BOND'S MISSION SCHOOL

The Unitarians only had one of the Indian boarding schools that have become so notorious, unhappy partly because of their assumption that the task at hand was a matter of extinguishing Indian culture (which would horrify contemporary Unitarians) and partly because of the sexual abuse that seemed an undercurrent in many mission schools. Catholic mission schools seemed to be particularly afflicted, but maybe that’s mostly because the great preponderance of the schools were Catholic, often run by European orders but sometimes staffed with lay people of dubious qualifications.



In my never-ending filing, I just turned up the UU World for Nov.15, 1986, with a fine photo of the school on the front. I’ll try to scan it, but you’ll only get a ghost of an image, I’m afraid. It’s a newsprint image in the first place and twenty years old in the second. The building was far more substantial than the one-story log early schools on the Blackfeet Reservation, but not nearly so impressive as the sandstone buildings of Holy Family Mission on Two Medicine River. “Bond’s School” (nicknamed after the first missionary) was a wooden building and it burned.

This is from the UU World: “The Montana Industrial School for Indians was established in October, 1886, by the American Unitarian Association. Founded by the Rev. Henry F. Bond and his wife, Pamela, the school, also known as Bond’s MIssion, was located on the Crow Indian Reservation near Custer Station on the Big Horn River. Fifty Indian children at a time lived at the school, which taught farming, mechanics, and the domestic sciences. Students and faculty posed for this photograph in 1888. The school closed after a decade when the federal government withdrew the $109 per pupil annual subsidy. The buildings were sold to the government for one dollar.”

Inside the magazine is a “reflection” from Bill Schulz, the mighty leader of the UUA at the time. He says: “Only once did the American Unitarian Association offer direct support to the Native American community but that one time still lives in the hearts of the Crow Indians. In 1886 Henry and Pamela Bond journeyed to Montana, under the auspices of the AUA to establish what would come to be known as “Bond’s Mission,” an industrial school for children of the Crow.

“Nothing but a stone foundation remains today of the experiment which dated only 11 years, but it was on that modest site that I was privileged to stand in early October along with dozens of Crow descendents of the original students as we participated in a moving commemoration of the Mission’s centennial.

“Organized by Margery and Ben Pease of Boise, ID, and supported by Montana Unitarian Universalists, the ceremonies reminded us how much of our contemporary sprituality we owe to the Native American tradition and how important it is that ours be a faith that reaches well beyond the white middle class.

“In my brief remarks at the site, I said, “If Henry and Pamela Bond were with us today, I am confident that they would say to the Crow community, “We who taught your parents and grandparents are now your students.”

Do I believe that? Maybe. White liberals love to be ‘umble around poor people of color. They just forget to send money.

I knew that Margery Pease had written a book: “A Worthy Work in a Needy Time : The Montana Industrial School for Indians (Bond's Mission ) 1886-1897; PEASE, MARGERY Self-pub in 1986. Reprinted in Billings, Mont.: M. Pease, [1993]. It’s a small book, stapled, which -- because of the valuable historical content -- sells on Amazon for fifty bucks or so. Seeing this, I called Margery and she tells me she’s printed more which she sells for $8 plus $2 postage. Order direct from her: Margery Pease, 3719 Spotted Jack Loop N, Billings, MT 59101-6974. I won’t put her phone online. She doesn’t use email.

There are several lessons for us all here, I think. First, never underestimate the value of the small local book, esp. when it contains historical information that might not be available anyplace else. The person to impress this upon most seriously is usually the author! Margery, however, doesn’t need lessons. She is a two-tribed woman, both Unitarian-by-choice and Crow-by-marriage, and she is deeply aware of bringing those two traditions together. She is an includer, not an excluder -- a reconciler and a recorder.

The other thing is that in every location people will go to a local printer or just resort to copy machines and their desk stapler to make a book. It is a deep impulse that I hope will be enabled rather than snuffed by the Internet. Maybe blogs are occupying some of this territory now, but I’m always surprised at how much “ephemera” circulates in the used book market: abebooks.com or alibris.com, esp. now that people tend to use such venues to clear out their basements. Much better than burning it, the fate of Bond’s Mission School.

SYMBIOSIS

From the beginning of any records, including the evidence of human remains and kitchen middens, animals have shared our lives. Dogs joined us when we hunted and cats or ferrets came along when we began to store grain in bins, attracting rodents. We learned to domesticate other species and how to morph them to our designs, each region creating the kind of sheep or cow it needed.

Beyond that, now that we have the means to “read” DNA, it becomes clear that the metabolic electrochemical processes inside the skins of all creatures are closely related. In fact, zillions of tiny creatures move back and forth among us, through our guts, in our eyebrows, under our fingernails. We exist in a matrix of shared circumstances. Humans can ease the consequences of weather, food, and disease and we all work to make our livings among the givens where we find ourselves. We work best in symbiosis, that is, “an interaction between two dissimilar organisms living in close physical association, esp. one in which each benefits the other.” Hopefully, this yields synergy” which is “increased effectiveness, achievement, etc. produced by combined action and cooperation.” And for those who admit the religious aspect, synergism, “the doctrine that human will cooperates with divine grace in the work of regeneration.” (All three definitions from The New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary.)

Whether it is the Budgie bird issued to oldsters in Britain so they will keep the temperature warm enough for birds and thus protect their own lives instead of economizing on fuel too stringently, or whether it is the nearly extinct practice of fishing the surf in Spain by deploying a huge net into the water, then pulling it to shore with powerful draft horses, we interact with our animals in many ways. Arguably, working cross-species pairs are even more enmeshed than pets and their humans.

My ideal for dog ownership is the interacting symbiosis of working animals: assistants to the blind or deaf, hunting dogs, guard dogs (even those who are symbiotic with sheep rather than humans), and companions who soften the solitude of the single person living alone. But even when person and animal share a purpose, understand each other wordlessly through the power of habit, and fit their surroundings well, problems must constantly be worked through. Laws concerning animals in the US too often classify them as “products,” too often letting their well-being go by the wayside unless it cuts into profits. Or animals are “pets” defined by who protects them economically and emotionally. Unless they are status markers, the law sees them as essentially valueless. But when a loose steer in traffic (or as in Great Falls a few years ago, three loose bison running down the main artery) it’s an emergency and no one cares whether they are pets or livestock in that moment. Some animals create an emergency simply by dying inauspiciously. Dogs have repeatedly been defined in the law as “deadly weapons” when they are used to menace or control others.

The business of animal control (or the function that we currently call by that name) is NOT to number, sterilize, and supervise every animal in America, but rather to work through problems as they arise. It is a great mistake to alienate and polarize whole populations of animal keepers and lovers, but it is often a mistake thrust upon animal control by over-reaching humane societies. The misunderstandings are fed by the narrowness of experience of many people, who only know about animals from television, their dinner plates, and maybe their childhood pets. The use of animal aggression for gaming and gambling, an ancient practice, is (and I’d say SHOULD be) hypocritically demonized in this country. (I have a hard time seeing the difference between Vick fighting dogs against each other and Vick himself courting concussion and joint damage in a football game.) But my prejudice is that we’d do more good to try to uncover the causes of such behavior than by simply passing laws. Education, the creating and pointing out of better ways, has got to be a big part of animal control.

Two major scientific realizations are so important to my thinking that I would also consider them religious. (Technically, “process theology,” which sees the flow and flux of creation rather than concentrating on one ideal state.) First is that existence is continuous and connected through all time and space. The boundaries we see between humans and animals, between animals and plants, between life and non-life, are only structured interfaces between the sets of electro-magnetic and molecular processes contained in one creature and another. This means, most simply, that every time some small things changes (a sparrow falls) everything else on the planet is also changed to some tiny degree. Nothing can stay the same. Every human act has consequences, usually cumulative. These accumulate until they interfere with something else -- then there’s a reaction.

We know now that what we do in one corner of the planet affects all the rest. Pigs and waterfowl sharing barnyard space in SE Asia give rise to bird flu that migratory waterfowl spread everywhere. AIDS and ebola, sequestered for millenia in the jungles of Africa, now travels the world in passenger jets. Driving SUVs in Atlanta causes global warming that drowns and starves polar bears in arctic seas. Cost-cutting in a factory in China kills our pets with tainted food or damages our children with lead-based paint on toys. It’s not all bad: dust blown off the Sahara in Africa can suppress the ocean forces that create hurricanes in the US. This is all very high-falutin’ and so far from most people’s ordinary thinking that they can hardly get their heads around it.

Neighborhoods and jurisdictions, urban or rural, each have their own ecologies. The same factor that in one place is helpful can make trouble elsewhere. Appropriateness to the situation is one of the keys, so the work of the good animal officer is as much to gather awareness of what goes on as it is to intervene, because how else can a person know what intervention will work? Force might work in one context, a law in another, a spay-neuter program here, a school-wide animal ownership class there. Or maybe it’s time to invent something new.

The Internet offers an incomparable chance to hunt and gather ideas. Use a search engine to find them, then use the links down the sides of their blogs. Don’t be afraid to explore non-AC sites. One of my favorites is www.terriermandotcom.blogspot.com, written by a guy who runs working terriers. “Querencia” at stephenbodio.blogspot.com combines an interest in gazehounds (dogs that hunt by sight and swift pursuit in open country) with hawks. “Fretmarks” at fretmarks.blogspot.com is a woman poet and professor at Oxford who has a hawk named “Mabel” and produces some of the most beautiful writing I’ve ever read. http://ambulancedriverfiles.blogspot.com/ is unbeatable for wry comments on emergency responders. There are not enough animal control blogs --are there any? The bureaucrats who pay for animal control are VERY nervous about revelations. But I’m now at the stage and situation where I can say what I want.

Animal control need not be grim, angry, and punitive. One of the continuing ties among almost all emergency responders is hilarity at the predicaments people and their animals can get into. Some of the deepest and sustaining emotions many of us feel is bonded love with a pet. And surely animals provide transcendent moments, whether it’s the flight of an eagle or the birth of a horse. Then we are put in touch with the pulsing core of life.

MELBA DAY SPARKS HENNING 1915 - 1993

Valiantly, I struggle on with my boxes and boxes of things to file! In the process I find interesting things. Recently a little memorial bulletin showed up, so I will type it into this blog. Then others can find it, too.

When I was in high school, Melba was my major role model, though we weren’t much alike. She was tall, blue-eyed with long dark hair, vigorously healthy with strong hands and fingernails. One of the stories she liked to tell on herself was a first day of school when one of the students was absolutely riveted on her hands with their long red nails. When she got to the part where she asked if students had any questions, this person shot a hand into the air immediately. Anticipating an appetite for dramatics, Melba nodded to him. “Are those fingernails real?” he wanted to know.

But I couldn’t live a life like hers: endlessly responsible and organizing, no job too small, detail too minor. Pageant after pageant, committee after committee, she never seemed to wear out. And none of it seemed trivial to her. None of the awards described were adequate to recognize her constant grace and diligence.


Melba Day Sparks Henning was born on January 4, 1915. Her father was Edward Hugh Day and Rose Meta (Fischer) Day. She died on December 24, 1993.

Melba married Victor E. Sparks on June 11, 1939. They made their home in Nevada from 1939 to 1941. They adopted two abandoned baby bobcats, Tom and Jerry. In 1942 they moved to their chartreuse house on Mallory Street in Portland, Oregon. In the early 1970’s they moved to their farm, Windy Hill, in Troutdale, OR.

On the farm they had a retired circus pony, Joey; a donkey, Betsy; two horses, GaTaya and Bobby; black caracou sheep; geese; two dobermans, Tippy and Dante; and Surprise, the calico barnyard cat. Vic died of cancer in 1977.

Melba married Otto Henning on September 11, 1982. They traveled and had many worldwide adventures. New Zealand was their first destination. While they were there they took a small plane sightseeing. The pilot landed on a glacier 1500 feet deep with a spectacular view. Next stop was Australia where they made friends with some wonderful people including the World Cricket Champion, who took them under his wing and treated them like royalty. They later traveled to London, England, and toured Shakespeare’s home. They took a cruise from Portland to Vancouver, BC in 1989 on one of the first cruise ships, the Veendam. It was fifty years to the day that Otto had cruised on the same ship as a reward from his employer. In 1990 they moved from their farm to their SummerPlace home. Otto now resides at the Heritage at Mt. Hood. (1994)

Melba was a graduate of Jefferson High School. In 1934 she was listed in Who’s Who Among Students in American Universities and Colleges. In 1935 she graduated from Pacific University, Forest Grove, Oregon, with a Bachelor of Arts, magna cum laude. She did undergraduate work at Northwestern University in Evanston, IL, on scholarship. Melba did her graduate work at University of Washington, Portland University and Portland State University. During 1935 to 1936 she also did modeling in Chicago and summer stock in Vermont. She taught modern dance at Pacific University and was Director of Recreation for girls and women at the Linnton, OR, Community center from 1935 to 1936. In 1936 Melba played Olivia in Midsummer’s Night Dream at the Oregon Shakespearean Festival. She was an instructor in dramatics at the Meglin Studios, Seattle, WA.

From 1936 to 1938 she taught at the Eagle Point, OR., High School. When she first came to Eagle Point, she lived with a saddlemaker’s family and while preparing to take her evening bath she was surprised to find a saddle soaking in the bathtub. The saddle was promptly removed for gracious Melba, but then put back after her bath. She said the experience was comic. It was the first time she had ever had to share a bathtub with a saddle.

In 1939 she taught high school in Enterprise, OR. In 1940 she was an instructor at the Civilian Conservation Corps in Westgate, Nevada. From 1940 to 1941 she was owner and teacher of a private drama and dance studio in Fallon, Nevada. During World War II, 1942 to 1945, Melba was Supervisor of the Oregon Shipyard Time Office in Portland, OR.

Melba directed over one hundred and forty-eight full-length plays and musicals, consisting of high school students and at times elementary students and adults. Her unforgettable play, “The Twelve Days of Christmas” which she wrote and directed, was one of many favorites among her students and audiences throughout her high school teaching career.

From 1945 to 1961 she taught drama at Jefferson High School, was sponsor of Thespian Troupe 124 and helped design and build the school theatre in the auditorium wing. Her office was behind the box office. In 1961 she transferred to the new Madison High School as their first drama teacher, where she sponsored Troupe 1782, and retired in 1975.

Melba served on nearly 20 international Thespian committees including scholarship, Thespian 50th Anniversary, Building, and International Troupes. 1947 to 1968 she was State Director for the Oregon Thespian Society and Chairman for Oregon Theatre Arts Conferences, 1968-1970 she was Assistant Director for the International Thespian Society, and 1970-1972 she was Director of the International Thespian Society. At this time she reorganized policies for the Thespian structure and revised DRAMATICS magazine. She was on the Board of Directors 1968-1974. In 1953, 1954, and 1957 Melba had received awards from the National Thespian Society for her play programs.

In 1956 she was Director for the National Education Association Pageant. She was State Manager and Lighting Technician for the National Principals Association Pageant in 1960 and for the National Music Educators Association Pageant in 1965. She was recipient of the Junior Achievement Award given to a Portland citizen for outstanding contributions to the achievement of youth in 1956-1957.

She was co-chair for the 1966 National Theatre Arts Conference. Through her efforts she brought the conference to Portland, OR, the only one ever held outside Indiana. At the conference she produced the pageant “Voyage of Thespis.”

Melba served as Vice President of the Professional Women’s League in 1963-1964 and President 1964-65. She was also a member of the American Education Theatre Association, Secondary Theatre Association, Children’s Theatre Association, Oregon Theatre Arts Association and Zeta Phi Eta.

In 1964 Melba was honored in the Madison High School Yearbook dedication and received Recognition of Distinguished Service.

She was narrator for the Portland Schools Music Festival in 1968.

In 1972 she was Co-Chair for the 1974 International Theatre Arts Conference at Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana. She also served as Hospitality Chair for the Conference in 1974.

In 1975 Melba was runner-up for Oregon’s Teacher of the Year and was listed in Who’s Who Among American Women 1974-75 and 1975-76.

In 1978 The Oregon Thespians established the Melba Day Sparks Award to be presented annually at the Oregon Thespian Conference to an individual or group who has contributed to the growth of theatre in Oregon. At the first Annual Awards for Clowns Serendipity, Melba received the Dottie Hall 1978 Citation of Merit for “Lighting Our Spark.”

Melba served as Make-up Supervisor for Rose Festival Parades and for Portland MIss America Pageants. She organized and directed youth in the Fairytale Parades and organized and directed the flag raising ceremony for Flag Day.

She was featured in articles published by DRAMATICS magazine, Portland School Bulletin, The Oregonian, Gresham Outlook, Photogravieure and Northwest Magazine. Later she wrote and directed the Portland Public School Bi-Centennial pageant, directed Clowns Serendipity, served as judge for the Scholastic All-Stars Program and directed plays for Columbia (now Reynolds) High School.

In 1991 Melba was one of the first individuals to be inducted into the Educational Theatre Association’s Hall of Fame. In 1993 she received a Certificate of Appreciation from Academic All Stars.

Melba died of cancer of the esophagus at home in 1993 on the day after Christmas. She was 78. There were no services at her request. She’s buried in Rose City Cemetery in Portland, OR.

BEST OF SHOW: DALLIN MAYBEE

For some time now I’ve been saying that because content of books is so easy to come by -- download it, morph it any way you want, read it as eprint behind glass or paper print with ink, hear it on iPod, buy it second-hand, whatever -- that books-as-objects will grow in importance. Custom-bindings, artist’s books, illustrated books. Recently some authentic monks created a new Bible in the ancient manner, carefully hand-lettering the script on parchment and illuminating the margins and headings. It is VERY expensive and precious. But what I’ve been pitching -- and cannot do myself -- is a Native American sort of book with a beaded buckskin binding.

In the November “Southwest Art” magazine there is a photo of the “Best of Show” at the 86th Annual Santa Fe Indian Market where all the creme-de-la-creme in Indian arts and crafts is presented. It is exactly the sort of book I envisioned! The artist is Dallin Maybee, a 33-year-old first year law school at the Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law at Arizona State University who already has had a twenty year career as an Indian dancer. I mean, is this a “Renaissance Man” or what?

But the term is a Euro-reference to a period in Europe when people were cultivated in science, law and art -- not labeled and sorted and assigned as “we” like to do. Maybee comes from the Cattaraugus Indian Reservation in Western New York. His mother is Northern Arapaho, his father is Seneca, and his family includes many people who bead and make dolls. They love and respect children, so Maybee took a “philosophy of childhood” class and out of that grew two stories: a father and son story and a mother and daughter story. Each became a book.

There is a Blackfeet artist who makes individual paintings in the 19th century style of “ledger books” which were traditional accounts of warriors and hunters, like the ones that were originally painted onto story robes. (See “Blackfoot War Art: Pictographs of the Reservation Period, 1880-2000” by L. James Dempsey, May 2007, Univ of Oklahoma Press.) The choice of ledger books was forced by the lack of availability of any other paper so the artists simply ignored the blue lines and painted over them, like school children drawing in their tablets I expect a person could make something philosophical about those faint equidistant lines for European style writing, specifically records of money, with superimposed on top the far more exciting doings of horses and men, arrows in flight and hoofprints on the ground. The contemporary Blackfeet ones are done on ledger pages from the Blackfeet Tribal Council. When I look at them, I recognize the names -- knew the people, both the ones whose names are written there and the ones who wrote them. It’s a little shocking. I know some of the history, still recent enough to reek of reality -- if you can stand that much alliteration.

But Maybee Dallin is writing children’s books onto antique ledgers from 1863. The covers are rawhide, which is stiff, translucent and rather like parchment. He has painted the main images, a running buffalo with the mother and child; two pale horse heads with the father and son. The beads are used to make a border around each book. The photos online (http://www.law.asu.edu/ under “Headlines”) are too small to tell much about construction details. It appears that the hinge of the cover is buckskin with thong ties. The beading must have been done on something besides rawhide and then glued on. Rawhide is too stiff for beadwork, at least as i know it. Maybe he found some other way to work the surface. They are several feet wide and only a foot or so tall, in a panorama sort of proportion.

These books are displayed under glass at the law school with the idea that one is able to ask a librarian to take them out long enough to read them. Naturally, the world being what it is, publishers are courting him for some kind of commercial publishing plan -- defeating the whole artwork one-of-a-kind approach. But any book produced commercially won’t be the same anyway.

Maybee has traveled many places in the world with his dancing and visited many disciplines with his education. Beginning as a tribal police officer, he earned a bachelor’s degree in philosophy and began work on an MFA from the University of California in Los Angeles. It was his work as an officer that brought up the idea of law school. He says, “I did some Indian law coursework at UCLA during my master’s, including coursework on Federal Indian Law and practical applications in the legal development program there, where I was able to do some really exciting things like helping a tribe draft civil procedural code.” Right. Exciting. Like beadwork: little bits that add up to something grand.

If I were worrying on behalf of Dallin Maybee (and why wouldn’t I?) I’d be afraid of him becoming overloaded, not having enough space and time to develop. When an Indian with this much stability and creativity is located -- and it’s not that there aren’t many of them, it’s that people don’t look for them and support them -- there is a tendency to put them on every committee, to sign them up as representatives, to drain their blood with minutia. Or since he’s such a multi-gifted person, he may be pushed and pulled from one point of view to another without being able to form a core for himself.

And yet, of all the NA pursuits, beading and quilling require centering, deliberation, planning, even meditation. That helps. What may save him is his ability to do California civil law while at the same time creating children’s books. I hope they aren’t so precious that real children never get to see and handle them, this mix of Indian and white concepts: “book” with bead, reading with rawhide.


This wonderful addition comes from David in England, who also provided photos of Maybee's work. I'm very grateful and rather awed that this should happen!




Hi Mary
You asked in your latest item about native art books if someone could try to C&P the native artwork in the photo. Attached are 2 jpegs, blown up by 50% and sharpened, but as detail is lacking in original, if you blow them up too much, the pixellation appears. If you don't have suitable software, I used IrfanView, a downloadable freeware programme which also offers a 'gallery' function useful for browsing image collections.

Though these examples were done using printed ledgers, I wonder if native peoples didn't have an earlier, now obscured, tradition of creating books by sewing together hides. Celtic peoples did this, and as I've mentioned before, I do a blog built around the topic (codexceltica.blogspot.com). Codices represent the intermediate phase between the scroll and the modern printed book - handwritten or drawn, on pages of either parchment or vellum, sewn or stitched together, often with a cover. The Beowulf Codex I've just blogged about for instance was done on sheep hides. Often the hides were scraped and reused, creating a palimpsest.

Though orthodox scholarship follows the Roman claim the Celtic peoples were illiterate, there are stories of the early missionaries like Columba destroying hundreds of "books" on arrival. And of course he only wound up a missionary at Iona after a dispute in Ireland, which led to a battle, over a manuscript book (a psalter) he copied without permission. (He lost the case - as the judge put it, "To every cow its calf; to every book its copy".) He's now patron saint of bookbinders.

David
South Central MediaScene
www.south-central-media.co.uk

MITT'S MISTAKE

Okay, I’m gonna tell this joke again. Two old lady school teachers from the city felt they had become too urban, so they decided to drive to the country and find out all about it. There they were, toodling down the road when a question arose. They stopped and hailed a farmer to come from off his tractor and help them out.

“We’ve just been looking at that cow over there,” they explained, “And we wonder why it doesn’t have any horns.”

“Wal, ladies,” said the polite farmer, “There are several reasons why a cow doesn’t have horns. It might be polled, meaning it just never grow any horns. Or it might be ornery, so the horns might have been cut off. But the reason that there cow has no horns is because it’s a horse!”

It was a category mistake. I bring up this helpful joke to point out that Mitt Romney and all his commentators are making category mistakes about religion.

First, they think that anyone who is not affiliated with an institutionalized religion is not a believer -- not religious. To be religious is to join an institution. I belabor the point because it is so often missed. If the person believed something, we think, why wouldn’t he or she announce which set of religious beliefs he believed in so we would know “what” he is? Making this assumption means that a person who is not an announced affiliate of a defined religion (ethnic, historical, organized, of a particular socio-economic style) then must be an “unbeliever” and not religious.

Religion is a herd instinct. Okay, that’s too pejorative, but it’s a group project, we assume. And most denominations, I say as an ordained minister formerly serving congregations, see the point of religion as organizing the biggest group, so they’re invested in this idea of competitive branding, like toothpaste or detergent. They do a lot of market research to understand how to attract more congregants. “Success” is measured by head counts. Get those cathedrals full of people! If possible, FAMOUS people! Powerful people!

But what if beliefs are unique, individual, arrived at by one’s own reason and not requiring a group consensus? The assumption is that every unaffiliated person must be “secular” -- that is, not having any beliefs at all and possibly be actively AGAINST religious affiliation. Of course, in this country we have the idea that a lot of people are generic Christian, with free-floating ideas that more or less agree with the majority, thus creating a kind of civic-religion-by-default consensus. Not, “This is what I believe,” but “Yah, I guess so.”

The next assumption is that religion is defined by having a “God.” If you don’t have a God, you aren’t a religion. This is because the Big Three Abramic religions, which are mostly what we Westerners know, ARE organized around their notions of God. These religions come from tribes in a Patriarchal world. (For a while there was an effort to convinced everyone that if we had a female God, we could have Matriarchs instead. That’s pretty much bygones now. Except for the presidency. Not Mitt’s problem.)

Most of what we know about other religions is taught to us by Christians or Jews, who see everything in their own terms. Native Americans quickly learned to fit their old beliefs into these categories: God equals Napi (but only the good side) and Jesus equals Star Boy (who came down from the sky but had to return). Probably the oldest religions of NA were more Asian, like their genes. Asian religions concentrate on one’s family (especially ancestors as in Shinto) or on harmony (like Tao) or on acceptance (like Buddhism) -- in quite different ways from Western concepts. Confucius, of course, wisely advised to get along with the government, in his times an emperor. A government is a competing institution, which some countries solve by merging the two. Then the religious institutions are no longer a restraint on the government institution. Things are calm.

Back to America. What about all these unaffiliated people out there washing around in their love of money and leisure, their resistance to authority, their unwillingness to tithe since they’re already paying taxes? Are they worshiping in a new religion: “secularism?” Or sometimes it is labeled “Humanism,” meaning that humans had better get around to understanding themselves and improving the world instead of abusing their knee bones in prayer to a nonexistent -- or maybe just nonresponsive -- God. My father was a “prairie humanist” whose birth family barely survived drought and depression. His “church” was ag co-ops, his cathedrals were grain elevators. It worked better in a rural world.

I suspect there IS a new religious consensus forming in the world -- AROUND the world, not just in one country. It is not the worship of science or science-as-church, but it is very much shaped by the new scientific knowledge about things like solar wind, the genetics of bird flu, plate tectonics, DNA studies, and so on. It is also much informed by our sense of loss, of the world slipping away from us. So far the balance has not tipped between total despair and some sign of hope or salvation. Here and there are small groups working like religious missionaries to pitch sustainability, organic farming, sustainability, wind and solar energy, equalization of income, the improvement of universal education and so on. But there has not yet appeared the central, convincing, surefire point of focus.

Will it ever? I wish I knew. It might not happen in my lifetime, but the discussion is growing more intense. One of the central realizations is the constant flow of time and the change it makes, but it’s hard for religions to just say, “Go with the flow.” I mean, the Tao does, but even their impulse, like ours, is towards the familiar, the dependable, the traditional. A house we can keep. A family that stays together. A landscape that doesn’t die around us. Love that abides.

These are the cravings that gave rise to Mormonism in the first place. Whether it is a vision that works anymore can only be answered by individuals.

7 + 7 = 14 YEARS OLD

Here’s my seven plus seven: fourteen years old in Portland, OR. Actually, Pearl Lee to the far right was a bit older since she came from China when the Japanese invaded. She joined us in fifth grade.

Joyce Thomas to the far left. She eventually married, had two little boys, and was widowed. Our paths diverged after early high school though that first year we were in the same algebra class where Mr. Knudson initiated us into the mysteries of “x.” Next in the lineup is Joan McGowan, who used her college money to buy a pea-green Thunderbird. Many stories there. Third is myself. Pearl married a man from her church, though his name was also Lee which was supposed to be bad luck. Proving that idea totally wrong, they’ve had a long and fruitful life with three excellent kids and much work as Baptist missionaries, esp. when Hong Kong changed hands.

We are standing in my yard just before setting out on the two mile trek to Jefferson High School. We walked down Alberta street and sometimes Joanie’s boyfriend walked along with us. There were no school-owned buses, but we could have taken the Alberta bus. This was 1953 and we were thrifty -- you can see we’re carrying our lunches. No one thought this was good for one’s health. We had a good time. Later in my high school career I was in plays and walked the two miles four times daily. The street was not considered particularly dangerous at night then, but my mother often came for me if we rehearsed past nine PM, and took several others home as well.



This was the family Christmas portrait for 1953. The cat was my eighth grade graduation present IF I would cut my hair. It’s name was Willis, for the Martian in Heinlein’s “Red Planet Mars.” The dog, Duncan McTavish, is at my mother’s feet. He was a Scottie/Sealyham cross. The sofa is a Hide-a-Bed made necessary by my coming of age -- I had to have a room of my own and there were only two small bedrooms upstairs so my parents moved down to the front room.

You can see by our expressions that this was a hard time. Not too long earlier we’d been in a car accident -- hit a stopped school bus from behind because my father was hurrying and arguing with my mother. She hit the windshield hard, but thanks to safety glass did not go through as her sister had done long ago, cutting her throat and killing her. My mother was wearing a thick felt beret that cushioned her head, but her earring cut her neck so there was blood trickling down. Paul, the youngest brother, was sitting in front next to the door because we kids had been quarreling in the back. My mother threw out her arm to protect him and broke her own arm close to the wrist. We had not realized how vulnerable we were. We had not realized that we kids were getting too big to travel around as a family group.

My mother had just begun to understand that something was wrong with my father. He still functioned on his job and so on, but he was at the beginning of what unraveled into something like Parkinson’s or Alzheimer’s by the time he died in his Sixties. He had sustained a bad concussion while traveling on the job alone in 1948. A drunk hit him head-on at night on a winding narrow coastal road. My mother didn’t understand what was wrong, but she could see she needed to finish her teaching degree “so she could put Mary through college.” She started classes with a cast on her arm.

This was the point where I essentially left my family, though I was there every night in my room, awash in papers, clothes, the dolls I wasn’t quite ready to put away, incomplete projects for school. The cat went out every night, got tired of cold rain about 4AM and wanted back in, so I went down and opened the front door, then went back to bed -- sidling past the opened hideabed. The cat, soaked, always made it back to the bed before I did, which was one reason I wore big thick flannel nightgowns I made myself.

If my father were traveling, which was almost always the case, my mother would get up and study. It took her a while to recover the vocabulary she’d had at twenty -- and anyway, a lot had changed since that pre-WWII time. She was taking classes at Portland State College, a transformation of Vanport College which had been flooded out in the great 1948 flood that changed Portland. Vanport was meant to serve the Korean Veterans, so they were my mother’s classmates and that was a good thing. Trying to address their version of Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome, which was mostly denied in those days, there was emphasis on a kind of sharing and support group (“T groups” they were cryptically called) which my mother probably needed almost as much as they did. Her mother had died of cancer a few years earlier and some of her relatives blamed her -- said it was caused by worry over her marriage in defiance of my grandfather. If her father had died of cancer, the story would have been quite different. But he came through with a loan for tuition and going back to school was the best thing that could have happened to my mother.

This is what shapes families: misadventures, new beginnings, family interpretations -- always pushed along by changing times, natural events, kids growing up and adults growing old. Like a passing parade of umbrellas, a certain way of understanding what happens seem clear and sheltering (sometimes called “canopies” to suggest a religious aspect)-- then that one goes on and there’s a bit of exposure to rain until the next one is there for shelter. In those days we were all supposed to have “good personalities,” meaning cheerful and evasive of difficult subjects. That umbrella still works in Valier. Also, the emphasis on never spending money if it’s not absolutely necessary and clinging to the original marriage homestead throughout life. The family was what counted and still does in many parts of the world.

But now the idea is to strive for individual success, to go as far as you can go in terms of prestige and profit, moving as necessary, discarding partnerships and institutions as is convenient. I’ve done too much moving on to my taste. My cousins have been better able to hang onto the house their parents built or the jobs that started with long ago. On the Strachan side the family still counts, though sometimes it draws in tight to just the nuclear group. Then a new generation forces expansion.

Going to college in Chicago or even going to college at all had not registered with me at fourteen. Graduation from high school was a cliff and an abyss. Unimaginable. I went with a drama group to visit the University of Oregon and stayed in a sorority house, slept on a screened sleeping porch in a bunkbed, and was escorted through the brand-new U of O stage complex. It was like being in a dream. The sorority had a grand piano painted shrimp pink -- the strangest thing I’d ever seen.

We got a television set about this time: smallish, black and white. The big Western series were on -- Gunsmoke, Wagon Train, Paladin, and my fav, Cheyenne. Strong men as shelter. My mother’s favorite was Sergeant Preston which came on while she fixed supper. She’d dash out of the kitchen with the dish towel in her hands, watch standing up until the ad break, then dash back to the kitchen for more peeling and stirring. One night about this time of year she was standing there, alongside the front door, and heard a key in the lock.

Thinking it was my father, she reached over and pulled the door open. In came a strange man, hanging onto the knob to stay upright since he was quite drunk. “Wrong house, buddy!” exclaimed my mother as she spun him around and pushed him back out the door, then quickly hooked the screen. She was Sergeant Preston to us.

When my father got home and found the screen hooked, he was a bit miffed until he heard the story. None of us realized that in a way he was leaving the family, too. We were going on without his participation or advice, not even needing his income as much. There was never a legal divorce and he still lived there, but he lived sort of parallel. In the early Sixties he lost his job, held a smattering of new ones, then died. There was a long space and then my youngest brother suffered a similar head trauma from falling -- with similar effects -- and lived with my mother until her death.

In this portrait of the family, the pictures on the walls are still the ones that had been put there when my parents moved in as newlyweds. In fact, many of them were wedding presents. But now they began to change as my mother redecorated with new ideas of how things ought to be. Up in my own room, I painted the walls pale green and papered the bed alcove with daisies. In four years one brother had joined the Marines and the other moved into my room. He sent me a post card: “Roses are red and Cheyenne is back. I’ve painted your room so the daisies are black.” I didn’t care. I’d moved on to Ingmar Bergman, headed for seven plus seven plus seven: twenty-one, another cliff and abyss.

COWBOY, SAVE THAT BOOK!

In these days of print as ephemera and books as somehow compromised unless they are Googled or Kindled, I am bemused by this automatic newsletter that I get from Buckingham Books. I keep thinking to myself, I thought Westerns were OVER! So why are these books so expensive?

I scan anxiously to see whether I have any thousand dollar books. So far I’ve only turned up one worth a couple of hundred dollars, but it was a history of Universalism.

Why is this book dealer, which evidently specializes in Western books, actually in Pennsylvania? At one time that was the frontier West, but that was quite a while ago.

I notice how many are “privately printed,” which means self-published, which is supposed to be a major no-no that renders a book less valuable. And they are often small, local, and not illustrated. Maybe extremely limited in number. But they are what Mary Clearman Blew called “first generation history,” sometimes written by eyewitnesses and sometimes by descendants or obsessed amateur historians. Some of it, like the broadside about barbed wire, is frank ephemera now made valuable by time. "Suitable for framing." I'm sure you can deduce the moral of the story.

They seem to have nice covers, maybe “stamped Morocco leather” with slipcases. I know that among the Western art aficionadoes it is the custom to put leather covers and slip cases on the first fifty or a hundred copies of a book. Bob Scriver put the “presentation” copies of “The Blackfeet: Artists of the Northern Plains” in a slipcase that had a kind of box on the front. In the box was a spray of perennial sage, a valued Blackfeet plant. Might not mean much if you have it growing in your lawn, but what if you lived somewhere far away?

I won’t reproduce all the offerings here, but if you’re interested, I’m sure Buckingham Books will put you on the list.


1. JONES, C.N. [COMPILED BY]. EARLY DAYS IN COOKE COUNTY 1848 - 1873. Gainesville: Privately printed, n.d. [ca 1936]. First edition. 8vo. Printed wrappers, 88 pp., preface, frontis. [portrait], illustrated from photographs. A history of Cooke County, Texas with emphasis upon early settlers, pioneer doctors, cotton and wheat growing, county buildings, slavery, Indian raids, outlaws and lawmen, ranching, experiences of early settlers, a brief history of all the towns in the county, etc. There is material on the emigrant trail to California, the Butterfield Overland Trail, Chisholm Trail, open range ranching, early cattle drives, etc. Herd 1188 says, "Rare." Six Guns 1191 says, "Rare." "Though a comparatively recent book, this volume seems to have become rare. It contains some material on outlawry." Former owner's small stamp on inside front cover, else near fine in original stapled, stiff, wrappers, housed in a quarter leather and cloth clamshell case with raised bands and gold stamping on the spine. $1500.00 SIX GUNS 1191. HERD 1188. CBC 1121. (23663)

2. CLAY, JOHN. THE SHEEP HERDER'S GRAVE. A STORY OF THE RANGE. [Chicago: Traders Printing Co.] n.d. [ca 1930]. First edition. 8vo. Two color printed wrappers, 15 pp., illustrated, advertisement. Story of a man, Joseph Arthur, who had a fine life in England, but due to his fondness for alcohol lost his family, farm, and eventually left for the United States to perhaps find his way again. Next we find a sheep herder, named "English Joe" who resides in his camp in Wyoming. He still has his fondness for alcohol, when he can gather up enough money and the time to indulge in it, but his is a lonely and fallen existence. He was liked by the ranchers and had many friends. He died from exposure during a bitter snow storm and was found and buried by his friends in Wyoming. Light evidence of water staining to edges of all pages, else a very good copy of a rare item. Housed in a quarter morocco and cloth clamshell case with gold stamping on the spine. $1500.00 (24793)

3. CLAY, JOHN. THE CRY OF THE HOUNDS. [Chicago: Privately Printed] 1933. First edition. 8vo. Inscribed "Dear Mrs Cross, I send you this story because I love you. John Clay." Blue-green decorated wrappers, glassine endpapers, 29 pp., illustrated. A Christmas greeting from Mr. and Mrs. John Clay. Holiday greetings sheet bound in. Clay tells many stories about people and fox hunts during his days of riding to the cry of the hounds. Fine, bright copy. Housed in a cloth clamshell case with gold stamping on spine. $1500.00 (24795)

4. HARMAN, S.W. HELL ON THE BORDER; HE HANGED EIGHTY-EIGHT MEN. Fort Smith: The Phoenix Publishing Company, 1898. First edition. Cloth, 718pp., numerous illustrations, facsimiles. Sub-title: A History of the Great United States Criminal Court at Fort Smith, Arkansas, and of Crime and Criminals in the Indian Territory, and the Trial and Punishment Thereof Before His Honor Judge Isaac C. Parker, "The Terror of Law-Breakers", and by the Courts of Said Territory, Embracing the Leading Sentences and Charges to Grand and Petit Juries Delivered by the World Famous Jurist..... "An important source book, all the statistical part of the book, the biographical sketches of those connected with the court and the transcriptions from the court records, were the work of C.P. Sterns and are said to be scrupulously accurate. The same cannot be said of all the narrative written by Harman."---Graff 1785. "Exceedingly rare. The rare original has become a collectors item and is the chief source of practically every book and feature story on the old court and Oklahoma outlaws.... The first edition was soon exhausted because of the reputation of Judge Parker's court.... The book contains much material on the outlaws of Indian Territory who were tried and condemned in Parker's court."---Ramon Adams(1969). "....the great book about Judge Isaac Parker and his federal court at Fort Smith. One of the Dalton brothers was killed while serving as a deputy for the judge and, of course, there is much on outlaws and peace and peace officers."---Jeff Dykes in Rare Western Outlaw Books. A rare and important work. This work was originally published in wrappers, with 720 pages. Our copy has been rebound in green 3/4 leather and green marbled paper with green leather corner tips and raised bands with titles stamped in gold on black leather without retaining the wrappers or the frontis. As issued, the last 6 pages are comprised of "Press Opinions" provided to the publisher to help promote the book (pages 715-720). Our copy is missing the corner of pages 717 & 718, resulting in the loss of some text, and pages 719 & 720 are not present. However facsimile copies of pages 717, 718, 719, and 720 have been obtained to ensure total reading of the "Press Opinions." They are laid-in. Leather binding and remainder of text block is clean and tight. Despite the minor faults noted above, this is a desirable copy of a classic outlaw rarity! A handsome copy housed in a matching 3/4 leather and green marbled paper with raised bands on the spine and titles stamped in gold on black leather labels. $3750.00 HOWES H203 ("b"). GRAFF 1785. ADAMS 150-68. RADER 1780. DYKES pp.19 & 22. SIX-GUNS 929. DECKER 46:210. (25238)

5. [PACIFIC NORTHWEST]. MULLAN, CAPT. JOHN. REPORT ON THE CONSTRUCTION OF A MILITARY ROAD FROM FORT WALLA-WALLA TO FORT BENTON. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1863. First edition. 8vo. Original dark green cloth, titles in gold gilt on the spine, 363 [2] pp., errata page, illustrated, plates, tables, charts, maps. With 10 full-page colored lithograph plates. The four folding maps consist of MAP 1: Map of military road from Fort Walla-Walla on the Columbia to Fort Benton on the Missouri; MAP 2: Map of the mountain section of the Fort Walla-Walla & Fort Benton military wagon road from Coeur d'Alene Lake to the Dearborn River Washington Territory; MAP 3: Map of military reconnaissance from Fort Taylor to the Coeur d'Alene Mission, Washington Territory; and MAP 4: Map of military reconnaissance from Fort Dalles, Oregon, via Fort Wallah-Wallah, to Fort Taylor, Washington Territory. Capt. Mullan's report with an itinerary comprises pages 1 - 84 and is followed by the engineer's reports and other meteorological and astronomical data. It covers the period from March, 1858, to September, 1862. Streeter IV 2103 says, "This is a first class report to read and the maps are most helpful in tracing journeys of others. The colored plates add to the interest. Mullan makes the interesting statement towards the beginning of his report (p.6) that he did not realize for the first few years of his work that climatic conditions at Clark's Fork at around Lake Pend d'Oreille were easier in winter than at Coeur d'Alene Lake, though the latter was further south, and that if he had known in 1854 what he did not learn until 1860 he would have located his road by the more northern route." Very good copy. A scarce report. $2000.00 STREETER IV 2103. WAGNER/CAMP 393. GRAFF 2932. HOWES M884. SABIN 51275. PLATH 780. HOLLIDAY 802. BRAISLIN 1346. (25725)

6. JENNINGS, AL. NUMBER 30664 BY NUMBER 31539. A SKETCH IN THE LIVES OF WILLIAM SIDNEY PORTER (O. HENRY) AND AL JENNINGS, THE BANDIT. [Hollywood: The Pioneer Press, 1941]. First edition. 8vo. Inscribed by Al Jennings, "To Almarie Harriss with an old bandit's love. Al Jennings." Grey printed wrappers, 32 pp., frontis., foreword, introduction, illustrated, plates, portraits. A story of the prison life of O. Henry and Al Jennings. Six Guns 1171 says, "Rare." Lightly soiled on the rear panel, and two small spots on front cover, else a fine, bright copy. Housed in a two-tone cloth clamshell case with gold stamping on the spine. $1500.00 SIX GUNS 1171. (23585)

7. MCGEENEY, P.S. DOWN AT STEIN'S PASS. A ROMANCE OF NEW MEXICO. Boston: Angel Guardian Press, 1909. First edition. 12mo. Red pictorial cloth, [6], 114 pp., frontis., portrait. Six Guns 1402 says "Although fiction, this book is included because it is a collector's item among works on Billy the Kid. The account of the killing of the Kid by Garrett is based upon fact, but the rest is romance." Dykes 58: "Rare." ".... but so far as is known it is the first novel in hard covers in which Billy the Kid is an important character. Almost the only incident in the novel that is based on fact is the killing of the Kid at Maxwells." A collectors item for Billy the Kid. Covers lightly rubbed else a very good, tight copy. $750.00 DYKES 58. SIX GUNS 1402. (23726)

9. [MISSOURI]. BRYAN, WM. S. AND ROBERT ROSE. A HISTORY OF THE PIONEER FAMILIES OF MISSOURI, WITH NUMEROUS SKETCHES, ANECDOTES, ADVENTURES, ETC., RELATING TO EARLY DAYS IN MISSOURI. ALSO THE LIVES OF DANIEL BOONE AND THE CELEBRATED INDIAN CHIEF BLACK HAWK, WITH NUMEROUS BIOGRAPHIES AND HISTORIES OF PRIMITIVE INSTITUTIONS. St. Louis: Bryan, Brand & Co., 1876. First edition. 8vo. Original blue cloth, blind stamped on front and rear covers, title stamped in gilt on the spine, brown endpapers, [6], 528 pp., frontis., preface, illustrated, plates. The histories of more than eight hundred pioneer families of the five counties embraced in this work are given, with the names of their children, and other matters of interest. Mr. Rose had personally visited one or more members of each family whose history is provided. The five counties are Audrain, Callaway, Montgomery, Warren, and St. Charles. Much on the early days and the Indian Wars, especially the Black Hawk War. Also the history of Daniel Boone and Black Hawk are provided in some depth. The book's former owner's name, T. J. Boulware, is written in the book and on page 310 his family ancestors are discussed. The names of other Boulware family members are also included stating that as of Jan. 5, 1934, this book became their property, and later in the same year, 10-20-34, another family member obtained ownership of this book. Some light cosmetic repairs to spine ends and corners, else very good copy of an elusive title, housed in a cloth slipcase. $1000.00 HOWES B895. (25718)

10. BROOKS, JUANITA. JOHN DOYLE LEE: ZEALOT - PIONEER BUILDER - SCAPEGOAT. Glendale: The Arthur H. Clark Company, 1961. First edition. 8vo. First limited edition of 209 copies. This copy was released one year prior to the red cloth trade edition. The correct first edition issued in only a miniscule printing of 209 copies, of which none were offered for sale. Copies were given to descendants of John D. Lee as well as to friends of the publisher and author. Blue cloth, blue foil stamping on spine and rules, top edge stained blue, 404 pp., frontis. [portrait of John Doyle Lee], introduction, illustrated, plates, portraits, bibliographical note, index. AHC 35 says, "This biography received an award of merit from the Association for State and Local History upon publication. Lee was the only man convicted of perpetrating the Mountain Meadows Massacre. His detailed diaries of his life in southern Utah, before and after the massacre, were edited by Brooks and published by the Huntington Library. The diary for the period of the massacre has never been released by the L.D.S. archives." Brooks was a niece of LeRoy Hafen, and an extremely competent scholar, friend of Dale Morgan, and indefatigable searcher of the truth. She faced considerable criticism within the Mormon Church, of which she remained a devout member, as a result of her scholarly writings. Juanita Brooks grew up in southern Utah and learned of the infamous massacre of 1857 through vague rumors and whispered stories. She was determined to learn the truth about the Mountain Meadows Massacre and eventually published her masterpiece, THE MOUNTAIN MEADOWS MASSACRE in 1950. This led to a lifelong interest in John D. Lee, and her two subsequent major publications: the massive two volume DIARIES OF JOHN D. LEE, published in 1955 by the Huntington Library, and this full length biography of Lee, first published in 1961. Former owner's bookplate on front free fly leaf, and inked name and address on front pastedown sheet, lightly rubbed along edges and corners, else near fine copy in a custom made cloth slipcase with leather label on spine. Very scarce edition of this important work. $2500.00 AHC 35. SIX GUNS 286. MATTES 305. (24726)

12. REYNOLDS, JOHN. MY OWN TIMES, EMBRACING ALSO, THE HISTORY OF MY LIFE. [Belleville: B. H. Perryman and H. L. Davison], 1855. First edition. 16mo. Contemporary leather spine and tips over marbled boards, title and decorations on the spine in gilt, teg., 600 plus xxiii [1] pp., frontis. [portrait of John Reynolds], introduction, contents. This first edition was published with 400 copies being issued, and Reynolds had remaindered 350 of these copies to D. B. Cook of Chicago, and most of the copies were destroyed in the Chicago fire of 1857. Reynolds acted as his own wholesaler to market the book. He served as a justice of the Illinois Supreme Court, and was elected Governor of Illinois in 1830. Reynolds writes an observant history, including much on the Black Hawk War. This is a history of Illinois from 1800 combined with the author's autobiographical reminiscences. One of the essential books relating to the early midwest, covering the settlement of the Illinois country, the later Lovejoy riots, the Black Hawk War, the Nauvoo Mormons, and the Icarian Community. In writing the work, Reynolds had the aid of two of his literary friends, John Mason Peck and John Russell. The help that Peck gave may have been considerable. Lyman C. Draper also helped by answering inquiries and supplying maps for the author's use in his study of the Black Hawk War. The book is esteemed as a source book of the first consequence, much sought, and very difficult to obtain. Former owner's name written lightly in pencil on the title page, former owner's penciled notes on rear free endpaper, light wear to the extremities, else a very good, tight copy of a very rare book. Slipcase. $3500.00 HOWES R231. EBERSTADT 135:380. GRAFF 3479. BUCK 57. BYRD 2343. SABIN 70420. DECKER 50:129. STREETER III:1510. SIEBERT II:416. (25715)

13. [ILLINOIS & MICHIGAN]. HAMILTON, HENRY E. INCIDENTS AND EVENTS IN THE LIFE OF GURDON SALTONSTALL HUBBARD. COLLECTED FROM PERSONAL NARRATIONS AND OTHER SOURCES, AND ARRANGED BY HIS NEPHEW, HENRY E. HAMILTON, 1888. [Chicago: Rand, McNally & Co.,], 1888. First edition. 8vo. Rebound in black kangaroo leather, gold stamping on front cover and spine, raised bands, new beige-colored endpapers, [4], 189 pp., frontis. [engraved portrait of G. S. Hubbard]. Gurdon Hubbard (1802 - 1886) was both an adventurous pioneer and an excellent businessman. Hubbard came to Chicago in 1818 as an employee of the American Fur Company. He went by way of the Illinois River to St. Louis and Cahokia, spent the winter at a post near Hennepin and in the spring returned to Mackinac. He was with the Illinois Brigade again in the winters of 1821-22 and 1822-23. Hubbard, born in Vermont, went to work as a boy of sixteen for the American Fur Company and was stationed at the company's post on the Illinois River, subsequently being transferred to a Michigan post. Hubbard settled in Chicago in 1834. He was one of its first trustees and later one of its leading citizens. The book has much on the early history of the Illinois and Michigan Country. It is one of the best books relating to the interior of the lower peninsula of Michigan, especially the western portion, and furnishes a valuable picture of northern Illinois during the fur trading period. The Hubbard Trail, which is Route 1 along the eastern portion of Illinois, was traveled and established by him in 1822 as he traveled the many miles from Chicago to Danville, Illinois. Hubbard had an early trading post in Danville where he lived from 1828 until 1834. Beautifully bound, this is a near fine copy housed in a cloth slipcase with leather label on spine and titles stamped in gold. $1500.00 HOWES H735. GRAFF 1997. BUCK 132. STREETER III 1517. LITTELL 505. GREENLY [MICHIGAN] 120. DECKER 49 106. HUBACH pp.52-53. (25722)

14. MARCH, P.G. WORCESTER'S PATENT FENCE STAY. FOR PLAIN, BARBED, BUCKTHORN OR RIBBON WIRE FENCES. SIMPLE! CHEAP! DURABLE! USEFUL! Cincinnati: P.G. March $ Co., 1883. 10 1/2' x 13 1/4" light blue broadside printed in black. Directions are provided on how to apply the stay, "After the barbed wires are stretched tight, and firmly stapled to the wooden posts, draw the hooked wire out of coil, and place the coil in a vertical position, against the barbed wires; which wires will naturally go into the recesses of the coil. Then run the hooked wire down the coil, and on the other side of the barbed wires, until the hook touches the top round of the coil, and hangs over the top strand." Lamar Reader's Encyclopedia of the American West says, "The effect of barbed wire on life in the Great Plains was momentous.... It brought about the disappearance of the open range... Barbed wire put an end to the 'long drive' and gave the railroads a boost in their drive to enlist the trade of the cattlemen. Wars broke out between those who accepted the fence and those who refused to relinquish the open range. Fence-cutters were enlisted by the latter group..." A few original folds for mailing, else a fine, bright copy of an item that is unique and is rarely found in such fine condition. It is suitable for framing. $575.00 (18940)

INSCRIBED PRESENTATION BY AL JENNINGS WITH A THREE PAGE LETTER FROM JENNINGS TO HIS WIFE

17. JENNINGS, AL. NUMBER 30664 BY NUMBER 31539. A SKETCH IN THE LIVES OF WILLIAM SIDNEY PORTER (O. HENRY) AND AL JENNINGS, THE BANDIT. [Hollywood: The Pioneer Press, 1941]. First edition. 8vo. Inscribed by Al Jennings. Laid-in is a three page letter, written in pencil to Mrs. Al Jennings. He comments about his stay in Washington, D.C., "I am sitting on my trunk in a little cubby hole & paid $3.00 for one week. The show folded leaving all hands flat. Some damn good people. I look out to my self dodging all appeals for help. ....Best Love Old Dear to you, AL." The letter was written in May of 1938, and the original envelope is enclosed. Grey printed wrappers, 32 pp., frontis., foreword, introduction, illustrated, plates, portraits. A story of the prison life of O. Henry and Al Jennings. Six Guns 1171 says, "Rare." Fine, bright copy. Housed in a cloth four-point folding case with gold stamping on the spine. $2500.00 SIX GUNS 1171. (25802)


18. [COLORADO & NEW MEXICO]. TAYLOR, H.M., S.H. STANDART AND D.R. WARNER. CIRCULAR LETTER TO THE RANGE CATTLE AND HORSE MEN OF THE UNITED STATES MEXICO AND BRITISH COLUMBIA. [Denver: Privately printed, n.d. (ca 1885)]. First edition. Quarto. Printed self wrapper, [4] pp., double columns. Taylor, the designated Secretary of the organization notes: "Introductory measures have been taken by the cattle and horse men of New Mexico and Colorado looking to the perfecting of a distinctively range organization of an international character...." The circular includes the memorial unanimously adopted by the New Mexico Territorial Cattle and Horse Growers' association at their meeting held in Santa Fe on October 31, 1885. To promote cattlemen interests from "the breeding grounds in Old Mexico to the steer ranges in the British possessions..." To protect the range interests and to educate the people of the east that "are not familiar with the requirements of the cattle growing interests of the plains. They know little or nothing of our system of breeding and maturing cattle..." The memorial speaks to costs, diseases, freight rates, etc. [D. R. Warner was the Secretary for the New Mexico cattlemen]. Also included in this circular are the comments from a meeting of the Colorado Cattle Growers' association held in Denver on November 3, 1885, and reported by S. H. Standart, the secretary for that organization. Stressing the problems faced by the cattlemen and the need for an International Range Cattle and Horse Growers' association. "Experience the past season has demonstrated the fact that the marketing of immature and unripe cattle is not satisfactory to either buyer or seller, and entails an annual loss of millions of dollars, without any compensating benefits to the beef consumers of the nation." The organizers believed the two National Livestock Associations could not protect the range and other interests of cattlemen in the West. Not in HERD, Wynar, Streeter Sale, and the other usual standard references. Old folds and a few minor tears to the extremities, else very good copy, laid in half morocco and chemise slipcase with titles stamped in gold on spine. $5250.00 (25803)


I don’t have these books. Contact:
Nancy Anderson
Buckingham Books, ABAA
8058 Stone Bridge Road
Greencastle, PA 17225
(717) 597-5657
Email: sales@buckinghambooks.com Website: www.buckinghambooks.com

TODAY "INDOCHINE": TOMORROW THE WORLD

Indochine, the movie, has been accused of being both a soap opera and an allegory. Yet I find it so seductive that I’m having a hard time to make myself send the DVD back to Netflix. The soap opera part is easy to see -- tragic love affairs, demon power mongers, a shadowy father, and the fabulous clothing of Catharine Deneuve. Since she is one of the models for “Marianne,” the sculptured woman who portrays France (replacing Brigitte Bardot), simply casting her makes soap opera into allegory. Adding gorgeous scenery in an exotic place pushes another seductive element. But the brilliance of the movie is blending common elements (as an excellent French cook might) into something uniquely transcendent.

Just the foggy morning of a day’s work in a rubber plantation is poetry, even without the wounded trees. Red-sailed junks entering the dramatic harbors of drowned mountains in North Vietnam are memorable without speculating on their labyrinthine qualities. It took me a while to realize that the square “red flags” I saw everywhere were really rubber curing and drying on racks. Chino-Indo faces of the aged, the hurt, the starved -- like ivory carvings -- everywhere begged for a better life.

We already know how it has turned out. Huge upheaval, catastrophic consequences in France and then the US who insisted on repeating the whole mess. It occurs to me that I’m repeatedly drawn to the ebbing of empire: “The Jewel in the Crown,” “Out of India,” even “The Lover.” It’s easy to understand why: I’ve been a witness to the ebbing of empire (the US government) here in Montana where the tribes are just beginning to understand what it means to have freedom: obligation, often loss and suffering, the constant renegotiation of relationships. This is the stuff of stories. There really is no movie yet that shows this in the fabulous poetic way of the movies of empire that I love. “Dances with Wolves” was a period too far back.

I don’t believe the US quite understands that it’s happened. There was no violent war, unless you count AIM. Maybe the tribes don’t either. Jim Welch’s “Fool’s Crow” is a 19th century story about being crushed by empire, but where is the other side of the equation, the quieter revolution of emerging into the larger world on their own terms: the world represented by Etienne, who is created by the story -- a blend of French and Indochinese. Maybe the NA story isn’t far enough in the past for it to be realized and expressed, but Vietnam is recent. Maybe the political insistence that an Indian write the story and that white people be villains prevents more subtle interpretations and fair portrayals of the yearning anguish of those Euros who found shelter and home on reservations, but who have been forced to leave in a petite re-enactment of the displacement of the indigenous peoples.

Maybe NA stories are lost under the continuing dominance of the stories of the blacks in this country, so vividly dyadic and therefore more dramatic. Black stories are more individual, and there are more of them, and the media features them enough that maybe they are more humanly interpretable, as opposed to the tribal histories of Native Americans. It’s hard to establish identity and for people who don’t look “Indian” to us without feathers. We are so insistent on seeing the world as individuals, which is not the indigenous way. Those whose unique ecology-based ways were disturbed first by their displacement to “wastelands” and second by the Hollywoodized dominance of psuedo-plains Indian stereotypes have lost what the commodifiers call “branding.” (They mean like toothpaste, not like cows.) I’m interested in the rising tide of “black/hispanic Indians” as Central and South Americans move northward, some of them carrying undisturbed old languages and ways. I wonder how much of the anxiety about immigrants comes from this.

But back to home. Now that I have Bob Scriver’s biography out of the way, my next goal -- a far more difficult one -- will be to try to capture the breaking up of empire right here on the east front of the Rockies. The original power-mongers are pretty much gone now, but the consequences of their actions -- not least the tendency of tribal characters to ape them -- linger on. And the grinding forces of poverty, though eased, are still here.

It’s hard to imagine that this scenery could be made to look more spectacular, but I think there is still plenty of potential for new images -- especially made by people who are here year-round, maybe were born here, and who carry nimble video equipment without the limits of film. No need to repeat the “south of Calgary” summer mountains and prairie, though the digitized skies may remain strong elements. The cottonwood river bottoms have not been explored. Sere, bleached grass rarely features. Snow. Wind. Indian faces. (Incidentally, the Browning schools consistently win speech and drama contests around the state. There may be a potential Indian Catharine Deneuve right now.) The kind of mercantile store that served Browning even into the Sixties and Seventies has not been depicted. Dogs as characters though they are everywhere in reservation life. A sarvisberry patch in frothing bloom -- as bridal as orange blossoms.

Though little echoes of these ideas got into my bio of Bob Scriver, someone (and I will try) needs to make them as panoramic as the land. There is a contemporary critique to make here about the same Empire relationship between prosperity and order -- “Indochine” embodies the force for order in the policeman, Jean Yanne, whose attraction is that of Cheney: a powerful man who does not mind breaking small people in order to maintain the economy. He does it efficiently, without making a fuss, serving “France/Deneuve”, becoming a stone against which others can break, understanding quite well that he is actively creating Communists to resist and destroy him. This movie depicts Guy with admirable restraint, rather like Merrick in “The Jewel in the Crown.” In real life it would be hard for me to identify such a man. The oppressors, since the end of the Indian Wars and the Cavalry, have been more a pack of coyotes than grizzlies.

I’ve tried suggesting to people here that constant disorder prevents general prosperity and keeps money rolling into the pockets of the few: the alcohol purveyors, the casinoes, the major ranchers and concessionaires, the lawyers. They don’t like this idea -- don’t see it. They are attracted to the big shots, want to be like them, believe there is some secret knowledge or connection that they have. There are even some who are flattered by being asked to work for the FBI.

The series-format television series have been moving towards this: “Into the West” and “Bury My Heart...” both had the pattern in them, but softened -- made palatable and even sentimental. One of the fascinations of “Indochine” is the tough-mindedness of “Eliane.” She doesn’t take the easy way out, nor does her adopted Vietnamese daughter or even the French sailor. The goofy sexiness of Yvette means nothing to her. Her way is dignity.

I’m thinking of a plot more like, say, the shooting of “Heaven’s Gate” on both sides of Glacier Park, which turned out to be a kind of “heart of darkness” experience for a lot of extras. A director is always a tyrant, hopefully a gifted one. But the gifts don’t just come from passion: they come from a broad education in the history and culture of human beings, a grasp of theory and aesthetic principles. I’m not sure enough Native Americans are getting these last things.

Still, we seem to be moving away from the “Great American Novel” towards the “Great Global Narrative.” I’ve been fascinated by the sequence of books about how great civilizations are created and what makes them finally fail. Most recently “A Farewell to Alms” by Gregory Clark is sharply reviewed in the NY Review of Books. (You can find it on the Powells’ booksite.) What we are looking at now is not the death of empires or nations but rather the death of human beings as we know them. Maybe no novel or movie can really encompass that, despite all the apocalypses that try.

Since we don’t really know how much time is left (and anyway, I’m getting old) I guess I’ll watch “Indochine” at least once more. Maybe twice.

WHAT IS A POST-MODERN MUSEUM?

Unintelligible as much of the theory-based post-modern culture criticism has been over the last few decades, many far-reaching questions have emerged that are quite significant in terms of Montana lives. Naturally, much of it has had to do with Native Americans, but much of it also is very relevant to European-based peoples, to say nothing of the African and Asian heritages. Many of these issues are about education or museums, which most of us probably think of as educational. Since Montana formed as the Industrial Revolution was transforming the planet, much of this material is crucial to the future.

What IS a museum? In preparing Bob Scriver’s biography, I read a number of books that examine the origins of museums and the history and development of collections. Mostly they seem to have arisen from people’s natural inclination to save things they liked or that seemed to have value. The early Popes had a room like a vault where they kept precious objects, often commissioned from outstanding artist/craftsmen or perhaps gifts from great kings and leaders. In the modern United States, objects created in crystal by someone like Steuben Glass -- gorgeous, fragile, and one-of-a-kind -- might be presented.

In the 19th century, when taxonomies were the great obsession, natural history buffs (often amateur) required extensive accumulations of insects, bird skins, eggs, and so on, all in the interest of grouping them into categories and thus discovering something about creation. This was one of the duties of Lewis and Clark. (Now, of course, all those taxonomies and “family trees” have been blown away by DNA analysis.)

In those times anomalies and freaks interested a lot of people. Bob was of a “one excellent example of each” turn of mind, probably coming from the assumptions of taxidermists with hunter clients. He was always having to shoo away people who wanted to give him albino skunks or two-headed calves for the Scriver Museum. (This museum is dispersed now.) He continued this frame of mind with the bronzes, keeping “one of each,” which is now the basis of the estate entrusted to the Montana Historical Society.

Another influence from the 19th century was the growing awareness of “the last of these.” This continues today with even more anquish as we see whole species, whole languages, entire peoples, whole life-works, disappear under the wheels of time. Rare-ness has always been a criterion for value. Museums treasure the last dodo bird, the last passenger pigeon.

At present we see a great fascination with family trees so that -- running parallel with DNA studies of inheritance -- many people are looking up their own pedigrees, the begats that brought them to this place and time and the stories of those lives. My newly discovered branch of the Welsh sister descendants brought me two new documents, one a transcription of a Christian Oklahoma homesteader family and the other a book length account complete with photos. The closer we get to the present, the easier it is to find documents such as letters -- until we get to email. The Internet, of course, has been an amazing help when things are scannned and posted.

The idea that a museum is a repository for documents and objects is a strong one with an intense emotional engine, whether or not values are shared by others. When my mother died, one of the hardest problems was finding new homes for her most prized objects: the bisque porcelain hen that had been brought intact in a pioneer wagon by burying it in a barrel of flour, the huge blown-glass bluegreen Japanese float found at the beach, a gold lustreware vase that had been saved from disaster many times. We were shocked to discover that no one wanted them, not even dealers.

19th century anthropologists collected skeletons with no particular thought for their meaning to families. 20th century accumulators stole the heads off “death house” burials with grisly disrespect. Sometimes they kept such objects secret, showing them only to their closest friends, and other times skulls rested on the back bars of taverns, grinning at the clients. Reversing this practice has been a battle for NA activists.

Family is such a deeply embedded aspect of humans that the celebration of family versus their branding as traitors and failures has dominated much of historical interpretation. Quite aside from the discomfort of homesteaders living next to the Native Americans pushed off the same land, is the on-going rivalry among families of both populations, so strong that it still affects ordinary commerce in towns. My cousin once remarked to me that the “Pinkertons” which are the branch of my maternal grandfather were not as good as the “Cochrans” which are the branch of my maternal grandmother, because the Cochrans walked to the West on the Oregon Trail -- making them tougher -- but the Pinkertons came on the train, which was somehow weaker. I pointed out that the Pinkertons came quite a bit later than the Cochrans and would be FOOLS not to take the train, since by that time there WAS one! I think he had gotten the idea partly because a Cochran ranch was honored by the state of Oregon as a “Centennial” 100-year ranch. The Pinkertons never had anything but a prune orchard that went bust. Prosperity and endurance are the pioneer criteria. Maybe they’re pretty basic to all humans.

But there ARE other issues of value. For instance, whether or not Two-Guns Whitecalf posed for Fraser when he created the buffalo nickel is a matter involving considerable prestige and people have spent hours poring through archives to figure it out definitively.

What I’m leading up to is that the Montana Historical Society, kindly accepting papers, collections, and family heirlooms for decades and decades, is bulging at the seams. Storage is so crammed as to make items impossible to locate. Staff works in a small labyrinth, elbow-to-elbow. Yet there has been little discussion of what the real defining goal of the historical society -- much less its museum which many people see as its only function -- ought to be in the future. By what principles are decisions to be made? And if there is anything that the post-modern critique insists upon, it must be a “people’s” decision, not fiats from high-status, high-power, high-dollar experts.

Is the point of an historical museum to interpret what has happened? Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump is my favorite example of interpretation-based exhibits, though the Glenbow is Calgary is also outstanding. Or is it to show off the importance of an area or a people? Might it be to store information as a way of researching and developing the future?

Should it be a way of preserving valuable objects like the CM Russell paintings? Or should it be a kind of public gallery developing art in general, as the CM Russell Museum in Great Falls has become, raising questions about the relationship with private for-profit galleries? The CM Russell, which needs to build an endowment for maintenance, lately put its Couse paintings up for auction. Couse was a major SW painter of Native Americans, but the curator felt they were “outside the mission” of the museum. The Montana Historical Society owns works by de Kooning and Picasso, which would fetch a pretty penny on the current hot art market. Can these be defended as part of Montana’s heritage? Or consider the Alberta Bair ranch, stocked with fabulous European objects.

Questions abound and should not be answered by decisions already made without realizing the limitations they can impose.

HELD-BREATH TIME

At last I realized that there was another step in the 7Up series that I hadn’t seen. This is 49 Up, made in 2003, when they were 49, which is 19 years younger than I am. All through, they have been the ages that my children would be now if I’d had children about the usual time. They are about the ages of Bob Scriver’s grandchildren because Bob’s daughter was just a year older than me, graduating a year ahead of Ivan Doig here in Valier, and starting her family just a few blocks away. She left in the year of the Big Flood, 1965, a single parent, and her children grew up feeling like Pacific Northwest people. The oldest of her children, a girl, died in a car accident in Florida in 1980 while I was at seminary in Chicago -- or actually, since it was in summer, while I was doing my hospital chaplaincy in Rockford, IL. The other three have children of their own, old enough for college. I wrote very little about descendants, though there is a great deal to think about. Partly I felt a bit protective and partly there just wasn’t room. The older boy, Lane, spent his sixth summer with us but not the seventh, I think. At least after that not alone but with his sibs.

One of the reasons I wanted to watch these 7Up films was that I’m bracing for the consequences of this book about Bob Scriver being published. On the one hand, as I said to the editor at the Great Falls Tribune, “ A lot of mice might run out of the haystack.” (If you’ve ever helped feed cows, you’ll know what I mean.) One category of consequences will be about living here where people know Bob, his family, the Blackfeet -- some of them ARE Blackfeet! Another category will be about Bob’s artistic reputation and the impact on the various institutions that dominate and control Art of the American West, the people I refer to as “the Industrial Cowboy Art Cartel.” Involved will be the Montana Historical Society, which has his estate, and the other will be the CM Russell Museum, which expected his estate. The Canadian institutions, such as the Glenbow and the Royal Alberta Museum in Edmonton, will feel it less -- though I think they might be startled to realize how much he was Canadian.

Of course there will be impact on me, partly because it is a pledge fulfilled -- Bob wanted me to write a book about him, though he would have changed the form and content -- and that frees me to go on to other projects and kinds of writing. I will be quite revealed myself, since the main way of showing what Bob was like in some regards was by showing him through my eyes. And no one can write without revealing themselves anyway. But I don’t want to be a “one-book Charlie.”

Resistance to being revealed was sometimes very strong among the 7Ups. The spouses were not so worried about it, though several simply asked to be left out. The kids often seemed rather proud. Suzie seems to have a lady’s reticence, something like my Strachan cousins. John is harder to understand since he thinks of politics and is in truth an enormously worthy man who does many things for others. As they got older, they got more willing to tell Apted off, which tells something about them. Taken as a group, they are simply so lovable, endure such heartbreak and recover so well, that -- now get this, John! -- the point is that we see what it is to be human. It’s enormously instructive and inspiring.

One of the hardest lessons is that things change all the time. In my case, and maybe it was something in me, I got to seminary just as politically “correct” theory grabbed literature by the throat and made it largely unintelligible. I went into the ministry just as it stopped being a privileged (!) intellectual pursuit and became a sort of cross between the Chamber of Commerce and a therapy group. These changes hurt because I’ve always wanted to be an “intellectual,” a person who thinks big thoughts, maybe about thinking itself -- not a matter of accumulating facts or theories, but a matter of joining a company that reflects carefully. I’ve always gotten good enough grades and test results to be in that “top” (is it really?) group, but only at the bottom of the group. So I’m running along behind all the time, gasping to be heard. When I’ve tried to explain all this to friends, I’ve offended them greatly. They think of an “education” as a stamp of status, a set of hoops, a passport. When I get impatient that they don’t understand, they get angry.

Then, BINGO, along came the Internet and I’m THERE. I can read at high levels (my own speed), answer back in comments, and publish every day, regardless of what gatekeepers might say. I can even time travel: reading material, looking at art, entering contexts that used to be accessible only by spending huge amounts of money to travel to them -- IF you knew they existed. I don’t want this book and its aftermath to take up so much of my time that I can’t do this anymore. On the other hand, there’s an obligation to the piece of work and to Bob’s work. A body of work can be like a child and need nurturing. One can delight in it.

In this commodified world money is the focus of many people. I find a total imbalance between the publishers, who make nice salaries and will take 95% of the profit for very little of the work, and myself, who had to wait for subsidy from Social Security and my mother’s legacy to give me this house and now keep being told I must come up with more money to buy my own book, to get a passport into Canada, to travel to speak. But they did their work well, at least the editor and layout artist, and I knew what the bargain was. What I’m getting is the prestige -- funnily enough, because one would think that a U of Chicago degree and ten years in the ministry would represent prestige or even ten years of teaching on the reservation might be better sources. Having been married to Bob has turned out to be a burden rather than an advantage. Not because of him, but because of attitudes towards divorce. Prosperous white men [sic] often consider one disenfranchised, unworthy, and contemptible -- a kind of runaway slave.

I’ve always had a willingness to work ordinary jobs -- animal control, clerical work, foundry artisan -- and got paid better for that. Is that my fault or the world’s fault? Or does it matter so long as one eats? I think it has made my life richer, fuller, and my writing more grounded, more relevant. The bridge has been my original education as an actor: “there are no small parts, only small actors.” But my classmates and friends from that time understand me least. I’m closest now to the people I knew in the early Sixties in Browning, my former students esp., but many have died already.

I’ve made a special effort to re-connect with my relatives on the Strachan side, my father’s Scots side. My mother’s side is quite alien -- not because I’m not a Pinkerton, but that my mother’s sisters all married Hatfields and those uncles have overwhelmed the outcomes. Yet some of my Hatfield cousins’ children are more like me. They don’t know it -- have no contact with me. Maybe they’ll read this book and get curious. Weirdest of all, some of my attraction to Bob Scriver and investment in life in Browning comes from my earliest small-child impressions on the Hatfield ranches.

This held-breath time, this zero-degrees time, this 7Up time, is like the pause just before the tide comes back in. Not Dover Beach, a long-withdrawing roar across a pebble shingle, but a gradual silvering returning across a long expanse of sand. Like the turnaround at Seaside. At least that’s what I hope for.

BARKING MAD

Not many years ago at a Montana campground, a man was barked at by a family dog. It was unclear why the dog decided to follow this man and bark at him and also unclear why the family didn’t make the dog come back to them and shut up. The man who was being barked at “lost it,” took a chainsaw and cut off the dog’s head -- then stalked over and threw it into the middle of the horrified family circle.

When law enforcement caught up with this guy, the first order of business was a psychiatric exam. They figured he was, as the English say, “barking mad.” After the psych folks cleared him, he stood trial and served time. No word on what was done for the family, especially the children.

It doesn’t just happen with barking dogs. On another occasion two old geezers at a campground got into a shouting match over the noisy generator one was running to keep his wife’s medical equipment operating. He was shot dead. These two incidents seem worse because they were out in supposedly idyllic campgrounds, but similar clashes can happen in any neighborhood.

When a police officer is first trained, the wise old veteran will emphasize knowing every small thing that goes on in a neighborhood, whether it’s a cracked window on night patrol that hadn’t been there before or a strange noise that can’t be identified. Big crimes and tragedies start small and if you can stop them at that stage, it’s much easier. Thus, the most pesky and persistent element of an AC officer’s day is the most important: the small, repetitious complaints.

Most animal control officers really sigh over barking dog complaints. Sometimes the complainants are just displacing their real beef or maybe they’re super-sensitive. Most often the dog owners aren’t even there and don’t believe that their dogs bark all day, hour after hour after hour. They “habituate” the sound and no longer “hear” it. If they are told the dogs bark to the point of being unbearable, their reaction is likely to be, “Well, what do you want ME to do about it? I have to go to work. The dog can’t be inside. Talk to the dog.”

Or maybe they get a shock collar, buckle it on and ignore it until the dog is half-mad itself from being shocked every time a kid in the neighborhood yells, a car door slams, or another dog barks --all without teaching it anything. A dalmation -- often a breed that is hard to control -- barked too much. The owner buckled the shocker onto the dog, the dog started off, the man yelled at his dog, the dog turned around, added two and two, and bit the man. It takes thought and training for the human animal as much as the dog.

I once had a desk job just over the cubicle wall from the noise abatement officer. All day long the complaints came in about loud music, deafening machinery, etc. He patiently stacked them up. At the end of the day he made out a postcard for each one asking the offending party to be quiet and mailed them. That was the program. His policy was, “once you’ve addressed the complaint, that’s the end of the problem.” But it wasn’t.

Dogs barking, cats meowing, and babies crying have in common that they are emergency sounds, demanding attention. In their opinion something -- maybe something life-threatening -- is wrong. Some people cannot tolerate such demands. Many will shoot animals with bb guns or pellet guns, saying that they aren’t “real” guns. But they can do real damage. Unfortunately, we know what stressed people -- even parents -- can do to crying babies. Aside from that, a dog that barks ALL the time is not performing as an alarm. There is no way to differentiate its ordinary behavior from real warning.

The point of this essay is not cruelty. Barking complaints are a good example of how clueless people are about using democratic process to abate a nuisance. Their idea is that if they don’t like something, there ought to be a law against it -- and they don’t want any responsibility for enforcing laws. It’s an “I’m gonna tell Momma” syndrome.

First, they don’t want to be active initiating action or even to be a complainant -- they want the animal control officer to act on their behalf without anyone knowing. (Sometimes the offender is scary enough for one to be sympathetic.) But the American court system requires that people be confronted by their accuser and have the right to question them. (Unless, as we read, the accused is at Guantanamo -- an occasion for outrage.)

Second, they want the animal control officer to judge whether the barking is excessive, but the AC officer can’t go live at their house so as to hear yapping at 3AM. In some cases, like a kennel, it might work to use a noise registering device to take readings. But many dogs bark at AC officers when they weren’t barking before, so that testimony is not helpful.

Third, they want to say, The dog barks “too much” or “all the time.” But court testimony needs to be exact and convincing. A calendar on which it is marked that a dog barked for two hours in the afternoon on Tuesday, on three hours in the morning on Friday, and at one hour intervals all day Saturday will convince a judge.

Or fourth, they want to tell what others said, but that’s hearsay evidence. Come on! You know what Perry Mason would say! What the citizen really needs is the person-skills to go over and say, “Your dog really barks so much that it drives me crazy. Can we find a solution?” Using law enforcement to address small neighborhood complaints is blasting a skeeter with a cannon -- but we all know how annoying a mosquito can be.

Then the AC officer needs to have the time to explain HOW to find a solution or maybe a pamphlet or a referral to a dog-trainer. Someone needs to have taught the officer how to transmit that information to the neighborhood. Maybe the local elementary school would organize an assembly. Maybe a public information session on the television. Sometimes it takes an arbitrator to hear both sides and try to sort out what’s happening. Maybe the person complaining is contributing to the problem by letting her child tease the dog. Very often a few minutes of suggestions by an officer can make a difference.

Certainly this is what separates the dog-catchers from the animal control officers. It’s too easy put a hanger on the front door knob and consider that good enough. One guy I knew competed against himself daily to see how many barking dog hangers he could distribute in one shift. A lot. And he never ran out of complaints either.

The English have another saying. When they have a problem, they “take advice.” That means they consult an expert. “Taking advice” is a part of intelligence and sanity. How to give effective advice to a barking dog -- more than just shouting at it -- is a skill every dog owner needs. It's not easy to live in a democracy because it assumes competent citizens.