Joe L. Wheeler's Blog, page 19

THE EXPLOSIVE MARRIAGE ISSUE THE SHIFTING “LINE IN THE SAND”

BLOG #20, SERIES #3

WEDNESDAYS WITH DR. JOE

THE EXPLOSIVE MARRIAGE ISSUE

THE SHIFTING “LINE IN THE SAND”

May 16, 2012

 

 

Suddenly, thanks to President Obama’s open advocacy of granting gays and lesbians the legal right to marry, not much else is being talked about on the air-waves, relegating even the economy to a back seat.  One thing appears glaringly obvious: this year’s election promises to be a defining one, a polarizing one, a stridently divisive one.

 

Which is both a bad thing and a good thing.  Bad in that the rhetoric is going to be ugly; good in that since a showdown on the issue had to come sooner or later, it might as well come now.

 

I’m prayerfully sharing these personal thoughts, not because I have any illusions that this blog is likely to make much of a difference in our national debate but because I’ve been convicted that I ought to weigh in on the issue.

 

The issue, simplified, appears to be this:

 

OUGHT WE TO GRANT GAY AND LESBIAN COUPLES LEGAL RIGHTS? 

OUGHT WE TO COMPROMISE BY GRANTING THEM CIVIL UNION STATUS?

OUGHT WE TO ALTER OUR DEFINITION OF MARRIAGE TO THIS?

MARRIAGE IS A SACRED RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN A MAN AND A WOMAN,  A MAN AND A MAN, OR A WOMAN AND A WOMAN.

 

In the days, weeks, and months to come, in the midst of a media frenzy, keep in mind the essential simplicity of the issue itself.

 

Before arriving at any conclusions on the issue, permit me to step back in time with you a little.

 

Since time immemorial, marriage between a man and a woman has been considered the very bedrock of civilized society.  When that template began to crumble (such as in Greco-Roman times), the collapse of those civilizations soon followed.

 

Christianity, based as it is on the creation of man and woman by God, with God sanctioning the relationship of Adam and Eve as the divinely ordained foundation of the home itself, has never wavered on its commitment to this divinely ordained marriage.

 

Until now.

 

The eroding process has been long but steady.  Long because it began way back during the Renaissance.  The Reformation represented a major course-correction.  But it too weakened as secularization gained momentum over the centuries that followed.  Rationalism and skepticism joined forces with science to question the validity of the Bible and the principles contained in its pages.  Then came Darwinism which ended up challenging creation itself.  Not that it should have, however, because change itself ought not to have invalidated God—but the perception that it did accelerated the spiritual erosion.  Then came psychology, psychiatry, and sociology, in which their practitioners all too often did their best to discredit the spiritual dimension of men and women, and replace it with a template that did all but push God out of the picture.  This development too did not make sense because God created our minds, hearts, and souls to begin with!  And the titans of history (individuals such as Moses, Plato, Daniel, St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Paul, St. Augustine, Luther, Galileo, Tolken, C. S. Lewis, Schweitzer, etc.), tower over time because they intertwined in their lives, speech, and writings both the spiritual and the rational dimensions.

 

In our time, the Woman’s Lib Movement—which was badly needed because of male disenfranchisement and demeaning of women—had dominated society way too long.  Sadly, however, not content with righting this imbalance between the sexes, many of the movement’s leaders went on to discredit and demean the male sex.  So successful were they that today the male sex it is that is on the ropes, and marriage between a man and a woman is continually disparaged.  Who needs it?  Today live-in relationships and out-of-wedlock births are threatening to become the new norm.  The media (orchestrated by men and women who rarely espouse Judeo-Christian values or attend churches or synagogues) openly trash Christians who dare to speak out about their values.  As a result, they have Christianity cowering and on the defensive.

 

BACK TO THE ISSUE

 

As I see it, I feel that Christianity comes into the fray with anything but clean hands.  For, I’m ashamed to admit that we have tended to over-react on this issue.  For if men and women who bear the gay and lesbian label are just as much children of God, and created by God, as we, then they are entitled to our love, friendship, and respect.  Since Christ would not have excluded them from His love, why should not we follow His divine example?

 

But having said this, that does not mean that we should ignominiously turn our backs on the sanctity of marriage between a man and a woman.  If the legal definition of marriage were to be changed to include man and man and woman and woman, the basic foundations of society would collapse.  Inheritance would mean nothing.  Nor would genealogy.  DNA itself validates the man and woman basis for society’s existence.  Since men and men and women and women can not procreate they can not possibly be entitled to be married in the sense that men and women can.  Otherwise, we’d be forced to come up with a new name for traditional marriage!

 

But this does not mean we should discredit all those who have chosen the gay and lesbian lifestyle and truly love and care for their partners, who set up households, adopt children, and do their level best to live good lives, to serve their fellow man—as untold thousands now do.  They should not be deprived of the right to have their relationships with their cherished significant others recognized and honored by society—which is all of us.

 

This is why I feel we should recognize their right to be entitled to civil union status.  This way they too can hold their heads up high, knowing that we consider each to be a first-class (not second-class) citizen deserving of our love, friendship, and respect.

 

But I conclude with this caveat: Should we surrender on the core issue (marriage is between a man and a woman), the American home, family, society, and civilization would be doomed.  “Marriage” itself would immediately become a meaningless word, and the heretofore sacred marriage ceremony a travesty.  There can be no fall-back position.  This must be our final line in the sand!

 

May God continue to bless the United States of America!

                                                —Joseph Leininger Wheeler, Ph.D. (2012)

 

*Feel free to make copies of this blog and share them with others!

TREASURES OF THE PAST #3 TENNYSON’S “ULYSSES”

BLOG #19, SERIES #3

WEDNESDAYS WITH DR. JOE

TREASURES OF THE PAST #3

TENNYSON’S “ULYSSES”

May 9, 2012

 

Last week, in discussing our Book of the Month, Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s Enoch Arden, I also referred to Tennyson’s “Ulysses,” generally considered to be the greatest poem on aging ever written.  It was so considered by three generations of our family, namely my maternal grandfather, Herbert Norton Leininger; my mother, Barbara Leininger Wheeler—and I have inwardly mined its wisdom all of my life.

 

The untimely death of his dearest friend and soulmate, Arthur Hallam resulted in a spiritual earthquake that permanently darkened Tennyson’s inner skies.  Not only did it result in the greatest ode in the English language, it also resulted in Tennyson’s writing a poem that almost defines the aging process long before its author reached his own twilight years.

 

Tennyson’s persona is no less a person than Ulysses, the lead character in Homer’s immortal Iliad and Odyssey.  Ulysses, who, after fighting the Trojans for ten years, roams the Mediterranean world for another ten years; only then, returning to his long neglected wife Penelope, and kingdom of Ithaca.  But Tennyson goes beyond Homer in this marvelous creation: a titan who finds “business as usual” impossible to endure after having lived and interacted so long with kings, queens, warriors, and Greco-Roman gods.  Indeed this restlessness has resulted in his rounding up all the surviving warriors who accompanied him on his sojourns and battles, and enlisting them in one last adventure, one from which none will return to Ithaca alive.

 

In this monologue, Ulysses explains to us the reasons why he is embarking on this third and last quest.  He has thought of everything and everyone (with the notable exception of his long-suffering wife Penelope); he has turned over the reins of government to his much more prosaic son Telemachus, and has his crew ready to launch out into the deep.

 

First of all, he explains to us all why he must go—his restlessness; his hunger to fully live again (not merely exist); his yearning for action; for fighting against overwhelming odds; for making a real difference in his interactions with all those he comes in contact with; for learning, for becoming, for experiencing, everything life and the gods may throw at him.

 

Then in the poem’s powerful conclusion, Ulysses details his personal Bucket List: all he hopes to accomplish before he and his mariners sail off into the sunset.

 

This is one of those poems that so grows on you that each year of your life that passes, the lines and imagery will embed deeper into your psyche.  In short, properly internalized, the poem will revolutionize the rest of your life.  At the least, post it on your wall, or, better yet, memorize it:

 

ULYSSES

 

It little profits that an idle king,

By this still hearth, among these barren crags,

Matched with an aged wife, I mete and dole

Unequal laws unto a savage race,

That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me.

I cannot rest from travel; I will drink

Life to the lees [dregs].  All times I have enjoyed

Greatly, have suffered greatly, both with those

That loved me, and alone; on shore, and when

Through scudding drifts the rainy Hyades

Vext the dim sea.  I am become a name;

For always roaming with a hungry heart

Much have I seen and known,—cities of men,

And manners, climates, councils, governments,

Myself not least, but honored of them all;

And drunk delight of battle with my peers,

Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy.

I am a part of all that I have met;

Yet all experience is an arch wherethrough

Gleams that untraveled world, whose margin fades

For ever and for ever when I move.

How dull it is to pause, to make an end,

To rust unburnished, not to shine in use!

As though to breathe were life!  Life piled on life

Were all too little, and of one to me

Little remains; but every hour is saved

From that eternal silence, something more,

A bringer of new things; and vile it were

For some three suns to store and hoard myself,

And this grey spirit yearning in desire

To follow knowledge like a sinking star,

Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.

 

This is my son, mine own Telemachus,

To whom I leave the scepter and the isle—

Well-loved of me, discerning to fulfil

This labor, by slow prudence to make mild

A rugged people, and through soft degrees

Subdue them to the useful and the good.

Most blameless is he, centered in the sphere

Of common duties, decent not to fail

In offices of tenderness, and pay

Meet adoration to my household gods,

When I am gone. He works his work, I mine.

 

There lies the port; the vessel puffs her sail:

There gloom the dark, broad seas.  My mariners,

Souls that have toiled, and wrought, and thought with me—

That ever with a frolic welcome took

The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed

Free hearts, free foreheads—you and I are old;

Old age hath yet his honor and his toil.

Death closes all; but something ere the end,

Some work of noble note, may yet be done,

Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.

The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks;

The long day wanes; the slow moon climbs; the deep

Moans round with many voices.  Come, my friends,

‘Tis not too late to seek a newer world.

Push off, and sitting well in order smite

The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds

To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths

Of all the western stars, until I die.

It may be that the gulfs will wash us down;

It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,

And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.

Though much is taken, much abides; and though

We are not now that strength which in old days

Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are:

One equal temper of heroic hearts,

Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will

To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

—Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809-1892)

DR. JOE’S BOOK OF THE MONTH CLUB ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON’S ENOCH ARDEN

BLOG # 18, SERIES #3

WEDNESDAYS WITH DR. JOE

DR. JOE’S BOOK OF THE MONTH CLUB

ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON’S ENOCH ARDEN

May 2, 2012

 

 

My abject apologies for being late; this should have been posted last week.  In contrition for giving you a short month, this month’s selection will be a short book.

 

 

Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809-1892) was born into English gentility, his father a rector.  Extremely precocious, the boy constructed an epic of 12,000 lines when only twelve.  His early education was conducted by his father; that was followed by further education at Trinity College, of Cambridge.  It was here that he made the deepest friendship of his life with Arthur Hallam, who became not only his soulmate but his almost brother-in-law.  Almost—because, tragically, Hallam died of a ruptured blood vessel.  Neither Alfred nor his sister Emily ever completely recovered from this loss.   Eventually, Tennyson would write perhaps the most famous ode in the English language, In Memoriam (a labor of years), expressing his sorrow as well as also articulating a Victorian philosophy of life.

 

When he was only 21, Tennyson published Poems, Chiefly Lyrical that stunned the literary world.  From that time on, his name was talked about everywhere.  Money was often a problem, especially after he unwisely invested all he owned with an unscrupulous speculator—and lost everything.  There were long periods of time when he didn’t publish anything more, but then he’d surface again with works that propelled him back into the public limelight.  In 1850, he was finally able to marry Emily Sellwood (after a twenty-year-courtship) and was annointed Poet Laureate on the death of Wordsworth.  From this time on, the flame of his fame burned so bright that Britannica Encyclopedia editors declare that “No living poet ever held any country in unbroken sway as long as did Tennyson.”

 

His greatest financial success came with his multi-segmented epic work originally titled Morte d’Arthur, and eventually growing into Idylls of the King.

 

Unlike so many poets before and since, Tennyson never lost the common touch.  Generations came and went, still his poetry ruled supreme among the common folk as well as the literati.  Before I ever came on the scene, my maternal grandfather, and then his daughter Barbara (my mother) learned by heart and recited such enduring poems as “The Lady of Shalott,” “Ulysses” (one of the greatest poems on aging ever written), “Locksley Hall,” “Sir Galahad,” “Break, Break, Break,” “Sweet and Low,” “The Splendor Falls,” Tears, Idle Tears,” “The Eagle,” “Rizpah,” “The Charge of the Light Brigade,” and that paean to departing life (both in poetic and hymn form), “Crossing the Bar.”

 

And that great story poem, Enoch Arden, first published in 1864.  The original story, titled “The Fisherman’s Story,” was relayed to Mrs. Tennyson by the Pre-Raphaelite sculptor and poet Thomas Woolner.  She’d asked Woolner if he could “give Alfred something to do”—and it more than accomplished that, becoming one of the most beloved story-poems of the age.  Apparently, it was based on a true story, and is as poignant and impossible to ever forget today as it was back then.

 

The premise: what if your husband sailed away and never came back? (leaving you and children behind without funds with which to pay your bills).  What would you do?  What could you do?  What if another man who’d always loved you urged you to marry him?  But what if your long-lost husband should come back years later?

 

Enoch Arden has been reprinted many times, in both self-standing books and in literature anthologies.

 

Enjoy!

 

Sources:

 

Encyclopedia Britannica (1946 edition).

 

Drabble, Margaret, Editor.  The Oxford Companion to English Literature (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1932, 1985).

 

Kamm, Anthony.  Biographical Dictionary of English Literature (Glasgow, Scotland: Harper Collins, 1993).

 

Stephens, Beck, and Snow, Editors.  Victorian and Later English Poets (New York: American Book Company, 1934, 1937).

SOUTHWEST NATIONAL PARKS #12 SEQUOIA NATIONAL PARK – PART TWO

BLOG # 17, SERIES #3

WEDNESDAYS WITH DR. JOE

SOUTHWEST NATIONAL PARKS #12

SEQUOIA NATIONAL PARK – PART TWO

APRIL 25, 2012

 

 

Because Sequoia National Park and King’s Canyon National Park are administered as a unit, we will move to Kings Canyon next week.  Together, they encompass 865,257 acres.  Elevation-wise they range from a low of 1,300 feet to a high of 14,494 (Mt. Whitney), the highest point in the lower 48 states.  Nearly 808,000 (or 93.4%) acres are officially designated as wilderness, which means that no roads mar its pristine beauty beyond the few paved roads tourists know.  All the rest are known only to backpackers (80,000 a year), which strains the capacity of the park rangers to oversee.

 

OUR MEMORIES

 

Early in the morning, around 5 a.m., Bob and Lucy Earp and Connie and I arose, quickly packed the car, and nosed the car out of Furnace Creek Ranch onto road #190.  Here we made a fateful—and, it turned out, “stupid” mistake, in not paying over $5 a gallon for gas and filling up the tank.  Surely we’d find cheaper gas once we got out of the park!  Instead, we twisted up and up and up serpentine roads where we finally crested the Argus and Panamint Mountains; meanwhile, as the gas needle continued to drop, all four of us grew tenser by the mile.  Then the crest.  We breathed a sigh of relief; surely we’d find gas once we left the park. We did not, and even though Bob kept his speed down, and the needle slowed, neither town nor gas station did we find.  Our last hope turned out to be the town of Olanche on Highway 395; if we failed to find a gas  station there, with the needle solidly on empty, we’d be stuck.  By that time, we’d have been willing to pay $20 a gallon!  Mercifully, we found one, and the price, though still high, was still considerably less than Death Valley’s.  And not just the car was empty—so were we!  Here we stumbled on Ranch House Café, a place where, we were told, the locals frequented.  Turned out to be straight out of the Old West, the customers mainly ranchers and cowboys.  We were served by a pretty waitress who’d been transplanted from Tyler, in Texas rose country, to here where she’d fallen in love with a cowboy.  She “darlinged” us through a wonderful Southwest breakfast—and we were ready to face whatever the rest of the day brought us.

 

Though our destination was west, we couldn’t cross over at Olanche, but had to head south.  Reason being the massive wall of Sequoia/Kings Canyon/Yosemite that barred access to Sequoia.  As we drove south we could look up at the towering rampart crowned by two snowcapped fourteeners, Mt. Whitney and Mt. Langley.  Several hours later, once again, we headed west on #178 via Lake Isabella followed by an unforgettable ride down Kern  River Canyon.  Because of the massive snowfalls the Kern thundered rather than merely flowing.  After which we headed north again, through oil wells and orange groves, strange bedfellows.  Even though I knew the great San Joaquin Valley was the breadbasket of the nation, I’d never known  before that its orange groves rivaled Florida’s.

 

Finally, it was mid-afternoon; by then, we turned east and began to climb into the Sierras.  At the Foothills Visitor Center, we were greeted by potentially bad news; because of recent snowstorms, the roads into the heart of the park had been closed.  However, there was the possibility we could now make it up into the Big Trees.  After Death Valley’s heat, the mere thought that we might be back into snow by nightfall seemed preposterous to us.  Yet as we climbed, the temperature gauge dropped from the 80s to the 70s to the 60s, to the 50s, to the 40s—and eventually colder yet.  For a while, all traffic came to a complete halt.  Just behind us was a long caravan of motorcyclists from Brazil (the same ones we’d seen in Death Valley earlier).   Since I spoke Spanish, I was able to chat with them about their American tour—they loved it! (Portuguese, being also a Latin language akin to Spanish, it wasn’t too difficult to communicate with them.) Finally, we were all permitted to move again, and we moved into the snowy foggy high country.  As we reached the Sequoia groves we could only see part of them, for their trunks disappeared into the mist.

 

 

It was early evening before we reached Wuksachi Village, where we’d stay for the next two nights.  Sadly, there are no venerable national park hotels gracing Sequoia and Kings Canyon, so Wuksachi is the only game in town.  It is one of the resorts run by DELAWARE NORTH COMPANIES.  At the front desk we were welcomed with the gladsome news that the water main had broken in the extreme cold, so all the water was contaminated—not potable.  But not to worry, we could still eat in the dining room, and a truckload of bottled water from Bakersfield arrived by early evening so guests could at least have drinking water.  After dinner, we retired to our rustic sleeping quarters, exhausted.  It had been a long day, where we’d moved from one world to another, so we collapsed early.

 

 

Awoke early next morning to a clear sky that didn’t stay that way.  After a great buffet breakfast, we returned to our rooms, where our ablutions were possible thanks to bottled water.  Then it was time to visit the great sequoias.  Cold clammy misty fog now closed in on us, but we took the several-mile-long walk through the sequoias anyway, though the snow, and shivering.  It got progressively difficult to see, but eventually the mist cleared enough so we could see the world’s largest living thing, the General Sherman Tree, as well as other giants.  In a meadow we encountered a mother bear and cub.  Keeping a “safe” distance, we shutterbugged—which was dumb, because a bear can run 30-40 mph, and if the Mama Bear had taken issue with us we’d never have been able to get to safety in time.

 

 

Back in the lodge, we had a good dinner, after which we played Phase Ten—Lucy beat us.  Then in the quietness of our room we turned on the TV and almost wished we hadn’t: a tornado in Joplin, MO had killed 120, wiping out a quarter of the city.   One catastrophe after another in months before: the devastating Japanese earthquake and tsunami; over 300 killed in a string of tornados; terrible oil spill in the Gulf—and earlier that day, a volcanic eruption in Iceland, closing down European air traffic.  Then, unable to sleep, Connie and I watched John Wayne in Rio Bravo and The Sons of Katie Elder.  Then—finally—sleep came.

 

 

Will have to give a lot of credit to the Wuksachi folk: in spite of the terrible odds against it, given the broken water main, they did their utmost to give us a good stay.  The only other negative: unfitted bottom sheets that strayed off the mattresses during the night.

 

SOURCES USED

 

Dayton Duncan and Ken Burns, The National Parks: America’s Best Idea (New York: Alfred A. Kinopf, 2009).

 

Palmer, John J., Sequoia and Kings Canyon (Wickenburg, AZ: K. C. Publications, 2009).

SOUTHWEST NATIONAL PARKS #11 SEQUOIA NATIONAL PARK – PART ONE

BLOG # 16, SERIES #3

WEDNESDAYS WITH DR. JOE

SOUTHWEST NATIONAL PARKS #11

SEQUOIA NATIONAL PARK – PART ONE

APRIL 18, 2010

 

Sequoias—the largest living things on earth—ought to be on everyone’s bucket list: something to see before you die.  They are also among the oldest living things on earth (enduring over 3,000 years).  Take the General Sherman sequoia, for instance.  It is more than 270 feet tall, 102 feet in circumference, and is estimated to be 2,100 years old (it was already a century old when Christ was born in a manger), and it should still be growing a thousand years from now.  A thirteen-story building would not even reach as high as its lowest branches.  It has enough lumber in it right now (it increases its girth 50 cubic feet a year) to stretch one by twelve boards, end-to-end 119 miles!  Heighth-wise, like all sequoias, it would have reached its maximum at around eight-hundred years.

Because of the value of its lumber, in all likelihood the sequoias would long since have been all cut down were it not that they are so massive and so heavy that when they do fall, they splinter into sections, shaking the earth like an earthquake.  Even so, it is a miracle that the species survives at all.

When the Pilgrims came to America, fully half of it was forested.  Indeed it was so vast and so dense that as late as the early nineteenth century, it was the common belief that much of the continent would still be unexplored a thousand years from then.  But then came the Industrial Revolution and Manifest Destiny; together, there was cranked up a juggernaut of such destructive power that entire forests were mowed down like so many matchsticks.  The sequoias would have been among them had not California’s Senator John Conness introduced a bill in 1864 to save the species from extinction.  Amazingly, even in the midst of the bloodiest war in our history, the Civil War, during which over 600,000 men died, there were enough senators who cared about preservation to push aside war matters long enough to pass the bill. It was said then that “These trees were alive when David danced before the Ark” and “The Mariposa Big Tree Grove is really the wonder of the world.”  When America’s first Republican president, Abraham Lincoln, signed the bill on June 30, 1864, he had no way of knowing that he had just done something unprecedented in human history by setting aside in perpetuity sixty some square miles of wilderness land.  That moment represents the dividing line between destroying everything that blocks your way and the realization that preservation of beauty is essential for our well-being, both as a person and as a nation.

Galen Clark was chosen as the first guardian of these trees, ably supported by the U.S. Cavalry.  But from that day to this, fierce battles have continued to be fought by those seeking to preserve these sacred places and commercial interests determined to exploit them for personal gain.  It is being waged to this day: when “Drill Baby, Drill” is so infectious a siren call that those who counter with, “Wait, let’s first see what natural wonders might thereby be destroyed for all time,” are somehow viewed as little more than pesky obstructionists or ridiculed as “tree-huggers.”

Thus it was that the bill Lincoln signed was but the beginning of a ceaseless battle.  Enter John Muir, whose voice was so clear and his message so urgent, that he spawned a movement that continues to our time.  Duncan and Burns, in their monumental book, The National Parks: America’s Best Idea, tell the fascinating story of a nation-changing meeting that almost wasn’t.  In the spring of 1903, Muir was so deeply disheartened by the obstructionists who were determined to prevent the Federal Government from putting teeth behind its preservation legislation that he was just about to abandon his futile efforts and escape on a trip to Europe and Asia when suddenly something totally unexpected happened: the new president, Teddy Roosevelt wanted to come out to California and make a trip into the endangered Sierras with him.  Muir canceled his foreign trip in hopes that somehow, sitting around a campfire, he might be able to do his cause some good.  What follows is so significant in the history of our nation that I’ll let Dayton Duncan and Ken Burns tell the riveting story in their own words:

On May 15, they set off from the town of Raymond for the Mariposa Grove of Big Trees in a caravan of wagons.  Muir was seated in the president’s coach—along with the governor of California, the secretary of the navy, the surgeon general, two college presidents, and Roosevelt’s personal secretary.  The other wagons carried more staff and dignitaries; a detachment of thirty African American troopers from the 9th Cavalry rode along as escorts.

It was hardly the trip he had been promised, but Muir tried his best to squeeze in words to the president and governor about the issue of making all of Yosemite a national park.  As they approached the grove of mighty sequoias, the president’s group paused, as all tourists did, for a photograph at the famous Wawona Tunnel Tree.  Later they posed for an official photograph lined up along the base of the Grizzly Giant, the oldest and most famous sequoia in Yosemite; estimated to be 2,700 years old.  It boasted a single branch that was six and a half feet in diameter.

Then the troops, the phalanx of reporters and photographers, and virtually all of the official party, headed back to the Wawona Hotel, where a series of receptions and a grand dinner were scheduled in the president’s honor that evening.  None of them knew that Roosevelt had no intention of attending.  Instead he remained behind with only Muir and a few park employees, who started preparing a camp at the base of one of the sequoias.  They built a fire and sat around it, eating a simple supper, talking as twilight enveloped them, getting to know one another in the glow of the blaze.

“The night was clear,” Roosevelt wrote, and “in the darkening aisles of the great sequoia grove . . . the majestic trunks, beautiful in color and symmetry, rose round us like the pillars of a mightier cathedral than ever was conceived even by the fervor of the Middle Ages.  Hermit thrushes sang beautifully in the evening.”  Roosevelt would later remark that “Muir cared little for birds or bird songs” —a failing the ornithologist-president found noteworthy.  Muir, in turn, could not help commenting on the President’s well-earned reputation for hunting.  “Mr. Roosevelt,” he asked, “when are you going to get beyond the boyishness of killing things?”

But it quickly became clear that under the darkening canopy of ancient trees, a deep friendship was being born.  “I had a perfectly glorious time,” Muir wrote his wife.

I never before had a more interesting, hearty, and manly companion.  I stuffed him pretty well regarding the timber thieves, the destructive work of the lumbermen, and other spoilers of the forest.

Long after sundown, with no tent and only a pile of army blankets for comfort and warmth, the two men finally went to sleep.  The next morning at 6:30 they saddled up for the long ride to Yosemite Valley, with the guide under strict orders from the president to avoid at all costs the Wawona Hotel and the delegation of officials he had jilted the night before.

In the high country near Glacier Point, with its spectacular panorama of the valley and its waterfalls arrayed at their feet, they stopped and once more made camp.  Then, their guide, Charlie Leidig, reported, they resumed their exchange of opinions and ideas.

Around the campfire Roosevelt and Muir talked far into the night regarding Muir’s glacial theory of the formation of Yosemite Valley.  They also talked a great deal about the protection of forests in general and Yosemite in particular. I heard them discussing the setting aside of other areas in the United States for park purposes.

“There was some difficulty in their campfire conversation,” Leidig added, “because both men wanted to do the talking.”

They awoke the next morning covered by a light snow that had fallen in the high country during the night.  Rather than feeling inconvenienced, Roosevelt couldn’t have been more thrilled., “We slept in a snowstorm last night!” he exclaimed to the crowds that [had] been patiently waiting for him on the valley floor.  “This has been the grandest day of my life.”

Hundreds of tourists had crowded into the valley’s hotels or established campsites in the meadows, all in hopes of seeing the president.  The board of commissioners in charge of the Yosemite Grant, already jealous of the way Muir had seemingly monopolized Roosevelt’s visit so far, planned to make up for lost time.  They had prepared a lavish banquet catered by a French chef borrowed from a swank San Francisco club, to be followed by $400 worth of fireworks, and then a grand illumination of Yosemite Falls by special calcium searchlights.  A comfortable bed with a cozy feather mattress was waiting in an artist’s studio that had been specially fitted out for the president’s private lodging.

Roosevelt would have none of it.  He paused long enough to shake some hands and talk for a few minutes with his disappointed hosts, and then mounted up and rode farther down the valley to camp one last night with Muir—this time in the meadows between Bridalveil Falls and the massive granite face of El Capitan.  Early the next morning, the wagon train of dignitaries, with its military escort, rushed the president back to the Raymond train station for the resumption of his cross-country tour, while Muir returned home to his writing.

“Camping with the President was a remarkable experience,” Muir told a friend.  “I fairly fell in love with him.”  Roosevelt, too, was changed by the experience.  “When he reached the Mariposa Grove of Big Trees [last] Friday evening the President was a tired, worried man,” the San Francisco Call reported.  “This evening he is bright, alert—the Roosevelt of old.”

And when the president spoke at the state capitol in Sacramento a day later, Roosevelt’s words sounded as if they could have come from the lips of John Muir.

Lying out at night under those Sequoias was lying in a temple built by no hand of man, a temple grander than any human architect could by any possibility build, and I hope for the preservation of the groves of giant trees simply because it would be a shame to our civilization to let them disappear.

 

They are monuments in themselves. . . .  I want them preserved.

 

I am impressed by the immensely greater greatness that lies in the future, and I ask that your marvelous natural resources be handed on unimpaired to your posterity.

 

We are not building this country of ours for a day.  It is to last through the ages.

Within three years, the California legislature and United States Congress approved the transfer of the Yosemite Valley and Mariposa Grove back to the federal government.  Yosemite National Park now encompassed almost everything Muir had been fighting for.  “Sound the timbrel,” he wrote a friend, “and let every Yosemite tree and stream rejoice!”

I am now an experienced lobbyist; my political education is complete.  Have attended Legislature, made speeches, explained, exhorted, persuaded every mother’s son of the legislature, newspaper reporters, and everybody else who would listen to me.

 

 

And now that the fight is finished and my education as a politician and lobbyist is finished. I am almost finished myself.

(Duncan and Burns, 95-8).

We will continue the Sequoia story in next week’s blog (Wednesdays with Dr. Joe, April 25).

SOURCES USED

Dayton Duncan and Ken Burns, The National Parks: America’s Best Idea (New York: Alfred A. Kinopf, 2009).

Palmer, John J., Sequoia and Kings Canyon (Wickenburg, AZ: K. C. Publications, 2009).

QUOTATIONS TO LIVE BY GOOD IDEA? OR BAD IDEA? – Part Two –

BLOG #15, SERIES #3

WEDNESDAYS WITH DR. JOE

QUOTATIONS TO LIVE BY

GOOD IDEA?  OR BAD IDEA?

– Part Two –

April 11, 2012

Yes, my life-long fascination with the most condensed sources of wisdom we know—quotations, resulted in my writing down my favorite ones at the back of my journals.  They'd accumulated to such an extent that I spent two years prioritizing them in the limited edition book (nine copies; one went to Ann Landers, one to Abby Van Buren, and one went to the White House): Thoughts and Quotations from My Reading Journal: 1988 – 1989.  I also have purchased a large number of quotation books over the years.  Altogether, we're speaking of over a million quotations.

But I am deeply indebted to my students over the years to their honing my philosophy of quotations—for it is a philosophy.  Reason being that many of the quotation collections available in book stores—including the venerable Bartlett's Familiar Quotations—don't impress me much.  And more significantly, would not have impressed my students much.  Reason being, their failure to isolate the truly memorable powerful ones from the "same ol' same ol's."  Consequently, a good share of these ostensibly "great quotes" would have put my students to sleep.

Many times over the years, the thought has occurred to me that I ought to put together a compendium of my favorite quotations, or a series of such collections.  But the very thought was so daunting that each time I regretfully moved on to other more pressing projects.  But when my agent and our daughter Michelle ganged up on me too, I acknowledged defeat and decided to see if we could develop an audience for my brand of quotations.

Let's see, how can I define my philosophy of quotations?  Well, just as is true with the stories that make it into my story anthologies, I routinely reject 100 – 500 for every one that makes it in.  The few who make it in have to have intrinsic in them the qualities that would have made my students in years past, write them down.

I look for day-brighteners; changes of pace; profound thoughts—especially life-changing ones; proverbs from around the world; spiritual ones that could give the reader the courage to face another day; funny ones that make you laugh; if at all possible ones with the author's name attached; ones that once read you can't erase them from your mind; contemporary ones as well as those that have stood the test of time.

Permit me to be more specific:

HOLIDAY-RELATED

Columbus Day: "If Columbus had waited for decent ships, we'd all still be in Europe" – Robert Heinlein (Oct. 10, 2011)

Halloween: "Who shall say which is more horrible to see: empty skulls or dried-up hearts?" – Balzac (Oct. 31, 2011)

Election Day: "The higher you climb, the more rocks you have to dodge" – Western Proverb (Nov. 8, 2011)

Thanksgiving: "From David learn to give thanks for everything—every furrow in the book of Psalms is sown with the seeds of Thanksgiving." – Jeremy Taylor (Nov. 24, 2011

Christmas: "When you have learned about love, you have learned about God." – Fox Proverb (Dec. 25, 2011)

New Year's Day: "Maximize the day: Each day contains 86,400 seconds—that's 86,400 opportunities." – Leonard Nimoy (Jan 1, 2012)

Lincoln's Birthday: "I fear you don't fully understand . . . the danger of abridging the liberties of the people." – Abraham Lincoln (Feb. 12, 2012)

St. Patrick's Day: "Following the line of least resistance makes rivers and people crooked." – Irish Proverb (March 17, 2012)

CONTEMPORARY AUTHORS

"Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool to help me make the big choices in life." – Steve Jobs (Nov. 12, 2011)

"A single journey can change the course of a life." – Angelina Jolie (Dec. 15, 2011)

"Sometimes the greatest secrets lie in the middle of things you can't quite explain." – Stephen Spielberg (Jan 27, 2012)

"Those who believe they are in full possession of the truth can be dangerous." – Madeleine Albright (Feb. 27, 2012)

FOR THE SPORTS BUFF

"The quality of a person's life is in direct proportion to their commitment to excellence, regardless of their chosen field of endeavor." – Vince Lombardi (Oct. 9, 2011)

"Hard work beats talent when talent doesn't work hard." – Tim Tebow (Nov. 2, 2011)

"You got to be careful if you don't know where you're going, because you might not get there" – Yogi Berra (Jan. 25, 2012)

"Golf is a game in which you yell Fore, shoot six, and write down five." – Paul Harvey (March 15, 2012)

HUMOROUS CHANGES OF PACE

"No food tastes as good as the food you eat when you are cheating on a diet." – Al Batt (Oct. 7, 2011)

"To have the last word with a woman, apologize profusely, then run like the devil." – Author Unknown) (Oct. 26, 2011)

"The difference between a farmer and a pigeon: the farmer can still make a deposit on a tractor." – Author Unknown. (Nov. 6, 2011)

"Fanatic: One who sticks to his guns whether they're loaded or not." – Author Unknown (Jan 14, 2012)

"Always go to other people's funerals; otherwise they won't go to yours." – Yogi Berra (Feb. 6, 2012)

TIMELESS

"Example is not the main thing in influencing others.  It is the only thing." – Albert Schweitzer Oct. 3, 2011)

"Suffering can become a means to greater love and generosity." – Mother Teresa (Oct. 8, 2011)

"One man with courage makes a majority." – Stonewall Jackson (Oct. 25, 2011)

"Whatever you dream you can, begin it.  Boldness has genius, power and magic in it."  – Goethe (Nov. 30, 2011)

"Judge not your neighbor till you've been in his place." – Rabbi Hillel (Dec. 21, 2011)

"The fewer the words, the better the prayer." – Martin Luther (Dec. 23, 2011)

"Life is too short to be spent in nursing animosity or registering wrong." – Charlotte Bronte (Jan. 18, 2012)

"A letter is a joy of Earth – it is denied the Gods." – Emily Dickinson (Feb. 15, 2012)

"Life – a little gleam of Time between two Eternities." – Carlyle (March 31, 2012)

* * *

As you can well imagine, it takes a great deal of extra time and effort to marry a quote to a specific date (such as a holiday).  It takes even more time to choose the best quote among alternatives.  Most time-consuming of all is to stay current.  In my case, I keep up by reading books, THE DENVER POST, THE WALL STREET JOURNAL, NEWSWEEK, SUCCESS, AARP, many different magazines, and listen to the media.  Were I not to do so many would write off all my other quotes, consigning them all to the dust heap of the past.  This means that I have to be recording quotes wherever I am, even if it be inconvenient.

What I try hardest to pull off is to reverse roles with myself: ask myself continually, If I were not me, would I take the time out of each day to check out these daily tweets?  I would hope these quotes would prove to be such day-brighteners that you'd feel any day to be incomplete where you had failed to check out that day's quotation.

* * * * *

So here are my questions to you.  What do you think of the first six months' worth of quotes?  Do they meet your needs?  Do you use them much in your daily life?  Do you share them with friends?  How can they be improved? Are they as helpful to you as other quotation collections you access?  If I were ever to print them in booklets, would you be interested in purchasing copies?

Look forward to hearing from you!

Follow me on Twitter: twitter.com/joewheelerbooks

QUOTATIONS TO LIVE BY GOOD IDEA? OR BAD IDEA?

BLOG #14, SERIES #3

WEDNESDAYS WITH DR. JOE

QUOTATIONS TO LIVE BY

GOOD IDEA?  OR BAD IDEA?

– Part One –

April 4, 2012

On October 1, 2011, I sent up a trial balloon: Would the public be interested in trying out my daily quotation tweets.  Now that these tweets have been running for a half year, I figured it would be a good idea to have a referendum on them—hence this blog.

Now for the story behind these daily tweets:

I've always loved quotations, the most condensed and concise source of distilled wisdom we know, even more condensed than poetry.  Way back when I began my teaching career in California's gold country, one day I decided to try something new: give my students something to look at besides me.  So I wrote a quotation in chalk on the blackboard.  It proved to be a hit: it was the first thing students looked at when they entered the classroom.  Over the years, as I moved from junior high to senior high to college English, there remained one constant: a quotation each day.  I soon learned that merely scribbling any ol' quotation wouldn't work; it takes hard work to keep young people interested in anything!  Too stodgy or philosophical, and they'd lose interest.  So I learned to mix in enough humor so they never knew from one day to the next what kind of quotation would set the day's mood—for a teacher has that kind of power over the students who willingly or unwillingly stream in and out of his/her classroom.

In this vein, long ago in a convention, I wrote down a quotation I so internalized that it became part of who I am: There is only one unforgivable sin in teaching: and that is to bore your students.  Because of this awareness of how difficult it is to maintain students' interest from day to day, I never permitted my classes to become predictable.  Consequently, they never knew from one day to the next what tangent they'd find me on next.  I'd even switch in mid-class: if I saw that deadly glazing of eyes, I'd leapfrog into a story, substitute something radically different, take them for a walk, go outside, sit on the lawn or in the shade of a tree—anything to regenerate interest.

* * *

Well, many years went by, and I made a life-changing decision: take early retirement from the formal classroom in order to write full-time.  In essence, to trade direct mentoring for indirect mentoring.  In truth, I really miss the daily one-on-one interaction with my students, but I wouldn't trade it for the world for now I am blessed by letters and emails from all around the world from people (young and old) who through our books, stories, blogs, and tweets, feel they are vicariously sitting in a virtual classroom with me.

In the sixteen years since I left the formal classroom, a serendipity has to do with the large number of former students of mine who have re-entered our lives—an honor I do not take lightly.  For it is little honor to hold students captive in a given classroom, but it is a great honor to have even one voluntarily re-enter my world!

It is interesting to note what brings them back, and it violates most everything methodology teachers tell you in education classes.  They re-enter my life because each one felt I loved him or her.  That I always tried to be kind.  That though I made more than my fair share of mistakes, when I did so I could be counted on to apologize to them publicly.  That they remembered how hard I tried not to ever bore them.  That we laughed a lot. That my interest in them continued long after graduation. That I told or read lots of stories.  In fact, I've had a number of them write or phone me, saying, Dr. Wheeler, I wake up in the middle of the night and hear you reading to me!  For there is something in being read to that indelibly embeds itself in memory.

In fact, it was former students who helped propel this traditional dinosaur into the digital world of blogging.  They'd say or write, "Dr. Wheeler, I miss your classroom so much—if only I could re-enter it again.  Hear your voice.  See you cackle".  Which brings me to a recent article on our books and stories penned by a former student of mine, Kimberly Luste Maran.  For it, she interviewed three of my former students about what they remembered about my classes—scary!  For one never knows what idiosyncrasy they'll remember.  Let me quote from one of these:

Sadly, my favorite memory of Dr. Wheeler lacks all context now: I cannot for the life of me remember my good-natured but 'snarktastic' remark—possibly something about refusing to do my final paper on Zane Grey?  But I will always have that perfect mental snapshot of how the venerable white-haired elder of the English Department paused for a second behind his posh wooden desk, then stuck his tongue out at me like a schoolkid.

                                    —Camille Lofters, English/pre-law, and journalism major,

                                       1995 graduate (Adventist Review, Dec. 16, 2010)

When one considers how incredibly difficult it is to snag even a millisecond of another person's time in this hectic world we live in, it is a near miracle if even one person takes time to listen to what we say.  That's why I never take for granted the undeserved honor so many pay me by reading our books or stories, or tuning in to these weekly blogs.

Or daily tweets.  One of the key factors in getting me to take the inertia-breaking decision to sire a series of daily quotation tweets had to do with the number of former students who admitted that they wrote down in their notebooks their favorite quotations—but what really boggled my mind was their adding, "And I've kept them all these years!"

* * * * *

Next week, I'll get into a discussion of why I feel our daily quotation tweets are different from anything else out there in cyberspace.  Also what kind of rhythm there is to these daily choices.  And finally, why I'd love to hear back from you about your reactions to these tweets.

Please stay tuned.  I'll see you next week!

Follow me on twitter at: www.twitter.com/joewheelerbooks

DR. JOE’S BOOK OF THE MONTH CLUB ZANE GREY’S WANDERER OF THE WASTELAND

BLOG #13, SERIES #3

DR. JOE’S BOOK OF THE MONTH CLUB

ZANE GREY’S WANDERER OF THE WASTELAND

March 28, 2012

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ordinarily, I will not plan to feature a given author more than once a year, or in close proximity to a previous listing, but for a very special reason I am making an exception for April’s Book of the Month.  The obvious reason is last week’s blog on Death Valley National Park.  You may remember that our January book was Zane Grey’s Heritage of the Desert—(the December 28, 2011 blog).  But since Grey’s greatest desert novel—perhaps the greatest desert novel ever written—was set in California’s Death Valley, the coincidence was just too good an opportunity to pass up.

 

Immediately after the close of World War I (contemporaries called it simply “The Great War”), Zane Grey assumed the role of a desert rat himself as he immersed himself into the desert world so that his next novel might ring true.  From my Master Chronology I have documented this period according to locale (based on letter postmarks and diary entries):

 

January 1, 1919            Zane Grey in Palm Springs, California

January 3, 1919            Exploring desert between Chuckwalla and Chocolate Mountains

January 4, 1919            In vicinity of Yuma, Arizona

January 5, 1919            Exploring Picture Canyon, Mecca, Brawley, El Centro, and Holtville, California

January 6, 1919            In sand dune waste between El Centro and Yuma

January 7, 1919            Meets famed frontiersman, Charlie Meadows

January 8, 1919            Yuma Midland, in vicinity of Picacho, for some time

February 23 – mid March, 1919            Exploring California/Arizona desert country

March 21, 1919            Train to Death Valley Junction

March 22, 1919            Travel from Junction to Death Valley

March 23-26, 1919            Walking across Death Valley with a desert wanderer

March 27-28, 1919            Walks 12 of the 34 miles back to Death Valley Junction

 

Grey and his wife Dolly had first fallen in love with the Southwest desert country during their 1906 honeymoon.  Beginning in 1907, Grey, in expedition after expedition, both on foot and horseback, internalized what was still frontier country.  This is why Wanderer had such a long fuse to it.

 

In my 1975 Vanderbilt doctoral dissertation, I summed up the significance of Wanderer of the Wasteland in these words:

 

Although Wanderer of the Wasteland had been written in 1919, it was not published until 1923 (eighth on the 1923 best seller list). Wanderer of the Wasteland is one of Grey’s finest desert epics.  The protagonist, Adam Larey, (alias Wansfell, The Eagle, Tanquitch) is a heroic super-human on the scale of Michelangelo’s “David.”  In terms of emotional drain, the book probably took more out of Grey than anything else he ever wrote. The following entries come from his diaries: January 19, 1919.  “Today after years of plan [sic], and months of thought, and weeks of travel, reading, I began the novel that I have determined to be great.”  January 26.  “Dolly read the first chapter, and her praise made me exultant and happy, and full of inspiration.”  February 13.  “I feel that I can write best in the silence and solitude of the night, when everyone has retired. There is a bigness, a glory about the approach of the Wasteland Wanderer novel . . .  It grows upon me day by day.”  March 1.  “Finished the seventh chapter . . . . But this week I go to the desert again, and after that to Death Valley.  Then I will be able to write with a living flame—this novel obsesses me.  It is wonderful, beautiful, terrible.”  May 22.  “I write swiftly, passionately.  I am approaching the climax, and have to rise to tremendous heights.  I feel the surge of emotion—a dread—a terror—a pain, as if this ordeal were physical.”  May 29.  “IT IS MIDNIGHT.  I HAVE JUST FINISHED MY NOVEL WANDERER OF THE WASTELAND.  Twelve hours today—28 pages—and I sweat blood!. . . .  I do not know what it is that I have written.  But I have never worked so hard on any book, never suffered so much or so long.  838 pages.  170,000 words.”

 

The book includes some of the finest desert description: terrain, fauna, plant life, etc., that he ever wrote.  The theme partially is the Old Testament Cain-Abel love-hate relationship, partly the redemptive power of suffering, and partly the desert crucible which will either destroy or ennoble those who submit themselves to its fires.  Magdalene Virey, considering the short period she lives in the book’s pages, is nevertheless a memorable character.  Altogether, it took Grey ten years to gather all the material for the story.  Then, as he began to write, several trips to the Southern California-Arizona border country and two trips to Death Valley helped give him the fresh inspiration he needed.  Later, Grey observed:

 

When the novel came out in book form I said I was willing to stand or fall by it.  I was.  I am still.  I had high hopes for this novel of the wastelands.  A few of them were realized, yet most prominent critics who reviewed the book damned it with faint praise.  They all struck the same note.  They could not see the beauty, the wonder, the tragedy and soul of the desert, the truth of the waste places of the earth and their equally ennobling and debasing effect upon man.  It was not that there was not enough of my ten years’ absorption of the desert to convince the critics of these things.  It was that they did not know anything about the desert—that they could not believe in the heroism and idealism of man.33

 

When he finished, Harpers asked him to cut 100 pages out of the book. . . “All in my interest, they said!  Did you ever hear of such callowness?  Just to save a little money they would cut my book to nothing. . . .  There are some aspects of this literary game that are sickening.”34 Eventually Grey shortened it some, supposedly by about 3,000 words.  To him, it was like cutting off his own flesh.  His 1919 diary entries during this period reveal how carefully he researched his subject.  Nothing was too insignificant to count.

 

33Zane Grey, “My Answer to the Critics,” unpublished manuscript (in possession of the Zane Grey Family), p. 5.

34Zane Grey, letter to Dolly Grey, June 26, 1922, unpublished (in possession of the Zane Grey family).

 

From Zane Grey’s Impact on American Life and Letters (pp. 174-6).

 

* * *

 

So total was this immersion that, in the years that followed, Dolly often addressed him in letters as “Wansfell the Wanderer.”  In fact, during her own epic journeys across the U.S. by auto during the 1920s, whenever a desert wanderer stepped onto a road (most all unpaved) ahead of her, she’d think for a moment it was her husband. [Rarely did they travel together].

 

After the book was published, so many readers asked him to write a sequel that he finally did so [he wrote very few]: Stairs of Sand.

 

* * * * *

 

Get prepared for a great read!  It is easy to find this book on the web.

DR. JOE'S BOOK OF THE MONTH CLUB ZANE GREY'S WANDERER OF THE WASTELAND

BLOG #13, SERIES #3

DR. JOE'S BOOK OF THE MONTH CLUB

ZANE GREY'S WANDERER OF THE WASTELAND

March 28, 2012

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ordinarily, I will not plan to feature a given author more than once a year, or in close proximity to a previous listing, but for a very special reason I am making an exception for April's Book of the Month.  The obvious reason is last week's blog on Death Valley National Park.  You may remember that our January book was Zane Grey's Heritage of the Desert—(the December 28, 2011 blog).  But since Grey's greatest desert novel—perhaps the greatest desert novel ever written—was set in California's Death Valley, the coincidence was just too good an opportunity to pass up.

 

Immediately after the close of World War I (contemporaries called it simply "The Great War"), Zane Grey assumed the role of a desert rat himself as he immersed himself into the desert world so that his next novel might ring true.  From my Master Chronology I have documented this period according to locale (based on letter postmarks and diary entries):

 

January 1, 1919            Zane Grey in Palm Springs, California

January 3, 1919            Exploring desert between Chuckwalla and Chocolate Mountains

January 4, 1919            In vicinity of Yuma, Arizona

January 5, 1919            Exploring Picture Canyon, Mecca, Brawley, El Centro, and Holtville, California

January 6, 1919            In sand dune waste between El Centro and Yuma

January 7, 1919            Meets famed frontiersman, Charlie Meadows

January 8, 1919            Yuma Midland, in vicinity of Picacho, for some time

February 23 – mid March, 1919            Exploring California/Arizona desert country

March 21, 1919            Train to Death Valley Junction

March 22, 1919            Travel from Junction to Death Valley

March 23-26, 1919            Walking across Death Valley with a desert wanderer

March 27-28, 1919            Walks 12 of the 34 miles back to Death Valley Junction

 

Grey and his wife Dolly had first fallen in love with the Southwest desert country during their 1906 honeymoon.  Beginning in 1907, Grey, in expedition after expedition, both on foot and horseback, internalized what was still frontier country.  This is why Wanderer had such a long fuse to it.

 

In my 1975 Vanderbilt doctoral dissertation, I summed up the significance of Wanderer of the Wasteland in these words:

 

Although Wanderer of the Wasteland had been written in 1919, it was not published until 1923 (eighth on the 1923 best seller list). Wanderer of the Wasteland is one of Grey's finest desert epics.  The protagonist, Adam Larey, (alias Wansfell, The Eagle, Tanquitch) is a heroic super-human on the scale of Michelangelo's "David."  In terms of emotional drain, the book probably took more out of Grey than anything else he ever wrote. The following entries come from his diaries: January 19, 1919.  "Today after years of plan [sic], and months of thought, and weeks of travel, reading, I began the novel that I have determined to be great."  January 26.  "Dolly read the first chapter, and her praise made me exultant and happy, and full of inspiration."  February 13.  "I feel that I can write best in the silence and solitude of the night, when everyone has retired. There is a bigness, a glory about the approach of the Wasteland Wanderer novel . . .  It grows upon me day by day."  March 1.  "Finished the seventh chapter . . . . But this week I go to the desert again, and after that to Death Valley.  Then I will be able to write with a living flame—this novel obsesses me.  It is wonderful, beautiful, terrible."  May 22.  "I write swiftly, passionately.  I am approaching the climax, and have to rise to tremendous heights.  I feel the surge of emotion—a dread—a terror—a pain, as if this ordeal were physical."  May 29.  "IT IS MIDNIGHT.  I HAVE JUST FINISHED MY NOVEL WANDERER OF THE WASTELAND.  Twelve hours today—28 pages—and I sweat blood!. . . .  I do not know what it is that I have written.  But I have never worked so hard on any book, never suffered so much or so long.  838 pages.  170,000 words."

 

The book includes some of the finest desert description: terrain, fauna, plant life, etc., that he ever wrote.  The theme partially is the Old Testament Cain-Abel love-hate relationship, partly the redemptive power of suffering, and partly the desert crucible which will either destroy or ennoble those who submit themselves to its fires.  Magdalene Virey, considering the short period she lives in the book's pages, is nevertheless a memorable character.  Altogether, it took Grey ten years to gather all the material for the story.  Then, as he began to write, several trips to the Southern California-Arizona border country and two trips to Death Valley helped give him the fresh inspiration he needed.  Later, Grey observed:

 

When the novel came out in book form I said I was willing to stand or fall by it.  I was.  I am still.  I had high hopes for this novel of the wastelands.  A few of them were realized, yet most prominent critics who reviewed the book damned it with faint praise.  They all struck the same note.  They could not see the beauty, the wonder, the tragedy and soul of the desert, the truth of the waste places of the earth and their equally ennobling and debasing effect upon man.  It was not that there was not enough of my ten years' absorption of the desert to convince the critics of these things.  It was that they did not know anything about the desert—that they could not believe in the heroism and idealism of man.33

 

When he finished, Harpers asked him to cut 100 pages out of the book. . . "All in my interest, they said!  Did you ever hear of such callowness?  Just to save a little money they would cut my book to nothing. . . .  There are some aspects of this literary game that are sickening."34 Eventually Grey shortened it some, supposedly by about 3,000 words.  To him, it was like cutting off his own flesh.  His 1919 diary entries during this period reveal how carefully he researched his subject.  Nothing was too insignificant to count.

 

33Zane Grey, "My Answer to the Critics," unpublished manuscript (in possession of the Zane Grey Family), p. 5.

34Zane Grey, letter to Dolly Grey, June 26, 1922, unpublished (in possession of the Zane Grey family).

 

From Zane Grey's Impact on American Life and Letters (pp. 174-6).

 

* * *

 

So total was this immersion that, in the years that followed, Dolly often addressed him in letters as "Wansfell the Wanderer."  In fact, during her own epic journeys across the U.S. by auto during the 1920s, whenever a desert wanderer stepped onto a road (most all unpaved) ahead of her, she'd think for a moment it was her husband. [Rarely did they travel together].

 

After the book was published, so many readers asked him to write a sequel that he finally did so [he wrote very few]: Stairs of Sand.

 

* * * * *

 

Get prepared for a great read!  It is easy to find this book on the web.

DEATH VALLEY NATIONAL PARK

BLOG #12, SERIES #3

WEDNESDAYS WITH DR. JOE

SOUTHWEST NATIONAL PARKS #10

DEATH VALLEY NATIONAL PARK

March 21, 2012

 

 

Death Valley (one of Patricia Schultz's 1,000 Places to See Before You Die) may be summed up in three superlatives: "Hottest," "Driest," "Lowest."  In July of 1934, a temperature of 134E was recorded at Furnace Creek Ranch—at that time, that was the hottest temperature ever recorded on earth.  Later, a site in Libya recorded a temperature of 136E (two degrees hotter).  It is the driest area in our National Parks system (average rainfall, less than two inches; some years, none at all).  Its Badwater Basin (282 feet below sea level) is the lowest place in North America.

 

The name, of course, is part of the mystique.  Apparently, it dates back to 1849 when a wagon train of pioneers en route to California chose this valley as a route through the Sierra Nevada Mountains.  But rather than a route out, they got instead lasting heat, hunger, thirst, and "awful silence."  One man died; the rest were found by a rescue party, and climbed out over the Panamint Mountains.  One of these, more dead than alive, upon reaching the summit, turned for one last look and, with deep feeling, muttered, "Good-bye, Death Valley"—and the name stuck.

 

 

The valley is 120 miles long and over 60 miles wide.  Surprisingly soaring up from the deepest spot in North America, are peaks such as Telescope Peak (11,049 feet), representing one of North America's greatest vertical rises.  In the winter, these mountains are often snow-capped.

 

In spite of its hostile climate and scarcity of water, "desert rats" (most prospectors or desert wanderers) have long haunted these silent reaches.  Over 10,000 abandoned mining claims can be found here—gold, silver, lead, zinc, mercury, copper, salt, manganese…and borax.  Interestingly enough, a young graduate of the University of California, Stephen Tyng Mather, early on became sales manager for Pacific Coast Borax.  A born advertising genius, Mather generated a flood of publicity glamorizing the early days of Death Valley, and branded his product as "20 Mule Team Borax."  Over 100,000 copies of his Borax recipe book was distributed and sold within one month!  Before long, Mather started his own borax company, and quickly became very wealthy.  As fate would have it, however, in a 1914 letter to his good friend, Franklin Lee, U.S. Secretary of the Interior, Mather groused about the condition of America's national parks.  Lee zinged a letter right back, challenging him with these words, "Dear Steve, if you don't like the way the national parks are being run, why don't you come down to Washington and run them yourself?"  That's all it took—and today Mather is considered to be the father of our national park system, now the envy of the world.

 

Mather never forgot Death Valley; no matter how many other great scenic wonders he managed to save for posterity, he kept pushing for its preservation.  Zane Grey's blockbuster desert novel, Wanderer of the Wasteland (set in Death Valley), a media trifecta (magazine serialization, book publication, and movie) helped Mather's cause no little, as did the advent of that long-running radio show (later movie series), Death Valley Days, memorably hosted by none other than  Ronald Reagan.  In 1933, President Herbert Hoover (formerly president of the National Park Association) signed a bill giving it National Monument status, with an area of 1,600,000 acres. Yet mining continued even after that time.  Not until 1994 (61 years later), when President Clinton pushed through the Desert Protection Act, did Death Valley at last become a national park (at 3,396,000 acres the largest national park in the lower 48, and roughly the size of Connecticut).

 

FURNACE CREEK INN

 

By late 1926, Pacific Coast Boraxt was building Furnace Creek Inn, the type of upscale resort Mather favored because he felt it would enhance the park's status with the general public.  The company had great plans for the resort (designed by Los Angeles architect Albert Martin), and saw to it that rail service into the basin was arranged for.  According to Christine Barnes, the process was a bit involved: the underutilized Tonopah and Tidewater railroad lines transported arriving guests from Union Pacific and Santa Fe railroad stops to the Death Valley Junction; there they would climb aboard the Death Valley Railroad cars for the twenty-mile journey through the Funeral Mountains to Ryan, where the tracks ended.  Motor coaches would take them the rest of the way (Barnes, 52).

 

 

Martin's Spanish Revival hotel was built on a low knoll at the mouth of occasionally running Furnace Creek, but received its water supply from nearby Travertine Springs.  Furnace Creek Inn officially opened on February 1, 1927.  As time passed, the complex continued to expand.  By 1928-29, more and more tourists were finding their way here.  A nine-hole golf course was completed in 1929, as well as an exquisite freshwater swimming pool.  Daniel Hull, renowned landscape architect, had been brought in to complete the masterpiece that is the inn.

 

 

VIPs began to arrive—including the likes of Clark Gable, John Barrymore, Jimmy Stewart, Anthony Quinn and Marlon Brando.  Today, it and the nearby Furnace Creek Ranch are operated by XANTERRA Resorts.

 

OUR MEMORIES

 

Once again, in this all too short a journey we call life, we woke up in the venerable El Tovar Hotel.  Since it would be a long day, the alarm clock rang at 6:15 a.m.  Luckily, we landed the NW window table and were served by our favorite waiter, Noah.  A scrumptious breakfast of French toast, coffee, and splitting a to-die-for cinnamon roll.  By 8:15 a.m., Bob and Lucy Earp, Connie and I, were ensconced in the Lincoln Town Car and "On the Road Again."  Our route took us west through Kingman, Arizona, 93 through Las Vegas to 95, then up to Death Valley  junction on 190.  The temperature kept climbing, and climbing as we descended into the deepest valley in America.  In reality, it is not really a valley at all because 2,000 years ago this was a great lake 600 feet deep.  Even though this was still a spring May day, it was already 98E when we checked in at Furnace Creek Ranch.  One of our trip's major disappointments had to do with our inability to stay at Furnace Creek Inn, reason being that it is open only during the "relatively cool" winter months.   The rest of the year it lies fallow.  But at the Ranch, we were pleasantly surprised by the spacious, comfortable, and cool rooms.  Afterwards, we drove up to Furnace Creek Inn, and walked around the Shangri-la where we'd hoped to be staying. The palm groves were hauntingly beautiful, as was the turquoise Mediterranean pool.  The lawns, shrubs, and flowers were verdant.  The inn was everything we heard it was—at least from what we could see.  Some day, we vowed, we'll return and stay here.  Then back to the Ranch for dinner, ice cream, and early sack-time.  It had been a long day.

 

 

Next morning early, we headed up to famed Zabriski Point for sunrise, then back for breakfast.  We quickly discovered that meals at the Ranch, because of the continual influx of tourist groups (by bus, auto, and motorcycle), was semi-cafeteria style—necessary because of the off the street clientele.  But the food was good.  It felt no frills Old Westy.  Afterwards, we drove to a place I'd dreamed of visiting all my life: Scotty's Castle.

Because it is nestled in the hills about 3,000 feet above the valley floor, it is about nine degrees cooler there.  After strolling through the visitor center, we joined a tour group, and were lucky enough to snag a marvelous guide.  I'm sure you too have discovered that, in traveling, the guides make all the difference.  As we moved through the lovely castle, our guide brought to life the fairy-tale story behind its building :a talented westerner known as Death Valley Scotty, who had ridden with Buffalo Bill for twelve years in his famed Wild West Shows all across America and Europe; but Scotty was also a desert rat, a miner, and a con man who sold shares in nonexistent or non-producing mines.  One of his victims, Albert Johnson, a millionaire, overlooked being duped and built a castle that cost several million dollars to construct, then let Scotty claim ownership of it, supposedly built from the fortune made in his nonexistent mines.  Johnson and his wife had no wish to claim ownership, they'd just listen to Scotty tell tales and let him bask in the adulation of his devoted public.  Oh there's so much more to their story and to the castle!  You'll just have to come and explore it for yourself.  By the time we got back to the ranch, it was 105E in the shade.

 

We mixed with pilgrims from all over the world, including a large cavalcade of Brazilian motorcyclists.  We were told that even in the blistering heat of summer, visitors come anyway, seeking to experience one of the iconic extremes life has to offer.  After supper, we retired early, for tomorrow would be another very long day.

 

SOURCES

 

Atchison, Stewart, Death Valley: Splendid Isolation (Mariposa, CA: Sierra Press, 2002).

 

Barnes, Christine, Great Lodges of the National Parks (Bend, OR: WWW West Inc., 2002).

 

Parker, Stanley W., Death Valley's Scotty's Castle (Wickenburg, AZ: K.C. Publications, 2010).

Schultz, Patricia, 1,000 Places to See Before You Die (New York Workman Publishing, 2003).

 

Southern California & Las Vegas Tour Book (Heathrow, FL: AAA Publishing, 2009).

 

White, Mel, Complete National Parks of the United States, (Washington, D. C. National Geographic Society, 2009).