I set off into the woods astride Little Red, our tractor, a few weeks ago. Nearly two months of no rain made it possible to bushhog around the fence lines at the back of Three Geese Farm without fear of getting stuck in the mud. It is largely bottomland acreage there, a chunk of it in a 100-year flood plain.
The weeds were above my head, making mowing rather exciting. I had no idea what I was about to run over and often hopped off the tractor to visually check before forging ahead. I have a healthy fear of getting stuck out in the Back 40 and having to sell a kidney to pay someone to tow Little...
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HEART MOUNTAIN, WYOMING — On Feb. 19, 1942, a little more than two months after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor launched America’s entry into World War II, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066. That order resulted in nearly 120,000 people of Japanese ancestry — most of them American citizens — being removed from their homes and sent to 10 concentration camps They euphemistically called them relocation centers. One of those camps was built in the Wyoming desert, 12 miles north of Cody in the shadow of craggy Heart Mountain. At an elevation of 8,123 feet, Heart...
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In the spring of 1942, landscape photographer Ansel Adams stood on the roof of his Pontiac with its wood-paneled doors, peering into his 8x10 view camera, mounted on a tripod with its lens aimed at the craggy peaks of Wyoming’s Grand Tetons. The Snake River formed an S-curve below. In his photograph, the peaks were nearly covered in snow above the timberline, as they were when we briefly visited in mid-October.
I stood next to an outdoor display of his photographs at the site where Ansel made his famous image of the Tetons and Snake River. Of course, I attempted to create my own highly inferior...
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CODY, WYOMING – We booked Room #12 at the Irma Hotel, built in 1902 by William Frederick Cody for $80,000 – about $3 million today. Cody, better known as Buffalo Bill, called it “just the sweetest hotel that ever was.”
A wooden sign on the door of #12 proclaims we are indeed staying in The Buffalo Bill. Col. Cody, as he was usually called, maintained two suites and an office at the Irma. We are staying in one of those suites, which is about the size of a small one-bedroom apartment. It has a spacious living room with a soft leather couch and a nice view of Cody (the town) from the suite’s...
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As most of you know, I made my living as a community newspaper publisher for more than three decades, starting in 1982 in San Augustine, down in Deep East Texas. I had just turned 27. Running The Rambler for five years (I ended up buying it) provided a valuable hands-on education. One of my teachers was Ambassador Edward A. Clark, a San Augustine native who became a prominent Austin attorney and Lyndon B. Johnson’s “key man in Texas,” as biographer Robert Caro termed him. Clark was rewarded with an ambassadorship to Australia when Johnson ascended to the presidency after John F. Kennedy’s...
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Roughly 25 years ago, I came into possession of a cache of black walnut, thanks to a sharp-eyed reader who took note of a column announcing that I had taken up building furniture as the latest hobby. Golf no longer held its allure, though I lived on a golf course. I realized, after a decade of playing or practicing several times a week, that I was unlikely to get any better at that accursed game.
My handicap was a highly dubious 12, meaning on average I shot in the mid-80s, with help from foot wedges and a nimble scorecard pencil. I possessed no natural talent and was spending about 20 hours...
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I woke Saturday morning ready to seize the day, a mental list of what I planned to do at top of mind. My Beautiful Mystery Companion was still in Denton helping daughter Abbie and fiancé Brady get settled into their new home. I was also there for a few days, lugging boxes and bins down a couple flights of stairs as they transition from an apartment to an actual house in a neat neighborhood called Idiot’s Hill.
I did not notice a hill or any idiots in particular while there, but both might become more obvious on subsequent visits. Best I can tell from online sleuthing, Idiot’s Hill got its name...
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I first entered a library when I was 6 or 7, a short myopic Yankee kid hungry for books. The Allenstown (N.H.) Public Library, then and now, is housed in a modest, one-story brick building with a fireplace at each end and large windows on either side of the front porch. In the summer, day lilies fill its front yard, blooming riotously as flowers do in cold climes. The library could easily pass for someone’s home, except for the identifying sign in front.
The library was built in 1934 during the New Deal by the Public Works Administration at a cost of $13,000, in the Colonial Revival style....
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The day broke cool with a heavy dew, the temperature at least 10 degrees lower than it had been during the dog days. The forecast temperatures would not break 90 degrees. That passes for early autumn weather in East Texas, a period when summer can rudely return without notice. It was time to begin clearing fencerows and around Pancho’s Pond here at Three Geese Farm.
This is one of those projects that takes time to bubble to the top of the never empty to-do list. Mowing and bushhogging take precedent. The grass can get away from you if neglected. The whole dang place can turn back into the Pine...
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I have embarked on the latest long-form writing project, after doing research off and on since the COVID-19 pandemic confined us to our homes in 2020. Being housebound was the impetus, as well as discovering nearly all of the primary sources I needed to compile were now available online – something that was not the case when I first delved into this topic nearly 40 years ago.
As always, getting started is difficult. But it is necessary. I could continue to keep traveling down online rabbit holes, looking for more information. That is one way to put off the arduous work of actually organizing...
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