New West Network

My Page: David Feela

cashing in the cache

“Hey, look at this” he whispered.

She hurried over and pressed against him as she tried to see what had gotten him so excited. They’d been rooting around on the shaded hillside through the bushes, rocks, and weeds next to the middle school, but they hadn’t discovered what they knew was hidden there. They found empty liquor bottles, cigarette butts, thorns, fast food trash, and the faded remains of somebody’s homework from math class.

Then she saw what he’d been pointing at: A condom, still in its package. [more]

Tourist Attraction?

Once a year in Pamplona, people perch along the narrow Spanish streets to watch some agitated bulls trample some addled brained spectators so bored by life that they offer themselves to be gored. I’ve never been to Spain, but I’ve always wondered what prompts that Papa Hemingway urge to seek such a dangerous activity. Sure, I know the Four Corners provides ample opportunity for locals to stand by the side of a road and watch a few hundred head of cattle amble past, but it’s not really the same. Hemingway might have gone so far as to say, it’s just not a MAN thing.

That’s why it probably came as a surprise when I asked Pam if she’d travel with me to Bayfield to watch the running of the sheep.
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A tale from the road

A small, red Ford Fiesta would not be considered a luxury car, but the trip to Arizona felt luxurious. We had – or rather, the couple that took this trip had – an entire week. I’m not going to identify that couple, because the police might take more than a reader’s interest in the story I’m about to relate. But it happened almost exactly the way I remember it, or rather, the way I remember it being told. [more]

On the road

Every spring I look forward to one great depression. It works out to be my lowest point of the year, 282 feet below sea level to be exact, a geographic record for the western hemisphere. Contrary to what psychologists might think, I’m always elated.

Death Valley is definitely a hot spot, but not one that qualifies as a spring break vacation destination, which is why my wife and I have made an annual pilgrimage to Death Valley for the past decade. I suspect its very name dissuades most of the spring enthusiasts from coming, and that’s OK with us. We covet the emptiness, the openness, that enormous dip in the road that has for over a hundred years embodied the idea of desolation.
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Life in the drive-up lane

I know it’s not much of an outdoor experience, but eating at a drive-in restaurant appeals to me. Besides not getting out of my vehicle, all I have to do after shutting off the engine is roll my car window down and order food. It’s a kind of American magic, this low-effort, high-yield dining experience. While I’m waiting for the carhop to deliver my meal, sometimes I roll up my shirt sleeve. If I press my left arm tightly against the lower window frame, it actually looks as if I have biceps. Of course, it’s just an illusion, like this outdoor experience itself, but I am comfortable with that, being relaxed, sitting perfectly still, waiting to be fed.
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An army of the elderly

Wisdom supposedly comes with age, when the urge to impress our ideas upon others takes on less elaborate proportions. A few weeks ago I got cornered by a Ute grandmother who simply shook her finger at me while flourishing in the other hand her granddaughter’s senior class schedule.

“If she comes home and complains about mix-ups one more time” the grandmother lectured, “I’ll hold you responsible." Her index finger pointed at my face like the barrel of a gun, but then she abruptly turned from the table and headed out the door. I’m pretty sure the finger wasn’t loaded.

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A vanishing breed

Maybe it’s like a soap opera romance, this ongoing affection of mine for the old style single-wide mobile homes, more commonly known as trailers. To me their appeal is strongest when I’m driving a gravel county road and I see one attached to a few open acres like an alien spacecraft, or I’m turning into the shaded niches of a well-worn trailer park and it’s there like a time machine made of corrugated tin and glass. Maybe it’s been repainted, not the bland manufacturer’s color from 30 years ago, but a fresh swath of purple, or yellow, or turquoise and pink! These trailers – at least the ones that haven’t fallen into ruin – should be preserved, designated as historic local treasures, of no lesser magnitude than those infamous bridges from that other county in the Midwest. Their survival offers us a touchstone to a time when a family’s housing ambitions may have been scaled back to, say, reality. [more]

New age in the sage

Rodeo Days reminds us that the West is not only a tourist attraction but also a celebration of tradition. A law firm may have may have partners, but some of us still call them pardners. Irritants may get on people’s nerves but around here burrs get under our saddles. Spurs and chaps, cowboy hats and belt buckles – the accessories for holding out against a new frontier. This is the case, sometimes to the extreme, in the faux West, places where tourists flock to mix up the old with the new. And the most faux, faux away location I’ve encountered since moving west of the Mississippi is called Sedona, Arizona. I know. I’ve been there, once back in 1976, and then just about a year ago. Luckily I only had to draw on my credit card twice.
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Motorhome madness

A plume of dust billowed behind me like a vapor trail as the pickup stuttered along the gravel road, fish-tailing so much I had to keep both hands on the steering wheel. Fortunately, no other vehicle shared our dust. Then, less than a quarter mile from where the highway pavement began, a sparkling clean rig pulling a fifth-wheel trailer chattered past, its driver launching a quick salute from behind his nearly spotless windshield. I was leaving our national forest just in time. In the subliminal seconds it took to go by I recalled the one word on its side panel, printed in enormous three-foot green lettering: Wilderness.
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A Thrift Store Score

These days there’s not much to be said for the integrity of the American presidency, so when I say I admire something about Richard Nixon, it’s likely I won’t get a lot of respect either. He may have been a liar, a crook, and possibly even cheated on his mother’s income taxes, but recently I’ve been forced to reassess the man and he’s turned out to be slightly better than I thought, at least in my books. [more]