Author Archive
By the 1970’s, Northern Arizona joined the rapid growth in popularity of cross-country and alpine skiing and other adventure sports that were taking place nationwide. Soon after, the Alpineer shop opened in Flagstaff, as the first full service climbing and Nordic skiing equipment store, and in subsequent years provided guiding and backcountry skiing instruction. –…
“The white man’s guilt further added to his rage.” -Tim Madigan, The Burning: Massacre, Destruction, and the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921 During the Tulsa Race Massacre (also known as the Tulsa Race Riot), which occurred over 18 hours on May 31-June 1, 1921, a white mob – looting and burning and shooting and bombing –…
It’s become the motto of our time to watch what you say, be sensitive about what you say. The number of people and organizations that believe they are special is at an all-time high. They believe they shouldn’t be criticized. Jokes shouldn’t be told about them. It’s anti-American. It’s anti-free speech. The issue these days…
“If you look at a real catastrophe like Katrina, and you look at the hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people that died, and you look at what happened here that’s really a storm that was just totally overpowering, nobody’s ever seen anything like this — and what is your death count as of this…
Those who have long enjoyed such privileges as we enjoy forget in time that men have died to win them. -Franklin D. Roosevelt Looking back on my military career, which lasted approximately three years, eleven months, twenty-three days, eighteen hours and thirty-two minutes, there’s a certain pride. Just for having served, mostly. I didn’t do…
A hero is an ordinary individual who finds the strength to persevere and endure in spite of overwhelming obstacles. – Christopher Reeve Become your own hero. You got to be somebody anyway might as well be special. Turns out life mostly about your attitude. And a good costume. Some luck. A break here and there….
And in the end, if we are lucky, after, say, the initial ten thousand miles. we understand there is only one first place winner and only so many spots on the podium, so we better damn well get something else out of this EFFORT. This PASSION.
Sharing anew this meditation on tough guys because seventy-years-old seems so young now. Thinking the pandemic and lost loved ones and fascism were completely unnecessary. Nothing about this is easy. And ‘aging gracefully’ is an oxymoron. – JDW Original title, “I Miss The Raft” from April 26, 2017 To boast of a performance which I…
One winter morning, a Friday still not so long ago, my mother was discovered dead in her recliner. The television played on.
Know she died the night before. Watching ‘Jeopardy.’ Vanna White probably turned the first letter and Mom hollered out the solution to the puzzle and passed away from the excitement.
It’s never been a better time to be exceptional, or a worst time to be average. – Scott Galloway A CONVERSATION WITH SCOTT GALLOWAY We’ve been eager to make sense of the gender divide our country faces. What do you believe is behind it? And how should we be looking at it? We’re in an…