Nicole Walker's Blog
September 27, 2022
October 12, 2016
Letter #93--More Amazing Colleagues
Dear Governor Ducey,
A few weeks ago, I wrote you about how my creative writing are amazing writers and teachers. Lasti Friday, I attended a breakfast with the Board of Regents with a few invited faculty members from NAU to talk about how faculty research impacts undergraduate students. Faculty don’t have many opportunities to hear what their fellow faculty work on—which is too bad because these people are as amazing as my English Department colleagues. To wit: Nancy Johnson, NAU’s newest Regent’s Professor in the School of Earth Science and Environmental Sustainability, talked about mycorrhizae—the symbiotic relationship between fungi and plants. Underground, microscopic tubes of mycelium (mushrooms are the fruiting bodies of mycelia) bring nutrients to plants. In her environmental science class, she wanted to research fungi on farms but there aren’t many farms in Flagstaff. One of her Navajo students told her he planned to begin farming his grandfather’s plot on the reservation. Together, they applied for grants and hope to begin research on this farm to study mycorrhizal relationships together. Jani Ingram, Chemistry and Biochemistry Professor, noted how one of her Navajo students was particularly good at calibrating equipment because he worked as a jeweler, making him indispensible in the field. Michael Rulon, a 19thcentury French Literature professor, brings his scholarship to teach students in global engineering how to develop international communication. Chrissina Burke, a lecturer in anthropology, took a contingent of undergraduates to uncover Mayan ruins, teaching them archaeological practices from lab work to fieldwork to grant writing. Ethnic Studies Professor Mark Montoya talked about the STAR program, which prepares at-risk students for college, and how writing from one’s cultural point of view empowers students. Professor Laura Gray-Rosendale, who directs the English portion of the STAR program, noted that NAU’s online English graduate programs were ranked #1 in the country by GradSource. Dr. Gray-Rosendale, who is working on a book about teaching personal writing in the digital age, also wrote College Girl, a memoir that explores her college experiences and how she became interested in rhetoric as a way of talking about those college experiences. Daniel Eadens’ new book, Social Justice Instruction: Empowerment on the Chalkboard, offers strategies for teaching social justice concepts across subject areas from kindergarten through college. Because I write, edit, and publish my students know how to write, edit, and publish. We can also host big cultural events. My students attended the international NonfictioNOW conference at NAU last year. This year, students who were part of that conference will help host the Northern Arizona Book Festival October 10-16 and attend the next conference in Reykjavik. David Wagner, Professor of Biological Sciences and table-host extraordinaire, works with microorganisms and bacteria like anthrax and plague. His facility is run like a business. The benefit to undergraduates? They who work in the lab most write letters, create resumes, and interview to get a job at the lab. These students go on to great graduate research universities, having had such professional research experience. Forestry Professor Bruce Fox told us about how, after a forest fire on the Peaks, aspen trees tried to regenerate but elk snacked on the baby aspen trees as though at a deli. His students tried protecting the baby trees by strewing the area with fallen logs to stave off elk. It didn’t work but those students keep trying to find ways to help forests regenerate in their now-graduate programs. Rachel Koch teaches international students English quickly to prepare them for the two years of study they will spend at NAU. Professor of Educational Leadership, Ishmael Munene noted that we teach these students the subtle art of organizing committees and preparing presentations. Theater Professor Kate Ellis teaches costume design. She takes students to the Utah Shakespeare festival for hands-on set and design work. Statistics Professor Roy St. Laurent said that on Friday Afternoon Math Undergraduate Seminar (FAMUS) from 3 to 4, there’s not an open seat in the classroom. Sociology and Social Work professor Natalie Cawood, when asked by a Regent if when we were in college, did we had any undergraduate research opportunities, said that one of the things NAU does best is marry what private liberal arts schools provide—small class sizes, close-relationships with faculty, with what a large university provides—big research. President Cheng underscored that faculty at the breakfast were just a few of the hundreds of professors at NAU invested in undergraduate research. She invited each of the Regents to next April’s symposium where the entire Skydome is filled with poster presentations showcasing undergraduate research. I hope you can come too.
Letter #92--Northern Arizona Book Festival
Dear Governor Ducey,
It is festival season in Flagstaff. Two Saturdays ago, at the same time as the Hopi Festival, the Festival of Science began in Wheeler Park. I met a falcon owned by the woman who manages Jay’s Bird Barn and talked to an avalanche expert. Max and Zoe won sunflower seeds by spinning a wheel, made bracelets with beads that indicated when to reapply sunscreen, and made parachutes to catch good air. Last Saturday was Oktoberfest and weekend two of the Festival of Science. We did as much science as possible with Max and Zoe at the new Science and Health building with its Hogwarts’ staircases that look down upon the Liberal Arts building. You can see my office which I chose for the light that came through my windows before Science and Health construction began. Still, to be shadowed by Hogwarts is not the end of the world. At the Science Fest we saw a scorpion that bio luminesced under a black light. We learned that people with cats have less staphylococcus bacteria on their skin. Max and Zoe got Smarties for answering questions about heart ventricles. We saw a stuffed peregrine falcon and a long eared owl and took some wildflower seeds home for our garden. When we first moved to Flagstaff, we went to an Oktoberfest out at the Nordic Center. There were pumpkins and a straw bale maze but no beer, which confused us, so we went home. This year, we didn’t make it to Oktoberfest because Stacy Murison, Lawrence Lenhart, colleagues of mine at NAU, and Kate Harkins, Blake Carrera, students in the MFA program, typed poems On Demand at Full Circle Thrift Store while Aly Jay played her beautiful guitar and sang her beautiful voice. Here’s two poems by us, The Poetry On Demand Team:cloud/ a pull of snow/ o thin you can only dream about touching it/ you can fly through them. And, Finding a fan: It was a breezeless day. What can you do in Phoenix in/July? Wait? No No No. /Go Get the wind.
Instead of drinking beer, we typed in the first event of the Northern Arizona Book Festival, which officially begins next week. Jesse Sensibar and James Jay have put together an amazing schedule of events. The whole schedule can be found at http://www.nazbookfest.org/wp/schedule-2/but here are a few highlights: Monday, October 10th, 7–8 p.m. Narrow Chimney Reading with Michaela Carter, Ann Cummins, Susan Lang, Mary Sojourner at Uptown Pubhouse followed by Northern Arizona Playwriting Showcase at the Doris Harper-White Community Playhouse from 8–9:30 p.m. On Wednesday, Oct. 12, 5:30-7 p.m. Flag Live’s Letter from Home columnists read from their latest works at Uptown. Then, at 7:30 p.m. Gary Every and Lawrence Lenhart read at Barefoot Cowgirl. On Thursday, from 7-9 p.m. I, with William Trowbridge, Erin Stalcup, Diana Gabaldon read at the Coconino Center for the Arts. On Friday, Oct. 14 from 7–10 p.m. Jim Harrison Tribute with Pamela Uschuk, William Pitt Root, Doug Peacock at the Orpheum Theater On Saturday, Oct. 15, from 11:30 a.m.–1:30 p.m. Getting Published Workshop at Barefoot Cowgirl. At the downtown library, the Book Fest offers a slate of young readers’ events from 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. At 1:30–3 p.m. Simmerman Book Release Reading with William Trowbridge, Ann Cummins, James Jay, Miles Waggener, and Sean Carswell at Uptown. Saturday night, at 7:00, it’s “Return of the Writers” with NAU English Department alumni Sean Carswell, T. Greenwood and Miles Waggener return to read from their latest books at Uptown. On Sun, Oct. 16 from 1:00 to 2:00, the Waxwing reading with Matt Bell and Dexter L. Booth at Firecreek Coffee Co will be followed by 2–3 p.m. Thin Air reading then from 3–4 p.m, is Indigenous Authors Reading with Jennifer Foerster, Tom Holm, Simon Ortiz, and Orlando White. The final event that Sunday is the book festival board reading with James Jay, Stacy Murison, Jesse Sensibar, John Quinonez, Andrew Wisniewski, and Ian Kersey where I promise to read all 100 of my Letters to Ducey (Not really. Really I will read poems On Demand. No need to torture my kind friends although if you come, Governor Ducey, I will read a letter to you). This is just a sampling of the events but you can see this is going to be a festival that will soar as high as the peregrine falcon, catch as much wind as a Max-built parachute, will make your heart ventricles pump enough blood to warrant a bucketful of Smarties. Come up from Phoenix, come get the wind.
It is festival season in Flagstaff. Two Saturdays ago, at the same time as the Hopi Festival, the Festival of Science began in Wheeler Park. I met a falcon owned by the woman who manages Jay’s Bird Barn and talked to an avalanche expert. Max and Zoe won sunflower seeds by spinning a wheel, made bracelets with beads that indicated when to reapply sunscreen, and made parachutes to catch good air. Last Saturday was Oktoberfest and weekend two of the Festival of Science. We did as much science as possible with Max and Zoe at the new Science and Health building with its Hogwarts’ staircases that look down upon the Liberal Arts building. You can see my office which I chose for the light that came through my windows before Science and Health construction began. Still, to be shadowed by Hogwarts is not the end of the world. At the Science Fest we saw a scorpion that bio luminesced under a black light. We learned that people with cats have less staphylococcus bacteria on their skin. Max and Zoe got Smarties for answering questions about heart ventricles. We saw a stuffed peregrine falcon and a long eared owl and took some wildflower seeds home for our garden. When we first moved to Flagstaff, we went to an Oktoberfest out at the Nordic Center. There were pumpkins and a straw bale maze but no beer, which confused us, so we went home. This year, we didn’t make it to Oktoberfest because Stacy Murison, Lawrence Lenhart, colleagues of mine at NAU, and Kate Harkins, Blake Carrera, students in the MFA program, typed poems On Demand at Full Circle Thrift Store while Aly Jay played her beautiful guitar and sang her beautiful voice. Here’s two poems by us, The Poetry On Demand Team:cloud/ a pull of snow/ o thin you can only dream about touching it/ you can fly through them. And, Finding a fan: It was a breezeless day. What can you do in Phoenix in/July? Wait? No No No. /Go Get the wind.
Instead of drinking beer, we typed in the first event of the Northern Arizona Book Festival, which officially begins next week. Jesse Sensibar and James Jay have put together an amazing schedule of events. The whole schedule can be found at http://www.nazbookfest.org/wp/schedule-2/but here are a few highlights: Monday, October 10th, 7–8 p.m. Narrow Chimney Reading with Michaela Carter, Ann Cummins, Susan Lang, Mary Sojourner at Uptown Pubhouse followed by Northern Arizona Playwriting Showcase at the Doris Harper-White Community Playhouse from 8–9:30 p.m. On Wednesday, Oct. 12, 5:30-7 p.m. Flag Live’s Letter from Home columnists read from their latest works at Uptown. Then, at 7:30 p.m. Gary Every and Lawrence Lenhart read at Barefoot Cowgirl. On Thursday, from 7-9 p.m. I, with William Trowbridge, Erin Stalcup, Diana Gabaldon read at the Coconino Center for the Arts. On Friday, Oct. 14 from 7–10 p.m. Jim Harrison Tribute with Pamela Uschuk, William Pitt Root, Doug Peacock at the Orpheum Theater On Saturday, Oct. 15, from 11:30 a.m.–1:30 p.m. Getting Published Workshop at Barefoot Cowgirl. At the downtown library, the Book Fest offers a slate of young readers’ events from 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. At 1:30–3 p.m. Simmerman Book Release Reading with William Trowbridge, Ann Cummins, James Jay, Miles Waggener, and Sean Carswell at Uptown. Saturday night, at 7:00, it’s “Return of the Writers” with NAU English Department alumni Sean Carswell, T. Greenwood and Miles Waggener return to read from their latest books at Uptown. On Sun, Oct. 16 from 1:00 to 2:00, the Waxwing reading with Matt Bell and Dexter L. Booth at Firecreek Coffee Co will be followed by 2–3 p.m. Thin Air reading then from 3–4 p.m, is Indigenous Authors Reading with Jennifer Foerster, Tom Holm, Simon Ortiz, and Orlando White. The final event that Sunday is the book festival board reading with James Jay, Stacy Murison, Jesse Sensibar, John Quinonez, Andrew Wisniewski, and Ian Kersey where I promise to read all 100 of my Letters to Ducey (Not really. Really I will read poems On Demand. No need to torture my kind friends although if you come, Governor Ducey, I will read a letter to you). This is just a sampling of the events but you can see this is going to be a festival that will soar as high as the peregrine falcon, catch as much wind as a Max-built parachute, will make your heart ventricles pump enough blood to warrant a bucketful of Smarties. Come up from Phoenix, come get the wind.
Letter #92--Volunteer!
Dear Governor Ducey,
I just finished mopping the floor. My sister is coming to town and I don’t want her to think I’m a total slob. I don’t have to mop the floor. She really wouldn’t mind but Bear the Dog likes to find the only mud-spot in the forest and to lay down full body. Then he likes to jump up on me and my running clothes. My running clothes are in the laundry. My leg is flaking its patch of dirt onto the floor—which I’ll have to vacuum again and then mop again. Sometimes, efficiency is not my middle name. I don’t have to mop the floor or walk the dogs (I do have to walk the dogs or the dogs would maul me with their neediness and pent up desire for muddiness). I could have been finishing the grant application. Or making a volunteer spreadsheet. Or finishing the copyedits on Canning Peaches for the Apocalypse. Or emailing instructors to send me their resumes. In between swipes of mop, I did some of these things. Again, probably not the most efficient mode but things pop up in my mind like dirt pops up on my leg—seemingly out of nowhere but actually quite predictable. My job is a hodgepodge of duties and, like most professor jobs, one that seems on the surface voluntary but is by hodge and podge, actually required. I want to email my student because she’s embarking on a big project—trying to put together a thesis on a single topic. How do you write about a single topic without becoming redundant? Well, I think back to the EGG book I wrote. How did I write Egg? I looked for various clichés and I titled each short essay that cliché. How many eggs does it take to break an omelet? Can you put humpty dumpty back together again? Is the egg truly incredible? Do I really have to walk on eggshells? I do have to email the student because my job is to teach. And I do have to write a book about eggs because how else will I know how to answer her question if I haven’t grappled with how to write about something before? I look at my list of things to do: make a volunteer sign-up list for the Northern Arizona Book Festival. This is truly volunteer work—not even in my job description and yet I volunteered to be a part and I want the book festival to go off successfully and how can I volunteer to make a volunteer list if I don’t volunteer myself? This morning, before I left to go get my sister from Phoenix, I popped over to Puente de Hozho, where my son Max goes to school, to try to inspire the kids to join the Read-a-Thon. Each kid has a bingo-like paper and each square has a particular idea to make the reading extraordinary, like read under a tree, read over the phone. The kids ask their parents and relatives to sponsor each square and the money goes to Puente to buy things Puente can’t normally afford like new sound systems, computers, playground equipment. One of the squares was “Read in a funny place.” I asked the kids where they could read. The answers: on the roof, on the toilet, in the car, on the car, in a tree, while climbing, in a box, in a closet, on stilts. I told them to try to keep both feet on the ground as they read as a precautionary measure. I outlined the prizes, a Kindle, a $25 gift card, but I told them the true gift was a week devoted to reading. Truly self-serving! I, as a writer, want kids to grow up loving to read. I can write soon but first, I have students with essays for me to comment upon and books to read and review for presses. I have book fests to support and colleagues and students to write letters of recommendation for and previous professors to ask letters of recommendation of [future Letter to the Governor: Abolish letters of recommendation]. An actual part of my job is to write—like that is spelled out and detailed. I’m supposed to teach 60% of my time. Write for 30%. Serve for 10%. And the writing is important because that is how I know what and how to teach.
Now, I guess I have to go let the dogs back in, dirty though they may be. Somewhere between vacuuming and mopping, I’ll find a minute to write again.
Letter #91--Colleagues
Dear Governor Ducey,
It is the first week back at university! The campus is bustling. The students are rapt. There are many changes afoot. New buildings and ped-ways. New systems to make classroom assignments more efficient. New parking rules. New grant-procurement incentives. It’s like a whole new university. And, in a way, it is. Since I started teaching here only 8 years ago, the number of students has doubled. You can tell when you’re in downtown Flagstaff. You can tell at the restaurants that have waiting lists and in the traffic and in the hallways. We are squeezing in and making room and I would say, it’s kind of exhilarating. It’s a great thing that more people want to come here and a sign that the university is getting recognition it deserves. My colleagues do awesome things: win Guggenheim’s, National Endowment of the Arts grants, National Science Foundation Grants.
They also write books. Two of my colleagues, Lawrence Lenhart and Erin Stalcup, had books released this summer. Lawrence’s book, The Well-Stocked and Gilded Cage, is a fantastic collection of essays about animals and mythologies, babies and sinking countries. The blurb I wrote for the back of the book goes like this: There are books with turtles in them. And books with dogs. And books about bullies. And books about hoarding birds. There are books about Bangladesh and books about the end of the world but I do not think there is another book that pulls back the veil to reveal how woven together dogs, bullies, birds, babies and Bangladesh are. Lenhart does something in The Well-Stocked and Gilded Age that only someone with a special kind of genius can do: train his focus as sharply inward as he does outward. Intense awareness combined with his intense concern make for a big heart and a big brain and a big, as in important, book.
Erin Stalcup’s And Yet It Moves, is an amazing collection of short stories. This book is wild in the way it incorporates science, sex, and sauciness into a wide array of characters. What I love most about the book is the variety of narrators. Erin is just one person when I work and hang out with her but inside that one person’s head, she’s crafting believable and far-ranging people. Justin Bigos worked on his novel all summer. He had good reason to. His novella was chosen by TC Boyle for the Seattle Review’s novella contests. If that wasn’t a big enough win, right before his short story published by McSweeney’s was chosen for The Best American Short Stories. And right before that, his chapbook, 20,000 Pigeons came out. He’s on a winning streak that doesn’t seem to stop. Did I mention that Erin and Justin’s lit mag Waxwingpublished a poem by Maggie Smith that went so viral articles in The Guardian were written about it? Ann Cummins, author of the collection Red Ant Hill and Yellow Cake, both big books from big presses, finished her nonfiction book this summer. I’ve a good portion of this. You may have heard her read from this manuscript around town. I don’t want to jinx it by saying out loud how big I think this book is going to be. So I’ll just say. It’s already amazing. Jane Armstrong, who’s on sabbatical, just won a Viola Award for her project Aphasia: Neurological Aphasia in Text and Image, which is still on display in Riles Building on campus. Even though she’s not on campus, she’s still working on building a writing community. She’s directing and acting in plays that the Northern Arizona Playwriting Showcased. NAPS, founded in part by our colleague Ann Cummins, showcases seven winning ten-minute plays every year—this year, September 9-11. In between playwriting and lyric essay writing, is researching a big book about her ancestry: Please see Charlemagne. I went back to teach this week and stood in front of the incoming Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing students and was able to tell them how happy we are to have them here and that the creative writing faculty, who write all summer long and on the weekends and sometimes between classes, are here to share with the students what we’ve been working on and how we got to where we are with our working.
A lot has changed at NAU, including ever-diminishing resources. But one thing that hasn’t changed is the way the professors do what they do not only because they love it but because they love to share it and show their students how it’s done. I’m lucky to have such awesome colleagues that do it and show it and share it so well.
It is the first week back at university! The campus is bustling. The students are rapt. There are many changes afoot. New buildings and ped-ways. New systems to make classroom assignments more efficient. New parking rules. New grant-procurement incentives. It’s like a whole new university. And, in a way, it is. Since I started teaching here only 8 years ago, the number of students has doubled. You can tell when you’re in downtown Flagstaff. You can tell at the restaurants that have waiting lists and in the traffic and in the hallways. We are squeezing in and making room and I would say, it’s kind of exhilarating. It’s a great thing that more people want to come here and a sign that the university is getting recognition it deserves. My colleagues do awesome things: win Guggenheim’s, National Endowment of the Arts grants, National Science Foundation Grants.
They also write books. Two of my colleagues, Lawrence Lenhart and Erin Stalcup, had books released this summer. Lawrence’s book, The Well-Stocked and Gilded Cage, is a fantastic collection of essays about animals and mythologies, babies and sinking countries. The blurb I wrote for the back of the book goes like this: There are books with turtles in them. And books with dogs. And books about bullies. And books about hoarding birds. There are books about Bangladesh and books about the end of the world but I do not think there is another book that pulls back the veil to reveal how woven together dogs, bullies, birds, babies and Bangladesh are. Lenhart does something in The Well-Stocked and Gilded Age that only someone with a special kind of genius can do: train his focus as sharply inward as he does outward. Intense awareness combined with his intense concern make for a big heart and a big brain and a big, as in important, book.
Erin Stalcup’s And Yet It Moves, is an amazing collection of short stories. This book is wild in the way it incorporates science, sex, and sauciness into a wide array of characters. What I love most about the book is the variety of narrators. Erin is just one person when I work and hang out with her but inside that one person’s head, she’s crafting believable and far-ranging people. Justin Bigos worked on his novel all summer. He had good reason to. His novella was chosen by TC Boyle for the Seattle Review’s novella contests. If that wasn’t a big enough win, right before his short story published by McSweeney’s was chosen for The Best American Short Stories. And right before that, his chapbook, 20,000 Pigeons came out. He’s on a winning streak that doesn’t seem to stop. Did I mention that Erin and Justin’s lit mag Waxwingpublished a poem by Maggie Smith that went so viral articles in The Guardian were written about it? Ann Cummins, author of the collection Red Ant Hill and Yellow Cake, both big books from big presses, finished her nonfiction book this summer. I’ve a good portion of this. You may have heard her read from this manuscript around town. I don’t want to jinx it by saying out loud how big I think this book is going to be. So I’ll just say. It’s already amazing. Jane Armstrong, who’s on sabbatical, just won a Viola Award for her project Aphasia: Neurological Aphasia in Text and Image, which is still on display in Riles Building on campus. Even though she’s not on campus, she’s still working on building a writing community. She’s directing and acting in plays that the Northern Arizona Playwriting Showcased. NAPS, founded in part by our colleague Ann Cummins, showcases seven winning ten-minute plays every year—this year, September 9-11. In between playwriting and lyric essay writing, is researching a big book about her ancestry: Please see Charlemagne. I went back to teach this week and stood in front of the incoming Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing students and was able to tell them how happy we are to have them here and that the creative writing faculty, who write all summer long and on the weekends and sometimes between classes, are here to share with the students what we’ve been working on and how we got to where we are with our working.
A lot has changed at NAU, including ever-diminishing resources. But one thing that hasn’t changed is the way the professors do what they do not only because they love it but because they love to share it and show their students how it’s done. I’m lucky to have such awesome colleagues that do it and show it and share it so well.
Letter #90--Dear MM
Flagstaff Is Number 1!
I sent a letter, not to you, but to a dear friend/fellow professor who might want to retire to Flagstaff. I wrote,
Dear MM, Oh, how exciting--both the idea of retirement and the idea of you moving here.Flagstaff is the very best. It has access to nearly everything (except for Trader Joe's) and yet isn't overrun except for once and a while when it's hot in Phoenix. Little traffic. Low crime. Fun people. Everyone is in good shape—it’s hard to find people who don’t run marathons or race bikes or hikes the Grand Canyon once a spring. With access to National Parks. Close to Sedona.There is no water--I mean, there's enough to drink (I checked directly with the guy at the water treatment plant) but nowhere to go sit by the water (well, except by the water treatment plant).There is some of that chain stores-are-everywhere thing going on. Applebee’s, Culvers, Walmart, Sportsmans Warehouse but there are a considerable number of local shops. Barefoot Cowgirl Bookstore, Farmer's Market Store, Rainbow's End, Winter Sun, that are great. There are more and more exciting restaurants: Root, Shift, Commerce, to go with Tinderbox (where you and I ate last time we were in town) and Proper and Brix. Great Mexican food at Martanne’s, Salsa Brava, Tacos Los Altos and Pobolitas.The healthcare is pretty good. Flagstaff Medical Center is solid. For major stuff, sometimes they'll send you to Phoenix.I love everything about here except the fact that NAU, or my department at least, has serious budget woes. For traveling, Flag airport is OK and the drive to Phoenix to fly isn't bad.It's pretty expensive--property values are high like they are all over the west.3 bedroom, 2 bath, $350,000.But groceries aren't more expensive than, say, Salt Lake City. No sales tax on them! And, every weekend, there is awesome stuff going on.I'll send you to the link about goings on in Flagstaff.It's kind of hard to grow tomatoes here but not impossible!Move here! We will have so much fun.
A couple of days later, Flagstaff was listed as number 1 small college town. It highlighted the same things as I did and included some things I’d forgotten about or become so accustomed to that I forgot how awesome they were: the urban trail system and Buffalo Park, the Arboretum, and the Flagstaff Symphony. I added the link saying “we’re number one” to my Facebook page. One of my favorite magazine editors warned me about such lists. She said Charlottesville, Virginia used to top those lists and now, Charlottesville’s local charm is not so local—the chain stores have taken over. It barely counts as a small town anymore. There’s traffic. Crime. Several Walmarts.
Then it became clear that the HUB, an apartment building to house 600 people (but only 300 cars) will be built even against much community push back. People don’t want the lot by Fratelli’s pizza, Revolution Bicycle, Motherroad Brewing or Pizzacletta to be turned into a cookie-cutter, traffic-causing, parking stressing, not-in-keeping-with-historic-looking, small town Flagstaff. What draws people to Flagstaff is the very things Flagstaff will lose as it draws more people here. As NAU must grow to sustain itself and the cost of tuition, its marketing to potential to students relies on not so much charm but amenities—new housing, recognizable chain restaurants and stores, fancy buildings but they really aren’t Flagstaff. There’s a risk in pivoting to meet expectations. You turn away from what made your school, your town, your community unique. By the time you turn back to point and show, see how great Flagstaff is, that Flagstaff has been replaced by big box stores and carbon-copy apartment buildings. Don’t PHX FLG is one of my favorite bumper stickers. It’s not so much Phoenixing Flag that’s the problem so much as cooking-cutting Flagstaff. Once Flagstaff becomes everyplace it will just be a busy place with traffic and no parking and still no water to sit by, except at the overtaxed water treatment plant.
I sent a letter, not to you, but to a dear friend/fellow professor who might want to retire to Flagstaff. I wrote,
Dear MM, Oh, how exciting--both the idea of retirement and the idea of you moving here.Flagstaff is the very best. It has access to nearly everything (except for Trader Joe's) and yet isn't overrun except for once and a while when it's hot in Phoenix. Little traffic. Low crime. Fun people. Everyone is in good shape—it’s hard to find people who don’t run marathons or race bikes or hikes the Grand Canyon once a spring. With access to National Parks. Close to Sedona.There is no water--I mean, there's enough to drink (I checked directly with the guy at the water treatment plant) but nowhere to go sit by the water (well, except by the water treatment plant).There is some of that chain stores-are-everywhere thing going on. Applebee’s, Culvers, Walmart, Sportsmans Warehouse but there are a considerable number of local shops. Barefoot Cowgirl Bookstore, Farmer's Market Store, Rainbow's End, Winter Sun, that are great. There are more and more exciting restaurants: Root, Shift, Commerce, to go with Tinderbox (where you and I ate last time we were in town) and Proper and Brix. Great Mexican food at Martanne’s, Salsa Brava, Tacos Los Altos and Pobolitas.The healthcare is pretty good. Flagstaff Medical Center is solid. For major stuff, sometimes they'll send you to Phoenix.I love everything about here except the fact that NAU, or my department at least, has serious budget woes. For traveling, Flag airport is OK and the drive to Phoenix to fly isn't bad.It's pretty expensive--property values are high like they are all over the west.3 bedroom, 2 bath, $350,000.But groceries aren't more expensive than, say, Salt Lake City. No sales tax on them! And, every weekend, there is awesome stuff going on.I'll send you to the link about goings on in Flagstaff.It's kind of hard to grow tomatoes here but not impossible!Move here! We will have so much fun.
A couple of days later, Flagstaff was listed as number 1 small college town. It highlighted the same things as I did and included some things I’d forgotten about or become so accustomed to that I forgot how awesome they were: the urban trail system and Buffalo Park, the Arboretum, and the Flagstaff Symphony. I added the link saying “we’re number one” to my Facebook page. One of my favorite magazine editors warned me about such lists. She said Charlottesville, Virginia used to top those lists and now, Charlottesville’s local charm is not so local—the chain stores have taken over. It barely counts as a small town anymore. There’s traffic. Crime. Several Walmarts.
Then it became clear that the HUB, an apartment building to house 600 people (but only 300 cars) will be built even against much community push back. People don’t want the lot by Fratelli’s pizza, Revolution Bicycle, Motherroad Brewing or Pizzacletta to be turned into a cookie-cutter, traffic-causing, parking stressing, not-in-keeping-with-historic-looking, small town Flagstaff. What draws people to Flagstaff is the very things Flagstaff will lose as it draws more people here. As NAU must grow to sustain itself and the cost of tuition, its marketing to potential to students relies on not so much charm but amenities—new housing, recognizable chain restaurants and stores, fancy buildings but they really aren’t Flagstaff. There’s a risk in pivoting to meet expectations. You turn away from what made your school, your town, your community unique. By the time you turn back to point and show, see how great Flagstaff is, that Flagstaff has been replaced by big box stores and carbon-copy apartment buildings. Don’t PHX FLG is one of my favorite bumper stickers. It’s not so much Phoenixing Flag that’s the problem so much as cooking-cutting Flagstaff. Once Flagstaff becomes everyplace it will just be a busy place with traffic and no parking and still no water to sit by, except at the overtaxed water treatment plant.
Letter #88 Scarcity and Abundance
Dear Governor Ducey: Scarcity and Abundance
I have a book manuscript making the rounds. It’s about sustainability. I ask, What is sustainable? Golf courses? Individual automobiles? Turtles? Marriage? Life? Sustainabile to an otter is not the same as sustainable to My agent sends it to publishers. She generally protects me from their comments, obviously rejections since no one has offered to publish the book yet, but since I have a long relationship with one of the presses, she did send me their rejection which, although they enjoyed it and my experimental essayistic form, they thought it was too much a memoir and didn’t adhere enough to the form of the essay. So I’m back to revising the book even though I’m pretty sure this is why my agent doesn’t send me all of my rejections. The book was too much essay for one agent. Tonally weird to another editor. I could have 400 versions of the book by the time I’m done. A sad, fractured, book. I’m grateful to my agent for keeping me in the dark. I’ve been here before. With the book that’s forthcoming this January, Canning Peaches for the Apocalypse, I had an agent who wanted me to put more Italy in the book, more Wyoming, more chickens. I ended up with a book about Italians in Wyoming killing chickens. That did not go over well. The agent dropped me and I went back to the book, making it a combined essay/memoir collection about peaches and apocalypses, salmon and chickens. There’s still a little Wyoming in the book. No Italy. It’s with a small press who embraces a little memoir and a little essay. In fact, my argument is that the two together, personal narrative woven with research/journalism is the way to make your story important while simultaneously making your research relevant. The underlying theme of Canning Peaches for the Apocalypse is scarcity and abundance. In one version of the book, I actually named every paragraph “scarcity” or “abundance.” A lot of the book is about my kids, my daughter being born early, my son being born during the swine flu scare, and the idea that when you have kids, your perspective narrows. Everything—health, wealth, happiness, seems vacillate between extreme scarcity or extreme abundance. Zoe came down with respiratory syncytial virus (RSV). Babies who were born prematurely can die from this form of the common cold. Zoe developed pneumonia. Her lung sacs wouldn’t inflate. An abundance of mucus. A scarcity of fluids. It wasn’t until we realized feeding her twice as much milk would restore her fluids, which would, in turn, kick the mucus out of her sinuses and let the sacs in her lungs inflate. It took eight days for us to figure out the balance of supply and demand. Who knew her body needed twice as much liquid as normal to fight the RSV? I mentioned last week that I love the podcast Freakanomics.I like to know about economies. The ideas behind scarcity and excess, supply and demand fascinate me. I understand that value goes up when supply is low. I also understand there are fundamentally limited, or scarce, resources—or at least that our economy relies on the idea that there are scarce resources. “Money” is scarce, at least in this capitalist system. It has to be for our political system to work. Governments have to fight over whether to sustain roads or sustain schools, sustain the military or sustain the environment. But while the things to pay for fight for “tax dollars,” the one thing that is not actually scarce but incredibly abundant, is education. Education, by its very nature, propagates itself. People who can read, read books. Books introduce you to history, make you more empathetic, give you facts that don’t need to be written in quotation marks. They describe the social ramifications of supply and demand. Books in accounting and finance, give you insight into how much scarcity is real and how much is manufactured. Books create books. Teachers create teachers. I understand this is not exactly the Republican dream. And maybe, the sheer fact of its abundance makes education suspect to those deeply invested in our capitalist system. The more you know the more you know and perhaps there are certain things they who are in government don’t want us to know. The first being, that, while education isn’t necessarily free, it’s never going to run out of stock.
I have a book manuscript making the rounds. It’s about sustainability. I ask, What is sustainable? Golf courses? Individual automobiles? Turtles? Marriage? Life? Sustainabile to an otter is not the same as sustainable to My agent sends it to publishers. She generally protects me from their comments, obviously rejections since no one has offered to publish the book yet, but since I have a long relationship with one of the presses, she did send me their rejection which, although they enjoyed it and my experimental essayistic form, they thought it was too much a memoir and didn’t adhere enough to the form of the essay. So I’m back to revising the book even though I’m pretty sure this is why my agent doesn’t send me all of my rejections. The book was too much essay for one agent. Tonally weird to another editor. I could have 400 versions of the book by the time I’m done. A sad, fractured, book. I’m grateful to my agent for keeping me in the dark. I’ve been here before. With the book that’s forthcoming this January, Canning Peaches for the Apocalypse, I had an agent who wanted me to put more Italy in the book, more Wyoming, more chickens. I ended up with a book about Italians in Wyoming killing chickens. That did not go over well. The agent dropped me and I went back to the book, making it a combined essay/memoir collection about peaches and apocalypses, salmon and chickens. There’s still a little Wyoming in the book. No Italy. It’s with a small press who embraces a little memoir and a little essay. In fact, my argument is that the two together, personal narrative woven with research/journalism is the way to make your story important while simultaneously making your research relevant. The underlying theme of Canning Peaches for the Apocalypse is scarcity and abundance. In one version of the book, I actually named every paragraph “scarcity” or “abundance.” A lot of the book is about my kids, my daughter being born early, my son being born during the swine flu scare, and the idea that when you have kids, your perspective narrows. Everything—health, wealth, happiness, seems vacillate between extreme scarcity or extreme abundance. Zoe came down with respiratory syncytial virus (RSV). Babies who were born prematurely can die from this form of the common cold. Zoe developed pneumonia. Her lung sacs wouldn’t inflate. An abundance of mucus. A scarcity of fluids. It wasn’t until we realized feeding her twice as much milk would restore her fluids, which would, in turn, kick the mucus out of her sinuses and let the sacs in her lungs inflate. It took eight days for us to figure out the balance of supply and demand. Who knew her body needed twice as much liquid as normal to fight the RSV? I mentioned last week that I love the podcast Freakanomics.I like to know about economies. The ideas behind scarcity and excess, supply and demand fascinate me. I understand that value goes up when supply is low. I also understand there are fundamentally limited, or scarce, resources—or at least that our economy relies on the idea that there are scarce resources. “Money” is scarce, at least in this capitalist system. It has to be for our political system to work. Governments have to fight over whether to sustain roads or sustain schools, sustain the military or sustain the environment. But while the things to pay for fight for “tax dollars,” the one thing that is not actually scarce but incredibly abundant, is education. Education, by its very nature, propagates itself. People who can read, read books. Books introduce you to history, make you more empathetic, give you facts that don’t need to be written in quotation marks. They describe the social ramifications of supply and demand. Books in accounting and finance, give you insight into how much scarcity is real and how much is manufactured. Books create books. Teachers create teachers. I understand this is not exactly the Republican dream. And maybe, the sheer fact of its abundance makes education suspect to those deeply invested in our capitalist system. The more you know the more you know and perhaps there are certain things they who are in government don’t want us to know. The first being, that, while education isn’t necessarily free, it’s never going to run out of stock.
Letter #89--Satire
Dear Governor Ducey,I admit that I have been mentioning podcasts over-much in my letters to you but I spend an hour in the forest with my dogs and my phone every day. I may as well learn something while I run. The latest news? Malcolm Gladwell’s podcast, Revisionist History reports that satire does not work. He pointed to studies that showed Stephen Colbert on “The Colbert Report” was beloved not only by liberals who thought he was skewering conservatives but also by conservatives who thought he was making fun of liberals. When Tina Few played Sarah Palin, Fey teased Palin for her accent and word choice more than her politics. When Saturday Night Live had Palin on the show, it became very clear: ‘This is all in good fun. You’re not so bad, Sarah!” Gladwell goes on to describe real satire where the audience knows who you’re skewering. You hit home. Real satire, is painful. Real satire is not ambiguous.
My friend Rebecca sent me a Facebook Message with a link to a Hulu show. The host is a plastic dog. The show invited real Trump supported and showed them fake advertisements for the Trump campaign. One ad had illustrations of Mexicans being locked in port-a-potties that were lifted onto a flat bed truck and driven them across the border. Another had a guns installed on the wall in women’s restrooms so women could shoot any transgender person that might happen in. Another had a cartoon where poison was dumped into Chinese rivers to make “China less competitive.” The focus group nodded. They said, “That seems like a good idea.” They said, “Well, if Trump thinks it’s a good idea…”They did not laugh. This was not satire to them. I, viewer, did not laugh because I was like, what the hell? It wasn’t funny either. But what was I looking at? I emailed Rebecca back. “Those are not real Trump supporters. They have to be actors.” “They are. That’s the whole point.” “Why would you let yourself be filmed nodding at looking at people being locked in port-a-potties. It’s not only wrong. Cranes lifting port-a-potties onto flatbeds. It’s ridiculous.” “I’m sure they signed a waiver before they went in. Not after.” I described this video to my 15-year-old neighbor and he said, “Well, they probably just go along with whatever Trump says. They just want someone to follow.” I thought about this—that no matter how ridiculous things get, people will still support Trump. How did people get to this point? The world is pretty ridiculous. This millennium seems more ridiculous than most. It’s ridiculous that planes fly into buildings. Ridiculous that a war began over non-existent weapons of mass destruction. That in 2007 you had $100,000 in your retirement account and in 2009, $20,000. Ridiculous that winters are getting colder. Ridiculous that summers are getting hotter. Ridiculous that Los Angeles is running out of water while Louisiana floods. Ridiculous that the police shoot black people on video and still the police are not held accountable. It’s ridiculous that with every camera we have more evidence that you “can see with your own eyes,” the more Photoshop wizards change those photos and videos into what someone else wants your eyes to believe.
I don’t believe those people in the focus group really believe what those fake ads advocated but only because I don’t believe anything I see on TV. Advocates for Donald Trump say they like that “he tells it like it is.” But that “is” doesn’t exist. So desperate are people to escape from ordinary ridiculous, they’ll take extreme ridiculousness as salvation. We are all on Candid Camera all the time. There is something nice about the idea that someone is behind the scenes who unambiguously tells the cameraperson to shoot from over there, who knows the the “gotcha” scene should unfold right before the mark begins to think, “hey, something’s fishy here.” It’s hard to imagine there’s no director. That we’re all on camera. We are each the mark. As William Carlos Williams wrote in his poem Spring and All about loss and desperation, “No one to witness and adjust. No one to drive the car.”
It’s a lot of work to drive a car. It takes a lot of knowledge. I wonder where someone would get some of that.
August 9, 2016
Little Boats and Hatch Chiles--Letter #87
Dear Governor Ducey,
On Sunday, Erik and the kids and I stopped by the grocery store to buy ingredients for chili verde. Hatch chiles are at the Farmer’s Market Store, as they are every August. I could write a whole letter about the Farmer’s Market Store—how it’s the place where you can ask the owners when the Utah Peaches are coming in and she’ll give you an hour by hour play and even invite you to call her to see if they’ve made it. It’s the kind of place that sells pinto beans in bulk and cantaloupe for a dollar. The Farmer’s Market store provides an excellent slice of Flagstaffian demographics. Navajo, Hispanic, Hopi, Korean, and white customers all line up to buy cases of roasted Hatch Green Chiles. When we were at the not-Farmer’s Market Store (Whole Foods. Farmer’s Market does not sell fish or pork, cage free or otherwise), I saw the Arizona Daily Sun headline: “Flagstaff Charters Lacking in Diversity.” I read the article. I choked a little. My daughter is going to go to a charter school this year. I’m already struggling a bit with this idea. My dearest friends and one of my sisters are public school teachers. I am conflicted about the way charter schools have more flexibility in the students they admit. They don’t have to teach everyone. They don’t have to provide buses or lunches. And, they aren’t subject to charges to desegregate. Flagstaff Unified School District is working to desegregate their schools in an attempt to bring equal opportunity to every student. My daughter is moving from one of the most diverse schools, Puente de Hozho, to one of the least. 80% of the students at her new school will be white. On the one hand, this goes against the grain of what public education should provide. An equal opportunity to learn. On the other hand, when the FUSD schools developed programs to retain students who they had been losing to the charters, those programs filled with also white people. Unequal access to education is entrenched. I work at NAU. I have colleagues who reminded me of when I needed to get on the charter school list. I have time to make my kids’ lunches. My husband has time to drive them to school. I can pick them up. My privilege makes it possible for my daughter (and later son), to go on to greater privilege. This privilege hands its misery onto the next generation.
According to key findings of a new study of the racial wealth gap released this week by the sponsor of Economic Hardship Reporting Project, Institute for Policy Studies, and the Corporation for Economic Development- If current economic trends continue, the average black household will need 228 years to accumulate as much wealth as their white counterparts hold today. For the average Latino family, it will take 84 years.
There’s no necessary correlation between being minority and poverty—except that the United States is built upon the backs of that inequality. My daughter, at Puente, worked with students who did not have all the advantages she does. In so doing, she learned that not everyone learns the same way or thinks the same learning system is the only learning system. She wants to go to a charter not because she doesn’t want to learn alongside these students. She wants to go to a charter because this particular charter sets the bar very high.
What I want is that very high bar be made available to everyone. I don’t think Charters make it impossible but I don’t think Charters make that the primary priority. They can’t, I guess, to do what every school should be able to do: maintain small classes, focus on academics rather than sports, prepare students for a wildly changing global economy. The small academies within FUSD, like the one my daughter would have entered if she had stayed at FUSD, have those opportunities as well. I think all schools should be as small as the charters. I think everyone should have access to them. So my daughter and I agreed that we would work at the charter to find ways to make it more accessible to people who don’t already have her economic privilege.
The first plan? Maybe I’ll make an additional lunch and send it with her every day. Maybe I’ll offer to pick someone up from school. But obviously, the change needs to be a fundamental one. An acknoleggement that a rising tide raises all the boats. To make it possible for her Latino counterparts to accumulate as much wealth as she in fewer than 84 years, we’ll have to be the flood.
On Sunday, Erik and the kids and I stopped by the grocery store to buy ingredients for chili verde. Hatch chiles are at the Farmer’s Market Store, as they are every August. I could write a whole letter about the Farmer’s Market Store—how it’s the place where you can ask the owners when the Utah Peaches are coming in and she’ll give you an hour by hour play and even invite you to call her to see if they’ve made it. It’s the kind of place that sells pinto beans in bulk and cantaloupe for a dollar. The Farmer’s Market store provides an excellent slice of Flagstaffian demographics. Navajo, Hispanic, Hopi, Korean, and white customers all line up to buy cases of roasted Hatch Green Chiles. When we were at the not-Farmer’s Market Store (Whole Foods. Farmer’s Market does not sell fish or pork, cage free or otherwise), I saw the Arizona Daily Sun headline: “Flagstaff Charters Lacking in Diversity.” I read the article. I choked a little. My daughter is going to go to a charter school this year. I’m already struggling a bit with this idea. My dearest friends and one of my sisters are public school teachers. I am conflicted about the way charter schools have more flexibility in the students they admit. They don’t have to teach everyone. They don’t have to provide buses or lunches. And, they aren’t subject to charges to desegregate. Flagstaff Unified School District is working to desegregate their schools in an attempt to bring equal opportunity to every student. My daughter is moving from one of the most diverse schools, Puente de Hozho, to one of the least. 80% of the students at her new school will be white. On the one hand, this goes against the grain of what public education should provide. An equal opportunity to learn. On the other hand, when the FUSD schools developed programs to retain students who they had been losing to the charters, those programs filled with also white people. Unequal access to education is entrenched. I work at NAU. I have colleagues who reminded me of when I needed to get on the charter school list. I have time to make my kids’ lunches. My husband has time to drive them to school. I can pick them up. My privilege makes it possible for my daughter (and later son), to go on to greater privilege. This privilege hands its misery onto the next generation.
According to key findings of a new study of the racial wealth gap released this week by the sponsor of Economic Hardship Reporting Project, Institute for Policy Studies, and the Corporation for Economic Development- If current economic trends continue, the average black household will need 228 years to accumulate as much wealth as their white counterparts hold today. For the average Latino family, it will take 84 years.
There’s no necessary correlation between being minority and poverty—except that the United States is built upon the backs of that inequality. My daughter, at Puente, worked with students who did not have all the advantages she does. In so doing, she learned that not everyone learns the same way or thinks the same learning system is the only learning system. She wants to go to a charter not because she doesn’t want to learn alongside these students. She wants to go to a charter because this particular charter sets the bar very high.
What I want is that very high bar be made available to everyone. I don’t think Charters make it impossible but I don’t think Charters make that the primary priority. They can’t, I guess, to do what every school should be able to do: maintain small classes, focus on academics rather than sports, prepare students for a wildly changing global economy. The small academies within FUSD, like the one my daughter would have entered if she had stayed at FUSD, have those opportunities as well. I think all schools should be as small as the charters. I think everyone should have access to them. So my daughter and I agreed that we would work at the charter to find ways to make it more accessible to people who don’t already have her economic privilege.
The first plan? Maybe I’ll make an additional lunch and send it with her every day. Maybe I’ll offer to pick someone up from school. But obviously, the change needs to be a fundamental one. An acknoleggement that a rising tide raises all the boats. To make it possible for her Latino counterparts to accumulate as much wealth as she in fewer than 84 years, we’ll have to be the flood.
August 2, 2016
Letter #86: Picture Canyon Redux
Dear Governor Ducey,
The city called. After my last letter about getting lost in Picture Canyon, my editor at Flag Live said someone from the city was trying to reach me. I knew I was in trouble. I imagined they were going to say, “Nicole. Please stop saying bad things about city property. We need good support for our city, not your complaining ways.” But that isn’t what they said! They were worried! “We are getting new signs in just a couple weeks. We know it can be confusing.” What’s this? They didn’t blame me for not checking my compass better? They didn’t tease me for my lack of bad-sign reading ways? Thank you, City of Flagstaff, for worrying about me. I was so grateful that I took my kids out to the canyon. I was going to try this again. We parked in the shade, got out of the car. I told them to look around. It was 9:00 a.m. “Which was is east?” They each pointed to the sun. “Which way is west?” Zoe, ten, sang her “Never Eat Soggy Waffles song. I sang my Never Eat Slimy Worms song. Max, six, said, “What waffles? Are we having waffles? I don’t like worms.” Zoe and I looked at each other. We’d keep an eye on Max and his directional ways. I showed them my iPhone compass and said, “This is a good tool but batteries run out. It’s probably better to have a real phone but today, we aren’t going to leave the river, so it will be hard to get lost.” We walked to the sign that said, “You are here” which pointed out the water treatment plant was to the right and the outdoor classroom was just a few feet ahead. This is the exact same sign on the other side of the trail that reads “you are here” in the same spot. This news, combined with the kind call from the city, made me think really that maybe I wasn’t an idiot. All the more confidence to march on! The kids complained a little about the smell from the water treatment plant but I told them how hard the city worked to make the water as clean as possible, raking the solids, aerating the fluids, mixing good microbes in with the bad to do what rocks and silt and clouds do. By the time we made it to the first bridge, the smell had abated and the water looked as clear as a bell. We looked at another sign that read, 1.0 mile to Arizona Trail. “Oh, that’s where I went wrong too. I thought the whole loop was one mile.” “We were just on the Arizona Trail,” Zoe reminded me. Her museum of Northern Arizona camp this year was called Climate Games. They measured bugs and carbon output and miles of AZ trail. “It goes all the way from Mexico to Utah,” I told Max who may not know. “We just got back from Mexico. And we’re going to Utah. But I don’t want to walk there,” he said. “No. I don’t so much either.” “How long would that take?” Zoe asked. “I don’t know. Maybe fifteen days? If you walked ten miles a day. Almost as long as I got lost last time.” “Well, and last time it rained.” It was too early for monsoon and the storms seemed to have abandon us this week. We hiked along the trail, looked at the waterfall, and then, instead of following the Arizona Trail/Loop signs, we turned down a small path the followed along the river. I told the kids to note how Mount Elden was now to our right, the river to our left. They got it. We saw a huge hawk washing himself in the river. The hide of a deer that might have gotten caught on a fence. We hiked up toward the rocks where we found the thing I had been looking for the week before: spiral petroglyphs. Max and Zoe climbed through yucca and sticky thorns to see them. Scratched but satisfied, we climbed up the rest of the hill and followed a path above the river back to the car.
The happy news is that you can re-do most everything. If you make a mistake, like taking 100 million dollars from the Higher Ed budget, you can undo that. Flagstaff has continaully worked to improve Picture Canyon that they recently won the Governor's 2016 Archaeology Commission Award. The award recognizes the work done to protect, preserve and interpret resources within the Picture Canyon National and Cultural Preserve. Even you reward revision and revamping. There is nothing stopping anyone from rethinking past thoughts and revising past ideas. Thanks to the city, and my intrepid kids, I now think Picture Canyon is pretty awesome.
The city called. After my last letter about getting lost in Picture Canyon, my editor at Flag Live said someone from the city was trying to reach me. I knew I was in trouble. I imagined they were going to say, “Nicole. Please stop saying bad things about city property. We need good support for our city, not your complaining ways.” But that isn’t what they said! They were worried! “We are getting new signs in just a couple weeks. We know it can be confusing.” What’s this? They didn’t blame me for not checking my compass better? They didn’t tease me for my lack of bad-sign reading ways? Thank you, City of Flagstaff, for worrying about me. I was so grateful that I took my kids out to the canyon. I was going to try this again. We parked in the shade, got out of the car. I told them to look around. It was 9:00 a.m. “Which was is east?” They each pointed to the sun. “Which way is west?” Zoe, ten, sang her “Never Eat Soggy Waffles song. I sang my Never Eat Slimy Worms song. Max, six, said, “What waffles? Are we having waffles? I don’t like worms.” Zoe and I looked at each other. We’d keep an eye on Max and his directional ways. I showed them my iPhone compass and said, “This is a good tool but batteries run out. It’s probably better to have a real phone but today, we aren’t going to leave the river, so it will be hard to get lost.” We walked to the sign that said, “You are here” which pointed out the water treatment plant was to the right and the outdoor classroom was just a few feet ahead. This is the exact same sign on the other side of the trail that reads “you are here” in the same spot. This news, combined with the kind call from the city, made me think really that maybe I wasn’t an idiot. All the more confidence to march on! The kids complained a little about the smell from the water treatment plant but I told them how hard the city worked to make the water as clean as possible, raking the solids, aerating the fluids, mixing good microbes in with the bad to do what rocks and silt and clouds do. By the time we made it to the first bridge, the smell had abated and the water looked as clear as a bell. We looked at another sign that read, 1.0 mile to Arizona Trail. “Oh, that’s where I went wrong too. I thought the whole loop was one mile.” “We were just on the Arizona Trail,” Zoe reminded me. Her museum of Northern Arizona camp this year was called Climate Games. They measured bugs and carbon output and miles of AZ trail. “It goes all the way from Mexico to Utah,” I told Max who may not know. “We just got back from Mexico. And we’re going to Utah. But I don’t want to walk there,” he said. “No. I don’t so much either.” “How long would that take?” Zoe asked. “I don’t know. Maybe fifteen days? If you walked ten miles a day. Almost as long as I got lost last time.” “Well, and last time it rained.” It was too early for monsoon and the storms seemed to have abandon us this week. We hiked along the trail, looked at the waterfall, and then, instead of following the Arizona Trail/Loop signs, we turned down a small path the followed along the river. I told the kids to note how Mount Elden was now to our right, the river to our left. They got it. We saw a huge hawk washing himself in the river. The hide of a deer that might have gotten caught on a fence. We hiked up toward the rocks where we found the thing I had been looking for the week before: spiral petroglyphs. Max and Zoe climbed through yucca and sticky thorns to see them. Scratched but satisfied, we climbed up the rest of the hill and followed a path above the river back to the car.
The happy news is that you can re-do most everything. If you make a mistake, like taking 100 million dollars from the Higher Ed budget, you can undo that. Flagstaff has continaully worked to improve Picture Canyon that they recently won the Governor's 2016 Archaeology Commission Award. The award recognizes the work done to protect, preserve and interpret resources within the Picture Canyon National and Cultural Preserve. Even you reward revision and revamping. There is nothing stopping anyone from rethinking past thoughts and revising past ideas. Thanks to the city, and my intrepid kids, I now think Picture Canyon is pretty awesome.
