I was raised on a dairy farm, and grew up with the strength that long hours, hard work and responsibility gives a farm kid. When I wasn’t doing chores, I wandered and explored the fields, woodlands and swamps. I didn’t…
“We don’t inherit the Earth from our parents. We borrow it from our children.” David Brower Evidence of human use of the Thompson Springs area can be dated back to the Archaic Period, when beautiful pictographs were left in Sego…
The trains don’t stop at Woodside any more. After the geyser stopped erupting the people didn’t go there anymore and the cars don’t stop there anymore. Now you can buy Roy Pogue’s 700 acres, abandoned buildings and assorted junk for…
Cisco, Utah is literally in the middle of nowhere. Off of I70, northeast of Moab and east of anything, it once was a bustling community. The decaying structures, and plenty of old vehicles and other rusting wreckage, are left deserted…
The bridge is gone, the station is gone. The people are gone, and what is left is concrete, asphalt, concrete and sameness! Not much is left of Dewey, Utah is along the Colorado River near the Dewey Bridge. Originally named…
Did a Land Transfer Blessed by Environmentalists Give a Boost to TAR SANDS NATION? I seem to stumble into stories these days. I wasn’t looking for this one. But a couple weeks ago, I was perusing one of the local…
On December 11, 1998, twenty-five years ago today, my friend Herb Ringer passed away in Fallon, Nevada. He was 85 years old. His health had been failing for a few years. In 1994, Herb was forced to give up driving — the greatest joy of his life — when he was diagnosed with a rapidly deteriorating case of macular degeneration. I had met up with him that summer at a high mountain lake above Crested Butte, Colorado. Earlier that week, an optometrist in Salida had diagnosed his condition and warned Herb that he needed to head home to Fallon immediately. Herb took the news stoically, maybe better than I did, and he left for Fallon the next day.
…this story is personal; it’s more about our friendship than his special artistic talents, though both are forever intertwined. I’d like to tell you more about Herb Ringer, the good-hearted, decent man and loyal friend that he became to me. We were connected in a way that I have rarely experienced. Herb once said, “You’re the son I never had.” The feeling was mutual.
My last trip to White Canyon was in December 1959. It was just a few days after my thirteenth birthday. Grandpa was going to the desert again to do assessment work on his uranium claims, and he asked if Reed and I would like to go along. I was thrilled. I had been given a little box camera for my birthday, and I was excited by the opportunity to take some pictures before Lake Powell covered my favorite place forever.
Before we even started, I had a feeling about that trip; a premonition I suppose. Somehow I knew that this would be my last visit to that special place of my childhood. I was going to White Canyon to say goodbye….
By midafternoon of the next day, we were almost to Tucumcari, New Mexico, about 1200 miles from Louisville. The country was wide open now and we could see for miles. My brother and I were puzzled by large black spots on the rolling high desert and wondered if there had been a fire. Then my brother noticed that those black spots were moving. We were looking at the shadows of cumulus clouds rolling over the land. We had never seen anything like it in our lives….
…..But my father drove right past Desert View. Before I had time to whine, he explained his theory. “Every tourist always stops at the very first pullout. Did you see how crowded it is? Instead we’re going to the next turnoff. It was just half a mile or so further and he was absolutely right. Nobody was there. My brother and I had been bickering in the backseat, when my dad said, “Look out the window.” Suddenly our bickering stopped. My poison ivy quit itching. My father seemed wiser than I’d thought just five minutes earlier. It was the Grand Canyon. Words failed all of us.
For the last two years, I knew there was a vital part of this story that was missing. Like I’ve said so many times before, what about Abel Aragon’s family? What about his wife and five children? I had read the editorial in the Price Sun-Advocate, written the week after the murders, and I wondered if it was already a plea to their fellow citizens in response to a backlash from the community. How did the Aragon family cope with this insane crime?
But I had no idea how to contact the Aragon family. And if I did, would they even want to talk to me? Even worse, had they seen my articles and resented the fact that I have dragged up this awful piece of history from 60 years ago? I resigned myself to the idea that it was one part of the saga that was beyond my reach. But last November, I opened my email and was stunned to see an email from a member of the Aragon family. At first I was almost afraid to read it. Had I opened old wounds unnecessarily and caused them even more pain?
I opened the email. It was addressed to “To whom it may concern…I know that there is a great likelihood that this won’t find the right person and that this is a shot in the dark, but I was wondering if there’s a way that I could provide some information on a topic that Jim Stiles has been writing about for many many years.”
I read on…