Best Intentions

     Two posts and nine months ago, I posted a blog titled 'We need a new twenty'. If you don't want to go back and read my ravings, I suggested we take Andrew Jackson off of the U.S. twenty dollar bill because of his (integral) part in enacting the 'Indian Removal Act' of 1830. It recently occurred to me that, as dastardly as that act was, President Jackson must have believed he was doing the right thing.
     Without going into what 'Old Hickory' might have been thinking, we must realize that everyone who does anything has affirmative reasons for what they do. I can think of few instances where someone did something out of pure meanness, or committed and evil act simply for the sake of evil. The Red Stick Creek Indians who perpetrated the massacre at Fort Mims, Alabama thought they were doing the right thing by their people. The settlers who pushed the Creeks to the point of violent reaction thought they were doing what was right by their families. Andrew Jackson similarly must have thought he was was in the right by driving the Creeks out of the deep south.
     This doesn't just apply to the Creek war, but every conflict that has ever taken place. The British thought they were in the right to attempt to quell the colonial rebellion. The confederate gentry thought they were right to defend their rights as slave owners. The Japanese must have thought that it was their own version of 'Manifest Destiny' to conquer the Pacific. I could (and probably just did) site examples ad nauseam of people, or groups, who had perfectly affirmative reasons for doing what they did, even though we now consider their actions or ethos repugnant.
    In my most recent novel 'Nagodzaa' I tried to tell the story of two men who both had good reasons for their actions, but were brought into conflict nevertheless. Lt. Willard Riley of the U.S. Tenth Cavalry and Ka'edine of the San Carlos Apache, both fought bravely for what they thought was right, but their differing viewpoints made them enemies. It doesn't go well for either of my protagonists.
     At this point the reader (if there are any) might think that I am taking a stand for moral relativism. This is not the case. Regardless of what Andrew Jackson, or Joseph Stalin, or Jefferson Davis might have thought, they were in the wrong. Evil exits, regardless of anyone's viewpoint or best intentions.
     But it does beg the question: What are we doing now, that will be viewed as evil by future generations? What are we doing as a country that will make the U.S . a byword one hundred years from now? What am I doing as an individual that will horrify and shame me when I stand before the judgement seat?
     I have no answers to these questions. This is not that kind of blog. I do hope however, that I have offered up some food for thought in the maelstrom of information that we have in the twenty-first century.
     So until next week, find me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or Goodreads, and as always: Watch your topknot!
Arley L. Dial
7/27/2015

Coming home, or, What I did on my summer vacation.

Howdy everyone!
     It's good to be back after such a long hiatus.
     I recently (last week) moved from north Florida back to my native state of New Mexico, and I couldn't be happier to be home. The trip was fun, and to avoid this blog turning into a travel log, I will only tell you that Natchez and Vicksburg Mississippi are definitely worth a visit. The highlight of the trip was seeing an American Bison at the Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge outside Lawton Ok.
     The thing that struck me most was the sense of relief I felt growing as we traveled west. In Oklahoma, when the last shreds of kudzu had been left behind us, and the land began to open up, it felt as if I let out a breath I had been holding for two years. Simply being able to see more than a few yards in one direction was like a weight had been taken off my shoulders. When we stopped for gas and an ice cream in the Texas panhandle, the dry air was like a balm to my heart. I breathed deep like a nineteenth century consumptive following doctor's orders to go west for a drier climate.
     Don't get me wrong. It's not as if I don't like Florida, or the Deep South, but it is just not home. Folks raised in the more heavily populated and greener climes of the east would feel the same way I did after living on the naked plains of the west for a couple of years.
     I am grateful to be back in my place in the world, and glad to have the opportunity to make my passion my work. I will continue to combine my passion for literature with my passion for the American West. I will pour out my love of these things, and use the talents that God has given me to produce novels which hopefully bless and inspire those who read them.
      I thank you for bearing with me on this rather personal edition of Westerlinglore. I assure you that next week I will return to the fun and interesting facts about life in the Old West that I discover during my research and travels. I would love to hear about what others find, as the West seems to have an unlimited supply of interesting stories. Find me on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram (it's not hard, there are very few Arley Dials in the word) and lets share our experience and love of home.

Adios for now,
Arley L. Dial, July 20, 2015

P.S. If you find yourself looking for a good read, have a look at one of my novels on Amazon. Once again, just put my name into the search engine, you'll find me.

We need a new twenty

We need a new $20 bill

While researching my novels, I learn quite a bit about historical figures, and that has changed my perspective on many of them. One of them in particular has been weighing heavily on my mind lately, and that is Andrew Jackson, sometimes called 'Old Hickory' but most often referred to by my contemporaries as 'The guy on the twenty dollar bill'.

Being a frequent visitor to social media sites, I watch with amusement (and sometimes boredom) while my Democrat friends vilify George W. Bush, and my Republican friends do the same to Barrack Obama. Neither of these men, as controversial as their presidencies sometimes are, comes anywhere near committing the moral outrages of Andrew Jackson.

I am not talking about his habit of dismissing all of the government officials who opposed his campaign and replacing them with his supporters. Every president since Jackson has done the same thing. I am also not talking about the personal scandals that one of his cabinet members (John Eaton) became involved in. Bill Clinton's infidelity blew poor Eaton out of the water.

I am talking about a particular bill, which was a platform of the Jackson campaign, and was passed into law on May 28, 1830. That law was known as the 'Indian Removal Act' and represents one of the most shameful periods in our nation's history.

For those of you who are not familiar with the act, it nullified treaties with what were then known as 'The Five Civilized Tribes' and made it a law that those people be forcibly removed to what is now Oklahoma. 'The Five Civilized tribes were, the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek and Seminole peoples living in what we now consider the southeastern United States.

The people of these first nations were not referred to as 'civilized' for no reason. They were farmers, stock raisers, traders and artisans who lived a relatively peaceful existence with the whites for generations. I say 'relatively peaceful' as opposed to the nomadic tribes of the far west who seem to have maintained raiding as one of the pillars of their economy. The Americans in those southern states did not call for the native's removal to protect their settlements or their lives, but mainly because gold had been discovered in Georgia. 'Old Hickory' answered that call.

After the enactment of the Indian Removal act, many terrible atrocities were committed (by both sides) in the conflict between the First Nations and the Americans of European and African descent. I don't mean to say in any way that the act was the ultimate 'low point' in relations between the two groups. It does however, signify the start of years of institutionalized oppression by the U.S. government.

In my job as a cashier, I am struck by the irony that if a customer hands me a picture of
Andrew Jackson, I will give him a T-shirt featuring a representation of Osceola (I live near Florida State University). Most people that I have spoken with do not think about (or often even know) who Andrew Jackson was, and what he represented. So perhaps we should keep 'Old Hickory' on the twenty, lest we forget, and risk repeating a deplorable chapter in the history of our great nation.

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10/20/2014

p.s. My vote for the new model would probably be Cochise, but since I know of no extant picture of him, here is Sitting Bull for your enjoyment.

 

Life on the Wire

Life on the Wire

Recently I was discussing my novel with a local book club, and I was asked which is my favorite part. After giving the question a little thought, I said that my favorite part would have to be the scene in which a group of Blackfoot Indians are hunting buffalo.

A brave is riding his horse across the snow covered plain approaching a large herd of running bison. He guides his horse toward the stampede and proceeds to loose arrows into a cow until she falls. When this image came to me, I was sitting idle (as I often do) and casually wondering what it would be like to hunt buffalo when the scene sprang almost full grown into my mind. The image lingers with me still.

Imagine with me if you will, rising from your pallet of furs long before the break of day and emerging from your buffalo hide teepee (or lodge) and emerging into the cold darkness of a winter morning on the plains of what is now northern Wyoming or southern Montana. You and your friends gather your horses from where they have spent the night and leap onto their bare backs, setting out to locate the nearest buffalo herd.

By the time you reach the herd the sun has risen, and thousands of huge animals are spread out before you on the plain. You ready the bow that you made with your own two hands, and kick your horse toward the milling beasts. Soon the horse beneath you is running full tilt, and the panicked buffalo are streaming around you. You release the reins because you need both hands to fire your bow and now you are holding on with only your feet. The buffalo around you are nearly twice the size of your horse and the impact of their collective hooves shakes the frozen earth. It is difficult to aim from this position, so you wait until a buffalo is right beside you, at point blank range, before firing.

Close your eyes for a moment and really imagine it.

Sound a little dangerous?

It does so to me. OSHA would never stand for such a thing.

Now imagine that you had to do this thing regularly simply to survive. Imagine that if you failed in this insane task, you and your family (possibly your entire communtiy) would be hungry and possibly starving before long. Imagine that if any one of a thousand things went wrong, you or your horse could be crippled or killed, leaving your family without the resources to house, clothe or feed themselves.

That adds to the intensity a little doesn't it?

When I imagined this for the first time I was outside my workplace waiting for my shift to start. At my current job, we are not allowed to carry a pocket knife and are only allowed to use retractable box cutters to reduce the chance of us cutting ourselves. The dichotomy between the two realities struck me in that moment as I'm sure it did you.

The First Nations hunting buffalo, the Anglo pioneer woman literally carving a home from the earth, and the Vaquero rounding up cattle in the vast arid plains lived on a level that I will ever know. Granted, their lives would have been difficult, uncomfortable, and for the most part extremely short. I'm sure that each of them suffered their share of boredom and drudgery, but they were living with a capital 'L'.

I don't want to sound ungrateful for the conveniences of modern life that I enjoy every day. We live in a time of wonders, and by no means do I wish to disregard the amazing advances in technology which make our modern lives possible. I can't help but think however, that the comfort and security of twenty-first century America may preclude me from a depth of life that might have been possible in a less civilized time.

It would have been difficult, and at times terrifying, but to quote Karl Wallenda:

“Life is on the wire, everything else is just waiting around.”

10/13/2014

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Better Late than Never

Better Late than Never

I normally update this blog on Mondays, but I missed my self-imposed deadline yesterday. I had planned to meet my daily goal of one thousand words added to my novel document yesterday, but I didn't write a single one. I had planned to start the outline of a short story (tentatively titled 'Living with Gremlins') but I didn't do that either.

I don't have a sob story about a family emergency (I have no wife or children). I wasn't stricken by any non-specific malaise, either physical or emotional, and I had absolutely no prior engagements. Something did happen yesterday however that indirectly prevented me from doing any sort of work whatsoever.

The weather changed.

Every place has their weather issues. In Phoenix it is the heat, I assume that Duluth has the cold, and here in Tallahassee it is the humidity. Those of you who live in a humid part of the country know what I am talking about, and those of you who dwell in more arid climes can trust me when I say that you want no part of it. Complaints are made that humidity 'makes it feel hotter', but in my short experience the humidity ruins the weather regardless of temperature.

I realize this post is beginning to sound like a whiny rant, but there is a point I would like to make. I strive to accomplish many things every day. Between writing, work, study, and prayer, I try to pack every hour full of minutes and I am often guilty of forgetting why it is that I do these things. I must never forget that art work exist to support life, and not the other way around. Art for the sake of art is meaningless, and work for the joy of having 'bony fingers' is folly. These things that I do must serve the function of glorifying God first, blessing others second and myself as a bonus.

So when the Almighty sees fit to send a dry north wind into Tallahassee to drive away the oppressive moisture for a time, I feel it would be foolish to not enjoy it. I am aware of the Proverb that tells us that 'a little rest, a little folded hands and want comes on us like a thief', and I don't want good weather to become a justification for my laziness. Therefore, this morning (though the weather is nice once again) I am playing catch up with no regrets about spending an afternoon in the cool dry sunshine reading 'The Count of Monte Christo'.

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10/7/2014

The Gay Gentleman

The Gay Gentleman

My novel 'Plews' was released several weeks ago, and a few people have had time to read at least part way through the book. Talking to the people who have taken the time to read 'Plews', I often receive the feedback that I use words that the reader does not know or understand. Some of this can be explained by the fact that the mountain men used many words which were their own, often corruptions of French terms (Plews and Booshway to name two). Other words which occur frequently, are a kind of technical jargon for tools which we do not use any more (like frizzen and cordelle). The use of these words was necessary to refer to the things they used and maintain the atmosphere of early nineteenth century fur trappers.

The use of other words however, cannot be justified through context, but are simply words which have fallen out of the common vernacular. I take this feedback to heart, as I have no wish for the style of my writing to become too self-conscious or distracting.

That being said, allow me to offer some defense for using terms which are not in the parlance of our time. When I use a certain word, I am careful that it be the right word in that moment. It may not be a word which is used regularly in speech or prose, but if, for instance, I am describing an Irishman's cadence of speech, I will gladly use the word brogue, as opposed to accent, as it is more specific. Also, the elegance of phrase means a great deal to me, and if the word 'cyclopean' supports the poetry of a given sentence better than 'towering' I will not hesitate to use it if circumstance permits. I feel justified in doing so when I remember Mark Twain's quote “The difference between the right word and almost the right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning-bug”.

Another justification that I offer myself when I receive the above feedback, is that every word we lose from our everyday language diminishes our capacity to communicate. In this present world of hash-tags and one-hundred forty character communication, I fear that our ability to share complex thoughts is being diminished. George Orwell seemed to share this same fear when he wrote:

“Don't you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought? In the end we shall make thought-crime literally impossible because there will be no words in which to express it... Every year fewer and fewer words, and the range of consciousness always a little smaller.”

This brings me to the title of this post: The Gay Gentleman. I chose the title because it contains two words which no longer mean what they once did, and we have no real term to replace them. Gay used to refer to a mood of festive happiness, but it has lost that meaning all together. We had a perfectly serviceable word (a little clunky perhaps) in homosexual, so why did it need to be replaced? Where is the replacement for the former usage of gay? Even now, if I said that I was in a festive and happy mood, I can only imagine the looks I would receive, so not only has the word been lost, but the very concept cannot be easily described.

The word gentleman has received the same treatment over the last hundred years or so. It used to mean (according to C.S. Lewis) “one who had a coat of arms and some landed property”. Lewis goes on to say that the word gentleman (in his time) meant one who has generally good behavior. The current usage of the word, if it is used at all, seems to mean a man who does not make sexual advances during a date. We have no word to refer to someone who was born into a family of status and property. We have ceased to use the word, and even the concept of a difference in social or financial class seems alien to many of us even though the reality still exists. Is the modern term 'one percenter' really an acceptable replacement for 'gentleman'? I certainly hope not.

So, as I start my next novel, I will try to keep the language succinct and easy to read. I will try to avoid using ten-dollar words just to prove that I can, but if a certain character is what we would call 'shy' and 'quiet' you should brace yourself for the word taciturn, because it is probably coming up.

9-29-2014

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P.S. All quotes used without permission of any kind. Come and get me coppers!

Who in the world is Manuel Lisa?

Who in the world was Manuel Lisa?

If the mountain men did what they did solely for the money they are to be pitied. Most of the famous men of the fur trapping years were in debt or flat broke when they died. John Colter, who I have talked about often in this blog died of jaundice on his meager farm in 1813. Bill Williams was shot and killed by unknown assailants in the Rocky Mountains at the ripe old age of sixty-two when most of us would be contemplating retirement. Jed Smith was killed by Comanches on the plains of what is now Texas at the age of thirty. Jim Bridger, possibly the most famous of all the mountain men died on his son-in-law's farm in Missouri. Not one of these great men ever amassed a great deal of wealth, so if they went west looking for riches, they were disappointed.

Then, as now, the men who made the money were the traders, brokers, and organizers. Men like Manuel Lisa and John Astor gained a great deal of monetary wealth through their own brand of hard work. Each man has his own gifts, and the entrepreneurs during the fur trapping years were no exception. Some men were gifted with great ability as woodsmen, trappers and explorers, while others were gifted in market speculation and finance.

Should we therefore pity the men who spent their youth laboring under dangerous conditions and saw little monetary reward for their trouble? Should we vilify those who made a great deal of profit from the enterprise? Neither I think. By working together, the two groups were able to accomplish great things. The bosses (or Booshway) need the working man as much as the working man needs someone who knows how to make the labor pay.

Let us not forget however, the value of a life lived to the fullest. Men like Manuel Lisa and John Astor may have made great fortunes in their time, but how many young boys have taken up a pencil and played at being a financier? How many of us as grownups spend their idle moments dreaming of what it would be like to be a bureaucrat? Most of us (myself included) do not have to imagine what life would be like as an apparatchik or functionary, we know those realities all to well.

So do not mourn for the mighty mountain man who saw little if any financial gain for his trouble. For, in his life spent roaming the wilderness lining the pockets of others, he lived as a man should, and found riches all his own.

A.D.

9-22-2014