Christmas in Egypt

               Christmas in Egypt 

When our kids were 14 and 16 we wanted to give then an educational winter break, so we decided to spend the kid’s Christmas vacation in Egypt.

As we made our plans, we talked to an Egyptian Doctor who was working in El Dorado, and Dr. Robbie was extremely helpful. His family still lived in Cairo and his brother-in-law was an attorney admitted to practice before the Egyptian Supreme Court.

Of course, in order to really see the antiquities of ancient Egypt a trip up the Nile to Aswan and then down the river to Luxor was a must.  No tours for us. We had lived Libya so we knew the ropes.

On December 22 we left El Dorado in a small plane I had rented because of icy roads. We took off for Little Rock with sleet pounding the windshield, and a white-knuckle hour later, we landed in Little Rock to catch our flight to New York. Then after an overnight flight to Cairo, we stepped out into warm sunshine.

At customs we were in a long line when a well-dressed Egyptian approached us and asked, “Are you the Mason Family?” “Yes,” I said. He was Dr. Robbie’s brother-in-law, and he said, “Just follow me.” And we walked around the long custom’s line as he waved to the customs agent.

Our time in Cairo was high-lighted by a day spent in the Egyptian National Museums where we marveled over the bust of Queen Nefertiti. Dr. Robbie’s Brother-in-law took us to see the pyramids where he requested I wear a suit and tie. Yes, we looked as if we were going to a state funeral, but just a word from him to any of the workers and guides was enough to move us into any place we wanted to see. A trip to the old bazaar and a few days of very different food was giving our kids a terrific educational experience, but they seemed to relish the adventure.

The next day was Christmas Day, and it was on to Aswan to stay in the Cataract Hotel where Agatha Christi wrote Murder on the Nile, and after settling in, we headed to the Nile River where, after a little haggling, I rented a felucca, a small sail-motor boat the Egyptian use on the river to take small trips across the river to where the ancient tombs and temples are located. The river was clear and the boat ride was fun. As the boat docked in front of a very long set of steps leading up to several ancient tombs, Lara, our artist child, who had seen hundreds of picture of Egyptian art, jumped off the front of the boat and, as our mouths dropped open, ran up the hundreds of steps to the tomb. She was excited. We came back to the hotel and had Christmas dinner in the Agatha Christi Dining Room where the kids kept asking, “What are we eating?”

“Camel” I said. The kids thought I was kidding, but I wasn’t

A couple of days later we headed down the Nile to ancient capital of Egypt, Luxor and the temples of Karnack and across the river to the Valley of the Kings. We would need transportation to see all the sights, and Dr. Robbie had told up to bring some small U. S. dollars because dollars were eagerly sought. With that in mind I started checking cabs at the airport until I found a cab driver who spoke English.

“How much to take our family around Luxor and to the Valley of the Kings?----in American dollars?”

A few minutes and $20 dollars later, we had a cab and driver for a day. That turned out to be the best $20 I have spent in a long time.  His first suggestion was:

“We should stay on this side of the river in the morning and go to Karnack Temples because the tour buses go over to the Valley of the Kings in the morning and come back at noon.”

He was right, and that next day we had the ancient temple city of Karnack almost to ourselves. I can still visualize the long row of granite lions leading into the temple area. Then at noon, we headed for the Valley of the Kings, when we came to a small village.

“This is a tomb robber’s village,” our driver said. He said for centuries the villagers had made a living robbing the ancient Egyptian tombs.

Minutes later, a man ran up to the car and waved the head of an Egyptian statue. It was about five inches tall, and I thought it looked real, but our driver said, “It’s a fake. It has been buried to look old.”  I told the man I wasn’t interested, and after he tossed out a several hundred dollar figure, I was ready just trying to get rid of him, and I waved a twenty dollar bill.

“I’ll give you twenty dollar American,” I said

Well, he acted insulted and said $250 was his bottom price.

I told our driver to go, but the man with the fake head ran along beside the cap until we stopped at an intersection.

“Here,” he said. “For twenty dollars American.”

We drove off with me holding a “fake” head thinking I had just bought a trinket to take home. However, back home a friend, who is an archeologist, took a hard look and nodded, “It’s real.”

Then it was on to The Valley of the Kings, which was the highlight of the trip. We ventured into tomb after tomb. Going into the tomb of King Tutankhamun was breathtaking. Our flashlights turned out to me a valuable addition, since some tombs were lit by young boys with a mirror shining it into a dark tomb.

But the highlight or as Vertis put it the lowlight were the tombs that were not open to viewing. However, our cab driver, took a few dollar bills and …presto; closed tombs were opened for a private tour. Then one of the guards told the cab driver a newly opened tomb could be seen, but we would have crawl into the lower chamber where there were still mummies. We did, for a few more dollars, and when we raised up in the lower chamber it was a sight I haven’t forgotten.

Hundreds of years ago tomb robbers had looted the tomb, and since many ancient mummies were wrapped and put in the tomb with precious jewelry on their bodies, the tomb robbers had ripped off the gauze wrapping and after taking anything of value, had thrown the wrapping and bare skeletons into an adjoin chamber. It was a ghastly sight and that’s when Vertis left, but both kids started taking pictures.

Our kids, who are now middle-age, still talk about that tomb, and so does Vertis, but her comments aren’t exactly fit to print.

The two weeks we spent in Egypt gave our kids a hands-on educational experience that would be hard to duplicate. It was a history lesson, but so much more because of all the interactions with the Egyptian people. Truly a trip of a lifetime.

           

thenorphletpaperboy: Goodbye Houston.....

thenorphletpaperboy: Goodbye Houston.....: Goodbye Houston…New Orleans…Miami The inhabitants of our planet cannot continue along the same path we are now treading. If we do, t...

Goodbye Houston.....

Goodbye Houston…New Orleans…Miami

The inhabitants of our planet cannot continue along the same path we are now treading. If we do, there will be such a reduction in the quality of life for the peoples on Earth that life for huge numbers of the Earth’s population will be at risk, but as the 16 year-old young lady from Sweden, Greta Thunberg said, ”Adults don’t care.” Of course she was right and as one reporter wrote about her address to the United Nations, “She called them a bunch of jerks.” That exactly right and if you’re sitting on your hands doing nothing about global warming, you are at risk of being a jerk! And as Greta said to that bunch of bureaucrats, "People are dying and dying ecosystems are collapsing. We are in the beginning of a mass extinction, and all you can talk about is the money and fairy tales of eternal economic growth," she said, as she fought back tears. "How dare you!"  

It seem to me, prophesy is being fulfilled, as just in Sweden, over 100,000 schoolchildren have joined her crusade with thousands more school age kids around the world joining every day…..”And a child will lead them.”

It’s hard to separate science from politics, but in spite of what you hear and read, basic science should be a non-political item. Anyone who doubts settled science in place of political rhetoric should rethink their position in the light of the obvious, and climate change caused by global warming is as certain as gravity.

As multiple 500 year storms tear Houston apart, are we seeing one of the countries great cities becoming unlivable? I’ve lost count of how many 500-year-storms the city has suffered through in the past 5 years. How many more will it take before there is a mass exodus? Of course, New Orleans and Miami will also become inhabitable and the Bahamas will be history, and what is even more unthinkable is the worst is yet to come! That’s right, and after another 20 years, when only a few flat earth non-believers are remaining, it will be too late. The atmosphere will be so carbon-dioxide toxic that large areas of the world will suffer from extreme drought while other parts of the globe have constant torrential rain. The remnants of our coastal cities will be under constant flooding and evacuations to the interior of the country will send a torrent of refugees into the center of countries around the world. Venice will only be a memory.

The hottest September on record tells us that global warming is only getting worse; and tornadoes, where they haven’t had them in years, are sweeping the country. But we are not only asleep at the wheel, we are cascading off into the ditch as fast as we can. We pulled out of the Paris Climate Accord stating, “We don’t want to do anything that would harm our economy.”  And then to pile stupidity upon stupidity our government is suing California because its new pollution standards are tougher than the recently drastically reduced Federal Standards. Yes, instead of going forward in trying to combat the inevitable warming of the Earth’s Atmosphere, we are doing everything we can to increase the problem.

The California wildfires have destroyed thousands of houses, and of course a big part of the annual wildfire problem this year is because of record hurricane winds. Just consider 80 mile per hour winds on top of an exceptional dry season and add flames to that. The record hurricane force winds are a direct result of global warming, and the extreme drought in California, which is contributing to the disaster, is also caused by global warming. On the flip side, Colorado and Wyoming set October records for low temperatures, and the recent November cold snap set hundreds of low temperature records nationwide. Huh? Yes, that is exactly what scientists have predicted as side effects of our plant’s warming. We can look forward to a winter where one week we will set a record for the warmest January day on record, and before the month is out, a record low-temperature snowfall will pound us----and it will only get worse.

Yes, our severe weather will only get worse, and what’s even scarier is, the scientists who predicted this global disaster are stating that the situation is deteriorating much faster and with more severe weather than they expected. With that in mind, and considering the past five years of weather events, as soon as 20 years from now, we can expect an exodus of Biblical proportions to begin from coastal cities, and within another 15 years after that these coastal cities will become uninhabitable. Yes, that does sound like a doomsday scenario, but consider, if someone had predicted exactly the weather we have encountered recently, ten years ago, we would have dismissed them as an alarmist.

Of course, while isolated weather events such as flooding, hurricanes, and tornadoes are terrible for the local inhabitants, they really don’t affect the majority of the world’s citizens. However, the overall result of global warming, which is more sinister and is not as noticeable, is the real danger confronting us. The population of the Earth is currently around 7.7 billion people and it is increasing yearly. As it stands right now, just trying to provide food for that many people is taxing the arable land available for food production. If the scientists are right, and as the earth’s temperature increases, the amount of land available for food crop production will dramatically be reduced as droughts eliminate huge swaths of land, and in other areas torrential rains will make food production difficult. The world will face a tremendous shortage of food supplies, and as coastal residents abandon the cities and lands that will be submerged by rising sea levels and record storms, the world will face frantic people by the millions who won’t be able to find food. Chaos will ensue and the world’s civilizations will be reduced to a constant economic war of the haves and haves nots.

Is this the world we want to give our grandchildren? Actually, is this the world we want to give our children? The clock is ticking and every minute wasted in denying global warming will contribute to the impending disaster. 

Of course what we need are more Greta Thunbergs’ who just received a major environmental prize. She turned down the $52,000 prize money with this statement: “The climate movement does not need any more prizes. What we need is for our rulers and politicians to listen to the research,” 

She should have been invited to the White House, but instead our President, who walked right by her and snubbed her at the United Nations, invited a “hero” dog to the White House. It was slightly wounded in the Special Forces attack that killed Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi the ISIS leader. I’m all for hero dogs, but to snub a 16 year-old hero girl, who is trying to do what she can to keep our world a better place in which to live, shows us we have our priorities in the wrong place.

God help us!

A Letter to the U of A Trustees

A Letter to the University of Arkansas Board of Trustees

Dear Trustees:

This letter contains a proposal that I believe would greatly enhance the educational facilities of the University of Arkansas. The University has the largest collection of Arkansas geological, archeological, and historical specimens in the world, an overall collection estimated at 7,000,000 pieces. That’s a fact. But don’t make plans to visit the University Of Arkansas Museum Of Natural History Exhibit Hall, because the majority of these specimens are locked away in a storage facility that is not regularly open or suitable for viewing. Just consider that for a minute, and I think you will agree the time has come to build an on-campus exhibit hall, which would adequately house the collections.      

In the late 1950s and early 60s I was a student and graduate student at the University.  I held several part time jobs while working on my bachelors and master’s degree in geology. When I was a senior and a graduate student, I was the Student Manager of Brough Commons, the dining hall, a University Bookstore student employee, and a student worker at the University Museum…all at the same time.  During the time I was in school the Museum was located on the top floor of Old Main, and my job was to monitor the students who wandered in, dust the exhibits, and help move and store the exhibits has they were changed out. Of all the jobs I held, as I worked to pay my way through college, the very best was working at the University Museum. One summer, I worked on a museum dig where Beaver Lake is now located, and my museum work and field work in those years gave me an appreciation of the collection that has never left my mind.

Believe me, the University collection is huge. The first time I walked back into the large storage area on the fourth floor of Old Main, I was overwhelmed by the vast number of absolutely breathtaking items that were neatly stacked on storage shelves. The back store rooms were adjacent to the displayed items and there was shelf after shelf of Pre-Colombian pottery as well as the collection of other pioneer items including those from the Civil War to more recent items all neatly catalogued and stacked on storage shelves. Of course, I understood why they weren’t displayed. The display area on the top floor of Old Main was large, but with the items in the storage area and display area it wasn’t even close to being big enough to adequately display the collection.

When I was attending the University, the fourth floor of Old Main held a small percentage of the collection, and it was of course available to be viewed. Later, part of the collection that could be viewed was moved to the old Barnhill Fieldhouse and after a few years, the University moved the entire collection to a storage building north of the University. The collection is crammed into the storage building, some of it on racks and shelves without any visible identification. Schools and other interested folks can view the part of the collection that is not packed away, by appointment only, but most of the collection is without any identification or explanation. Most of the vast collection is not visible.

This should never have happened without a plant to build an exhibit hall on campus. I know there has been a lot of discussion about building a permeant display center for the collection, but it is past time for discussing the need. It is time for action.

 We pride ourselves on having great sport facilities, and I sure don’t want to disparage quality facilities. However, the University is an educational facility. It’s not a prep camp for the NBA or any other professional team. I’m all for million dollar coaches’ salaries, adding seats in the end zone, and if the money is there, I’m all for a domed stadium. . But let’s match those facilities in the field of education.

I think, quite frankly, that if we can spend $158,000,000 on extra end zone seats, (and I am not against that expenditure) we should be able to fund an on campus exhibit hall. I’m not a building contractor, but I think a fraction of what we spent on new end zone seats would build an impressive exhibit hall. 

An exhibit hall would be an outstanding educational aid, not only to U of A students, but to countless young elementary and high school Arkansas boys and girls who would visit the exhibit hall. That experience would strengthen the already strong attachment pre-college students have for the University, and it would be a strong recruitment item for the University. The extensive collection of Arkansas historical specimens could be the backbone of the educational experience the University offers, and the commitment to build a permanent building for the collection would strengthen the emphasis that the University should always have, as its primary concern, enhancing the educational experience of its students and the state of Arkansas.  

Of course, a first step would be for the Board of Trustees to authorize the University’s outstanding Architectural Department to do a feasibility study with a cost estimate and architectural sketch of the exhibit hall. Make it a contest with a $10,000 for the best design, and I will donate or raise the prize money. I’m sure, when the proposed project is made public, it will receive strong statewide support. In addition there are a lot of potential donors of historic and geologic items that would consider donating to the University’s collection if it were housed in the permanent exhibit hall. It’s obvious that someone with a collection of historic maps or pre-Columbian artifacts would be very hesitant to donate them to the University knowing they would be put in storage.

            I did a quick check of major colleges around the country, and in my research, I could not find a single one that didn’t have some permeant exhibit building to house the historic collections in their state. Of course, there are literally hundreds of museums in numerous colleges across the country, and as an example check out the University Of Alabama Museum Of Natural History? Of course, they have a gorgeous main facility along with several other display areas on campus. Google it up and take a look, and then wonder why we don’t have something that will match it.

            And as I close this letter, let me refer to a good friend and former trustee, Senator David Pryor. Back when David was serving his last year as a board member we worked closely together to work up a plan to present an exhibit hall proposal to the board of Trustees. Because of a variety of reasons we were not able to present a proposal to the Board of Trustees while David was still on the board.  However, I encourage you to reach out to David and take his counsel in this matter.

            The on-campus exhibit hall is a sorely needed addition to our wonderful University, and I hope you share mine and David’s enthusiasm for building it. 

thenorphletpaperboy: The End of Things

thenorphletpaperboy: The End of Things:                The End of Things             Well, not all things, but I think you'll be surprised how many items are disappea...

The End of Things

               The End of Things

            Well, not all things, but I think you'll be surprised how many items are disappearing. For instance, ties.  Yes, as I look out from the choir at First Baptist Church on Sunday morning, I can count the ties on one hand and have three fingers left over. (Last Sunday there were two ties in the church.) Heck, a decade or so back, ties were as thick as mosquitoes at Moro Bay.  Why are they gone? Of course, it's the reason all things end. Ties are absolutely worthless! Yep, they are a relic from the past, when we needed neckwear to keep our neck warm, and today they serve no purpose. How many ties do you see on the men who are the wave of the future? Executives of virtually all high tech companies stopped wearing ties a couple of decades ago. When you see the President of Walmart and the former President of the United States at either a business meeting or sitting for official portraits without a tie, you know the end is near for those neck chokers. I have already designated my home and office a tie-free zone. 

            Okay? Well let's move on, and you probably won't care if this bunch is gone: video stores, eight track or cassette tapes, and hard wired telephone lines. Yes, that's high tech booting out our old habits with new tech stuff, and that is just the tip of the useless items made obsolete by technology advances. Gone are hard wired speakers, amplifiers, and replacing them has drastically changed the way we listen to music, and yes, you can confidently toss those chunky speakers, wires and all, and replace them with a specker no bigger than a soup can and have better quality sound.

            Do you like the feel in your hands of your daily newspaper as you sit in your couch sipping your coffee, while you thumb through the paper?  Well, get ready to see, if you already haven’t, that paper disappear replaced by a tree-saving IPad that gives you a much improved quality paper, and a knock on the door means Starbucks’s drone has replaced your old coffee maker, and your life experience has improved by getting a superior paper and better coffee.

            But what about the way we dress, that is, if we want to get picky? Yes, along with men's ties the ladies have ditched nylon hose, girdles, and over the top hair styles. Have we noticed the difference? Not really, because the end of most things are gradual. Take socks for instance.  The ladies have mostly dropped them, and the guys are beginning to shed them. Socks had a purpose when we started wearing them several centuries ago. The shoes then were so roughly made that you needed socks just to protect your feet. Not anymore. You can buy shoes now that fit great and are as soft as a glove. Of course, during the summer socks just give us hot feet. Adios socks! Well, what about men wearing undershirts in 95 degree heat? Do you need that extra layer of clothing to keep from getting chilled? Guys, stop dressing like the 50s and put an end to undershirts.

             It seems to me, that with clothing, less is where it's headed. Take men's hats. In the 40s almost every man wore a hat, but, if you live in El Dorado, you know John Trimble who recently died, was one of the last hat wearing men in south Arkansas or maybe the mid-south. Of course, as the South becomes more tropical each year, all heavy clothing will be shucked and skimpy clothes will be the fashion items, and not just on the beach. Get ready for clothing that is very close to swimsuits in church, restaurants, grocery stores, and other indoor-outdoor venues. Ear muffs, wool scarves, and top coats are going out the door in a hurry.

That brings us to a more serious note. We are seeing the end of Miami, New Orleans, Houston, and numerous other low-lying coastal cities as Global Warming melts the ice caps. Of course, as the earth continues to heat, we’ve seen the end to seasonal climate changes as our southern coastal areas become sub-tropical and 500 year rains, super hurricanes, and blistering heat waves replace our old seasonal climate changes.

            But other changes are on the way, and according to Senator Elizabeth Warren, Donald Trump will spell the end to our country ever electing a man as president again.  And the end to privacy? Yes, with our every move recorded or videoed we'll see every wrinkle in everybody's life. We may not be anxious to have our lives on Y-tube but the absence of privacy heading toward us like a speeding train.

             Of course, when we see Republican women stop wearing fur coats, you know we have already seen the end of for furs. Most ladies stopped wearing them a decade ago. And sadly, we're seeing the end of the Circus. Ringling, Barnum, and Bailey have had their last show. The Internet, video, and other entertainment venues are free, and you don't have to leave you living room.

 Big grocery stores that try to carry tons of rather low quality stuff are being whipped up on by specialty grocers. Yep, the fresh market, organic groceries are pushing the big everything grocers out. Uber and Left seem to be spelling the end of taxies, and LED light bulbs signal the end of regular bulbs. Let's just hope the Chinese make them a little cheaper.  Of course everyone knows tobacco is on its way out. An Asian country has already banned tobacco by 2020 and cigarettes cost $13 a pack in New York City---wow! An extra $5 to $10 thousand a year, just to get lung Cancer. And when the percentage of smokers in California approaches a low of 10%, the end of smoking is in sight---good riddance.

            And since our congress declared open season on wolves, they will be extinct in less than a decade, and according to a recent scientific study, over a million species will soon become extinct because of human activity. Here in Arkansas we have seen an end to quail as ground scavengers (don’t believe that hogwash about habitat) gobble up the quail eggs.

As the world’s population continues to increase, and as Global Warming reduces arable land, we will be approaching an end to a world that humans cannot feed its population.

            Or maybe, coming soon! The ultimate, the end of earth. Yep, Stephan Hawking, who was possibly the smartest person in the world, said, “In 100 years we will have overpopulated and fouled the earth so badly it will be the end of Earth, and we'll need to find a new[1] [R2]  planet to inhabit.”

            I guess that's the end of all ends, but maybe we've still got time to put your honey in nothing but a fur coat, light up a cig, and play an old Simon and Garfunkel tape as you boogie one more time.

            Well, according to Ecclesiastes there is a time for everything, and I think it's time to end this column.

---

 [1]

 [R2]

thenorphletpaperboy: Music and Life

thenorphletpaperboy: Music and Life:                                                           Music and Life     I grew up listening to rock and roll, and later added co...

Music and Life

                                                          Music and Life   

I grew up listening to rock and roll, and later added country music, folk, and even classical. I know that seems rather farfetched, but I really do love music of almost every type.

 Heck, I still remember a  night at the University’s Spring Fling where Vertis, my date and soon to be wife, and I danced to the music of Chuck Berry as he played Maybellene, and then when he roared back with Jonny B. Goode, I thought I’d died and gone to heaven. I couldn’t imagine listening to anything but good old rock and roll.

However, things changed as Vertis and I got married and moved to South Texas where I worked for Exxon. We traded the hills and woods of NW Arkansas for the mesquite plains of South Texas, but little did we know we were also about to have our music likes changed. We lived in Kingsville, Texas and I worked on the King Ranch as a geologist, but it wasn’t just the land and location that was different, it was the music.

Kingsville is the home of Texas A. and I. University, and since the Javelins (wild hogs) are their mascot, it didn’t seem so foreign. Heck, they even called the hogs!  We had just arrived when we found out that the famed, classical guitarists, Carlos Montoya was going to be in concert at the College. Well, my mother had drilled into me classical music by making me go to the Community Concert Series in El Dorado, so we got tickets to hear Carlos Montoya. I still remember being mesmerized by his playing.

Then, a few weeks later, one of the guys I worked with mentioned Earnest Tubb and
the Texas Troubadours were going to be playing at Hubert’s Danceland in Ricardo, a little town about twenty miles south of Kingsville. Well, with very little else to do and not much money, we decided to go hear Earnest Tubb. Well, I’d heard of him, but all I knew was he played something called Texas Swing. Shoot, I figured for a five dollar cover charge, we could hear a concert. It was just a night out.

Well, thank goodness we both had on jeans, or we would have really looked out of place in that huge dancehall filled with what looked like the cast of the movie Giant. The big hall looked a little strange, because all the tables were around the sides, and there wasn’t any seating in the main area. Well, we settled in and about eight o’clock the Texas Troubadours took the stage and as old Earnest stepped up to the mike, everybody stood up. I was thinking we were just going to give the Troubadours a warm welcome, but that wasn’t it at all.  As I looked around I could see guys and gals pairing up, and at the very first beat of one of his hits, I’m Walking the Floor Over You, the entire crowd, except for Vertis and me started doing the Texas Two-Step. But what I thought was even more remarkable the crowd looked as if they were the New York Rocketts as they danced and moved counter-clockwise around the dance floor. It was just a continuous flow of dancers who passed our table as they circled the floor, and when he finished the set with Daddy, when is Mommy Coming Home? country music had us hooked.

That introduction to country music sent us to other dancehalls around South Texas, and as we drove on those flat plains heading for places like Big Bend or Matamoros at 100 MPH it seemed the stations all played variety of country music. However, as we went to Libya and then returned two years later to Corpus Christi, we were introduced to another brand of country music.

A few years after we returned from Libya, I sat up in bed and said to Vertis. “I’m going to run for state representative against Leroy Weiting.” Well, that ended up giving us a dose of Latino, Tejano, and Banda Dancehall music, because the South Texas district I was trying to represent was heavily Latino and as the race got going, I was endorsed by almost all of the Latino organizations. On a Friday or Saturday night the dancehalls were where large numbers of potential voters congregated, and they played a totally different kind of music. I can still hear some of it, and I think some of my hearing loss comes from that emersion in those music halls with the Banda Bands blaring out heavy on the percussion.

Well, the race was a lot tighter than most folks thought would be, since I was running against a 20 year veteran, and the next morning the final boxes came in and out of more than 35,000 votes, I had lost by 122.

My next move into music came as I got tired of Vertis going to choir practice every Wednesday night leaving me home with the kids. I decided to join the church choir. Vertis tried to discourage me, but the choir leader said to give me a tone deaf test to see if I was choir material. I passed the test, but it took a few years in the choir for me to stop embarrassing Vertis. Today, if I am standing with a good bass by my side, I can at least contribute. Of course, I don’t read music per se, but when I see the notes at least I know whether to sing higher or lower.

But over the years, I have realized how much music means to the life of everyone, and whether you listen to country music or classical or folk, it becomes a part of your life, and life is richer with music. Vertis and I have found that after a busy day, sitting on our couch in the living room with something to sip on, and listening to music is an excellent way to unwind. Over the years, after stringing speaker wires all over the house, hooking them up to speakers larger than a small child, and then coughing up the dough to buy CDs, I’ve found there is a better way to bring quality music to any room or yard in the house or even out by the pond where we sit in good weather. Its technology at its best with a speaker small enough to fit in my pocket as I walk to the living room or outside with my IPad. There are several music internet music channels you can join, and believe me it is such a jump from turntables, CDs and speakers that it is hard to believe. One minute we can listen to Joan Baez sing “Hard Times” and when it’s Vertis’s pick just a touch will bring Jazz at Lincoln Center to our back yard.

I was El Dorado’s MusicFest Chairman for 5 years, sat through a three hour production of the full Messiah sung in German in Zurich, Switzerland and in-between took in Charlie Daniels and Joan Jett, and I enjoyed every performance.  I believe music adds so much to our quality of life, that I can’t imagine life without music.

Trees and City Heat

                      Trees and City Heat

Trees may be the answer to one of our city center’s health problems. One significant cause of death in our cities is directly related to heat exhaustion, and that occurs when the body overheats to the point where either a heat stroke or heart failure overcomes a person, and their body’s functions are impaired. A few extra degrees of heat can be the difference between life and death. That’s where trees help. Since the population in most cities is concentrated in the core of the city, elevated temperatures in that area effect more individuals, and that is where trees save lives. Actual infrared measurements have recorded that almost all city centers have heat islands, with temperatures from 6 to 15 degrees hotter than the suburbs, and studies have proven the absence of trees is the difference. These heat islands exist in almost every city of any size, and persons living there, which are exposed to those elevated temperature, have a much greater risk of dying of a heat related problem than others in shady suburbs.

The Texas Tree Foundation, the group who has researched this problem, has focused on tree canopies, because heat island have a direct relationship to a city’s tree canopy. There are no other reasons, and not only are city centers hotter, they have less moisture and consequently more dust, which brings about allergic reactions and more health problems. Trees solve these problems by secreting moisture.

            The Foundation has collected a mountain of data to illustrate the benefits of having a tree canopy, and their research shows how that canopy can combat the heat island effect that is present in almost all of our downtowns.  The heat island effect is caused by the absence of any or very little tree canopy, and when temperatures are measured in the suburbs vs the downtown it becomes very obvious. Towns with a fair to good tree canopies record much lower temperatures than town without trees. Some of the best towns have a heat island effect of only 6 degrees hotter than a tree lined suburb, and the worst have an astounding plus 15 degrees in towns without any substantial tree canopy.

 When we have our 100 degree days, usually recorded at the airport away from an asphalt-concrete downtown, the actual downtown temperature could be as high as 115 degrees, and that is not the heat index, which, of course, will be much higher. If you plug in the heat index, cities with a heat island could easily have downtown temperatures of over 120 degrees.

In 2011 Dallas had temperatures that topped 100 degrees for 40 consecutive days and 112 people died. Nearly half of those deaths were directly attributed to the heat wave according to the Foundation’s research. In the United States an estimated 30,000 people die from heat-related deaths annually, and that is twice as many as are killed by gun violence.

The problem is simple. Almost all city’s centers have impermeable surfaces such concrete and asphalt, which soak up the sun’s heat and causes to the heat island effect. This increase in temperature is deadly to people with any respiratory problem or children with childhood asthma. Trees can filter deadly air pollution and protect people from chronic respiratory illness.

The problem is not just in the Southwest where 100 degree days are common, it is now becoming a worldwide problem because of global warming. Paris has just experienced a brutal heat wave, and is responding with a reforestation effort to ensure 50% of the city’s land is planted by 2030. Here in the United States a recent study indicates replanting trees lost to urban development could reduce between one sixth and two-thirds of our carbon pollution. There is an estimated 255 million suitable acres available for tree-planting just in the U. S., an area the size of Texas.

I think we see the problem and the solution, so how are we doing here in Arkansas, “The Natural State”? Actually, we’re doing a lousy job, but there are bright spots. The city of Fayetteville is committed to a 40% tree canopy, and is working to maintain that even while having to replace older trees. Little Rock has a City Street Tree Origination that is committed to planting trees, and they are doing a great job, but they could use more help from the city and more volunteers.

I know trees are old hat here in Arkansas, and slash and burn is still in a lot of minds. I had a friend look at a lot, which the day before had beautiful trees. The lot had just been bulldozed for a used car lot. She said, “Well, that’s sure an improvement.” And she meant it. We have got to overcome the thought that a blank parking lot is a proper way to have parking and trees just get in the way.

Just last week, here in El Dorado, on north Washington Avenue, two healthy, 100 year old oaks, which were City Street Trees, were cut down. We have a long way to go when healthy 100 year old oaks are cut down without good reason. However, we’re making some progress, although it’s pretty hit and miss. I have personally gotten over a 1000 trees planted in our downtown, but on the ugliest streets in town I have been stonewall, even after I offered to buy the trees. Every town of any size has its ugly treeless streets and here in El Dorado we have two; north West Avenue and Hillsboro Street.  I’m not picking on El Dorado. My home town is just an example of almost every town in the state.

But planting trees in city centers is just a small part of the problem. We need to plant trees in every available spot, and we can’t possible plant too many trees. Plant then around bus stops, in parking lots, on city sidewalks, and in every green space in your town. However, all trees aren’t created equal. Try to pick a recommended street tree with wide leafy foliage. Here in Arkansas we can easily plant native trees in the late fall and winter, if we will just use a little initiative to find them, or spend a few bucks with a local nursery.

 Yes, trees will grow in highway medians, and we have hundreds of miles of mowed grass without tree one. Trees don’t have to be on city streets to improve air quality and cut down on pollution. They can be anywhere, and there is not a single reason why we don’t have trees in our highway medians.

We were once the Bear State, but we killed off nearly all the bears so we changed to the Natural State. Will we repeat history by losing so much tree cover that one day we’ll be too embarrassed to call ourselves “The Natural State?”

thenorphletpaperboy: Don't Califoricate Arkansas

thenorphletpaperboy: Don't Califoricate Arkansas: Don’t Califoricate Arkansas             Yes, Califoricate is a word, and it expresses all the bad things about the great state o...

Don't Califoricate Arkansas

Don’t Califoricate Arkansas

            Yes, Califoricate is a word, and it expresses all the bad things about the great state of California, primarily Southern California; the crowded, overbuilt part of the state that has been overcome by pollution, trash, glitter, and multilane freeways.

However, I’m a big fan of the state, and I have been in and out of California numerous times. I’ve played tennis at the John Wayne Tennis Center in San Diego, where every piece of clothing must be white, taken a balloon ride over the Napa Valley, and listened to the Kingston Trio play to a crowd of thousands in a San Francisco park. Vertis and I have had some wonderful times in California.

Well, I know you’re thinking “Califoricate”? Yes, California has some great places to visit and be entertained, but the state has negatives, and while we try to emulate their successes, I think we must avoid the state’s failures.

But first, in order to avoid the California excesses, we must realize our state’s natural resources, and that is expressed in our advertising. We’re The Natural State. That rings of green, forested lands, uncrowned roadways, and hidden gems such as Champanolle Creek in South Arkansas and Hidden Valley in the Ozark's. I know we pride ourselves on these and hundreds of other special treasures that are tucked away in our great state, and just the thought that we would degrade or actually lose these wonderful parts of the state would cause any Arkansawyer to protest.

            While we don’t openly admit to mimic California’s lifestyle, that is what we are doing. Of course, the huge flood of technology that comes out of California is impossible to ignore, and yes, I’m hooked on a lot of it. However, it disturbs me that with the good positive items, we find our business and political leaders actively working to adopt the negative parts of the California lifestyle. That’s right, and it seems from continuously widening our highways to accommodate more and more cars and trucks, we are like a fat man letting out another notch in his belt instead of going on a diet. The seemingly endless beating of the jobs, jobs, jobs, drum, especially when unemployment is a tiny 3.2% defies logic. Where are we going to get those workers when a factory opens needing 500 new employees? Everyone who wants a job already has one and our towns are plastered with “hiring” and “help wanted” signs. To make things even worse, it seems there are no bad jobs, and we end up getting the low end of available jobs because our pollution control standards are so weak. Do a make myself clear? We don’t need any more polluting Chinese plants!

            Yes, there are bad jobs and those are the jobs that lower air and water quality. These jobs make The Natural State slogan a joke. But it’s not just the jobs, jobs, jobs, at any cost, which endangers our lifestyle, it’s the very idea that our quality of life is determined by having a huge population growth, and that is how Califoricate is being promoted in our state. We have long passed the need to have a sustainable population, and the very idea of population growth equals quality is a 1950s attitude. It seems to me that our Chamber of Commerce Directors could use a re-education course at the University. Something like the prisoners of war in the Korean War had after being brainwashed. 

            But are we really in danger of Califorication? Of course, we don’t have an 18 lane freeway such as Houston, which has long since been Califoricated beyond hope. However, we seem to be rushing into the abyss. In the Bentonville---Fayetteville corridor, they are letting out another notch in their belt as fast as they financially can. When will four lanes need to be expanded to six or eight lanes, and when will the boys up in the northwest say “uncle”? Will they have lost the battle when common sense finally makes them stop? Folks, the last thing NW Arkansas needs are more jobs. They can’t fill the job openings they have, and they sure don’t need an increase in population. Northwest Arkansas isn’t Califoricated…yet, but it is well on its way. Of course, Little Rock is following right along in widening the trail west from downtown, and we all know, as west Little Rock continues with the jobs and population growth, extra lanes will be added until Califorication takes place.

            It seems evitable that as the local Chambers of Commerce continue to beat the jobs, jobs, refrain and as people flood in to take those jobs, we slowly become part of a vicious circle, and it seems nothing we can do will slow down the rush to grow at any cost. As we look into the future, and see a stagnant, pollution filled state, we will wonder why we didn’t do something when we had an opportunity.

            We are faced with throwing up our hands and giving up, or actively doing something about the problems we’re facing. I still think we can make a difference, and I know thousands of Arkansawyers want a better life. Below I have outlined a few items that will make a difference in our quality of life.

            (1) A good education for our citizens is a key to solving many of our problems, and we should do everything possible to assure a quality education is available to all. Of course that starts with giving our teachers a living wage. We should give every teacher an immediate 30% increase in salary, and mandate every school’s student attendance absentee rate be no higher than 5%.

(2) Rein in the Highway Department’s lane expansion and focus on basic highway access, improvement, and visual expression by planting trees in the mediums. Increase the emphasis on electric scooters and electric bicycles for inner cities travel, and put them on the streets. Sidewalks are for walking! Fund public transportation in our major towns and cities.

(3) Re-educate our Chambers of Commerce to focus on quality of life items in our communities instead jobs. Make funding trails and planting trees one of their primary Chamber objectives, instead of wasting money recruiting jobs.

(4) Establish State funding to enhance visual improvements in our towns and cities, and go hand in hand with a measure of protection for the wonderful natural treasures in our state.

(5) Do away with the financial incentives set up to attract industry. We won’t need them, if we really become the Natural State. Take the unneeded financial incentives and fund solar panels for our school and public transportation for our cities.

(6) Give the Game and Fish Commission a sizeable increase in funding to allow them to continue their great job by restocking our out-of-balance ecosystem..

(7) Adopt a statewide goal that every town with a population of over 2500 have a 40% tree canopy in place within the next ten years…and set up funding by the legislature to help.

Today we have a choice. We can continue along the same path, which will Califoricate Arkansas, or we can work to really make Arkansas The Natural State. Which path are you going to take?

           

Trash are us!

TRASH ARE US

Of course, here in the Natural State, trash is just something we live with, and it’s part of who we are, or our roadsides wouldn’t look like a city dump. Yes, this column is going to rub some folks the wrong way, but the facts are that we turn a blind eye to all the trash around us, when instead we should be appalled by the mountains of trash that line our roads and city streets. Yes, we are living in trash, and seemly, we don’t give a rat’s ass. (Forgive my colorful language, but I think you get the point.) But what is even more destressing is that we have the potential to be a lush, vibrant state with gorgeous trees, shrubs, plants and beautiful roadsides.

I know I’ve told this story before, but a number of years ago we were in Switzerland and we ended up in a small town where they were having a Military Parade. It was historic back to crossbows and lances and went forward right up to Swiss Special Forces. We loved it, but something happened that stuck in my mind. Midway through the parade I saw a young girl who looked about 10 years old walk over to a vendor and buy an ice cream bar. The ice cream was wrapped and when she unwrapped it she looked for a trash can to put the wrapper. There wasn’t one in sight, so she neatly folded the wrapper and put it in her pocket. When the parade was over and we were leaving I noticed there wasn’t a scrap of trash where thousands of people had stood and watched the parade. Contrast that to the way any of our festival grounds look after the festival is over. I was Festival Chairman of El Dorado’s MusicFest for five years, and after each festival trash was everywhere.

            But festival trash is nothing compared to the roadside trash I see when I do my walk-jog on the 167 bypass in El Dorado. There are some stretches, usually when there’s an exit that in less than a hundred yards, where there is every imaginable piece of trash. Let me just say this; there is very little trash that some people won’t throw out of their car or pickup truck. I am shocked at what I see every day when I walk, and I have a theory---Driving from a convenience store on North West Avenue in El Dorado to the stop sign on Calion Road---by my house, is the time it takes some folks to drink a Bud Light. I’ve been thinking about putting up a trash can with a beer can target.

Well, we and I include myself, have gotten so used to living with trash, we seemly don’t see it. There must be a word for it, since someone who can’t see color is called colorblind. Maybe it is “trash insensitive” or “garbage-blind” or maybe just “crap-blind” or maybe we’re saying, “Yeah, we’ve got a lot of trash. So what.”

Come on folks, drunks can’t sober up until they say, “I’m a drunk,” and we can’t have a quality state until we call trash “trash” and then start doing something about it. So do something! At least let your voice be heard, and heard and heard again, until folks stop lining our roads with beer cans, plastic bottles, and plastic straws, and then maybe we can actually do something about the appalling condition of our towns. Bare ugly streets with stores that haven’t seen a paint-brush in 40 years lining potholed streets with utility poles taking the place of trees, and parking lots that must be in an ugly contest along with abandoned signs and overgrown weedy lots. I’m not talking about someone else’s town, I’m talking about your town, and my town, and here in El Dorado, we have a couple of real eyesore streets. By far one of the ugliest streets in the state or probably the mid-south is Hillsboro Street, Highway 82 Business, and yes, I know the Highway Department has great plans to widen the street, but give me a break. Those plans have been on the books longer than a coon‘s age, and for you city folks, that’s about 10 years. Well, what will we have when it’s finished? You guessed it. A wide, ugly street.

            It seems we have a blind eye to trash, and blank treeless parking lots and rundown buildings. Of course, the rat’s nest of utility lines that need to go underground and hundreds of God awful signs really put an exclamation point to say, “Trashy streets are us”. Of course, El Dorado is certainly not the only town in the Natural State with crappy street scenes. Sure landscaping does cost a few bucks, but National Surveys have proven the money spent on trees or landscaping is paid back by increased business in the retail stores that line those streets. Now I know we’re not going to see a lot of painting and sprucing up along our ugly streets, but how about just planting some crepe myrtle trees? And for God’s sake, don’t chop them off every year. Crepe myrtle aren’t poodle bushes, they are trees that will get to be 30 feet tall, so, quit “crepe murder.”

            But let’s get real. The reason we have such God-awful, bone-ugly streets in every town in the state is because we put up with those eyesores, and it’s not just city streets, it’s every median along our four lane highways. Those mowed highway median right-of-ways are just one step away from being a bare parking lot.  You probably think our mowed right-of-ways are how right-of ways should look, but you would be wrong. When Louisiana, Texas, and even Mississippi start making our highways right-of-ways look bad, then you know we’re making Arkansas Highways the poster child for ugliness. We have hundreds of miles of highway medians where planting trees should be a priority instead of mow, mow, and of course you don’t ever have to worry about driving off the road and hitting a tree because the Highway Department clears way more right-of-way than needed.    

            Every state around us is into highway beatification more than we are, and we don’t measure up. My Lord, when Mississippi can say, “Well, we’re at least better than Arkansas,” you know we’re in the running to be last. Yes, I know we have a Highway Environmental Engineer, but he or she is like the President lying about Global Warming, as he or she lies, “We have beautiful highway right-of-ways.”

You know, maybe those men on the Highway Commission could use a woman to help with highway beautification, but I guess the Governor is saying “There are no qualified women to put on the Commission.” Or maybe he’s saying “This is a male only Commission.” or “Women don’t want to be on the Highway Commission.” Which is it Governor?

            But let me just say this: a big atta-a-boy to the governor for putting a woman on the Game and Fish Commission. That only took a 100 years, so I guess one day one of the governor’s grandchildren will finally put a woman on the Highway Commission.

thenorphletpaperboy: Richard, the Collector

thenorphletpaperboy: Richard, the Collector: Richard the Collector           I guess, what we own or maybe what we collect tells something about us. Or maybe I just have a str...

Richard, the Collector

Richard the Collector

          I guess, what we own or maybe what we collect tells something about us. Or maybe I just have a streak in me that likes to pick up things, and if you even glance at my downtown office, you would nod in the affirmative.  But since I’m a working geologist, and my studies have focused on the earth’s geologic history, and the earths minerals, that’s to be expected. Yes, and I have shelves of mineral and rock specimens, but that just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to my collecting.

            My serious collecting began when I was in my early teens. From conversations with farmers along the Ouachita River watershed, I found out that South Arkansas was laced with old Indian camps. That’s when my first splurge of collecting sent me walking up and down rows in cotton fields near the river looking for arrowheads. My display cases now has hundreds of arrowhead, mostly from South Arkansas, and although I stopped the arrowhead hunting when I left South Arkansas to attend the University, I did continue, for a few years, while in school, searching along the White River and added to my collection.

            Back when I was 14, I took five of the south Arkansas arrowheads, packed them up, and naively mailed them, with a note where I found them, to the Smithsonian Institute in Washington D. C. The note said: “Please tell me which Indians made these arrowheads.”

            Well, believe it or not, in a few weeks I receive my arrowheads back with I very nice letter telling me that four of those arrowhead were made by relatively recent Caddo Indians, but one of the arrowheads I sent them was much, much older. Later, I realized earlier Indians who lived in South Arkansas could be distinguished by the shape of their arrowheads and the fact that these ancient Indians were pre-pottery. You never find broken pottery pieces in camps of these early Indians. These Indians didn’t have the skill to produce pottery.

             I have a question for any actual anthropologist who may read this column. There is a World Heritage site in North Louisiana called Poverty Point, which has huge mounds made by prehistoric Indians.  In the museum’s exhibit onsite, I noted the absence of any pottery. There is a non-pottery Indian mound in Union County, another one across the Ouachita River in Calhoun County, and a non-mound but non-pottery site in Bradley County at the mouth of Bangs Slough. Are all these non-pottery sites related to the miss-named Toltec mounds farther north in east Arkansas?

            By the way, a visit to the World Heritage site Poverty Point is worth the trip. The mounds there are enormous, and it is mind boggling to think they were built by Indians carrying dirt in baskets.

            I guess, my arrowhead collection numbers several hundred from both early and later Indians. By the time I went off to college, I could rattle off the sites of at least a half dozen old Indians villages. But I was just getting started in my collecting.

            As a geologist part of my work is to make maps of the subsurface geologic formations for use in the search for oil and gas, and I think that gave me an interest in surface maps. Over the years, that interest has become almost an obsession to collect antique maps. At first, I just collected old Arkansas maps, but I quickly found out that Arkansas didn’t exist on maps before 1800. So, if I wanted to collect earlier maps they would be pre-Arkansas Territorial maps, which opened up a whole new area of map collecting, and you would not believe the multiple sources where I found maps, which covered the Louisiana Purchase area of our country. A vacation in the south of France turned up a pre-1800 Louisiana Purchase map in a local flea market, but by far the best of my maps came from the Map Room in London, from a source in New York City near Bloomingdales, and from Santa Fe, New Mexico. I have 67 framed antique maps dating back to the early 1700s hanging in my office.

            If you are a serious collector, you collect as you travel, and since I worked overseas for several years, I hauled back fossils, pottery, and minerals from several countries including a large batch of beautiful gypsum replaced sea shells from the Libyan Desert. As I supervised drilling and coring of numerous oil and gas wells, that added large pieces of rock cores from these wells that add an “I’m an oilman” look to my office. Those along with several trilobite fossils from Morocco says, “I’m a geologist.            “

            Of course, if you have blank walls in your house and buildings and you are a collector, you relish the idea of filling them with art, and Vertis helped along the way by bidding at an auction in Northwest Arkansas and buying a set of Richard Timm wildlife prints. She made a good bid in the auction, but framing the 31 signed prints nearly broke me.

            But there’s more; I added to my collecting during vacations when we traveled to the Central American country of Belize, which is a collector’s paradise, and today my home display case has several excellent pieces of Pre-Colombian Mayan artifacts.

            A serious collector will never pass up an auction, especially if old stamp collections are on the block. And since I collected stamps when I was a teen, over the years, I bought several albums, and I have a sizable box containing thousands of stamps. I don’t have a clue if these stamps are worth even checking out their value.

            Then, as we traveled on vacation to New York City, I began to attend Sotheby’s auctions, and not only did I attend, I bid. Well, at Sotheby’s some items sell for millions, but thousands of pre-Colombian artifacts sell for a few hundred dollars, and I have a display case to prove it.

             But even though my glass display cases contain most of the object that are valuable, and I mean in the hundreds not thousands of dollars, I treasure the glass shelves along one wall in our dining room that has a wide variety of collected items, none of which have any real value to anyone except Vertis and me. Pieces of broken cups from Ancient Greece, clay net-fishing sinkers from the jungles of Belize, and assorted minerals such as amber, gypsum, and halite. Of course, every Arkansas geologist worth his salt will have numerous quartz crystals. Most of these items I actually collected from various working trips and vacations on at least three continents. But I’m not a pot hunter, or one who would destroy the intrinsic value of a historic site. I collect what a plow or erosion has uncovered, and I have never dug or vandalized a historic site.

            Well, a true collector never stops collecting, and I catch myself viewing the ground every time I am in a prospective historic or river bank area. Of course, as Vertis will tell you, if something else comes in the front door something else had better go out the back door.

Rewilding Arkansas, Part 2

Rewilding Arkansas Part Two

            Several months back, I wrote about the reintroduction of extinct or almost extinct animals back into the wild in various states and countries. As you might remember several European countries are moving ahead, and of all things they are recreating the ancient cow. Yes, it’s the extinct cow you see on cave drawings in western France. They are doing this by cross breeding cows that are carrying the genetics from those ancient forerunners of today’s cows, and as they continue to crossbreed the cows the genetic traits increase until they essentially have a prehistoric cow. As they continued, the herd they developed became so close to the original cows that they reintroduced them back into a part of Europe that still had wolf packs, and they were concerned that the wolves would make short work of those cows. However, those cows didn’t only look like prehistoric cows, they had traits that enabled them to hold their own against the wolf packs and the cows actually increased.

            That is just an example of how rewilding is taking off, but not only in Europe. There are a number of areas in the United States where rewilding is actively being attempted. Even here in Arkansas I have seen a lot of interest in trying to rewild the State, and that is focused on restoring top predators to where they are a significant presence in our ecosystem. The ‘Bring Back the Wolf!’ bumper sticker is on over 200 Arkansas cars now---email me if you want one. There are numerous other groups around the country that are working to restore an ecosystem that disappeared almost completely by the early 1940, and the Yellowstone wolves are a good example of success.

In the 1920s the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission put bounties on wolves, cougars, and bobcats. Of course, with a bounty and open season on essentially every apex predator, the last wolves were killed in 1942, and the last cougar within a few years after that. A few bears managed to survive in several refuges, but without any protection virtually all our large predators were killed.

            The slaughter of apex predators was brought about because they were considered dangerous to humans. I know you might think hundreds of settlers or even later Arkansawyers were killed by cougars, bears, wolves, but according to the resource reading I have done, I can’t find any accounts of these animals killing anyone in the state. More people have been killed by cows or dogs than all the apex predators put together.

            However, the unsupported fear of these animals is still with us, and last week in El Dorado several people reported a black bear near the football stadium, and a number of police cars responded to check out the bear. The bear ambled off into the woods near the stadium and the police commented, “We didn’t want to report it because it might panic people.” Panic people? There are no reported incidents where an Arkansas bear ever killed anyone. At one time there were an estimated 50,000 bears in the state found in every county, and no one was ever fatally mauled. That essentially proves the reasons for the wholesale slaughter of the apex predators was horribly flawed. In other words these species were singled out for exterminations because of unsupported fear of attack on humans and livestock. With today’s technology farmers and ranchers can easily use electric fencing, sound speakers, and other items to minimize any predator attacks on livestock.

The unfounded threats to humans culminated in the bounties and pack hunting that essentially eliminated the wolves, cougars, and bears, which horribly damaged our ecosystem.  It’s hard to admit we screwed up, and it is going to be even harder to override the sentiment that eliminated hundreds of thousands of essential animals because of a false premises. If we admit the error of bad wildlife management, it cries for reversal. That’s right. We should have never removed those apex predators from our ecosystem, and we are now paying the price for our errors.

            We have a huge deer herd, no quail, and millions of feral hogs and of course, that is the predicted result from the absence of predators, and the introduction of strict deer hunting regulations. With no predators and a regulated hunting season the deer multiplied like rabbits on Viagra, and the quail eggs ended up as hog food, and anyone who thinks differently just doesn’t understand wildlife management.

However, we can’t live in the past and moan about wildlife loss such as the millions of slaughtered buffalo (Every wonder how the “Buffalo” River got its name) and passenger pigeons that were exterminated (Pigeon Hill near Moro Bay was a Passenger Pigeon roost) and what is even more terrible are the documented accounts that millions of these birds and animals were just killed and left to rot in the fields.

The question is, can we in good conscious not attempt to rectify the sins of our ancestors? And this isn’t ancient history. The last wolves in Arkansas were killed in the 1940s along with the cougars, and they were killed because the fledgling Game and Fish Commission put a bounty on them. It was wrong then, and it is wrong now not to try and reestablish these apex predators back into our ecosystem.

Of course, the recent survey, based on confirmed sighting, says 100 to 125 cougars have moved back into the state and more are coming down the Arkansas River from the Rockies, and based on a number of sighting in and around the Mulberry and Buffalo Rivers, we may have a few gray wolves that have come down the Arkansas River, and/or from Minnesota. It seems Mother Nature is trying to correct our mistakes.

            But let’s be rational about where we are today, and consider what our ecosystem would be if it had been managed properly a 100 years ago. Yes, we would have wolf packs, cougars, and a lot more bears. We would still have our quail, we would never have had the feral hog problem, and we have a slightly smaller deer herd, but one without chronic wasting disease.

            I think Game and Fish is finally getting the message that the quail problem is not habitat, but scavenger animals who are eating the quail eggs. Opening up the season for possums, coons, and coyotes, is going to help, but they need to go a step farther, and bring back the apex predators to really solve the problem, or, for God’s sake, at least put a moratorium on wolves, cougars, and eliminate the bear season.

When you take an ecosystem out of balance, certain animals and other parts of the system become out-of-control to the point where they foul the whole system. That is exactly what has happened because all things in a viable ecosystem are connected.

 Chief Seattle said it a lot better than I can.

            If all the beasts were gone, men would die from a great loneliness of spirit, for whatever happens to the beasts also happens to the man. All things are connected. Whatever befalls the Earth befalls the sons of the Earth.

Chief Seattle