Sponsoring Literacy: A good resolution

Reading has always been an important part of my life. In fact, one of my happiest memories of childhood followed the day I walked downtown to the Helen Matthis Public Library in Effingham, Illinois, and applied for my very own library card. I lived in Teutopolis, seven miles from Effingham—a tiny rural town which could not support its own library. But my Grandmother lived in the bustling town of Effingham, and I spent every other weekend there.

She loved romance novels, and every weekend we would drive down to the library and she would check out seven or eight mushy little paperbacks, and would allow me to check out a book or two.

When I was twelve, I was allowed to walk downtown by myself. It was, after all, only four blocks away. Mindy Day, my neighbor and companion in many childhood misadventures, walked with me, and it was she who suggested I get my own card. Child that I was, I felt important and grown up carrying home the very first books checked out to my own name.

It seems I never really got out of the library after that. I trained a dog and later a horse with books I borrowed from the library. I researched almost every high school paper I wrote in the library; the Catholic school I attended had a very limited selection of books, and I enjoyed shocking elderly Sister Josephine with a paper on the Salem witch trials. Later I paid for a good deal of my college education working in the University library. I organized the library for the State Support Center in Springfield—our state capitol—to streamline assistance to the Legal Aid Services of Illinois.

I have always taken books for granted. But I didn’t realize that fact until visiting the Public Library in Tuba City. The old BIA-owned hogan-shaped building is itself a story—as an eight-sided mural depicts the history of the Navajo people.

Pearl and Trisha, two beautiful ladies with winning smiles, man the desk at the Tuba City Library. Both confess that books have been a big part of their own lives. Their love for the written word simply beams from these women. And when they mentioned that they knew of only two public libraries on the Navajo Nation, my jaw dropped. The thought of having to drive a hundred miles or more just to check out a book literally floored me. Like I said, I have always taken books—and libraries—for granted.

“Flagstaff residents are really lucky,” Pearl stated. Imagine, a public library and one at Northern Arizona University!”

Pearl and Trisha opened my eyes, and having done so on the verge of the New Year, these dedicated women have changed the way I look at resolutions. Instead of self-centered, impossible personal goals to better my own life, a selfish little annual ritual seldom maintained throughout January, I plan to look outward. I resolve to donate books to the Tuba City Library, and to help in the little ways I can to assist in fundraising. As the New Year closes the book on another year of my life, I’d like to help open a book in the life of another. I ask you all to do the same.

And I really do promise to return that overdue book, Pearl!

— S.J. Wilson

Guest Commentary

Arizona could justifiably be called the Land Where the Condor Scavenges or Land Where the Bushmaster Crawls, but those are not poetic or appealing. Here, the blue jay scolds and the hummingbird whizzes, the bighorn leap, goats browse, lizards dart, and the deer and antelope wander about. And yes, the memorial highway leading to the south rim of the Grand Canyon is named after a venomous snake (the bushmaster) and not, as one would expect, a president. Though these vipers are apparently plentiful, I’ve never seen one. The balance of nature dictates that where there is game there will be hunters, and so, given that there are enough snakes about to have highways named after them, there must, somewhere, be eagles.

I finally saw one as I was photographing the Canyon at Bright Angle overlook, a sudden brief moment I will treasure whether or not the picture comes out.

The Grand Canyon is a mere ninety minutes from where I live—practically in my backyard—and I do not go there often enough, partly because of the fees, the crowds, and the sense that several million people have taken the same pictures I’m taking. On a recent balmy Sunday, I needed to go for a getaway drive. I had forgotten about numerous scenic overlooks which lead up to the “big show” and themselves invite contemplation and awe. I discovered a mini-canyon in the dry plateau that eventually becomes the Painted Desert. How could I have missed a canyon 800 feet deep? Easy! It blends right into the landscape. Even up close, the walls merge into each other in an intriguing optical illusion. Far below (much farther than one supposes at a distance) the brown water of the Little Colorado winds sharply and turns suddenly around the steep walls. The surrounding plain is barren and relatively flat, but high hills front the highway on the west side, hills that climb gradually to the south rim of the Grand Canyon. You go from desert to pinon pine to tall ponderosa in half an hour. The warm, open Navajo country yields to snowy forest, and past the park checkpoint, you come to Tusayan Ruin, tucked away on an east-facing hill with a view of the San Francisco Peaks.

Looking out over these dreamy distances, I can see how flute songs were inspired. This particular village is far from any other Anasazi sites. I’ve never taken an official tour, but I got a few quick facts from a guide who is an outdoor photographer. He showed me his album which included a pair of eagles, male and female, seen from below, with wings outstretched.

“Have you noticed the trees are just turning yellow? The fish are going upstream and so the eagles are out.”

I hadn’t noticed. The cottonwoods turn yellow in October where I live. Sure enough, when I finally arrived at the main overlook, I looked down, way down, and there were the yellow trees clustered along the narrow river which traces its way to the edge of The Drop. At four o’clock, the buttes throw dramatic shadows and the river is a silver thread on a dusky plateau. I don’t know who had more joy at the sight: me with my new camera battery or the lady in the wheelchair, who had no camera. We were traveling through space and time, memory and moment.

The chilly air was met with the warm air rising from the canyon floor, where, invisibly, life was taking place. A whole different season was in progress, changing and evolving just as we ourselves change a little every year. Just then, the eagle flew past.

The Grand Canyon is at once a marvel and a cliché. The rocks, after all, look pretty similar to rocks I see everyday in northern Arizona. As the stars came out, everything was obscured by soft night. The dramatic ravines and divisions disappeared, and I realized that it’s not about who has the best picture, the fattest portfolio, the most successful children. It’s just being there, at a special place, at a needful time, “thankful for that which has held me through all my seasons, bitter and sublime.”

Rebecca Reppert

Tuba City

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