Wanderers in Wonder

9/26/2020

As most of you know, I love books. I gave many in my large collection away before we hit the road. I did put my collections of sports books, Civil War, WWI, Abbey and Southwest fiction and non-fiction in storage. Independent bookstores are one of my favorite hangouts. 

We have only been going into stores when absolutely necessary…groceries, beer, pot. But there we were standing in front the ‘Off the Beaten Path’ bookstore in Steamboat Springs and I just couldn’t resist. Almost immediately my eyes were drawn to, almost directed to, a book. And why not, there on the cover of the book are pictures of two of my favorite Western authors, Cactus Ed and Wallace Stegner.  

The book, All The Wild That Remains; Edward Abbey, Wallace Stegner and the American West, a NY Times bestseller, was written by Dr. David Gessner an English professor at the University of North Carolina Wilmington. After going into the background of both authors and how they came to be defenders of Western wild lands, the author delves into their environmentalism and writing.

About fifty pages in I came to the realization that Dr. Gessner could be sitting in my truck with my late great friend Clay driving some godforsaken dirt road, sipping a cold one after a day of hiking and exploring our Southwestern Deserts discussing Abbey’s book Desert Solitaire or Stegner’s Beyond the 100^th Meridian. Dr. Gessner’s words flowed like conversations flowed in my pick-up with Clay and my wife Mary Ann so many years ago.

I found Dr. Gessner’s email in the University’s staff directory. I sent him an email telling him how taken I was with his work. He got back to me right away, thanking me for the kind words about his writing. We exchanged a few emails sharing some of our Southwestern Desert experiences. 

We arrived at our friend Diana’s place in Longmont, CO yesterday. Our scheduled mail drop awaited us. To my surprise Dr. Gessner had sent me an autographed copy of his book, Leave It As It Is. All The Wild was a wonderful and thought provoking read. Can’t wait to get into Leave It As It Is. Just about finished with Fredrik Bachman’s Anxious People, a great read. There were two other books in my queue but Leave It As It Is somehow skipped to the top of the list.

I have the same disease as T.R. 

Peace…Wanderers in Wonder.