‘STILES’ TIME MACHINE’— Return to Moab, OCTOBER 4, 1941…by Jim Stiles

Well, it’s been raining buckets since yesterday afternoon and with no end in sight. These storms have been a welcome relief after our long, dry and dusty summer, so I’m not going to mention all the mud out there. And I wouldn’t even remotely consider complaining about it.

But I will note that when I walked over to the Arroyo to see the flooding, I sank almost to my knees in the

Moab Flooding 1917.

gooey stuff and when I tried to extract myself from the quagmire, I accidentally pulled my bare feet right out of my galoshes and ended up abandoning them there, just west of Main Street. I assume by now they’ve come unglued from the goop, washed into Mill Creek and are headed downstream to the Colorado River and Lake Mead! My barefooted trudge back home was, well, it was quite a sensory experience!

The Arroyo is quite a sight. I’m not sure how many Moabites know the Arroyo’s history. Way back in 1855, when the Huntington party arrived here and set up housekeeping, one of their first tasks of course was to get the garden going. They diverted water from Mill Creek for that purpose and were making great progress with their crops. But when things went sour with the Utes and the Mormons hightailed it out of here so fast, they forgot to shut off the irrigation diversion gates. As a result all that water kept being diverted from Mill Creek for the next 30 years! Needless to say, it cut quite a ditch. I guess someday, some enterprising Moabites will fill it in and build something atop it, but for now, it’s a reminder of Moab’s past and also a warning to how quickly life can change around here—for better or worse.

I drove out to the Arches to see my friend Hank Schmidt. He’s the ‘custodian; and head honcho at the Monument and in charge of keeping the roads open. However, Hank is feeling a bit frustrated and maybe overwhelmed. He and I sipped coffee this morning watching the floods come down the canyon.

Balanced Rock. Arches National Park.

Hank was feeling philosophical and showed me the report he recently sent to Boss Hinckley, the Southwest Monuments Superintendent for the National Park Service. He told Boss, “The rains came, the winds stayed with us and much of the road is now somewhere between Arches and Boulder Dam. I don’t like to ‘cry’ about the road to the Windows, but now and then, after filling the same washout 3 times a day in 6 days, I sort of ‘holler’ at myself, often producing a fair-sized echo that re-echoes until it dwindles into a sigh.”

Ol’ Hank is quite the philosopher/poet, I think.

* * *

We both managed to shake off the gloom of all these storms when Hank asked me if I’d heard about Ted Williams (the great Boston Red Sox left-fielder.) Of course I had. I have been a fan of this kid from Beantown since he came to the majors two years ago. How can this skinny young fella, who they call “The Splendid Splinter,” hit the ball so far?

Anyway, as you all know, Ted has been batting above .400 all season–something that hasn’t happened in many years–but his average started to slip last week and he was in danger of losing that amazing .400 average. His manager, Joe Cronin, told Ted he could sit out the last two games to preserve his average,

Joe Dimaggio and Ted Williams.

but Ted wouldn’t think of it. So he went into those last two games and just knocked the cover off the ball…batted 6 for 8, if you can believe it. Wound up the season batting .406.

I wonder how long his record will stand? You gotta love a guy like that. I imagine we’ll be having many ‘discussions’ this winter at the Club 66, as we all debate the relative greatness of Ted and Joe DiMaggio. What a season it has been–Ted bats .400 and Joltin’ Joe hits safely in 56 consecutive games. They’re BOTH the greatest as far as I’m concerned.

* * *

I wish we’d had Ted and Joe’s bats last week to knock some sense into a couple of these government people; last week they did something so thoughtless and rude, it almost defies description.

Last April, I read that sculptor Albert Christensen, the fellow that is blasting a home right out of the rock (about 15 miles south of town) was embarking on a new project. He called it ‘The Unity Monument” and its purpose was to honor BOTH of the candidates in the recent 1940 presidential election. It’s a rare moment, Albert noted, when America is offered such a remarkable choice of decent, honorable men. Both President Roosevelt and his opponent, the Republican Wendell Willkie, possessed all the qualities we could ever hope for in a great leader. Mr. Christensen felt it was a memorable moment in American history and so he sought to honor them, via his art.

Albert built a “working model” on a wall south of his home. It depicted FDR on the left, Willkie on the right, separated only by a bald eagle and bound together by the expression, “United We Stand.” Tonya and I drove out to see his ‘work-in-progress’ last May and were mightily impressed. He told us at the time that his ‘big plan’ was to sculpt a massive version of the monument on a large sandstone wall about a mile south of his home. He estimated that “more than 100,000 people” could gather in the natural amphitheater below to examine his work. There was even word that a group of Moab citizens, including Mayor D.E. Baldwin, Bish Taylor, publisher of the local paper, Sheriff J.B. Skewes, and LDS bishop W.R. McConkie, wrote to Mr. Willkie and invited him to the dedication ceremonies.

The Unity Monument, destroyed.

Between thunderstorms, I went down to his ‘Hole “N” the Rock’ home  to visit with Albert again,  and I have to say I have never seen him so angry and bewildered. It made no sense to him at all that the government would destroy his work of art. He showed me a letter he planned to send to the government and Albert gave me permission to quote from it. In part, Mr. Christensen stated,  “To me, it was one of the greatest expressions (of unity) because it showed no greediness. It showed only each man’s desire to win, and Americans are that way. Were they out for revenge after the election? I cannot think so.”

Finally, Albert pleaded, “I worked with a God Inspired ambition–quite unfair to my family, barely food enough to hold our bodies together–two minor children my wife and myself–because of a God. And a God Inspired obsession….If I had been in error in my filing, it seems the general land office would have tried to explain where I was in error and perhaps attempt to help me straighten the thing out, but they did not.”

I hope his letter does some good and wakes up a few people in Washington, DC, but I have to admit, I am not hopeful. I just wonder how much worse these tensions between the locals and the feds will get before angry emotions boil over and explode?

Speaking of “explosions,” while local issues like vandalized rock sculptures and insensitive government

Adolf Hitler.

employees can make our blood boil, they pale in comparison to the great threat our country (and the world)  faces overseas. This awful war in Europe rages on. Who can imagine Nazi swastikas flying over the Eiffel Tower in Paris? How is that possible? And except for those brave young pilots of the Royal Air Force, all could be lost in Britain. Now the Nazis are moving against Moscow; if their armies can survive the bitter Russian winter, we may see most of the world controlled by Germany before next Spring.

Charles Lindbergh.

I have always considered “Lucky Lindy” to be a true American Hero and we were all devastated a few years ago, when the Lindbergh’s baby was kidnapped and later found murdered. But his rhetoric these days is scary. Last week he again spoke out against any involvement in the war. On September 11,

Lindbergh, speaking to his “America First Committee”

Lindbergh spoke at a big ‘America First” rally in Des Moines. I jotted down a few of his remarks. He said, “The three most important groups who have been pressing this country toward war are the British, the Jewish and the Roosevelt administration.”

But while Lindbergh said he admired the British and Jewish races, he claimed that the Jews’ “greatest danger to this country lies in their large ownership and influence in our motion pictures, our press, our radio and our government.”

Jack Holley, Moab’s “Goat Man.”

When I stopped by, Jack was very upset about news that the USS Greer had been fired upon by German U-boats. I was amazed how informed he was when he told me the Greer was “a Wickes-class destroyer

The USS Greer.

in the United States Navy, and the first ship named for Rear Admiral James A. Greer.”

I wondered how in the world Jack knew all this nautical information and he reminded me that he’d been a merchant seaman for decades before winding up in the middle of the red rock desert. “A strange place for me to drop anchor, I guess,” Jack once mused. Still Jack’s heart went out to the sailors and he worried about the crew’s safety. Though he sailed around the world three times, Jack said he always feared a “watery grave.” And we both worried what the next few months would bring to our country and our world.

Until the next time…

Your faithful Moab Reporter,

Jim Stiles

Jim Stiles is Founder and Co-Publisher of the Canyon Country Zephyr.

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