Letter from Roger Williams
Colorado Central – February 2006 – Colorado Central Magazine
Some questions
Editors:
A few questions: Is the dog in the snowy scene on the cover “Schnee” (German for snow), mentioned in “Chalk Creek Pass in Winter” on p.17? At first I thought it might have been Buster, another German Shepherd (not Shepard) recently in the news.
Is a “ridge runner” (p. 19) a cornice?
On p. 14, a letter about “Third cook on the train”, the organist at the Mormon Tabernacle in Salt Lake City was Alexander Schreiner, not Schneider. The weekly Sunday program “Music and the Spoken Word” by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir with Dr. Schreiner at the vast organ was broadcast on station KSL and relayed all over the world; I don’t know if it still is. Unlike the nearby Mormon Temple in Temple Square, the Tabernacle is open to the public; the LDS church offers tours and a daily organ recital around noon. I saw an old Technicolor film of him playing once, on a Union Pacific excursion train.
When I rode the streamlined Rio Grande Zephyr in the 70s before Amtrak took over, it ran by day, providing good views of Gore, Byers and Glenwood Canyons from the dome cars; it also had a nice diner. Amtrak’s California Zephyr, which replaced it, is all right; it also runs by day — if you’re lucky and it’s not several hours late. Never plan anything less than at least 12 hours after an Amtrak train’s scheduled (and often fictitious) arrival time; it’s mostly wishful thinking. I learned the hard way.
I suppose Tina Lovejoy (“Superlative Soprano”, p. 25) is no relation of Freddie Lovejoy who attended my prep school in Concord, N.H. in the 50s, a few years before I did. There was also an astronaut called Mattingly (or Mattingley?) (“Virtual National Parks”, p. 38); he rode on one of the Apollo missions. Part of Zion being closed is news to me, though I haven’t been there. Much of Chaco Canyon and Wupatki are closed but this is to protect undeveloped archæological sites from the depredations of pot hunters and other vandals. Developed sites are open; I visited all of them.
When Hal Walter cleans up after his donkeys, I hope he saves it for fertilizer; it’s supposed to be good “organic fertilizer.” In summer when they’re turned loose in a pasture, no need to clean up; like any livestock they’ll graze at one end, and fertilize at the other. I bet there’s lots of it on the “road” (if you can call it that; it needs a D- 8K with a sheepsfoot roller over it) over Mosquito Pass after the race.
Happy New Year to all (after KGNU here missed out on the BBC at 5 and Big Ben striking midnight from St. Stephen’s Tower).
Roger Williams
Boulder
In the Cover section of the Credits on page 3, the dog is identified as Shnee. There is probably a better way to handle such matters, but we haven’t found it yet. Also, our apologies for the spelling error; we realized that our proof- reading might be regrettable due to the early deadline we imposed to get the January issue out before Christmas, but it appears we must have slept through the spell-check, too.)
