Thursday, June 18, 2015 - Page 2

guidelines to participate in SPYC. Participants will be able

to work 300 hours and will be paid $8 per hour. For more
information about SPYC, please visit http://thinkoutside.
mo.gov/. For more information about these summer employment programs, please contact the Missouri Career Center
Maryville at (660) 582-8980.

Letter to
the editor Dirt Under

Established 1884

(USPS 533-780)

521 Main St. PO Box 278

Tarkio, MO 64491
(660) 736-4111
Fax (660) 736-5700

www.farmerpublishing.com
email: avalanche@rpt.coop

Mike & Lisa Farmer

WC & Shauna Farmer
Owners/Publishers
Megan McAdams, Editor
Lori Shaw, Bookkeeper
Traci Cooper, Design
Tommie Miles, Advertising
Member
Missouri Press
Association
(Subscriptions Are Due In January)
Single Copy 75
Atchison, Holt & Nodaway
Counties $33.00 yearly
All other addresses
$46.00 yearly
All prices include Missouri sales tax
DEADLINES:
News Copy................................Friday
Advertising Copy......Monday at Noon

Published weekly on Thursdays

and entered as periodical
publication in the Post Office
at Tarkio, Missouri 64491.
POSTMASTER:
Send changes of address to:
TARKIO AVALANCHE,
521 Main St., PO Box 278,
Tarkio, MO 64491.

Dear citizens of Tarkio,

I am writing this letter
just to give you something to
consider the next time you
are using the compost pile
for leaves and grass clippings, the rip rap pile for unwanted cement, bricks, and
masonry, or the brush pile
for limbs and such. Some
towns around here are not
as lucky as we are to have
these places available and
some that do are gated and
only open at certain times
and even charge people for
using the facility.
Unfortunately, some people in this community are
abusing the privilege of having these places by dumping
plastic and metal in these
piles. I have found tires,
televisions, carpet, and even
shingles. The compost pile is
so full of plastic, pots, garbage bags, etc. that I am not
even sure anyone would use
it as compost. I would also
hate for the city to lose its
burn permit with the state
for the brush pile because of
things being thrown into it
that are not allowed. I would
hate to see us lose this privilege or have it so restricted
that it is unhandy to use. So,
lets all be careful about how
we use the compost pile, rip
rap pile, and brush pile!

Thanks,
Jamie Quimby
Tarkio Street
Superintendent

Youth summer
jobs program

There are opportunities available in two summer employment programs offered through the Missouri Career
Center in Maryville, MO. Youth must be between the ages
of 16-24 and meet income qualifications to participate. Participants will be able to work 240 hours and will be paid
$8 per hour. The Maryville Career Center also has a position available through the State Park Youth Corps program (SPYC) to work at Big Lake State Park in Craig, MO.
Youth must be between the ages of 17-24 and meet income

My
Fingernails

The storms of June following the constant rains of May

have left our country roads in quite a state. You can mess
up the alignment of your minivan dropping off the pavement to the erstwhile gravel road. Your four wheel drive
independent suspension will loosen your false teeth on the
washboards of the downhill slopes. Even the most seasoned
skier would have a difficult time navigating the moguls at
the top of the rises. A driver plays Russian roulette where
the tubes have washed out and the road narrows to one car
wide. On my way to work this morning, 160th, the gravel
leading to the greenhouse, reminds me of nothing so much
as the Oregon Trail ruts carved deep into the limestone at
Guernsey, Wyoming. And thinking of the Oregon trail...
Like many of us, Ive visited our nations Capitol and
viewed with reverence and respect the memorials and monuments to our nations founding and history. Each and every time I mount the steps to the Lincoln Memorial, I get
goosebumps reading the words of the Second Inaugural Address on the marble wall. However strenuous the gauntlet
of security surrounding the Capitol, it is still the peoples
house. The walls, the intricately tiled floors, the murals, the
well worn desks: despite the uniformed attendants and bustling, over busy factotums, the subtext of the surroundings
is you have every right to feel at home here. The streets
fill every morning with the worker bees of the government,
but the city belongs to the tourists. In Washington, D.C., our
history is concentrated, piled up like a seven layer salad.
And like that dish, mixing the ingredients may ruin the
appearance, but improves the experience. Thats how I feel
eating lunch at the Old Ebbitts Grill: new seating in the
enclosed atrium, old style wait staff, antique bar. Or visiting the American Art Museum/Portrait Gallery nee Patent
Building. Or perusing the book I have from the National
Archives titled Washington old and new.
But wait. Washington, D.C. is not the whole story. The
story of America found on the Mall is the Readers Digest
condensed version: it cannot do justice to the natural physical spaciousness and enormity of America and the way it
formed the American character and experience. Instead
of walking the National Mall of our east coast, one must
hit the highways and follow those seekers on the Oregon
Trail.
Maybe I put too much store in the pioneers. Perhaps this
is a provincial prejudice of itself. After all, when you live
just north of the home of the Pony Express, when you cross
the proverbial Wide Missouri every little whip stitch, when
Lewis and Clarks Indian tribes named your neighboring
counties, when the flat sandy Platte empties nearby; how
could you fail emphasize and honor the super highway of
the last century? Not just recognize, but also realize how
many of the differences between the coasts in our present
day derive from the differing perceptions of the scope and
scale of our modern country. Those folks living at the end
of the section roads in the Sand Hills are not newcomers;
they have roots as deep as the grasses that hold the ancient
dunes in place. You think Nebraska is long on I-80? The Oregon Trail covered even more miles on the wandering south
side of the Platte; the Mormons kept themselves separate
on the north side. Im sure those 400 odd miles seemed long,
but as the bountiful pasture and water of the east dwindled
as the land rose and the humidity dropped, it could and
did get worse. Think of those folks; never spent a season in
a truly dry land. Never lived through searing winds of 40
mph day after day. Never saw the storms rise up from nothing over the horizon and drop hail the size of hens eggs.
Weve been to Ash Hollow in Nebraska and seen the broken land the dried and split wagons traversed. A sobering
warm up for the slope of the Rockies. How bizarre did the
monuments of Chimney Rock and Scotts Bluff appear? Or
perhaps the travelers didnt mark this passage; unlike our
windshield surveys on pavement, Chimney Rock and Scotts
Bluff were landmarks for days on end.
Across the Platte in Wyoming, the rocks at Guernsey
concentrate the impact of the wagon wheels. If you stand at
the foot of the rocks, the ruts are four foot deep. The names
of the travelers are carved in that same stone in block letters with dates attached. What a leap of faith or foolishness!! Here in eastern Wyoming, the topography is moderate though the eastern forests and plentiful wood are but a
distant memory.
The next stop for weary
travelers would be Fort
Laramie, a gathering place
for military, Indians, and
emigrants. Fort Laramie
looks much as it did 150
years ago: tremendously
exposed, big sky, big prairie
near a modest copse of cottonwoods. There is little to
protect or screen the wooden enclave: the landscape is
reduced to its lowest terms;
you are in the West.
Even more evocative of
the stark and brutal journey is the landscape farther
west in Wyoming. The current highway following the
Trail can be lonely in the
21st century; no towns exist for miles, though in classic Wyoming fashion, the
widest spot of the road gets
large font on the state map.
The terrain is broken, the
names foreboding: Rattlesnake Hills, Devils Gate.
Independence Rock sits in
the middle of this landscape,
imposing and graffiti-ed. We
arrived at Independence
Rock one morning when the
shadows were still long. The

parking lot was empty and the air silent. Unlike a midwestern summer morning, there was no bird song and no
dew, just the crunching of our footsteps on the path. For
miles past Casper, wed seen no sign of human habitation
or occupation except the signs for the Pathfinder ranch.
The Rattlesnake Hills were black and barren. The highway
both directions was empty. It was not hard to imagine how
endless the miles would seem when laboring through this
desolation.
For the modern traveler, it is but a short drive on to the
Devils Gate, a gash in the rocks before the welcoming meadows and water of the Sweetwater River. But the wagons and
teams would take an entire day to make the distance, a
pace that became even more labored as the summer wore
on, the days shortened and the mountains loomed.
I can hardly imagine what drove those people to travel
such a distance. These were wanderers, drifters, dreamers
and the children of such restless folk uprooted from their
native soils. They took leaps of ignorance and faith and
could never have known how ill prepared their best efforts
were. Was Oregon or California really worth this sacrifice?
Apparently so, because the prairies still bear markings
from the impact of the exodus even today. Where are those
doughty long suffering souls today? They are still in our
bones and in our pretty well universal can-do approach to
circumstances. Every time we pack up our families and belongings and take on a change of life and location, we pay
homage to our forebears. We may not recognize ourselves
in the marbled halls of our seat of government. But when
we drive the thousand miles from the Missouri River to the
Devils Gate, we do. We are far removed in time from the
emigrants of the Oregon Trail, but we admire their persistence, their spirit, and their hope for a better life for their
loved ones.

911 Pine Tarkio, MO

660-736-4105