How I love the West. After almost a quarter century here, these red rocks, these vast and open skies, continue to grab me by the heart and soul and embrace me in ways that defy words. I have rarely even tried to convey those emotions and sensations. First, they are personal and dear to me. And, more importantly, they can really only be experienced, not described. I never have been much of a nature writer and have always felt it was each person's responsibility to interpret his own feelings about this beautiful country, not mine.
Yet, I remain puzzled at times. How can the very same vista, the same sculptured rock, the same soft light of an autumn day create so many different feelings at once? I can watch the fading rays of sun behind Elk Ridge or Alkali Flat or Dark Angel or Bromide Basin and feel exhilarated, and soothed, and saddened. Sometimes all at once. I find myself in a state of blissful melancholia more often than not. Why?
While some of you look to the Milennium with great concern and anxiety, and others of you watch with bemused detachment, I suppose I find myself somewhere in the middle. I am hardly expecting the End of the World, and it is indeed true that Time, or at least the measurement of it, is a purely human invention. Because of some arbitrary mathematical decision made two millennia ago, we face this Numerical Event.
Yet, I cannot completely ignore it either, simply because it is a prominent point in Time from which to look backward and forward...to remember the good and the bad. And to look ahead and...well...to hope for Hope.
You must know that I worry about the West. About my West if I can be allowed to show my selfish side for a moment. This month I will have spent half my life here and I've become sort of attached to the place. I have seen so many changes I can scarcely remember at times the way it used to be. And so it is very much that worry, that fear, that scrambles my emotions when I watch the sunset. If all were lost I'd have nothing to worry about at all. But not all is lost. I freely admit that I consider the positive too infrequently. And I am here to admit that there is still much to be enjoyed, much to be protected, and so much, ultimately, that can be lost.
My favorite vistas, your quiet and remote and secret hideaways are the treasures that I hope will survive to the next millennium, and beyond it. But I cannot help but worry, and unless you are completely delusional, so should you. In my cranky middle-age, I have not really "mellowed" very much. If anything, I have grown more intolerant of compromise and equivocation and timidity than I was when I was twenty. Acquiescence and conciliation have not served the Common Man or the Land very well in this century.
If the world were moving at a leisurely pace, and if there were time to seek compromise without so much sacrifice, then perhaps I could see the advantage. But our culture is plunging into the future at a speed we can not even comprehend. The change is so rapid we have become numbed by it. We are so overwhelmed that we can barely muster a shrug at the most gruesome upheavals to our lives.
I came across a few words by Ed Abbey the other day. Here is what he had to say about compromise:
(We had grown) tired of the timid, of all the cautious compromising by the mainline environmental outfits. These compromises always turned out to mean that the conservation side gave up something and never gained anything. The industrial developers gained something, and Nature always lost. The baloney method--keep slicing off little pieces of baloney, little chunks of wilderness, until nothing is left. Until the whole country looks like New Jersey or southern California. The way I see it, wilderness is our original native home. And when government thieves or industrial burglars invade your home, you don't compromise. You resist. You defend your home whatever way you can.
Most of us don't enjoy watching "pieces of baloney" sliced off a little bit at a time. But we watch because we think we're helpless to stop it. We're not.
Believe it or not, I still believe (perhaps in my weaker moments) in the basic decency of the human race. While this job of mine has brought me more than a fair share of heartbreak and heartburn, it has also allowed me to find others of you who share at least some of my concerns and passions. As I have said before...the search for kindred spirits. The letters I receive and the little notes scribbled on the bottom of subscription cards mean more to me than any of you can even imagine. And it's not just the kind words; it is just knowing that you guys are out there.
But it seems to me that, in many ways, our species has lost confidence in itself...has lost its nerve. How many times have we stood witness to an event or incident that we knew was wrong, and said nothing? Did nothing? Most of us know the difference between right and wrong. Deep down, we know.
And yet, we remain silent.
Clearly there are some who just don't get it. Of course there are our ultra-conservative friends who believe that the earth was put here to be ransacked for the 'benefit of Man,' regardless of the destruction inflicted. But I particularly cringe when I encounter people who seem to have found their progressive soul, their cause if you will; but when examined closely, it is clear that they lack the courage to match their alleged convictions. I call it "persona without passion." Their convictions are a mile wide and an inch deep. I have more respect for the conservatives; at least they're honest.
But there are also some real heros out there. Sometimes I think there are way too few. But one of mine set me straight recently.
David Brower, the former Executive Director of the Sierra Club, has probably done more to wake up the American people to the threats that face our land than anyone in this century. His campaign to stop the Bureau of Reclamation from building dams in the Grand Canyon rallied millions of citizens to get involved. Ironically, he drew the ire of fellow Sierra Club board members and was fired for his efforts (He failed to follow protocol). Today, while the Sierra Club proudly proclaims its efforts to save the Grand Canyon as one of its greatest accomplishments, Brower is, incredibly, reviled by many of the club's members.
Still, Brower persists and fights on. Last month, I received a letter from Dave, responding to a comment from me that there were too few heroes...
Brower got me to thinking. Who are my heroes? And suddenly I realized I had more than I thought possible. Of course, there's my dear friend Ken Sleight who, along with Abbey, has been a role model and an inspiration to me for 20 years. To me Ken has always been a true visionary and a gentle fighter. The man is unflappable.
But who else? There are many: Scott Groene of SUWA, who could be making the BIG Bucks with some prestigious law firm, but who instead chooses to work long and frustrating hours fighting for something he truly believes in. And Brant Calkin, one of the original SUWA windmill-tilters. And Susan Tixier, a Great Old Broad if there ever was one.
And Philip Hyde, one of America's most respected photographers, who has given his entire life documenting the beauty of the Land. And Wendell Berry, a writer and a Kentuckian, who lives as simply and eloquently (not elegantly) as he writes. The same can be said for writer John Nichols (Milagro Bean Field War), who gives most of his money away and refuses to be rich, except in spirit.
And Katie Lee, who will never give up the cause of Glen Canyon. And Rich Ingebretsen. And Martin Litton.
And Sasa Woodruff who proves that idealism and activism are still alive even in people under 30.
And Ed Quillen, who shakes things up in Colorado and keeps the politicos honest--or tries to.
Not all my heroes are eco-warriors either. There are my wonderful friends the Seabold Family who truly understand the meaning of love and family. And Lew Paisley (you'll be seeing his name again in the next couple of minutes), Randy Raine, and Ned Mudd, who prove that it's possible to have integrity and honesty and still be in the legal profession. And Pastor Don Falke--if all preachers were like him, I might even consider joining up.
And there's...well...this might get wearying for some of you after a while. So I'll stop. The heroes I've failed to mention, and there are many more, will understand because they're heroic. But I hope you get my point.
Oliver Wendell Holmes once remarked, "I say to you in all sadness and conviction, that to think great thoughts you must be heroes as well as idealists."
As we move ahead, into this great unknown future, we need all the heroes we can find. With a generous dose of idealism as well.
Last month I went back to Kentucky to visit some old friends and to get re-acquainted with two of the classiest women to ever walk the earth, my cousins Sarah and Nancy. I won't embarrass them too much with words of praise except to say they should be proclaimed the Queens of the Bluegrass State.
I also paid a visit to my buddy, the Judge---the Great Lewis Paisley of Lexington, a jurist of incorruptible values and common sense. We were in his chambers on the fifth floor of the Fayette County Courthouse one afternoon, telling slightly embellished tales of our sex lives as I recall, when I asked Lew if he had ever become a Kentucky Colonel. Of course, he replied.
The title "Kentucky Colonel" is, according to the literature, "the highest honor that can be awarded by the Commonwealth of Kentucky." They are "ambassadors of good will and fellowship around the world." Winston Churchill is a Colonel. So is Muhammad Ali. And John Glenn. God help me but Whoopi Goldberg is a Kentucky Colonel too.
"You know Lew," I said, "If I could ever become a Kentucky Colonel, I think I could die a happy man...Wouldn't that be something?"
The Judge rose majestically from his high leather-backed chair and walked to the phone. He punched in a number and switched the setting to "speaker."
"Governor's office," I heard a woman with a wonderful Bluegrass accent announce on the other end of the line.
"This is Judge Paisley," said Lew. "I have a candidate for Kentucky Colonel."
The rest is history. A week ago, I received my certificate in the mail. It says:
To all to whom these presents shall come, greeting:
Know ye that
HONORABLE JAMES OGDEN STILES, JR.
is commissioned a
KENTUCKY COLONEL
It was signed by Paul E. Patton, Governor.
I called Lew that night. "What did you do, get the governor drunk?"
"No...nothing like that," said the Judge. "I just lied a lot."
So now if you see me in a seersucker suit, with a mint julep in one hand and a racing form in the other, I hope you'll understand.
And please...call me Colonel.