Into the West

I’ve never heard of Kit Carson, either.

Looking at those photos helps confirm something I concluded when I drove through New Mexico a few years ago. It’s not nearly as scenic or pretty as are Arizona or southern Utah.

Kit Carson? Natch. But why do you wear jeans in weather fit for shorts?

Kit Carson

Dallas-born actor-writer-producer who starred in David Holzman’s Diary in 1967, hung with Dennis Hopper in the 70s, adapted Paris, Texas in the 80s, produced Bottle Rocket in the 90s. Once husband of Karen Black;father of Hunter Carson.

Not quite as cool a freak as Peter Coyote, but pretty damn cool. More interesting and important than any ole scout.

“A scrub is a kind of foliage that gets much love from New Mexico.”

I’m still gawking. I’ve introduced a lot of people to the southwest, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen such… a disconnect. Kieran, I got introduced to Arizona via just dropping in to Phoenix cold (hot?) with the SO at her new job. Hated it. The sun is shining *again*??. But it grows on you, and the mountain bike helps quite a bit. You should come ride with us up here in Prescott sometime.

I’d really like to see BMM encounter the saguaro forest meself. Gawd, I’d like to see him mountain bike through the saguaros. Somebody needs to film that.

“A scrub is a kind of foliage that gets much love from New Mexico.”

“I’m pretty sure lines like this are meant to be funny.”

Your comment, ogged, is as amusing from my perspective as Yglesias’. I’m pretty sure that lines like that that require moral support are funny too. I suppose the real moral of this episode is: travel is *good*.

See, what I’m really thinking here is, when I’m wandering around the East Village like I like to do, am I functionally equivalent to Yglesias here? I never thought so, but maybe so.

By my second year in Tucson, I could drink hot coffee and wear jeans on 95 degree days. The flip side of course is that I wore a coat and scarf when it dipped below 65. Also, is MY wearing a suit coat at Bandelier? ‘Cause that will get your Southwest privileges stripped.

Summer=Linen trousers.

Who wears jeans? Do you fancy yourself a cowboy?

Not heard of Kit Carson? What the hell are they teaching kids in school these days anyhow? And you kids get off my lawn!

MKK–read bio of KC in grade school

It’s dry heat down there, right? Yeah, try mid-90s along the east coast. I don’t care what you wear, just try to walk for 3 minutes, see what happens.

I, too, thought Kit Carson was in the pantheon, at least as much as Daniel Boone. He isn’t? He actually occasions quite a fierce battle among Western historians, who are always defending his honor against revisionist accounts that accuse him of being an Indian killer, not merely an Indian fighter. At least, this was hot stuff in New Mexico when I lived there in the early nineties.

Do easterners learn anything about the West? My god.

24 — I don’t know how old you are Doc, but I’d guess that the locality here has more to do with age than geography. Is there any American over 40 years old who’s willing to cop to never having heard of Kit Carson?

Kit Carson murdered way more Indians than Boone, and Boone NC is even more of a hell-hole than is Carson City NV, so Carson should be ahead of Boone. If Boone hadn’t had that TV show in the late 70’s, re-run on the early version of Fox in the late 80’s, Carson would be just as well known.

And PHN, I’ve spent _a lot_ of time in Southern Utah, and a fair amount in Arizona (esp. the norther part) and not as much in New Mexico, but almost all on highways, not freeways, so I think I have some basis to say that really, New Mexcio just isn’t as pretty as either of the other two. I’m sure there are some better parts but the parts that MY gives photos of, and the parts I’ve seen, just pale before much of Arizona or Southern Utah. It might be that Santa Fe is a much better place to live than, say, Scottsdale or St. George (where isn’t?) but it’s just not as pretty.

Well, I’ve spent many a spring break in St. George, as my grandfolks used to live there, and it’s not too bad a place in, say, late march or early April when it’s about 85 in the day and you can go for nice hike at Red Rocks Recreation area. If you can avoid the terrible tedium that comes from there really being nothing to do in the city itself and the endless “cruising” of Main by the people from the rest of Utah on spring break it’s not bad, ignoring the fact that it’s impossible to get a drink there. But after april it’s awfully hot (as in it cools down to about 95 at night hot) and you still can’t get a drink and it’s no longer any fun to go to Red Rocks since all the water has dried up. It’s not truly wanting to kill yourself sprawlsville like the greater Phoenix area, at least, since it’s not hard to get to the country side, but the town itself is dead boring once you’ve been there once or twice. And Cedar City isn’t anything more than a rest stop, is it? (I say that in a kind ways, since Utah really has some of the nicest rest stops in the country. Lots wrong with Utah, but damned fine rest stops they have there.)

From Carson’s Wikipedia page:
“To avenge the deaths of his expedition members, Frémont [Carson’s companion, to whom he was loyal] chose to attack a Klamath Indian fishing village named Dokdokwas, at the junction of the Williamson River and Klamath Lake, which took place May 10, 1846. The action completely destroyed the village, and involved the massacre of women and children. After the burning of the village, Carson was nearly killed by a Klamath warrior later that day: his gun misfired, and the warrior drew to fire a poison arrow; but Frémont, seeing Carson’s predicament, trampled the warrior with his horse. Carson stated felt that he owed Frémont his life due to this incident.

The tragedy of Dokdokwas is deepened by the fact that most scholars now agree that Frémont and Carson, in their blind vindictiveness, probably chose the wrong tribe to lash out against: In all likelihood the band of Indians that had killed [Frémont’s three men] were from the neighboring Modocs….The Klamaths were culturally related to the Modocs, but the two tribes were bitter enemies”. ”

…”Carson instituted a scorched earth policy, burning Navajo fields and homes, and confiscating or killing their livestock.”

…”In January 1864, Carson sent a company into Canyon de Chelly to attack the last Navajo stronghold under the leadership of Manuelito. The Navajo were forced to surrender because of the destruction of their livestock and food supplies. In the spring of 1864, 8,000 Navajo men, women and children were forced to march or ride in wagons 300 miles (480 km) to Fort Sumner, New Mexico. Navajos call this “The Long Walk”. Many died along the way or during the next four years of imprisonment.”

…”Virginia Hopkins stated that “Kit Carson was directly or indirectly responsible for the deaths of thousands of Indians” (Hopkins, p. 40).”

Of course in all of this he wasn’t much different from other white people of the time. He might not deserve special condemnation, but he was clearly a murderer and killer of Indians, someone who thought them less than human and deserving of being driven off the land they lived on. We should no more be proud of him than we should other murderers and killers, even if many thought the same at the time.

And in the summer in St. George the 100 degree heat is usually there around 8am or so. It’s the 120 degree heat that gets to you.

ps – I should add, moving about the dirt stirred up the fallout, or so it is said. Hell, Hughes trucked irradiated dirt from the site into a sound stage in Hollywood. Didn’t know no better.

Just to clarify…

1) I meant “Brigham Young’s winter home,” not his summer one. My apologies. Brother Brigham can be criticized for a great many things, but constructing a summer retreat from Salt Lake City in the heat of St. George, Utah, shouldn’t be added to the list.

2) Cedar City has Southern Utah University, which is a (I think) surprisingly active place for both Utah and for being located in a small rural outpost in the midst of the southwestern desert. Their Shakespeare festival in the summer is great fun, and high quality too; I’d put it on par with any regional festival anywhere in the U.S.

3) Yes, St. George, along with many other hundreds of square miles in the part of the country, was hit hard by the fallout from Nevada’s nuclear testing. It took years of work before Utah’s Republican representatives took up the fight in DC, and many years more before the relevant documentation was finally brought to light, which included a statement from some Defense Department flunkie in the 50s defening above ground testing by pointing out that any potential fallout would only affect a “low-use segment of the population.” Compensation finally came, but too late for many.

4) That MY had never heard of Kit Carson before leaves me flabbergast. Still, in fairness, it might be worth grabbing some blogger over at Red State, sending them to New York City, and see if they don’t stare blankly at some historical marker for Robert Moses.

“Kit Carson” answers the critical question: What got left out of junior high school history classses when Native Americans, African-Americans, women, and Presidents after Kennedy got put in?

Try 120 with 25mph winds. Still less comfortable is eight degrees cooler, but with the humidity doubled as moisture roles in off the gulf in the evening.

Response to #37, actually Kit Carson is completely connected with the experience of non-white Americans, having been married to three of them, most lastingly to a woman named Jaramillo who saved his life when most of the “whites” in Taos were killed. Furthermore, in the Civil War he commanded largely Hispanic militia units fighting against the hated racists invading from Texas.

I don’t want to argue the case, but Wikipedia quotes about a military officer being directly or indirectly responsible…. is hardly the same thing as being a murderer.

Carson and Crockett were both US citizens, though the latter died fighting in a foreign army. Boone (whose sons grew up with Kit Carson, by the way) is the odd man out, having served as a Virginian, a British prisoner and quisling, and finally a Spanish officer, but by careful intent never having lived a day of his life in a US state.

USS Daniel Boone (SSBN-629) was a nuclear missile sub in the “Fighting Furriner” series, along with foreign flag heroes Kamehameha, Stonewall Jackson, Robert E. Lee, and Sam Houston, and foreigner allies Simon Bolivar, Casimir Pulaski, Lafayette and don Vallejo.

I’m not sure why John C. Frémont’s name has an accent, but it in fact does.

In #43, joshua w. burton wrote: “[Daniel] Boone . . .never . . . lived a day of his life in a US state.”

What an odd claim. Where was he living from 1795 to 1799, when everyone else seems to think he was living in the state of Kentucky?