Go Where the Ancient Ones Lived to Honor the Earth

by Jamie Rhein on

With Native American Day coming up on Friday, September 28 (yes, that’s tomorrow) and National Public Lands Day on Saturday, here are three places you could go to honor both public lands and and the United States’s Native American history. I’m mentioning these three because: I’ve been to all of them; they are national parks, thus public lands; and although there is similarity between them, they are quite distinct. Although, these are the three I’ve chosen, these are not the only places where the Anasazi lived in the U.S. Anasazi means Ancient Ones, by the way.

(The photo, posted by slongtoo on Flickr is from Bandelier National Monument in New Mexico)

Chaco Culture National Historical Park in New Mexico, is quite the drive off a major highway. The last few miles, are not paved. This means getting there is not a quick, “Let’s go see Chaco Canyon,” but an outing that requires a bit of time. Once you get there, you’re rewarded to experiencing five major dwelling sites of what were possibly Hopi ancestors. Enough of the structures remain that as you walk through them you can get a sense of what life was like here hundreds of years ago. This is my husband’s favorite place in New Mexico. He swears he can feel its spiritual energy. Through October there are Chaco Night Sky programs where you can dabble in astronomy. The view of the sky, of course, is spectacular when you are out in the middle of nowhere.

Although I think Chaco is amazing, Bandelier National Monument northwest of Santa Fe is my favorite place in New Mexico. Perhaps this is because it’s the first place in the U.S. where I saw how Native Americans once lived. When you grow up in Kentucky, New York and Pennsylvania, and trips meant summers at your grandparents, most of what you learn is from history books. (I headed west of the Mississippi after the Peace Corps.) To see the actual place is history up close and personal. Here, on the side cliffs, people carved huge living spaces in the soft rock earth. You can still see the darkened ceilings from the cooking fires. In a couple of spots there are pictographs and petroglyphs that add to the idea that people did indeed live here. My favorite section is where you climb down a long pole ladder into a kiva where the men used to gather and worship. It’s a small adventure. The area around Bandelier is forested and gorgeous. Like Chaco, there is a very well done museum that includes movies, displays with actual artifacts and extensive descriptions.

Of the three, Mesa Verde National Park near Cortez, Colorado is the most commercialized and the most visited of the three. Bandelier is a sweet, cozy, type place in comparison. Going to Mesa Verde reminds me a bit of the experience of going to the Grand Canyon. The scenery is splendid, but RVs on the road sure take up a lot of space. One of the reasons that Mesa Verde has so many visitors each year is because of its stature. Compared to Bandelier’s few cliff dwellings, Mesa Verde is king. It has 600. The entire park has 4,000 archaeological sites. This is where ancestors of today’s Pueblo Indians lived from 600 A.D. to 1300 A.D. If you do go, take one of the tours. You can only get to the Balcony House (only open into the beginning of October), the Cliff Palace (open until the beginning of November) or the Spruce House (open from November to March) this way. The Long House closes after Labor Day.

Helping out Mother Nature: Volunteers Needed for National Public Lands Day on Saturday (USA)

by Neil Woodburn on

It’s time to step up and return some of the lovin’ that America’s National Parks have been dishing out for so many years now.

This Saturday is National Public Lands Day, an annual event in which more than 100,000 volunteers donate their time at local public lands to build trails, pick up trash, plant trees, and perform whatever other maintenance is desperately needed.

Entrance to National Parks will be free for volunteers on this day. Some National Parks–such as the Grand Canyon–are even giving out one-day passes to volunteers for future visits as well.

One doesn’t need to travel so very far to help out, however; National Public Lands Day isn’t just about National Parks. It’s about any public space where nature is involved. For example, Eaton Canyon in Pasadena, California–not so far from my home–is looking for volunteers to help clean up the trailhead. They’re not giving anything away, except for the satisfaction of helping out Mother Nature. And that’s good enough for me.

Travel Overseas and the Government is Watching You

by Jamie Rhein on

My doctor’s office has a file on me. So does the dentist, my employers, my credit card company, my bank, my health club and I’m sure a bunch more. I just found out that the file the U.S. government has on me might be bigger than I thought. Any American who has traveled outside the U.S. since 2002, whether they flew, drove, or took a cruise, has had their trips monitored.

The Automated Targeting System, part of Homeland Security, has been doing its monitoring thing since the 1990s, but in recent years the information that is gathered has grown. Because of technology and automation, info can be culled from places like commercial reservation systems.

The idea, of course, is to separate those who are simply traveling for whatever non-threatening reason from those who are doing illegal activity or who are possible threats. If you are pulled aside for more screening, your file could get bigger with more information. One guy, whose case is written about in this recent article, found out that his file listed Drugs and Your Rights, a book he was traveling with.

Here is the typical information in that can be found in people’s files. Currently, information is kept for 15 years.

  • names
  • addresses
  • credit card information
  • phone and email contacts
  • itineraries
  • hotel and car reservations

As you can imagine, there is a debate about this tracking system. Perhaps, though, it might come in handy. For example, let’s say you are trying to figure out the exact dates of that trip to Borneo that you took years ago. You’re finally putting together a trip scrapbook and the details you remember are fuzzy. If you contacted the folks watching over the Automated Targeting System, I wonder if they would let you know the dates of your trip and the name of that neat hotel you stayed in as well? By, the way, I’m kidding. I’m not sure what I think of this system. Governments like Singapore’s have kept track of their citizens for years.

Airline Passengers Push Congress to Pass Tarmac-Waiting Limit

by Catherine Bodry on

If you’ve every felt frustrated and powerless while cramped in your seat on the tarmac, you’re not alone. Some passengers are so upset that they’re pushing Congress to to pass a mandatory “Bill of Rights” to limit waiting to three hours. On Tuesday, demonstrators on the National Mall attempted to recreate the cramped jetliner experience on Tuesday by erecting a portable vinyl carport painted to resemble the outside of an airplane. A recording of crying children played while organizers sat in tightly-packed plastic chairs.

Did the message get through? Rep. John Hall, D-New York, (who was recently stuck on La Guardia’s tarmac for three hours), believes delayed takeoffs can be assigned in the order they were originally scheduled. This assignment would allow the plane to return to the gate, and passengers to disembark rather than sitting on the plane, while the flight would not lose its spot in line.

I don’t know if an amendment to our Bill of Rights is necessary, but I do think that airlines need a bit of a push to get some problems solved. Perhaps this is the push that’ll get them moving. Literally.

[via CNN]

Language and Landscape: Retaining Heritage Through Words

by Jamie Rhein on

When I heard and read about the number of indigenous languages dying off, I thought of the Appalachian Mountains where my mother grew up and where several of my relatives are buried in a small wooded family cemetery in Southeastern Kentucky. It’s not just other languages that are becoming obsolete, certain aspects of the English language are also changing. In the region where part of my heritage stems, as older generations die, phrases, expressions and a certain sentence structures are also disappearing. While people travel to Appalachia to take in the music, crafts and beauty of the scenery (providing coal mining leaves something behind), many people who once lived here have hit the highways long ago for points beyond and an income. Those that have stayed behind can flip on the TV and join the rest of the U.S. in the endless stream of coast to coast media blitz that, I think, is partly responsible for the growth of sameness.

There is an effort to retain the culture and language patterns here. People determined to retain and promote this sense of place through language are an integral part of the literary, music and art scene. I’ve been to the Appalachian Writers Workshop twice now, and Appalachian Family Folk Week once, both held at in Hindman, a town that has dwindled from the bustling county seat I remember from my childhood, to one where you can almost envision the tumbleweeds blowing through town in the late afternoon if this was in the west. The drugstore lunch counter is the one place to get a meal and that closes about 2 PM.

The Hindman Settlement School, established more than a century ago has operated both workshops for years. These endeavors have continued to nurture established writers like Lee Smith and George Ella Lyon while providing a venue for those who have moved from workshop participant status to presenter and successful published novelists in their own right. Silas House, and Gretchen Moran Laskas come to mind. All of them are travelers of the human spirit in this part of the world. This is where they call on words to sustain them and us in this place they call home.

For a wonderful read about one person’s experience with English use in this area, check out this essay, “Where the Creek Turkey Tracks: Wild Land and Language.” It is in the Winter 2007 edition of Appalachian Heritage.

The photo is of Uncle Sol’s cabin on the Settlement School grounds. Fred1st snapped this shot of the house where one of my great greats lived. Uncle Sol Everidge is one of my kin and credited with getting Katherine Pettit and May Stone to come to Hindman eons ago to establish the school and bring education to the mountain’s children.