Travel on the Gravel

Our itinerary in Australia during August took us on business to Charles Sturt University, in the Riverina, after which we had similar business at the University of the Sunshine Coast, in Queensland. We drove cross-country between those two points, which took us through Cootamundra, where we made a stop in Jubilee Park to walk the Captain's Walk. This is a series of monuments and statues honoring Australian cricket test captains, most prominently the Don, Sir Donald Bradman. Included, of course, is an action statue of the Don as batsman. Next we did a drive-by of Sir Donald's birthplace. I believe that's a Cootamundra wattle growing alongside the house, isn't it? The drive on from Cootamundra was beautiful, too, the evening light gilding many pastoral scenes like this one.

On our Australian expedition last August, we shot right through Sydney, heading out on the Hume Highway toward the Riverina. Along the way was Gundagai, and we made the obligatory stop at the Dog on the Tuckerbox, but then we wandered over to the cemetery. There we found the graves of two constables of the New South Wales Police, the latter of whom was Edward Mostyn Webb-Bowen, who was killed in the line of duty in 1879. He died in a confrontation with the bushranger gang of Andrew George Scott, a.k.a. Captain Moonlite, who had robbed Wantabadgery Station. "Mortally Wounded While Bravely Performing His Duty," Contable Webb-Bowen's gravestone says. Captain Moonlite eventually was caught, executed, and buried in Sydney, despite his wishes to be laid to rest in Gundagai. A few years ago local authorities decided to grant his dying request. They fetched his remains out to Gundagai and re-interred them under a fine gum tree and this granite marker.

I recall driving more than a decade ago along Highway 31 south of Hannover, North Dakota, and then screeching to a halt, arrested by a remarkable roadside feature. It was an eagle, crafted of wood, a closed-double-silhouette, perched atop a rockpile on the east side of the highway. I photographed it and remembered it. A couple of years ago, though, I heard a report on North Dakota Public Radio (now Prairie Public Radio) that the eagle had been stolen. This, I thought, was a base act and a loss to all of us. Last summer, though, returning from a research trip to Canada, driving along Highway 31, I noticed that a new eagle had been installed. It's good that someone has taken the initiative to restore this emblem of place in the North Dakota countryside. I'd like to learn more, though, of the disappearance of the original eagle, as well as of the appearance of its successor.

I'd call it a Kodak moment, except that the camera I pulled from my pocket was a digital Sony. Anyway, the moment came at the close of the Western History Association tour of Anheuser-Busch, in the tasting (that is, drinking) room. The moment, more specifically, was Brian Dippie, world authority on Western art and former president of the WHA, lecturing on the lineage and details of Otto Becker's Custer's Last Fight. Here's the image.

On Saturday the 7th I hitched with Dave Mills from Sioux Falls, site of this year's Northern Great Plains History Conference, over to Chadron, where Dave is teaching at Chadron State College. Got there in time to watch the CSC Eagles extend their record to 6-0. Next morning, after finding coffee, I hiked around to some nearby sites. First stop was the Mari Sandoz High Plains Heritage Center, where I was to give a concert (in the center's gorgeous atrium) that night. In front of the center, and in the middle of some sandhill plantings, was this statue of Mari. Later I walked across the athletic fields and started up the hill (known to students as "C Hill" for the white "C" prominent on its face) on the south side of campus. The wildfires of last summer burned over this hill and right down to the edge of campus. It looks to me like most of the pines on the hill are toast, but I think some of these sturdy yucca will recover and flower pale again. The CSC students tell me that this inscription rock on the hill has no name; seems to me it needs one. Now for one more landmark--in the park on the south side of campus is one of those Boy Scout Statue of Liberty replicas, this one dating from 1950.

Remember George Fletcher, whom we met in Jack's Cafe? Well, later that day we met his wife Vera at their house, and then came back to visit with the both of them. There were lots of interesting details in that conversation, but I'll share just one fascinating little detail. Vera got out the copy of the first edition of Wolf Willow that Stegner had presented to her mother. Her mother, in turn, had gone through the book and marked in pencil the names Stegner had invented and noted the names of the real people they represented. For instance, take a look at this page, whereon she indicated that the Syrian family Stegner called "Orullian" was in fact the family she knew as Haddad--from which sprang a famous concert pianist. I tell you, every time we go to Eastend some new piece of the puzzle that is Wallace Stegner finds its place.

We spent a lovely Saturday afternoon with Joy Lintelman's class from Concordia College at Probstfield Living HIstory Farm, on the north side of Moorhead. This is a historic site with some interesting, significant buildings and a lot of potential for interpretation. The Cobbers did some documentation of the buildings and also some general clearing of brush and junk. This was a good bit of service to the community, well done.