Regarding wedded bliss, many feel that 2012 should bring equal rights for same-sex couples to legally marry nationwide. Penny Smith is a USPS Mail Carrier in Cottonwood, Arizona. “As a lesbian, I am hoping that 2012 will be the year of equal rights for all of us. The right to love and marry the one you love is such a simple thing, yet it seems so difficult for so many people to understand. I'm hopeful that the ‘live and let live’ ideal will become stronger in the upcoming year. Equal rights, not special rights, is not much to ask for. I am hopeful that people in power will do the right thing as afforded by the Constitution.” As a cancer survivor, continuously grateful for her clean bill of health, Ms. Smith is immune to the Mayan Calendar scare as she has spent every day of the last 12 years savoring each day as if it were her last. “I am hoping for good health for all my family and vast network of wonderful friends. I am hoping that healthcare reform becomes a reality and people are given or able to afford basic healthcare. I have been a lifelong Democrat and stand behind President Obama 100%. I feel he has made great strides with the mess he was given when he took office in 2008. I am scared for our country if the conservative, religious right are allowed in such a position of power. I am hoping that I do not have to watch another person lose their home or job in the upcoming year. I am hoping the ‘working poor’ will be able to stay afloat and prosper once again.”

       The past several years have been very challenging financially, for both employees and business owners. Many have weathered storms in economies past, and use their skills, creativity and positive thinking to maintain strength in the current recession. Kelley Foy and Leta Hollon live in Jerome, and are the owners of Crema and Maison du Provenance in Cottonwood. They are active in the local arts scene, and avid supporters of area artists. "Optimistic about the coming year and thrilled to see the people of Old Town coming together, "said Ms. Foy, "I'm looking forward to more local collaborations."
Adds Ms. Hollon,"Accepting 2012 will bring changes here and afar, reminding myself to lend a hand in the direction I hope to see. This year, my focus will be staying open to whatever happens so we can adapt. Unless it's the end of the world, which doesn't require much adaptation."
       Nancy and Tracy Weisel live in Jerome, where they are long time owners of the Raku Gallery. “We wish for the continued success of our little town,” said Mrs. Weisel, “We're thankful for how well things have gone during 2011 and hope for the same or better in 2012. People enjoy the ease of our town. There’s an appreciation for the wonderful, positive local energy. We would love to see a community garden area for people who do not have access to gardens at their living space.”

         2012 may become the pinnacle of the Do-It-Yourself Revival. Knitting, home farming, bee keeping, pickle canning. It’s all quite chic and economical. Dani Vorves, of Old Town Cottonwood, is an analog photographer and the “resident hippie” at Jerome’s Caduceus Cellars. A Capricorn born in 1982, Ms. Vorves looks forward to joining the “Dirty 30 Club” when she celebrates her birthday this month. Her hopes for the new year are bountiful, upbeat and lyrical. “I look forward to enjoying my man and all the love we share. I'm hoping to further my knowledge on wine-making, nap-taking, smoke-breaking, leaf-raking and some foreign lands,” she says, “I am not afraid of much, so this year I have no fear, only dreams of wine and sweet little songs. Oh and maybe to own a Vespa. Love love love you all!”

Ryan Matson is Vice President of the architectural art installation Eliphante Village in Cornville. “Living at Eliphante on Oak Creek means January is cccccolddddd, so thanks, 2012, for starting off so harsh. Lighten up!” laughs Mr. Matson who quickly turns philosophical, “Perhaps 2012 is ushering in a collective vision of the horizon during a celestial dawn, welcoming a ‘great day’ of about 13,000 years in duration. In light of such, everyone just get over fear already and stop this war on emotions!” On a more personal note, Mr. Matson looks forward to kicking ass, being alive and “lightening [his] footprint while bringing more art into the world for anyone to enjoy!”

Those who cultivate a healthy enthusiasm for creativity may be best able to adapt to strange new situations. Simplicity and "back to basics" values also seem a recurring theme. Debbie Leavitt is a professional photographer who lives in Flagstaff. "My mantra is 'keep it simple and have fun with it. And my resolution for the new year is, as the world seems more and more extreme, to be calmer than ever. Maybe I should start doing yoga." Expressing concern for Arizona, and its future, Ms Leavitt adds, "My hope for 2012 is that we the people decide to Occupy Democracy. 'It’s not a spectator sport', as Howard Zinn said." Ms. Leavitt also hopes 2012 is the year a cure for cancer is discovered."Please could it be early in the year to save those loved ones who are fighting it right now?"

For many, the dawn of 2012 is of no significance, just another year, and a time to, as Wooderson says “just keep livin’”. Greg Sawyer is a Clarkdale resident who works at Jerome’s Mile High Grill. On the myth of 2012, Mr. Sawyer says, “I personally think it is overhyped. If something actually does happen on the projected date no one is going to have any idea until it takes place. Concerning the upcoming year, I mostly just take things one day at a time and see how things unfold.”

David Lindmark is a restaurant server in Sedona, and an occasional Bono impersonator residing in Verde Santa Fe, just outside of Cottonwood. “To be honest, I don't really think that much of the coming year,” confides Mr. Lindmark, “New Years has never held any rebirth or anticipated excitement for me.” Generally happy with what life provides, he hopes the restaurant stays open, his health insurance remains affordable and that his daughter continues to be successful, happy and healthy. “I just want a good night’s sleep. Friends tell me they admire how I live in the moment, and seem to enjoy the simplest to complex conversations with friends and strangers. And I do. I hope they're right and I'm not floating by naively.”
Big events and holidays are important but it's the little moments, the day to day joys, that comprise most of our time on planet earth.
Amber Godina is a part-time hair stylist, living in Clarkdale. “As a busy mom and wife, it is very hard to see more than a few moments ahead,” says Mrs. Godina, mother to two youngsters, “I would love to promise the new year a work-out everyday, to eat right and do more sewing and crafting, teach my children to say ‘please’ and ‘thank you’, and get them to mean it. I’d love to learn a new language. Ah, Mandarin sounds good. I would also like to put my cooking emphasis on Country French this year, learn to throat sing, learn to belly dance, and hoop. To throw random tea parties. And of course see the world become a better place. But in all reality I will be happy to just keep my house somewhat clean, to keep my kids somewhat clean, to keep my hubby pretty happy, and to just be able to keep my part time job.”

Every generation has had its panics, ranging from war, to disease epidemics, to great financial depressions. Contrary to what renaissance faires would have you believe, I bet the Middle Ages were a rough time to grow up. Back then you were lucky to keep any of your teeth, or make it to your 30th birthday. When I was a kid everyone was afraid of imminent nuclear war. A popular TV movie from the Reagan era, "The Day After" was a visit to a post-apocylyptic America, life in a nuclear winter. The free-wheeling hippies before us were naked any chance they could get, but a hit song of my teen years was Germaine Stewart's "You Don't Have to Take Your Clothes Off (To Have a Good Time"). My generation got gypped! We didn't get to have any of the same fun the Baby Boomers did! We grew up under the specter of AIDs and the Cold War. I wonder what it must be like for young folks coming of age in turbulence of the 21st Century.

Gabe Greenfield, 17, has lived in Sedona his entire life. "In the coming year I hope that I am able to get good grades, have fun with my friends, play sports and be healthy, " says the Red Rock High School senior, "Also, I have heard that the Mayan Calender ends towards the end of 2012 and the world is supposed to end. But for me, my life is just beginning," he says somewhat poignantly. With a hopeful expression he adds, "I will be graduating high school and moving on to college. 2012 will be a good year for me."

Make the most of your time here, be it long or short. No sense in squandering any of it.

Ellen Jo Roberts shares a historic brick bungalow with Bike Daddy Chad, Floyd, Ivan and Ned.

As a founding member of the "1972 Club" she is a little anxious about turning 40 in 2012.

Read all about it at ellenjo.com

Ephemeral Lives

2011-11-19T14:12:00.000-08:00

Ephemera
Ellen Jo Roberts
The Outs
December 2011
The Noise

Ephemeral: (from the Greek "ephemeros:- lasting a day, daily) Short-lived, transitory, fleeting, evanescent.

Year’s end is always a time feel compelled to make sense of our lives, taking stock of things in meaningful ways. Word on the street is the world is going to end come 2012. Perhaps it's just the end of the world as we know it. Some believe a “new age” is coming. A renaissance.
According to astronomers the actual "Age of Aquarius" isn’t due to arrive until the 26th century sometime.

Each year I spend on this planet the Christmases arrive closer and closer together. Every year more memorabilia is collected: Paper and plastic, metal and ceramic, bric-a-brac documenting adventures and events, gathering dust on shelves and taking up room in boxes. Everyone has keepsakes, souvenirs, tchotkes... a favorite childhood toy; some bits of ephemera: photos, special cards, old love letters, books, newspaper clippings. It is the rare person who is blissfully free of “stuff”, living in spacious minimalism, and breezily traveling carry-on. Such a person consciously refuses sentimentality, and actively avoids allowing things to collect in the corners.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, there are the “hoarders”, pathologically collecting cast-offs and ending up crushed dead under 140 tons of newspapers in a booby-trapped NYC brownstone, like eccentric brothers Homer and Langley Collyer did in 1938. Hoarding has become a hot topic of late, with reality shows devoted to the habit and attempts made to break it.

Me, I fall somewhere in between the state of blissful breeziness and minor league hoarding. There are no empty shelves at our house. We're a museum of kitsch. My Scorpio rising sign causes sentimentality. I’ve been this way since childhood, imbuing cheap little trinkets with magic.
Having been born on “The Day of the Observer” also makes me prone to documentation, archiving pieces of my time on earth. In my file cabinet I still keep the first love note my husband ever wrote me, though he did not write it. He enlisted his English major buddy to “put to words” his feelings after a brief hallway conversation with me in the college boarding house we shared.

I carry home found items, broken toys, ancient Shasta pop cans unearthed by rain, oddly shaped sticks. But there’s no need to call the TV crews or send in hoarder-rehab. The collection is culled now and again. Though the more years I live, the more photo albums, vintage cameras, iron-on patches, the more stones and sea shells.

Andy Warhol was a famous documentarian, keeping extensive diaries, and archives of cards, sketches and letters; filming, recording and photographing everyone around him all the time. Frequently his observations became famous art. The Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh celebrates his habit for documentation, inspiring me to step up my archives and observation-making. It may provide useful information to someone someday.
It’s a good thing we didn't have Facebook when I was a 20th century teen. All of my embarrassing youthful angst is hidden in a box of hand-written journals under the bed. Eccentric folkie Daniel Johnston tape recorded every day conversations, created Super-8 movies, and flimsy paper drawings. If he had not, the fascinating documentary, “The Devil and Daniel Johnston” could never have existed. There is something precious in the fleeting nature of ephemera. Most of what we consider art is made of materials requiring special preservation. Chicago outsider artist Henry Darger created an epic 15,000 page tome called, “The Story of the Vivian Girls, in What is known as the Realms of the Unreal, of the Glandeco-Angelinian War Storm, Caused by the Child Slave Rebellion”, on paper, newsprint, tracings, copies and collages and undiscovered until after his 1973 death.

During visits to second-hand shops you will always encounter special keepsakes, so unbearably personal that it’s shocking they have been given away. On a recent thrift store excursion I found framed baby photos, and an original watercolor portrait depicting someone’s home. On my bookshelf there is a 1930s family photo album. It’s a treasure but I do wish I could find its rightful owner. My precious artifacts will one day suffer the same fate: scrutinized and rescued by thrift store hipsters-- that is, if they're lucky enough to avoid the landfill.

Since I was 5 years old, I’ve owned a small plastic figurine of a dog, wearing a dress and carrying a bag of groceries. She's a Richard Scarry® character, given to me in kindergarten. In 1977, our teacher gave one of these animal totems to everyone in the class. The grocery dog has been with me ever since. She has become a “guardian angel” of sorts, still here with me as a common thread though most of my years.
1977 was the year my father died, and somehow heavy energy still emanates from it. Suffused with intense memories, the inanimate somehow comes alive.

I begin to wonder what kinds of things other people keep hold of, and why. I asked people, “What item have you owned the longest, and why is it important to you?”
“I really like this question because it brings to light how objects attain significance in our lives,” replies Eva Romero of Tucson, “I'm thinking about Christmas presents, you know. My little niece is turning one. I think I'm going to get her an ornament so we can start a tradition that lasts every year of her childhood, maybe her life. The idea warms my cockles.”
Holiday memories always seem fragrantly fervent.
“I have two Christmas ornaments that I painted with my mom when I was 5 years old, ”said Tracy Henton of Cottonwood. Early creative ventures hold a strong importance. Photographer Jason Gullo lives in New York State. His most precious artifact is one of his early artistic expressions, “Some pottery I made in, like, 1973. We had a wheel in my hippie alternative school.”
I have some very early grade school artwork from my childhood, as well as some stories I wrote about Elvis, a character called “TV Man”, space men, my brother, and “Fly and Bee’s Honeymoon”, a tale of two star-crossed bugs in love.
Jerome resident Nikki Czech keeps hold of “a small pink dragon sock puppet my best friend from preschool made me. It’s sooo cute!”
Noise contributor Sarah Irani, is also the chief seamstress of Bitchin' Bloomers She began her creative ways with fabric at a young age with a “ratty old teddy bear” she’s owned since infancy. “It's important,” she explains, “‘cause it has the story attached to it of when I halfway cut off its plastic nose and then tried to glue it back with honey, because, hey, bears like honey.”

I still own my first teddy bear, the one that slept in my crib with me. It's threadbare in the closet, a pale shadow of its glossy newborn days.
“Mother Teddy,” shares Laura Jones of Clarkdale, “She was given to me on my first Christmas.”
Jan Miller from Scottsdale's Liberty Wildlife still has "Sugarboots", a stuffed Siamese cat from her childhood, "My grandma had repaired him so much and he barely has and fuzz left, but he was my fave out of all of my stuffed animals."
Kira Knapp of Cottonwood considers her little stuffed animal dog “Cutie” to be a treasure. “It’s important to me because I got it in Jerome when I was 4 and have kept it ever since.”
My Mom still has all of my brother’s battered 1970s Winnie the Poohs, each more loved and more ruined than the next. When she brings out the box to show us, they’re so heartbreakingly cute we laugh and cry at the same time.

Books, papers, tickets, magazines and posters can be classified as true “ephemera.” I keep concert tickets, yearbooks, letters, and a fair sized collection of Mad Magazines.
"Brother Aaron" Levy, formerly one of The Noise's rowdiest contributors, has managed to hang onto a little book of Edgar Allen Poe poems since he was 12, '"ordered out of one of those Scholastic Books catalogues when I was in the sixth grade. Somehow it's stayed with me all these years."
Clarkdale resident Lisa O’Neill, a bibliophile married to Cottonwood’s recently retired chief librarian, counts the book "Alicia en el País de Wondrelas" as a long-cherished possession.
Chicagoan Laura Litman feels connected to the written word as well. “When I was seven I learned how to write and mail letters and cards,” she explains, “and I have some stationery from around that time that every time I come across I just touch the paper and remember.”
Carlos Godina of Clarkdale is an athlete and a sports nut. When asked what ephemeral goods he’s owned the longest he says, “My baseball cards I’ve been collecting since I was a small kid, and my baseball mitt.” (I have a collection of baseball cards, too, though basically worthless, populated mostly by terrible Cubs players who I loved despite their lackluster careers and lousy battings averages.)
Jen Romero-Higgins of Phoenix still has all of her grade school and high school report cards. “I was a very organized kid and was proud of my grades,” she says, “And all my baby teeth too. Can you say ‘hoarder?’”
The Tooth Fairy isn’t the only one who keeps collections of teeth. Anne Miranda of Clarkdale still keeps her baby front tooth. I’m sure our parents still have all of ours in cigar boxes in their closets. I keep several of my Chihuahua’s baby teeth in a tin, as well as a couple of old pieces of my orthodontia.

People like to be reminded of their early days. We romanticize our careless youth, as well we should.
Jerome potter Tony Schadegg still has his 1939 Plymouth coupe, which he’s owned since he was 18. “Bought it for $250. Now it's in pieces but someday I'll be driving it again, up and down the mountain.”
Photographer Susie Beach, of Cottonwood’s Beaches on Location, still keeps a dress she wore when she was a junior at Schurz High School in Chicago. “I wore it again at a Rotary ‘‘50s dance’ in 1993. I was still able to get into it 30 years later.”
For women who were children of the 1970s, Wonder Woman rates high.
Nena Barlow, of Sedona’s Barlow Jeep Rentals has a sentimental fondness for the comic book heroine. In her artifacts, “My Wonder Woman costume that was made for me when I was 4, by a famous Hollywood costume designer, whom my uncle was dating at the time.”
The Noise’s own Natasha Shealy still gazes into her vintage Wonder Woman mirror, “Because I am Wonder Woman,” she adds with a wink.
“I've had a troll doll since I was about 5 and have schlepped it with me all over the country,” says Susan Baker of Jerome’s Skyfire, “Guess it reminds me of happy days in my childhood.”
Happy days of childhood can indeed be captured inside an object.
Krysta Dehnert of Clarkdale owns a red fold-up booster chair from her family’s restaurant in Promised Land, Arkansas. “It was actually the living room of our house,” she explains, “When I was 3 years old I used to plop it down on the floor next to customer's tables and sing to them. Sometimes they would give me a quarter!” Clarkdale’s Town Manager Gayle Mabery owns the cradle she slept in as a baby. “It is made from the headboard of the bed my mom was born in. Both my daughters slept in it too!”
Family history represented in furniture, photos, or hand-me-downs is truly priceless.

My grandfather purchased his big gorgeous Black Panther Schwinn in Chicago in 1970. It has a buzzer horn in the frame, and when my brother and I were kids we’d beg him to take us down to where he parked it, in the basement, so we could press the buzzer. In 1988 my grandpa gave me the Schwinn, though it was still always HIS BIKE, as in, “Are keeping MYYYY BIKE polished up, Ellie?”
In 1994 my grandfather died, and in 1995 I moved to Arizona. The Schwinn, all 85 pounds of it, remained in my mother’s Chicago basement for nearly 10 more years until she shipped it west for me, disassembled and boxed up by her neighborhood bike shop. Chad reassembled it, and even managed to get the long-silent horn to beep again. This bike is a family treasure. When I ride it, my grandpa is riding along with me, and I can hear him in my ears, “Are you taking good care of MYYYYY BIIIIKE, Ellie?”
Like any object, the bike’s magic exists only in my own mind and memories. Its existence is fleeting, ephemeral, as are we all. It is the constraints of time and the brevity of life that makes each day a treasure.

Thanks to all who shared stories of your precious memories.
Happy New Year to all from your friends at The Noise!

Ellen Jo Roberts drives a 38 year old car, and lives in a 97 year old house with a 39 year old man, an 8 year old Chihuahua, a 7 year Boston Terrier, and a 8 month old cat. You can read more about it at ellenjo.com

The Road to the White House

2011-10-18T11:23:00.000-07:00

The Road to the White House:
A Mid-Atlantic Road Trip
November Outs 2011

Ellen Jo Roberts

Despite having seen the '80s box office bomb DC Cab nearly 100 times, I’d only actually visited Washington DC once. The District of Columbia, a parcel of land snuggled along the mighty Potomac and comprised of parts of Maryland and Virginia, has been our nation's capitol since 1790.

Most of my feelings on our nation's capitol are generated from movies.
The myriad political espionage films. Aliens blowing up the White House. The bratty yuppies of St Elmo's. Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson crashing weddings. Marches on Washington. Secrets hidden in faded ink on the back of the Constitution. Hippie Jenny running across the Reflection Pool to Forrest Gump. A silly 1983 comedy about cab drivers starring Mr T., Gary Busey, Max Gail, Paul Rodriguez, Adam Baldwin, Whitman Mayo, a pair of bodybuilding twins known as "The Barbarian Brothers", DC Cab also featured an early role by a young stand-up comedian named Bill Maher. It was a cult classic in my household.

Washington DC is a place we see non-fiction news of daily, almost always in a negative light.
It is our national underpinnings, holding everything in place, like a girdle about to burst at the seams. Though it remains one of our country's most popular tourist attractions, I'd somehow avoided it for 25 years.

This summer I went back, on a road trip with my Mom, and my globe-trotting Chihuahua, Floyd.

My Mom was born on Pearl Harbor Day, December 7th, 1941. "A day that will live in infamy!," my brother and I've always joked, "the DAY that MOM was BORN!" And like World War II, she'll turn 70 this year. She's a Sagittarius, fiery and quick to laugh. She's a shutterbug, a writer and an opinionated rabble rouser. She’s impatient and excitable. My Mom sees the joy in the world and she runs with it. All of my best and worse parts are inherited directly from her.

A widow at age 35, she raised my brother and me with a great deal of energy and good humor, always encouraging my creative pursuits. We live almost 2000 miles apart, and I miss her every day. To supplement phone calls and yearly visits, we plan a lengthy road trip together every few years. This year’s trip was a bit ambitious. Chicago to Washington DC: A big loop through Pittsburgh down into the nation’s capitol and the return trip a low slung arc through Virginia, North Carolina and Kentucky.

While I may be an avid road tripper living in the grand scale of the open west, thinking nothing of eight hours spent in a car, this kind of commitment to the road might could potentially cause my mom to go haywire. On a visit to Arizona she once said, "I can drive for two hours and be in Milwaukee. Out here, you can start in the middle of nowhere, drive two hours and STILL be in the middle of nowhere!" A year was spent planning this DC trip, reviewing routes, timelines and making arrangements, so she knew what we were getting in to, at least on paper.

In the end, we survived a 2,000 mile adventure, through typhoon rains, record-breaking heat, and a near miss of Hurricane Irene and a very rare 5.6 earthquake.

Our road trip began during record-breaking rains in the Midwest. Floyd and I barely squeaked into Chicago’s O’Hare Airport in between 11 inches of rain, and so much lightning it felt like a bad 1950s Dracula movie. The three of us hit the road the next morning and made it to picturesque Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania for the night. There we drank Irons (Iron City Beer) and ate "Primanti sammiches". The famous sandwich was invented in Pittsburgh so that steel workers could eat a complete meal one-handed. The Primanti Brothers ambitiously stuffed a bun full of meat, cheese, sauerkraut and fries. More than 75 years later, the sandwich is a Pittsburgh institution, much like the historic Monongahela Incline.

We rode this small cable railcar to the top of historic Mt. Washington, named for the point where George Washington first surveyed the area bound by the Monongahela, Allegheny and Ohio Rivers. From one Washington namesake to the next, by early afternoon we arrived in DC via Maryland, following a shady old canal chock full of weekend kayakers. We checked into the excellent Quincy Hotel at L and 19th Streets. A pet-friendly, chic boutique hotel born from a historic apartment building, the Quincy was within walking distance to both the National Mall, and Georgetown.

Its location was ideal for locking the car up in the adjoining parking garage, and touring the city by foot.

The Mid-Atlantic was experiencing a record-breaking summer heat wave during our visit. Arizona girl, acclimated to jogging in 100 degree desert temperatures, did not ace the oppressive humidity quite so easily. My jeans dyed my entire body blue with sweat. Yet we walked dozens of miles around town, braving the crowds, visiting all of the monuments. I got my National Parks Passport book stamped nearly 30 times! And everything is free! All of the monuments and museums are free.

New monuments since my last visit include the eerie and cinematic Korean War Memorial, and the Tom Hanks-endorsed World War II Memorial.

Right after our visit, an earthquake damaged the Washington Monument. The 555 foot tall obelisk, omnipresent in the city's skyline, was completed in 1885. The stone tower suffered cracks that are currently being assessed by engineers.

My first visit to Washington DC, in 1986 with my church youth group, was during a completely different era. Marion Berry was the beloved (and later ingloriously discovered to be crack-smoking) mayor. Prostitutes lined 4th Avenue. At age 14, I spent a week assisting in soup kitchens throughout the seedy neighborhoods hidden behind the gleaming white marble façade of DC.

When our group visited the White House it was along with 1,000s of others lined up along Pennsylvania Avenue handing money to paid tour companies. Security was so lax back then I'm pretty sure I grabbed a handful of Ronnie Reagan’s Jelly Bellies® from his desk in the Oval Office. In 1986, Pennsylvania Avenue was open to regular automobile traffic like any other street. In the post 9/11 world, Washington DC is a much different place. Tightened and polished. Concrete bumpers block off entire streets to traffic. Snipers guard from the roof of the White House. The sex workers might not be truly gone, but they are no longer lining the tidy streets. Marion Barry, arrested and incarcerated on drug charges in 1990, returned to capitol politics not long after. Elected to city council and later re-elected mayor from 1995-1999 ("Mayor for Life" they've dubbed him), he remains a very popular figure there. Barry is currently a councilman for the city's Ward 8.

Seeing the Vietnam Wall again struck a deep chord in me. Designed by Maya Lin, a Chinese-American architecture student at Yale, and dedicated in 1982, the wall slices into a grassy knoll with sharp shock of gleaming black stone inscribed with over 58,000 names, listed in chronological order from the war’s start in 1958 to its finish in 1975. Though I knew no one directly who had died there, I know many veterans of that war, and have great respect for them. During this visit to the monument, I was on a mission to accomplish something I’d failed to do at age 14. Orrin Cassata was the only person I knew of who had died in the Vietnam War. He was the son of family friend Mrs. Bridget Cassata. She had his photo on her wall and a little shrine to him at her home in Chicago. I never met him, of course, because he was killed before I was born. Yet he was the only person I “knew” who died in Vietnam.

In 1986, while touring the National Mall with my church youth group, I tried to find Orrin Cassata’s name by reading the wall one name at a time! (Only a 14 year old thinks she could possibly stumble upon her goal by reading through all 58,000 names.) I wanted to get a "rubbing" of his name for Mrs. C. It wasn’t until we were leaving that I realized there was a directory, looking like a giant phone book, listing all of the names and their locations!

But we couldn’t wait. We had to leave. A quarter of a century later, here I am back at the Vietnam Wall.
I head directly for that big book, find his name and go right to it on the wall. Snapped a photo of it.

All of a sudden I was overcome with emotion and started crying. Maybe because I was not able to find his name until after Mrs. Cassata died. Maybe because I’d been dreaming of this moment for 25 years. Maybe because seeing his name was just a tiny piece of something much, much larger, and the visual display of how this war decimated an entire generation. How we seem to repeat these mistakes, and the list of names lost in wars to follow continues this ongoing tally.

Seeing the Lincoln Monument also got me choked up, as my Mom and I stood arm-in-arm reading aloud the Gettysburg Address, engraved on a wall in front of us 50 feet high. She’d had to memorize it in grade school and had never truly forgotten it. The more you read about political history, and the trials and tribulations of our nation, the more you realize any of the issues of the past easily translate to similar issues today.

We strolled Georgetown for breakfast one morning, ducking up and down side streets to take photos of interesting homes in this fancy and historic neighborhood of Washington DC. All the chi-chi shops and picturesque townhouses line the M Street corridor.

DC is not so surprisingly diverse in population, with myriad ethnicities, a strong African American population, high powered dignitaries, and a many foreign-born residents. The morning rush-hour crowd bustling on the streets all share one trait, however. They all stop to smile at a tiny Chihuahua walking past.

Our plan to tour the White House began months earlier. No longer can you simply show up like a herd of cattle. Back home, you must request a tour via your local congressperson, and your credentials must be cleared and approved well in advance. You must be on The List. We had a special connection directly with the Secret Service via our family in the Chicago Police Department, and they processed our request for a tour of the White House's East Wing.

You cannot bring anything into the White House today. No purse, no comb, no lipstick, no wallet, no phone, no camera. No dogs, no guns, no beverages. Though, inexplicably, you can bring a knife, as long as the blade is smaller than 3 inches! (?!) Our tour of the East Wing was scheduled for a Tuesday morning. My Mom had never been to the White House, and had been koo koo bananas excited about it for months. We were met at the 15th street side entrance by a handsome, square-jawed Secret Service agent. Our very own Secret Service agent! The guards checked our identification and made sure we were on The List. We passed through the security check points, and into the East Wing, the residential section of the White House.

Our official escort was assigned to Michelle Obama’s detail, and previous to that, had been assigned to Laura Bush. “Laura Bush was far more anonymous,” he told us, “She could go about her business most of the time, and people often didn’t recognize or notice her. But Michelle Obama, she’s 5’11’’ and very much a star. People recognize her everywhere.” We passed through the Green Room, Red Room, Blue Room, Yellow Room, along with a steady stream of fellow visitors, all who had to jump through similar hoops to get their feet in the door. Fresh flowers decorate every room because the White House has its own in-house florist. A staff of permanent butlers, chefs, housekeepers, electricians, ushers, curators, beekeepers and many more keep this historic building (c.1800) in ship shape.

A plastic path protects the floor, and velvet ropes keep visitors from touching any of the art and artifacts. Docents well-versed in the portrait collection share details of the artists, years, and bits of historical trivia.

The official portrait of Bill Clinton captures his casual roguishness, leaning against a mantel in a come-hither pose. Suddenly a handsome curly-haired black and white dog trots down the steps in front of us, with a handler holding a clipboard and a cup of coffee.

“There’s Bo,” says our Secret Service Agent. “Bo?” we ask, nonchalantly.

Suddenly it hits us, “BO! OBAMA! You mean, The First Dog, Bo?” I restrain myself from hysterics and calmly ask the handler, who’s stopped to share brief morning chit-chat with our Secret Service Agent, if we can pet the dog.

“Yes, but make it quick,” he says taking a swift sip of his coffee and glancing around the hallway for signs of sudden mobbing. My mom and I both pet The First Dog, a handsome Portuguese Waterdog who probably sleeps in the bedroom of the First Daughters! Never was there a softer, sweeter-smelling dog!

Eager to get outdoors, his interest in our adoration was limited, and off he scampered, leaving me holding my hand aloft in disbelief. “I am not gonna wash this hand until Floyd gets a chance to smell it!” When we got back to the hotel, after a breakfast at the DC classic Old Ebbitt Grill, I let Floyd sniff my hand and he seemed completely unimpressed (though he did seem to know I’d had Eggs Benedict for breakfast.)

Checking out of the fabulous and friendly Quincy, we loaded back into the car and headed across the Potomac into Arlington, Virginia, location of Arlington National Cemetery and the Iwo Jima Marine Corps Memorial. Since my last visit, the Kennedy family plot has added two new graves: Teddy and Jackie now lay in eternal rest at Arlington.

We spent a night with my cousin and her family near Richmond, VA, and the next night with Aunt Joyce, my Mom's sister, and Uncle Fred in Charlotte, NC prior to making the long journey back west.

Through the Appalachian hills along the French Broad River, we made a pit stop in Marshall, NC, in honor of friend and long time Noise contributor Natasha Shealy who has split her life between small towns in Arizona's Verde Valley and Marshall. A handsome one-road town nestled along the river, Marshall seems like a movie. We arrived in Louisville after dark, checking into a creepy bed and breakfast in the historic "Old Louisville" neighborhood.

The area was just seedy enough to keep my Mom on alert, but I spent the next morning wandering the blocks of handsome brawny brick homes. Local weirdos smoking cigarettes on street corners. A wild-haired dude walked up to me and asked me if I had a light. "I'm sorry, I don't smoke," I say, and he walks with me, back towards his porch. He mumbles something about Floyd, and says, "Dog…Chihuahua."

"Yep, he's a Chihuahua. He's mean. Aren't Chihuahuas always mean?” I say, cautionary because the fellow seems like a bit of a loose cannon.

The weirdo pondered this a moment and said, "He's got a BIIIIIIG HEART.....but NO ASSSSSSS."

(Later I tell my brother this story. "That's all you, Ellen," he says, "You are a weirdo magnet").

After a brief midday stop in Seymour, Indiana, home town of Johnny Cougar Mellencamp, my Mom and I made it back to Chicagoland just ahead of rush hour on a Friday afternoon. Welcoming us back are my Mom's husband, and my brother with his wife and young son. We have just a couple of days together before Floyd and I board the airplane back to Arizona, and we make the best of it.

I’d encourage all American citizens to tour Washington DC at least once in their lives, to soak up the great archive of information, and stroll the streets of our nation’s history. It’s not just about what you see in movies and on TV. Rolls of spent film and a book filled with Polaroid photos are my treasures of the trip, along with the many new stamps in my National Park Passport Book. But the biggest treasure of all is the time spent on the road with my Mom.

Ellen Jo Roberts will be happy to watch "DC Cab" with you any time.

She lives in Clarkdale with Chad, Floyd, Ivan and Ned.

Read more about it at ellenjo.com

Every House Should Have a Cat

2011-09-29T11:17:00.000-07:00

I wish I had as much fun anywhere as my cat has with a paper grocery bag left on the kitchen floor.
It's like an instant party for that boy.

Everyone knows I love dogs, and that I have dogs, since they frequently accompany us, and are often famous on the internet for wearing silly costumes or posing in front of famous locations.
But what many don't realize is I am a cat person as well. In fact, during the rare time when there was no cat in our house, things seem overloaded with canine energy. We need a feline to balance things out. This may be my Libra Moon talking, all balancey and stuff, but I do know a house is best when there are both cats and dogs inside.

I never had a cat as a kid. We were proudly, chauvanistically "dog people". My mom even had a silly book, popular in the '80s called "101 Uses for a Dead Cat." Though we thought it was funny at the time, in retrospect it seems a bit remarkable that such a thing was a comedic hit. We didn't "get" cats. The only one we knew was this semi-feral tom named "Morris", who belonged to our neighbor. He prowled the woods along the railroad tracks looking for battles. He always looked like a raggedy mess, all torn up, bloody, missing pieces.
"Mo-o-o-o-o-ooom! Morris sprayed in my room!", I remember my friend Theresa yelling on more than one occasion. "What does that mean?", I asked.
"He pissed all over my wall!/bed/ garbage can/etc.!", she explained.
"Ew!"
Dogs were gross in their own ways, rolling in and eating filthy things... but the cat pissing on my friend's belongings seemed much worse than anything the dogs ever did. Somehow more wild and dangerous. Claiming people as their territory.

As I got older, I knew cats, and had cat friends. But never had my own cat.
I worked at a garden center in college that had a mascot named Jack. Good ol' One-eyed Jack, Really he only had one eye. One was stitched shut and the fur grew right over it like there had never been an eye there at all. He was still a great mouser, despite sometimes losing his prey right in front of his face. Jack was a great animal. Sandy colored, and short-haired and stripey-ish. I dunno, my memory of his appearance has faded from lack of a photograph. I wonder what ever became of Jack. I went back to college and that cat probably got old and faded away. Or hit by a car on bustling Dempster.
My Mom got a big cream colored Persian cat named Alex sometime in the early 1990s. She trepidatiously offered to take it, as it belonged to her boss' family who had a new baby, or something, and needed to find a new home for the cat. Allergies or something. Surprising to us, she brought home this cat, this freaky long-haired exotic cat, with big golden eyes. He spent the first hours hiding under the basement stairs. Alex turned out to be a real gem of a pet, peacefully co-existing with our Scottie, MacDuff, in his final years, and living on into the 21st century as a companion to my Mom, and an inspiration for great photography. I was mostly gone, away from home at school, but my brother and Alex became pals. Apparently, Alex liked to be spun around by his tail. He was crazy.

We first became cat people in the year 1998, when we lived in Jerome, Arizona. A neighborhood cat named Raoul adopted us as his new family. Irritated by a batch of new kittens infiltrating his house up the street, he set off to find a new home. He ended up on our front porch. Wild, burly, black with white socks and chin, Raoul was handsome and loud-mouthed. He stood on our porch and meowed his fool head off.
At first we dumped Dixie-cups of water on him in an effort to chase him away. But he was steadfast and did not give up. Then we started to enjoy him being there serenading us, waiting for us to get home from work. We started looking for him and calling for him, "Ra-oooooooooooooooooo-oul! Ra-oooooooooooulie Boo-Boo-la!"
He liked for us to pick burrs out of his fur, and patch up his battle wounds. One time he had a flap of loose skin on his head, like a toupe. We called it his "flip top head" and doctored it with ointment until it was healed and reattached. He'd go on strolls around town with us, following us to the old high school, or down to a secret waterfall. Raoul would disappear on "walk-about" now and again, causing us much worry until his return, always looking a bit haunted.

Raoul met his end on the freshly paved Highway 89A, a December night in the year 2000.
Finding his body on the road that cold morning killed something in us too. We buried Raoul in a grave down by the Verde River that we still pay respects to anytime we're near it.

Raoul's death actually propelled us towards leaving Jerome, and taking a leap into adulthood by signing up for a mortgage on a house in neighboring Clarkdale.

Soon after, Clyde arrived in our lives. The Jerome Humane Society staff has seen our Raoul tribute posters stapled aroud town, and thought we might be special enough to take on this kooky one-year old cat who'd become a handful for the elderly lady taking care of him. He was living in Cottonwood's Verde Villages, scrapping with wild critters. Something had nearly taken his tail clean off. The vet stitched it back on, and soon after, Clyde was our cat. Handsome and elegant, blue eyed, creamy colored, Clyde was a "flame point siamese mix" per the vet. He was very chatty, due to his siamese blood, and very friendly to everyone. He was not of the "hide under the bed" variety when guests came over. If there were visitors at the house, Clyde would stroll right out to the middle of the room, and flop over on his side as if to say, "Okay. You may commence to petting me now."

Clyde ushered in the Era of the Dog at our house, treating a chihuahua puppy named Floyd as if he were his very own little project. He could have easily eaten the tiny little rodent-sized dog, and probably fought every natural urge to do so.

Clyde was the best cat ever. He was gentle and patient and never clawed the furniture (well, almost never). He liked riding in the car. He'd tolerate being walked on a leash. He was friendly and playful with the dogs. Except for our buddy Tim's miniature pinscher, Harrison, who was always his nemesis in the most amusing way. Harrison never was able to crack Clyde's code.

It was 10 years, almost to the day he first arrived, that Clyde got very quickly fatally ill and died.

Almost 11, he quit eating. He stopped grooming himself. He quit jumping on our bed at night, and most notably, he was quiet. This noisy loud mouth cat who is so vocal we frequently have to holler at him "Shuddup, cat!" was suddenly stone silent. We took him to the vet hoping he was merely constipated with hairballs or something simple. Turned out to not be simple at all. He was going into kidney failure from something called Polycystic Kidney Disease. It's genetic, common to "exotic" (Siamese, Persian, Himalayan) cats, and something he's had since he was a baby. There is no cure, no treatment, and there's nothing we could have done to change his trajectory. He was born with his kidneys full of tiny cysts.As he got older, the cysts grew and began to crowd out the good tissue, and impair kidney function.

The vet said he had no idea how sick he is, and still was remarkably responsive and social considering the toxins building up in his blood. They sent us home with some special food which is easier on the kidneys, and bags of fluids, tubes and needles so we could subcutaneously flush his system this week (inserting fat needle between the loose skin between his shoulder blades--it was a bit daunting) and perhaps bring his crazy blood test numbers back to something more level. The prognosis was grim. Kidney failure is the most frequent killer of cats, and this disease in particular was also what killed my Mom's Persian, Alex.

"That's the thing about pets. They only last 10 years or so...But it's worth it."- Chad sobbed as we lay in bed, crying and trying to sleep. I certainly never thought my cat would die at age 11. An indoor cat, fed an organic meat-based diet, given dental care, vaccinations and filtered water, and everything they say a good pet owner should give...I thought he'd live to a ripe old 17. This makes me question my notions about everything. We're all falling apart. The rug can be pulled out from under us at any moment. No one knows the future. We must live every day like it's our last. I said, "When Raoul was hit by a car it was so sudden when we found his body in the road. I was buried in grief. Now, even though Clyde is still alive, I've already started mourning his death. We have time to say a proper goodbye. And I guess that is a good thing." Sobs took over my chest, making me feel hollow inside.

We took Clyde on adventures to the river. We let him bask in the sunshine of the yard, hiding in the tall grass and rubbing his whiskers in the yucca. We cleaned his fur with a wet cloth, like he was a kitten and we were his mother. We fed him liquified food from a baby bottle.

In the end, on a sunny March afternoon, Clyde took his last breath in our front yard. He now lies beneath the eucalyptus tree in a grave Chad spent all day digging. Buiried with him: sea shells, favorite toys, locks of all of our hair, and a Polaroid photo of Floyd and Ivan.

A couple of months after Clyde died, I thought it was time to return some feline energy to the house.
The dogs seemed positively lost without a cat bossing them around.
Then this guy shows up. Crazy kitten, getting into everyone's business. We named him Ned.

Born the first week of April 2011. We first saw these three tiny kittens at the Verde Valley Humane Society sometime in May. They'd been abandoned outside of Olsen's Grain on April 21st, and had spent most of their lives at the pound. One kitten was our favorite right away. Chad called him "Mr Personality." We returned a second time with Floyd to let him pick his favorite kitten, and he picked the same one as us. We named the kitten Ned.

I've never had a kitten before. All of our cats came to us as adults. Kittens are nuts! So full of life! Chasing every strange shape and sound. My friend Heather says kittens are "dumb, and full of the energy of the sun". The first few days at home with the dogs were rough, and had me in tears. The dogs, well versed in life with a cat, showed immediate interest in Ned, but the kitten, knowing nothing about dogs, hissed and spit at them, stirring them into an angry lather.

A few days passed, and they all started to settle down, grow less afraid, and more content. Soon things were peaceful. Perfect. Floyd doesn't have much patience with the cat's shenanigans, but Ned knows not to bother him so much. He's got Ivan, who is always willing to wrestle. We are convinced Ned is Ivan's pet, just as Floyd belonged to Clyde.

Ned follows me constantly, weaving in and out of my legs, jumping into any drawer or door I open, attacking my belt as I put it on, jumping on the bathroom sink to get a closer look as I brush my teeth, attacking any shadow or wayward scrap of fuzz or paper, playing "peek-a-boo" behind the blankets of our rumpled morning bed. He is nuts! But in all the best ways. He always wants to be where we are, and has learned to line up for treats along with the dogs when they're getting their evening biscuits. Today he was draped over Ivan's neck like a feather boa. What a koo koo bird.

May Neddy be blessed with a long happy life, healthy kidneys and best buddies. I do think Clyde would approve.

Go Postal: The USPS Evolves for the 21st Century

2011-09-23T12:34:00.000-07:00

Go Postal:
The USPS Evolves for the 21^st Century
Ellen Jo Roberts
October Outs 2011
The Noise

Mr. Zip! circa 1961

Fax. Fed-Ex. Anthrax. E-mail. Internet. Automatic Bill Payments. Over the past 20 years, our beloved and beleaguered United States Postal Service has struggled to keep pace in a world of ever more instant information. In 1861, the Pony Express delivered Lincoln’s inaugural address to California; just seven days on horseback to Sacramento from railroad’s end in Missouri. At the time, it was considered record breaking, remarkable, lightning quick. 150 years later, news of similar importance is delivered to us almost before it even happens, in real time via television, smart phones and Twitter.

1964 Postal Truck. Photo courtesy USPS

I know I am an analog girl living in a digital world, caught in a dreamland where everything is less instant and somehow more enduring. My cameras all shoot film. I read books, make mix tapes, listen to vinyl and the radio. I foolishly lament the demise of the telegram. I am a fan of handwriting, which they barely teach in school anymore.. And I get excited about mail. I subscribe to magazines. Sending and receiving post cards and hand-written letters from faraway friends and family is a regular occurrence, and far better than a Facebook wall post any day. The digital and the instant are oft forgotten as soon as they arrive, contributing to our insatiability for the constant flow of more. A card in the hand may be savored, revisited, treasured. Mail archives fill a file cabinet in my closet: artistic envelopes, picture perfect postcards, hand written memories forever captured at their peak ripeness, gorgeous stamps cancelled with dates and locations of various eras and past lives. It’s still remarkable the journey an envelope can make for a mere 44 cents, and the faith we have in its arrival as we feed it into the mouth of a big blue metal box.

In Arizona’s Verde Valley, each zip code is serviced by its own singular Post Office. Some of the area’s smaller communities, like Jerome and most of Clarkdale, do not receive home delivered mail. Instead, the town’s Post Office building serves as a central delivery location, with residents each assigned a P.O. Box for no charge. Jerome’s ancient P.O. Boxes are dialed open by alphabetical letters. With a decrease of nearly 30% in mail volume since the 20^th century, the USPS continuously strives towards increased productivity, and “facility consolidation” is a term bandied about frequently. A euphemism for closure, facility consolidation is a threat to small town post offices nationwide, including my own.

The Clarkdale Post Office is staffed by hardy folks; smiling, friendly and proficient. The clerks are genuinely interested in the lives of their patrons, and we too are equally fond of them. They know everyone in town by name, and for this reason packages not addressed quite correctly will still always reach their intended recipient. The joys of small town life. You may apply for a passport, get a money order, purchase postage and send your envelopes and packages out fast or slow. Checking the mail is also a chance to see, and be seen by, your neighbors and catch up on local news. Always bustling with activity, the Post Office is an important element of Clarkdale’s identity. For a vintage company town, proud of its interesting history, losing the Post Office would be a huge morale buster, and great backwards blow to our identity on the map. Earlier this year, alarming rumors swirled that the Clarkdale Post Office was on the short list for closure. With no UPS Store, nor even a Fed-Ex drop box, our Post Office is our only method of exit from town. I sent several letters to local politicians, as well as to the Post Master General in Washington D.C., asking what we citizens could do to save our Post Office. Get signatures on a petition? Should I start a rally? Chain myself to the building? We would gladly pay a yearly fee for our (free) P.O. Box if it would assist in keeping the 86324 open for business. I received a form letter back from Washington, explaining that in order to be more efficient Post Offices nationwide were under consideration for consolidation, and though the Clarkdale Post Office was not slated for closure at this time, it could be reconsidered in the future.

“I can’t imagine life in small towns without the Post Office,” says Cottonwood Mayor Diane Joens, “The Post Office is weaved into the tapestry of life in every small town. At a recent meeting, we were discussing public notices, and one Northern Arizona community said they don’t even have a local newspaper in which to post notices, but if public notices were posted at the local post office, everyone in town would see them. I hope there is some way we can economically and efficiently continue to keep Post Offices in small communities.”

Despite what you might think, our tax dollars do not support the Postal Service, and haven’t since the 1980s. In the words of the USPS, “A self-supporting government enterprise, the U.S. Postal Service is the only delivery service that reaches every address in the nation, 150 million residences, businesses and Post Office Boxes. The Postal Service receives no tax dollars for operating expenses, and relies on the sale of postage, products and services to fund its operations. With 32,000 retail locations and the most frequently visited website in the federal government, usps.com, the Postal Service has annual revenue of more than $67 billion and delivers nearly 40 percent of the world's mail. If it were a private sector company, the U.S. Postal Service would rank 29th in the 2010 Fortune 500.”

The Postal Service is the nation’s second largest civilian employer, second only to Wal-Mart.
With the largest retail network in the United States, it has the world’s largest civilian fleet of vehicles.
Of these, more than 44,000 are alternative-fuel capable, operating with electricity, ethanol, compressed natural gas, liquid propane gas and bio-diesel. With the U.S. Department of Energy, the USPS is currently working on prototype electric vehicles, and testing hydrogen fuel cell-powered vehicles.

In addition to automobiles, mail is also delivered via plane, train, boat, ferry, helicopter, hovercraft, subway and snowmobile. The mule also provides very specialized mail service in Arizona. Every animal in the mule train carries about 130 pounds of mail, food and supplies down the eight mile trail into the Havasupai Reservation at the bottom of the Grand Canyon, averaging 41,000 pounds per week! Of course in addition to all of these methods, mail is also delivered in a much more common (and very green) manner: on bicycle and by foot. And regardless of delivery location, everyone pays the same and equal postage.

Solar-powered Post Office facilities dot the nation, from sea to shining sea, from California to Rhode Island. New buildings are being constructed, and older ones are being renovated, with the environment in mind, using green features like natural lighting, thermal windows, recycled fiberglass insulation, solar systems, rainwater harvest, vegetated roofs and native species utilized in landscaping. Sustainable features like high efficiency lighting/heating/cooling, recycled building materials, low water use fixtures and low-volatile organic compound materials combined with detailed energy audits aim towards the agency’s objective of a 30% reduction in energy consumption by 2015. They’ve already achieved a 24% reduction.

1923 Mail Carrier © USPS

“We are mothers and fathers. And sons and daughters. Who every day go about our lives with duty, honor and pride. And neither snow, nor rain, nor heat, nor gloom of night, nor the winds of change, nor a nation challenged, will stay us from the swift completion of our appointed rounds. Ever.” This is the unofficial creed of the United States Post Office, corrupted from a translation of the Greek “Herodotus' Histories”, circa 440 B.C. Carrying mail is a heavy responsibility, literally and figuratively. Mail is federally protected and tampering with it and any of its containers is a federal offense, as is sending fraudulent materials. Through rain, heat, gloom of night and winds of change, your faithful mail carrier completes the appointed rounds.

Over the years, even famous folk have paid their dues handling mail. Bing Crosby, Charles Bukowski and Sherman Hemsley all spent time as postal clerks. Rock Hudson and Walt Disney were both mail carriers. Hotel magnate, great grandfather of Paris Hilton, and one of Zsa Zsa Gabor’s many husbands, Conrad Hilton was Postmaster General of San Antonio, New Mexico. Future presidents Harry S. Truman and Abraham Lincoln were both Postmaster Generals at one time, of Grandview, Missouri and New Salem, Illinois, respectively. The Postmaster position was once rather politically significant.
On July 26, 1775, members of the Second Continental Congress decreed "that a Postmaster General be appointed for the United States, who shall hold his office at Philadelphia, and shall be allowed a salary of 1,000 dollars per annum.” That first Post Master General was Benjamin Franklin, whose guidance built a system that bound the new nation together, supported the growth of new commerce, and perhaps most importantly, shared information and a free flow of ideas so crucial in our developing country. Recognizing the agency’s importance to the nation, from 1792 until 1971 the Postmaster General of the United States was part of the Presidents Cabinet, and last in line of succession to the presidency.

The Post Office is also featured prominently in our pop culture, with rock ‘n roll songs pleading please to Mr. Postman, getting emotional that baby wrote me a letter, and angry girlfriends sending things back marked “return to sender.”
The Post Office is all about anticipation, and promises of love arriving in a stamped envelope. Thought there has never been a TV sitcom devoted to the life of a mail carrier, there have been plenty of notable post office characters over the years, like the dreaded “Newman!” on “Seinfeld”. I grew up with that guy McFeely from “Mister Rogers Neighborhood”, Reba the Mail Lady on “Pee Wee’s Playhouse” and that loveable know-it-all, Cliff Clavin from the long-running “Cheers”.

“Ours is a proud heritage built on a simple yet profound mission: Connect every American, every door, every business, everywhere through the simple act of delivering mail. This idea of universal service is at the heart of a $900 billion industry that drives commerce, plays an integral part of every American community and remains the greatest value of any post in the world.” –United States Post Office

Support your small town Post Office. Subscribe to a magazine. Pay the extra $1.00 for Priority Mail. Send charming postcards and letters to your people near and far. Not just for holidays, but for no reason at all. Go Postal.

Ellen Jo Roberts lives in a historic brick bungalow with Chad, Floyd, Ivan and Ned. Read all about it at Ellenjo.com.
Send her a postcard at PO Box 832, Clarkdale AZ 86324.

Supplemental Photo Opinion Sidebar...

PHOTO OPINION: How would the closure of your local post office affect your life?

Rick Lovelace, Resident of Jerome, AZ.:
“You can’t close that Post Office! Everyone’s gonna say that. It would drastically affect my life. I’d have to go all the way down the hill, using lots of gas and energy and whatnot to get my mail.”

David Wilder, Business owner in Jerome, AZ.:
“They can’t close the Post Office. We don’t get street delivery, so by federal law, I believe they can’t. That would leave 450 people without an address.”

Birgitta Lapides, Resident of Cottonwood, AZ:
“In Sweden, the Post Office now is a supermarket. They have to have, as part of the supermarket, a Post Office. People in Sweden are very sheepish and they don’t complain. If the Cottonwood Post Office closed I think it will be bad. I don’t see how Fry’s, Safeway or Basha’s would act as a Post Office.”

Chibo

2011-06-21T10:24:00.000-07:00

My Uncle Len was a loner, and he died alone.
He was a complicated and brilliant man, the oldest son of the family.
My Mom, the middle child, said she always felt like Lenny got the attention for being the smartest, and Joyce got the attention for being the cutest.

Uncle Len was tall and gangly. He wore glasses, and leather loafers without socks.
In every family photo he looks like he’s remembering a joke with a sly smirk on his face and a slight tilt to his head. He had a trailer in the woods but lived in an apartment in the city. Surrounded by “gypsies” who might steal your Thanksgiving turkey off the grill if you weren’t watchful.

My memories of Uncle Len are tied up in cigarette smoke, woolen plaids, hunting artwork of Labrador retrievers, and Steely Dan’s “Aja” album playing on the stereo above the mantle. His forever license plate “FO 84”. There he is, hanging back on the outer edges of a conversation at Christmas, sipping his beer and laughing in that whistley snicker. His deep baritone piping in to share humor, or tell long tales of the Florida Keys, the gulf coast, the “Blonde Bomber” and wild adventures he shared with his buddy, T.C. Funny stories about the babes at Old Orchard where he worked as a Pinkerton guard.
He liked to camp out, travel, escape.
My great grandma Ana Komlenich always called Lenny “Chibo”, which meant something in Serbian. We all called him Chibo.

“Helllll-LO”, he greeted us on the phone or at the door. Growing up we spent a lot of time with Uncle Len. Holidays and barbecues and random Friday night dinners.
His apartment, where he raised two kids with his ex-wife, was a famous mess.
Papers and books piled everywhere, stale cigarette smoke dusting everything.
He was like Hunter S Thompson, my Uncle Len, in style and comportment.
Cynical and poetic. His younger cousins all adored him, looking to him for amusements. My brother and I loved to banter with him at the dinner table. He made us work our brains harder, challenged us. His children, Tim and Susie, cultivated his same sense of irreverence and humor, laughing at the absurdities of life.

Chad and I moved far away West in 1995, and due to our distance I can count the times we saw Uncle Len on one hand since…. Christmas 1997. My Mom’s wedding in 2005. During a favorite special visit we saw him for a whole week in 2001, when he drove cross-country with my mother, to visit us in Arizona. My Mom cannot fly, so she cajoled Uncle Len into a road trip to the southwest, summer monsoon rains filling New Mexico with the sweet smell of wet sagebrush. When his “FO 84” license plate pulled up out front of our Clarkdale Arizona bungalow I couldn’t believe my eyes. I jumped for joy.
The two of them, brother and sister, were funny together, like an old married couple, bickering. In the sweaty Arizona sun Uncle Len smelled exactly like Grampa.

My Mom spent the trip being excited and fidgety, Uncle Len poking fun at her, and all but saying “Keep Cool” like how Grampa always said to Grandma. Uncle Len worked for the Milwaukee Road Railroad for many years. I’m not quite sure what his job was there, but I think it was in the offices, being a genius. We rode the Verde Canyon Railroad, a scenic wilderness train (where I later got a job and have now worked for since 2002). I remember Uncle Len’s broad smile on the train ride, and how it was a “highlight” for him. Bantering with the engineers afterwards as they buttoned up and tucked the train in for the night.

People say something changed in Uncle Len when his only daughter died of a rare cancer when she was a senior in high school. Something broke inside him. From that point on, a slow retreat began, until eventually nobody saw him much, not even his son or grandkids. He did his own thing. He didn’t come to Serbian Christmas and there were no more random Friday night dinners. He missed funerals and birthdays, and my brother’s wedding. He was invited and included but seldom participated, much to the chagrin of my mother. Tim’s wife, Anna said he’d never come over for a spur of the moment meatloaf, but if they ever needed help he would drop everything and come over to help. (Because he truly did love them, and he was a good man.)

Despite his lack of family participation, my Mom never gave up on Len, and tried to reach out to him. He rarely reached back. He died alone, my Uncle Len. Even though I’ve not seen him in years, and he lived nearly 2,000 miles away, the world seems different now with him gone. I wonder if my grandparents welcomed him into the pearly gates. My grandma probably wagging her finger at him about all the events he’d missed out on. I wonder if he’s there on the other side reunited with Susie again.

Being at the depot comforts me now, thinking of Uncle Len riding on that train that’s parked outside. What a kick he got out of it. He went on and on about the train ride.

I always appreciated my uncle’s great storytelling, and his "c'est la vie" attitude. I never heard him raise his voice in anger. Uncle Len had a positive influence on me growing up, without my own dad, and that will always stick with me, as will my fond memories.

California Desert Redux- April 2007

2011-04-26T13:22:00.000-07:00

Another old favorite, published in the April 2007 issue of The Noise...

California Desert Redux
April 2007- The Outs
Ellen Jo Roberts

Joshua Tree. It was our very first Karmann Ghia road trip, 8 years ago, and now it was looking like it would also be our last. Driving such an old car you must always be prepared for anything.

I don’t really know how we ended up sitting on the ground in front of French’s Vintage Volkswagen Parts & Repair in Yucca Valley, California. Thank God such a place existed, with its racks full of Volkswagen parts and back-lot graveyard of VW ghosts.

We sat there for five hours while a brash young feller worked on our car so we could get back on the road home. Electrical problems. Faulty ignition. Intermittent sputtering. Five hundred miles done, 325 left to go. The sky fluctuated between sun and rain. The grove of Joshua Trees in the distance added to the surreal scene. Sometimes we’d go inside and chat with the old hippies and greasers at the front counter as they took long drags on their cigs.

When you own a vintage Volkswagen you are instantly member of a tribe, a subculture of sorts. Somehow the idea that we might be truly stranded in this blasted stretch of Mojave Desert didn’t even upset me. I had miraculously transcended the anxiety caused by an ill-running automobile. (Note: years of practice had led up to this moment). A strange sort of calm. This was an authentic experience, and we were meeting real people. We were getting down and dirty, down to the nitty gritty.
Those people in their modern minivans, with their air conditioning and DVD players didn’t know what they were missing. They drove past us on Hwy 62 like we didn’t even exist.

Last time we went to Joshua Tree National Park was 1999, an inaugural road trip taken in a recently purchased 1973 Karmann Ghia. Now many miles and many road trips since, we had been hankering to return. Joshua Tree National Park is a jewel in the crown of the National Park Service - a vast forest of Joshua Trees (a member of the lily family, closely related to the yucca) and gigantic granite boulders covering the landscape in big molten lumps. It was a favorite spot and we were going back to it.
The Ghia, with its new tires, new clutch, fresh oil seemed the most sturdy choice from our stable of vintage junkola. But I don’t ever kid myself. It’s always risky. We packed it full of camping gear, clothing, picnic items, dogs, and shoehorned 6’4’’ Chad into the passenger seat for the nearly 400-mile trip to Twenty-Nine Palms, California.

Mapquest advised taking the interstates, but we disregarded the Internet and headed through Jerome and over Mingus on 89A, Hwy. 89 out of Prescott through Yarnell, towards Salome. A gorgeous drive, smooth and lovely, dropping in elevation in big lazy curves. A lady at a Yarnell gas station came out and asked if were on a “road tour,” barely containing her fascination with our strange looking yellow car. She suggested we hook into nearby Hwy 71, to Hwy 60 to 72 and up to 62 across the Colorado River into California.
“To 29 Palms that’s the fastest way. Sure is.” And it sure was. It lopped about 90 miles off of those stupid Mapquest directions, though didn’t cut down too much on time, as the roads were all paced at a historic 50-55 mph. The roads less traveled.

Sailing along in the sunshine and dry desert breezes, we were starring in our very own movie, some hipster adventure on grainy film, only difference being we weren’t on a killing spree nor on the lam from the law. Listening to the Devotchka soundtrack of “Little Miss Sunshine” and following old railroad tracks, the windows down, the dogs asleep, the engine purring like a sewing machine.
Crossing into California onto Hwy 62, we noticed names and phrases written with rocks along the edges of the railroad embankment. Hundreds of names all created with rocks lined up into letters. Some were created with brightly painted rocks, but most were just the dark brown color of the ballast below the tracks. It went on for miles, sometimes stopping for stretches and starting back up again later.
The road was a lullaby, a roller coaster up and down through dips and vados.
What a glorious day. “I think this is my new favorite highway.”
We were the only ones out there.
Watching the gas tank dip below, we suddenly realized the road less traveled also had no gas stations. The needle dropped past “Reserve” and slowly crept far to the left, the farthest I’d ever seen it go. One hundred twenty miles with no service stations. The last 50 miles were spent with knuckles white and sphincters clamped tight in fear we’d sputter out alongside the road before reaching any civilization.
Thinking of a plan, how we’d do it, who’d we wave down. No cell phone. But we breezed into 29 Palms on fumes and a stiff tailwind, all the way from Clarkdale, Ariz. to 29 Palms, Calif. on just one 11-gallon tank of gas.
“This will have residual problems,” I said, as we exhaled deeply and filled the tank up, “I’m sure we sucked up lots of crud from the bottom of that old tank. Never had that tank so low.” We also wondered why our 1973 model car gets better gas mileage than most other cars on the road today. Seems pretty backwards. Seems we could be driving solar powered hovercrafts by now.

Joshua Tree National Park wears a loose necklace of towns, ranging clockwise from Palm Springs, to Cabazon, Yucca Valley, Joshua Tree and 29 Palms. The entire area is engulfed in a postmodern cloak of “Googie” style architecture, so predominant in mid-century California. Motels and liquor stores feature “Populuxe” signs full of starbursts and arrows and wonderful fonts. Gas stations with outrageous cantilevered roofs swing out towards the heavens in extreme geometry.
First off, we headed west to Cabazon to visit some old friends. Two giant dinosaurs, “Dinny" (1964) and “Mr. Rex” (c.1981) famously watch over the “Wheel Inn” restaurant and from time to time appear in rock videos or Pee Wee Herman films. Guarding the windy entrance to the Coachella Valley, the Cabazon dinos are pop culture superstars and always worth a stop. The bodies of the beasts hold a gift shop and museum respectively. If you happen to go there tell ‘em “Large Marge” sent you.

After a campout and a brief jaunt through Palm Springs (no famous people were spotted, though we did see the intersection of Bob Hope & Frank Sinatra Boulevards) we began heading back east. An afternoon in the national park, followed by a night spent at a sleazy dive in the town of Joshua Tree: some old highway motel which looked far better on the Internet than it did in real life.
The car began acting up. Sputtering, cutting in and out, and finally not starting at all. Crud in the carburetor was of course the first suspect, but no, plenty of gas was flowing … it was more electrical. It was a mystery and we were in trouble, far from home. Joshua Tree, Calif. was dusty and windswept and slightly ominous. It was as if we’d been slapped hard across the face! We were not going to make it home as breezily as we had blown into town!

“Pee Wee Herman was here and so wuz Floyd. No sign of U2 or Gram Parsons’ ghost. Beautiful drive in on old Hwys 71,60, 72, 62. Like we were in a movie” — postcard I sent.

Original “alt-country” rocker and former Flying Burrito Brother, Gram Parsons, died of a morphine overdose in Joshua Tree, Calif. in September of 1973. Supposedly his ghost can be seen at some local motel in the form of a spooky white cat. A white cat dressed in a fantastic sequined western jumpsuit!

Last day there we got an early start — a push start to be exact — and headed back west to Yucca Valley. A local had informed us we could find a top-notch dune buggy/vintage VW shop to diagnose our issues.
Five hours and $570 later we began our 8-hour return drive home, estimating we’d pull in the driveway (if we were lucky) just shy of 10pm that night, back to work the next day. As I looked at the receipt from the mechanics and the bag of old parts they’d removed, I thought about printing up a t-shirt that said: “I went to California and all I got was this stinking bill for $570 and a bag full of electrical parts!”
The Cali boy had the machine timed and tuned to run best at full throttle, like a jet, about 80 mph, so we opted to return a different route, up to connect with the old 66 in Amboy and over to Interstate 40 East. Amboy, California is a postmodern ghost-town, famous for its iconic Rt. 66 “Roy’s Café and Motel” sign, created at the height of Googie style, circa 1959. The town is actually one of California’s oldest cities, dating from 1858, due to the valuable salt lake chloride beds that line the region, and thriving until the early 1970s when Interstate 40 completely bypassed the town.

Nowadays, it sits smack dab in the middle of nowhere, a remote Retro-Future relic and a curiosity for nostalgia hounds and Rt. 66 buffs. Amboy is about 60 miles worth of remote highway north of 29 Palms and another 40 miles until I-40. Roy’s Café and Motel dates from the 1930s and closed in 1995, though word is that it was purchased by the owner of a California restaurant franchise a couple of years ago, and plans are in the works to preserve, restore and reopen the place. Perhaps next time we pass through (in another 8 years) we’ll be able to check into Roy’s and rest our road-weary bones in Populuxe-style splendor.

The rest of the trip was a blur, boring interstate, setting sun, and snow. When you drive an aged, air-cooled Volkswagen 900 miles, every single mile makes its impact on you — the loud hum of the highway and the noisy engine, the windows down, the wind in your ears and dust in your eyes. No hermetically-sealed modernity for us. We felt every bit of that road, we breathed every germ, we smelled every stink, and every sweetness.
We finally pulled into the driveway about 10pm, just as we suspected. Even though we had only been gone 3 days, it had seemed like an eternity. The house looked, and smelled wonderful. After a crazy trip like that, full of such trials and tribulations, nothing ever feels as good as your own bed. Completely exhausted, we fell into a slumber and dreamt of Joshua Trees, old motels and ghosts of Gram Parsons and Volkswagens past.

Ellen Jo Roberts lives in Clarkdale, Ariz. and likes to drive her Karmann Ghia to assorted far away places. All this hassle just so that she can take funny photos of her dogs. Read about it at www.ellenjo.com

Greatest Hits on Cassette

2011-04-26T13:07:00.000-07:00

Here's a story I wrote for our local writers group about 5 years ago. Just found it again while searching for something else, and thought it was worth sharing...

"Greatest Hits On Cassette"
By Ellen JD Roberts c.2006

“keep feeling fascination, passion burning, love so strong” – human league 1983

It arrived in a box of detritus cast away from mother’s house in Milwaukee. Junk she’d left in the basement for many years and many miles past. Martha received the box on a Tuesday and by Wednesday morning the contents were spread all over her meager apartment. Martha was new to Seattle, starting fresh on a different coast. Mother had died the November before and her sisters and brother had finally gotten through the house, emptied it and sold it. This was all that was left of Martha’s in that house and though it seemingly had no rhyme or reason it was all linked by fragrant memory. Old yearbooks, square photos taken with 110 film, scuffed 45s records, tiny rubber figurines given by the dentist as rewards for good check ups, mash notes from grade school crushes. The smell of the box was initially the potently musty smell of mother’s basement, but once the box was discarded and the items stood on their own for a bit the smell of her childhood returned. There were several forgotten cassette tapes in the box, most had been left behind because she simply hadn’t wanted them anymore. One from an old boyfriend was sure to be sweet and she pushed it to the side for later. And tucked into the broken binding of an over-packed green diary was a white plastic cassette tape. Written on the white plastic in her 12 year old hand was “My Hits” on one side and “Tape of All Tapes!” on the other, in frayed magic marker.

Something about this made her laugh a little bit out loud, thinking of Iraq and the “Mother of All Wars” or “Mother of All Bombs” , some outrageous political hyperbole. She knew that this cassette tape in her hand was a fantastic time capsule that was going to transport her back 20 years the moment she played it. She held it a moment. Martha was certain she’d still know it by heart even though she hadn’t listened to it in decades. She closed her eyes and saw images of childhood changing behind a rolling foreground of the highlights in words, just like on the old k-Tel commercials…
Featuring these all time classics! ....

· The sounds of static and the spinning radio dial!
· Leftover bits of mother’s Simon & Garfunkel and Neil Diamond bleeding through between portions of Enrico Morricone’s “the Good the Bad and the Ugly” soundtrack on vinyl.
· Billy Preston and the Beatles on 45.
· 30 seconds of “Abracadabra” by the Steve Miller Band recorded by holding the tape recorder up to the speaker!
· The famous 1970s baby talk: “dank you fo’ letting me play wiff your toys” jibber jabber leftover from a recording made to send to Aunt, Uncle and cousins in rural Ohio
· Trashy 80s tunes! (Heady flashes of first kiss in Donny Griffin’s garage)
· Various interruptions by (now-retired) Wisconsin disk jockeys
· Commercials for cancelled TV shows and the auto-body repair shop
· Cackles, laughs, belches and the sound of breathing.
· Interview with Duran Duran and Def Leppard, acted out by you and your neighbor!
· The brief ill-advised fascination with reggae in high school
· An unabashed fondness for the Andrews Sisters that left all peers shaking their heads in disbelief.
· The disorder and cacophony that somehow became the soundtrack of your childhood.
· Order now and get the complete set of grainy snapshots of 8th grade!

She recalls having taken this particular tape with her on several school trips, and family vacations, tuned into the greatest hits via headphones while the world went by outside the window.

Wednesday night Martha lay on the floor for 45 minutes straight, in a trance, completely transported back to another time and place. The orangey red sculpted carpeting of her childhood living room, the basement full of records and the old shopping cart they used to collect the dirty laundry, the sound of the water cooler in the pantry gulped and belched big bubbles of air, her brother’s and sisters’ attempt to host a neighborhood circus one summer which mainly amounted to the brats of the block taking over and throwing the whipped-cream pies at everyone. “This tape is like a recording of my life,” she realized as she got up to flip it over to “Tape of All Tapes”, side B. Songs that were favorites were suddenly interrupted when they grew tiresome and smothered with a dose of some newer favorite. She listened to the entire cassette twice and realized it captured roughly a 20 year span, from 1975 through 1995. The next day en route to her job at the diner she popped into an electronics shop and asked for a portable cassette player, something with headset like the one she once had, but the greasy-faced boy shuffling on the carpet tried to persuade her towards an ipod or mp3 player.
“They quit making cassettes”, he said in a way that made her feel completely dumb, like a caveman awakening from a frozen block of ice. They quit making cassettes back in the stone age, you dumb lady! Stupid dumb-dumb head! She wandered away from the boy who she began calling “Pimples” in her mind, and did indeed find a cassette recorder, not one intended for playback of music really, but would do just fine—it was more for recording business meetings or a professor’s speeches.

On break from the diner Martha sat in the grass near the carwash fumbling with batteries for her new cassette player. She checked in on Boyfriend 1988. Listening to Echo & the Bunnymen, Love and Rockets, and John Lennon -- she could smell the nagchampa incense, clove cigarettes and the greasy engine of his ‘69 Buick, the sticky feel of the vinyl upholstery beneath her bare summer thighs. The sensation was nearly overwhelming, washing over her in waves, thinking of him hovering nearby with his shell necklace jangling. She had to turn it off. Turn it off. That f*cker, he was an a$$hole anyway. But, oh what a lover. Real hot stuff. Time was up, back to work. Standing at the coffee maker Martha felt her knees going weak. She couldn’t shake Zeppelin’s “Who Lotta Love”.

Boyfriend 1988 was shelved after that, but “the Tape of All Tapes” sat right with her, didn’t make her feel queasy or lonely—it was from an innocent time of optimism and hope—it was a comfort and she studied it in great detail. Rewinding to make note of background sounds and things she may have missed over the years listening to the surface noises--- Grandpa laughing at Christmas opens side A.
“What do you want for Christmas, Grandpa?,” asks Martha at age 9, clutching the new tape recorder that was under the tree for her that year.
“All I want for Christmas is my two front teeeeeth!”, sings Gramps, whistling as he pops his dentures out. The kids all squeal with delight. Quick cut into the Beach Boys recorded from WMLW, summer 1985.
Midway through side A and Kenny the annoying cousin butts into “Tears of a Clown” to do his best “Miss Piggy” impersonation. Lots of clicking and scuffling as young Martha tries to get the recorder back from him.
“Kermy!!! Ohhh I love you ! Kerrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrmie!” Smooching sounds and laughter from the background. Cut into Mike and the Mechanics and Eddie Grant “Rock down to Electric Avenue”. Was that Aunt Lucy back there? Who was that murmuring low at the dining room table, Great Uncle Jack?
The Tape of All Tapes embraced Martha in cloak of tranquility, despite its jarring edit job and scrambled playlist. Long dead relatives, long lost friends, and forgotten favorites washed back up to shore.

She came across something at the end of side B she didn’t remember-- she rewound and listened again, turning up the volume. It was Manny at the diner asking if she’d heard anything from Bill, the new line cook. He was late for work and nobody had heard from him. “Has he already quit?,” asked Manny, somewhat frustrated. She heard it clear as a bell, the sizzle of the griddle, some old-timers at the counter griping about the relentless fog. It was last Tuesday. She rewound it and played it again. ”How in the hell?...,“she asked herself, and fussed with the tape player, and in scrutinizing it she realized how easy it would have been to mistakenly press “record” instead of “stop” when she returned from break on Tuesday. Sure enough. There were about 40 seconds of current-day diner time on top of some snippet of high school era dancehall reggae. Luckily the cassette was near the end, and soon clicked off with Manny getting the final word in, as usual, “Damn it to hell!”

Strangely, Martha was not upset by the mishap. Only briefly she considered breaking the tabs off of the old cassette, rendering the recording safe from future accidental interruptions. Thinking of the cold, painted concrete floor of her childhood basement, the double-paned windows frosting up in the winter, the annoying clamor of the Milwaukee DJ known as Petie “Super” Powers. Martha looked around her small but cleverly furnished apartment, out to the scenic view from her small kitchen window and then closed her eyes.

This is a continuing story, she thought to herself. That was not the past, it is the same as the now. It is all connected like the tape spooling in this cassette.

That night Martha got the best sleep she’d had in years.

Seismic Southwest

2011-04-22T21:59:00.000-07:00

Seismic Southwest
The Noise
May 2011
The Outs
Ellen Jo Roberts

           The sub-oceanic earthquakes and subsequent tsunamis that struck Japan’s coast this March are a powerful, and terrifying reminder of earth’s forces at work beneath us. Arizonans might feel some semblance of comfort to live in a region free of such dramatic plate tectonics. However, the truth is we are not immune to seismic activity in our state. In fact, there are small tremors occurring all around us all the time. As of press time there have been 19 earthquakes documented in Arizona already this year.
What makes our state’s geology so varied and visually thrilling is also what creates the potential for shocking uplifts, volcanic eruptions, and other dramatic changes to the landscape.



On January 23rd, and again on March 18th 2011, there were two minor earthquakes reported in the vicinity of Sycamore Canyon’s confluence with the Verde River, northeast of Clarkdale and west of Sedona. With magnitudes of 3.6 and 3.7, respectively, and centered deep underground in an area of wilderness, the quakes went mostly unnoticed, except for an assortment of finely attuned Clarkdale residents.
On the date the January quake occurred, a flurry of local chatter stirred up the neighborhood. “Earthquake! Did you feel an earthquake?” The only thing I felt that day seemed like someone slamming a door in some distant part of the building.
(Note: it may have actually been someone slamming a door.)
“These two quakes were likely located on a branch of the Verde fault,” explains David Brumbaugh. Professor of Geology, specializing in Geophysics, at Northern Arizona University, and Director of the Arizona Earthquake Information Center, “The Verde is the large fault that runs along the eastern front of the Black Hills through Jerome.

               Earthquakes are measured by seismometers and assigned “moment magnitude scale” numbers based on the measuring formula originally created in 1935 by Charles Richter and Beno Gutenburg of California’s Institute of Technology. The intensity of shaking is measured on the “Modified Mercalli Scale”, with shallower earthquakes causing the most damage. “We use the seismogram itself to estimate size, especially for smaller earthquakes,” explains Professor Brumbaugh, “This method is to use the time from the beginning to the end of the wiggles of an earthquake signature, as an estimate of size. This is called the ‘coda magnitude’ and can be related to the Richter Magnitude. Epicenter locations are determined by the travel time of the earthquake waves from several different stations, which can then be converted to distance.”
According to the various measuring scales, any quakes less than 4.0 magnitude are minor, and below 3.0 are scarcely noticeable, except by sensitive scientific equipment. Above 4.0 the tremors become noticeable to the local population. Knick-knacks and bric-a-brac fall from shelves, loose items rattle. Above 5.0 real damage begins to occur.

               As the numbers increase, the scale of the damage and movement increases.
Magnitudes 6.0 to 7.9 are considered “major”. The Loma Prieta Earthquake in California’s Bay Area that disrupted the 1989 World Series, caused freeways to collapse and killed 63 people was a 6.9. At 8, things progress from “great” to “massive”. The 1906 earthquake that decimated San Francisco is debated to have measured between 7.7 and 8.0. Mexico City’s catastrophic 1985 earthquake, which killed 10,000 people, was measured as an 8.1. Its epicenter was in the Pacific Ocean over 200 miles away. The tsunami that hit Indonesia in December 2004 was a result of a 9.3 coastal earthquake. This year’s catastrophic tsunamis devasting Japan resulted from a 9.0 sub-oceanic “Megathrust” earthquake 45 miles off the coast. Megathrust earthquakes generally produce the highest magnitudes, and the most damage, and are caused by converging tectonic plates, as opposed to rumbling fault lines. While the Pacific Coast (and California’s San Andreas Fault running up the state like a zipper) is a well documented as a seismic hot spot, there are frequent minor quakes occurring all the time throughout much of the United States. The New Madrid Fault Line in the Midwestern U.S. has seismic potential to seriously threaten seven states: Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Missouri, Arkansas, Tennessee and Mississippi. As a child in Chicago in the 1980s I remember a tremor shaking our neighborhood as a direct result of the New Madrid Fault, hundreds of miles away in Missouri. It felt like our brick bungalow suddenly shuddered, like a dog having a dream.

              Here in the southwest, earthquake activity is caused by many faults not even visible, hidden deep below the earth under many layers of sedimentary geology, and granite from volcanic flows. Other faults and breaks are more noticeable, and some glorious uplifts are dramatic landmark geographical features. Most seismic activity in Arizona happens on the Colorado Plateau, and along the “Arizona Strip”, our western border with California along the Colorado River. The Grand Canyon, perhaps ever in flux and transition, is also a hot spot for shocks and continuing aftershocks. No earthquake in Arizona history has ever caused a single injury or death, though there have been a few that have inspired great fright.

“The cumulative terror produced by a series of 52 earthquakes, from September 10 to 23, 1910, caused a construction crew in the Coconino Forest near Flagstaff to break camp and leave the area. Boulders rolled down on their camp from nearby mountains, and the earth maintained a constant quiver. The shocks grew in intensity until September 23, when a very strong shock raged throughout northern Arizona. It was so severe north of the San Francisco Mountains that Indians fled from the region.”
- “Seismicity of the United States, 1568-1989 (Revised)”, by Carl W. Stover and Jerry L. Coffman, U.S. Geological Survey Professional Paper 1527

“For an earthquake to cause serious damage in Arizona, it would have to be M6.0 or larger,” says Professor Brumbaugh. One of the largest earthquakes ever documented in Arizona registered at a magnitude of 5.6, and occurred at 5:39pm on July 21st, 1959 along the Arizona-Utah Border near the neighboring cities of Fredonia AZ and Kanab UT.

The tremor caused damage to buildings, breaking windows, walls and toppling chimneys. Store merchandise fell off of shelves, and a rockslide occurred at Grand Canyon’s Mather Point.
        The professor also sites three potentially damaging earthquakes in Northern Arizona’s history: an M6.2 in 1906, the same year as San Francisco’s killer quake, an M6.0 in 1910 and an M6.2 in 1912, “Most earthquakes occur in Northern Arizona in a belt extending from Utah to Blue Ridge through Flagstaff known as the ‘Northern Arizona Seismic Belt’,” he explains, “As a worse case scenario, the faults in this seismic belt could generate an earthquake of about M7.0, but this is not very likely. There has not been one this large in historic time.”

When we lived in Jerome, we were often teased that our house might not be there when we got home, that it might “slide down the mountain”, making sport of the town’s steep trajectory, as well as the 88 miles of mining tunnels spidering beneath it.
     Back in 1976 there was different concern, as a series of light earthquakes struck the area in February and April of that year. The epicenter of these quakes was about 20 miles northwest of Jerome, in Chino Valley, AZ. Current resident Jane Moore first arrived in Jerome in the early 1970s and she remembers the shocks shaking the historic town.
“I distinctly remember the day, and that I was outside doing something with my horses, who were in a corral down below Rich Street. I didn't feel the first shock too much, being out on the ground, but do remember all of sudden people poking their heads out their windows and saying stuff like ‘What the hell? What's going on?’ and that their houses were rattling and shaking,” Ms. Moore recalls, “Then later that afternoon I was back in my house…and felt an aftershock that shook the house... no damage.”

        The Colorado Plateau is home to some of the world’s most amazing landscape, most of it created by violent geological changes such as volcanic activity and shifting plates (the two actions are often times connected). “An active volcanic area like the San Francisco field around Flagstaff is likely to have relatively frequent, but smaller earthquakes,” states Professor Brumbaugh. “But eruptions do not occur very often. Sunset Crater was the most recent, with an eruption about 1,000 years ago. The eruptions in the San Francisco Field have been spaced out every few thousand years so far.”

         Other features have been formed by millions of years of slow moving change, such as sediment-depositing floods, receding floods revealing sedimentary sandstone, carving rivers, and gradual uplifts. Below the Mogollon Rim, ancient lakes, effluvial plains and rifts in earth give us gifts like Sedona, the Verde Valley, and fossilized sea creatures embedded at 7,000 feet above Jerome. The ever-changing planet we call home, despite being bound with wires, pipes, antennae, factories, and roads, will never be harnessed completely. The exact things that make planet earth a living, ever-changing organism capable of sustaining life are the exact things that also make it dangerous to its inhabitants. It’s unpredictable, fiery, quarrelsome, sometimes grumpy and dissatisfied. Like us. We too, are a danger right back, changing the earth to suit us, and seldom considering the impact we may have on its future.

For more information on Arizona’s earthquake activity, visit NAU’s Arizona Earthquake Information Center: http://www4.nau.edu/geology/aeic/aeic.html

Ellen Jo Roberts lives in Clarkdale, Arizona with “Bike Daddy” Chad, “Five Pounds of Fury” Floyd, and “Super Spaz” Ivan, and a fine assortment of 1970s Volkswagens.
Read all about it at Ellenjo.com

Clyde. 2000-2011

2011-03-15T13:14:00.000-07:00

Clyde. He arrived about a month after we bought our house in Clarkdale, in February 2001. It was a few months since we'd lost our wild woolly Raoul, in Jerome, where he was killed on the highway in front of our apartment by a fast moving car.

(Raoul,1998, Jerome AZ)

As freshly minted homeowners, with a yard of our own, and finally recovering from our mourning for Raoul, we agreed to take this young cat named Clyde (he came with the name). The Jerome Humane Society said he needed "special owners" as he was getting himself into trouble where he lived, with an elderly lady/Veronica Lake lookalike in leopard print jumpsuit, in Cottonwood's Verde Villages.
He'd been getting into scraps with wild creatures and nearly lost his tail in a battle. We'd made a poster commemorating Raoul and had posted it all over Jerome. The kind folks in Jerome remembered the poster, and tracked us down. Soon this beautiful creamy colored flame-point siamese mix was in our living room. He was just under a year old.

Clyde was kinda wild at first, but soon mellowed into a lovely pet. We kept him indoors because of Raoul's death by car, and also the abundance of coyotes in our edge-of-the-wilderness neighborhood. He came to us with a history of scrapping with wild critters, so we wanted to protect him from future dangerous encounters. Sometimes we'd walk him on his harness and leash, or leave him hooked up on it, on a lead, in the protection of the yard. We kept his harness in a end table drawer by the door, and when we opened the drawer and pulled out the harness Clyde would come running, and hop up in the table, ready to put it on and go outside.

In 2002 the wacky Veronica Lake looking lady came over to visit her Clyde. She was eccentric in a most amusing way. Apparently she had a daschund named "Regis" that Clyde liked to play with. She also said "He likes coffee. See if I say 'coffee-coffee-COFFEE' he looks. Lookat 'im. He's licking his lips!" We repeated that phrase for a year, chuckling. (Footnote: Clyde has never asked for a cup of coffee.)

Sociable and mouthy, Clyde liked other animals, and on the times he escaped the front door we'd nearly always find him on the next block with neighbors who had several cats, dogs, and a pot-bellied pig named "Chuckie". He seemed lonely for some company.

In 2003 I did something crazy and impulsive. I stopped for a sign that said "Chihuahuas 4 Sale". Clyde could have easily killed tiny 24 ounce puppy Floyd, but he didn't. Clyde, with all of his claws in tact, and pointy fangs, could have made a quick end for my rodent-sized puppy. But he didn't. In fact he loved Floyd like he was his very own pet. Always gentle and playful with him, teaching him manners as best he could.

The next year we ended up with another dog, Ivan, and though Clyde was never as fond of Ivan as he is of Floyd (he mainly liked bopping Ivan on the face or batting his butt and waking him up from sleep), he was good with him too. Clyde was indeed the king of the house, and the dogs both answered to him on just about everything.

Clyde was always in the same room with all of us. We would sometimes joke how all 5 creatures of our house, canine, feline, and human, would sometimes be inhabiting the same 5 square foot space, snuggled up together. A very happy lil' arrangement indeed!

In early 2011, around the 10th anniversary of us buying our house in Clarkdale, Clyde stopped eating. He stopped pooping. He didn't jump on our bed anymore. He got very quiet. We took him the the vet and were crushed to learn that he was going into kidney failure from something called Polycystic Kidney Disease.

The veterinarian said this was something genetic he's had since he was a kitten, and there was nothing we could've really done about it. She also didn't know how much longer he would live. We took him home. It was like "hospice" care, being fed liquified mix of baby food and special kidney care formula in a kitten bottle, being injected every other day with subcutaneous fluid between his shoulderblades to help flush the growing toxins from his blood, groomed with wet washcloths, and brushed by me, as if he were a baby and I was his momma.

We'd always fed Clyde the best most expensive holistic organic meat-based feline diet. He drank filtered water and got premium treats. We even brushed his teeth and got him dental care from the vet. He was kept safely indoors. We did everything right, everything you're supposed to do. We certainly didn't think he'd be dead at age 11.
Losing Clyde was like losing the last 10 years of our life. The foundation of our life in Clarkdale was built on his back, and with him leaving us it was like he was taking 10 years of our lives with him Like the end of an era. A door forever shut.

After we found out he was dying, we let him outside into the yard every day, because he didn't go much farther than the front porch or the shady grass. He enjoyed basking in the sun, and loved our field trips to the Verde River. First time I'd heard him meow in weeks.

There were a tough few days at first, right after his diagnosis, when we were instructed to flush him with IV fluids twice a day. It was daunting all the needles and the tubes and the medical equipment.We didn't think he'd live through the night. He seemed groggy, drunk, uncoordinated.

Then, we were allowed to cut down the fluids to once a day, then every other day.
He suddenly seemed to get a little bitty bit sparkier, clawing on logs in the yard, and climbing on the couch to sit by the dogs. Some days he almost seemed to show a wee glimpse of his old self.
Taking him to the river was a fantastic time machine. He'd roll in the sand, walk the trail, meow, claw at trunks, almost like his old self.

Vet follow up report said his blood numbers were better, but still terrible. Where they used to be off the charts, higher than the machines could even read, a week later they were merely "very high". He was maintaining, moving, drinking water, peeing in the litter box, looking out the window. And still hanging out in the same room with all of us, maybe hanging in there a little bit longer.
As it was like we'd already mourned his death, any extra day we got with our Clyde was bonus points.

"As long as he wants to be here with us, he can be here with us," we'd say.

On March 14th, 2011, Clyde took his last breath in the sunny tall grass and shade of a yucca in our yard. The vet came to our house and gave him an injection to put him to sleep. I had my hand on his chest as his heart took its last beat. Clyde didn't fight the doctors, or me, he just lay still and quiet. And then he was gone.

Despite a few steady weeks (and even some glimmers of hope he might make a comeback--like a sudden reinterest in eating food in his own), in his final couple of days, Clyde took a turn. He lost all interest in everything, food, water, us. He was suffering it seemed. Crying. Green snot in his eyes and nose. His mouth and tongue were suddenly full of ulcers. He would just hang his chin in the water bowl and not drink. If nothing else bothered him, I was certain that his mouth was bothering him and it was cruel to prolong the inevitable. All the life was fading from him. He even lost enthusiasm for going outdoors, which had been something he had always really enjoyed. Time had come to say a final goodbye and let him go. We were hoping we'd just wake up to find him peacefully curled up dead somewhere in a favorite spot, but this is not the way it went. We had to make the call.

His exit was very peaceful for him, though of course we were bawling our eyes out. We foolishly thought we'd already done all our grieving, when we first found out he was dying. But we were wrong.

Clyde is buried next to our eucalyptus tree, in a grave Chad spent all day digging. Chad made him a custom built coffin out of two shoeboxes. In his coffin: a tiny pillow for his head, Verde River clam shells, Sedona red earth, Mexican beach sand, big basin sage, kitty post cards from his pin up gallery, favorite toys, locks of our hair (including the dogs'), and a polaroid of Floyd and Ivan. Lisa gave me some daffodil bulbs to plant in the grave, and we set them right above him.

After the vet left, we said our last goodbyes to Clyde and Chad positioned him in his cardboard coffin, ready to lower into his grave. We let the dogs out into the yard to pay their last respects. Ivan was kinda clueless, and gave a perfunctory sniff before trotting off elsewhere, but Floyd was very concerned and intense. It was really touching my heart seeing Floyd, sniffing Clyde's head and ears, and watching him so intently as we closed the lid on him. Floyd seemed almost like he knew what was into going on and seemed very affected by Clyde's death.

"Of course," Chad said, "Because Clyde raised him."

Sad day, but peaceful and special.
As we carefully shoveled the earth back over Clyde's grave we joked about the crazy cartwheels and somersaults he used to do. And how he would always fall asleep on his back, legs up, not a care in the world. Clyde, you were the best cat ever.

Beautiful boy, you will be forever loved.
Thank you for the 10 wonderful years of affection, noisy wake up meows, entertainment, humor, and devotion. His memory will live on in paintings, photographs and the tales we tell.

Big Texas! :There's No Basement in the Alamo!

2011-03-02T13:17:00.000-08:00

An old favorite, from August 2008...

Big Texas!:There’s No Basement in the Alamo!
By Ellen Jo Roberts
The Outs
August 2008

Texas is a mythical place, larger than life and bigger than all of the original 13 colonies combined. Texas almost seems ridiculous to be so big—like it should’ve been subdivided into North, South, and West subsets like the Virginias, Dakotas, and Carolinas. One side of Texas is western, dry and familiar. Another part is green and fermented, with spanish moss in the trees, plentiful rivers, and hills.
What we did on our summer vacation--What we did was pack up ourselves and the dogs and drive 2,400 miles, round trip, to the gulf coast of Texas, practically Mexico, for a family reunion. On the map it didn’t seem quite so far—a mere 2 states over. But as we finally saw the very first road signs mentioning our specific destination we both were dumbfounded that we’d been so brave and foolish to drive so far. By the end, by the time we’d made it back home, we’d driven for 6 solid days, 8 or 9 hours a day. It was a lot of highway, an amazing range of landscape and ecosystems, and new places never before seen. It also was about $500 in gasoline.

First of all, the Packheiser Reunion. My husband’s mom has many siblings, more than two hands can count. Do the math and that makes for many spouses, cousins, extended family, and a big reunion every year in a different locale. There are Packheisers from sea to shining sea. Each year they meet up in a different region during the Independence Day holiday week. Three years ago the Packheisers reunited in Arizona’s Verde Valley. You may remember us from our matching Packheiser Reunion t-shirts and our “boom-shaka-laka” routine” in Clarkdale’s 2005 4th of July Parade. Or how they landed on Jerome like a swarm on locusts. Locusts in matching t-shirts. Those wacky Packheisers. This year the destination was South Padre Island, a Spring-Break mecca along Texas’ southernmost stretches, minutes from Mexico.

We started our trip chipper and enthusiastic, in a rental car with air-conditioning and cruise control. Driving local highways through Arizona’s White Mountains on Highway 260, we soon crossed into New Mexico, continuing on small highways through small towns.

Along Highway 60, outside of Magdalena, NM, one may catch a glimpse of the “Very Large Array”–gigantic satellite dishes, tuned to communicate with outer space. Rural New Mexico has a glorious landscape, but most of the towns along the way were ghostly relics. Empty storefronts, vintage signs advertising long-closed businesses, no glimpse of pedestrians or residents. Every time the speed limit dropped indicating we were coming up on the next town I sat up a bit straighter in anticipation, and every time was surprised to find more of the same. Has the American roadside of yore gone extinct?

Our first goal on the map was a lunch-time cheeseburger at the famous Owl Bar & Café in San Antonio, New Mexico. It had been recommended by a friend as a mandatory stop. “The green chile cheeseburger will change your life,” she said.
The Owl Café is a historic roadside dive, dimly lit interior, like a cool dark cave, out of the relentless southwestern sun, and while the cheeseburger didn’t change my life, it was damn good, and the price cheap. By 5:30pm we had arrived in Roswell, our first overnight stop, and the eve of our 13th wedding anniversary. We had been quite excited about Roswell, due to all that alien stuff. In 1947 a UFO crash-landed in the desert about 40 miles west of Roswell. The enigma and the ensuing cover-up has given the city license to a mystique ever since, similar to Nevada’s Area 51, and the Bermuda Triangle. There are dozens of alien–themed gift shops downtown. I cannot say Roswell lived up to our expectations. First off, the city was far bigger than I’d realized, population 50,000 or so, and real seedy. The “vintage motorcourt” I’d found online was nothing more than a standard issue junky motel, nothing special at all, with an IHOP and Home Depot across the street, and construction workers standing outside of their open rooms, drinking cheap beers and wearing no shirts.

The motel, despite being advertised as “completely renovated”, featured shoddy electrical work, loosely installed plumbing, threadbare 1980s office furniture, filthy carpets. We dig funky and old, and can tolerate lots of imperfections if there is something “authentic” about a place, but this was just a dump, dirty and rough. We skedaddled out of Roswell early the next morning, not even waiting for the highly regarded “UFO Research Center and Museum” to open for the day.

Heading south into Texas, a large bullet-spreckled sign welcomed us to the “Proud Home State of President George W. Bush”. Soon we connected with our first patch of interstate road, several hours on the I-10. We stopped to gas up and grab some lunch in a historic and functional town called Ozona. They had a lively old downtown, and a large shady grassy park with gazebo where we stopped to have a picnic. “I thought every town we passed through would be like this one,” I said, as we slurped some cold soda, “Funny though, it’s like only 1 out of every 30 actually is.”

As West Texas turned into the rest of Texas, the familiar high desert scenery had faded into rolling green hills, abundant rivers, live oaks, and limestone cliffs. Our destination for the night was Austin, home of the state capitol and the University of Texas. The Austin Motel, with its famously phallic neon sign, is a much beloved 1930s vintage motel located in the hipster-full “SoCo” (South Congress Street) neighborhood.

The pet-friendly Austin Motel did not disappoint. Our room was appointed with kitschy furnishings and a blue-green color scheme that reminded us of home. The motel is within walking distance to everything cool- lots of clubs, cafes, shops, and interesting neighborhoods, not to mention the “Largest Urban Bat Colony in North America”, 1.5 million bats that roost beneath the Congress Street bridge. Around sunset time, people gather in a designated “bat observation area” below, and line up along the bridge above to witness the bats disembarking into the night. A few moments after the sun settled beneath the horizon the bats began to disburse—from one section of the bridge at a time—in great whirling, squeaking waves, around and up, high into the sky. Folks cheered, hollered, jumped in glee, babies screamed, dogs barked. It was one of the most amazing things I’ve ever seen. In the distant sky to the east you could see the bats like a long ribbon of black, like cursive handwriting in some unknown language.

Dinner at Sol Y Luna, a Mexican restaurant adjacent to the motel-- we guzzled down a pitcher of mango margaritas, delirious and dehydrated from the long highway hours. By the time we hit South Congress the tequila had hit me, and we joined in with the strolling parade of hipsters, weirdos, tourists, panhandlers, and musicians crowding the sidewalks on a summertime Wednesday night.

A late night swim in the motel’s luxe pool cleared the fuzz ‘n’ buzz from my head. The pool sits along the busy street, so you feel not far from the action, though it is hidden like a secret oasis behind lush landscaping and old shade trees. A good night sleep in Austin helped us push on the final 6 hour sprint south to the reunion.

South Padre Island is a popular destination for Midwestern college students and folks east of the Mississippi. It’s a slim slip of a barrier island along the southeastern-most gulf coast of Texas, and full of souvenir shops, multi-story hotels, and tourist traps. It’s also home to “Sea Turtle Inc.”, a rescue center started in 1977 by “The Turtle Lady”, Ila Loetscher. The center’s primary goal is nurturing injured sea turtles and assisting a variety of young hatchlings towards success in the wild. Guests may visit the center and see the resident animals, as well as witness daily releases of hatchlings heading out to sea. The Gulf of Mexico’s western coast is natural breeding area to many varieties of protected sea turtle species.

South Padre is also renowned and respected for its excellent waves and kite-boarding opportunities, and for its tremendous riptide which repeatedly dragged us far and away from where we started out. Its beach sand is also highly regarded, ranked best for sand-castle building by “professional sand sculpture artists”, due to the fineness of its grain, moisture retention and other qualities essential to really top-grade sand sculpture.

The northern portion of the island is uninhabited and visitors are allowed to drive vehicles onto the sand for miles, finding remote camping, and access to fantastic shell-covered beaches. The tropical humidity and salt air made us feel young again, rehydrating our squinty Arizona wrinkles and giving our hair a glossy curl.

“Cyclone season” officially began on June 1st, and the family reunion was (only slightly) marred by relentless tropical rains which fell day and night, letting up just long enough for some beach time with the kiddos, and a grand fireworks display.

Texas-brewed Shiner Bock beer was consumed and folks stayed up late laughing, telling stories, and enjoying each other’s company. It was good to see parents, aunts, uncles, and meet some new family additions. The 1980s-born cousins united in wearing gigantic sombreros paired with scanty short-shorts for a fashion statement that we’ll all be raving about for years to come. The Packheisers rocked South Padre, stormy weather and all.

After a few days of family fun, it was time to get back on the long road home to Arizona. We left the tropical storms of the coast, with a quick photo stop at the Alamo in San Antonio, then a different route, more northerly, to hook up with good ol’ I-40 and sail along favorite old Route 66 haunts. One overnight stop was Fredericksburg, a lovely Hill Country town founded in the 19th century by German settlers.

The architecture in Fredericksburg is of brawny local stone, solid, traditional and built to last. On a sunny Sunday afternoon Main Street was filled with city slickers buying homestyle jam, and drinking beer on the streets.
They have an open-container law that allows it.

Fredericksburg was a nice bit of something real and solid to chew on, all leafy green shady, and white stone solid, giving us some energy for our voyage home. The next day we continued north, connecting up spidery backroads to Interstate 40, with a special stop planned for the Cadillac Ranch outside of Amarillo.

The Cadillac Ranch was conceived in 1974, an art project and commentary on consumerism by an artists’ collective known as “Ant Farm”. With farmland donated by a local philanthropist and prankster, Stanley Marsh 3, the Ant Farm planted a series of vintage Cadillacs face first, arranged by year and size of the tailfins. The first, a 1949 model, is modestly tailfin-free, the last, a 1963 model also mild. In between, the tailfins swell to epic stature, before fading away. The installation, visible from I-40, was moved from its original site to a spot further west in 1997.

Graffiti on the Caddies is encouraged and, knowing this in advance, I’d packed a bag full of spray-paint rattle cans, and carved up a stencil to use before we left home. We arrived at the site in late afternoon, during a howling high-plains wind, the air full of manure stink. The wind did not make for optimum spray-painting conditions, and most of the color ended up across the back of my left hand, just before my stencil blew away. The Cadillacs are covered with 30 years worth of paint, all thickened, lumpy and bumpy. I took to just wielding the rattle can, free style, joining the small crowd of others tagging their words and thoughts onto the autos. Our final overnight stop was 2 hours to the west, in Tucumcari, New Mexico, at the famous Route 66 Blue Swallow Motel.

We’d stayed there once, back in 1999, and for years have lived with fond memories of its vintage style rooms, adjoining garages, and glorious neon road sign--always eager to return some day. Back in its mid-century heyday, Tucumcari was a prime spot on 66, boasting plentiful motel rooms, restaurants and encouraging folks to stay with the ubiquitous slogan “Tucumcari Tonight!” The owner greeted us by name when we arrived at the Blue Swallow, showing us to our room. It was just as we’d remembered it, if not better. Clean, comfortable, and obviously well-loved and tended to by the owner and his family. The neon brilliant in the night sky. Tucumcari, however, seemed worse for wear since a decade past, with many motels and restaurants closed down, and plentiful weirdos wandering the Mother Road, some shoeless, shirtless, hopeless, no service.

The motel next door had long ago been abandoned, with thigh-high weeds in the parking lot, a pool full of garbage, and open rooms inhabited by feral cats.

From Tucumcari it was 7 hours to our own bed, a quick shot across 40 into Arizona. As always, the “Welcome to Arizona” sign with the state flag motif, caused me to burst into tears of joy. From that moment on it was easy sailing, almost home, propelled by sheer glee, every mile more familiar and closer to Clarkdale. We pulled into the Verde Valley at sunset, feeling more like ourselves than we had all week. The rental car was full of messy luggage, souvenir t-shirts, many pounds of sea shells, 17 rolls of spent film, and 2 very anxious pups. Rolling into Old Town Cottonwood towards Clarkdale, I finally realized it.. “I guess I thought every town was gonna be like this—lively and happening-- like our towns. Really, this is a good place where we are.”
The American Roadside is alive and well in Arizona.
“Of all the places we saw, this is the best place on the map,” said Chad. It’s always good to go away, but it’s even better to come back.

For more information:
www.austinmotel.com
www.seaturtleinc.com
http://www.libertysoftware.be/cml/cadillacranch/crmain.htm
www.blueswallowmotel.com

Ellen Jo Roberts is a sucker for a roadtrip. She lives in 94 year old house in Clarkdale AZ, with Bike Daddy Chad, and some well-traveled pets and vintage Volkswagens. Read all about it at ellenjo.com

Pinal and Gila Ramble

2011-02-21T19:56:00.000-08:00

Pinal and Gila Ramble:
Superior, Globe and the Salt River Canyon
The Outs
The Noise
March 2011
Ellen Jo Roberts

            Globe, Arizona is a mere three-hours down the road from home, yet it seems like an alternate universe. An Arizona we could be living in here in the Verde Valley, if the mines were still open and operating. Globe and its neighboring cities, Miami and Superior, are all picturesque historic communities built by copper. There are a couple of roads down into Globe from the north and east. One route is Highway 188 via 87, and one route is 60 via Phoenix. U.S. Route 60, stretching from Virginia to western Arizona, has been gradually bypassed across the country by interstate travel. It is one of my favorite Arizona highways: a small town backbone winding its way through vintage towns and beautifully faded abandon throughout the state. It’s time machine that inspires the imagination.

         Highway 60 takes you through Superior, a sun-baked dream at the base of Apache Leap. Located 65 miles east of Phoenix, the historic small town is nestled into wildly scenic granite formations. It’s like a movie set! That’s because it is a movie set! Many motion pictures, including “Eight Legged Freaks” and “U-Turn”, were filmed there along its picturesque vintage streets and dusty sunsets. Superior has the looks naturally that Hollywood always strives for artificially any time the script requires a seedy- offbeat- 20th century- small western town. Heavily Hispanic in population, Superior is all churches and bars, with an occasional artist hipster thrown into the mix. I love Superior as an unspoiled relic of days gone by, not ironic, and not polished. I secretly wish I could move there, and be a part of some bound-to-happen renaissance. But, it seems perhaps not the best place to find a job. The only place usually open on Main Street, other than a handful of antique shops, is the cantina, with cool musty air spilling out onto the sidewalk from its open doors and shady interior.

The Boyce Thompson Arboretum is probably the most well known tourist attraction of the general area. Founded in 1925 and since the 1960s managed by the University of Arizona and Arizona State Parks, the arboretum fills a long cozy canyon with an amazing array of desert botanic specimens. It’s renowned for its Australian forest of eucalyptus varieties. As with all Arizona State Parks, they allow dogs, on leashes, so your canine companion can stroll the park with you. From Superior to Globe is another 25 miles, including a pass through the Queen Creek Tunnel (1952), twisting roads surrounded by amazing rock, “the Top of the World” and then a gradual downhill into Miami. Though they are separate cities, Miami is often intertwined with Globe, and many of the local organizations wear the moniker “Globe-Miami”.

A collection of scenic highways springs forth from the area, providing additional adventure to the north and south. Highway 77 is a low slung 69 mile loop that connects Superior to Globe. Catching up to the Gila River via the Dripping Springs Mountains, and a town called Christmas, 77 is a fun jaunt for motorcycle gangs and car clubs. Passing through the communities of Winkelman and Hayden you can see active mining operations, mountains of tailings, and trains in action carrying ore.

       We’ve been to Globe a couple of times in the past year visiting friends who are restoring a 101 year old home there, high on Noftsger Hill. The city is decorated with a great variety of vintage architecture, impossibly steep streets, and fantastic vistas. Founded in 1875 on land known by local Apaches as “Besh Baa Gowah” or “place of metals”, Globe supposedly earned its name from a globular lump of silver mined there. The Arizona Eastern Railway services the area mining operations, as well as shuttles tourists to the nearby Apache Gold Casino via their “Copper Spike” passenger excursion. Globe is the seat of Gila County.

The city’s downtown business district features many surprisingly serious buildings, glowering with Corinthian columns of sober stone. The neighborhoods, comprised mostly of wood frame houses perched high on cascading hillsides, seem somehow familiar and foreign all at once, as if we were in Mexico. Neighbors wave and chat, friendly to strange passers-by. Yard art and improvised construction abounds: dinosaur encrusted fence tops, castle-like viewing decks, eccentric gazebos, coated with brightly colored paint. Since 1985, Globe has had a Historic Home and Building Tour each year. The 2011 tour takes place on the weekend of March 5th and 6th.

         Globe High School is notable for several of its past students: Arizona’s first woman governor, Rose Mofford, “Wonder Woman” Lynda Carter, and Anton LaVey, founder of the “Church of Satan”. What this says about Globe’s unusual mix of energies I’m not sure. Noisy trucks, strange noises in the night and beautiful ruins provoke a twinge of fear, like perhaps there is danger here. Globe’s sister city, Miami, seems a bit rougher around the edges, a bit seedier though similarly picturesque in its rural decay.

As the largest city in the area, Globe is a commercial center for Southern Gila County. It’s also a jumping off point for adventures on the Salt River. Up Highways 70/77, through the neighboring San Carlos/White Mountain Apache Reservation, the Salt River Canyon looms, an unsung beauty of giant proportions. Many know the river in its tame, below-the-dam incarnation, famous for subdued tubing trips nearer the sprawl of Phoenix. Others recognize it as that trickle that feeds into Tempe Town Lake.


The real Salt, above the dams and flowing in its natural unfettered state, is a special rarity and part of a dwindling desert family of perennially flowing rivers and streams. The river begins at the White Mountains’ Mount Baldy and en route south it gathers up the Verde, and assorted streams like Carrizo, Cibecue, Canyon, Pinal and Medicine Creeks. The “Salt River Project” is an Arizona utility company that gathers both water and energy from four hydroelectric dams along the Salt River. The National Reclamation Act of 1902 promoted the harnessing of the wild river for ranchers and farmers. Theodore Roosevelt Dam, the first of the dams, was completed in 1911 and created Roosevelt Lake just north of Globe. It was followed to the south by Mormon Flat Dam in 1925 (Canyon Lake), Horse Mesa Dam in 1927 (Apache Lake) and Stewart Mountain Dam in 1930 (Saguaro Lake). Above the Roosevelt Dam the Salt runs how nature intended, wild and jagged through a deep scenic canyon, much of it protected by the Tonto National Forest and the White Mountain and San Carlos Apache Tribes.

Seeing the Salt River Canyon for the first time can take your breath away. It’s several hours from everywhere, a lengthy detour to most, and for this reason, perhaps, seldom seen.

Mike Roseman is a river ranger for the Tonto National Forest out of Globe. “If the Grand Canyon was not in Arizona, the Salt River Canyon would be much more famous,” chuckles Roseman, known as “Rosie” to his pals. Previously a commercial river guide for Salt River Rafting, since 2004 Mr. Roseman has worked with the forest service, leading rafting expeditions on the Salt during the spring months when the water is highest. He emphasizes the importance of the Salt being protected, as one of the last free-flowing rivers of the southwest. “I don’t think a lot of the people in the Valley of the Sun even realize that the Salt is their lifeblood." He continues, “So many things change so fast in Arizona, it’s important to have and protect places like this. What the Salt River’s done for me is it’s a place where you can see Arizona’s soul.”
Mr. Roseman also mentions the importance of the White Mountain Apaches’ interesting and complicated history in the area, “They’re one of the few tribes to hold onto their ancestral lands. They kept their lands and have a living language.” Protecting the river with tribal permit use, the Apache are a significant reason for the river’s pristine wilderness. Its remote location also protects it from excessive use.
The river running season is dependent on seasonal snowfall. Though the ranger loves the high water seasons, of which recently they’ve enjoyed many, he says, “It’s probably good when there’s a drought year. It helps the area recharge.” There are several spots to access the river once Highway 70/77 switchbacks down to its shore. It’s a worthy stop for a camp out, a river excursion, or even just something short and simple like a pleasant picnic along its banks.

Superior, Globe, and the Salt River Canyon make for an epic loop of seldom seen scenic adventure.
Startling in both its remoteness and natural beauty, the region has much important Arizona history, and perhaps a key to its future in commodities both monetary and priceless.


For more information:
raftthesalt.com
globemiamichamber.com
copperspike.com
superior-arizona.com
ag.arizona.edu.bta

Ellen Jo Roberts was born during the month of March. She is celebrating 10 years of living in a historic brick home with Bike Daddy Chad, assorted pets, and vintage Volkswagens.
Read more about it at ellenjo.com

Love Bites

2011-01-25T09:34:00.000-08:00

Love Bites

By Ellen Jo Roberts
The Outs
The Noise
February 2011

“Love bites. Love bleeds. It’s bringin’ me to my knees.” — Def Leppard

In our orally fixated culture, it is surprising people do not attack with their teeth more often.
We like to kiss, we like to consume, and we’re crazy for vampires. Inside our very faces are sharp and crushing weapons, though we are more inclined to utilize our fists, feet or brass knuckles in moments requiring defense. We only use our fangs to open packages.
         In grade school, there was always some kid who liked to bite, and this kid was always the biggest freak of the class. You never forget that kid, or the sharp pain and the bruise of prints left on your arm, shocking you to your senses. After toddlerhood, biting people is considering a social defect, and discouraged. It’s savage behavior, best left to the animals and the insects.
         Teeth carry much psychological baggage. We’re forever having crazy dreams about losing them, having them fall out in our hands, or dissolving into dust. Though we seldom use them to defend ourselves physically, they are still a source of power and prestige. People wear their teeth like jewelry, whitening them or capping them in precious metals or enamel. Blank spots are filled with bridges and dentures. We warn people to step back out of our grills.

Since even before I grew all of my permanent teeth, I’ve had tooth anxiety. When I was a child, my mom suffered a mishap, tripping over a portable doggie gate in a doorway. When she hit the ground, she sent all of her top front teeth flying out by the root, through her bottom lip. Luckily, ace periodontists were able to put all of her teeth back in and save them, though to this day she won’t eat corn off the cob, or bite into an apple. She always told us that if we were falling, we should brace ourselves with our arms or hands, since it was much easier to fix those broken bones than it was to rebuild our teeth.

I knocked a tooth out when I was six. It was a bike crash, riding my older cousin’s too big ten-speed. The actual crash itself was knocked from my memory as swiftly as my face hit the telephone pole. All that is remembered is the metallic taste of blood in my throat, the sound of my cousin running up the hill shouting my name, and some passerby picking me up, dusting me off, and helping me search through sidewalk debris for my tooth, now tangibly absent from my mouth. I never found the tooth. My dentist said I probably swallowed it on impact, and how lucky it was a baby tooth.

Like millions of American adolescents, once my permanent teeth arrived, I wore braces. Not only did I endure the braces, and hundreds of Saturday mornings staring at the orthodontist’s ceiling, I also suffered through a whole series of tortuous metal contraptions, including the dreaded “head gear.”

As an adult I’m lucky to have all of my teeth, including all four wisdom teeth. I never thought this was a big deal until I accompanied a Mexican girl to the dentist. Claudia was from Chiapas, near the Guatemalan border where she grew up on a coffee plantation. She’d never been to a dentist in her life, and was suffering tremendous pain from several abscesses. Very scared and speaking no English, she needed a translator, so I accompanied her while the dentist did his exam. Several teeth needed to be extracted and he began the process that day, deftly yanking out one by one. A tooth escaped his grasp and in an arc-like trajectory bounced off her white paper bib, leaving a red blot before hitting the floor. That very night I called my mother to thank her for taking us to the dentist all those years. I’d never fully appreciated it until that moment. I even thanked her for the dreaded headgear.
          A love bite is what we call a hickey, a temporary neck tattoo identifying you as a teenager in love, hot and heavy. To see a hickey on a grown-up is really a bit pitiful. Even as a teenager it’s embarrassing. Lovers like to nibble on each other like candy. Mouth, lips and teeth are all exploited in advertising, to emphasize the ecstasy of flavors, sensations, beverages, wealth and beauty.
          Bared teeth can represent danger, aggression, anger, or with the subtlest turn of the corners of the mouth, happiness. In some cultures, bearing teeth is considered impolite, improper, or overly informal.
Can you imagine how different a piece of art DaVinci’s Mona Lisa would be if she were showing us her pearly whites? In Latin American countries, a bribe is called a mordita, meaning a “small bite.” Everyone wants a little piece of the pie, including public officials and the police. Nom nom nom! The mouth chews, eats, and swallows. The teeth get stained with red wine, coffee, cigarettes.
Things disappear, including your money.

Animals bite. It’s both their appeal (watchdogs and the Discovery Channel) and our fear.
Sharks attack and kill surfers and seals with their many rows of sharp, ever-replenishing teeth.
Lions, tigers and bears all frighten us with the skilled wielding of their fangs. Though in North America it’s far more likely you’ll be bitten by a neighborhood dog than by an elusive big cat, or rare bear.

Photo by Frances Duncan
I have the cutest dog in the world. He’s traffic-stoppingly cute. Floyd is so good looking in fact, that similar to Hollywood starlets, he has become an absolute monster, a ferocious beast with a surly disposition. His cuteness is his curse. In order to protect himself from the constant throng of gawkers wanting to stroke his perfectly shaped noggin, he has cultivated a defense mechanism. He bites.
He will bite you. I’m very clear about it to any overly friendly stranger who approaches. The Chihuahua Bites. I really should just print up a t-shirt that says that, to save my breath. There’s a 100% chance of growls followed by a storm of teeth.

Before anyone writes me a letter telling me I should have my vicious beast “put down” (as someone once suggested), he’s no public hazard. He’s actually an obedience school graduate and completely well-behaved on every other level. You’re safe. Just as long as you don’t try to pet him.
The dog only stands about 1 foot tall, and weighs 5 ½ pounds, with tiny twig legs. “Five Pounds of Fury” is what we call him, but he’s not bloodthirsty and won’t aggressively charge you, unless you get too close or accidentally appear menacing. Also, I’d advise against approaching our house, or car. He’ll really go bananas trying to protect “his property.” There’s a reason I have a “Beware of Attack Chihuahua” sign on the front gate. Folks think it’s a joke. It is not!
            If, even after the many prior warnings, you’re foolish enough to get down to his level and offer him your fingers, you probably deserve to be bit. A big football player guy we knew owned a Bull Mastiff, same age as Floyd, but 150 pounds bigger. Being a fan of big dogs, he always thought it silly how small Floyd was, and took great joy in teasing him into a frenzy, poking at him and poking at him, until finally we heard an incredulous “OW! The little [censored] bit me!” The thick-necked football player was cradling his crumpled hand, blood streaming.
             Floyd looked up at us embarrassed and slightly relieved. His bitey behavior is a lingering anguish to me, since I am so friendly to everyone I meet, and yet my dog is exactly the opposite. In perhaps a bit of karmic payback, Floyd has lost more than half of his choppers, pulled by the vet during routine dental care due to typical small dog tooth defects. (He still has most of the important ones, though, so don’t try to sneak up on him just yet.) I wish I’d thought earlier to have them save all of those tiny teeth, so I could make them into a sharky necklace for Floyd to wear when he is an old man.
            To his friends and the people he knows, he is sweet, frisky and lovable. He likes to run laps around shoulders and lick noses. One can transition from stranger to friend in Floyd’s eyes. It is possible to break on through to the other side, just by investing a little time and patience. I’ve seen people go from “I will rip your face off” to “Hooray! I love you!” in as little as a week. He’s a complicated dog full of deep emotions.
Despite his complexity with strange humans, he is wonderful with strange dogs. We joke he is a “dog ambassador,” as all canines love him instantly. Confident and approachable, he is always able to woo friendship from fellow pups. He’s even befriended some strange rodents, mules and cats.

Dogs’ mouths are relatively clean in comparison to humans, and house cats. Domesticated felines are among the worst when it comes to infection-prone bites, perhaps second only to the Gila Monster.

The desert Southwest is home to many sharp, barbed dangers that can chomp you: cactus, “goatheads” (a.k.a. puncture-vine), rattlers, and many venomous bugs. Technically insects don’t have teeth, but it doesn’t prevent them from issuing pesky bites to other living creatures. Bed bugs, fleas and mosquitoes survive on our blood. Arizona has some scary venomous arthropods, like the Black Widow, the Brown Recluse, and the lobster’s scariest cousin, the Scorpion. We’re unfortunate to be neighbors of the Hualapai Tiger, or “kissing bug” that lurks in the night causing frightful welts on many of my pals. My least favorite biting bug in Yavapai County, however, is the Cedar Gnat, or the No-See-Um. They get me every time, and I swell up in miserable blotches.
“This bites!” we might yell, or “Bite me!” Overall, despite the erotic nibbles of romance, getting bitten is considered not all that pleasant an experience. Our teeth fail us. They give us strange dreams. They crack, decay, fall loose. Even with their fragility they’re sometimes all that’s left of us at the end of the road. Everything else goes back to dust, but our bones and teeth remain as one last identifying marker of the person that once was. What kind of diet we had, how old we lived to be. How we looked when we smiled.

Happy Valentine’s Day to all of our loyal Noise readers!

Ellen Jo Roberts got toys from her childhood dentist, Dr, Marvin Berman.
She still has her favorite, a rubber pig named “Dr. Berman’s Pig.”
She lives in Clarkdale with a whole lot of toothy creatures.

Read all about it at http://www.ellenjo.com/

Saving Eliphante

2010-12-20T10:04:00.000-08:00

Saving Eliphante
January 2011
The Noise
The Outs
Ellen Jo Roberts

“Eliphante is unique in all the world, born from the pure creative well at the core of the human spirit, unhampered by regulations from without. As a result, it speaks to that place of creative power in each of us, and most people respond with both awe and excitement about the possibilities of really living by one's inner striving for beauty, really making it manifest, in all aspects of one's life.”
-Alna Laurel, director of Eliphante.

Beginning around 1979, and continuing for the better part of three decades, Michael and Leda Kahn created a magical folk art installation along the sycamore and mesquite-lined banks of Oak Creek in Cornville, Arizona. The entire complex is known as “Eliphante”, named after the first structure created, which resembles, with its ear-side doors and river wood snout, an elephant of sorts. Several buildings followed: the “Hippodome”, “Pipe Dreams”, smaller houses, outdoor kitchen, amphitheater and assorted art installations. The structures and art spaces are all designed with native natural materials, sandstone, wood, salvaged glass, mylar, foil, tile and metal, and many years of creativity, love and hard work. With its faded astro-turf pathways, donated by a Sedona tennis club, it's like a surreal mixed-media miniature golf course. It’s an open-air museum of alternative possibilities. Eliphante is a dreamscape.

It is also currently endangered: threatened by decay, crumbling infrastructure, and sitting on land at risk of being sold and leveled.

Traveling from Provinceton, Massachussetts in a 1960 Ford truck they called “Botchi”, Michael and Leda Kahn arrived in the Sedona area in 1977, artistic visionaries looking for a new way of life. It was not long before the Kahns connected with the Croziers, the landowners of the acreage that includes Eliphante’s parcel. The Croziers were also transplants from “back east”, and soon the Kahns were invited to become caretakers of the property. . The Croziers are benevolent landlords, generous and philosophical. A dynamic relationship was developed.
“The property is at present still owned by the original owners who invited Mike and Leda as caretakers back in '79”, states Ms. Laurel, “They originally bought 120 acres as an active cattle ranch, not in operation for many years, and have sold some of it. They had owned it only a few years before Mike and Leda entered the picture.”

The Kahns were sheltered at first in a truck-bed camper during the warm seasons. “As autumn came along, Mike felt moved to begin constructing a warmer winter shelter by digging into the hillside back of their camp, with earth insulation in mind,” explains Ms. Laurel,
“He gathered rocks from the hillside and from a dry wash half a mile back of the camp area, where he walked daily, both morning and evening, and brought back as many rocks as he could carry on his back in burlap sacks slung over his shoulder. Sometimes it would be two or three good-size stones. Other times, one would be all he could manage, it was so big. Usually he would get Leda to go along and carry her fair share as well.”

“The building called Eliphante was built to be the home of Michael and Leda, but became in process such a work of art that it was never lived in. Though it served as stage for weekly music jams for many years, and also sheltered a few overnight guests on occasion, with or without the knowledge of Mike and Leda,” says Ms. Laurel, “This building with no straight lines or flat surfaces, made of found objects both natural and man-made, combining such disparate elements as driftwood and old auto windshields, manages to evoke the same high wonder and longing for what is true and pure and good as Tolkein's Elvenhome of Rivendell. Or at least the Hobbit homes of the Shire. A longing for times more innocent when creativity was unfettered by rules and unconfined by preconceived ideas of how things must be.”

John Bianchini, a member of the Noise family (and former editor), is part of a small group of caretakers who currently inhabit Eliphante. An NAU journalism graduate originally from Salinas, California, Bianchini had the pleasure of meeting the Kahns in 2005, while taking photographs for a Noise feature written by Natasha Shealy. "Most who knew Michael cannot explain what Eliphante's intent was. It was never really an issue then. They do echo that Michael lived his life 'in-the-moment' and that he would just set-out and create these things whether or not people liked it or helped him.”

Mr. Bianchini is actively involved in the preservation of Eliphante, and rousing folks to action on its behalf. “They call us ‘caretakers’, but I like to think of myself as ‘Guerrilla Outreach’ because I try more to get people involved to decide what should be done before going out and just doing it.”
"For many people, Eliphante reflects individual perceptions of where we are mentally. While a few have been put-off by its poverty and ruggedness, most see it as a magical land just short of gnomes and fairies”, says Mr. Bianchini, "Living in art is a way-of-life; something most people yearn for. Americans don't have much art in their daily lives and that might be the reason for the decline of American civilization.”

In 1994, the Smithsonian American Art Museum catalogued Eliphante into its “SOS-Save Our Sculpture” public awareness project, a growing list of U.S. public sculptural art to be documented, and conserved.

Michael Kahn of Eliphante, Paolo Soleri of Arconsanti and renowned Arizona sculptor John Waddell were all friends, and are considered to be artistic contemporaries because, according to Mr. Waddell, they “all sought to create something that could change society,” and they were “the rare few with the training and skill, willing and able and disciplined enough to follow their vision despite the obstacles that would hold most people back.”
Verde Valley resident Waddell is fond of Eliphante and what it represents.
"Michael was a man who had a vision of a completely non-commercial form of art,” says Mr. Waddell, “That in of itself was the motivation and satisfaction that it was made not for the market but for the total being of heart, soul and mind."

Waddell believes Kahn's unique nature had roots in art history. Michael Kahn started as a conventional painter and gradually became non-objective in his handling of materials. This transferred into building of structures that were in a sense non-objective. "At Eliphante you have an account of his day to day experience of putting objects together in an interesting way...'The uniqueness of configuration' is a cohesive construct where he had the impulse to put these found materials together."
The sculptor thinks Eliphante hints at a different way of life where the normal impulse to earn money did not exist. In some cultures, money is not the primary value. “Anyone can be as creative as Michael was. If you can understand this then you are on a progression."

In 2008 Michael Kahn succumbed to Pick’s Disease, a form of Alzheimer’s. In his final years he lost the ability to communicate verbally, but this did not stop him from continuing his creative flourishes and projects at Eliphante.
After his death, Leda moved away, to Santa Fe, New Mexico,

Alna Laurel is the director of Eliphante Ltd., a 501c3 art organization. Her working relationship with Eliphante began in the late 1990s, but her path to it started much earlier, in the mid-1970s, while camping with her father and sisters at the entrance to the old Sexton Ranch in Cornville. Her family camped in the location for years. “While there, my dad met a man who was buying property across the creek from our camp, and the two of them held many long discussions on spiritual and philosophic matters, to mutual satisfaction. When Dad decided to move on to other camping grounds, his friend expressed disappointment that the philosophizing days were to be over. But Dad assured him that someone else would come along to take Dad's place as a spiritual friend.”

Ms. Laurel grew up to lead a creative life unfettered by convention, yet full of travels, adventures, artistic pursuits, family, and continuing education. Fast forward to 1998. Ms. Laurel’s sister, Laurie, searched for their old camping grounds during a road trip through Arizona.
“Finding her way mostly by instinct to the general area she remembered as our home, my sister stopped to ask directions of someone who turned out to be Michael Kahn, out cleaning the culverts at the entrance to Eliphante. Mike said he did indeed know the man Laurie was looking for. He owned the land Mike was camping on. He invited Laurie to look around his camp, which she did with mounting enthusiasm and excitement about all the magical structures defying every common idea of what a building should be.”

“When she went on to meet our old friend who owned that land and had given Mike free reign to build according to his artistic spirit, he told her that Michael Kahn was the one who came along to take our Dad's place as a spiritual friend across the years. And the relationship had been mutually beneficial, the one providing a piece of land and the other a spiritual artistic vision and creative drive which together resulted in Eliphante, a magical inspiration to most who are lucky enough to visit it.

“Naturally, as soon as I could I went to see Eliphante as well, and fell in love with it like most people do who visit.” Ms. Laurel moved from Hawaii to Cornville, “But I didn't get much involved until near the end of Mike's life when his Pick's disease had progressed to the point of speechlessness on his part and plans to leave Eliphante on Leda's part.”
In 2008, Ms. Kahn was present to hear Leda Kahn’s lament about having no one to carry on Eliphante on after she left. “Moved by my love for the place, I boldly volunteered,” said Ms. Kahn, ”only to discover that I knew nothing whatsoever about how to carry it on! I didn't even know what a non-profit was, much less how to operate one.”

Caretakers Ryan Matson and Tracy Schinagel arrived from Portland in 2010, and have called Eliphante home since August, along with their clever and handsome dancing goat, Midas, who nibbles away at weeds and provides manure for gardening. Matson and Schinagel are energetic and artistic; a good blend for Eliphante.

“I have never had the pleasure to meet the Kahns”, says Ms. Schinagel, a charming Tuscon native with a broad smile, “I feel like they created Eliphante out of the desire to surround themselves by beauty and art. They wanted to create something practical with the limited amount of funding available to them. In order for Eliphante to own the land it sits on, it needs to raise enough money to buy the well. If we don't raise the money to buy Eliphante, the land could be put on the market and could be purchased by someone that doesn't have any interest in preserving it.”

photo by Ryan Matson

“When I was younger, I wanted to be an architect”, says Mr. Matson, who spent many of his younger years on the move, “Buildings seemed to be all of the world I could really shape. Then I grew up and went into college, trying my hand at piloting airplanes, civil and mechanical engineering, electronic engineering. I settled on community development with undergraduate studies in the College of Urban and Public Affairs at Portland State University.”

In addition to raising the estimated funds for purchasing the property, the director and caretakers are also actively involved in much of the politics and paperwork necessary to preserve Eliphante for the future. The organization estimates they need to raise $75,000 -$100,000 to buy the land where Eliphante sits.
Ms. Laurel says, “Secondarily, we need to repair the three main sculptural buildings: meaning, lots of materials, donated or about $30,000 to buy, and lots and lots of volunteer hours. Probably the primary danger right now is the deterioration of the sculptural buildings, the heart and soul of everything. Whether their repair comes about through funding and volunteerism raised by the 501c3 or through paid labor in case Eliphante becomes purchased by another entity, I am fairly certain the buildings will be repaired to a better quality than they were originally built, beginning 2011.”

Mr. Matson adds that further plans include establishing public access rights, so that they may have commercial activity to generate funds to preserve and restore the land and buildings. Smaller buildings are being patched against rodents and poor weather conditions. Solar showers, composting toilet system, and greywater gardens are also on the agenda. The roof at the Eliphante building is in dire need of repair.
“We are always looking for able-bodied spirits to volunteer at one of our workdays,” says Mr. Matson, his enthusiasm contagious to all who meet him, “We also need donors of money and materials and other long-term financial support. The community we share is the most important asset toward the vision's success. ”
“We would like for it to be a creative space or retreat for artists,” adds Ms. Schinagel, “We would also like to open it for tours to the public.”

Noise favorite Natasha Shealy has returned to the Verde Valley from her North Carolina home in order to participate in saving Eliphante. According to Ms. Shealy, “Eliphante needs to be protected and used to inspire. I struggled with this, feeling it might be best returned to the riverbank it came from. But I feel Eliphante needs to be identified as a community asset and international folk art treasure. Many in the international folk art world would be inspired and astounded.”

"We cannot live how Michael did,” says John Bianchini, “but we recognize its value and seek to reconcile the two forces. When a commercial operation can be established to bring in income for Eliphante, we plan to focus on Eliphante's immediate repairs while working to purchase some surrounding acreage if available then to create an artistic eco-village.”

There are many ways you can become involved in the preservation of Eliphante.
They have a weekly Sunday evening potluck, and work party sessions each Tuesday and Sunday, where volunteers can help create, build, restore, and repair.

Volunteer: call Alna Laurel at (928) 634- 4707,
or Ryan Matson, Tracy Schinagel, and John Bianchini at (928) 634- 2687.
To assist in repairing the roof of the original building, "Eliphante", contact volunteer coordinator: Michael Lanning at (928) 284- 8884

Donate: make check payable to “Eliphante Limited”, and mail to PO box 971,Cornville, AZ 86325

Online: Roadrunnerspeaks.org. Also be sure to join “Eliphante Village” on Facebook.

Other: Donating special knowledge or skills is also greatly needed and appreciated. In particular: non-profit legal advice, film-making for publicity and fund-raising, grant-writing, and special construction skills such as rock-work, roof-work, reinforcing of highly unusual post and beam connections, electrical engineering and plumbing work.Eliphante Ltd. is also seeking volunteers to organize and staff fund-raising events in January, February, and March 2011.

“Eliphante remains a place where one can go to feel re-inspired and have their sense of magical possibilities refreshed, and for this reason alone, it is worthy of preservation,” says Alna Laurel, “Add to that its potential as a venue for awakening people's creative spirit and teaching how to let it blossom, and it becomes an urgent need in the present state of chaos and banality much of our society is experiencing. Where the human spirit feels acknowledged and empowered, there hope and renewal are born and sustained.”

Ellen Jo Roberts thinks Eliphante is the bees knees.
She lives in a historic home made of Verde River sand bricks in Clarkdale Arizona with
Bike Daddy Chad, Cool Clyde, “Five Pounds of Fury” Floyd, and Slobber Face Ivan. Read all about it at Ellenjo.com.

Beard Me!

2010-11-16T08:29:00.000-08:00

Beard Me!
The Outs
Ellen Jo Roberts
December 2010

Beards are for hippies, beatniks, bikers, artists, academics, forest rangers, Santa Claus and the Amish.
They’ve been worn by presidents, paupers, hipsters, truck drivers and those practicing an orthodox religion.
A beard signifies masculinity, widsom, fearlessness, prestige, poverty, filthiness.
It keeps faces warm on ski slopes and on hockey rinks. It’s a handy place to stash snacks and smokes for later. A friend informed me a beard even comes in handy for Arizona problems like removing tiny prickly pear cactus thorns from your hand.
“All the great gods had beards,” said Cottonwood artist Rex Peters who has worn a beard since age 18.
“I’ve only shaved it off 3 or 4 times, but not in the past 10 years.”
“Why did you shave it off?” I asked. “To see what I looked like,” came the simple reply,
“In the mid-‘90s it was very long. I shaved it off one day, and walked into the Spirit Room where I’d been working a long time. I walked in and no one recognized me. Until I laughed.”
Peters first began his bearded lifestyle when he was young in order to look more mature,
“So I could buy beer.”

Many religions espouse facial hair, including Sikhism, Hinduism, Judaism, Islam and Christianity. Jesus is always depicted with a beard. The Rastafari grow long dreadlocks and beards as part of their beliefs, following the Bible’s Leviticus verse 21:5 "They shall not make baldness upon their head, neither shall they shave off the corner of their beard, nor make any cuttings in the flesh." In various times Catholicism has both allowed and prohibited facial hair. Hasidic Jews consider the beard to channel holy energy from heaven. Eastern Orthodox priests are identified by their facial hair. In ancient India the beard was valued as a commodity, and punishment for crimes could include its removal. In modern Amish and Hutterite cultures, young men remain smooth-faced until marriage, after which they cultivate beards they keep for the rest of their lives.

Beards were the dominant style for most world cultures up until the 1700s. In the United States their popularity bounced back in the mid-1800s as an emblem of courage, and leadership skills. Abraham Lincoln was the first bearded American president, and nearly every president to follow into the 20th century wore facial hair. Since William Howard Taft, however, all presidents have been beardless. Not even a well-groomed set of Mutton Chops! 20th century advertising and the advent of the disposable razor made a clean cut smooth-faced look the accepted norm. Politicians and industry leaders wore their hair short, and the faces shorn. Beards were usually limited to professors, the aged and certain Eastern Orthodox priests up until counterculture movements began in late ‘50s. Long hair on the head and face represented a new disdain for earlier social norms. Musicals like “Hair” sang praises to the long, fleecy, greasy, shiny, flaxen and waxen.

When I first met my husband in college, he was a handsome clean-shaven lad of 21. Soon after and for most of our married life he’s been a furry-faced freak. It’s part of his identity, this big thick beard.
“When I was younger and more attractive,” he said, “and I was mountain biking with long hair and bare legs, growing a beard was a way to ward off unwelcome advances from the same sex.” Mistaken for a long-haired shapely-legged girl, his only defense was to grow a beard to indicate his manliness.

Every once in a while I wish he’d shave it off. I beg, plead, cajole. I argue that if I were a boy and could grow a beard I’d certainly mix it up now and then, for variety’s sake. A Fu Manchu one season , Chops the next. A big 1970s porn ‘stache. A goatee is always a classic. A dark smoky 5 O’Clock Shadow. Get creative.
“Why are you so attached to that beard?” I asked with escalating frustration.
He stroked his Billy Goat’s gruff a moment and replied, thoughtfully, “Because it’s attached to me.”
“How can I argue with that logic?” I laughed.
About 10 years ago he did shave it for me, as a birthday present. Seeing his fresh face, which had been long hidden, affected me in naughty ways. “Hubba hubba, it’s like I got a whole new husband!” I squealed. After about a year or so he let it grow back. Razors are expensive, and shaving daily is a commitment.

“The single most manly, and great thing a man can do. To have a beard is to be a true man. If you have a beard, show it off proudly, and enjoy the satisfaction of the envy in the eyes of people around you who don't have beards”.- urbandictionary.com

"The hair of the chin showed him to be a man" -St Clement of Alexandria

Do chicks dig dudes with beards?
I cannot vouch for other parts of the country, but in the crunchy wilds of Arizona, the survey says yes, with women responding to the inherent masculinity of facial hair. Many explain they don’t want their man to be better manicured than themselves.
Janyel Pitman, lovely mango-scented vintage-VW-driving hippie chick of the Flagstaff KOA, feels strongly about this issue. “I love beards! Hairy, burly, long gnarly mountain man beards. In fact I am usually only attracted to a man if he has one. There is something so comforting about them like a flannel shirt. When I see one, to me it says ‘I am a MAN. I'm too busy doing things outdoors, in the woods, on a bike, in my bus, on a tractor, to bother with something like shaving’. I love to tangle my fingers in them, and pull on ‘em, and see a toothy smile from under them. I love them!”

Artful tonsorial design can appeal to all who are attracted to men. The bristly “Bear” archetype is very a very popular subset of gay male, recognized by their burly build and hirsuite face. A beard can also provide a disguise from true identity. Another definition of the word refers to an opposite sex friend who frequently accompanies a homosexual, disguising their sexual preference under the guise of a heterosexual partnership. In more repressed times, beards disguised many a Hollywood leading man.
Conversely, modern day movie stars are rarely seen with facial hair, unless they are a). on hiatus, b). playing lead in a stranded-on-a-desert-island film, or c). Joaquin Phoenix staging an elaborate publicity hoax.

The World Beard and Moustache Championships, the premier event in the “international sport of bearding”, brings the owners of the world’s most elaborate facial hair together every two years to be judged by a panel of distinguished experts. The best of the best are chosen in a variety of categories ranging from the most delicate of moustaches to the elaborate anything-goes freestyle full beard.
The roots of this contest trace back to a celebration held the small German village of Höfen-Enz in the early 1990s. Competitors at the inaugural event represented several beard clubs concentrated in the Black Forest. Having invented the events and defined the categories, Germany long dominated the sport. In 2009, however, when the competition took place in Alaska, an upstart squad of Americans established the USA as the new facial hair world superpower!
The next world championship will take place in Trondheim, Norway in 2011, sponsored by the Norwegian Moustache Club. Start growing your masterpiece now.

While I am a fan of fuzzy faces, many are not. Some men just don’t look good in a beard, or have trouble growing them evenly. Mormonism decries facial hair. Many native tribes of North America are not predisposed to heavy beard growth. In our post 9-11 world, a beard in the airport rouses suspicion and earns you a second glance from the T.S.A. Many women prefer a clean look. A beard hides a lot of face. They can scratch and tickle. They catch food particles, milkshake, and snot from blown noses. They can look messy, wiry, and overgrown. Psycho killers often have crazy eyes and crazier beards.
“Barba” is the Spanish word for beard, and the Latin root for words like barbaric, and barbarian.
Jerome artist David Wilder generally sports a vintage western style on his winking smiling face,
“My chin whiskers are a compromise between hating to shave,” which he calls a “barbaric practice’ (pun intended I’m sure), “and not wanting to look too much look like an axe murderer. But that's just me.”

For more information:
http://www.worldbeardchampionships.com/

Ellen Jo Roberts lives in Clarkdale Arizona with a bunch of hairy creatures.
Read all about it at ellenjo.com

Biggest Little Town in Arizona: Cottonwood's Wild & Woolly Past

2010-11-09T11:11:00.000-08:00

"Biggest Little Town in the State of Arizona
Cottonwood’s Wild & Woolly Past"
The Noise, November 2010- The Outs

Ellen Jo Roberts

According to many old timers, Cottonwood was a tiny hamlet in 1960, no bigger than the palm of your hand. Truth is, the historic terrain of Cottonwood Arizona is wide reaching, and broad—as varied as its lush mix of rare riparian landscape, and sun-baked high desert chaparral. Rather than seek out the exponential ways the town has expanded since it was incorporated 50 years ago, let's discuss the common threads running through time into the present day. To me this is always the most interesting: the surviving old mixed in with the new.

The Beginning

The settlement was founded around 1879 along the Verde River, a silty ribbon running through the valley providing steady water for farm and ranch land. For a time the area was known simply as “Verde”, a stop along the trail between army camps Fort Verde and Fort Whipple, and between Flagstaff and Jerome. Just as Flagstaff was named for a Ponderosa Pine stripped bare to become a flagpole, Cottonwood was also named for an arboreal landmark. Cowboys running cattle between Oak Creek and Camp Verde frequently made camp along a stretch of river featuring a circle of 16 large Cottonwood trees. Referred to as “The Cottonwoods”, the name was made official when the post office was established in 1885. One of the early settlers, Charles Willard, is now known as The Father of Cottonwood. Much land is still owned by his descendents, and a main traffic artery, Willard Street, links Old Town with newer areas of the city. Evidence of the city’s bucolic pastoral origins still exist at every corner of the map, with historic ranches and farms still in operation, and open space nature conserved as city parks, state parks, and the Verde River Greenway. Cottonwood produce fed Jerome and Clarkdale, and soon businesses began to spring up to service other needs as well.

“By 1925 there was not another town in the U.S. that could boast so many business houses for a population of 1,000. Cottonwood was known as ‘the Biggest Little Town in the State of Arizona’!”
-Karen Leff, local historian and storyteller, owner of the Cottonwood Hotel

The Bootlegging
“Old Town” is the original Cottonwood, a short stretch of Main Street business district and storefronts. In its modern 21st Century incarnation, Old Town sustains a variety of exceptional restaurants, cafes, shops, galleries, taverns, and wine tasting rooms. It’s completely adorable, very lively… almost harkening back to a wild time during the 1910s and ‘20s when Old Town was the nerve center of a jumpin’ bootlegging industry.

“Joe Hall, Cottonwood pool room owner, was bound under $1,000 bond for trial in federal court on charges arising out of a raid on his home last Saturday when 150 gallons of whiskey were found in his basement and another 50 gallons together with 100 gallons of wine were taken from a nearby garage.”
- Prescott Journal, August 2nd 1929

Built in 1924, Joe Hall’s house still stands in 2010, an unimposing little stucco bungalow at the corner of Cactus and Pinal Streets. The yard is generally full of children and dogs now, so it’s amusing to think the place was once chock stocked with jugs of “joy juice”.

A system of tunnels (many filled in by Cottonwood Public Works over the years, but many still in existence) linked Joe Hall’s home to his pool hall at 1004 N. Main. Hall was linked to Al Capone, who allegedly spent a night in the Old Town Jail. Two large fires swept through Old Town during the bootlegging era. The first fire happened in 1917, followed by a larger blaze in 1925. Both were caused by exploding stills and flammable booze from Joe Hall’s whiskey business.

With the repeal of Prohibition, bootlegging and booze brewing went out of vogue and Cottonwood returned to its rural peace and quiet. Because it was a “free town”, unlike neighboring mining company towns, Clemenceau and Clarkdale, there was a certain lawlessness, but also more acceptance of different ideas, entrepreneurialism, and ethnicities that were persecuted elsewhere.

Hollywood in Cottonwood

The Old Town Palace Theater, built in 1923 and formerly called the “Rialto”, was the United States’ “Oldest Operating Single Screen Theater” until it was burnt by fire in 1998. Rescued by the Jurisins of “Jerome Palace” (aka “The Haunted Hamburger”), and neighboring “Nic’s” fame, the structure was saved and reopened in 2005 as the Tavern Grille. Remnants of the movie theater forever captured in the scorched bare concrete walls may be spotted by keen eyed diners.

The mid-century popularity of western movies brought California film crews to Arizona’s picturesque Verde Valley. Most of these features and rushes were shot in Sedona, but Old Town Cottonwood played “stand in” for town scenes in many of these films. “Desert Fury”, a 1947 film starring Burt Lancaster, shows up now and again, on late night TV, and screened in local halls. I’ve seen it more than once. It’s kinda’ silly, and I sure don’t even remember the plot. Burt Lancaster spends an awful lot of time driving back and forth on 89A, in ways that we locals all know don’t add up to him getting anywhere. The female lead calls everyone “baby”, and smokes using a long skinny cigarette holder. Our favorite part: a car crash filmed at an old bridge that no longer exists in lower Clarkdale. Right into the Verde River with that big giant American post-war car.

Kerplunk!

“Stay Away Joe” was a 1968 Elvis vehicle, filmed in Sedona, and Cottonwood during 1967, before he gave up his acting career for his comeback to music. Legend has it that Elvis was so enchanted with this area he planned to relocate here from Memphis. (Of course that never happened, but one must wonder what the result would be had he stayed.)

In typically wacky Elvis movie style, Presley plays a Navajo (!) named Joe Lightcloud, and Burgess Meredith plays his pappy. There was some go-go dancing, some bull wrangling, and a whole lotta singing and smooching.

Old Town Cottonwood once again was called into duty, playing the role of “town”.

Elvis signed autographs outside the Cottonwood Hotel, after filming a scene on Main Street. The Cottonwood Hotel played hostelry to many a star filming on location, including Mae West, and John Wayne. Since 1917 the hotel has been Cottonwood’s oldest and longest standing business with the same name.

Cottonwood Inc.

Cottonwood remained unincorporated until 1960. The town’s 1,600 residents were mobilized to act after Clarkdale (incorporated in 1957) tried to annex Old Town Cottonwood. Incorporation was initially voted down in 1958, but proponents maintained that it could improve property values, provide better police, fire, and sanitation services, control growth, and increase tax benefits. In November of 1960, Cottonwood Arizona was incorporated, with 476 favorable petitions, just 9 over the required 66% of property taxpayers and residents, becoming Arizona’s 58th incorporated community.

This year’s 3rd annual “Walkin’ on Main” street-fest will pay tribute to Cottonwood’s 50th anniversary of incorporation. From 11:00am- 6:00pm on Saturday November 13th, Old Town’s Main Street Historic 89A will be blocked from traffic, and filled with art, vintage automobiles, open-air vendors, and live entertainment. Wine and olive oil tasting will highlight some of the new industry taking hold in the Verde Valley. In lieu of basement brewed whiskey, Cottonwood is now making its mark as part of the Verde Valley Wine Trail.

True to its roots, “The Biggest Little Town in Arizona” spins its 131 years of history into a modern community full of big city amenities.

Cheers to many more years of success, neighbor!

For more information:

History, photos and a self-guided walking tour of Old Town Cottonwood
http://www.cottonwoodhotel.com/

City of Cottonwood’s website
http://www.ci.cottonwood.az.us/

Ellen Jo Roberts has lived in the Verde Valley since 1997, and now she has a sudden urge for some bootleg local-brewed whiskey. Roberts shares a historic brick bungalow with Bike Daddy Chad, and an assortment of other ornery critters.Read all about it at www.ellenjo.com

Very Superstitious

2010-09-21T08:39:00.001-07:00

Very Superstitious
October 2010 Outs
Ellen Jo Roberts

Everyone has a superstition. Even when folks profess not to, it always turns out they really do. A superstition is a belief in magic, in that somehow we control the how the workings of the world.
By dictionary definition a superstition is…
“1. a : a belief or practice resulting from ignorance, fear of the unknown, trust in magic or chance, or a false conception of causation b : an irrational abject attitude of mind toward the supernatural, nature, or God resulting from superstition
2. a notion maintained despite evidence to the contrary.”

Religion is both simultaneously disdainful of and completely reliant on superstition. Religion succeeds because people are willing believe the unbelievable, and have faith in things that cannot be proven by fact. Totems, icons, and spirits all exhibit supernatural elements.
Many think that you must throw salt or knock on wood. It’s not very popular to open umbrellas indoors, or walk under ladders. Break a mirror? Rotten luck for 7 years! A black cat crosses your path? You are in trouble. The legendary fear of the number 13 (clinically called “triskaidekaphobia”) is the reason many skyscrapers go from the 12th floor directly to 14. It’s all around us, in fortune cookies, and lottery tickets, and myriad other neatly packaged disguises. I asked a bunch of folks what sort of things they were superstitious about, and got some interesting responses.

“Black cats, the number 13, walking under ladders, full moons, broken mirrors, chain-letters, accidentally spilling salt, stepping on cracks … I don’t follow any of that hooey.”

“I always pet black cats just in case they are witches in disguise and can grant your wishes.”

I don’t subscribe to most popular superstitions. Mine are very specific, and most are related to travel, perhaps because it is a time we feel more vulnerable to unknown catastrophes. For example, while traveling via airplane I always wear the same shoes on the return trip that I wore on the outbound trip. Same socks or stockings too, if I can. I also never change my watch to whatever time zone I’m visiting. I leave it on Arizona time at all times, despite the constant mathematics it involves, as some sort of assurance I’ll make it home safely. These codes are stringently followed for no real reason.

“Every time I get on a plane, before I board it, I always lay my hands on the plane and knock 3 times on it, and that way it doesn’t crash. And I know that it works because I’ve never been involved in a plane crash.”

While driving in my car I NEVER play any song with the words like these: heat, hot, burn, fire, inferno, flame. I’ve not been able to listen to The Steve Miller Band’s “Abracadabra” for over a decade. I’m confident this has contributed to the longevity of my automobile by keeping it running cool. Also, while topping off the gas, I try to come up with a dollar figure equivalent to something meaningful: the year I was born, my address number, my engine’s displacement in CCs, my brother’s birthday, or sometimes just the good ol’ “1-2-3-4”.

“If I find a coin, it's good luck if it's heads up and I have to put in my shoe, heads up, opposite side of the hand I picked it up with. I think I'm having good luck if I look at a clock randomly and the numbers are something like 3:33, 5:05, 4:04, 9:06, 6:09 or 11:11 and similar combinations. I think I feel like I'm in sync with something. Also, I make wishes if I glance at the clock and it happens to be 11:11.”

My childhood was full of complicated superstitions as a fan of the Chicago Cubs. A highly random, ever-evolving collection of rules somehow helped the Cubs win, or, if not followed, caused them to lose. “The Cubs are on a 4 game winning streak. Each day they won, I picked a dandelion at the park. I’d better keep picking dandelions or they will lose.” This of course, is completely absurd, yet somehow provided a sense of comfort, like I was doing my part, contributing my energy towards the cause. My brother shares similar baseball superstitions.
“If the Cubs win a game when I am there, I will try to wear the same Cubs t-shirt the next time I go to the game,” he explained, “However, I usually try to force myself into realizing that the Cubs winning or losing logically has nothing to do with what underwear I am wearing, or what food I eat, or what gate I enter Wrigley Field. I try to not be superstitious. God knows none of it has worked yet.” The Cubs’ team history of failure is drenched deep in superstition, ever since Sam Sianis put a hex on them in the 1940s for not allowing his pet billy goat to attend a game. Professional sports are fraught with famous superstitions: playoff beards, rally caps, abstaining from sex and/or the changing of socks during a winning streak.

“When I was a rodeo cowgirl I had a lucky shirt and a lucky pair of socks. I wore them until they were literally in tatters, because I felt like I had to have them on in order to perform well.”

Secret wishes on shooting stars, blowing out candles. These things are attempts to control the future by magic and sheer force of will. There is a power in the energy we create as humans.

“I make a wish on all found eyelashes”

“ I make a wish on the first snow of the season”

“I always say ‘God Bless You’ when someone sneezes because I think when you sneeze your heart stops.”

“If a roadrunner crosses the road in front of me, I see it as a sign of good luck.”

“I kiss my hand and then touch the roof of my car (on the inside) if a light turns yellow and I drive through it at an intersection. I've been doing that since I have had my license.”

St. Christopher is the saint of travel. They sell mini St. Christophers for your car dashboard. I have his medallion on my car keys and have since my first car. Makes me think of that old honkytonk truck driving tune refrain, “I don’t care of it rains or freezes, ‘long as I got my plastic Jesus, riding on the dashboard of my car.” In consulting with my many associates to see what magical little beliefs are a part of their daily lives, a rare few downplayed, rebelled against, or were simply unaware of having any superstitions.

“I think I have no superstitions. I don’t go to church and I’m not a member of any hocus pocus organizations, like the Masons or the Elks, Lions, Tigers or Bears. I am completely rational, like Spock, yet full of human emotions like love, hate and all in between, unlike Spock.

“I don't like being held hostage by superstitions so I break as many as I can.”

“I have NO superstitions that I can think of. Is that odd? Am I an anomaly?
I asked the girl who sits next to me if she has any superstitions and she said she has to put her left shoe on first. She doesn’t know why, though, she just does.”

“Murphy’s Law” is a national observation typically defined as “Anything that can go wrong will go wrong.” Origins are attributed to American engineer, Edward A. Murphy (1918-1990). Murphy’s Law often contributes to a “we’ll all laugh about this someday” type mayhem. Fate is always listening, and ever watchful of being tempted.

“I try not to say ‘WHAT ELSE can happen?’ after a series of bad or unlucky things have happened to me or someone else. Because we may just find out WHAT ELSE can happen.”

“I never say ‘wow, the traffic seems really light today’, or else BLAMMO!”

“I have this feeling if things are going too well, something will happen to spoil it. I actually dread happy occasions ‘cause I know something bad is going to happen.”

“When I was a river guide in the Grand Canyon they used to tell me never sing the ‘Gilligan’s Island’ theme song while on a river trip.”

One time while driving 89A from Sedona to Cottonwood on a Friday the 13th
I made a huge mistake by saying, “It’s Friday the 13th, but nothing bad happened today.” Moments later, a gravel truck with an uncovered load drove past throwing gravel everywhere and breaking a dozen windshields including ours.

For some reason, railroad tracks, bridges, and cemeteries commonly play a role in superstitious rituals. Perhaps it is because they all represent a connection or transition from one place to another. A danger zone, a risky moment, purgatory.

“When I go over railroad tracks I hold metal and say who I love. Weird, right? When I go thru viaducts I hold my breath and make a wish. I think of these superstitions as reminders of what's important daily.”

“I hold my breath driving past cemeteries.”

“I make the sign of the cross 3 times on my steering wheel with my right thumb while driving over railroad tracks”

Superstitions are all around us, in every facet of our lives. It’s not just gypsies tossing the evil eye. It’s on road signs and in skyscrapers, and horseshoes above doorways. It’s at the casino, and on the trinkets we carry in our pockets. It’s in our cars, our homes, it joins us on our travels, in our classrooms, houses of worship, and sports stadiums. It brings us victory, and protects us from misfortune. Knock on wood.

Ellen Jo Roberts lives in Clarkdale Arizona with Bike Daddy Chad, some famous pets, and assorted vintage Volkswagens. It is never bad luck if any of them cross your path. Well, except for that vicious Chihuahua. You might wanna steer clear of him.
Read all about it at ellenjo.com

California Dreaming along Highway 1

2010-08-18T10:52:00.001-07:00

California Dreaming
Coastal Campout Along Highway 1
The Outs- Ellen Jo Roberts
The Noise
September 2010

California’s Highway 1 is just a road, just a narrow curving ribbon of macadam perched along the western edge of the USA. It’s also something legendary, lyrical, mythical, magical: from books, magazines, movies and commercials.
A National Scenic Byway, it’s been designated an “All American Road”.
We all dream of Highway 1, as part of our collective consciousness.

My husband and I celebrated our 15th wedding anniversary this summer, a milestone worthy of a special road trip celebration. We wanted to be part of the dream, so we planned a Highway 1 adventure. All year we poured over library books, maps, brochures, Google Earth, and the state park websites, plotting our journey, booking our reservations. For Chad, the planning part is sometimes even more exciting than the trip itself. For months he lay awake in bed at night, satellite imagery dancing in his head.

We travelled on the cheap, loaded up with camping gear and a picnic basket full of dry goods. Our only “luxury” was renting a Toyota Prius for its excellent fuel economy (averaging 50+ mpg), lower environmental impact, and modern comforts like satellite radio, climate & cruise control. We do all our longer road trips like this. Renting a car conserves both our vintage Volkswagens and our marriage.
The scenic routes Chad chose were both more direct, and more time consuming. After our first 13 hours on the road, we arrived in San Luis Obispo County, in a seaside town called Avila Beach, where we set up our tent after dark, at an area campground. The next morning we were up early, making our first memories of Highway 1, via San Luis Obispo. “SLO” as the locals call it, is hopelessly adorable, chock full of tidy Mediterranean bungalows and well-groomed yards. It’s home to California Polytechnic State University (“Cal Poly”), and the delightfully tacky 1950s “Madonna Inn”, with its outsized pink sign, and crazy gingerbread flourishes.

Highway 1 through the central California coast is one of the rare things that lives up to the hype. You fear a collision from gawking at the scenery. It’s also achingly slow moving, constantly curving, elevating, and bound to cause moments of nausea in even the sturdiest passenger. It is riddled with delightful pull-offs and scenic overlooks. The ocean on a cloudy day is grey, but when the fog lifts the water changes color to an unbelievable turquoise, with tangled forests of kelp floating offshore like vegetable soup.

Big Sur, from “El País Grande Del Sur” (big country to the south), a moniker given by Carmel’s early Spanish settlers, remains fairly remote and sparsely populated. Highway 1 wasn’t completed through the area until 1937, and electricity didn’t arrive until the 1950s. Vast stretches are unpopulated, and the mountainous terrain to the east is Los Padres National Forest. The area is historically wealthy with inspiration for photographers, artists , beatniks, poets, writers, and other free spirits escaping from large cities to the south and north.

"McWay Falls” is an icon of Big Sur, a t-shirt emblem just like the Bixby Bridge further north. Located near Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park, the waterfall tumbles west of Highway 1 onto a secluded seashore, sheltered in a stone cove. The only creatures on the beach below it were seagulls. It’s off limits to humans, though a boardwalk above allows views of the beautiful scene.

A few hours north on Highway 1, with every mile taking twice as long as we’d planned, we headed east to the quicker 101 to make up some speed to our next destination, San Francisco. It was nearly sunset by the time we arrived in the foggy city by the bay. Even the dreary weather couldn’t dim its loveliness, all vertical and cascading down hills in vintage perfection.

Cold in July, with everyone was wearing sweaters, coats and hats, I kept thinking of Mark Twain’s joke :” The coldest winter I ever spent was the summer I spent in San Francisco.” Perhaps it was a culmination of a long day of driving, the maps strewn everywhere in the cramped car, Chad arguing with the GPS lady-- I dunno-- but I burst into tears driving down famously steep Russian Hill. I was so scared!
We’ve driven on some hair-raising mountain roads before, crawling boulders in the wilderness, but nothing has ever frightened me as much as Lombard Street in San Francisco. I’m no “Bullitt”.
There are stoplights at the top of a 45 degree hill. There are points where you cannot see the road above/ below you and you must just have faith there is nothing in your way as the light turns green. And if your car isn’t in great shape- if the engine is weak or the brakes are bad-- you’d better just go home.

Our San Francisco night was spent at the Motel Capri, an inexpensive mid-century gem located in the Marina District, close walking distance to many interesting street scenes.

Time in San Francisco was too short: just a night and part of the next morning-- not nearly enough to soak up this vibrant city. Hiking up the steep streets on a Sunday morning with all of my cameras clattering, I was grooving on the big city life, being just a face in the crowd, one of many. No one batted an eyelash at me (unlike in my own tiny town where I am a featured landmark.) San Francisco is a smart, wealthy city, beloved by many who’ve left their hearts there. The streets are so steep it’s a full-on cardio work out all the time. A friend of mine lived there for 7 years and says, “Try walking up and down those hills every day, yeesh! I ended up in Delaware - flat as a pancake. To paraphrase Tony Bennett ‘I Left My Girlish Figure in San Francisco.’"

From San Francisco we crossed the Golden Gate Bridge north to Marin County, to have lunch with a dear favorite friend, an Arizona ex-patriot. She and her surfer beau live in a cozy 1910 built "love shack" near the sea in tiny Stinson Beach, and invited us to stay.

We cancelled our camping reservations at Manresa Beach State Park near Santa Cruz in favor of setting up tent in their garden amidst their surfboards, nestled between the fog-shrouded Mt. Tamalpais, “Birthplace of Mountain Biking”, and the cold grey waves of the Pacific.

Marin County is notoriously suspicious of outsiders. Nearby Bolinas is famous for removing their city sign, to discourage tourists. Hanging with the locals we were instantly accepted as locals by proxy. Romping and running wild with our dogs on the beach was a thing of pure joy. Our friends cooked us a wonderful dinner, we drank wine, laughed, and told stories well after dark. It was a highlight of our trip and finally felt like the vacation had begun.

Highway 1 north of San Francisco is fragrant with eucalyptus. The giant groves of quick growing Australian trees are not native, and have their detractors for this reason. Despite this, the willowy giants have somehow become synonymous with California. The gold rush and railroads brought the species here in the 1850s, when the state government authorized and encouraged their quick growing establishment. The astringent smell of the eucalyptus fills our noses.
Suddenly we are in love with this part of California. My mind wanders back to the beautiful eucalyptus tree we already have, in our own Arizona front yard.

Our next campsite was back down the coast at San Simeon State Park, followed by a night at Pfeiffer Big Sur State Park. We’d reserved all of our campsites months earlier, most of them at state parks for about $40 per night.
Pfeiffer Big Sur, a popular park since 1933, is a bit magical, nestled into the redwoods, and delineated by the clear grey green Big Sur River. There were swarms of ladybugs everywhere when we arrived. I wouldn’t have been surprised at all to see a unicorn.

Side note: They sell beer (!) at California State Parks. (Hey Arizona State Parks, ya’ listening?) After setting up tent it’s customary to take a dip in the Big Sur River. Hot, sunny, drinking beer in the river—just like home.

Chad led us on a sunset expedition to nearby Pfeiffer Beach. Amazing, framed by giant sea bound monoliths, and smooth purple sand, Pfeiffer Beach was blustery cold, full of photographers, picnickers sipping red wine, unruly dogs, and loud crashing waves.

Our final night on the Big Sur Coast was spent at Kirk Creek, a federal campground. There are world-class resorts all up and down Big Sur, each charging hundreds of dollars a night. None would compare to this $22.00 campsite. When we arrived, our jaws dropped. Site #11 at Kirk Creek was the best campsite we've ever had in our lives: big, beautiful, carpeted by soft grass, high on a bluff overlooking the sunny Pacific, surrounded by sweet scented wild fennel, sage, and yarrow. A steep trail leads down to the rocky shore below.

Unpacking, setting up, breaking down, and repacking camp every day was hard work. The Prius was so small we basically had to unload the entire car, and reload the entire car every day. Thank God for Chad's engineering-style mind. The camping life is hard work, toting water, lifting gear, washing dishes outdoors, washing our hair in sinks—everything takes more time and energy.
And somehow, the food tastes better. The sleep in the tent is more restful.
The hard work makes everything more valuable somehow.

Without showers for days, we were kinda’ grungey, with our rock star hair and dirty feet like a couple of goddamn hippies. It didn’t bother me at all, until we took the dogs for a stroll through a field of tall dried thistle, just north of nearby Sand Dollar Beach. Headed to a special seashore Chad selected, I looked down at the dogs and noticed little dark dots all over them. Yanking my chihuahua up by his harness, my fears were confirmed. Ticks! The dogs are covered with ticks!! Panic sets in and a shriek wells in my throat. I start brushing them off of him frantically, brushing them off my bare legs, and looking for the nearest exit. Sitting on a barren bluff, high above the rocky beach, socked in with raging high tide, I managed to clear all the ticks off of Floyd, because they are easy to spot in his pale fur. Ivan, the Boston Terrier was not as lucky. We manage to find most of them in his dark brindley fur, but miss the final two until the next day.
That night I feel itchy all over, and wish for a shower.

Away from the sea and back to the desert, we spent a night at a 1950s built motel in Palm Springs. San Francisco in July is cold enough for polar fleece. Palm Springs in July is like a blast furnace. It was still over 100 degrees when we rolled into town at 9pm, and already back up to 109 by 9am the next day.
Travel tip: Palm Springs motel rooms are cheap in July.

"Salvation Mountain", about 75 miles from the Coachella Valley in a remote sun-baked location near Niland, has been on my list of places to see for years. Our last day on the road, we head a lil’ bit out of our way down to see this amazing bit of folk art. The Colorado Desert sits below sea level, and is sparsely occupied during the summer. Bombay Beach along the Salton Sea is a 1960s resort town gone wrong, a post-apocalyptic paradise full of bombed out trailers and land locked boats.

Further south is “the last free place”, Slab City, a transient community setting up camp on concrete slabs left behind from a World War 2 military installation.

We arrive at Salvation Mountain, a massive bit of crazily colorful religious folk art created by Leonard Knight. Mr. Knight, 78, has spent decades carving and coating the side of a dirt hill with adobe, straw, thousands of gallons of donated paint, and various versions of “God is Love”, scripture, and testimony to Jesus.

Everything is fancifully painted: cars, trucks, bikes, boats. 113 degrees at high noon. I thought my Chuck Taylors might melt. Salvation Mountain was worth the many out-of-the-way miles. It is a true thing of beauty, and as important to American iconography as Highway 1.

Driving through the heat of day, we arrive back in our neighborhood by dusk.
The Verde Valley always looks really good after a long road trip, after driving through many random small towns of assorted quality.
“You know something, this place we live in is pretty damn good. It looks pretty great here.” Back at home we feel exhilarated, relaxed, as we pour over Polaroids, tip back cold California beers, and sit close to the eucalyptus tree.

http://www.madonnainn.com/index.php
http://www.sfmotelcapri.com/
http://www.parks.ca.gov/
http://bigsurcalifornia.org/
http://www.salvationmountain.us/

Ellen Jo Roberts lives in a historic brick bungalow in Clarkdale Arizona, with Bike Daddy Chad, 2 small dogs, a cat, and a collection of vintage Volkswagens, none of which have cruise control, air conditioning or satellite radio.
Read all about it at ellenjo.com

The Clark Mansion Fire

2010-07-27T12:46:00.000-07:00

The Clark Mansion Fire
A Mysterious Tale of Wealth, Decay, and Haints
The Outs
Ellen Jo Roberts
August 2010

“The beauty of that jewel in the desert, a relic of Clarkdale's youth, fueled creativity and imagination. I always wished I could see inside and wondered what it was like to live there when it was new.” – Clarkdale resident, artist Sandy Boothe.

The Clark Mansion has been a town landmark since the late 1920s, created in Spanish-Revival style in the native colors of the surrounding desert, and flanked by two towering Italian Cypress. Originally built for William A Clark’s grandson, United Verde Copper Company heir, William Clark III, the house has lived many incarnations since young Clark’s unfortunate death in a nearby plane crash in 1932. During the last part of the 20th century, the 7 bedroom 5 bathroom mansion was leased for residential use, and also utilized as an auxiliary clubhouse and restaurant for the Peck’s Lake golf course. It had been used as a movie set several times, though no one can remember the titles of any of the films.

Over the past 15 years, Peck’s Lake has been in a state of decay mirroring that of the mansion. Once a vibrant part of Clarkdale’s company town amenities, Peck’s Lake was regionally famous for its dance pavilion, fireworks, town picnic, golf course, boat races, and other sporting events. The golf course closed in 1991. The dance pavilion burnt down, and the main clubhouse was vandalized (apparently by horny teens, and satan worshippers from the looks of the graffiti), a hollow shell of its former glory.
By the mid-1990s, the mansion was vacant and the windows boarded up. On January 1st 2004, Phelps Dodge closed off all public access to Peck’s Lake, blocking the road with an earthen dam, and wrapping the entire area, including the mansion, in barbed-wire-topped chain link fencing.

Even in its lonely neglected condition, separated from all of us, sealed off and empty, there remained something majestic about the Clark Mansion. It watched over us all from the edge of town. It glowed in the sunset, and fired up our inspiration. I made paintings and took photos of it. I called it My Dream House and imagined how I would fix it up should it ever miraculously be mine.

My friend and fellow Clarkdalian Brandi Lee Cooper said it was haunted--that a “haint” lived out there. Maybe it was dangerous to run past it after dark, and tempt the haint’s wickedness. My fear escalated as Brandi Lee told me the plane crash that claimed young Clark’s life took place in front of his wife’s very eyes, as she watched from the mansion in horror.

During the pre-dawn hours on June 25th 2010 a new horror happened at the Clark Mansion. Something terrible. Just after 4 in the morning, the mansion, haunted by haints and guarded by cypress, inexplicably began to burn. Quickly the fire grew out of control, with flames hundreds of feet high, according to witnesses, brightly visible from as far away as Jerome. Many called to report the blaze, though by the time the fire crews arrived, a power line had fallen onto the metal fence surrounding the mansion, electrifying it. Unable to spray any water until the electricity was cut, crews had to wait 20 helpless minutes for APS to arrive. The roof, interior walls and floors of the mansion collapsed in the fire, leaving just the heavy concrete exterior walls. According to Paul Peck of the Clarkdale Historical Society, the fire burnt so hot it severely damaged and cracked the remaining walls.

Like many locals, I slept through all of this, blissfully unawares. It wasn’t until I arrived at work a few hours later, the flames finally extinguished and the mansion still smoldering, that someone alerted me about what had happened, “The Clark Mansion burnt.” Immediately I ran outside to see for my own eyes what couldn’t possibly be true. At first I couldn’t even spot it. Without its red clay tile roof and sentinel cypress trees, it had become invisible, blending in with the color of the nearby earth. Then I saw the wisps of smoke still rising. The Italian Cypress had perished in the blaze (witnesses reporter hearing them “explode”). I burst into messy sobs. How could this be? Who could have been so evil to destroy this precious bit of Arizona history? My dream house! Perished!

Marsha Foutz, an artist and educator, has lived in her historic lower Clarkdale bungalow for 29 years. She included her home in Clarkdale’s first Home Tour specifically to highlight and educate about Clark Mansion by sharing her especially great view of it.
“During the many renovations to my home, I have always kept the view open and focused to the mansion. My studio was built to take in the view of the mansion as much as possible,” says Ms. Foutz, “From my house, I view the mansion many times a day. I have recently discovered that I used to ‘greet’ the mansion each time I saw it. I still get stunned and saddened 10 to 12 times a day as when I look up, there is nobody to greet!”

She’s always had hopes that the building would be restored. At the time of the fire, the mansion and its surrounding property was in the negotiations between current owner Freeport McMoRan, and local developers Verde Exploration.
Verde Exploration (UVX) reps confirm they had plans to eventually restore the mansion for commercial use. According to Clarkdale mayor, Doug Von Gausig, “Freeport-McMoRan was in the process of trading the building and 5 acres, as I recall, around it for some land that Verde Exploration owns adjacent to the Freeport land near Jerome. The deal would have been finalized about 30 days after the fire.”
This compounds the tragedy. Ms. Foutz adds, “Ironic that it was just going to a group that might have restored it… I've always heard that there were proposals to acquire and use it. The UVX trade might have made a difference in a few weeks. Too little too late for our friend.”

Mayor Von Gausig dedicated a recent town meeting to discussing the Clark Mansion, and initiated a resolution to encourage its restoration if at all possible. After all, the Old Town Theater, gutted by a 1998 fire, was able to be salvaged, restored and reopened after several years of renovation as the popular Tavern Grille. Perhaps there is also hope the Clark Mansion may be restored to something even better than its former glory.
“Has the fire been confirmed arson?” I ask.
“We don't know the answer yet,” answers Mayor Von Gausig, “The owner has engaged a structural engineer to assess the condition of the remaining parts of the building, but that assessment hasn't been made yet.” Fire inspectors have been unable to adequately access or assess the structure, due to its current instability. Initial inspection was done using Sedona Fire Department ladder trucks to view interior from the outside. The cause of the fire is confirmed to be of a “suspicious” nature.
“What's the next step?”
“Get the structural report. Then it's up to Freeport-McMoRan to decide what to do with the property,” said Mayor Von Gausig. “The town is on record with a resolution asking that they consider every possible alternative to demolition of the building.”

“NOW THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED that the Mayor, Common Council, and citizens of the Town of Clarkdale, Yavapai County, Arizona strongly urge the owners of the Clark Mansion and all other regulatory, public safety, legal and proprietary interests in the property to take no action that may preclude the possibility of restoring, renovating, or rebuilding the Mansion to its historic form and functionality without first exhausting all possible avenues that may preserve the building in as close to its former condition as possible” – from Resolution 1339, passed July 13th 2010.

“Years of indifference piled upon years of neglect and you get what happened,” said Chris Boothe, another long time resident of Clarkdale, “Yet, like the pyramids, we all wanted it to always be there, the icon, the sentinel, the soul of Clarkdale. I attended the Town Council meeting to support restoring what's left of the [Clark Mansion] but left dismayed to hear it's nothing more than a suggestion to Freeport McMoran. The bleak truth is that the company can raze what's left at any time. Perhaps with enough input from the public they will realize the importance of keeping a bit of Clarkdale DNA.”

Gerhard Mayer, is the CEO of MGL Development LLC, a solar system manufacturer and construction company based in Sedona. He’s lived and worked in the Verde Valley for almost 30 years, and used to golf at the Peck’s Lake course. At the July 13th town meeting, Mr. Mayer spoke passionately in favor of any preservation efforts for the remaining structure of the Clark Mansion.
“We are all stewards of our history and need to preserve our heritage respectfully for all future generations to build on. The Clark Mansion’s destiny was predictable, a building, not the most impressive one of all of Clark`s mansions, but a landmark for the Verde Valley, neglected, unoccupied, vandalized, torched by an arsonist and now facing the ultimate sentence, leveled, rubble for a landfill, erased, history wiped out.”
“We all have an obligation, the owner who neglected the mansion for decades, the city and citizens of the Verde Valley to stop this from happening. When I drive up 89A to Jerome and see a building along the highway being brought back to life from a near rubble, crumbling state, then I think this could be possible for this blackened historic jewel as well.” Mr. Mayer acknowledges such an undertaking would be expensive.
“It will not be cheap, but copper has reached $ 3.18 a pound. Freeport just announced that they are activating some of the dormant mines, the shares are traded at $ 66.06… It should be in the best interest of Freeport to have this mansion restored. What a great PR and image enhancing action.”

Perhaps Ms. Foutz speaks for many locals in calling the mansion fire “a death”.
“A senseless murder most likely. I am much more sad for this death than for the death of my father. My father was cared for. This home was abandoned. And so lonely! Its only friends were the cypress trees and now they are gone too. It was so loved and yet was so isolated!”
I was inconsolable for days after the fire. Even now, a full month later, all the air escapes from my lungs whenever I catch a glimpse of the Clark Mansion’s burnt hulk.
A ghost at the edge of town, a haint lingering in its crooked shadows.

If you’d like to lend your support by word or deed in favor of saving the Clark Mansion, please contact the Town of Clarkdale for more information.www.clarkdale.az.us

For photos of the Clark Mansion Fire
visit Doug Von Gausig’s Critical Eye photography site at
http://www.criticaleyephoto.com/Other/Clark-Mansion-Fire-6-25-2010/12691510_rfY89

Ellen Jo Roberts has a keen interest in vintage architecture, because she wakes up in a historic Clarkdale Arizona bungalow every morning. She also likes other assorted old stuff like neon road signs, air-cooled Volkswagens, cassette tapes, and antique cameras. Read all about it at www.ellenjo.com

Instant Gratification: Momma, Don't Take My Polaroid Away

2010-06-23T11:33:00.001-07:00

Instant Gratification:
Momma, Don't Take My Polaroid Away
The Noise- July 2010
The Outs
by Ellen Jo Roberts

“Don’t undertake a project unless it is manifestly important and nearly impossible.”

- Edwin Land

"The world is a terrible place without Polaroid."- John Waters

It seems incredibly unlikely. In fact, it seems darn near impossible!
How is it in the year 2010, the second decade into our 21st century digital age of instant communication, smart phones, status updates, tweets, and viral videos, that any attention would be paid to something so distinctly 20th century as instant film? Instant film is like TV dinners, or remote control: harkening back to our earliest notions of a speedier future world, in a quaint 1950s sorta’ way, like the Jetsons. Polaroid was imploding, hemorrhaging 25% a year in profits, when it slowly ceased production of all varieties of instant film in the 2000s.
How has it suddenly become the fresh hot new image-maker? Ironically, it’s due to an internet community of artists, hipsters and analog buffs that instant film is being resuscitated from near death.

Edwin Land was an American inventor born under the sign of Taurus in 1909. He first gained success and created the Polaroid brand by inventing polarizing filters for sunglasses and camera lens. He developed his eponymous Land Camera in 1947. Polaroid initially underestimated how popular the camera would be. When first offered at a Boston department store during the 1948 Christmas shopping season, all 57 Land Cameras in stock sold out in one day. Though Edwin Land, a complicated and stubborn genius, invented all sorts of amazing optical gear for the government, he considered the development of SX-70 film and camera to be his crowning achievement.

An explanation of “instant film”: It contains all of the chemicals and components needed to develop, fix, and print an image. Unlike standard 35mm film, which requires a complex series of external procedures to create an image negative and print, the instant photo developed itself, without use of a dark room, enlarger or vats of chemicals. Nowadays when every camera and every cell phone shows you your image instantly, it may be hard to imagine what’s the big deal.
In 1948 this was huge, and it remained a great novelty for about 50 years.
Generally speaking, the image quality of instant film is not as richly detailed as a 35mm image, or that of the much larger medium format negative. Rather than crisp detail it casts glowy nuances. The instantaneous of the print proved to be helpful in various applications. Police found it useful in documenting investigations and making mugshots. Similarly, instant photos were ideal for passports, drivers licenses, and identification. Hollywood utilized Polaroid for checking lighting, and continuity of costume. Artists took hold of the medium. Andy Warhol was perhaps one of Polaroid’s biggest fans, using their “Big Shot” portrait camera to capture images he would later turn into silkscreen portraiture of New York night life.

The number one factor in Polaroid’s success? It was just plain fun, to have that photo develop in your hand at the party. Your iPhone might show you your photos as you take them-- but are they something real in your hand, or simply an electronic stew of code in a format that will also one day no longer exist?

Fred Slavitter is a friendly retired fellow from Needham, Massachusetts. A graduate of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, he worked for Polaroid from 1969 until 1995 as New Products Development Engineering Manager, supervising development engineers and creating new photographic devices. Mr. Slavitter holds 10 patents on various items of photographic equipment, including an SX-70 lens. He drove his family bananas always testing new camera products on them. “Instant cameras provided instant photographic gratification. They provided instant enjoyment at special events, parties, picnics, etc., and gave assurance that you got the picture you wanted or gave you the opportunity to take a second picture.” Mr. Slavitter feels Polaroid’s heyday took place from the mid-1960s through the mid-1970s, faltering by the 1980s.“This was due to Polaroid not investing enough in improving their instant film. Fuji came out with a better film.”

There are two basic varieties of instant film —the peel apart type, and the integral type. Peel apart came first, but integral film may be the kind most are familiar with, “shaking it like a Polaroid picture”. Integral film spits out of the camera with a click and a whirr, no muss no fuss, fully sealed, and just a moment or two for the image to take shape. First developed for the SX-70 Land Camera in 1972, integral film was produced by Polaroid up until 2006. Since 2006 there has been no alternative available, and SX-70s around the globe sat dormant, discarded, abandoned…until now. Film is available again via “The Impossible Project”, a New York City company that is slowly reviving assorted instant film products. In March of 2010, The Impossible Project, founded by Florian Kaps, began selling brand new experimental instant film, after purchasing an old Polaroid factory in the Netherlands.

Their first test batch of “PX 100”, while dreamy and strange, suffered from various problems: leaky emulsion, unfolding edges. These issues have since been corrected, and the company strives to create a whole new generation of unpredictably spirited instant film. It was quite something to unfold my dusty 1970s SX-70 and hear it whirr back to life when I put the first pack of Impossible Project film into it. This new generation of instant integral film ain’t cheap, running $3-4 per shot. Makes you really contemplate what you are photographing.

David Bias, the Vice President of The Impossible America Corporation, explains the inspiration behind their venture, “We all know that when the mainstream goes one direction, there are always those who search for other things. A growing portion of these ‘others’ have a healthy respect for physical things - things made out of artistic ambition or simple handcrafted love. The inspiration for The Impossible Project is Edwin Land, plain and simple. Instant film photography is the best of both worlds - the immediacy we love about digital, along with the organic warmth of film.”

I’m a fan of Polaroid type 100 cameras, the kind that use peel-apart or “pack” film.

The peel-apart variety dates back to 1963, supplanting the first generation of roll film, which was far more complicated and fussy. I have a big beautiful roll-film camera dating from the 1950s. It’s huge like a piece of furniture, or a Buick, and it pops open like a parade float. Polaroid buffs have converted these old roll film cameras to pack film, but I’m a poor engineer and prefer my cameras ready-made.

My favorites are from the clunky-looking “Colorpack” series (c.late ‘60s-early ‘70s).

Pack film requires a short series of procedures to get your photo. Unlike integral film, which spits self-propelled out of the camera, pack film needs to be pulled out from the camera, via paper tabs. Rollers crush the chemicals in between a negative and photo paper. After about 90 exciting seconds, the negative is peeled back, revealing the finished print. The negative is then discarded-- though many artists prefer to scan and manipulate the negative rather than the paper print. It is the peel-apart variety that artists use for Polaroid transfers, and emulsion lifts. Roll film operated on the same principal, but utilized 2 separate rolls that met in the middle- one photographic paper, and one with negative and processing chemicals. It was discontinued in 1992.

Polaroid’s pack film production ceased in 2008, but Fuji-Film of Japan has continuously produced peel-apart film since 1981, thus keeping Type 100 Polaroid cameras active. I avidly consume Fuji’s FP100C (color) and FP100B (black and white) films. I devour them like candy. It cannot be found at the grocery store, but can be ordered online with ease, from Freestyle in L.A., or B & H in New York City.

Fuji instant film averages about $11.00-$12.00 for a film pack of 10 images, so at over a dollar a shot they’re not completely beyond budget, but they do exceed the 30 cent per photo processing for 35mm shots. And it’s all far more costly than digital. Digital photography is essentially free once you’ve purchased the equipment and the software, hence its stronghold and vast popularity.

Everyone knows I am a hardcore analog snob. The reason I shoot film nearly exclusively (besides the staunch belief the quality is better and the results more interesting), is that the costliness makes it something precious, and therefore encourages better photography. Unlike digital images, in which one prize-winner can be culled from a hundred similar variations, analog photography requires more thought prior to the shot, rather than excessive editing, deleting, and post-production afterwards. Shooting on film also allows for a bit of happy accident magic that digital does not. There’s a level of unpredictability and magic. Double exposures, accidentally or on purpose. Strange lights and colors you don’t see ‘til long after. Digital encourages fidgeting with the gadgetry. With film you just have to wait and see.

Michael Raso is a photographer, and the owner of New Jersey’s Pop Cinema Studios. He’s also the producer of the “Film Photography Podcast”. Mr. Raso is always generous with his enthusiasm and knowledge of analog photography, “Digital photography is a great advance in technology but not an alternative for the chemical process of photography. It’s all personal choice and I choose film as my medium. Chemical manipulation, image transfers and emulsion lifts give me so many opportunities to make each image its own work of art. I love it. Polaroid instant film has a quality and esthetic like no other. A Polaroid image has a color palette as unique as, let’s say, a Kodachrome slide. Simply original. Whether the integral SX-70 type or the amazing --as I call it-- ‘crack and peel’ 100 type film – the retirement of Polaroid films created a huge outcry from artists around the world. Photographers want the film.”

Justin Craigen is a UK born graphic designer working in Ames, Iowa.
“I love instant film because it allows for a wonderful break from digital photography, which is part of my work as a designer. It's nice to have a unique physical object to handle rather than a bunch of 1s and 0s on a screen that's not good for viewers' eyes…There are also the qualities of color, and sharpness that are unique to the films. People go to some lengths to fake those qualities digitally, but as of yet I haven't seen a single effort that actually does it even half-arsed well.”

Sean Rohde is a Phoenix-based Polaroid whiz, working desert-baked magic on expired films. He writes all about his extensive efforts and instant film adventures on a fascinating blog called Moominsean. “Digital cannot match the qualities of instant film. You may be able to make an effort to replicate instant film on a computer, but there is something special about a product that does these things on it's own without digital trickery,” Mr. Rohde says. “The Impossible Project? I think it's great that there is enough interest to support such a venture, and there are people willing to go the extra mile to make it happen!”

“Why do people seek out instant film is this digital age we live in?” I asked my panel of experts and instant film enthusiasts.

“The same reason people seek out things that are difficult, rare or temporary, because it’s worth it. The same way we love and celebrate the brief blooms of the cherry tree, or stare with breathless joy at the view from the mountain we climbed, so it is with Polaroid. It’s special because it’s not everywhere. Digital is all around us and we are a bit desensitized to it,” says Ashley Russell, a media artist from Vancouver, British Columbia, “Polaroid is like a magic lens that reveals the beauty in everything. Looking at the world through Polaroids makes one realize how much beauty this world holds.”

I am rich in Polaroid cameras. People give them to me all the time. The digital age has benefited me big, with folks passing me off all of their old analog gear, including a complete darkroom set up. You probably think owning a Polaroid camera is like owning a VCR or a pet dodo bird. It’s something extinct, displaced by more modern creatures. But I see the film culture as something akin to the survival of albums on vinyl, kept alive by a select group of aficionados. I see the Polaroid as some type of fantastic time machine, translating this sharp-edged modern world into something of a softer vintage. Perhaps now too you’ll see the value, and walk a bit slower through the gadget aisle at your local thrift shop.

For more information:
http://www.blogger.com/www.theimpossibleproject.com
http://www.filmphotographypodcast.com/

http://moominsean.blogspot.com/
http://www.bhphoto.com/
http://www.freestylephoto.biz/

Ellen Jo Roberts will probably take your picture, if she hasn’t already.
She lived in a vintage bungalow in Clarkdale Arizona with her oft-photographed spouse, pets, and Volkswagens. Read all about it at http://www.ellenjo.com/

Being Mexican is Not a Crime: SB 1070 and the Boycott of Arizona

2010-05-21T16:11:00.000-07:00

Being Mexican is Not a Crime:
SB 1070 and the Boycott of Arizona
The Noise

June 2010

The Outs
Ellen Jo Roberts

Just when the rest of the country had almost started to forget the 1990s Martin Luther King Holiday debacle, Arizona is back in the daily headlines for a poorly presented pseudo-racist government policy. Governor Jan Brewer’s quick acceptance of the vaguely worded State Bill 1070, in a bid to curry Republican votes for election season, has polarized the state and the country. Arizona, heartbreakingly beautiful love of my life, has been reduced to a punch line, a punching bag. It pains me to see it so mishandled.

Arizona’s survived bad governors before. Remember Evan “Pickaninny” Meacham, the first Arizona governor to be impeached? Fife Symington was a swindler who resigned office after being convicted of fraud. Jane Hull used the state’s helicopter for personal travel. Now we have Jan Brewer running roughshod over the landscape, closing state parks, deregulating gun permissions, legalizing fireworks, and cutting the Arizona Office of Tourism’s budget by 70%, with seemingly little thought of the impact. The ill will generated by SB 1070, closure of parks, and the snuffing of a proactive tourism program will have a long lasting impact on our state’s reputation and economy, long after Brewer’s appointed term expires.

For a country so lion-hearted as the USA, always running to the assistance of countries half a planet away, it’s a bit incredible we’d not invest more thought and positive energy into the situation with our very own next door neighbors.

There is a silver lining to all this. There is a correct answer on immigration policies that could eventually take shape from all of this uproar. But, as of today, it’s not yet arrived. Both right wing and left wing arguments hinge on something sensational, partial truths, fear. Perhaps at some point, folks could discuss this reasonably, rationally. There’s a sense of general disappointment that our former Governor Janet Napolitano, now Secretary of Homeland Security, hasn’t yet championed something more proactive and positive at the federal level in regards to illegal immigration. Arizona’s answer, building fences and questioning citizenship based on a hazy set of suggestions seems distinctly negative, backwards, and so very 20th century.

Mexican President Felipe Calderon calls the new law “discriminatory”, and warns that Mexico will not support the criminalization of migration. He blames the United States’ big appetite for illicit drugs as a primary cause for border breach. The Mexican Foreign Ministry issued a travel advisory for Mexican nationals visiting Arizona, warning, “It must be assumed that every Mexican citizen may be harassed and questioned without further cause at any time.” President Barack Obama had cautioned Governor Brewer against signing the bill, though acknowledges the bill arrived as a “misdirected expression of frustration” due to the lack of solutions at the federal level. The president is enlisting the federal judicial committee to review 1070, line by line, due to his concerns it has the “potential to be discriminatory.” One week after the bill was approved, additional modifications to the bill, HB 2162, were passed, addressing and correcting racial profiling aspects to 1070.

Those supporting the bill are generally proud of Arizona’s tough maverick stance on illegals, attempting to take control of a situation the federal government hasn’t.
Those against the bill say it’s unconstitutional, fascist, against civil rights of American citizens, who now may be targeted by patrol simply for being of Mexican heritage. It sends an unfriendly message to international companies and travelers.
“Show me your papers” sounds a bit Gestapo.

Governor Brewer insists the bill would only apply to people who commit suspicious and potentially illegal acts. Such as speeding, loitering… or perhaps just appearing the slightest bit like an illegal alien, the overwhelming majority of which in the US are from Mexico. Brewer’s F.AQ. info sheet assures if you’re an American citizen you don’t need to carry documentation (…unless maybe you’re a Mexican American? In which case, you’d probably better.)
Enforcement of 1070 falls squarely on the shoulders of Arizona police.
Police support of the bill is mixed, with statewide police officers generally pro, and the Arizona Association of Chiefs of Police generally against. They already have their hands full with daily local situations, in addition to attempting enforcement of immigration policies, technically an issue that falls under federal jurisdiction. President Obama expressed concerns that 1070 “would undermine the notions of fairness that we cherish as Americans, as well as the trust between police and our communities that is so crucial to keeping us safe.” How will 1070 be enforced? A DVD with complete step-by-step instructions will be sent to all Arizona Police departments prior to the bill taking effect in July.

“It’s what I’d call a Trojan Horse law. The government expands its powers in ways we’d normally see and agree are unconstitutional by wrapping said expansion in an emotionally charged set of circumstances.”- Phoenix Arizona man

Right wing fundamentalists will attack you personally if you disagree with them. They will question your education, your religion, your patriotism, make threats, and could very well show up at your front door with a shotgun. They title their jingoistic letters to the editor “Illegals Go Home!”or“America First” and bark in ALL CAPITAL LETTERS.
To hear them tell it, their family arrived here “legally” via the Mayflower, or Ellis Island, learned English immediately, worked steadily, paid their taxes promptly, and every one of them fought in our armed forces. None of them ever even so much as made an illegal U-turn, or ripped a “do not remove under penalty of law” tag off a pillow. To them, the Mexicans are a faceless flood of humanity streaming over the border unabated, not speaking English, not paying taxes, stealing our government services, living on the dole, and getting free health care. And unlike we Americans, the Mexicans are criminals! Gangsters, murderers, pimps, drug dealers, rapists! And if you don’t agree, then maybe you’re a commie pinko and you’re part of the problem, ya’ damn hippie bleeding heart liberal. The truth, like everything else in the United States, is a bit more complex. The Mexicans are like us in more ways than they are different.

“White people are so quick to forget their Italian, German, Polish and Irish ancestors also faced persecution when they came over here; many ‘illegally’ as well. How quickly we forget…or find some reason to justify this racism.” –Chicago man.

The left wing, on the other end of the spectrum, shout through the streets with signs and swastika t-shirts, demanding Arizona be boycotted as punishment for this affront to human rights. They demand the Lakers wear “Los Lakers” jerseys when playing “Los Suns”. The Arizona Boycott was actually initiated by one of our own politicians, Congressman Raul Grijalva of Arizona’s 7th Congressional District. Seattle now joins the ranks of several other West Coast cities officially “boycotting” Arizona, including San Diego, Los Angeles and San Francisco. Heavily Hispanic pro-baseball teams
have entertained thoughts of relocating their spring training camps from Arizona. Phoenix officials estimated a potential loss of $90 million dollars in canceled tourism and conferences. I’m basically a lefty, a Democratic fish swimming forever upstream in Republican stronghold. I’m accustomed to people disagreeing with my politics.
However, the “activists” and their boycotting are just as unreasonable as the fear mongering right wing. One must wonder how many of them have even read the bill, and how many have merely jumped on a bandwagon of negativity because it’s currently the cause currently in vogue. Boycotting Arizona is wrong, and it will hurt all the wrong people: the working class folks, the small businesses, the school and park systems.

Arizona has only been a state for 98 years. Prior to that, it was a territory. And before that, for much longer than it’s been any part of the USA, this land was property of Mexico, shared with the native tribes who’ve inhabited the land since time immemorial. The Chicano culture is the fabric that holds Arizona, a state full of snowbirds and transplants, together. This stirs much of the anger surrounding the new law. Mexican families with history here far longer than many of us more recent arrivals will now be potentially suspect.
“Clearly, and bluntly, the state law is racist and discriminatory against so-called ‘illegal immigrants’ crossing the borders from the South, namely from Mexico,” said Simon Ortiz, a Native American Studies Professor at Arizona State University, “Many of the border crossers are indigenous peoples who are directly affected. Without any doubt, the law is wrong headed; it targets people who fit a certain profile.”

Self-righteous supporters of SB 1070 conveniently neglect to mention that however “legally” they believe their ancestors arrived, they were still setting foot on land forcibly taken from Native American tribes. Perhaps Arizona’s Hopi, Navajo, Yavapai Apache, Havasupai, Pima, Maricopa, and Tohono O’Odham tribes should start asking us all for our paperwork.

“Bottom line is, we’re ALL illegal! We stole this country from the Native Americans! They should tell us all to get the f #!&* out!”- Jerome Arizona woman.

The Federal Immigration and Nationality Act, already in effect nationwide, states that any alien citizens present in the U.S. must present documentation upon request. American citizens are required by law to present drivers licenses and proof of insurance if stopped by highway patrol. Traveling through most European nations requires frequent presentation of identification, even within borders. In Texas borderlands, police strictly monitor roads, asking for documentation from all.

“Don’t even get me started. Here in El Paso, Border Patrol and police are pulling us over and checking our identification all the time… I think illegal immigrants are a slap in the face insult to people like my father who immigrated here legally.”- Texas woman.

People (from all countries) immigrate here illegally because we have a demand for cheap, below minimum wage labor. Many industrial and agricultural economies are carried on the backs of illegal laborers. This is 100% our fault. Despite rigid laws already in place in Arizona, sanctioning business owners with substantial fines for lacking proper documentation of their employees, illegal immigrants still find work easily. Most of the Mexicans I know, legal and illegal, are extremely wary of the government, being basically distrustful of their own, and tend not to go anywhere there’s paperwork. This includes any type of social services. According to Department of Homeland Security statistics, illegal immigrants are estimated to pay about $7 billion dollars per year into Social Security, a system from which they will never reap any benefit.

“US Immigration allows illegal immigration, in fact encourages it! The nation’s cheap industrial food production and processing depends on immigrant labor. Folks want cheap food, but they fail to link the fact that it requires cheap labor!”- Washington state woman.

Fact: It is not easy to become an American citizen. You cannot just show up and sign the guest book, like people joke. It’s grown a bit more complicated than it was when the Statue of Liberty waved folks into Ellis Island. Back then, you got photographed, examined, quarantined, perhaps given American-ish new names to better assimilate, and sent on to your way. In order to apply for citizenship in the 21st century one is generally required to have family already here, or marry into one. You need to have special work skills, and/or an education of value to our country, or be seeking political asylum.
After 5 years of “Resident Alien” status, one may apply for naturalized citizenship.
It is a lengthy process.

“Approximately 140,000 immigrant visas are available each fiscal year for aliens (and their spouses and children) who seek to immigrate based on their job skills. If you have the right combination of skills, education, and/or work experience and are otherwise eligible, you may be able to live permanently in the United States.”
- United States Citizenship and Immigration Services

100 years ago, when my maternal great grandparents arrived on the Cunard Line’s “Ultonia” from Serbia, all you had to do was pretty much show up. In 1910, as the Ultonia entered New York Harbor, my grandmother was born on board and became an instant citizen. My great-grandmother, Ana Komlenich, lived in Chicago for 75 years without ever learning more than a few words of English. She signed her name with an “x”. She laughed uncontrollably at The Three Stooges. Despite her lack of assimilation, my great grandmother was part of our nation’s story just as much as anyone.

A woman requesting to be known only as an “Anonymous Business Owner and Long-time Tax Payer in Arizona” shares her thoughts about SB 1070:

“I am against any frivolous law. It is already illegal to be here illegally. If you get stopped for a traffic violation and you don't have a valid US driver's license, it is already in the authority of the officer to request additional documentation…As a US citizen, if I was pulled over, could not produce a valid driver's license AND lied to the cop about my address, I am going to JAIL, regardless of my citizenship status,” Ms. Anonymous continues, “People on both sides of the argument (and let me tell you, I have had knock down drag out fights with people on both sides) have completely lost sight of what this law actually says. Most of the arguments I hear for, and some against, have absolutely no bearing on the actual content of this absurd law…

“I know ranchers along the border, and there is no way that this law is going to stop coyote and drug violence as they cross over. In fact, all this law is likely to do is catch a few illegal immigrants who have already been here for a while and are too dumb to A) not get a fake social security card, then valid driver's license and/or B) not get stopped for violating a traffic law--all this is likely to be LONG after they have crossed the border…

“Yes, immigration is a problem, but SB1070 isn't going to actually DO anything but piss off everyone. If Jan Brewer's only intention was to call national attention to a problem, then this was inarguably a tremendous success. Arizona is now the object of hatred the world over. Yippee!”

Obviously, an immigration reform needs to happen. For the safety and dignity of all people, both citizens of the US and citizens of the world. Checking documents will not keep out the drug cartels and the high dollar criminals who can afford the best paperwork and bribes money can buy (-just like banning guns will not prevent the criminal element from owning them.)

People don’t just cross the border in the dark of night. John McCain’s fence won’t keep them at bay. They cross on the highway in broad daylight. They arrive in cars, planes, boats, trains. They come as tourists and overstay their visas. And despite popular belief, they’re not all from Mexico.

“I don’t hear that they’re going after all of the illegal Irish immigrants working in New York bars.” – Brooklyn woman, currently residing in Scottsdale AZ.

Illegals pay thousands of dollars to unscrupulous middlemen to be stuffed into trunks, or packed tightly into the backs of vans. In Arizona, coyotes dump them off in the most dangerous stretches of lonesome desert, to battle the devastating heat of summer, and risk death by dehydration. Leaving trails of garbage, clothing, blankets, plastic, diapers throughout the desert, depending on the kindness of far flung ranchers to supply water.
It’s truly surprising that capitalist America hasn’t realized they’re missing out on a real goldmine here! A big money maker for our weakened budgets. Instead of paying coyotes for illegal passage and risking their lives to arrive in the U.S., immigrants could pay the U.S. government, to register into work program, complete with legal documents, and safe journey into the United States. Illegal immigrants already here could register for such a program as well, perhaps with references, background checks, employers and sponsors getting involved.

Hey smart people of beautiful Arizona!
Let’s entertain some better ideas on how to deal with this issue.
Instead of shouting over each other ALL IN CAPS, maybe instead we hash out the best of our ideas, stir them in a melting pot called America, and make something good out of all this.

Ellen Jo Roberts lives in an undisclosed location in Clarkdale Arizona.
She wrote a letter to Governor Jan Brewer. She’s not yet heard back.
www.ellenjo.com

Homes of Jerome- History on Every Corner

2010-05-05T16:31:00.000-07:00

Bob Bradshaw photo

Homes of Jerome
May 2010
The Outs
Ellen Jo Roberts

When we lived in Jerome, people always asked us how we did it. Tourists would stop their rental cars in front of our house, as we sat on the porch eating our breakfast. They’d bellow: “Where do you buy your groceries?!” and take photos of us like we were monkeys at the zoo. It always gave us a chuckle. People want to know how you Jerome folk do it. It’s a bit more magical and inconvenient than most other towns. Everything is vertical there. The outrageous views, picturesque buildings, vintage style, and overall dreaminess are tempered by the crooked, crowded parking, nosy neighbors, narrow side streets and crumbling infrastructure. Jerome is simultaneously everyone’s fantasy and nightmare. It takes a hardy breed to inhabit it, and keep it alive.

The first Jerome Home Tour took place in 1966, making this May’s tour the 45th annual, and longest running tour in Arizona. Jerome in 1966 was still a ghost town, just newly being discovered by hippies, artists, and counter culture types who brought it back from the dead. In the past 45 years, Jerome has become something quite different: a bustling economic success, a major tourist draw full of fabulous art galleries, boutiques, adorable accommodations, and an amazing collection of premium restaurants and cafes — far more than you’d expect in a town with a population hovering right around 350 residents. On the weekend of May 15-16, you can see for yourself how Jerome folk thrive and survive with their antiquated plumbing, steeply angled streets, and awesome 75-mile view.

This year’s home tour will feature a great selection of both vintage and modern homes on the seldom seen side streets of Jerome, as well as commercial structures, like the Connor Hotel, the United Verde Apartments, and the recently restored Audrey Head Frame. The Christ Church of Jerome, built in 1927 and now home to the Jerome Historical Society, is also part of the tour’s itinerary. Tours will take place from 9AM to 3PM each day. Transportation will be provided to each location, but the tour, with many steps, and steep paths is not wheelchair accessible.

Cheifetz Cottage
Steve and Karen Cheifetz are Phoenicians who purchased their historic Jerome cottage 8 years ago. The simple structure was home to Jerome miner, Damian Gutierrez and his family. Señor Gutierrez corralled burros near the house, as a tourist lure for photo ops.
His talented son, Alfredo, was born in 1929. Legend has it, when Alfredo was a child, his incredible singing voice and dancing style earned him tips from miners each pay day when he performed on top of the bar at the Spirit Room. Young Alfredo would often return home with more money than his father's weekly salary. A Hollywood talent scout wanted to sign him up to become the next Mickey Rooney, but his strict parents forbade it. Alfredo's boisterous personality did not let up in later years.
As an adult he continued to perform music, and opened a restaurant where he would entertain guests in between cooking meals. His restaurant was in the location currently home to Cottonwood’s “Georgie’s.” Alfredo later shared the Gutierrez family home with his fashion designer wife, Ava Dering. Known popularly in the jet set as “Alfredo’s Wife,” she achieved some nationwide notoriety in the 1970s and ‘80s for her wild and colorful fashions.
How did the Cheifwetz family become part of the home’s history?
“It's a long story,” says Ms. Cheifetz, a native Ohioan who arrived in Phoenix in 1983. ”Steve introduced me to many different towns in Arizona years ago. When he decided to share Jerome with me, he said I would fall in love with it instantly. We had hopes of getting a place there someday. While sharing Jerome with our kids years later, we spotted a for sale sign. We called to check out houses and bought our home the next day!”

Attracted by “the beauty, the lifestyle and people, the music, the historical preservation and of course, the natural surroundings,” the Cheifetz family is now part of Jerome’s story. With extensive garden and stonework, the cottage boasts one of Jerome’s loveliest yards.
“Some would see the town’s commitment to preserving Jerome’s history and character as a challenge, but that is one of the things that drew us to town. The fact that new and long time residents feel a sense of honor and duty to keep out commercialism and contribute to the community is heartwarming,” says Ms. Cheifetz.

Ron Chilston photo

The Mills House
Perched high above town on “the Boardwalk” of Company Hill is a renovated Victorian, named for past mine supervisor, Carl Mills, who lived there with his family. Their son, Mark Mills, a Frank Lloyd Wright disciple and one of the foremost architects of his time, was born in the house. Originally built in 1898 for use by mine managers, this beautiful Victorian home was occupied by the Mills from approximately 1921 to 1950. They were likely its longest-term residents.

During the last half of the 20th century, the home suffered much neglect. By 2003, the roof was partially collapsed, and much of the house was filled with earth from the hillside above. The beautiful redwood facade was held in place only by vines of ivy. Many of the beautiful Victorian accents had vanished due to weather or vandals. Local resident and realtor, John Scarcella, renovated the home, utilizing the original interior floor plan, raising the roofline and adding dormers to create a full-size second story.

Tucson residents Deneill and Bill Phinney purchased the home in 2006. At the time, Mr. Phinney was preparing to retire from his career as a railroad engineer for the Union Pacific, and the couple began entertaining options for the next stage in their lives.
During the summer of ‘06, the couple headed off on an unstructured vacation, wandering north towards Utah. “At a stop in Phoenix, we picked up a brochure for the Verde Canyon Railroad and saw Jerome marked on the location map. My husband had never been to Jerome and the last time I had been was when I was in my early teens. I had fallen in love with the place then, so we decided to see what it was like now … We fell in love with the area, the town and the people … and then we fell in love with our house. We were walking around one day and saw the ‘for sale’ sign.” Fate struck.

Ms. Phinney continues, “One of my dreams has long been to live in a Victorian. I used to live in San Francisco and would walk around looking at the houses with all of their bright colors and charming gingerbread. While we were in the process of buying the house, we would periodically sneak up to sit on the front porch and look at the view. The front porch is probably our favorite part of the house, even now. Well, with the exception of in front of the fireplace, when it is snowing. And the garden when the lilacs and roses are in bloom. Oh, and the quiet corner of the bedroom upstairs which is set up for meditation and reading … I guess we just love everything about it! "

Ron Chilston photo

The Sullivan House is the oldest home on this year’s tour, dating from 1886.
It was also one of the earliest historic preservations, as part of the 1970s Restoration Commission’s project to conserve and restore the Victorian homes of Company Hill. The Restoration Commission was formed by a group of Jerome hippies who had a notion to save the old architectural gems of Jerome. Saved by the counterculture, just like much of this eccentric little city!
At the time, the structures were all owned by Phelps Dodge, and the mining company agreed to the hippies’ plan, charging each commission member $50 a month rent to caretake each home. Sherry MacMahon purchased the home in 1987, as part of “Society Hill Preservation, Inc.” and has lived there with her husband Curtis Linder ever since.
The home acquired its name from Con and Mary Sullivan, who inhabited it with their eight children. Con arrived from Ireland and served for a time as a head honcho of the mine. The large Sullivan clan spent many years in the Victorian gem and even today, later generations still return to visit the old homestead.
The one thousand-square foot house, in its current incarnation, boasts a new foundation, a new wood burning stove, roof, paint, wood flooring, cabinetry, bathrooms, railings, and plumbing. Ms. MacMahon, owner of Papillion Antiques, has filled the home with vintage treasures, and details that make it one of Jerome’s loveliest homes.

The Kinsella House.
Built in 2007, this 3000-square foot, three-story home features 675 square feet of deck space, and according to the owner, “One hell of a view!”
“This property had no building on it throughout Jerome’s history, which was good, since this whole area was demolished due to the slides of the 1930s,” wrote Jay Kinsella, a longtime Jerome local, all around “go to” guy, and perhaps the town’s next mayor, “During the 1930s subsidence (slide), every building was lost from the east side of Main Street to Juarez Street. All the buildings were pushed down the hillside between the Sliding Jail and what is now the end of Rich Street.”

In the late 1940s, a two-story foundation was built, but construction did not go any further. “Just a two story shell sat ‘til the late 70s,” Mr. Kinsella continues.
In the early 1980s, the second story was removed and pieces were used as retaining walls on the street side of the property. Jane Moore owned the property during the 80s, and used the foundation shell as a corral to keep her horses. Jay’s brother, Jim, owner of the house across the street, was next to purchase the land. In the late 80s, the concrete foundation remnants were used as a burn area by the Jerome Fire Department. Jim Kinsella passed away in 1999, and his family inherited the property. In 2007, Jay and his wife Pam began construction of the single-family home.

“It took 5 months 27 days to complete the house,” Mr. Kinsella says, “This was from the removal of the old foundation to the first meal in the kitchen.”

The Audrey Head Frame is the largest and oldest mining structure in Arizona. Tour takers may peer down the 1900-foot shaft. The bottom 200 feet is full of water!

The United Verde Apartments, an art deco set of three buildings overlooking the upper park and the road to Prescott, once housed offices and clinics, and now is home to a variety of hip and clever shops (including Puscifer and Jerome Tattoo) as well as restored apartments. The ceilings in each apartment are remarkably tall in a way modern apartments would never be.

The Connor Hotel.
A Jerome icon, a handsome building on a picturesque corner, the Connor is home to the popular Spirit Room, and an adorable collection of twelve well-kept historic rooms. The hotel was built in 1898 by an Irish American named David Connor, so it seems only fitting that a fiercely proud Irish American named David Conlin purchased the hotel with his business partner brother, Robert, in 1980. The hotel was in continuous operation from 1898 until 1988.

“In that year, the town closed it due to numerous code violations,” said general manager, Anne Conlin, “It had become sort of a flophouse. You know, get a room from the bartender for five dollars, or sometimes nothing at all!,” Ms. Conlin laughs, though acknowledges that even during those bleak days, the hotel still wore a proud mystique, with countless fond memories for many generations of locals and visitors. She exhibits the same fresh faced charm and twinkling grin as David Conlin, her father.

In 1999, the Conlins began renovations, and the hotel was reopened in 2000, complete with fire sprinklers, new fixtures, wiring and everything up to code. The hotel will have four rooms open on the north wing of the building for the Home Tour, “They’re really nice rooms. All fully renovated, yet they all retain their historic character,” states Ms. Conlin. The renovation contractor kept as much of the original wood work, doors, and other vintage fixtures as possible through the renovation.

This year’s Jerome Home Tour will also include a “living history” time line, events of the years ranging from 1860-1898 re-enacted in the streets throughout the day by actors in period costumes. Highlights include Civil War mock battles, complete with camps, uniforms and vintage weapons.

If you ever were curious about how Jerome people live, now is your chance to get up close and personal. It’s an interesting dichotomy. The folks on Cleopatra Hill are a hardy breed, determined, resolute, and tough as nails, but not lacking one bit of charm, beauty or magic. It’s no easy feat to live life perched on the side of this mountain, but it is worth all the extra effort for those who call Jerome home.

All proceeds from the Jerome Home Tour will benefit future projects of the Jerome Chamber of Commerce. Tickets are $12 for adults, and $6 for children 3-12. Kids 2 and under are free. For more information, contact Colleen at (928) 649-3837. Special thanks to Gallery 527’s Donna Chesler for sharing great information and details on this year’s tour. jeromechamber.com

Ellen Jo Roberts may let you tour her historic home some day, except she is afraid her attack Chihuahua will rip your face off. She lives in Clarkdale with Bike Daddy Chad, some pets, and Volkswagens. Read more about it at ellenjo.com

There's No Such Thing As The Perfect Couple

2010-04-12T16:13:00.000-07:00

Drinking rum cocktails watching the sun set over Clarkdale Arizona on a perfect spring night, adorable pets, fantastic climate, newly planted flowers--we are keenly aware of what a great life we've got.

Friends are splitting up all around us, married couples biting the dust.

We've seen it before and all it does is make us hold each other more tightly.

One thing I've learned in the 14 + years we've been married is that there's no such thing as "The Perfect Couple"....because every couple I've thought to be perfect has ended up crashing and burning in tremendous flames.

The Perfect Couple is a figment, something concocted by Hollywood and Hallmark.

Chad and I are far from perfect, be we work at it. We disagree much of the time, and our methods of dealing with the outside world and the challenges of life are 180 degrees different.

Astrologically speaking we just clash on every level. Never a dull moment.

He is analytical, scientific, overly sensitive and easily wounded. He is shy at parties, and sometimes awkward with new friends. He is distrustful of human motives, thinking everyone is out to get each other, or more specifically, out to get him.

I am light hearted, usually never taking things personally. I always think the best of people. People have their own things going on, and probably aren't even thinking of me, much less actively trying to sabotage me.

He is slow moving, and thoughtful. When he says something it is usually because he's given it a great deal of thought, and it is very meaningful. He sometimes cries at children's dance recitals and during heart-tugging films.

I am rash, shoot my mouth off without thinking, and sometimes make foolish detours, or neglect to read directions.

He thinks with enough pre-planning and list making one should never have to encounter anything bad. Never. You can circumvent anything bad simply by doing as much advance research as possible.

I think that you can never plan for every variable that could possibly happen, therefore I minimize the planning and just go with it, riding the world as it rotates, taking it as it comes.

He doesn't get angry quickly, but when he does it's a slow boil that lasts all day.

I get mad quickly, but forget it just as quickly.

We are night and day, yin and yang. I see the world through rose colored glasses, and he is a bit more realistic. I like to think these differences are complementary--that we make each other more well-rounded and a stronger team in the long run. Chad has taught me valuable lessons- like, foremost, "Not everyone thinks like you do, Ellen". Everyone's mind works differently. I am not always right. I do not always know everything. Stop and read the directions. Enjoy the silence and the scenery. Being the wife of Chad has made me a better person. Though sometimes the reality of being so different from each other also amounts to a major pain in the keester.

Yet still here we are together, after 17 years, almost 15 of them hitched as husband and wife.

In the 15 years we've been in Arizona, just about every couple we've known has since split up. With the exception of older baby boomers born in the 1940s and '50s, currently celebrating their 25th, 30th, 40th wedding anniversaries.

We sit in the yard sipping our lime crushed rum, and wonder how it is we've survived this minefield, with our peers crashing and burning to the left and the right of us. Couples more alike, more beuatiful, more seemingly together and in love than we've ever seemed to be. Was it all just an act for the public? Behind closed doors was it something else entirely? If they couldn't make it, how they hell can we (the obviously imperfect) ever make it?

"Maybe our values are more old fashioned, like the previous generation?", offers Chad.

His parents celebrated their 40th anniversary this year. They were high school sweethearts, first loves.

My marriage model is far different.

My parents were married for less than 8 years when my dad died in a car crash. I was 5, and my brother, Jimmy, was 3. We were raised by a single mother, and it seemed perfectly normal to us because we didn't know anything different. I certainly never thought I'd be married at 23.

For my generation marriage was no kind of commodity. There certainly wasn't the same importance placed on it as say, 30 or 40 years earlier, when women went to college to get their "MRS." degree.

My view to marriage was mostly based on my bickering grandparents who spent 58 years together before Gramp died at age 78. Would they have ever gotten divorced? No. Never. Unheard of. They toughed it out, even when they drove each other bonkers. I'm not saying this is good or bad-- just the way their generation did things. I never saw them be outwardly affectionate with each other, but I knew they cared deeply about each other. Could they have been happier with other people? Possibly? Would they have lived longer if they'd gotten hooked up with someone else? I don't think so. When Grandpa died, Grandma fell apart. She lived less than 2 more years, then was gone too. That's what happens when couples have been married for almost their whole lives.

Why are people so quick to hang it up? This is what always confounds me.

I bet they've not had nearly the number of challenges Chad and I have had, yet they hang it up.
Do I put up with an unusual amount of stress and drama in being married to such a different person than myself? I don't think so. Marriage is a tough gig. Anyone who signs up for it oughta realize. You think it's 50/50, but truth is a lot of times it's one person giving 100% and the other giving far less. Sometimes we take turns.

A key to happiness that occured to me recently, while running along the river on a glorious new spring day. The kind of day where the sprouting leaves are freshly green, the herons and hawks fly overhead right on cue, and the world just seems impossibly awesome.

The key to happiness is that you've got to be able to make yourself happy. You cannot be reliant on someone else for your happiness. For one, you're bound to be disappointed. And two, it's just not fair to that person. The key to happiness is to be happy alone, doing your own thing, generating your own good cheer. If you can do that you will be happy, I promise you.

You'll also be a valuable asset to your loved ones-- such a self-contained source of happiness will provide delight for all, with all the extra you'll have to share.

If you rely on your spouse, your friends, your family, any other person, to supply you your happiness it will end up a big mess.

A car club pal of mine recently pointed out to me that Chad and I are the only married couple still married from the club's early days. I also should have pointed out to her that I also still have the same car for the past 12 years. I pick something I like, and stick with it. Even when is gives me grief. I stick with it.

Ellen Jo Roberts was born a Dahlberg in 1972. She became a Roberts in 1995

Read all about it at www.ellenjo.com

Local Character: The Bee Man of Clarkdale AZ

2010-03-23T09:28:00.000-07:00

This story appeared in the Noise last Spring, though in revisiting with Locy this past weekend, and taking new photos, I thought it would be good to post his story online too...

Local Character:
Locy Rogers,
The Bee Man of Clarkdale AZ
The Outs
March 2009
By Ellen Jo Roberts

Locy Rogers just turned 80. He was born February 24th, 1929. This octogenarian has more energy and industriousness than many men half his age. A fixture in Clarkdale since 1960, Rogers is perhaps best known as “The Bee Man”. Everybody in the Verde Valley calls The Bee Man when they have a bee problem, such as a wayward hive in an inconvenient place. He will remove the bees and return them to his hives where he “works them” for honey, and will give them away or share them with other beekeepers.

“About three-fourths of ‘em, about half of ‘em, says ‘the police department, the fire department gave me your number,’” explains Rogers, with a twinkle in his eye as he starts to laugh and claps his hands together, “Oh-uh- I don’t want no trouble with the police!”

He lives in an 80 year-old house, on nearly an acre of ground near the Verde River in Lower Clarkdale, with a large irrigated plot for vegetables, abundant fruit trees, and a 30 year-old pecan tree that towers over the neighborhood. The pecan tree is a topic of jest for Rogers, who kids about it numerous time, how unusually large it is for its age, and how much the tree surgeons wanted to charge him to trim it back. He is full of quick smiles and sweeping gestures.

The Bee Man first started working with bees about 45 years ago, in an effort to help his son, “My oldest son had bad asthma, and they said honey would help. It helped some, pollen also, probably better than honey, but the pollen has to be from where you’re bothered. If your allergies are here, you need the pollen from here.”

Rogers was born and raised in Joseph City, AZ., along the old Route 66, between Winslow and Holbrook. At age 19 he left for Utah, working there a couple of years, prior to heading for Nevada where he worked in small independent mines. He soon moved to Mesa, Arizona, spending 4 years as a bus driver for the Gilbert School System. In June of 1959, Locy married his wife, Evelyn. By September of that same year the young couple had moved to the Verde Valley, for a job Rogers was offered here. They lived in Cottonwood for 6 months before finding a property in Clarkdale that appealed to them. In the late 1960s the Rogers moved to this current location, and together they raised 5 children, all of them attending local public schools. His children, and 11 grandchildren live in Arizona, California and Idaho. Quite a bountiful crop comes from this almost-acre. Locy Rogers proudly displays abundant family photos on the brightly-colored walls inside his house, telling me the names of all his children, and grandchildren. His wife passed on last year, at age 73.

He is very active in the LDS Church in Cottonwood. I am fascinated by the connection between his Mormon roots, and his rapport with the bees-- as bees and beehives are a traditional symbol of the cooperative and industrious nature of his religion. “Beehive is the Utah emblem,” he said, “but it can go on a lot of our stuff too”.

Since Rogers has lived in the Verde Valley for 50 years, I ask him what kind of changes he’s seen in our area. “Cottonwood was about that big when I moved here”, he says, gesturing, making a small circle with his hand, which he then expands, throwing his hands wide, “Pow! Clarkdale and everything else has grown, too.”
“What do you think about that Mountain Gate stuff up there?” I ask, referring to the ill-fated and over-ambitious subdivision in Upper Clarkdale. “Well it would be quite a lot bigger, if they hadn’t run out of money,” he laughs.

The Bee Man’s homestead is well kept, and tidy, yet not without its eccentricities. Folk art abounds-- quotes carved into concrete, a white plaster tiger in a cage, handmade stepping-stones, one for each grandchild, with their names made up of bits of tile and broken glass. Rogers has made much of this art, including a wooden sign above his front gate, welcoming visitors to “The Rogers’ Neighborhood”. His garden-themed work is featured in the yearly “Made in Clarkdale” art show each December. “You’re an artist, Locy,” I declare.
“I’m not a big expensive artist,” he responds, “Just a lil’ ol’ cheap one.”

I tell Rogers that I’ve admired his yard for years. I imagine it would be a fun place for a kid to grow up (since it always makes me wish I was a kid who lived there, running around that garden and playing on that vintage, sun-baked swing set, like some crazy 1930s dream). He continues to show me around the yard, “I had a little frame up there, I had 6 hives set on it for a number of years. And then I done this ‘n’ that and gradually got rid of the bees, and just catch ‘em and get ‘em going and then give ‘em or sell ‘em to somebody. That’s what I’ll do the rest of my life, is catch ‘em and get ‘em going. If you’re interested, and have a place to have ‘em, well, I’ll work out with you so you can go ahead and work with them.”

Beekeeping is not a hobby for the average homeowner--it’s not like maintaining dogs, or goats, or chickens. You can’t just buy a bag of bee food--they need to find their own food. You must just live in a good spot with close proximity to blooms. Arizona summers are sometimes a bit too dry for the bees to produce enough honey to survive the winter. According to Rogers, “They need seventy-five to one hundred pounds of honey in the fall, when it freezes, to survive the winter.” Bees do not go dormant or hibernate during the cold seasons, though they do move more slowly, and cluster up in a “basketball shape” for warmth. “When they run out of food they’re done, “explains Rogers, “Your pantry gets empty, you couldn’t go to the store, and your neighbors wouldn’t loan you a few bites of food—you’re gonna get hungry.”

I ask Rogers his thoughts on the current concerns about bees dying off-- the epidemic, virus or whatever it is that is killing them. “Well, I’m not sure just what it is, whether they know yet or not.
But, they talk like, summer before last, that the bees a lot of ‘em left and never come back. Why, I don’t know. Every so often, so many years, a cycle like this happens, so many years later the same thing happens again, and the same number of years again it happens. It’s a kind of sequence, why or what I don’t know. I had an article or two that talked about sixty to ninety percent of bees are leaving but not coming back.”
“What do you find here in the Verde Valley—do you notice that there is a drop off in bee population?” I ask.
“Not that bad, but because most of the times I’ve been catching bees –water meter boxes, hanging on the trees, hanging on the corner of something, under houses, and I catch them and bring them to the hives and get them going.”

Rogers says that if bees were to disappear completely, we’d be in big trouble. What would pollinate all of our fruits and vegetables? Then, further along the chain, with no crops, what would livestock eat? It would have a far-reaching and drastic impact. “If the bees are going down, and go out, ‘n’ we lose ‘em all… we got food to last us 4 years and then we’re out of food!”
“What do you think will happen, Locy?” I ask.
“I think they’ll come back in another few years”, he responds, “They’re blaming cell phones, global warming, and I think pesticides, is what I’ve heard. They’re blaming about three things, which one, or whether all three of them. Pesticides, people, you spray your yards, the pest control guy comes around your house, and different things and that’s the point for getting rid of some. And global warming, I can’t quite myself know why it would discourage them, or make it bad. But then your cell phones, as I understand it, if I’m not mistaken, the frequency, whether that is too much interfering with their system of life, I don’t know.”

Rogers predicts honey will become a commodity if the bee population continues to dwindle. “About 25 years ago I was selling honey for $8.00 a gallon. The last year or two years I’ve been selling it for $10.00 a quart.” Most of honey is made during the summer months. “If you have a rainy wet winter, and a big hive of bees, you need to be extracting honey every week to ten days, from the same hive. When they’re strong and really bringing in,” he says.

He currently has a small collection of active hives near a dry arroyo that runs alongside his property. When asked about Africanized bees, Rogers says that though he’s had some hives “go aggressive”, “killer bees” are generally much over-hyped by the media, “Most people are scared to death of bees. And then the news media the last three, few years have been every time you find a report on a bunch of bees, are ‘KILLER BEES!’ You’re not really maybe not scared of ‘em, but you don’t wanna’ be around ‘em much. And they start to talk about ‘killer bee’ or ‘Africanized bees’ and that makes you that much worse. I talked to a bee friend a couple of years ago, about them, and he said, ‘Locy, there’s no use of fighting the news media. They’re big, powerful, lotta’ money, they can do whatever they want.’ And I thought, eh, that’s about right.”

If you are unable to find someone to remove a crowd of bees from your property, Rogers recommends a novel, and non-toxic method: soapy water. “You get a bucket of water and dump it over your head,
and you’re almost completely wet, then you get them [the bees] clear wet and in 3 to 5 minutes, they’re all done. I’ve told people for the last 3 to 4 years, probably like you get a soft plastic bag over your head, and a rubber band around your neck, how long you gonna last? Okay, to me the soap would be sealing their breathing system, like the plastic bag would us, and when you run out of air, you’re gone. You don’t have to put this here poisonous spray, and stuff like exterminators do on’ em. But, a few of em that get aggressive. Anyways, in these water boxes I can’t get all of ‘em out of it into my box to bring home to put in hives to work ‘em. I just have to get soapy water and spray ‘em and close the lid and go home. I can’t save em all, but I saved most of em.”

The Bee Man drives a red truck, with an amusing and memorable logo designed by local sign-painter John Alvey—it’s a bee with a man’s head. When on a call to remove a hive, Rogers uses a veil to cover his head, but otherwise works with bare hands. I ask him if he gets stung ever. “Sometimes quite a few and other times not at all.”
Rogers shows me how he collects the bees with his bare hands, with gentle and slow movements. It’s not unlike how people might respond to your movements-- a gentle nudge is acceptable, whereas a harsh shove might be taken as a sign of aggression.
“You be gentle to me, I’ll be gentle to you, and we’ll get along,” he explains.

Locy Rogers is preparing his garden for springtime, sowing seeds and tending to the soil. He has onions and garlic already growing, with plans to sow squash, corn, and his famous 4 O’Clocks that will line the fence. He grows a hybrid version with multi-colored flowers. He estimates he’s shared thousands of his special 4 O’Clock seeds with folks over the years, “You’ve heard of Johnny Appleseed? Well, I’m like Locy 4 O’Clock-seeds!” Rogers is a real gem of a person -- cheery, straightforward, generous and full of life-- a genuine local character. Though his bee rescue dance-card is full most of the year, he asked me to publish his phone number for folks who need his assistance.
His card reads “Bee Happy!”
Thanks Locy!

To contact Locy, please call (928) 634-5937.

Ellen Jo Roberts is not allergic to or afraid of bees, though she is not too fond of wasps, hornets, or those damn “no-see-ums”. She lives in a historic brick bungalow in Clarkdale, with Bike Daddy Chad, several killer dogs and one noisy big-mouth cat. You can read all about it at Ellenjo.com

Real Mexican

2010-02-22T07:50:00.000-08:00

Real Mexican
The Noise
The Outs-March 2010
Ellen Jo Roberts

In my next life I want to come back as a Mariachi. They have such zest and good cheer, wear such dashing outfits, and get paid big bucks to whistle like jilguerillo birds.

“Hello from Mexico where I have collected a slight sunburn, a small bag of sea shells, some tequila souvenirs for pals, and many photographs. The locals are all congenial, and they all tell me I speak with a Norteňo accent.”

Recently, I went to Cancun for a friend’s wedding. Cancun was an invention of the Mexican government in the 1960s, developed as a tourism location. Along the Caribbean Sea in the Yucatan, it’s a Mexico unfamiliar, much different than our desert Mexico out west. Where our neighbor, Sonora, is dry, mountainous, dusty, full of cactus, and American retiree RVs, the Yucatan peninsula is green, tropical, flat, low elevation lush, and full of hard-bodied international 20-somethings, dancing ‘til dawn.

I’ve been to Mexico about 9 or 10 times now. A passport did not used to be required to drive across the border, but as of June 2009, tightening travel restrictions demand it. Arizonans frequently head to Mexico for lower priced prescriptions and dental work. We go there for amusement and adventures.

The first time we went to Mexico was a trip down the Baja California peninsula, to Ensenada, in 1997. We were alarmed at the confusing lack of street signs, and the abundance of litter. Thieves stole a bag of rubber rafts and a bike pump from our Toyota. We ate fish tacos at a street corner stand for every meal, drank cheap Kahlua and slept in our truck on the beach every night.
The Pacific was big, grey and cold. After dark, glowing green phosphorescent algae illuminated each crashing wave, like a most magical fireworks show.

Not long after the foray into Baja, we discovered a closer coastal town, Puerto Peñasco, Sonora. Also known as “Rocky Point”, it’s a Spring Break mecca to thousands of Arizona college students, being a mere 3 hour drive from metro Phoenix (even faster if you’re a lead foot). There’s an incredible tidal fluctuation where the Sea of Cortez meets Puerto Peñasco— revealing anywhere from 30 to 300 feet of shoreline, and amazing tidal pools brimming with wee creatures.
We spent many years escaping to those beaches, staying in cheap motels where you couldn’t flush the toilet paper, riding bikes to the beaches, kayaking, snorkeling, collecting shells, chatting with friendly locals and shrimp fishermen.

Puerto Peñasco is home to “C.E.D.O”., a renowned center of study for aquatic mammals of the Sea of Cortez, especially a rare and endangered cetacean, a type of short nosed porpoise known as the Vaquita, native only to these waters. Over the years, Puerto Peñasco has both prospered and suffered from its proximity to the U.S. The formerly small fishing community is now overrun by luxury high-rise time shares, and desert golf resorts. Technically, foreigners are not allowed to own property in Mexico, especially not near the coast. However, an elaborate round-about way via second parties and bank trusts does allow it, unfortunately making Mexico more American by the minute.
One must get further and further away from the border to find the real Mexico.

Our Baja Bug once ran out of gas outside of Sonoita. We had to push the car along the highway, singing to the Kinks on the tape deck until some Phoenix dude in a toy hauler stopped, and sold us a couple of gallons to get us into town.

Another time on the same road while returning from a Sonoran adventure with amigos, about 40 kilometers shy of the Arizona border, all of the truck’s dash warning lights lit up like Christmas. Much shouting, and distressed profanities as we pulled over to the roadside. It was July and a relentless 111 degrees. Luckily for us, we were near a small ranch house, the only structure for many miles. The woman who answered the door was named Socorro. My friend Hilda and I chatted with her, while Chad and Lucio attempted to remedy the Toyota’s problems. Seems the air-conditioning belt had sprung loose and hopped right into the engine’s fan belt. Everything was wedged tight. The situation seemed dire. Our lack of proper tools was foolish. At one point Lucio was wielding a giant rock, poised over the hot engine like a deranged caveman. Socorro asked us what we needed. We explained that if only we had a new fan belt we could just cut all that tangled mess out and replace the one belt most vital. She led us to her backyard, where a mesquite tree was covered with an assortment of fan belts in every size, dangling like delicious fruit in front of my teary eyes. We gave her $20 American dollars and a giant head-sized mango from our cooler, and soon we were back on the road home. Perhaps it’s only fitting that “Socorro” translates literally as “help” or “assistance.”

We snapped a photo of Socorro. Americans are always very smiley in photos, but as customary with “Real Mexicans”, Socorro did not smile. Instead she remained stoic, same as two of her young grandchildren standing with her, all three looking so serious.

I got schooled on “Real Mexicans” during the many years of my Arizona life spent working at hotels and resorts, with Mexican immigrants, both legal and not quite so legal. Some days I barely spoke English at all, and I loved it. I even started to think in Spanish. It is a time fondly remembered and I am forever grateful for all I learned. The Mexicans were surprised I could handle it, working so hard, side by side with them, but I changed their perceptions of Americans, just as they enlightened me to their Mexican ways. First off, they all thought I was typically “American” for wanting 2 days off a week. Most of them worked at least 2 or 3 jobs, and thought Americans were lazy.

“I am like an American today,” my friend Hilda joked with me, “Staying at home, under the covers, watching TV!” Hilda, a Jalisco native, has always encouraged me, telling me if she could be a success in a foreign country I had no proper excuse not to succeed in my own native land. Mexicans like to work hard. They don’t want to discuss it; they just want to do it. Americans are too enamored with lengthy meetings, chatter, and creating too many pieces of paperwork.

Mexicans like to give funny and insulting nicknames to each other. The little skinny-legged guy was Apėnas salir de un huevo, or “just hatched from an egg”. The drunk was Gusano Muerto, the dead worm in the bottom of the mescal bottle. The lady with the goofy walk and the big nose was La Guacamaya, some type of equally silly-looking bird. The really old guy was Listo Para Morir (Ready to Die). The woman with the large butt was known as simply as “Big in the Back”. “Mexican men like the ‘big in the back’ ladies,” they explained.

I had myriad nicknames, all alluding to my gigantic stature, including Macedona (which I think translates to “mastodon”), and Grandota. “Mėndiga” was another one, meaning too sneaky or clever for my own good. I learned that they only gave nicknames to people they liked.
It was an honor. If they didn’t like you, they didn’t even bother.

As serious as a Real Mexican could be in a photo, it was completely the opposite in life: joking, goofing, jovial all the time. It always confounds me that the Arizona government considers Mexican immigrants equivalent to terrorists. There has got to be a better way to handle the situation along our borders.

On my most recent trip to Mexico, I was traveling alone, moving from airport to airport, shuffling along in lines with strangers. By the end of my trip, my thoughts became clear and concise in the way they only can while traveling alone. Thinking more than speaking. Looking out on the world from 30,000 feet up. Observations become crystalline. Mexico, an amazingly varied landscape full of wonderfully warm people, incredible art, music, history, is often thought of as being corrupt, dangerous, violent, impoverished. Sure, it is all of these things, but there’s so much more to the story. Our lives here, al otro lado (on the other side of the border), are equally complex. In fact, compared to the way things are going in the U.S., Mexico doesn’t actually seem quite so mismanaged anymore. Maybe I’ll move there.
In my next life, as a Mariachi.

Ellen Jo Roberts was born in Illinois (1972). She lives in a historic Clarkdale Arizona house (1914) and drives a yellow car built in Germany (1973). She is married to Bike Daddy Chad (Illinois 1972). They share their home with assorted pets born in the 21st century. Read all about it at ellenjo.com

Attack of the 39 Foot Woman!

2010-01-26T07:30:00.000-08:00

Attack of the 39 Foot Woman!
The Outs- February 2010
Ellen Jo Roberts

Cue scene…and ACTION! A giant woman invades the Verde Valley! Larger than life, a vision in white! The townspeople revolt violently! Chaos! Confusion!…and Cults? How will this story end? Stay tuned!

The Mago towers at the edge of Cottonwood, along Bill Gray Road, 39 feet tall, and standing on a 9 ½ foot base. Part of the Sedona Tao Center’s Mago “Earth Park”, she represents a vision of “earth mother”, gingerly holding a floating globe within her colossal hands. Like many atomic giants that terrorize the tiny townsfolk, Mago’s origins are in Asia. “Soul of the Earth” is the Korean mythology of Mago. Her outsized presence has stirred the Verde Valley into an equally jumbo-sized lather. For months, hundreds of letters to the editor rant and rave against her appearance: some protests reasonable, others prejudiced and hateful.
Reasonable complaints argue that this statue simply violates the building code, design regulations, and height ordinance. While others quote the Bible and argue against the basic tenants of the Constitution. Still others say it blocks the view and could potentially cause visual impairment to the vehicular public due to its dominance along State Highway 89A. Perhaps the biggest problem many Verde Valley residents struggle with in this tale is the center’s connection to controversial Dahn Yoga, its cult-like leader, Ilchi Lee, and his organization’s questionable business practices.

By the time you read this article, the giant Mago may be gone.
Sorry if you missed her. At press time, the park’s lawyer, Flagstaff land use attorney, Willam P. Ring, P.C., had offered a compromise to Cottonwood’s Planning and Zoning Commission offering to remove the 39 foot statue in exchange for a smaller 9 foot version.

“We understood, from the criteria, that monuments of spiritual quality were not subject the height ordinance”, Mr. Ring explained, at the public meeting January 25th, citing various Cottonwood building codes, “We are willing to admit this evening that was OUR misunderstanding. We are willing to retire that statue and replace it with a smaller Mago statue”.

I am a huge fan of roadside kitsch. We travel far and wide to catch sight of highway mascots, folk art, and assorted monuments to bad taste. There is something just so full of silliness, so full of joie de vivre, it makes me just plain happy to be alive on planet earth. When somebody believes in something so strongly and feels so compelled to create something so crazy, it renews my faith in the human spirit. The Mago and the other various religious figures depicted at the Sedona Mago Center’s Earth Park definitely qualify as Kitschville to the max. I half expected Mother Mago would be holding a giant donut, or a muffler, like her fiberglass kin folk across the USA. So, yeah, I gotta admit, I went there, and I kinda loved it. It was so totally over the top that it knocked my socks off.
The Mago is gigantic and glossy. She can be seen from as far away as Jerome, and far out along Highway 260. She is a pale-faced blonde, in a bright white robe. Locals squawk at her blonde “Barbie Doll” looks. It doesn’t meet our traditional notion of an “earth mother”, which is generally more in earth tones-- like the native and natural tribes that make up the majority of the globe. Against the Arizona blue sky, with Sedona’s red rocks in the distance behind her, she is a striking scene. Looking up at the 39 foot tall Mago I imagine this must be how I look to my pet Chihuahua, Floyd.

“The flowing robes, the grace. Striking.”
– Carl Spackler, “Caddyshack” c. 1980

It would only be a matter of time before cartoonist Bill Griffiths (a well-known fan of gigantic roadside weirdness) would arrive in Cottonwood, Arizona to draw a “Zippy the Pinhead” comic featuring the Mago. The park, neatly landscaped with shrubs, trees, and stone pathways, is also home of many other not-quite-as-colossal figures, referred to by the city of Cottonwood as “ornaments’. There is a 15 foot tall Kokopelli statue, surrounded by lil’ multicolored children in action, running, kicking jumping in every direction. Naturally, the native North American legend of Kokopelli is one of fertility—the stranger that comes to town with his big “flute” leaving a throng of pregnant women in his wake. That’s where all these childrens came from! Basically, Kokopelli was just a gigolo! Why are we not protesting him? A small side courtyard features 10 foot tall golden figures of “Enlightened Ones” depicting Jesus Christ, Buddha...maybe Zeus, Confucious, and some Native American figure in full Plains feathered regalia.

While I was at the park avidly snapping photos, a pleasant man cheerfully introduced himself as “Alex, the owner”. We chatted a bit. He explained that the center, their own private property, was something they wanted to open up for everyone to enjoy, for the public’s use. He then invited me to come into a small building for more information and some tea. I saw the pile of shoes outside the door, and lost my nerve. If there were strings attached to this park, I didn’t want to be tangled up in them.

The Earth Park, consisting of 6 acres of land at Bill Gray Road and Highway 89A, was originally issued a permit in 2006 simply as a welcome center, parking lot, and shuttle staging area, to bring visitors from Highway 89A back out to the organization's retreat center many miles along the unpaved and wild Bill Gray Road. The Tao Center of Sedona opened its Mago Retreat in a remote area of the Coconino National Forest between Sedona and Cottonwood back in 1998. The retreat center is renowned for its “green” practices, using solar energy, grey water, and installing thousands of native trees and plants. They have an organic garden, fertilized by compost from their dining hall and manure from their horse stables.

In the past 3 years additional interim permits were approved allowing for such things as small events at the Earth Park, things like farmers markets, weddings, and parties. Landscaping was improved, and small gazebos were constructed. A conditional use permit legally allowed the Mago Center to erect the 50 foot Mago for their opening celebration, December 16th 2009. Once the permit expired, as it now has, the statue would have to be removed. These interim and conditional use permits assumed a final permanent design for the property would be presented within 3 years. It has not been. This makes the Cottonwood Planning and Zoning Commission testy. A stop order has been placed on various additional unapproved projects. .
The public hearing to review the statue’s conditional use permit needed to be postponed a month, when crowds too large to be seated arrived to protest. The meeting location was rescheduled for a much larger venue, Cottonwood’s Mingus Union High School auditorium.

“It’s incredible that you are the only planning and zoning commission in the U.S. to be gullible enough to allow this,” said feisty Cottonwood resident Judy Love, calling the Mago an ”incredibly ugly” statue, “That statue is a free advertising sign to get people into their compound, and relieve them of their money. It’s all about the money. It’s a business, not a faith based church, but it’s along the same lines as Jonestown, the Moonies, David Koresh, and the recent sweat lodge incident in Sedona. We should not allow this to happen in our community.”

“Why not give your neighbors a chance?” asks Dahn Yoga spokesman Joseph Alexander from Mesa AZ, “I have volunteered at the Mago Earth Park. It is designed to share with all people. This is not about religion, or one religion. It’s about recognizing each other as fellow citizens of the earth.”

Johhny LeDoux from Cottonwood declared himself as a member of the Nazarene Church, “To me this is an affront. This is an idol. This is a graven image.”

“I am opposed,” said Cottonwood businessman, Mark Avery, “I did not come here to talk about religious aspects. It should be known that the Tao Center is a for profit business.” Mr. Avery then sited the recent CNN report and investigation of Ilchi Lee. “If you put up a 4 foot statue it is not going to attract anybody. It’s not about religion. It’s about sign code. How can I attract people? It’s my business. I need to attract people. If you don’t enforce this, how can you control it when the hardware store wants to put up a 50 foot hammer?…It’s a business and it’s getting bigger by the minute.”

Ilchi Lee, a legalized American citizen born in South Korea in 1950, is a “brain philosopher”, and founder of a series of brain and body training programs, some criticized for their intensity and danger. Dahn Yoga includes traditional elements of yoga already familiar to us: stretching, meditation, circulation, and “chi” representing human energy flow. The Korean word “Dahn” translates as “primal, vital energy.” But, the program also allegedly features overexertion, sleep deprivation, dehydration, numbing repetition, and other tactics commonly used for breaking the spirit and controlling the mind. Various lawsuits were brought to court and dismissed throughout the ‘00s, including wrongful death, sexual assault, and unfair business practices. A current Arizona lawsuit, filed in May 2009, includes claims against Ilchi Lee from 26 former Dahn members and masters from throughout the United States, and Korea. All plaintiffs claim that after lengthy association with Dahn Yoga (sometimes years worth of various studies and programs, with aggressive encouragement to recruit new members and new money) they were finally “able the break the psychological manipulation and indoctrination sufficiently to leave Dahn.”

“The Dahn organization (“Dahn”), which is controlled by Defendant Ilchi Lee, operates under a complex web of corporate names, and is comprised of myriad for-profit and not-profit business entities and organizations, including but not limited to the Corporate Defendants, Dahn Yoga & Health Centers Inc., Tao Fellowship, BR Consulting, Inc., Mago Earth, Inc., Vortex, Inc., and CGI, Inc., all of which collectively operate and control more than 130 “Dahn Yoga” Centers in the United States, including 6 in Arizona, as well as more than 300 Dahn Yoga Centers in South Korea, 350 in Japan, and approximately 20 in Canada and the United Kingdom.”
-Case number 2:09-cv-01115-SRB in the United States District Court for the District of Arizona

The Sedona retreat hosts about 3000 guests each year, as the primary training facility for Dahn worldwide, and is noted many times throughout the current lawsuit. In the legal documents the essence of the organization comes across as a giant pyramid scheme, an aggressive business plan. Members are encouraged to attend more and more classes, and programs, sometimes going into great debt in order to do so. They’re encouraged to enlist new members into the fold, for more money. Dahn defendants deny all claims made in the lawsuit, referring to the plaintiffs as “disgruntled employees”.

“When Defendants deemed that they had been sufficiently indoctrinated, Plaintiffs were coercively induced to attend an extended Dahn Yoga training retreat in Sedona, Arizona, called ‘Master’s Training’. This retreat was designed by Defendants to further indoctrinate Plaintiffs into Dahn and reinforce a Dahn members 100% devotion to Dahn, and Defendant Ilchi Lee and his ‘Vision’”.
-Case number 2:09-cv-01115-SRB in the United States District Court for the District of Arizona

“When I look at Mago statue I see hope. Hope for unity. Hope for the future I had not seen before I began this practice,” said Johnell Moore a Dahn devotee from Mesa, Arizona. “The United States Constitution gives me the right to practice my spirituality in any way I like, as long as it doesn’t interfere with your rights.”

Danny DeBose, “an American Citizen and Veteran” of Cottonwood said, “One of the things I was fighting for was freedom of religion, for people to worship how they wish. That’s why we came here to this country. I’d like our constitution to be held up. I’m in favor of the Mago Park…Sometimes people don’t like what they see in art. But perhaps this is because they don’t like what they see in themselves.”

Many feel the Mago could become a major tourist draw benefiting the entire Verde Valley. The Mago Center is a for profit organization, with future plans for a motel, restaurant, gift shop and horse back riding at the site of their Earth Park. Hiding behind religion when it suits them, the Tao Center seems to want to play both sides of the coin depending on what side is more advantageous at the moment. In the end, it’s not about religion, business, good art or bad art. It’s about Cottonwood building codes, zoning, and design review. Rules, plain and simple.

5’9’’ Ellen Jo Roberts lives in a historic brick bungalow that meets all Clarkdale building codes.
She shares her home with 6’4’’ Bike daddy Chad, and several rambunctious pets that are all up to date on their vaccinations and fully licensed by local authorities.
Read all about it at ellenjo.com