Fortis Press

Bears. I sometimes think about them when hiking. No need to. Colorado and New Mexico - where I go - have black bears, who almost never attack. Unless.

It’s the “unless” part that gets my attention. Unless you startle one. Unless you separate a she-bear from her cubs. Unless the creature is having a bad fur day.

So I think about it.

Like yesterday morning. I was alone, over an hour from the trail head, and my son sent me a text. Now, most of my adventures are out of range for cell phones, and, even when I do get a call, I rarely pick up.

But Jon’s family was on the road and he needed directions. So I stopped and answered.

Which means I was quiet for a few minutes. Not something I do in bear country. I whistle, hum, talk to imaginary friends. I use my deepest, Marine Sergeant voice:

“Big group. Big group coming through. Big group with big guns.”

Now, I don’t know for sure it was a bear I heard in the underbrush. Sounded more like a step or two from another human.

“Who’s there”? I said.

Silence.

So I kept walking, maybe a bit faster, thinking about those animal attack stories on TV. Let’s see, you challenge a mountain lion and play dead for a bear.

I wondered what I really would do. Just don’t see myself playing dead while a 400 pound animal attempts to have me for breakfast.

Then it came to me: those loud, annoying alarm sounds on my cell phone - maybe the ambulance siren or the barking dog. Surely, bears know that where there are dogs there are hunters. Surely.

Nope, didn’t get the chance to find out. But maybe one of you could test the hypothesis for me.

In the late 1800s, a spunky teenaged girl goes after her father’s killer. To bring him to justice she hires a crusty U. S. Marshall known for his habit of returning prisoners dead, tied to the back of his pack horse.

The marshall’s name is Rooster Cogburn, and he has grit, True Grit.

You know the movie starring John Wayne, Glen Campbell and Kim Darby, but did you know it was filmed just 10 miles from Ouray - in Ridgway, Colorado?

In the 1980s, the locals opened a restaurant there to honor the film. It’s called, not surprisingly, True Grit.

Charlotte and I ate there Monday afternoon, sitting on a balcony, which overlooks a park where the movie’s hanging scene was shot. And, on the eastern horizon, we could see Chimney Rock, a peak in the Cimarron Range, and background for the movie’s climatic shootout.

You probably remember. Glen Campbell’s character dies, Kim Darby falls into a rattlesnake den, and Rooster Cogburn charges the outlaw gang alone, spurring his horse to full gallop, and firing a rifle with one hand, a six-shooter with the other.

“Fill your hands you son of a (the b word).” It’s one of my favorite John Wayne lines.

By the way, try the rodeo burger or the nachos grande. The latter will feed two. Three if you add beef.

If I believed in reincarnation, I would say I must have once been a Ute Apache. That would explain the connection my spirit has with this former hunting ground of Chief Ouray and company.

For me, it was love at second sight. I first came here with the fam in the 80s to swim in the town’s famous hot springs pool. But it was just a day trip, and all I remember is that the kids cut their feet on the rough cement bottom.

Then, in 1999, Charlotte, Joni and I drove my Toyota 4 X 4 pickup over precarious Engineer Pass and into America’s Little Switzerland. While eating lunch, sitting on an outside deck, gawking at majestic peaks that rise abruptly on three sides, it happened.

I fell in love. With a place.

In The Last Battle, C. S. Lewis suggests that heaven looks like our favorite places on earth, only better. Much better.

I hope so. I really hope so.

Omaha to Denver. Was a long day - 8 hours. Would have taken a wagon train two months.

I thought of them yesterday, those tough, hopeful pioneers aboard Conestoga wagons pulled by oxen, who maybe would cover 10 miles in a day. That is if things went well: no wheels breaking down, no Indian attacks, no outbreaks of yellow fever.

Following the Platte across Nebraska (350 miles before we veered left with the South Platte), I wished I had seen it the way they did. Those pioneers. The vast prairie still pristine, grass up to the horses’ bellies, an occasional buffalo herd.

Not that I would trade places. Not for more than a few days. Yes, I’m a romantic. I long for the beauty of it. But not for a world without penicillin and hot showers.

Which is why I can’t wait to get to Ouray. Long hikes and bike rides, often without another human in sight. But then the shower, the nap, the good book, the ice cream on Main Street.

You don’t have to say it; I already know. Wouldn’t have lasted a day with those rugged forebears.

When my brother Craig was in his 20s, he ran a Christian coffee house on a seedy street in inner-city Dallas. I remember stories of self-proclaimed warlocks with whom he boldly shared the Good News of Jesus.

Not long after, Craig moved to Arizona where he lived most of his adult life, much of it as a successful stock broker.

Now in his 60s, my brother has begun a new life in Omaha where he volunteers twice a week at the Salvation Army, and where, along with his wife Patty, he is starting a house church in a disadvantaged neighborhood. It’s hard, often thankless work.

So, while 40 years ago I was challenged by his courage, today, I am moved by Craig’s compassion.

Hopefully, I leave here more aware of the poor in my own backyard, and, just as hopefully, more prone to do something about it.

Thank you, Craig.

Saw fireflies last night. We were walking in Crag’s Omaha neighborhood, shortly after sundown, and there they were: a small greenish blinking light in the yard to our left, two others closer and brighter in the street in front of us.

Can’t remember seeing fireflies as an adult, nor in West Texas. My sightings were all as a child, in Dallas, near Mom Staples’s place in the White Rock Lake area.

Did some research last night. They aren’t flies; they’re beetles in the family Lampyridae. In the U. S., they live in warm, humid climates, almost none west of Kansas. Of course.

One authority says the blinking is done mostly by females to attract a mate. Evidently, each has a distinctive light, which is produced by a chemical reaction and can be yellow, green or a pale red. All are designed to lure a sex partner of one’s own sub-family.

Sometimes, a female emits an “aggressive mimicry,” which is a color and frequency meant to dupe a male of another fam, who, when he falls for the bait, is promptly eaten by the false lover. Sounds like a story out of Proverbs 6.

When we got back to the motel, a boy was capturing fireflies in a bottle.

Wish it were that easy: to capture the magic lights around us, to be released at a needier time, in a darker place.

I’m not often disappointed by tourist traps because I rarely visit them. Maybe it’s the skeptic in me, but if the sign says Billy the Kid slept here, I’m pretty sure he didn’t.

And even if he might have, I’ll not visit because I know how local promoters tend to corrupt genuine history by making it look more, well, historic.

Which is what the good people of Dodge City Kansas seem to have done with Front Street and Boot Hill Cemetery.

We stopped there yesterday hoping to get a glimpse of some of the original haunts of the Earp brothers. What we saw was a pricey gift shop masquerading as a museum and a collection of gaudy western store fronts that looked like an underbudgeted Hollywood set.

For this you had to pay $10. Not us.

On the plus side, the town has preserved some original brick streets as well as an impressive railway depot that must have served as the terminus for all those Texas trail drives.

The signs said the structure is now part hotel, part theatre and part ticket office for train passengers. Will have to take their word on that. Everything was closed.

Will write tomorrow from Omaha.

In less than two hours will be on the road. Woohoo! Our 2010 vacation in Ouray, Colorado is about to begin.

Will make a side trip first. To Omaha, Nebraska where my brother Craig now lives. Haven’t seen him since June 1 - the day after Dad died.

Am bringing Craig some of Mom’s and Dad’s things - mostly pictures. Will be fun to look at them together. And remember.

Nothing like sharing memories with the ones who helped make them. My brother is the only one who can say things like, “Yeah, and remember Camp Summer Life? We both were in love with the same girl.”

“Paula.” We’ll say her name in unison. Then I’ll remind Craig how he threatened to tell Shary K., who wore my charm bracelet in Canyon at the time, if I didn’t exit this New Mexico love triangle.

We’ll laugh, and go on with the story, each interrupting with new details, some that really happened, and some, I’m sure, that have been invented with the retellings.

I expect to hear a lot of laughter with Craig and wife, Patty, in Omaha. But, first, Char and I have some miles to cover. Will write tomorrow from Salina, Kansas.

No, I’m not writing about recent rains in the Texas Panhandle. I’m referring to last weekend’s Frontiers in Writing Conference directed by my friend and colleague at Amarillo College, Frank Sobey.

With only a shoestring budget, Frank was able to bring in first-rate speakers who both informed and inspired us.

For me, it was heavy rain on parched ground. I suppose it’s a problem with most teachers (and writers). We spend so much time giving out that we rarely take in.

That’s why, even with tight budgets and tighter schedules, we must force ourselves to receive: from books, friendships, workshops and conferences.

So thanks, Frank. And thanks to all the organizers and speakers (especially key-noter Joy Jordan-Lake) who made Frontiers in Writing 2010 a drought-buster for this writer.

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FiW is sponsored by Panhandle Professional Writers. Come join us.

I’m 61, and this was my first video.

Which is why I was so surprised by - well, almost everything. Including length. Tim the video guy (who’s a genius) said we needed to keep it short, and I agreed. So I felt proud when I whittled down my 17 minute script (every word necessary, mind you) to 12.

Tim said, “Let’s do the first two minutes. It’ll work perfectly.” I smiled politely but skeptically.

How can you say anything in two minutes? Besides, we were going to travel all the way to Hidden Falls Ranch, arrive before sunrise, and tape. For what? 15 minutes?

Did I say this was my first video?

Taping took maybe two and one-half hours. Tim would have stayed longer, but I was cold, tired, and, frankly, didn’t care if I ever sold another book.

Would you believe a dozen or so takes for every two lines? I’m not kidding.

We barely got there by sunrise; skies were absolutely clear for that; then came clouds and wind and cold. Ask Charlotte. She’s the one you can’t see, off camera holding my cue cards.

But the result was more than I ever imagined. Did I tell you Tim is a genius?

But you be the judge. Here’s the video promo for I Saw Jesus this Morning.

Be sure to scroll down to see the credits. Thank you Tim and Pam.