Wallace Stegner was an great writer. Like Bernard Augustine DeVoto, Wallace Stegner had to leave Utah to find acceptance.

Hey ABC, I don't know that Stegner had to leave--my sense is he chose to leave for graduate school opportunities. He spoke very highly of his education at the U of U, and he actually returned for a teaching stint. The thing is, he fell in love with Vermont, where he owned a cabin, and ended having a pretty amazing teaching gig at Stanford.

I sat down to watch KUED's documentary on Stegner. I didn't move until it was over. Thanks guys, you are doing the only quality television in the city.

Whatever his reason for leaving, anyone reading "Mormon Country" comes away with the definite impression that Stegner loved Utah and Utahns. I have no doubt he would/will be delighted by the passage of the Washington County bill.

sternocreed: DeVoto also talked and wrote about Utah's wonders. You can argue Wallace Stegner was a student of DeVoto's writing. Wallace Stegner describes finding a article writen by DeVto that a English professor, in anger, tossed in a hall. Wallace Stegner writes about how impressed he was with DeVoto's early environment wittings in Harper's trying to muster national outrage at the ponder in Utah.
   
   Didn't Wallace Stegner write a biography of DeVoto?
   
   I meet Utahans who speak well of Utah, who find it's culture stifling. I've driven near Wallace Stegner's home. His life near Standford was idealic. Wallace Stegner nearly lived in a redwood grove.
   
   I believe it fact, to learn about a place, you must first leave it. When, we live in a place, we become too familiar with it. With, familiarity, comes contempt.
   
   I remember having a letter printed in a Ogden newspaper. I also recall hearing that my cousin got comments at work about it. In Utah, there are ways to pressure you into submission.

ABC, good point. The kind of professor that would throw a DeVoto article in the trash is not only still at the U, but at Stanford as well--and a host of other universities. We've all witnessed/experienced the Utah shallow mind--Amy Irvine's book goes into depth on what happened to her and her husband when they moved to Monticello, how they were treated when they didn't share the local "wise-use" politics. Had Stegner stayed in Utah, who knows, he might not have been able to write with the courage that he did, he might of felt a heavy handed cultural editor breathing down his neck. Some days I wouldn't mind living in Vermont--I've always dug the people, though the winters are a bit long, and summers a bit humid. I still make pilgrimages to northern Cal, paddle coves and rock gardens of that wild coast. Sad to see the salmon disappearing so quickly, a fact that Stegner would understand as tragic as well.
   
   My question is, are Utahns any more close minded than, say, those in Oklahoma? Nebraska? Wyoming? Idaho? Nebraska? I went to school in central Pennsylvania--whoa--still plenty of KKK about those parts. And then, of course, the deep south. Where was Stegner free to think and write? It's important to see other parts of the world, other parts of ourselves, regardless. In the end, I'm glad Stegner made the life choices he did--we're all richer for it. Good luck.

sternocreed: I had to resort to wearing camo. You can't sit in a bar in Eureka, Nevada and look like you might be a hiker, climber or other villain. You can't say anything good about California at a bar in Southern Oregon. Taking about land being scenic can be risky business.
   
   Honestly, I've found rural America to be more charming in literature than in fact. Reading, you would expect to meet rough-hewn intellectuals who educated themselves reading in the winter by the warm glow of a fireplace. The only glow is cold and it comes from satellite TV.
   
   You find regional provincialism. Rural America is a product of time and selection. If you aren't a certain type, you don't fit in and you move on.
   
   There's a cut throat meanness that you will miss passing through small towns. People talk. Groups flourish in the fertile fields of conformity. Living in a small town; its apparent, you have to live there so, don't piss folks off.
   
   I studied Moab. I watched it morph from a interesting backwater with eclectics like Lin Ottinger and Ken at Pack Creek.
   
   I lived in California. I could see the vultures circling around Moab. Abbey was the promoter; god rest his soul. There was the guy that opened Eddies with money from Colorado. The attractor in Moab wasn't wanting a rural escape but, pure ass greed. People saw money to be made off Moab. Tourism was their trail to the pot of gold.
   
   Today there are vineyards in Castle Valley along with Terry Tempest-Williams. The cult of Patagonia and sprocket heads has taken over. Moab is a place to be seen.
   
   Moab reflects the ugly dark side of environmentalism that you encounter in Jackson Hole or Park City. It's as plastic as the thrown away garbage they detest. It puke environmentalism based on being fashionable and cool. These environmentalist, like MS. Williams, invoke the ghost of Edward Abbey their Messiah. I really doubt if Ed would have spent much time hanging out with them. Ed would feel out of character wearing a Marmot