Really Stupid Words, Chapter 23.

And now for something completely different.

This edition of Stupid Words does not involve words at all. It does involve language, but not spoken language. It involves waggling two fingers on each hand in what is known as air quotes.

I guess somebody, somewhere, sometime, decided that waggling fingers like that resembles printed quotation marks. It’s a reach.

It’s a mystery to me why and how it caught on, as the gesture serves no real purpose.

Still, some people feel obligated to waggle, thinking that waggling with their fingers adds emphasis to what they are saying with their mouth. It doesn’t. It’s more a distraction, really. For many, an annoyance.

Besides, the human voice is perfectly suited to add emphasis, no fingers required. There’s volume, there’s inflection, there’s pacing, stretching, stress, intonation, cadence, pitch, timbre, tone, even silent pauses. I’m sure there are other ways to emphasize what you’re saying, but waggling your fingers to make air quotes need not (and, to my way of thinking, should not) be among them.

If ever you are tempted to waggle your fingers when speaking, remember how the late Chris Farley showed how stupid air quotes are with his character Bennett Brauer. You can look it up.

The Parcel Post Bank

In my last post about a then-pending trip to Vernal, Utah, (which turned out a success, I might add) I mentioned a bank there, built from bricks sent through the United States Post Office. That mention merited interest among some readers, so I thought I would expand on it a bit.

Above is a photo I took of the bank (still standing and still a bank) with its brick facade. As you see, they are ordinary looking bricks. But how they got there is anything but ordinary. Here’s the story, as quoted from a sign on the sidewalk across the intersection from the bank. Other sources generally agree with this telling, although you’ll see a huge difference in numbers, and numbers that don’t add up, as you read on.

How Far Would You Carry a Brick for Seven Cents?

The building located diagonally from you . . . [was] originally the Bank of Vernal. Did you know that this building was shipped to Vernal through the US Post Office brick by brick?

All of the decorative brick, 5,000 packages weighing 50 pounds each, were sent from Salt Lake City, Utah, by parcel post because it was half the rate of normal freight.

Salt Lake City is only 3 hours away by automobile. In 1916, it took approximately 4 days to receive a parcel post shipment. The brick first had to travel 309 miles by the Denver and Rio Grande Western Railway to Mack, Colorado. It was then transferred onto the narrow gauge railroad of the Uintah Railway. From Mack, it climbed 63 miles north, up the steepest railroad grade in North America into the desert mining town of Watson. From here, the brick was loaded onto 17 six-horse wagons for the 2-day and 60-mile ride through Devil’s playground and over the Alhandra River Ferry to Vernal.

Imagine, all of that work for only seven cents postage per brick!

A history of the United States Postal Service adds these details (and discrepancies):

John B. Cahoon of the Salt Lake Pressed Brick Company recalled that his company shipped 15,000 bricks to Vernal via Parcel Post. The bricks were individually wrapped in paper and packed ten to a wooden crate to meet the maximum allowable 50-pound limit for packages. In total, the bricks filled 1,500 crates and weighed about 37½ tons.

USPS history also goes beyond the bricks:

The Bank of Vernal’s bricks weren’t the only unusually large shipments received at the [Vernal] Post Office that summer. Cheap postage rates contributed to a construction boom. Many building materials, including cement, plaster, nails, and other hardware, poured into town. Meanwhile, all the merchants in town received merchandise for their stores via Parcel Post. In September 1916, a train carload of twelve tons of canned tomatoes—9,720 cans packed in 486 cases—arrived at the Vernal Post Office for area stores.

There are still plenty of canned tomatoes on grocery store shelves in Vernal, but they did not get there by mail. All those Parcel Post shipments to Vernal prompted changes in postal regulations, and you can’t do that sort of thing anymore.

 

On the Outlaw Trail.

You could stick a pin just about anywhere in a map of Utah and there would be some interesting aspect of Old West history that happened there. The northeastern part of Utah below Wyoming and next to Colorado is no exception. Brown’s Hole (Brown’s Park, if you prefer) and Diamond Mountain are there. And the Outlaw Trail, leading from Hole in the Wall in Wyoming to Robbers Roost in Utah, runs through the Uinta Basin and most every outlaw in the history of the Intermountain West frequented the area.

 Among them was Matt Warner, the bandit who introduced Butch Cassidy to the outlaw life, and subject of my historical novel, OUTLAWMAN: The Life and Times of Matt Warner.

On July 22, I will be in Vernal, the heart of the Uinta Basin, where Matt Warner was arrested for murder following a gunfight where he killed two men and wounded another, speaking at the Uintah County Library. (Uintah and Uinta are both correct spellings, depending on circumstances, but that’s a story for another day.) I’ll be speaking about Warner’s life and times, reading a few selections from the book, and visiting with people about one of the Old West’s most notorious outlaws, who later became a respected lawman.

If you’re anywhere near the area we’d love to see you there. There’s a lot to do and see in the Uinta Basin, including a bank on Vernal’s main street built back around 1916 from 37 tons of bricks—every one of which arrived in town with a postage stamp, via parcel post. That, too, is a story for another day.

It’s a Kick (starter).

A while back, publisher Silverado Press invited me to be part of an anthology of Western stories by some of today’s top authors (and me). It sounded like an interesting project, so I signed on. That’s the cover of the book above.

But there’s something unusual about this book—not so unusual these days, I suppose, but certainly new to me. Readers—potential readers—will fund the publication through something called Kickstarter. I guess how it works is that interested readers buy the book in advance, contributing at various levels of support for added perks and benefits.

As I said, I don’t know the ins-and-outs of how it all works, but here’s a link that should answer all your questions and tell you how to get involved.

Silverado Press Presents Western Stories by Today’s Top Writers.

You’ll see that the editor, Jeff Mariotte, has assembled a stellar cast of Western Writers. And me. Take a look. You might like the idea of helping publish a book.

Reruns.

Not long ago, yours truly appeared on LA Talk Radio in a wide-ranging, penetrating, perceptive, enlightened, astute, scintillating, incisive, informative, in-depth (or so I’m told) interview with Tom Swearingen, guest host for the “Rendezvous with a Writer” program.

Life being what it is, it’s altogether likely that not all of you were able to tune in to the live broadcast.

Not to worry. LA Talk Radio has made the program available all over the place so you can tune in. Being something of a Luddite, I don’t pretend to know what all this stuff is or how it all works, but you (or your grandkids) probably do.

Here are several links you can click on to take you to either an audio only or a video and audio recording of the interview. Thanks for listening. Or watching.

Video:
LA Talk Radio Facebook Page
YouTube

Audio:
LA Talk Radio Audio
Podbean
Spotify
Amazon Music

Stamey under the sky.

Blue sky and Dave Stamey. What better way to spend a summer evening?

On July 19 at around 6:00 pm, legendary Western singer, songwriter, and entertainer Dave Stamey will step up onto a hay trailer parked in Cameron Wilkinson’s horse pasture in Mapleton, Utah, and cut loose with a rollicking evening of good music and good times.

Stamey’s pasture performances have become a summer tradition as Cameron invites Dave and all comers to congregate for a festive, informal celebration of cowboy tunes. The modest $22 charge ($11 for the little ones) to get through the gate all goes to the artist as he wends his way across the West filling auditoriums and performing at more formal venues. But, lucky for us, he always finds a way to detour to the foot of Maple Mountain for these galas among the graze.

If you’re within driving distance of Cameron’s place on July 19, or find yourself in the neighborhood for any reason, this will be the place to spend the evening. Contact Cameron at bronc.cw@gmail.com to let him know you’re on the way and to get more detailed information. It’s an evening that shouldn’t be missed. I know—I’ve been there before, and I’ll be there again. Hope to see you there.

Tune in.

June 20 will be upon us before you know it. Please mark the evening of that day on your calendar, in your date book, on your phone, or wherever else you keep your life from descending into chaos.

At 7:00 PM that day (that’s MST, my time; it’s 6:00 PST, 8:00 CST, 9:00 EST, and however Arizona sets their clocks these days) I have been invited to appear on LA Talk Radio’s “Rendezvous with a Writer” series. Tom Swearingen, a cowboy poet of renown, will be hosting the show. We’ll be talking about reading, writing, some of my books, perhaps some poetry, and who knows what all. I suspect that by the end of our hour, we’ll have covered all 26 letters of the alphabet.

Follow these links to tune in to watch or listen live on June 20:
* Listen to the audio on LA Talk Radio’s website. (Click “Listen Live” on right side.)
* Watch on Rendezvous with a Writer Facebook.
* Watch on LA Talk Radio Facebook.

If you miss the live broadcast, there is still hope. Follow these links:
* LA Talk Radio Facebook. (Video.)
* Rendezvous with a Writer Facebook. (Video or audio.)
* Podbean. (Audio only. From Podbean you can choose Spotify, IHeart Radio, and so on.)

Whatever all that means. Tune in. Watch. Listen. Don’t miss a chance to see me open my mouth and let random syllables spill out and dribble down the front of my shirt. See you June 20.