Books, Bytes, and Biblioposers

As readers of my other blog “True Archives” know, I am not the most enthusiastic booster of academic libraries and librarians. I have long recognized the threat of university librarians and their fanatical embrace of everything digital to destroy the printed legacy of mankind, and in my retirement from serving on the margins of their profession I have seen little to change my mind. During my morning walk today I recalled a criticism leveled at me during my final years of employment that I “had not kept up with the latest trends in the profession.” The specific example cited of this perceived personal failure was my inability to understand exactly what is meant by “digital humanities.” I still don’t understand what that term means, but I find it amusing the accusation of my ignorance came from those who had NEVER published in the humanities (digitally or otherwise) while my own modest contribution to history totals nearly fifty journal articles and three books. I guess my humanities understanding is limited to the actual practice of scholarship rather than the application of zeros and ones to the discipline of history. Guilty as charged.

I only bring this up today because I have had occasion to interact regularly with the professional, courteous, and friendly staff of Bisbee’s Copper Queen Library and I am overjoyed to discover their own dedication to print. Unlike their academic colleagues, the public librarians of Bisbee recognize and value books, and their collection, while small, is bolstered by an efficient interlibrary loan system that insures a steady flow of volumes I am interested in reading. Their public programming is outstanding as well, sponsoring a weekly lecture series, regular showing of interesting films at our local theater, and operating an annex in the San Jose neighborhood that is entirely staffed by volunteers. I am certainly not the only one who recognizes the Copper Queen Library as the gem of our town; Library Journal has honored the place with its annual award as the best small library in America for 2019. Imagine, a library that honors and promotes book reading! This is quite heartening in this age of darkness wrought by computers and their tireless boosters.

Random Rants

It is time to divert from the biographical trajectory of this blog and get right down to the problems with modern American life (aside from our idiot President). Here, in no particular order, are my most recent complaints:

1) Why do they advertise the evening news on the evening news? I mean, are you not already watching it?

2) The costumes worn by bicyclists are among the most stupid of any sport. Even the most fit athletes have a problem with spandex.

3) I do not understand those who complain that people seeking healthcare in Canada must wait weeks for an appointment. When was the last time you tried to get an appointment with a dermatologist in the United States? I am sure they saw you right away...

4) Why does our government retain the penny? It costs more than a penny to make a penny!

"Iuventus stultorum magister"

Ringo. The name has (forgive me) a certain “ring” that has echoed throughout the twentieth century. It hardly echoed through the nineteenth century, the time when Johnny Ringo actually lived, because he was simply not that famous. The legend of the alcoholic, educated gunslinger was invented in 1927 by writer Walter Noble Burns in his colorful fable Tombstone, An Illiad of the Southwest. Burns added Ringo to his blood and thunder epic about Wyatt Earp to give a dash of mysterious menace to the cowboy faction of Cochise County that the Earp brothers battled in Tombstone, a sort of counterbalance to the story of Doc Holiday, another alcoholic, educated gunslinger. As a result, both men became legends long after their own time, and the number of bad guys in western movies named Ringo are almost beyond counting. One of the best cinematic portrayals of this legend was turned in by actor Michael Biehn in the 1994 film Tombstone. (The title of this essay comes from the exchange of threats in Latin between Biehn and Val Kilmer's Doc Holiday in that movie. It translates as "Youth is the teacher of fools.")

But the real John Ringo was not a gunfighter, accoring to his biographer John Burrows, but instead a vicious drunk who may (or may not) have shot a couple of men in the back during his short tenure on earth. Burrows biography sifts through what little is known of Ringo from primary sources, and devotes a chapter to the man’s mysterious death on the banks of Turkey Creek

in the Chiricahua Mountains of southeast Arizona. Ringo was found seated in the forks of a blackjack Oak tree, bootless and with a bullet hole in his right temple, ostensibly from the discharged revolver in his right hand. In spite of a coroner’s verdict of suicide claims of a few men, including Wyatt Earp, to have actually shot Ringo persist to this day.

Jayne and I went camping in the Chiricahua Mountains last week, a beautiful spot along the splashing brook that is Turkey Creek. Although we were a bit on edge pondering the very real twenty-first century danger of drug mules known to traverse this area, we enjoyed our time immensely, and finished our trip by stopping at the gravesite of the “gunfighter who never was.” Requiescet in pace, Johnny.

The Price of Boredom

The bumper sticker is really an inside joke. I saw it on a car yesterday and had to reflect on the slogan: “Keep Warren Boring.” Locals will recognize Warren as the large Bisbee neighborhood which splays out south of the Lavender Pit, a place where the “nice” people lived in the early years of the twentieth century. It is still home to our community hospital, our lone elementary school,

and a few second hand shops, but almost all of the businesses that used to line Arizona Avenue were shuttered years ago. There remains a quiet residential area with some pretty nice looking homes in various stages of deterioration and a strip-designed city park that hosts our weekly farmer’s market. Overall a sleepy, quiet place and one overlooked by the tourists who frequent Old Bisbee every weekend to carouse in the many saloons. So, yes, Warren is boring and it looks likely to stay that way.

Keeping a place boring requires that residents look elsewhere for commerce and entertainment. For Bisbee citizens, that means a drive to Sierra Vista for almost everything other than groceries. With a population that exceeds Bozeman, Montana, “Sorry Vista” is a vast area of strip malls and franchises such as Outback and McDonald’s. It is a city without a core, lacking a downtown area

in favor of sprawling development that guarantees the necessity of driving some sort of vehicle to shop, worship, or eat. It resembles the worst of Tucson’s development where older ugly temporary buildings are periodically bulldozed to throw up newer ugly ones, and where directions are generally given by using chain restaurants as geographic waypoints.

We can indeed glory that Warren is “boring” (or even the rest of Bisbee) because Sierra Vista offers us the luxury of keeping it that way. We drove over to the big city yesterday for a doctor’s appoinment and had a wonderful lunch, but it is always somewhat stressful to deal with busy intersections and traffic lights. We have neither in Old Bisbee, and I hope it remains that way (even if it is boring.

R.I.P. William Wallace

He came into our lives in 2002. I can remember very clearly going out to the breeder’s place near Big Timber and walking out to the kennels filled with anxious, barking dogs. The breeder had a lot of different varieties, and all were noisy with the exception of the Westies. They were in one caged run just sitting quietly, watching us as the other dogs around them were going berserk. I guess I was sold on the breed that day. The breeder showed us to a mother with about five or six little white pups, and our boys picked out one small fellow that seemed more lively than the rest. However, we were not allowed to take him that day; he needed to be weaned along with his siblings and it was not until about three weeks later that I drove to the parking

lot of the Bozeman Wal-Mart where I met the breeder’s husband and actually purchased Willie. It felt like we were conducting a drug deal. For the next seventeen years Willie was a part of our family. He watched the boys grow up and leave home. He traveled with us to Arkansas and Arizona. He stayed at home with Max, our friend, while we went on our overseas trips. He even went for an airplane ride last November when we flew from Phoenix to Bozeman, sitting quietly under the seat in front of me. And most of all, he brought us a lot of joy. His run ended today following a week of steady decline, and he has left a void in our hearts. Goodbye, Willie. I said it so many times, and I said it again as you were dying, “You are a good, good dog.”

This cartoon is published with the permission of the artist, Mark Glavin, and his website ubertoolcomic.com.

Hazards of the Desert

Living on La Frontera is not for the faint hearted. In this isolated mountain town there are a number of hazards that one faces on a daily basis. Now that the monsoon rains have started we cast a fearful eye on the rock wall behind our house that threatens to spill debris on our home with every torrential rainfall. Most of the transients and homeless who wander the streets are harmless eccentrics, but they occasionally break into vacant homes in search of booty and shelter. And of course the animal kingdom opens another front that the Bisbee resident must take into consideration.

But for all that, life is good in this salubrious climate. The Fourth of July was a city-wide celebration that we were able to share with our oldest son, Benjamin, who came all the way from New York City just to watch burly contestants pound holes in a rock.

One of the holiday exhibitions was rock drilling by hand into a solid block of granite positioned in Brewery Gulch. Men would step up to the block with a hammer and an assortment of drills to pound furiously for eight minutes to see how deep the resulting hole would reach. (The winner scored an impressive depth of over 11 inches.) There was also a coaster race down the canyon in front of our home, a rather boring spectacle since it was a timed race and the carts came along in widely spaced intervals. This is to prevent wrecks, of course, but it pulled the excitement right out of the competition. The fireworks were ignited in Warren, the neighborhood on the far side of the Lavender Pit, and we declined to drive down there to seem. Instead we contented ourselves by observing the flashes that outlined the intervening mountains, making the display look very much like an approaching thunderstorm.

But back to the hazards. A few nights ago Jayne had occasion to visit the bathroom and discovered a scorpion scuttling across the floor. I continue to encounter javelinas during my morning walks, and the other day spotted a rather emaciated mule deer in one of the draws cutting across the road. This means that mountain lions are likely also inhabiting my route during these early morning hikes and I remain vigilant.

But the biggest hazard is picture here. A coral snake, one of the most venomous reptiles of Arizona was lazily making his way across our yard to the stone retaining wall right near the steps I was about to descend. After admiring the beauty of the creature I nevertheless used a garden rake to send him flying into the ditch below, hoping he will find a better place to ply his trade.

Pedestrians and Peccaries

My morning walks up to the summit of Mule Pass have taken on an almost ritual aspect; an early morning trudge up to a whitewashed stone wall that I must physically touch in order for the exercise to be complete. The wall overlooks the western half of the pass, and about 400 feet below one can see cars entering and exiting the tunnel that connects Bisbee with the rest of the world. Some mornings I pause to take in the scene, but more often I simply touch it and perform a smart about-face to begin the descent home. A troop of regulars joins me in this ritual. About a dozen people perform the same walk every morning and every morning, depending on the time, I greet them going up or coming down the roadway. About two weeks ago I had a message to convey along with my salutations.

Javelinas (or peccaries) are pig-like animals that apparently find the Mule Mountains ideal habitat. Not really related to pigs, these tusked animals move in small herds which include large boars, smaller sows, and the cute little piglets that are generally born during the months between November and March. The boars can get pretty big, and with the ridge of stiff hair that grows from

their backs, they can appear to be a formidable adversary for any human that might come upon them. Apparently they do well in urban habitats, and they have been known to hang out in the suburbs of Phoenix and Tucson. The herd I stumbled across two weeks ago consisted of about ten individuals, who crossed the road not more than fifty feet in front of me as I stopped to observe them. Hardly a grizzly bear encounter, but I still felt obligated to inform my regular walkers who I met going uphill that the animals were ahead for them going down. The same thing happened to me last week, only this time I counted eight and had a walking stick in my hand, a precaution that I adopted after the first incident.

What is totally weird is what occurred last night as Jayne and I sat on our front porch. Jayne heard a rustling in the bottom of the concrete drainage culvert that runs between the house and the street, about twenty feet below the level of our porch. When we looked down to see the origin of the sound we saw yet another herd of these creatures stealthily emerging from the connecting draining tunnel into the main channel where, I am sure, they were lured by the vegetation and few stagnant pools of water that have remained into these warmer months. It was a fascinating reminder of the wildness that exists beyond (and sometimes within) the limits of this town.

.45 calibre Anniversary

Jayne and I observed 45 years of married life yesterday with a drive with our friend Steve to Sierra Vista, a nice steak dinner, and a visit to the Coronado National Memorial, a lovely park situated on

the Mexican border immediately southwest of Bisbee. This is supposedly near the site where the 1,500 men expedition of Francisco Vázquez de Coronado crossed the line into what today is known as the United States. It is a good thing they made the trip back then; today they would have had to contend with a russet-colored steel-slatted barricade that extends as far as the eye can see. Back in his day, Coronado made it all the way to Kansas before he realized there was no gold among the native inhabitants of the plains, but at least one of his lieutenants managed to stumble upon the Grand Canyon. The Coronado National Memorial is also the site of a hidden geocache which we found easily (once we asked the ranger where it was) and a visitor's center with dress up clothes for kids. They had helmets, swords and even a heavy chain mail shirt. Of course the two biggest kids on this trip had to participate but Steve is a bit camera shy.

I began the day with presenting a card to Jayne to observe the date properly, and designed by myself in TrueArchives style. The inside joke on this one concerns my periodic threat to open

a tourist stagecoach ride concession in Tombstone with my brother, an idea crazy enough on its own but even more so when you consider the town already has TWO coaches competing for the tourist dollar. I had so much fun thinking about Tombstone while designing this card that I almost forgot that this Memorial Day weekend was also the "Wyatt Earp Days" festival in Tombstone. I drove over on Sunday to observe the intersection of myth, memory, and mayhem that constitutes the gunfight reenactments in the middle of Allen Street. A very surreal touch was the addition of a belly dancing club from Sierra Vista performing an interpretive dance to the music of "Ghost Riders in the Sky" which seemed curiously appropriate.

That Which Divides Us

After almost two months in residence, I have finally reached the summit; the summit of Mule Pass, anyway. My morning walks up Tombstone Canyon have steadily lengthened as the days have gone by, and I have gradually pushed myself to ascend the rather steep Divide Road by about 100 yards more each day. Yesterday I realized that I was so close that I made up my mind to go the distance this morning, a walk that was not as hard as I had first envisioned. The total distance from my house to the summit is actually only 2.2 miles, but it involves a steady climb of 627 feet, steeper at some points more than others. The walk back is, of course, easier.

The view from the divide is very nice. To the east one can see the Huachuca Mountains, and to the west the dim outline of ranges in New Mexico are visible on the horizon. A strange monument sits just off the roadside which proclaims the point is at 6,030 feet above sea level (which seems about

right to me) but also proclaims the pass to be situated on the “Continental Divide.” This is patently false since the actual line is more than 130 miles to the east, but it struck me this morning as I perused the names of all the local and state politicians listed on the obelisk that it is a three dimensional metaphor representing today’s political climate.

First, the false claim of being the Continental Divide represents a lot of the erroneous information flooding our news broadcasts and Twitter feeds which has earned the monkier “fake news.” It only seems authoritative because it is literally chipped in stone. Second, the listing of all those political leaders who, we can safely assume, were entirely male and white, represents the current power structure in a country where this same demographic is making decisions on how women may use their own bodies and what complexion an aspiring immigrant must have to enter the country. Finally, there is the shocking testimony that the road itself was the product of prison labor.

One can only imagine the slave-like conditions those incarcerated souls endured as they sweated under an Arizona sun moving earth for the highway. With those who presently clamor for more arrests and more prisons and harsher sentences, we ought to recognize that the United States already has the highest rate of imprisoned people in the world. In fact, a whopping 22 percent of the worlds prisoners are right here in the land of the free, hardly the sort of statistic that would make a contemporary political conservative confident in his assurances that our society is based on individual liberty. And so this simple monument suggests to me a cultural and political divide more than a geographic one, and while it is my present goal in morning physical exercise it should also stand for a contemplative destination as well.

Mother's Day Sturm und Drang

While Jayne continues to sojourn in the Arkansas Ozarks, I remain behind in Bisbee tending to the old white dog and doing household chores. Today is Mother's Day, and while my own mother has passed to the great beyond, I still called Jayne to wish her the compliments of the day since she, too, is a mother. I picked a rather unsettled day for my greetings. A rare spring thunderstorm has

blown into southern Arizona from the Sea of Cortez and the dark skies above the mountains to the south have been periodically crossed with impressive lightning bolts. Some rain fell prior to my daily walk, but I was able to complete the nearly four miles up the canyon and back prior to this latest outburst. This photograph from our front porch gives a hint of the storm above the canyon sides, but I was unable to time my shutter to include a lightning strike. Take my word for it; it is impressive.

Post-Retirement Contract

One of the factors that influenced our decision to move from Bozeman was a desire on my part to not become another ex-academic hanging around campus hoping for some sort of recognition. Some professorial dinosaurs have held out for a post-retirement contract, a way to earn a few shekels without having to attend faculty meetings, but I simply could not see myself doing that. What I have discovered, however, is that retirement in Arizona is a full time job, with chores upon chores to perform in order to whip the Scott headquarters into shape. No contract necessary for these labors.

Jayne has gone to Arkansas to attend the graduation of her niece, Emily, from the University of Arkansas while I stay home and babysit the oldest dog in Bisbee: Willie. Also, just to make sure I have enough to keep me occupied, Jayne prepared a list of accomplishments she would like to see done prior to her return and I have faithfully addressed it. I spent today building a box to raise our refrigerator one foot off the ground and it took me hours to complete the task. Today's picture is not that interesting, but that wooden box represents a considerable effort on my part, not to mention the grunting it took to mount the fridge on top of it. Behold my triumph!

Copper and Iron Men

Much work and many hours have been expended since my last dispatch. We drove to Phoenix one weekend to retrieve our little travel trailer, and then went back with a Uhaul truck to retrieve the balance of our worldly goods from their sweltering storage nest near the Sky Harbor airport. It was a driving feat on both occasions that I heartily wish never to repeat.

Bisbee’s history is full of tales documenting the extreme physical endurance of both man and beast. In the early years of the copper camp, burros were used to haul water, building materials, and firewood to the cabins scratched out on the canyon sides. Even today when viewing the seemingly endless concrete steps that lead to some of these dwellings one wonders how anyone gets furniture or even groceries from the street level to their home. In October the town hosts an “Iron Man” ice challenge where racers schlepping huge blocks of ice bound up a number of these flights in a timed competition. Having puffed my way up the 181 steps from downtown to the top of the Castle Rock twice now I realize I will never be a contender.

But endurance of another kind is also celebrated in Bisbee. Down the street from our house is the Courthouse Plaza Miners’ Monument , a statue of a bare-chested copper miner holding a hammer and a drill. Erected in 1935 to honor those “virile men” whose labor extracted the wealth from the Mule Mountains, the statue is actually made of copper-coated concrete. To make matters more confusing, some locals refer to the statue as the “Iron Man.” Yesterday we took a short walk to St. Patrick’s cathedral and the adjacent Cochise County Courthouse and paused at the statue on our way home. If nothing else it serves as an inspiration for me to continue my daily morning walks up the canyon.

Alice in Bisbeeland

There are moments for a new resident of this town to feel as if one has taken residence in a permanent "Burning Man" community, and last Saturday night was a hint of such a feeling. Alice in Bisbeeland is a sort of street party/community happening where everyone dresses as characters from Lewis Carroll's classic books. I had

been downtown earlier in the day and seen more than a few Mad Hatters, but once it got dark Jayne and I ventured out for a real nocturnal stroll through Brewery Gulch to observe the festivities. It was a light crowd, to be sure, gathering to dance to a DJ set up across from St. Elmo's bar, but they lacked nothing in enthusiasm. We sat on the porch of the Bisbee Brewery and watched for about an hour. The lights, the music, and entire ambiance was fun and made me wish I had the energy to stay awake past 9:30 pm. Alas, as an old Dormouse, I am one sleepy character and we tottered home at a reasonable hour. Last evening we entertained "friends of friends" who are planning to move from Montana to Bisbee. Lisa and Owen are delightful people, and we hope they are successful in their bid to become future citizens of "Bisbeeland."

The Hopes of Holes

There is something quite visceral in the feeling one gets living in a town that has had its bowels excavated for more than a century. My friends from Butte will understand this declaration since they, too, live with a giant man-made pit that swallowed sections of their city, but here in Bisbee

the evidence of forlorn prospector hopes pockmark the south mountain side of this canyon with dozens of abandoned “glory holes.” We live across the street from the Catholic cathedral, St. Patrick's, which was constructed in 1917 with the helpful donation of mine owner Thomas Higgins. A stipulation of his gift demanded the new church face the Higgins “diggins” which, of course, did not pay out

as well as Thomas might have hoped. His excavated dream joined dozens of others on that mountainside to bear testimony today to the optimism and folly of mining speculation in Bisbee. It is an interesting physical legacy that, while scarring the natural landscape, has become a natural a part of the view as all the brush that has grown up to replace the clear cutting done to provide fuel for nineteenth century smelting operations. Time may not heal all wounds, but it does lend a softening aspect to these mining scars.

Cut 'em off at the pass!

Although Bisbee remains the seat of Cochise County and supports an impressive array of county government buildings, the city itself is still a semi-ghost town. Not all of the homes are occupied, and probably less than half of the business locations are active. What homes that have been recently renovated seem more likely to be vacation rentals than residences. However, there is an interesting community here that we are slowly getting to know. The other day I applied for a library card and offered to volunteer in the local history museum archives, both places that hold promise to meet interesting people.

I begin each day with a walk that I am slowly lengthening. The last two mornings have been almost cold, requiring a sweatshirt as I pant my way up this canyon for a mile before starting back down. The road I follow snakes its way up Tombstone Canyon towards Mule Pass, the main entryway to this town from the west. I have noted a lot of interesting homes in these upper canyon reaches, but it was not until yesterday that I had the opportunity to follow the Divide Road all the way to the pass and beyond.

My friend Steve suggested we take a drive in his truck to follow that road up to the radio towers at the highest peaks of the Mule Mountains, about seven thousand feet. Not only was the drive spectacular, what Steve showed me next was quite interesting.

Near the top of the mountain we parked and hiked down a rocky road to a series of steps leading to a hermit’s home built from the opening of an abandoned mine. The front doors of this place were behind a wire cage, perhaps constructed to keep out wild animals or wilder humans bent on destruction.

Inside one could see a carefully constructed wooden floor and a wooden overhang with skylights! There was even a television mount on the roof of the mine's living room. To think the fellow who constructed this hideaway had to haul all the material by hand down to the mine adit is incredible, as was the evidence of the amenities the guy left behind.

After our inspection we drove back down, but not before I took a pretty good picture of our town from the mountaintop. The tunnel underneath the divide pass is visible in the lower right; Old Town Bisbee is in the center, and beyond the edge of the Lavender Pit in the upper left of the photo can be seen the neighborhood of Warren.

"I'll take Manhattan . . . " Observations of a Miniature City

New York City is actually a conglomeration of five “boroughs” that collectively make up the urban landscape: Manhattan, Queens, Brooklyn, Staten Island, and the Bronx. Over the years the residents of each borough have identified their own as the most desirable and semi-seriously denigrated the amenities of the other four. One thing every New Yorker can agree on, though, is that Manhattan is the most expensive and lively of the five, with its skyscrapers, Broadway theater area, financial district and, of course, beautiful Central Park.

Bisbee, too, is a city made up of five boroughs: Old Bisbee, Lowell, Warren, San Jose, and Naco. Technically, Naco is a separate town, but it comes down at the end of the long, drawn out sprawl that starts at the top of the Mule Mountain Pass, flows past the giant Lavender Pit, and down to the border with Mexico. We live in Old Bisbee, the Manhattan of this miniature Gotham, where the major commercial development occurred in the early twentieth century and peaked around the 1920s.

This is the main tourist draw, with the colorful storefronts and a winding main street. Jewelry stores, art studios, antique shops, and other businesses are positioned between restaurants and bars, all of which spring to life on the weekends when the tourists plan their visits. We will in future posts elaborate on how this section of the town strikes us.

Lowell is Staten Island, a strange isolated single street of mostly abandoned businesses just on the other side of the Pit. It is mostly owned by one person, and its most famous destination is the Bisbee Breakfast Club.

Next comes Warren, the Brooklyn section of Bisbee where most working people live and the location of a vintage baseball park, a lumber/hardware store, the Dairy Queen, and the little Copper Queen Hospital which advertises it is certified “stroke ready.” (I hope I never have to test that boast.)

San Jose is the Queens section, a sprawling area of older homes interspersed with a couple of small strip malls, a fairly modern Safeway store, and the Ace Hardware franchise.

The Bronx, which has a reputation of being somewhat rough among New Yorkers, finds its parallel with Naco, a small community that straddles the border and looks like the gateway to a concentration camp thanks to the razor-wire decorations mandated by our insane president.

New Beginnings

This blog originally began as a record of our trips to Australia, but I quickly added other countries as we had the opportunity to visit them during my career at Montana State University. Now the direction of these entries will change again as I attempt to describe our retirement and decision to move from Bozeman to Bisbee, Arizona.

I have been unemployed since February 28, my last day as the University Archivist for MSU. I spent the waning hours of my last day at a local pub where I was joined by my co-workers Gary and Heather, friends, and well wishers. It was a delightful exit from my job.

My withdrawal from academic life coincided with some of the worst winter weather we have had the misfortune to endure during our near twenty-five year residence in Montana. From what we have heard, it was bad in Arizona, too, but I spent the first few days of my retirement scarcely leaving our little Bozeman cottage as the snow piled up more than three feet. Since we had put the cottage on the market, we were extremely worried about roof collapses and massive ice dams that would lead to water damage to the inside walls. This meant getting up on the roof with snow shovel in hand to risk life and limb to protect property.

If the weather made our decision to leave easier, the kind and loving gestures of our good friends during our last days in Bozeman made us question our resolution to relocate. We were the guests of so many farewell dinners and get-togethers that I shall not attempt to list everyone, lest anyone be accidentally omitted. Suffice to say the many farewells we were offered were heartfelt and appreciated, and a few photographs illustrate the many festivities.

We rented a truck with an automobile trailer on March 22 and began our drive south. Aside from a little rain in Salt Lake City the drive was uneventful, primarily because we had planned on driving through the Utah megalopolis on Sunday morning to avoid the worst of that area’s notorious traffic jams. We arrived in Bisbee on March 25 and immediately took residence, unloading the truck the following day with the help of local hired labor. Now we slowly unpack and plan for the future, which will include periodic updates on this blog. Stay tuned!