Folks,
Today I visited Coral Pink Sand Dunes just outside of Kanab, Utah. It was overcast, so not the best day, but you try to make something out of it. You can read a bit about the Park here,
Kanab, where I am staying is an interesting little spot with a lot of past movie and television history - you can read about some of that here,
As a kid, my heroes growing up were Roy Rogers and The Lone Ranger. I had pictures hanging in my bedroom and I had the guns that fired those cap rolls, I had the mask. That later progressed to Have Gun Will Travel, The Rifleman and Wanted: Dead or Alive. The second one is interesting because I have never seen an episode - even to this day. But I saw stills from the series in magazines as a kid and I owned the toy sawed off Winchester that had a eye bolt that allowed the gun to pivot from the holster so he didn't have to draw - only rotate it 90 degrees.
A number of those shows had exteriors filmed in this area because of the proximity of a number of canyons that were easily accessible and extremely photogenic. In fact Kanab Canyon is where they filmed part of the Lone Ranger movie I saw as a kid. In fact the spot where the Lone Ranger rears up on his horse, Silver, for the outro, is still visible from the road in the Canyon - there is an opening at the top of the canyon where a horizontal log transverses it about three feet high. Every time I go in there and see it, I get goose bumps.
Also out in Johnson Canyon about 15 miles from town is an old set that is now collapsing that was used for exteriors of the show Gunsmoke.
Kanab is in Kane County and the county has a tourism office in Kanab. A couple of years ago I went in there and the place is packed with old movie posters and movie memorabilia. I got chatting with the woman who runs the office, one thing led to another, and then she mentioned she knew John Wayne quite well. I asked her how she came to meet him and she responded that she was a stunt woman in the films!! So needless to say that started a conversation that lasted quite a while - turns out that The Duke was the consummate gentleman - very serious about the job at hand and no time for foolishness. Her name is Jackie Rife and she was expert horseback rider and horse handler until she blew out both knees in a stunt for War Drums - you can see a picture of her here (in front of the Gunsmoke set),
As a kid I couldn't get enough of this stuff - Disney had Davey Crockett and then they would run a movie over the course of two weeks - Tonka was one and there were two Davey Crockett movies.
Another thing that I have noted is that people down here are blown away that someone from Canada would know all this stuff. It always amazes me how little Americans realize how dominant their culture has been since WWII. Which kind of segues into an observation I have made since the early 90's - let's say around the time of Desert Storm.
And that is - most Americans are simply unaware that the US has responsibilities outside it's own borders. I think it is fair to say that the US financial crisis is affecting the world as a whole. I think it is also fair to say that the fix for this crisis will initially come from the US, in the repair of it's own financial system, with others taking similar steps but always looking to the US to take the lead.
The average American does not see this - they are focused on simply what needs to be done inside the US and do not make the linkage outside their borders. So you have situation where an election is fought locally but the winner must operate globally - and in terms of governance you can't reconcile the two. The new government is going to have make global decisions that may have negative impact on the US in the short term - yet they will be judged by the electorate on only the 'inside the borders' impact of their decisions.
The world outside the US is looking 'in' and seeing the only choice is Obama in the recent election. Yet the election results were close - I think popular vote was 52/48. The world simply does not understand the US election process - and the reason they don't is that the US voters, by and large, have no understanding of their responsibility to the rest of the world which comes with being at the top of the food chain. There are of course some very intelligent and articulate people who do - they are drowned out by the talking heads of the 'right' - who you gonna listen to - Rush Limbaugh or Robert Shiller - exactly - we all know Limbaugh, maybe we need to know Shiller.
I love the US - in fact I have always wanted to live here - I just wish the US education system, with regard to history and geography, had more of a world view rather than an iconic and heroic, internal one. I think that is changing with the younger generation today - I just hope the change is soon enough such that before the present US administration leaves office it has an electorate with a much improved world view - we shall see.
To quote verse 7 of the Krome Koan, 'Nothing is impossible for those who don't have to do it.'
Phil
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