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Barbarians

Posted on April 2, 2015 by Bill Leave a comment

Barbarians

For all my life I have wanted to know why. I want the answer, to understand the big picture. That led me to history. I am not sure, but maybe understanding the past can give us a glimpse of the future. At the least, history has helped me understand what is going on now.

As to history, there are a lot of mysteries. History is told by the victors, and we know much less about the losers, but their lives were every bit as important as the winners. Here is an example.

I have been interested in Central Eurasia for decades. What we call western civilization has interacted with the people of the steppes for many thousands of years. The standard view is that the barbarians of the steppes raised horses, sheep, and cattle and fought among themselves until a great leader, Chingiss Khan for example, unified them and they then invaded civilized cities on the periphery. Scythians, Vandals, Visigoths, Goths, Mongols, Huns, Ughyurs or Turks, they all had only conquest, loot, rape and slaughter as goals. Those invasions affected China, Persia, Mesopotamia, Anatolia, and Europe.

Well, yes, some of that did happen. Much of the conflict, however, came from the peripheral societies invaded the steppes. All the standard reasons for invasions: conquest, riches, land, slaves, and something for the army to do. Alexander, for example, invaded everywhere he could, including the steppe. The Great Wall was built to protect territory taken from the nomads and was used to keep people in as much as protection from invasion from the nomads.

The people of the steppe had cities, vast grasslands, cattle, sheep, horses, furs, and trade goods from west and east of the steppe. They needed trade with the periphery, and the periphery needed their livestock and trade goods.

The Silk Road was a lifeline for the nomads. The nomadic cultures were warrior cultures, yes, but they were foremost herders and traders. Just about every culture of any size is a warrior culture. The United States is a warrior culture. Just ask Native Americans, Cubans, Filipinos, and Mexicans.

The difference with regard to the Eurasian steppe cultures is that the people of the west call them barbarians. What is a barbarian? They have different clothes, religions, languages, and values. They are Others, so they are barbaric. Who were the barbarians, the Moslem tribes in the Philippines trying to defend their homeland from invaders or the U. S. Army doing the invading? Maybe Custer was the barbarian. The Lakota surely thought so.

Romans, Greeks, Celts, Persians, and Hittites saw the invading horsemen as barbaric, but they surely did their own invading. It is prejudice, viewing others as barbaric. One of our most enduring prejudices is calling people barbarians because they fight and kill, for whatever reason. All cultures fight and kill, and commit atrocities. It is only when the other guy is doing it that it is barbaric.

So, let’s not get too self righteous when various factions act out their age-old animosities in the Middle East. Don’t call their acts barbaric unless we have never done the same. You can check with the Modocs or the Seminoles to make sure.

Posted in Barbarians, Central Eurasia, History, Rome, Stories

The Dentists

Posted on March 24, 2015 by Bill Leave a comment

At the Dentist

I have trouble with the dentist’s office. It all goes back to my high school days. My parents were bad at taking care of their teeth and I did not get good habits from them. In high school my teeth were riddled with cavities. So, off to the dentist’s office in Grand Junction.

It was the 1950’s, so the dental arts were not like today. The dentist was probably well into his 60’s, and his art was behind even those times. He did orthodontics as well as general dentistry, and he liked to show off his work.

He had a number of display cases filled with plaster casts of deformed mouths he had worked on for the last 50 years or so. They belonged in a circus sideshow. They were horrible and fascinating, with crooked teeth, missing teeth, teeth that had grown the wrong direction, and deformed jaws. A few skulls and skeletons would have completed the collection.

He had an old fashioned dentist’s chair that had a porcelain basin with swirling water for you to spit the blood into. The worst part was the drill. It was a large apparatus with the motor at the base. From the motor a series of leather belts and pulleys ran up the arms to the drill. I am surprised it was not operated by a treadle.

That drill was slow and noisy. Today, the drill has a high pitched whine. His drill vibrated, made a grinding sound, and those leather belts turned on their wheels making the clumsy drill turn. He did a lot of drilling, or torture. I can still hear the noise and feel the pressure and the pain. No anesthetic, ever. That went on for several visits with gutta percha temporary fillings between appointments that always fell out, exposing sensitive places.

After the interminable drilling came the gold fillings. The lower molars had the largest cavities, so he cast gold inlays. He then cleaned out the holes with that damned drill, applied an adhesive and installed the fillings. He used a punch and mallet and hammered them in.

The upper molars had smaller cavities so he used gold foil. He would pack some foil into the cavity, then use some kind of tool that was like a manual impact driver. Click, wham. Click, wham. Click, wham. That repeated what seemed like thousands of times. When he got enough foil in the cavity, out came the punch and mallet to really pack that gold in. This lasted for weeks. The good part? Most of those fillings are still there.

I tended to avoid dentists after that experience until I had to. In my middle thirties my impacted wisdom teeth had to come out. There was anesthetic along with the cutting, prying, hammering, pain, and wrenching. I developed a dry socket that had to be packed and tended until it finally healed. I had more dental trauma with that process.

I did start getting intermittent dental care, but not enough brushing, flossing, and cleanings. Every time I opened my mouth to brush it reminded me of all that time in the chair back in High School. I developed gum disease and was referred to an oral surgeon. I made the appointment, drove into the parking lot, turned off the ignition, sat there, turned the ignition on, and drove away.

Now I go to get my teeth cleaned and have work done at Metropolitan Dental in downtown Denver. The dentists are good, I know them, they know me and my phobias,so we get along. Barb, my hygienist, is just the best. I get chided, told to use a Sonicare or a Water Pic, but the sounds and the feelings I get from them bring all the old trauma back. I brush and floss irregularly, and get along. I have lost one tooth.

At my last visit I found I need to have a crown replaced and went into a tailspin, hardly able to brush at all. I still have not made an appointment. I have post traumatic stress disorder from dentists. I think it is time for some PTSD therapy.

Posted in Dental Phobia, Dentist, Fear, Memoirs, My Story, Stories

My Spiritual Journey

Posted on March 20, 2015 by Bill One comment

Francis Bacon

“If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts. But if he will be content with doubts, he shall end in certainties,”. Francis Bacon, Advancement in Learning, 1605.

Prior to the seventeenth century the Church, the Bible, and the rule of the Nobles were the certainties all Europe relied on. The social structure was rigid, warfare was nearly constant, and the Black Death had killed much of the population. Then, things began to change. Religious inquiry began, governments became more centralized, cities and trade began to flourish, and people started asking questions.

Francis Bacon’s quote reflects the shift in thinking that led to what many now take for granted: critical thinking. The shift will never be complete, for millions continue to rely on what they take as revealed truth. Critical thinking requires another condition that we also take for granted: liberty.

The freedom to choose, to say yes or no, to do as one wishes, is a rare thing. I am lucky my family and my country encouraged independent thinking because I am a seeker. If anyone tried to fit me into a fixed system they faced rebellion.

I was raised a drop him off at Sunday School Methodist. It just didn’t take. Basic Christianity got planted, but the dry services never resonated with me. The only part of the services I liked was the Doxology. Those felt Jesus’ and Josephs in Sunday School with the cute little sheep and donkeys on a felt board just seemed silly.

I was confirmed as a Methodist in high school, but just because the cool girls were Methodists. I didn’t know what to believe, but I kept looking. I looked into Mormonism, but there is where I ran up against a closed system. I just could not conform to a rigid system, even if one of the prettiest girls in school was a Mormon.

I needed solid, rational, verifiable truth from the scientific method or a powerful experience of truth. I was finding neither. Blind faith or the statements of some spiritual minister or guru did not work for me.

I read, talked, searched. I looked into Zen, but couldn’t meditate. I got pretty serious about existentialism because I was also depressed after my mother’s death. Camus is depressing. I looked into right-wing politics and ran into another closed system. So, I became an annoying agnostic. I challenged everything.

Then came the late 1960’s and drugs. Marijuana taught me how to feel. LSD stripped my ego away so I could see and feel the vast, wondrous, interconnected universe. The problem with the drugs is that you come down. I got a glimpse and some of the feeling of the One, but not enough. Drugs opened the door, but were not the answer.

Jesus

Then, in the early 1980’s,I was having a dark night of the soul from a divorce and fell into the clutches of a Pentecostal deacon. I prayed the prayer, asking Jesus into my life and it happened. I felt like I was wrapped in love. It was a tangible, physical and emotional feeling. I was a Christian instantly in a basement apartment in LaSalle, Colorado. Two weeks later I was a speaking in tongues Pentecostal. What a time. I had experience after physical experience of joy, love, and deep peace. I felt delivered from many of my old hang ups and was a new person in Jesus Christ.

I put my rational skepticism on hold. I had found spiritual experience. After a year I started having problems with the fundamentalism. Pentecostals are a bit better, but they are still fundamentalists, and took the evangelical ideology and the Bible literally. The currently popular fascination with the end times and the book of Revelation just did not ring true, and I studied it carefully. The dire prophesies in Revelation are about Rome, not today. The Romans destroyed the temple in Jerusalem in 79 AD and the Jewish diaspora began in earnest. No wonder John of Patmos wrote an apocalyptic book about the oppressors.

The profound spiritual experiences began to fade, although I still pray in tongues. I also moved to Colorado Springs, fell in love (More physical and emotional experiences, and just as meaningful.) I ended up at a Charismatic Episcopal church that combined the wonderful ancient liturgy with the gifts of the Spirit. The Episcopal Charismatics are part of the evangelical wing of the church and I ran into the same problem. I ended up an Episcopalian in a mainstream liberal parish.

Buddha

About this time I also found I can meditate, probably a gift of the Spirit. I looked into Zen Buddhism. Sitting Zazen, meditating, was wonderful. All the rules coming from a rigid Japanese culture did not work. I could not walk into the Zendo, the meditation room, without doing something wrong and getting caught. Now I use Insight Meditation, part of the Theravadan tradition of Buddhism, but here it does not carry all the cultural baggage the Zen folks continue. My mantra, however, is the Jesus Prayer, an ancient orthodox prayer. “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.” Try about 3000 repetitions daily. Read The Way of a Pilgrim, written by a Russian Orthodox mendicant.

I also explored Christian Contemplative prayer. It is an ancient tradition, starting with the Desert Fathers in Egypt in about the third century. Today, Thomas Keating, a Trappist from the monastery in Snowmass CO, and Thomas Merton are the best known from their writings. There is a large network of contemplatives, mostly Roman Catholic, but from many other denominations as well.

Today, I guess you can call me a Buddhapalian. I don’t often attend services, but I meditate daily, pray, and do longer meditations almost weekly. This fits my pattern. I have big spiritual events, sometimes lasting years, and quiet times lasting years. I am happy with that.

I have two bits of advice. Don’t trust anyone who says they know the answers except Jesus and the Buddha. When you pray, don’t ask for specifics, ask for what is best for the situation. As for what it all means, it’s a mystery. I remain a skeptic.

Posted in Buddha, Jesus, Jesus Prayer, Meditation, Skepticism, Stories

The Trouble With Politics

Posted on March 20, 2015 by Bill Leave a comment

Money

The biggest political problem we are facing is the influence of money. Politicians need lots of money to get elected and those with a lot of money can buy influence. The individuals and groups with a lot of money tend to have one foremost goal: more money.

The Money People tend to support politicians who can help them get more money. The State of the Union, the world, and the environment are secondary. The priorities are wrong. I don’t know the answer, because it is up to Congress to get big money out of politics and the politicians need money. Maybe it has to come from a constitutional convention initiated by the state legislatures. That is a problem because those legislators need money to get elected.

Big problem.

Posted in Current Activities, Money, Politics, Stories

Beware of Cats

Posted on March 16, 2015 by Bill Leave a comment

Cat Trapped in a Folk Music Environment

It started innocently enough. I like to get on Facebook, and some of the people I am friends with are into the animal rescue thing. Lots of cute pictures of cats and dogs. I didn’t pay much attention to them until this great cat picture appeared. I liked it, laughed, and shared it on my page.

It is important when using social media to avoid posting material one might regret later. I have ADD, and one characteristic of my condition is impulsivity. I get myself into trouble. I don’t do Twitter as a result. I also watch my behavior on Facebook and have seldom made a fool of myself. But, I posted a cat picture.

This time, however, it all went bad. I haven’t posted anything rash, but that one act, posting a cat picture, has led to my moral decline. I look at too many animal pictures, Like them, and even follow links. Even more dangerously, I find myself following ever more decadent Internet pages. Stories about Kardashians! Jenners! Brad and Angelina! Republicans! Media liars!

I have worthwhile things to do with my life, but my time is increasingly going to meaningless pursuits. I even found myself looking at The Enquirer in the checkout line yesterday. I fear that I may even start watching reality TV shows. Oh, the horror! Will I switch from The New York Times to the Daily Mail? Watch Good Morning America?

My worst nightmare is watching Fox News. I have managed to avoid that so far, but I feel myself weakening. I used to avoid most sports writing and programming, but I found myself talking to my wife about Lance Armstrong this morning. I also tend to follow attractive woman athletes. Mixing my weaknesses together.

Will I have to have ESPN now? Will I find myself at Nuggets and Avalanche games? Will I start following the sports betting lines from Las Vegas? Even worse, will I be at Caesars Palace instead of Carnegie Hall?

Remember, Dear Reader, that a cat caused this crisis.

Posted in Cats, Current Activities, Humor, Memoirs, Moral Decline, My Story, Stories, unjustified Fears

Little Free Library

Posted on March 1, 2015 by Bill Leave a comment

Little Free Library

Have you seen them? These cute and brightly painted little houses are to be found in front yards all over town. Bigger than a birdhouse, but much too small for a child’s playhouse, Little Free Libraries are popping up everywhere. In fact, pretty soon Bill and I are going to have one in our front yard too!

Can you tell that I am excited? I first ran across the Little Free Library concept on line sometime last fall. As soon as I read about them, I knew I had to have one. A career as a librarian always came up on the Strong Vocational Interest test when I was in school, and now I am finally going to be one.

Right now our Little Free Library is sitting on a table in our new garage waiting for the final coats of bright red paint and protective glaze. While the snow flies, it is too cold to paint. Instead, I turn to my advance review copy of The Little Free Library Book by Margaret Aldrich (Coffee House Press, 2015).

If I can’t paint, I can read about other LFL librarians around the world who are finding so many pleasures in establishing small colorful libraries and sharing a love of books and reading with friends, neighbors and passing strangers. I’ve learned that I wouldn’t have a chance to join this global community if not for Todd Bol of Hudson, Wisconsin who built the first library in 2009 as a memorial to his book loving mother. His library is No. 1. Ours, received in January, 2015, is No. 21,265.

My favorite thing about this book is the many photographs of LFLs set up along city streets, suburban lawns and country roads from Bellingham to Bogota and other unexpected places around the world. Many are elaborately decorated and embellished, but others are created out of found objects like discarded kitchen cabinets and even old microwaves.

Another exciting thing about the libraries is their power to build community. Some librarians (they are called “stewards”) comment that they meet more people in a week since their library went up than they have met since they moved in to their neighborhood. A big part of the fun is seeing who stops to poke through the books, which of the books are taken and what new books appear.

The Little Free Library Book contains suggestions for inviting others participation in library activities from a grand opening ceremony to organizing bike trips to visit other libraries nearby. One steward met a family who had organized their vacation to visit LFL’s in distant communities. What about making room for the distribution of original writing or setting up a small seed sharing project?

The Little Free Library Book offers many practical suggestions from how to install a counter to track visits to your library to how to deal with books that no one takes out or how to respond to problems that might come up with neighbors or city authorities. While problems have arisen in some places, mostly the reception is very positive. The Los Angeles Police Department has gone so far as to install LFL’s at their stations to encourage better community relations.

You might want to buy your LFL from the website or, if you want to build your own, there are detailed plans to be found in The Little Free Library Book. You can even find information on knitting your library a custom designed sweater!

By now you can tell that the LFL community is a zany and wildly creative bunch. The Little Free Library Book is an exciting report filled with beautiful photos, great stories and inspiring ideas. It’s worth a read even if you don’t want your own library. But beware. If you don’t want one now, you will after reading this book. Look for it in April, 2015. You can look for my library then too.

This is a guest post. My wife Carol wrote it. I am very much involved in the project, but Carol won’t let me paint.

Posted in Books, Current Activities, Home Improvement, Little Free Library, Stories, Winter

A Volkswagen in Italy

Posted on February 27, 2015 by Bill Leave a comment

I had a good U.S. Army career, all three years of it. I was in electronics school for almost a year, on the Jersey Shore and in Huntsville, Alabama. Then, it was the USNS Buckner to Germany. I was trained on an obsolete missile system and my first duty station was with a unit that operated another obsolete missile system.

1963 VW

The unit was about to go out of business, so they were pretty lax with us. I bought a car. A new 1963 Volkswagen, black. It cost $1389. I paid cash with 20 Deutschmark bills (about $5.00 back then) in a paper bag. Freedom! At least part of the time. This was unusual for an unmarried junior enlisted man. We also had real jobs doing electronics, so they didn’t mess with us too much. I could get away evenings and weekends most of the time. I was stationed in Aschaffenburg, Bavaria for five months then in Hanau, Hesse. Something like 28 kilometers apart on the Main river, they were different cities. Bavarians just seem happier. Those Hessians were nice people, but more reticent. Did Martin Luther bring that about?

Palatine Hill, Rome

After I was in Hanau for a few months, two buddies and I did a big road trip to Rome. What a trip! We did some of the standard tourist things, but G.I.’s on the loose in Europe see the places from a more earthy perspective. There was Michelangelo’s David in Florence and the whores on the Palatine Hill in Rome. 2000 lira for us, 1000 lira for a local. The whole thing was so sordid I could not partake. I liked Switzerland. Nice people, great scenery, and so orderly. We partied some in Zurich and got to talk to some of the locals. Everyone knew we were American soldiers, of course. The haircuts gave us away. Then onto a train that carried everyone’s car through the St. Gotthards Pass tunnel to Italy.

Milan Traffic (modern)

We loved Italy. Beautiful country, from the Alps to Tuscany and Rome. Wonderful people. Warm, friendly, helpful, and lots of wine. The most striking view was approaching the walled city of Siena from the Tuscan countryside. The most terrifying experience was driving in Milan during rush hour. We got onto a traffic circle in downtown Milan that had about eight cars abreast, all jockeying for position. Italians are good, aggressive drivers, and drove those little Fiat 500s like they were Ferraris. We were out of place in that VW. It just didn’t fit in. We also had engine trouble. It would start missing and stuttering until it lost enough power that we would have to go to a shop about every 300 miles. That is where the language problem really took over. There was no language problem in Germany, Austria, or Switzerland, but the Italians had no English. The best I could do with Italian was the phrase book and some Spanish. The Volkswagen’s ignition points were burning up. We could communicate that and get new points, but we couldn’t get across to them that it was a chronic problem. So, for the rest of the trip it was new points every 300 miles. The mechanics were all eager to help, but the language problem was too much of a barrier. Back in Germany, my mechanic fixed it in about 30 minutes by replacing a burned spark plug wire. I learned about having difficulty while traveling and still having a good time. The car trouble added to the adventure.

Roman Forum

We were in Rome several days, staying in a Pension not far from the Vatican. One night we hooked up with some local college students who took us to the suburbs, no tourists, and a great time. Sitting here thinking about Rome, lots of images come up even sixty years later, but the Roman Forum is most memorable. It was the center of the world for a long time. I steeped myself in the history. Going back to Germany, when we crossed from Italian Switzerland to German Switzerland, we dropped into a beautiful glacial valley. At the head of the valley was a Gasthaus. Wiener schnitzel, pommes frites, and beer never tasted so good after all that tomato sauce and wine. That trip remains one of the highlights of my life.

Posted in 1963 Volkswagen, Memoirs, My Story, Rome, Stories, The Army, Traffic in Milan, Traveling in Europe

The Buckner Banner

Posted on February 24, 2015 by Bill 4 comments

USNS Buckner

One of my first literary adventures was as editor of The Buckner Banner, the ship’s newspaper on the USNS Simon Bolivar Buckner, a troopship sailing from New York to Bremerhaven, Germany. It was 1963, and the U.S. Army was shipping me to Europe. Just out of technical school, I had one skinny little stripe on my sleeve. I must have been chosen as editor by some random process, as I had no experience. I guess that has always been the Army way. The Banner ran a news digest from the radio room every day, and had a lot of canned content used on every nine day voyage. My job was to come up with some original content. I had a crew of clerk typists who made mimeograph masters we ran off every morning. The most valuable thing I learned as editor is to listen to your people. One of the guys suggested we serialize a Sherlock Holmes novel. The passengers on the ship were a lot of GI’s headed to their first real duty station in Germany, stacked four deep in bunks in the cargo holds, and a large number of dependents, family members of career Army personnel. There were daily movies and a library, but little else for people to do. The Banner was a major defense against boredom. That Sherlock Holmes novel was a big hit. The mimeographed paper was hard to read. The machine was worn out, and the reproduction quality was terrible. We made no effort to make each paper entirely readable, so the passengers were forced to share their copies in order to be able to read every page. A detective novel became a shipboard community building event. People loved it, and I got a lot of compliments for someone else’s idea. I also had the run of the ship as the editor and got to explore the entire vessel, from the heads in the bow to the fantail. I was also exempt from all the nasty little jobs the Army gives troops to keep them busy. I was on the same ship on the way home, and knew all the places to hide. Mostly, the voyage was routine. There were stories about previous trips with bad weather. Those cargo holds full of troops had waves of vomit sloshing back and forth as the ship rolled and pitched. Then it had to be cleaned up. The most excitement we had was the lifeboat drill the first day out. The dependents lined up behind the lifeboats. All the GI’s in their life jackets lined up facing the water. We used to joke that part of the Army nomenclature for us was “expendable, non-returnable, with cover”. There have been some interruptions in my literary career, such as as the need to make a living, but the Army gave me a start.

Posted in Memoirs, My Story, Stories, The Army, Troop Ships

Book Review: Battles and Massacres on the Southwestern Frontier

Posted on February 21, 2015 by Bill One comment

Here is a book review I wrote for the Overland Journal, the quarterly magazine of the Oregon California Trails Association. I am Vice President of the Colorado Cherokee Trail chapter of the organization. The review is the reason for a delay in getting a post up. I had trouble with one section of the book which has poor graphics and some errors, although it is important research. It took weeks of ranting at people about it until I was able to calm down and include a short paragraph pointing out the problems. Maybe next time I won’t get so personally involved in someone else’s work.

BATTLES AND MASSACRES ON THE SOUTHWESTERN FRONTIER: HISTORICAL AND ARCHAEOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVES

Edited by Ronald K. Weatherington and Frances Levine

Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2014

248 pp., photos, maps, illustrations, extensive references, index

Paper, 5” x 8”

Battles and Massacres is a book that looks at several battles or massacres in the mid-nineteenth century from the perspectives of historians and archaeologists. This is important because the historical record is usually written by one side of the conflict. The archaeological record does not engage in cover ups, obfuscation, or have a political agenda.

The book examines four nineteenth century events in the American southwest involving Native Americans and Euro-Americans and the conflicts rising from westward expansion. The encounters are the Battle of Cieneguilla in New Mexico, Adobe Walls in Texas, the Sand Creek Massacre in Colorado, and the Mountain Meadows Massacre in Utah.

The first three were direct conflicts involving Indians and soldiers or buffalo hunters. Mountain Meadows was between Mormons of Southern Utah and a train of emigrants headed to California. Some Paiutes acted with the Mormon militia.

This book is important in illustrating how modern archaeological methods can apply objective information to a historical record that can be essentially accurate, as at Adobe Walls, or what amounted to a cover-up at Cieneguilla.

Adobe Walls was a trading post in the Texas Panhandle occupied by a number of hide hunters engaging in killing as many Bison as possible for profit, while destroying the Native Americans livelihood. A large group of Cheyenne warriors, believing that their medicine would protect them from the hide hunter’s bullets, attacked twenty-eight men and one woman. The medicine did not work. The big buffalo rifles were able to outrange the attacker’s weapons and many Indians were killed. Three of the defenders were wounded.

The archaeological data showed that the majority of the Indian weapons were relatively short range rifles like the Henry and Spencer carbines, easily outranged by the big Sharps rifles of the hide hunters. There were bullets from muzzleloaders and steel arrow points as well.

The recent archaeological investigations at Sand Creek have established the actual location of the massacre and validated the conclusion that there was a slaughter of people who were not able to effectively defend themselves, believing that they were under the protection of the U.S. Government. Almost all of the recovered artifacts were from Army weapons. The massacre was the result of John Chivington deciding that the Indians should all be killed.

Mountain Meadows is different, mostly Euro-Americans killing other Euro-Americans. The essay in this book is unusual in that it comes from a Mormon Church historian and places culpability on the Southern Utah Mormon leadership for the massacre. Given the tensions prevailing between the Utah Mormons and the U. S. Government, it was understandable there would be some conflict between the Mormons and a wagon train from Arkansas, but how it escalated into the slaughter of all the migrants over seven years old remains obscure.

Archaeological investigation at Mountain Meadows is difficult because of repeated disturbances over 150 years and the resistance of the Utah political leadership. A study that was halted by the then Utah Governor, a descendant of one of the attackers, did provide forensic information that reinforced the conclusion that the emigrants were disarmed and slaughtered.

The studies of the battle of Cieneguilla in 1854 illustrate how an archaeological survey can refute the historical accounts dating from the time of the battle. Of sixty troopers of the First Dragoons led into battle by Lt. John Davidson, twenty four were killed and twenty three wounded by about 100 Jicarilla Apaches.

The official report by Lt. Davidson is a story of a gallant attack by Dragoons against a superior force. In fact, the troopers, after leaving their horses in a canyon bottom, attacked uphill and were outflanked and hunted down by the Apaches as they tried to retreat. A Lt. Bell attempted to correct the report, but never received a hearing and was subsequently killed in action.

While the Cieneguilla study is important, there are some flaws. The archeology is well done, the maps are not, making it difficult to visualize the entire battlefield and the movements of the combatants. In addition, both essays explore the Battle of Cieneguilla, but fail to mention that what was Cieneguilla in 1854 is now Pilar, not far south of Taos.

The real tragedy of Cieneguilla is that the Apaches were then hunted down, starved, and sent to a reservation.

Overall, the book does an effective job of showing how history and archaeology can come together to provide a more accurate picture of events that occurred more than 150 years ago.

Posted in Battle of Adobe Walls, Battle of Cieneguilla, Mountain Meadows Massacre, Sand Creek Massacre, Southwestern Archaeology, Southwestern History, Stories, Writing

College Towns

Posted on February 10, 2015 by Bill One comment

I have lived in college towns for most of my life. They tend to be more liberal, have a vibrant cultural life, and steady infusions of young people having some of the best years of their lives. The energy inspires me.

Grand Junction, Boulder, Fort Collins, Colorado Springs, even Greeley are all good college towns. Here in Denver we live near the University of Denver. I drink coffee and write in a coffee shop near the campus. I write mornings, and the shop has a rush every hour when classes change.

We go to concerts at the Newman Center on the DU campus. The student productions from the Lamont School of Music are always a lot of fun. The musicians are excellent, and the operas are good, but the student voices are not always top quality. I always want to hear Baroque music, and we go to concerts put on by Friends of Chamber Music.

The Newman Center also regularly presents professional artists from most everywhere. Most notable recently are Cameron Carpenter, a wildly flamboyant and talented organist. We just saw The Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company, a post-modern dance group from New York. I was entranced by the dancers and the music, performed by Lamont students.

I am a little sad because Carol now refuses to ever see The Nutcracker again, and this year she would not go to see Oklahoma! I just don’t know what is wrong with her. When we lived on Capitol Hill we went to some productions at The Denver Center of Performing Arts, but the events at DU are less expensive and the Newman Center is one of the best venues anywhere.

I am not much for sporting events, but DU’s Lacrosse team is good and I have seen several games. It’s a good game, fast, with more scoring than soccer, making it more fun to watch. The crowds are fun as well, with a lot of youth lacrosse players watching the college boys. There are always some fans of the other teams as well, because Denver draws people from all over the country. It is also good that DU dropped football in the1950’s. I used to watch Colorado College hockey when I lived in Colorado Springs, but haven’t been to a DU game yet.

Denver is a big city with several colleges. Some of the colleges have neighborhoods that are part of the big city but qualify as college towns. The area around DU is an example. The Auraria complex has CU Denver, Metro, and Community College of Denver, with many more students than DU, but the area is a downtown complex, with most of the students commuting. There is no college town feel there.

Washington Park

Capitol Hill has some of the feel, with a young population and a diverse, eclectic cluster of communities, but no college of any size. DU, however, has dorms, lots of apartments, rental houses, and fraternities and sororities. A real resident population, much like Boulder, Greeley, and Fort Collins. People walk, go to events, party, and hang out in bars,restaurants, and coffee houses. I didn’t know how much I missed all that until we moved into the neighborhood. Evans Avenue, University Boulevard, Old South Pearl, Washington Park, and Observatory Park are places that tie the community together, with a fine University at the center. I lived near Colorado College in Colorado Springs that had much the same feel, just on a smaller scale.

College towns, my favorite urban settings, I want to live in them always.

Posted in College Towns, Current Activities, Memoirs, My Story, Stories, University of Denver, Writing

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