Month: December 2022

Chasing Charlie Steen & the Dream of Uranium Riche$ in 1955 — by Brett Hulen (ZX#42)

by stiles • December 25, 2022 • 4 Comments

We moved to Moab in 1955 chasing the uranium dream with a brand new 1955 Dodge Power Wagon pulling a 24′ Boles Aero travel trailer, and a 1951 Willys CJ3 with a little military jeep trailer. We initially prospected in the Circle Cliffs area where my Mother discovered a small deposit of carnotite. She was using a Geiger Counter or scintillator and watched the needle practically bend in two when it pegged out!

We moved in off the desert in the fall of 1955 when my brother Jeff and I were forced to begin school. We initially lived in the old P&W trailer park adjacent to the Apache Motel. My father Bradley also worked as a real estate broker in town and owned the old one horse Maverik gas station. As I recall he later sold it to Karl and Patsy Tangren.

My brother was working at Arches National Monument, for Bates Wilson, and was dating his daughter Cindy. As I grew up I worked at many of the surrounding ranches in Castle Valley (for the McCormicks and Shumways), Fisher Valley (D.L. Taylor had just gotten out of the Army) and lastly on the Dugout Ranch for the Redds until such a time I began to realize that the rear-end of a shapely young girl was enormously more attractive than the same afore mentioned part of a cow.

“I Remember Christmas”–An Ancient Stiles Family Album (ZX#41)

by stiles • December 22, 2022 • 33 Comments

This is really just a personal reminiscence, and probably of little interest to most Zephyr readers. But it occurred to me recently that this is the first Christmas, where I am the only surviving member of my immediate family. My father died in 2009. My brother passed away two years ago, in December 2020, and my mother died in February at the age of 94. I’m the last Stiles standing. And of course my grandparents all left us decades ago.

While families have always managed to find something to argue about when pushed into confined places, it was certainly different for me a kid. .

When I think back on my childhood and those first ten years, it occurred to me that it was our grandparents — they were the real glue that kept the family connected. I grew up with all four of my grandparents, alive and relatively healthy, and all of them within five miles of our home. So we saw Grandma and Grandpa Montfort and Grandma and Grandpa Stiles on a regular basis. We had Sunday dinner with one or the other almost every week.

Holidays were always like family food festivals. In fact, for a decade, I would guess that Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter and the 4th of July were all holidays in which attendance was mandatory. And none of us minded. We loved it.

#2: BEFORE INSTAGRAM KILLED the POSTCARD– Classics of Salt Lake City & Vicinity (ZX#40)

by stiles • December 18, 2022 • 6 Comments

Back in August I posted Volume 1 of “How Instagram Killed the Postcard;” it featured images from the Moab area. What I did’nt expect was the response. Postcards from across the country poured in to my little PO Box on the High Plain. I love my Zephyr readers. While I can’t name everyone who sent me postcards, I need to pay special tribute to Evan Kramer of Port Orford, Oregon who sent several, including one of those multiple hand colored packets of cards titled, “Greetings from Minneapolis, Minn.” Thanks Evan! And I might have guessed—-several spectacular and especially weird hand colored cards from Greg Gnesios. One of Plymouth Rock…the other a very memorable card of older gentlemen playing shuffleboard in St. Petersburg, Florida.

This time I focus on Utah’s state capitol, Salt lake City and its many scenic wonders. And the vicinity. Some of these cards are more than 100 years old. When there were messages on the back, I’ve included the flip-side as well. I tried to enhance the print as well as possible…So here are the wonders of…SALT LAKE CITY

“I LONGED for the WESTERN LIFE.”–HERB RINGER’S Great Adventure — Jim Stiles (ZX#39)

by stiles • December 11, 2022 • 16 Comments

NOTE: I’m posting this in the afternoon of December 11. My old friend Herb Ringer died 24 years ago today. I have shared his pictures and stories for the entire life of this publication. And I’ve written a few about my dear friend. This story combines parts of past stories and introduces some new ones as well. And more pictures, of course. He is still missed after a quarter of a century, especially by me—JS

EXCERPT:
“Herb,” I’ll ask, “Here’s a picture of you on horseback and in the next picture there’s a girl on her hands and knees under her horse. What’s that all about?”

His worn out eyes sparkle. “Yes!” he smiles, “That’s Skippy. That was in the High Sierras in about 1942. She loved her horse and the horse would do anything for her. She bet me she could sit right under it and I didn’t believe her. So she climbed down and crawled right under the horse’s front legs. So, I took a picture. And that night I bought her a steak dinner.”

I could hear Herb moving things about in his closet and a few moments later he emerged from the bed room, a manila-covered album held tenderly in his hands. He returned to his chair, a bit winded from the short trip, and then he placed the large book in my lap. It was the size and shape of a photo album but was covered with brown wrapping paper and held together with yellowed Scotch tape. I opened the binding to the first page….

PASTOR DON FALKE BEATS THE DEVIL: My Favorite Moab Preacher —Jim Stiles (ZX#38)

by stiles • December 4, 2022 • 11 Comments

For the next five years, we Broiler People were unofficial members of Pastor Don’s “Other Congregation.” Don “held services” at the Broiler on a regular basis. “You Boys are a challenge to me…It keeps my life interesting. My initiation with Pastor Don coincided with my founding of The Zephyr and Don even contributed a few stories for the Zephyr readership, including my favorite, “Pastor Don Forgives President Clinton.”

With Don and his remarkable wife Judy, it’s the kind of friendship that can endure years without any contact, and then, when the long absence ends, it’s as if we were never apart. Anyone reading this knows exactly what I mean.