Deportation Notes

How often we learn about one thing when searching for something else. That’s one reason I encourage my 15-year-old son to read, read anything, read every chance he gets. It’s amazing what you might just learn, serendipitously, including smooth-feeling new words.

Such was the case this evening as I was perusing Western short stories by Owen Wister, a writer best known for creating The Virginian: A Horseman of the Plains more than a century ago.

Beginning to read a book of his essays, with which I was not at all familiar (A Straight Deal; or, The Ancient Grudge), written in the mid- to late-teens, I came across this description of the times:

“Publish any sort of conviction related to these morose days through which we are living, and letters will shower upon you like leaves in October.  No matter what your conviction be, it will shake both yeas and nays loose from various minds where they were hanging ready to fall.  Never was a time when so many brains rustled with hates and panaceas that would sail wide into the air at the lightest jar.” Read More »

I missed the exact day.  That would have been Monday, the 12th. From there, it was 8 1/2 years ’til the actual anniversary of the Bisbee Deportation.

If you don’t know what the Deportation is, you’ll have to wait until I’ve completed a few more episodes of this blog to get the details. Or you can google it; there’s stuff already on the net.

It’s time to get serious about collecting and disseminating as much information as possible about the event, its origins and its aftermath. From the various points of view. Read More »