Time to remember the words of John Quincy Adams in 1821 when he praised America: because “she goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy.” For arguable reasons, America has gone abroad –at great cost to our fighting men and women, not to mention resources. Historians will remember it all differently but from this pilgrim’s perspective facts about current concerns don’t exist simply because they are ignored. With so much focus on monsters abroad, do we also have monsters in our midst?

As Earth Day looms Cactus Ed Abbey’s words loom like high billboards, “sentiment without action is the ruin of the soul.” Little by little, environmental protections, which were signed into law by Dick Nixon in the early 1970s, are being chopped up like a woodsman with a hatchet, not by monsters from abroad but by the men and women we elect to office. But there’s more, consider a character from Shakespeare’s plays, the unrecognized kinsman. Yes, the latest buzzword is sustainability. From Sedona to Prescott, VOC to Clarkdale, and coast to coast, more and more people are excited about climbing on the sustainability bandwagon. What does that word mean? It is becoming increasingly clear that what it does not mean and that is defending the non-human world against the advances, ever larger, ever more powerful, ofMan.

Nowadays traditional enviros now stand with fossil fuel leaders and talk of reducing carbon to combat climate change. Fading fast is the ecocentrism that powered the first Earth Days—the love of place, the humility, sense of belonging in wild nature, the feelings, being in a place and standing up for it such as the Verde River, those who love trees just because they are trees. Lost in the changes whirling us are the words, ecology and economy. Once again powerful voices are telling the people that our choices cleaner air or joblessness, more electricity or more coal mining safety rules. Once again, as was the same effort in past years ecology and economy are being pitted against each other. What a shame! Eco is the world for house. Ecology is about learning about our house—the Earth—and economy is managing our house. Thus when Man destroys nature for profit, he is also attacking himself for he is part of nature, a player in life-giving ecosystems.

As for some good news, all the while people are damaging nature scientists are discovering some of nature’s creatures are wiser than Man. Take butterfly wings. They are not just beautiful. They are sophisticated collectors of solar energy that help butterflies stay warm. A Chinese company is creating a solar device inspired by butterfly wings. Best we save some butterflies.

A secret to too many!

A man who has a vision is not able to use that power until he has performed that vision on earth for the people to see.
– Black Elk

Writing about what he observed in the U.S. in the 1830s, Alexis de Tocqueville judged Americans to be “avaricious, self-serving, and aggressive.”

But he was also amazed at their collective keenness to join together in one cause or another, the fruits of that concern for community being libraries, historical societies, hospitals, and yes – parks.

And, amazed also, by those citizen volunteers who created and sustained parks back when they were the heart of small towns, of neighborhoods, when they were invigorating places for picnics, concerts, neighborly gatherings and such.

What happened?

Where did they go?

According to conventional wisdom, municipal budget crunches across the U.S. have drained resources for programs and maintenance so that the resulting neglect has left many of the nation’s parks “empty, or, worse, dangerous.”

Not so in Sedona.

Here, the future is now, up on the Posse Grounds, a lively small-town park, that features a view-shed to melt the heart of a banker, tennis courts, a sky blue swimming pool, two lush ball fields, a renovated soccer field, covered ramadas for quiet picnics – while children play on the new playground equipment – while a sand volley ball court occupies some older folks.

Although their names are not etched into pavers or in red rock walls anywhere yet, some old-timers remember the citizens that first created activities and marvel at the park’s evolution as the years unfolded. Together, those volunteers found that satisfaction was not just in creating a pretty place, but a way to gain a powerful sense of bonding and achievement.

Cindy Rovey, who came to Sedona in 1976, found that the school, the pool, the ball fields, and the area where the Coconino County Sheriff’s posse roped and real cowboys did their stuff, were in place.

She was struck by how many of Sedona’s citizens were involved, some of whom are still here and continue to be active in Sedona, or, at least, are still around. For openers, some of them are listed here: Bill Garland, George Coakley, Heidi Lawler, Dave Blauert, Steve Ash, Robert Larson, Jack Seeley, Bruce Rogers, Gail Herrick, Charlie Crick, and Len Barrow, who was a teacher at the school and ran Little League baseball forever.

Some of those people made up the first Parks and Recreation commission when the park was turned over to them in 1989, shortly after the city incorporated.

Bill Garland was the first Parks & Rec chair. Up until then, the land was leased from the state by an organization called the Sedona Community Center and was paid for with some grants and in-kind matching funds from local builders – business men and with private funds.

A review of activities back in that day also offers a quick look at Sedona’s history:

• 1953 – First Sheriff’s Posse Parade and start of rodeos.
• In the summer of 1953, Stagecoach Players of Oak Creek built the first wooden stage.
• 1962 – First ball field built.
• 1969 – Groundbreaking for Sedona Community Park and Recreation Grounds. The land was a portion of 137.5-acre land exchange and leased by the state to Yavapai County. Twenty-two acres were set aside for schools, 15 acres for Sheriff’s Posse. Various organizations were to lease land, ranging from the Little League to the Sedona Westerners, Sedona Arts Center and many more.
• In 1975 – the pool was built and the Marine Corps built the first dugouts and the snack bar.
• In 1979 – the Lions Club installed the first water fountain.
• In 1982 – the first Jazz on the Rocks sponsored by The Sedona Arts Center Citizens fixed up the stage and cleared the land, installed a drip system and seeded the site.
• 1989 – Jazz on the Rocks held it last concert, their audience had become too large.During that same year, Yavapai College launched an “institutional taking” of 8.63 acres that was surrounded by the Posse Ground Community Park. Citizen Barbara Antonsen organized a program to discourage that plan. In 1993, the college backed off and the city of Sedona purchased the land in 1994.On December 10, 2002, the city approved naming this area in honor of Barbara Antonsen. A few months later she died.
• 2005-2008 – at the request of the city, a volunteer group came together to raise funds to create a modest covered stage structure, and to renew and restore the park’s ecosystem with an efficient watering system, local grass, benches, picnic tables and landscaping.

“I support this effort,” said Joe Martori, president and ceo of ILX Resorts. “Sedona’s legacy is on that land – the first Sedona Art Festival, Jazz on the Rocks, Pops concerts, rodeos, chuck wagon dinners, county fairs, St. Patrick days …… and so much more, even a carnival.”

One of Sedona’s undersung talents, raconteur, musician, and connoisseur of adult beverages, Randall Mahannah remembers the old days: “Impressions from a distant memory … I’m thinking 1971-72. The Posse Grounds wasn’t much. A cleared-off roping arena with a horsewire fence surrounding the arena, a ‘grandstand’ built out of two-bys and surplus scaffold boards.

“The area I think now contains the softball fields. ‘Twas mostly dusty and bare, with a few scraggledy-ass junipers and mesquite for landscaping. I don’t think the school was there at that time, though I could be wrong about that, too. Suffice to say, it has changed considerably over the last 35 years.”

What he remembers most vividly is the third jazz festival, which occurred in September of ‘84 – and he was the emcee. It was on the area where Barbara’s Park is proposed to be.

“The afternoon was perfect, temperature in the 80’s, partly cloudy with an occasional shower that did not dampen the enthusiasm of the festival attendees,” said Mahannah. “The last act of the festival was Nancy Wilson. She went on-stage about 4:30, after a brief shower and an act I cannot remember. The sky was darkened by the thunderclouds overhead, and the sounds of crowd noise, distant thunder, and her quartet warming up broke the crystal silence of the afternoon. I said a few closing announcements and introduced the lady.

“The band broke into an introductory riff while I sat down with the crowd. After the band concluded, Ms.Wilson came to the front of the stage wearing a mid-length flowing red dress with a yellow flower print and sat on a stool.

“At that moment, may God strike me dead if I prevaricate, a shaft of sunlight from the west broke through the clouds to illuminate the star of the show, like God his own self decided that this goddess of song needed a spotlight.

“She opened her set in the next moment, and for one hour captivated an audience that, outside of a few hip insiders, had absolutely no clue who she was. I emceed 14 jazz fests, but never experienced a better moment than that.

“I’m not sure what the point of that is, except to say that like every thing else in this silly-ass town, the Posse Grounds are in a state of evolution.”

True, but the blessings of Mother Nature still abound. Two summers ago, when Eric Williams was delivering a version of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow,” at Antonsen Park, against the background of dark clouds hiding sections of the red rocks, a giant rainbow appeared and the people stopped talking and just gazed in astonishment.

What’s less miraculous is that mothers and daughters can do what mothers and daughters do and have done in this place for decades. A friend of mine dropped her daughter off for her soccer practice and drove around to the children’s playground so that her younger sister and her friend could enjoy the swings and climbing structures while she waited for her.

The afternoon sun was glinting off the prehistoric red rocks; the clean and clear spring air was crisp and still cool to the touch. Said she later, “I felt blessed to be in this community and wise to have chosen Sedona to bring my children up in. You see our family had moved here just a year ago. We were welcomed and folded into the community with ease.”

Just then, an attractive, older woman sat down next to her, evidently taking a similar break from the younger generation.

As she sat down, my friend welcomed her, “What a good day for the playground. Isn’t it terrific how the city has provided such a wonderful park for the community?”

“Oh yes,” she said. “It is a wonderful park. You know the park was developed by the citizens of Sedona long before the city was incorporated. And the city, and many volunteers, are continuing to improve it. You see the past, the present and the future blows in the wind up here.”

Thursday, November 3, 7 pm: Join us at the Well Red Coyote in West Sedona to celebrate the publication of THE PINK NECTAR CAFÉ by Sedona’s own Jim Bishop. In his latest book, THE PINK NECTAR CAFE, Bishop shows us that facts can be more potent than fiction! For the past 25 years he’s been collecting stories in the Southwest—some about bygone days, others from only yesterday, but all animated by strange events and unforgettable characters. “A collage,” said one professor of the book, “woven from mystery and a pure sense of place.”

Discover the world of THE PINK NECTAR CAFE. Join Bishop as he takes the reader on a magical mystery tour of his cherished Southwest. Enjoy the whimsy and bravery of real people’s lives and places and rivers lovingly portrayed.

Bishop’s career began with Newsweek magazine in New York City in 1958 where he covered Wall Street. Later he became the magazine’s West Coast correspondent with a focus on films, aerospace and politics. In 1964, he co-authored a special project on the Apollo Project and another special issue on the SST. From 1966 to 1977, he was Newsweek’s Deputy Bureau Chief in the nation’s capital. He covered Watergate, and wrote the first national cover stories on the looming energy and environmental dilemmas.

During his career he has profiled such diverse personages as Robert Kennedy and Howard Hughes, Hedy Lamar, Robert McNamara, Walt Disney and Ralph Nader, Stewart Udall and Robert Shields.

His books include THE CONSUMER REVOLUTION — LET THE SELLER BEWARE, CREATING ABUNDANCE: A DIFFERENT ENERGY and the first biography about Cactus Ed Abbey, entitled EPITAPH FOR A DESERT ANARCHIST. He also contributed to several books on the history of the Verde Valley.

Based in Sedona since 1986, Bishop has shared the William Allen White Award from the University of Kansas for the best article in any city or regional magazine. The topic was the Glen Canyon dam. The Arizona Press Club presented a similar award to him.

He continues to believe in impossible things—including the Pink Nectar Café, deliciously ensconced on the outskirts of Sedona where only the truth is told.

Moving right along, Nixon signed a basket of environmental laws telling audiences that as far as protecting our skies, rivers, oceans, wildlife and ourselves from toxic pollutants it “was now or never.” Imagine his shock to learn that many of those laws leaders in his own party are blasting gaping holes in. At the same time, Nixon also advocated tighter regulation of insurers requiring states to create annual audits and hunt down shenanigans,

What happened? Day after day, the mainstream press, some with circulations larger than the penny dreadful you have in your hands, all aquiver from reading the truth for once, blame rightwing wing nuts and men, both large and small, that go bump in the night. Gentle reader, that’s not the half of it, not even a slice of it.

The truth is a simple as a snowdrop: The Soviets became Russians again so that they’ve become friends not enemies in many respects, though not all. American leaders have lost the threat of World War Three without the USSR to rally voters around and pump up defense budgets and reduce taxes to corporations. Simply stated, a new enemy was needed to unify the people.

True enough, Nixon had an enemy’s list when he was president. But it was pretty short and busy with the names of harmless, underpaid reporters. These days, however, longer enemy lists are being assembled by governors, legislators and D.C,-based inheritors of Nixon’s programs regarding aiding the poor, punishing lawbreaking businessmen, and cleaning-up dirty air. They include the following dangerous Americans:

• teachers
• government employees
• medical professionals
• small-business owners
• Public safety officers.
• Unemployed workers
• women

All are “parasitic bloodsuckers,” in the words of one elected official in a certain state in southwest where I.Q.s are dropping faster than winter temperatures in Montana.

No one can say for certain, but were he alive today, Nixon might asked a aide why members of his own party be driving voters to the other party with such a vengeance like lemmings racing toward a cliff.

And were he around today, how would he regard the Internet? Well on the bright side, there’d be no need to ask his secretary to erase any tapes. Also, there’d be no need for enemy lists given that few magazines have real reporters anymore. Some are driving jeeps now; others are acting in porno films for seniors. Anyway, everything is on Facebook, You tube and other new conveniences, he’d quickly discover.

Chances are he’d order up an ice cold gin martini and order computers removed from the White House—pronto. Leading the report on his desk would be news that in the past five years, Americans have doubled their hours online, exceeding TV. By the age of 21, the average young American will have spent three times as many hours playing video games as reading. Wait, there’s more according my guru, Elias Abouja0ude: Americans spend 200 million hours a week playing the World of Warcraft. Our worst instincts are being unleashed says my guru. “It connects you with whatever you want, gambling, sex with strangers, overspending, impulse buying. In short, everything we know about, what we thought was good is bad,” Nixon would be told by senior staff aides.

“Call in the plumbers,” he might yell.

“Too big a job even for them,” he’d told.

“OK, then a double martini on the double. Sorry some of our past didn’t make it into the future. Hold the twist.”

A pessimist burns his bridges before he gets to them.
–Mayor Jim (RIP)

Fresh from gnashing hangovers brought about by learning of the greatest robbery since the James boys robbed the Kansas City Fair in 1872 many citizens no longer regard Wall Street big shots, or their Federal counterparts, as the financial equivalent of the Red Cross.

Sipping on their cheaper and cheaper drugstore wine one day after another they wonder where the sheriffs were, even the law in some form, even the FBI or Marshall Dillon. Why didn’t someone with a brain, if not a heart, call a halt to the plundering of our hard-earned dough? Did investment bankers really spend our money on golden waste paper baskets and shady ladies of the night?

Somewhat more soothingly, let me submit some examples of what didn’t happen in our bioregion as we shift gears to think and act locally if our skin is to be saved, if our goose is not to be cooked.

The Salt River Project has moved into court to stop the City of Prescott from tapping into the Verde Rivers life-giving aquifers in Chino Valley. Quipped Yavapai Supervisor Chip Davis, One thing we seem to be good at in Arizona is killing rivers. But not this time, a special Excentric underground task force closed allied with the Monkey Wrench Gang, now holed up in Bumble Bee is at work round-the-clock.

Two dozen oil and gas leases adjacent to Arches National Park hard by legendary Canyonlands National Park will not happen and Ed Abbeys ghost can rest in peace.

Despite assaults on existing law by politicians waving law and order flags the air around Grand Canyon will not become more radioactive since all efforts to strip mine uranium have been halted.

Unable to deal with good news, some academics are comparing the U.S. to the fourth century A.D. when it was widely believed that their imperial adventure was over. These are the Peak-oilers, The Doomers, and they are growing in number.

Day after day they clamor in elitist journals made of un-recycled paper that the future isn’t what it used be, that America is the buffalo being brought to her knees by hard-hearted men shuffling worthless paper with no thought to tomorrow as they hand one another bulging bonuses made possible by liberal handouts from conservative bureaucrats.

But there is another world beginning, one that can be experienced in small groups gathering all around Sedona, Cottonwood and beyond. People in these groups believe that current economic troubles will not solved by a return to the economic models of yesteryear, such as Big Business riding to the rescue with large manufacturing plants making products people possess in large numbers already.

Time was during WW 11 that American grew 40 % of their food in Victory Gardens. Time was the restaurants served food grown locally. When he smells flowers the pessimist looks around for the funeral. Not so those who believe that optimism is a mans passport to a better tomorrow and Victory gardens might return.

Gardens for Humanity topsider Diane Dearmore believes that baby steps are leading us to an agricultural renaissance. After all, the land fed people here ever since 600 A.D. until agriculture fell out of favor some 50 years ago. They sustained themselves, and so can we.

In small groups people are asking the question: How long can Sedona continue to import its food from 1500 miles away and sometimes beyond? And the answer is that such a situation is unsustainable just as is petroleum where with three percent of the population the U.S. accounts for 32% of daily consumption.

Could it be true that our current economic troubles could turn out to be a gift from the higher powers? Perhaps thousands studying to become hedge fund managers may avoid prison time and become supervisors of cornfields in the Verde Valley? Not a bad idea says author Wendell Berry. If we could think locally, we would take better care of things than we do now.

Indeed and then maybe we won’t have to go to war for food, energy and water after all and the Wrenwood will reopen with Keeber in charge of the adult beverages. 

Too Much Publicity, Poor Planning and Creepy People threaten Fossil Springs—–How publicity, sleeping politicians and poor planning is destroying a Wilderness

The Law of Unintended Consequences invoked
As Arizona Congressional delegation sleeps
By James Bishop Jr.

If we have no hope there is no hope.
–anon

Pausing by the blue-green waters of Fossil Creek in the Fossil Springs Wilderness to examine a trashed campground Heather Provencio, Sedona District Ranger exclaimed, It hurts my heart to see this wilderness gem being so hammered. It makes me so very sad to see what people do, but there is hope.

Despite this newspapers powerful editorial and reportage coverage of A Jewel Befouled (10/11/07), its become abundantly clear to this observer that more than hope will be required if total anarchy is to be prevented, and that will only transpire when a hard-hitting management and enforcement regime is established; and that will only materialize in the form of a Wild and Scenic designation, the river protection law due to celebrate its 40th birthday in 2008; that will provide funding and enforcement power, resources that are lacking in the US Forest Service budgets.

But don’t bet on that happening soon.

Camp Verde Mayor Tony Gioia recently took some soundings in both the House, Senate and US Department of Agriculture about a series of concerns regarding various river and stream issues including the threatened Verde River and the equally endangered Fossil Springs Wilderness. Everywhere he went he was advised not to bet the ranch on action. First he was told that Rep. Renzi, sponsor of a bill to create special resignation for Fossil Springs was radioactive and his bill is as dead as desire in the dead.

Next he ran smack into a catch-22 situation: High officials in the US Department of Agriculture informed him that a designation for Wild and Scenic for the upper Verde River was not achievable until the Fossil Creek designation was completed the outlook for which is dim.

Before he returned home, he crossed party lines and visited Senator McCain’s staff and also the staff of the Subcommittee of Energy and Natural Resource staff for Senator Bingaman. He found them helpful but also overloaded with other issues, a hearing is likely but chances for the Senate to move first are uncertain at best.

So much for Arizona’s congressional delegation – either asleep at the wheel or running for higher office, either ignorant of or oblivious to the fact that wilderness was the basic ingredient of American culture.

An antidote for despair, Cactus Ed Abbey wrote years ago, is wilderness: We can have wilderness without freedom; we can have wilderness without human life at all; but we cannot have freedom without wilderness. Ah wilderness. America is blessed with 702 wilderness areas totaling more than 100 million acres that are defined by the language in the 1964 Act as an area where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man From wilderness insisted Henry Thoreau come the barks and tonics which brace mankind.

Few wilderness areas are more stunning, magical or legendary than the Fossil Springs Wilderness in the Coconino and Tonto National Forests located southeast of Sedona. Sacred to the Apache, the blue-green 14-mile-long stream seems to appear out of nowhere, gushing 20,000 gallons a minute out of a series springs out of the bottom of a 1,600 foot deep canyon in probably the most varied riparian area in all of Arizona. Over thirty species of trees and shrubs and at least one hundred species of birds have been observed in this mysterious, wondrous vicinity where people lived for many years before the European incursion in the 16th century.

What began as a dream in the late 1990s, that APS would cease hydroelectric power operations so that historic natural flows would be restored and scientists would be given the research opportunity of a lifetime, has miscarried. Sometimes you think you are doing something good, observes John Parson, longtime Verde Valley conservationist. But then the chickens come home to roost and you realize that youve invoked the law of intended consequences. APS kept the place in order, they were the de facto sheriff in town. Today its rampant lawlessness and the most crass behavior is the norm. Its going to get worse- one hell of lot worse, and may never get better or even return to a remote resemblance of what it once was. All we’re getting is lip service now.

Rangers tell me that piles of human waste and trash are awful but Meth and Marijuana are more dangerous, dangerous enough, one ranger told me, but they are not usually accompanied by bad guys who want to kill you.

It is said that people never see the handwriting on the wall until their backs are up against it. For years warnings filled the air that unless a management and enforcement plan were created before Fossil Creek was allowed to run free, roads should be closed to prevent human invasion. Friends of the Forest volunteer Justine Kusner remembers the reply by telephone to one of her letters of concern and warning, Right On. And that was the last she heard.

Bishop was Newsweeks Environmental Correspondent from 1968-77, then a Deputy Assistant Secretary of Energy under Secretary James Schlesinger

Was this the best way to show man’s love and respect for sacred waters, to please an Arizona woman, she who guards your oasis civilization? No answers came but even n more havoc lay ahead for me — Arizona woman.

Like mindless drunks, growth maniacs those who cannibalize nature, they were not done — they sawed my limbs, the yellow ponderosas, three shifts day and night, crippling me with chain-logging, clear cuts and dynamite all for TV cabinets? What a way to treat a woman. Hawks and condors say I should sue for rape and pillage, and circling above me they wonder what I shall do — I wonder too. Who is able to weep for anything, should weep for me — Arizona woman.

Then came a new brand of love power plants that filled the skies with yellow poison, clogging my lungs, defacing ancient places, I am a woman in hell. So too is my sister the Green now roiling with nuclear wastes near Moab.

Why why why — when, when when will I be set free, too many feelings, so many questions.

I am the cut body of a coyote, the cougar strung up on its hind legs off a trail, too close to gated communities they must have come, the condor shot from the sky by a dumber than whale shit rancher I am the native plants bulldozed for swimming pools and timeshares, I am a desert bighorn sheep infected by disease that made me go blind. I am the antelope run down in Prescott by an 18-wheeler. Is this any to love me, your Arizona woman?

Must I go dry before the warnings of the ancient ones who emerged from my waters come true the frog does not poison the world and drain the pond in which it lives.

If you won’t Love me, then at least leave me alone.

Thank you.

Cottonwood: During the annual Verde Valley Birding and Nature Festival here near the Verde River here a few years ago, a woman from Seattle became so excited about the unusual bird sightings at Dead Horse Ranch State Park that she asked a park ranger to whom she should write a check? To the Cottonwood Chamber of Commerce, she was advised.

Impossible, the woman with the checkbook fussed. Whats a Chamber of Commerce sponsoring anything to do with birding?

You should have seen the look on her face, State Park Ranger Hart recalls. I told her that birding brings business to the area, and that creates jobs and protects habitat. Visitors from everywhere have taken to call this place Birdy Valley. Still looking dubious, the lady nonetheless wrote a generous check.

Another Earth Day is looming and in many places and in many articles and celebrations writers and speakers will invoke the words of one of the fathers of the conservation movement, forester Aldo Leopold. Before he died fighting a fire in 1948, he wrote The Sand County Almanac in which he evokes the American dream of perpetual harmony among self, society and non-human surroundings. A rousing, overarching vision, but as renowned author Damon Runyon once quipped, I long ago come to the conclusion that all life is 6-5 against.

Its undeniably true that 37 years after the first Earth Day, in many places the forces dedicated to protecting nature remain at loggerheads with developers and corporations. But not here in Cottonwood, Arizona a town that literally has gone to the birds. In just a few years its become a world-renown destination for birds and birders to flock together in amazing numbers, marvel at the hawks, fly catchers, falconsand spend money. Pursuing their passion for birding, people spend some $800 million a year in Arizona, reports Sam Campana, Executive Director of Audubon Arizona, and thats a larger economic impact than golf. And that could be just the beginning.

For the festival this year from April 26 to April 29, a variety of businesses, State agencies and non-profit organizations have stepped up with support ranging from funds to manpower and vehicles. The business community gets it that wildlife, the Verde River and birding are essential to our economy, observes Ranger Hart, one of the festivals founders seven years ago along with the Chamber of Commerce. It not like OK, Earth Day is coming and wed better protect the environment then everyone goes back to business as usual. It is widely understood here that if we were to lose the very things people come to see, like some of the best birding habitat in the U.S., they wont come back anymore.

Former Cottonwood Chamber President Pete Sesow concurs. Im no environmentalist but I sit on both sides, and I see both sides, and as a conservative I fought for the Verde River as an economic resource for years, battling the sand and gravel miners, and more. You can say that without the support of the Chamber, well the Verde might still be the mess it once was not many years ago.

No doubt about it, the Verde Valleys reputation as one of the greatest prime birding areas anywhere is rock-solidand spreading. Up to 175 different species were recorded last year–not including a Pacific Loon and a Pelican blown in by the powerful spring winds. Compared to the dig and drain we must attitude of the old days, theres been a shift in consciousness. More people are shooting cameras rather than guns around here, and industry isnt interested any longer in grabbing everything from the earth and nature states Margie Beach, current Cottonwood Chamber president who is also local business executive. Our job is to give visitors a positive experience. They spend money wildlife watching and get excited that rare species of fish exist in the river that are not to be found anywhere else. As for ecotourism, conservation of our beautiful streams and paths of wildlife helps business. Times are changing in relations between business and conservation interests. We have to get along.

Walking by the river one day recently with a friend, Yavapai County Supervisor Chip Davis mused, If more people can just understand that preserving whats important and valuable about nature can be an economic engine. What it will take is the dissolution of the groups who insist that resource conservation is the enemy of business and economic growth and visa versa.

Cottonwood, at least, has gotten message that having discovered that humans can actually change the way nature operates, they also have the power to restore what was once nearly ruinedthe habitat along the river that attracts birds and birders from all over the world, where nature presents herself says teacher and naturalist Dena Greenwood always on her terms, not on ours.

By James Bishop Jr, an author based in Sedona

Inside the rickety, clanking airport van rivulets of sweat trickled down the drivers face, sometimes pausing to rest on his bulbous red nose which was a dead ringer for a certain Mr. W.C. Fields snozzola. Every once in a while he’d mumble a few words, bright stuff like Arizona is where hell spends the summer. The only other passenger was a paunchy lady not past 40 by much who was wrapped in a heavy woolen purple sweater. She was whiling away the seemingly endless trip to the Verde Valley from Sky Harbor by toying with a fuzzy, red hat and playing the tarty flirt with the driver. I tried to glance away and bury myself in a copy of John Barrymore’s essay, Fifteen Steps to a More Thunderous Orgasm, when she blurted out in a high-pitched preppy voice, Excuse me sir, but can you tell me where to find the Pink Nectar Café?

Sometimes it makes no sense to get out of bed in the morning. Here I was in Zane Grey country, in the land the Spanish called the Northern Mystery. It was a rainless August day and sun was beating down on our timeless vehicle which had no AC so it felt like the Devil’s kitchen on wheels and the air outside and inside was 99 degrees and climbing the driver kept informing us.

The Pink Nectar Café? No such place was listed in the AAA guide. Innocent as a cloistered nun, nonetheless I knew what I might be in for in the land the Spanish also called Terra Incognita. In my wanderings Id read some Stegner, D.H. Lawrence, Mary Austin and Cactus Ed Abbey. Clearly, no other region in America abounds with as many myths and superstitions except perhaps the Yukon where strange things are done in the midnight sun, indeed.

But the Pink Nectar Café? If it was real, what did it have to do with mountain men, Indian medicine men, the Old West, the New West, and gold-hungry developers in four piece black suits, not forgetting cattle, cotton or copper?

My mental meanderings were interrupted by the lady in the sweater.

Could I help her?

What did I know about that café?

Instead, I turned the conversational tables on her and asked who she was. To this day, I recall her very words: I am miserably married to an oil tycoon in Texas and I have been wandering here and there in search of who I am. It was in North Hollywood that I found the key.

The key to what I interrupted. My latest psychic spoke of a place in the rocks and rills around Sedona where there is a combination saloon, Bed and Breakfast, UFO landing site and New Age meditation compound. From behind the bar made of turquoise, a lady by the name of Aurora serves up a special, sweet-tasting drink, nectar of some sort.

Hmmmmmmm! Interesting details, could there be such a place? I pressed on for more details. She then proclaimed that when one quaffs even a drop of the nectar which is pink in color, ones sexual drive is restored, ones wrinkles disappear, ones savings account swells, ones brain sweeps away all negative thoughts and feelings.

She went on to talk about the different levels of consciousness that one may discover if one spends a few days around the café’s underground, warm flowing salty lagoon at least eight she was told in North Hollywood.

Now I was paying attention. Pressing on for more detail, I asked her what people did there for fun besides rediscovering their sexual prowess. Without batting an eye she said that Louis Armstrong plays there in the main ballroom every other Saturday and the lecture series features Deep Throat and Rumi.

Well that was that. I knew now that she had one oar in the water. Rumi has been dead for 900 years and as for Louis, well he is now playing with the angels. Our conversation ended when the battered bus clunked to a stop in front of the Wrenwood Café. We said goodbye and I gave her the number of the hotel where I was staying in case she ever found her café.

At that point a funny-looking plump little man with white beard walked up and asked whether I needed any help and he offered to purchase a beverage for me inside the smoky saloon. The beverage of choice was a Gila monster, part tequila and part grape-fruit juice, nectar of the Gods he said. After draining our goblets, the funny little man with a dirty white beard who hadn’t bathed in a while asked me where I was staying. I said I didn’t know yet and asked him if he had any ideas.

Sure young man, The Pink Nectar Café has rooms and the music to be played tonight is tops, Billy Holiday will be singing. Come on along, Ill drive you out there. Its just beyond the back of beyond. And don’t worry about any bills, I know the owner you see.