Of Fires and FIRE

A reading of David J. Strohmaier’s The Seasons of Fire , and reflections on the massive fires of 2018 have encouraged this post about Stewart’s Fire. Now, in the season between the fires, there’s time to share some information about George R. Stewart’s pioneering and thrilling ecological novel.

George R. Stewart’s second ecological novel was about fire.  Stewart’s normal method of writing was to create something new with each work.  He didn’t want to repeat himself.  So he regularly created new types of literary works with each new book – between his first ecological novel, Storm, and the first-ever “autobiography” of  humankind, Man, he wrote the first and only history of national place-naming, Names on the Land.  (That link takes you to a fine in-depth review of NOTL by Christine Smallwood, which also includes a mini-review of Fire.)

When Stewart’s publisher and agent and the reading public begged for another novel like Storm, he resisted the call.   When the Book-of-the-Month club weighed in, promising huge sales, he finally agreed to write it.  But to make it creative, unique, challenging, and more interesting, he set the novel in a fictional National Forest rather than real locations like the ones he’d used for Storm.  His fictional forest, the Ponderosa National Forest, located adjacent to the Tahoe NF on the north side, was as accurate as any real national forest because his son Jack (later become the USGS “Man” for Nevada) helped him create the terrain and the maps.  Naming features of that imaginary landscape and giving it a history was easy – he’d just finished his book about place-naming, was already an expert on the naming of Sierra features, and knew the Ponderosa NF’s history would be very similar to the other national forests of the central Sierra.

He named features for people he knew and respected; so Jack had a creek named for him, as did Stewart’s English Department colleague Jim Hart and many others.   His final stroke of genius was the creation of a topographic model of the fictional forest – painted by his colleague David Park whose works can now sell for over a million dollars.   (The model is safely stored in one of the Bancroft Library’s secure storage facilities.)

Christine Smallwood’s mini-review of Fire in her larger review of Names On The Land includes a good quote showing Stewart’s prolific use of names in the novel, which I’ll borrow here to give an idea of Stewarts’ poetic style in the book:

Humbug Point saw the blow-up, and Lovers Leap. Horse Mountain reported, and signed off, quoting Joel 2:30–“and in the earth, blood, and fire, and pillars of smoke.” Far to the north, Sheer Rock saw it suddenly above the high shoulder of Howell Mountain. Hamlin Point saw it build up above the round top of Cerro Gordo, like the towering smoke of a new-born volcano.

(The names are those of fire lookout towers,  which GRS uses here to “name” the fire spotters in the towers.)

When all was said and done, Stewart’s careful “design” of his national forest, helped by Jack Stewart and David Park, was so real that for years travellers would hunt for the forest during trips to the Central Sierra, and were always disappointed to discover it was fictional.   (Interestingly,  the fictional forest and the fictional fire’s location would be close to the area of the massive Camp Fire that destroyed Paradise last fall.)

Once GRS had the setting and the characters down, he wove his story.  The novel uses the same exceptional – interesting, educational, and (as Christine Smallwood puts it) thrilling mixture of action and information –   used in Storm.  Stewart glissades smoothly from a god-like overview of history, fire science, fire ecology, wildlife biology, myth, geography, and the like, to the dramatic experiences of several human characters in several places – including one of the fire towers – during the huge blaze.

The novel opens with that god-like view, of the High Sierra and its western foothills, as lightening suddenly flashes down onto the tinder-dry duff of the forest.  It ends with a similar perspective, but this time in one one of the most beautiful statements of the cycle of fire ecology ever written, as the heat of the fire opens the serotinous cones and their seeds drop onto the newly-ash-fertilized earth of the burned areas.

Ecology is the novel’s major theme, as it is in his other ecological novels, Storm, Earth Abides, and Sheep Rock.  One of the most memorable scenes  in Fire is between the old Ranger who loves the beauty of the forest, heartbroken when “the glen” is burned into ash,  and the new, young, college-educated Forest Ranger Supervisor.  The old Ranger is saddened by the burnt wreckage of his special place of re-creation.  But the Forest Supervisor tells him that beauty depends on your ecological view of things.  To a  rabbit scrub brush would likely be far more beautiful than the glen.   It’s a wonderful, gentle pioneering statement of the ecological view in which humans are only one small part of a vast ecosystem.  The old Ranger isn’t convinced; he’s lost his beloved glen.  But Stewart has made his point about the need to see such things through an ecological sense.

The novel has its share of sad and tragic passages, like the description of the Camp Fire of its day, Peshtigo, far deadlier in that time before good forest management.  Yet GRS does not dwell on the gruesome, but simply offers it as a part of the story of fire.

As usual, GRS did extraordinary research before he even picked up one of his tray of sharpened pencils and write.  His office at UC Berkeley was adjacent to the University Library and the Bancroft Library, so he could dig deep into the literature of fire.  His colleagues in the natural sciences and geography were a great help in the details of the work.

But in the best GRS tradition, he did not write the book from other books and quiet conversations.  He had himself appointed as a “Collaborator” for the US Forest Service, and headed out to help fight some major forest fires.  Stewart was so involved in that potentially deadly research that the Forest Service lost track of him and got quite worried.  But he’d simply slipped away into the depths of the fire-fighting.   He did almost lose his life once.  Walking down a muddy trail he spied a burning snag just beyond and above him.  He decided he could outrun it and jumped across a pool of water between him and the danger.  But he slipped and fell face-down in the water.  Which was a good thing – the snag fell just as he jumped; it would have hit him if he’d not slipped.

The book became a best-seller and Book-of-the-Month Club selection.  It was filmed twice – once, in a hatchet job by Paramount as Red Skies in Montana, which ignored GRS’s ecological message. And once, for television by Stewart’s great fan Walt Disney, as A Fire Called Jeremiah.  The Disney film had some Disneyfication, but is much closer to the ecological view of Stewart’s novel.

Ø Ø Ø

We read about the deadly fires of our time, or watch their smoke, and mourn the loss of those killed by them.  Perhaps we lift a glass of Sierra Nevada’s Resilience Ale, that great act of kindness from Sierra Nevada Brewing, who created it, and 1400 other breweries around the world, who, like Sierra Nevada Brewing, are donating all profits to the victims of the Camp Fire.

A suggestion:

While you’re sipping that good ale, or some other result of ζύμωσις+ἔργον – zymurgy or the science of brewing beer – to quench the fires of your thirst,

Read – or re-read – Fire, by George R. Stewart.

 

 

 

 

Page Stegner Has Passed Away

 

Page Stegner, who knew the Stewarts, was a distinguished and award-winning author with literary interests similar to those of George R. Stewart.  Page wrote about the environment and the West,  books which have become classics, like  American Places, which also included the work of legendary photographer Elliot Porter and Page’s father Wallace Stegner.  He passed away just before Christmas of 2017, in the quintessenial Western town, Reno, about 30 miles away from where this is being written, in Carson City, in the middle of a “March Miracle” of a heavy snowstorm.

Page Stegner wrote fiction and non-fiction, reviewed books for leading magazines, edited some of his father’s work.  He also helped run the Peace Corps in Latin America for a time, took his students on river-runs in the west, and played bluegrass.   Like Stewart, he was a true polymath.

He was also a great help in the writing of the George R. Stewart biography.  When his father was fired at Stanford, the two families often visited each other.  Jack Stewart remembered driving from Berkeley to Palo Alto down the rural two-lane highways of the day (the 1940s and 1950s), to the Stegner hamburger barbeques.  Jack attended Stanford, sometimes visiting the Stegners while he was there.  I wrote his memories into the biography.

Page Stegner was kind enough to answer emailed questions about family visits to the Stewarts in Berkeley.  He gave a good sense of those more formal days, when children of academics did not necessarily eat at the same table with parents and thus did not feel themselves a part of the adult world.

During the research for the George R. Stewart biography, we were able to arrange a reunion between Jack Stewart and Page Stegner.  The original photograph was included in the biography.

Dr. John H. (Jack) Stewart  and  Page Stegner reunion at Kepler’s Books in Menlo Park

Jack and Page suffered from the same fate – children in the long shadows cast by famous fathers.  Yet, Jack and Page were as accomplished as their fathers – Page through his writing, teaching, and other creative work;  Jack through his brilliant work as the USGS geologist for Nevada, and as the creative geologist assistant to his father on the writing of some of GRS’s novels.

Here’s an Amazon link to the books which Page Stegner wrote, co-wrote, wrote the introductions for, or edited:

It was an honor to know Page Stegner.  I  recommend his books; American Places is one of the best books about this land.

Wolf Willow, for which Page wrote the “Introduction,” has a special meaning to me.  The book, by Wallace Stegner, is about his boyhood in the town of Eastend, Saskatchewan, which he calls “Whitemud” in the book.   Page and other members of the Stegner family were instrumental in helping the town of Eastend, the Province of Saskatchewan, and the nation of Canada, preserve the Stegner House as a Canadian Heritage Site.  The Eastend Arts Council manages the house as both a Memorial and a residence for writers and artists.  I was fortunate to be one of those selected to work there, I researching and writing the Stegner chapters in the book.  Including the climactic chapter, where, during a major prairie thunderstorm, I found the truth of George R. Stewart’s life and work.

Grateful for Page’s help with the book, I am as grateful for his work on the Stegner House program.

 

 

 

 

 

GRS in a “Third Space”: Sharing ‘Stewart Gold’ with the Native Sons of the Golden West

(Thanks to the kindly efforts of WordPress Happiness Engineer, the missing post has been found!)

The Native Sons of the Golden West is a fraternal lodge like the Elks, and does community service like the Lions.  It comes from a noble old tradition of men’s lodges and women’s clubs which did much good work in their communities before government had the resources or the inclination.  Part social, part uplifting, part hard work and fund-raising.  These are community groups in some ways similar to Christian churches, since the meetings usually include a meal – a “communion,” one might call that – followed by shared exhortations and fundraising to fulfill community needs. Service/fraternal clubs often emphasize one or two areas of need.  Shriners built a hospital for crippled children; the Lions Club builds parks and helps the blind; the Grange supports farmers.

George and Ted (Theodosia) Stewart played an important role in the service/fraternal club movement during their years at the University of California, Berkeley.  In 1927, Ted helped found the University Section Club – so named because it had sections for members with different interests.  The Drama Section was the one in which George and Ted were active, writing and performing plays in a reader’s theatre style.  The socialization was a highlight for the Stewarts and the other members; and in the best tradition of such clubs, money raised by the Drama Section Club was used to buy milk for poor children.  The Section Club’s motto, “Friendship and Philanthropy,” is a fine statement of the character of all such groups, including the Native Sons of the Golden West.

In such friendship and philanthropy, the service/fraternal groups are an excellent example of what Robert Putnam, in his classic work Bowling Alone, calls “high social capital.”  According to Wikipedia, social capital was first defined in the way Putnam uses it by a West Virginia Educator, Supervisor of Rural Schools L.J. Hanifan.  Hanifan wrote:

I do not refer to real estate, or to personal property or to cold cash, but rather to that in life which tends to make these tangible substances count for most in the daily lives of people, namely, goodwill, fellowship, mutual sympathy and social intercourse among a group of individuals and families who make up a social unit… If he may come into contact with his neighbour, and they with other neighbours, there will be an accumulation of social capital, which may immediately satisfy his social needs and which may bear a social potentiality sufficient to the substantial improvement of living conditions in the whole community. The community as a whole will benefit by the cooperation of all its parts, while the individual will find in his associations the advantages of the help, the sympathy, and the fellowship of his neighbours.

(Read the entire book here.  Chapter VI is about social capital.)

The next leader to use the term was another famous educator, John Dewey.  It is interesting to note that educators, like Hanifan, Dewey, and Putnam understand the need for and the positive power of social capital, while some businesses and public agencies seemingly do not.  t.

George R. Stewart wrote about attacks on social capital in a brilliant chapter in his award-winning book Not So Rich As You Think. Although primarily about pollution and waste, Stewart also considers the waste of human talent that low social capital a threat to society.  As I wrote, in an earlier post about the book:

In a chapter entitled “Waste Without Weight” Stewart describes how the modern corporate state weakens social capital by constantly moving people around and thus prevents those people from ever developing a sense of community.  He suggests that the disorder caused by [such practices] may have a terrible effect on the personalities of humans, theorizing that juvenile delinquency may be one result.

In a society driven by the “bottom line,” economic capital becomes pre-eminent, and social capital is (purposefully, perhaps) weakened.  But the Native Sons, the Section Clubs, and their ilk, keep social capital alive. These organizations are “Third Spaces” – places other than home or work where people informally gather to share ideas and meals in a relaxed, informal, voluntary atmosphere, and often organize to plan improvements to their communities.

So when old friend Paul Lapachet, at his sister Beth and Brother-in-Law Brian’s annual Christmas Eve Gathering in their beautiful Twin Peaks Home,  invited me to speak to the Native Sons of the Golden West annual Discovery of Gold Celebration Banquet (which honors James Marshall’s discovery of the nugget that started the Gold Rush) I enthusiastically agreed. In the stressful time of a major move, it was good therapy to work up a presentation that would appeal to the diverse membership of the NSGW who were attending the banquet. 

The banquet was held in Rancho Cordova, close to the Gold Discovery site at Coloma. A great storm which hit the area didn’t  deter attendance.

The talk was well-received.  Several people asked for more information about GRS and his work.  Hopefully,  there’ll be some new GRS fans soon.

Old friend, John Lucia, formerly of California state parks, an avid collector of and restorer of historical objects and houses, attended the talk. Afterwards, I accepted John and Angela Lucia’s kind invitation to leave the  motel and stay in their magnificent home in an historic neighborhood of Sacramento.

John Lucia on the porch of his and Angela’s historic Sacramento home.  (Angela was cooking.)

Then the massive storm  – a GRS Maria if ever there was such – cleared, Donner Pass opened, and I headed east and south in the aged Chinook, to Carson City, Nevada.  It’s not easy to make such a major change at this stage of life; but talking about George R. Stewart, staying  with the Lucias (who knew the Stewarts), and then  moving to Stewart Country, was encouraging and uplifting.

So far, I’ve met a fine bookseller, an artist, a writer, and other residents who inform me that Carson City has decided to become a city of outdoor recreation and the arts.  GRS would be most happy – as I am. I feel  at home  here.

I’m now staying within walking distance from Stewart, Nevada, where GRS took this iconic portrait:

Thanks to Paul Lapachet, I’ve learned a lot about the NSGW.  For one thing, I’d always assumed that one had to be a descendant of someone who arrived in California before 9,9, 1849.  But that’s not the case – anyone who was born here can join.

I also learned how much good work the NSGW does in the field of historic preservation and interpretation. For example:  the group places historic plaques in many locations;  saved Sutter’s Fort from demolition; and is raising the funds to restore the Pioneer Monument at Donner Lake State Historic Park (a monument they originally built and donated to the state) AND build a new interpretive center there.

I intend to join the NSGW.  I encourage all of you to consider it, too.

(Written in Stewart Country, not far from the California Trail  and Donner Pass.)

Another Honor For GRS: George R. Stewart in “Stewart Heritage”

Two distinguished British authors, Henry Fothringham, OBE, and Charles Kinder Bradbury,  have just released their beautiful coffee table book, Stewart Heritage.  The book devotes a page to each of several dozen famous and influential Stewarts.  One of the Stewarts they profile is our focus in these pages:  George R. Stewart.

This is the third recent work honoring Stewart and his work.  There was an essay in the literary magazine of the Chicago Tribune, “George R. Stewart: Unrestrained by literary borders,” the several pages devoted to Stewart’s Storm in  Snowbound,  Mark McLaughlin’s just-released book about the largest storms recorded in the Sierra Nevada, the fine interpretive sign at Donner Summit so ably designed and place by Bill Oudegeest of the Donner Summit Historical Society (followed by several articles in the Society’s magazine), the Berkeley ePlaque edited and published by Robert Kehlmann and his stalwart colleagues; and now this fine one-page essay which succinctly summarizes Stewart’s life and work.

Although I can’t reproduce the entire GRS page from Stewart Heritage for reasons of copyright, I can post a portion here to give readers the chance to see the quality of the book and the George R. Stewart entry.

There is clearly a continuing interest in George R. Stewart and his work.   The new, reduced price on the GRS biography and the planned mini-series of Earth Abides will increase that interest.

This weblog is not designed as a marketing tool.  But when something  exceptional  related to George R. Stewart comes along, I’ll always share it with you.  If you are a Stewart, or know a Stewart, or a passionate fan of George R. Stewart and his work, you might consider Stewart Heritage (which I understand was printed in a limited edition).

Post Script.  Having had the chance to review the book in more depth, I find it rich in history across disciplines, across borders, even across racial lines.  There are entries which sweep the Earth from Panamint City near Trona, California – founded by stage robbers who discovered silver there – to Brittany (“Little Britain”) and a tussle there between Satan and Saint George over Mont St. Michel – to Hollywood and James Stewart – and on and on.  Disciplines include science and engineering – the authors have expertise in chemistry and metallurgy – painting, music, film, sport, military accomplishments, academia, politics, law – think Justice Potter Stewart – and, of course, writing.  It is a fascinating read.

George R. Stewart, Space Explorer

Say what?  GRS a space explorer, decades before we had humans in space?  How so?

In Ordeal By Hunger and Storm, Stewart writes the view from space into the work.  The Ordeal By Hunger entry is especially interesting.  He describes the view of northern Nevada along the California Trail so precisely that in the NASA days when I asked Astronaut Dr. Ed Lu to photograph it on ISS Expedition 7, and had the passage sent to him, the photos that came back showed how accurately Stewart had visualized the space explorer’s view – 25 years before any human actually saw it for themselves.

 

Storm begins and ends with a view of Earth from space – the opening passages, like those in Ordeal By Hunger, give a view from near space.  The closing passages move farther out, into the solar system, where he gives the view from Venus.

Interestingly, he changed the space-perspective section in Ordeal By Hunger for the second edition; but once humans had gone into space, he put the original back.

He was a pioneer in the Whole Earth Perspective, including the close view from within the ecosystem here on Earth, and the overview, the Astronaut’s View, from Low Earth Orbit.  So it seemed to make sense to use him as a model for a new way to interpret the Earth and educate others about it. When the opportunity came to present a teacher’s workshop at a Mars Conference, in 1998,  I used that theme.   Accidentally, today, I came upon that workshop paper in researching another talk.  The paper lists all the resources for space education, many now gone, available to teachers in 1998.  GRS wanders into the paper on page 8.

Here’s the paper,  for your edification and amusement.

 

COWBOY, PROFESSOR, WRITER, AND GEORGE R. STEWART SCHOLAR: PAUL F. STARRS

A few posts ago, I included a link to Dr. Paul F. Starrs’s fine essay/review of the George R. Stewart biography. (In case you missed it, here’s a pdf download link  STARRS-2015-rev essay SCOTT, bio of Geo Stewart (AAGRvBks)

A distinguished author, geographer, and scholar, he’s won every award the University of Nevada, Reno, offers for scholars and teachers, been a senior Fulbright Scholar, and won many national teaching and geography awards. Starrs just stepped down as Chair of the Department of Geography.

He can also throw the houlihan

Starrs was one of the few applicants accepted by Deep Springs College in 1975. (Around 400 apply; 13 are chosen.) Located in an isolated valley near the eastern border of central California, the College is a tiny two-year institution founded and funded by one of the pioneers of the transmission of AC electrical power, L.L. Nunn. Once enrolled, students are expected not only to achieve academic excellence; they must also govern the institution. Students also run its adjoining cattle ranch and farm to help support the college. When the ranch and farm are included, Deep Springs has the largest “campus” of higher learning on Earth. According to Wikipedia, The New Yorker describes the educational program as “a mix of Christian mysticism, imperialist elitism, Boy Scout-like abstinence, and Progressive era learning-by-doing, with an emphasis on leadership training and the formation of strong character.”

Deep Springs Students on a Cattle Drive

With an extraordinary natural setting – hot springs, faults, desert playas, huge mountain ranges – Deep Springs sensitizes its students to the Earth. As an isolated human community, with the remains of an historic mining community nearby, Native American cultures in the area, the small towns and highway culture along US 395 to the west and the cities of Reno and Las Vegas to the east, south, and north, it is also in a region which exemplifies the principal concerns of geography – the relationships of humans to the land – in settings that range from isolated rural to large urban communities.

Starrs spent a few years cowboying after Deep Springs. He finished his education at the University of California, earning an M.A. and PhD in Geography at Berkeley.

Cowboy Paul

Appointed an Assistant Professor at the University of Nevada, Reno, in 1992, he quickly moved up into the highest ranks. He is now Regents and Foundation Professor of Geography, a high honor. Bilingual, he’s also held posts in Spain at the University of Salamanca and the Universidad of Córdoba.

He’s a brilliant scholar, with interests in many areas of geography. Currently he’s researching agriculture and land use change in California, the use of historic maps to reveal the exploitation of the environment, comparative frontier history, the geography of cattle ranching, and geography in popular culture, including music and film. Among other things.

Starrs is also a writer. One of his latest books, A Field Guide to California Agriculture, which he wrote in partnership with colleague Peter Goin, has been called a classic guide to the roadside agriculture of this state. Like Stewart’s books, it is a work of precision scholarship of the highest standard and a useful and readable work for a general audience.

I met Paul Starrs when Jack Stewart, distinguished Nevada geologist (and George R. Stewart’s son) called to ask if I could do a presentation about George Stewart’s life, work, and ideas, for Starrs’s Graduate Colloquium at UNR. Of course, I was honored, and agreed.

(The story of that adventure is worth telling. It was March; and to get to Reno I’d need to cross one of the legendary high mountain passes in the Sierra – and one of the snowiest – Donner Pass, made legend by George R. Stewart in Ordeal By Hunger. I decided to drive to Davis, California, stay at a friend’s house and take the train. At the last minute, though, he withdrew the invitation, so I had to book a motel instead. Nonplussed, I almost missed the talk.  On the way back to Davis, the westbound Zephyr was delayed more than 5 hours. That meant another night in a motel. Fortunately the generous honorarium covered all the unexpected costs. It was an honor to talk about George R. Stewart at the University with the second largest collection of Stewart material, in the country he loved, with a distinguished scholar and award-winning teacher who admires Stewart’s work.)

Starrs has long been interested in Stewart, which is fitting for someone educated at Berkeley in geography and holding a professorship at Reno. Berkeley was Stewart’s home – he was an English Professor there – and also the home of the best geography department in the country in the early-to-mid twentieth century. Reno is surrounded by “Stewart Country”: Donner Pass, Donner Lake, the Black Rock Desert. The California Trail and historic U.S. 40 pass through Reno. Thanks to Special Collections’ Librarian Ken Carpenter, the Knowledge Center at Reno has the second largest collection of George R. Stewart material on Earth (after the Bancroft Library in Berkeley).

Starrs teaches Stewart. He also contributes to the increasing body of work about Stewart and his writing. In 2005, for example, Starrs and colleague Peter Goin – Goin is Chair of the Reno Art Department and a distinguished photographer – published a book about the place Stewart called “Sheep Rock”: Starrs and Goin, Black Rock. It is an interdisciplinary, in-depth look at the place where Stewart set his most elaborate geographic (or ecological) novel. Starrs describes it as “a loving look at how a place can be conveyed not just through words, but also through photographs, historical maps, and newly-done cartography.”

Any fan of George R. Stewart’s work is encouraged to read the Black Rock book. And to keep the work of Paul Starrs on their radar screen. He’s completing a new book about the geography of film noir and just starting an historical novel about sheep herders in 1600s Spain. “Think Lonesome Dove meets Don Quixote in the Iberian Peninsula,” writes Starrs. “There’s a potential there for an interesting read.”

Dr. Paul F. Starrs and his Favorite Subject, Earth

Frank Brusca’s U.S. 40 Rephotography Project

Frank Brusca is a George R. Stewart Scholar with a special interest:  U. S. 40.  He discovered the book when he was a boy, and it has shaped his life since.  Frank’s goal is to re-photograph as many of the places Stewart photographed in 1949 and 1950 as he can, to record the changes over time.  Geographers Tom and Geraldine Vale did that for their 1983 classic U.S. 40 Today, which tracked changes over the 30 years since GRS published his book.  Brusca has more elaborate plans – he’s including color and virtual panoramas of some sites.

His love affair with U. S. 40, highway and book, helped Brusca connect with author William Least Heat Moon, who wrote the classic Blue Highways. Eventually  Least Heat Moon and Brusca traveled the old highway together.  Those journies are the meat of four chapters about Brusca and GRS and his road book in Least Heat Moon’s Roads to Quoz. (Least Heat Moon is also a fan of GRS’s other work, and so there’s more GRS influence in  Blue Highways.)

Last Sunday, Frank held a web meeting for a small group of road scholars, describing his project in detail and showing his photos of the GRS sites on the old highway.  It was impressive to see how much he’s done so far.  His work, like that of the Vales, expands Stewart’s ground-breaking book.

Brusca has a deep understanding of Stewart’s book.  During the web session, Brusca revealed how to identify a first first printing of U.S. 40 – one photo is a mistake, so the book was pulled and corrected.  (The photo, from a Hogback ridge west of Denver, was supposed to show the town and valley to the west of the ridge, but a photo from the ridge showing the eastern view was printed.)  If you have a copy with the wrong photo, you have an early first printing.

His knowledge of the book and the highway helped my GRS biography.  Brusca directed me to German Filmmaker Hartmut Bitomsky, whose U.S. 40 West was inspired by Stewart’s book. Bitomsky agreed to a long interview about the film and Stewart’s influence on the work; much of that interview is in my book.

Frank is off on a road photographing trip this summer.  He drives from Massachusetts to San Francisco, and then zips back, photographing as he goes.  (I hope to join him for one or two days in Calfornia.)  He will also copy some of the original negatives for U.S. 40, in the Bancroft Library.

All of this is expensive. Just copying the Stewart photographs in the Bancroft would cost more than $5,000.   So far, it’s been self-funded.  But now Brusca has a Kickstarter proposal to help fund the effort.  If you’d like to help, you can do so here.  A small 30 dollar pledge gets you an ebook with all of the 120 photos he’s planning to put in the book.  More important, you become a patron of continuing the U.S. 40 work of GRS, the Vales, William Least Heat Moon, and Frank Brusca.

Buying a Beer For Cosmonaut Sali

George R. Stewart, as he often does for his readers, took me places I had only dreamed of when I was a lad.  Stewart’s emphasis on Earth and its ecosystems encouraged me to become a ranger; and I did that for both one state park system and the National Park Service.  Stewart’s Whole Earth vision, describing Earth from space in Ordeal By Hunger, Storm, and Earth Abides, encouraged me to seek work with NASA.  Fortunately – thanks to Mary Valleau of NASA who had also worked for the NPS, and her boss Garth Hull – I was hired as a NASA “Aerospace Education Specialist” – a traveling field educator who helped teachers, students, and communities learn about STEAM – the social and natural science, technology, engineering, art, and math required for spaceflight.  I worked at AESP for nearly ten years, first as State Representative for Southern California and Arizona; then as SR for Nevada and Montana.  (I have a Secondary Credential, BA and MA, and worked as a teacher on secondary and college levels.)

There’s a book in that work.

It was wonderful to work with students and teachers.  And working with astronauts and scientists to help develop educational material to teach about their missions was a milestone of my teaching career.  There were many adventures – one thing we did was to go to Johnson Space Center to learn about upcoming missions, which included going through some small sample of astronaut training.  So I practiced docking the shuttle to MIR station; and road along on the high-fidelity shuttle lift-off, abort, and landing simulator.  That was an E ticket ride.  I also met many of the Astronauts, including Barbara Morgan who was the first Mission Specialist with a teaching background. Barbara opened the door to space for teachers; several others have since gone up, full astronauts; two were  spacewalkers.  (Later members of the program would be known as Educator Astronauts)

But one of the most memorable encounters happened in the summer of 1997 at a bar near Johnson Space Center.  The 40 or so of us in the program were at the Center to be educated about the upcoming International Space Station construction and missions.  There were many briefings by Astronauts and astronaut crews who were to be involved.  William “Shep” Shepard, who was to be Commander of Expedition I – the first manning of the ISS – spoke at JSC; then invited those of us who were interested to meet him at the legendary Outpost, an Astronaut and scientist watering hole for 30 years. (You’ve seen the place if you’ve seen Space Cowboys.)

Only a few of us went.  I sat next to a very quiet man, who I didn’t know, and who had come there with Shep Shepard. I asked him how he knew Shepard.  “I’m Sali,” he said, “The first Uzbekistani Cosmonaut.  I go up on the Shuttle in January.”  After I got over the surprise, I decided to try out some high school Russian on him.  But he insisted on English:  “Shep said if I want to learn English I should go to a bar.”

“Well, then – can I buy you a beer?”

“Yes.”

And so I did.

The rest of the evening we listened to Shepard, a former Navy Seal, explain why we will not get to Mars without the Russians.  “I used to fight these guys,” he said, “but when it comes to long-duration space exploration they’ve written the book.  We need to work with them.”  We went back to our hotel, they went back to the Astronaut quarters.  I’d like to think that evening, and that beer, put a small stone in the cathedral of mankind.

Later that summer, I had the chance to work with high school students from the former Soviet Union.  One of the girls was from Uzbekistan.  “Sure.  Sali.”  “You know Sali?” she asked, in a wondering voice.  “Bought him a beer.”  My stock went very high; hers went higher with her companions.

Sali went up the next January; then went again, to spend nearly six months on the International Space Station. Click on the photo for more information:

Salizhan Shakirovich Sharipov Салижан Шакирович Шарипов

All that from doors George R. Stewart opened.

I sometimes think of Sali, and his space explorer colleagues, looking out at Earth from orbit, and seeing the state of Nevada from space looking just like GRS described in Ordeal By Hunger – long before anyone had seen or photographed it. In fact, I was later to send up that passage, and ask Astronaut Ed Lu to photograph it from space – a way of honoring my old mentor GRS.

The Outpost, in a way, also reflected GRS’s work.  In East of the Giants and Earth Abides, fires sweep through to provide closure to the tale.  And thus it was with the Outpost:  In 2010, after a landlord threatened the long-time owners, a mysterious fire burned it to the ground.  Like Pancho’s Happy Bottom Riding Club at Edwards Air Force Base, the mythical Judith Godoy’s ranch, and the post-apocalyptic University of California at Berkeley, the Outpost passed into legend.  But it had done its job well.  Certainly it did so, on the night that, inspired by George R. Stewart, I bought Cosmonaut Sali a beer.

Distinguished Geographer Dr. Paul F. Starrs Reviews the GRS Biography

Dr. Paul F. Starrs is a distinguished professor of geography at the University of Nevada, Reno.  He’s received many accolades for his teaching and research, including four awards for excellence in teaching and a Fulbright Scholarship.  He has also written or co-written several books – most recently, the wonderful UC Field Guide to California Agriculture. (Every road traveler to this agricultural state should carry a copy of that book.)   He and his colleague Peter Goin also did a fine little book about a Nevada place, Black Rock,  immortalized by George R. Stewart in one of his ecological novels.

Dr. Starrs’ review of The Life and Truth of George R. Stewart has now been published in the Association of American Geographers (AAG) Review of Books.  More an essay than a simple review, his work discusses the life, ideas, and books of George R. Stewart in the context of the biography.  You need to be registered to read the full article – an expensive registry, I’m sure – but you can see the preview here:  http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/2325548X.2015.985537#abstract. 

It’s an honor to have the George R. Stewart biography, The Life and Truth of George R. Stewart, reviewed by Dr. Starrs.

O Pioneers! II

More about the Pioneers who were the first to like the facebook post:

Philip Aaberg‘s music of place was inspired by the work of Wallace Stegner and George R. Stewart.  I met Phil thanks to Teacher Richard Brong of Galena Hi in the Reno area.   Phil composed “Earth Abides,” and Richard wondered if the title referred to Stewart’s great novel.   I tracked Phil down, called his company, Sweetgrass Music, spoke with his manager (and wife) Patty, and eventually to Phil.   And thus began a friendship.  Phil spoke and played at the CONTACT George R. Stewart Symposium, endorsed the GRS biography, and did a fine review of the book for the Great Falls Tribune.   He’s been busy recording new CD material, and is working on a classical CD at the moment.

Paul Starrs, distinguished professor of Geography at the University of Nevada, Reno, was another endorser of the GRS biography.  Jack Stewart connected us, and Paul invited me to address the Geography Graduate Colloquium.  He’s published books about one of the places Stewart wrote about; and recently, about California agriculture.   The photos from the latter book are now on display in the Bancroft Library — which is also keeper of the George Rippey Stewart, Jr., Papers.

Michael Ward is an active ePublisher, a judge for the HUGO awards, and the creator of the George R. Stewart webpages (accessed through a link in the menu at the top of the page).  He has been instrumental in the production and publicizing of the book, and is thus deserving of great praise and appreciation.

I’ve known Diane Farmer Ramirez almost since she was born.  Her mother and my then-wife worked together.  Her father, Dave, is a fine photographer, a collector of Leicas, a very good friend (notably in times of need) who once sold me a good car for 50 bucks.   Diane and her husband are raising a wonderful family – which is somewhat hard to visualize since to me she’s still a kiddo herself.

One of the leading experts on U.S. 40 and the National Road, Frank Brusca was a great help with the book.  He’s quoted in the chapter about Stewart’s classic U.S. 40.   Frank has written for AMERICAN ROAD magazine.  He has a minor starring role in William Least Heat Moon’s latest book, ROADS TO QUOZ, appearing in several chapters about the National Road and George R. Stewart.  Frank is currently working on an update to Stewart’s U.S. 40.

Gus Frederick, artist, publisher and CONTACT Board of Directors member, helped with the cover art for two books related to GRS — notably a teacher’s guide entitled From GeoS to Mars.   When he’s not working on one of his projects, he has been a great supporter of the GRS work. Gus also works closely with Dr. Penny Boston, exploring caves that may hold secrets to life on Mars.

Julie Shelberg is another kind stranger who likes the GRS page.   Since she’s a reader of science fiction, I assume she found us through searches for Stewart or EARTH ABIDES.   I do know that two of her daughters have just graduated from college, and that she has some fine, stirring quotes on her facebook postings.

Frank Brusca pointed me toward Harmut Bitomsky.  Inspired by U.S. 40, and commissioned to do a TV film about America’s Westward Movement, Bitomsky decided  to focus on the highway rather than the wagon trails.  The result was Highway 40 West, a film series which has become a classic in Germany. Bitomsky was Dean of the Film/Video School at CalArts, a university appropriately founded by Walt Disney, so our email interview was pretty easy to do.  He shared a deep understanding of why he made the film, adding some comments about other books of Stewart that have become favorites of his.  Bitomsky plans to release the film in an English version soon.

A key player at the old Walking Box Ranch – see her interviewed at about 38 minutes into this excellent BBC documentary – Paula Garrett field manages the place for UNLV.  She had the great good sense to hire me as Caretaker; and the even greater wisdom to include my interpretive ideas, and me, in the planning process.   She’s also bought the book, and read it, the sign of a good mind.

In the next and final list of Pioneers, I’ll introduce those who like, and follow, the weblog pages.