I read a lot of history and biography and one of the best is a combination of the two by Joseph J. Ellis, “The Quartet, Orchestrating the Second American Revolution, 1783-1789”. The main actors are Washington, Hamilton, Monroe, and John Jay…..and if you’d like to know how we got here from 1776 you don’t want to pass this one up.
    It’s too bad Justice Scalia didn’t have this one to read in his lifetime, it might have made a difference in his “originalist” philosophy when it came to viewing both the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. (there are many who should read it now, including the 2nd Amendment boosters who James Madison (who wrote that one) would beg to differ with over the definitions of its wording.
    There’s no way to boil down all that this book covers but the main theme is that without these four principles (and their supporting cast) we would have wound up as a collection of fiefdoms instead of a United States. It took a lot of work to get us from one to the other and the story is still a work in process.
    One quote won’t sum it up but I think this one is worth reflecting upon; “Jefferson spoke for all the most prominent members of the revolutionary generation in urging posterity not to regard their political prescriptions as sacred script. It is richly ironic that one of the few original intentions they all shared was opposition to any judicial doctrine of ‘original intent.’ To be sure, they all wished to be remembered, they did not want to be embalmed.” Ellis


                                                The Romantic Notions of The Age of Steam

    I grew up with the sounds and sights of the steam locomotives that moved freight and passengers throughout the 40’s and was somewhat dismayed when they were replaced by the diesels. Gone were the huffs and puffs and great billows of steam and roiling smoke that heralded the great clangs and grindings of a steam locomotive as it came alive and began to move away from its rest. Gone were the mournful and seductive wails of the whistles calling out in the night. They could never be replaced by the inhuman “honks” and bellows of the new humming, thin metal monsters that replaced the iron behemoths. The new things were not alive. Their neat and clean sleekness did not compare in any way to the roars and seeming mayhem of steel and steam.
    This much was true for all I could know as an impressionable young boy. I had no deeper knowledge of what it was like, for example, to keep the behemoths going day to day……until I read “Overhaul, a Social History of the Albuquerque Locomotive Repair Shops” (Flint & Flint) which would seem, on the surface, to be a dry journey of charts and details but is actually an exploration of just what it took to keep all that “romance of steam” running.
    It’s the story of real life in what was called “the roundhouse” where those engines were taken apart and cleaned, thoroughly, more often than you might think. And that job was a much MUCH bigger undertaking than any not involved could, or can, imagine. Often they had to do a full overhaul, which meant weeks of taking an entire engine apart, cleaning, replacing, and often re-manufacturing parts ranging from refinishing the huge flanged steel wheels to removing and scraping clean the complex of tubes that held water in the main boiler, a job which could take place monthly….well, you and I, if we were so employed, might be considering alternative employment, maybe in a comparatively small engine repair shop (which many did) becoming an auto mechanic.
    Staying with the railroad theme I then dove into John Sedgwick’s, “From the River to the Sea”, the story of the railroad wars of the late 1800’s and into the early twentieth century. This is the very well written, and by that I mean something done with very readable prose, of the battle for rail supremacy undertaken by two lesser known railroad men, General William Jackson Palmer, who created the town of Colorado Springs in his quest to make his little Denver and Rio Grand Railroad a nice little “family business” and who came into conflict with the ego driven BIG railroad man William Barstow Strong who wanted much more out of his Atchison-Topeka and Santa Fe RR. These two, while suddenly in a territorial wrestling match with each other, were then cast by Fate up against two of the biggest of all the railroad titans from the east, the so-called “Robber Barons”, Jay Gould and Cornelius Vanderbilt who wanted to own all the tracks, and what ran on them, west of Kansas and into a new market, California.
    This is a fascinating story involving greed (of course) money & stock manipulations, gold mining, silver mining, politics, the immense undertaking of trying to lay rails over the geology of the west (Raton Pass in southern Colorado and northern New Mexico is story enough all by itself). Add to the mix problem plagued marriages (Strong’s and Palmer’s) both of which played important roles in the railroad dramas.  Sedgwick has done a masterful job of making this complex tale very readable and accessible. It’s a bit difficult to follow the money and stock games that went on back then but it’s worth the effort to follow-the-money to see how these humans struggled to make their dreams play out.
    I preceded all the railroad travels with what I thought would be a light and entertaining read, a book by Kliph Nesteroff, “The Comedians”. The sub-title should have tipped me off that it wasn’t going to be all fun and games, “Drunks, Thieves, Scoundrels and the History of American Comedy”!
    From vaudeville, to radio, to Broadway, to TV, to Comedy Clubs, Stand-up, Late-Night, and from baggy pants, slap-stick, to Lenny Bruce to Jay Leno, Letterman, Prior, DeGeneres, and the lesser and the virtually unknown this read covers the field and from what I got, it’s not a lot of fun to play there. What a tough, cut-throat, un-funny business comedy show biz can be…….and is.
    Not many laughs in this one, but lots of very interesting reading. If you’re interested in getting into comedy…….consider selling used cars instead. At least you can make some kind of living and maybe have some laughs.



    It’s a good thing I didn’t get hold of Roger Welsch’s book “The Reluctant Pilgrim, A skeptic’s journey into Native Mysteries” before writing my own, ("Becoming Coyote, A Journey of Enlightenment…Mostly".) because I would have been accused of plagiarism (by me at least).
    Chapter after chapter in Roger’s book parallel my own, not word for word, but at least concept by concept. I DID borrow, actually quote, one of Roger’s ideas. It came as a result of a phone call to him which might have taken place right about the time he was writing “Reluctant…” about 2014 or so. In that call, a rare one since Roger is phone-call adverse, he told me his granddaughter had commented to him that she thought he was a “…..member of the church of ‘There’s Something-going-on-here.’” (How did I get his number? Obviously the result of “Something-going-on-here!”)
    When Roger related that to me I immediately recognized that that was exactly the “church” I belonged to and that the idea of Something-going-on summed up my thinking as well. I’ve used it ever since. (Thanks Roger!)
    I’ve tried to contact Roger, even re-opened my Facebook account temporarily only to get in touch with him (I don’t “do” social media) but to no avail…so I’ve let go of the idea.
    “Reluctant” is a good one and if you are seeking any kind of spiritual path, this is the read for you….ESPECIALLY if you’re a skeptic.


   Before all my filters and boundary’s were put into place I was a lot more accepting of differences….so I must have been about seven when I was wider open than I subsequently became. (I am opening again now I notice.)
   Back then I’d listen to just about anything on the radio (our only exterior form of home entertainment). Indicative of one area as an example was that I loved country music (the Grand ol’ Oprey, Sons of the Pioneers…) and an obscure radio program called “Lum and Abner”. It was a strange little peek into what we called “Hill Billy” country, a story about the happenings at the “Jot-em-down store” located at some back country crossroads in the Appalachians ( a word I’ve never been able to spell).
    Time and I moved on and most of that was lost to me, BUT! I must add here, lately I’ve caught a few of the “Lum and Abner” shows on XM radio and found them, at the very least, charming……and then I came across a little book in our local library. I was looking for a bio, any bio for light but informative reading and happened upon “Running on Red Dog Road” (Drema Hall Berkheimer). Subtitled, “And other perils of an Appalachian Childhood”. I was immediately not interested…BUT! I looked at the first two pages and scenes shot by Dorothea Lang and images of the thirties dust bowl, and tumbled down coal towns and the movie “Matewan” (a must see by the way) and Ludlow, Colorado….all of these came sneaking in past my censors so I checked it out.
    Even when I got it home and after checking out a few more pages, I didn't think I’d dive into it….Appalachia….just not interested……and then I did….and then I was….and then I fell into Drema’s story telling…..and I found all the humanity she storied about……and I will just say this right here, I fell enough in love with all those people, people I could have cared less about before Drema’s revealing of them, so much so that I decided to try to contact her to thank her for the gifts of this story……and then I found out that she had died just one year ago almost to the day that I had finished her book.
     I will just sum all this up with a little quote from “Red Dog…”,
    “Grandma had warned us that those places were just as crooked as a rattlesnake and we had no business whatsoever going anywhere near them and she’d better not hear tell that we had or we would be plenty sorry and we should mark her words because we’d have her to deal with when we got home and make no mistake about that.”
    “So, that’s where we headed.”
    I was seven again, and this book opened all those doors into rooms I hadn’t visited for a long, long time. You might like a visit as well.
    PS: Yes, yes "Lum and Abner" were stereotypes of Appalachian people and can be seen as making everyone from the area seem simple. Well, I never believed that entirely, Minnie Pearl notwithstanding.
    I once met a guy from Appalachia in a punch press plant I was working in and he built a stereo amp. for me from scratch. It wasn't pretty, but it sure as hell worked. Nothing "simple" about him.
(This was not a coerced disclaimer. Just thought I'd add it in.) c


        I no longer look back by counting years, it's now all about blocks of time we call "decades". So, decades ago I read Paul Horgan's "The Great River"(the Rio Grande) and decided, a few weeks ago, to pick it up again. It's a thick book, not just in the number of pages, but in information about, the Southwest, the America of the mid 1800's, the nature of Americans (whites) Mexicans, Indians, humans, what stagecoaches were made of, how battles began, the Mexican-American war, Santa Fe, D.C., Pancho Villa, James Polk, the nature of the cowboy and his relationship to his horse......too much to list, way too much. This is one incredible book. (won the Pulitzer) I can't recommend it highly enough. Should be required reading for anyone who cares about how we became the U.S.


     Path of the Puma. We live in Mountain Lion country here in north-central New Mexico. In the twenty-five years we’ve been here we’ve seen three, one big one and two smaller. We have been extraordinarily lucky. Some people, even those given to lots of hiking in the back country may never see one in their lifetime that’s why some call these elusive animals “ghost cats”. But they DO see us. If you are in mountain lion country you can bet you are being watched, not as prey, they much prefer deer, but certainly as presence.
    Jim Williams book is a great read, all about the puma, panther, catamount, mountain lion in all its beauty and its importance to the survival of the entire Wild in both North and South America. This book is another worth-your-time read with very fine photography to boot. It follows the mountain lion’s range from Canada to Patagonia and tells the story well. Don’t pass it up.


“Everyone loved sunsets. The light lost its sanity as it fell over the hills and into the Pacific¬––––it went red and deeper red, orange, and even green. The skies seemed to melt, like lava eating black rock into great bite marks of burning. Sometimes all the town stopped and stared west.” (p-129 in “House of Broken Angels”) Who wouldn't love to have written that paragraph.....and that's just a tiny taste of the kind of writing Luis Alberto Urrea produces time after time in his masterful works of both fiction and non. Of those I've only read, Hummingbird's Daughter, Queen of America, & The Devil's Highway (couldn't finish that last one, too painful). Urrea is one of our great masters.


    It's such a drag that we lost Ivan Doig. He left us in 2015 and left behind in incredible legacy of wonderful writing that always leaves me wondering at his skill as a prose-poet and wondering why I even try to write anything. (Yes, I know I shouldn't do this destructive-to-my-own-writer-skill thing, but.....I mean Ivan Doig was someone apart from any ol' writer, and I read a lot of them.
    Here's just a tiny example taken from "Mountain Time" (1999) His main character is meeting a woman at the airport. (Her name is "Mariah" by the way.) so he writes, "There. Announced by the hair." Now any other writer would have said something like, "Then he spotted her." or "He couldn't miss her red hair in the crowd." But not Doig. In just five words we can guess she's probably a red head with a massive amount of hair.
    In the next paragraph he says, "Mariah, all footwork and grin, cut a sharp angle through the concourse crowd." We already know a lot about her just with that little description.
    Doig. An amazing writer.
    I first came upon him in "The Whistling Season" and then, "This House of Sky". I haven't read all of his stuff (his "Bartender's Tale" was just so/so) but these last two are certainly tops!
    Frankly it's hard to enjoy another read after one of his. Have to take a bit of a breather so as not to be let down by what may be a "flat prose" writer.


    After the politics of Truman I was ready for something totally different.....I found it in Fredrick Backman's, "Britt-Marie Was Here"! It's a novel which begins with;
"Forks. Knives. Spoons. In that order. Britt-Marie is certainly not the kind of person who judges other people. Far from it. But surely no civilized person would even think of arranging a cutlery drawer in a different way from how cutlery drawers are supposed to be arranged. We're not animals are we?"
Etc.
And this is the way this wonderfully strange book ambles along....and then moves in another beautiful direction....or directions.
You will love this one. (Even if you're not a dedicated novel reader.)


     Winter Desiree's book "Matchbook" is detective-fiction.....not a genre I usually read...BUT! this is one fine piece of reading and as one of the comments on the back cover notes, "You will not be able to put it down."...well, that's for sure. Don't pass this one up, my daughter has written one FINE story.

PS, She just finished a second, not a sequel, and it's every bit as good as Matchbook. She's on a roll. That book, When I Knew You, is now available too.

•   •   •

Hard to know where to begin.

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    Kierkegaard came up with two concepts that are commonplace to us today: one is "subjectivity," the idea that we all perceive the world — and "truth" — differently; and the other is the "leap of faith," that faith is not possible without doubt. “One must doubt the existence of God to have faith in the existence of God. Belief without doubt is just credulity.”

    Novelist and essayist David Foster Wallace said: "Postmodern irony and cynicism's become an end in itself, a measure of hip sophistication and literary savvy. Few artists dare to try to talk about ways of working toward redeeming what's wrong, because they'll look sentimental and naive to all the weary ironists. Irony's gone from liberating to enslaving.”

    Ben Okri  author of, The Famished Road (1991), incorporates African myth and folklore, which has been labeled magical realism. Okri disagrees: "I grew up in a tradition where there are simply more dimensions to reality: legends and myths and ancestors and spirits and death. You can't use Jane Austen to speak about African reality. Which brings the question: what is reality? Everyone's reality is different."

Dick Prosapio, MSW, aka Coyote; ceremonialist, psychotherapist (recovering), writer, Intuitive Tarot (now out of print) Becoming Coyote (available from Spirit Path) drummer, photographer, dancer, and leader of experiential workshops for 30+ years. Co founder of; The Foundation for Common Sense©.	Elizabeth Prosapio, BFA, RMT, aka Raven; leads WildWoman weekends & of Woman's Spirit Weekend, a (very) fine artist and massage therapist and co-wrote Intuitive Tarot with Dick. Elizabeth is available for "Soul Face" drawing (more info by contacting her) and is also the co founder of; The Foundation for Common Sense©.
For more information on any event listed, contact us at: coyotecall@spiritpath.net raven1680@gmail.com	Spirit Earth Path 66 Snowy Owl Stanley, NM 87056 (505) 281 4824 cell: 505 331 1654/1740 email: coyotecall@spiritpath.net Raven's Email: raven1680@gmail.com

 

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  7 PM, July 27th, 2021.

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