This Desert Life

Hey all. Did you miss me? Don't lie, I know you did.

Life is different out here. The pace is much slower, but I have a lot more to do. Also, my creative writing is now a shared niche being occupied by my blog and a creative non-fiction class I'm taking at Sul Ross. Now I greatly prefer my blog as a writing outlet, but seeing as how I'm not graded on it, and I AM graded on what I produce in my writing class, the class takes precedence. More on that later.

----Here's some pictures----

Greetings from Alpine, y'all!



My favorite - the twin peaks mountain. Obviously I've adjusted the picture...slightly....



Amelia with a good friend of mine outside the theater. Two-screen theater baby!



Apparently we're finally in line with the inner workings of the universe, because things are going swimmingly. Kevin's found his calling, and is doing everything from helping to run turkey shoot tourneys to studying (taking tissue samples from) pronghorn antelope. He's also about to start tracking mountain lion kill sites. Basically that means he gets to ride around on a four wheeler and just makes observations about the areas that the cats are killing and the aftermath of the site. I don't know about you, but to me that's pretty much as awesome as it gets.

Me, well, I'm just focusing on studies. I'll get more involved in geology next semester as I make my way up to the upper division courses. In the meantime I'm ruling. 4.0 baby.

That being said, I've had little time to let my creative imagination flourish. Instead I've been working on a "creative" non-fiction article, which I will now post for you to read. Let me just say that I've explained who Everett Ewing Townsend is in this article -and it's perfectly understandable if you haven't heard of him. I hadn't prior to moving here. But HERE his name is, in recognizability, on par with Abraham Lincoln. So yeah. Here y'are!

Bye Bye Allie, Sweetheart

My journey into the culture of the Big Bend began just over a month ago when I moved my husband and two year old daughter from Austin to Alpine. I moved for a variety of reasons, but mainly I longed to see the sprawl of land, having tired of my daily battle with the cement jungle. I missed the flat rolling plains of the Texas panhandle where I grew up, but the adventurer in me wanted to start afresh in a new place - create a new life. The very thing that drove pioneers to this area over a century before the thought of striking West ever graced me.

Since arriving I've found a hobby in collecting stories about the veritable cornucopia of interesting and legendary people who developed the area, now long gone. Of the many I've read, dreamt of, desired to emulate in the corners of my mind, Alice Townsend stands out among the rest. We all know and respect Everett Ewing Townsend, father of the Big Bend and preserver of this remarkable area. But who was Alice? What was her story?

Under a case of glass in the Houston Museum of Natural Science sits a holster and a Lady Smith .22 gun belonging to the first woman to ever enter the ranks of the Texas Rangers - Alice Townsend. In 1931 Alice, better known to all as Allie, was honored for her extraordinary service to the state of Texas and inducted into the organization under the title of "Honorary Ranger." Every day prior to this celebrated moment was a life spent pioneering the wilderness and keeping vigil over the very area today we call home. And that life began by a chance meeting in Marathon, Texas.

In 1895 E.E. Townsend was riding down a road after a devastating blizzard when he noticed a buggy down the way abruptly come to a stop. When at last he approached it, he found two women and an unruly horse terrified out of its wits. Obstructing the buggy's path were two dead burros, casualties claimed by the bitter cold of the recently departed blizzard. Townsend assisted a one Ms. Alice Jones and her companion in calming the horse, and proceeded to remove the burros so that the ladies might continue their journey. In speaking of Allie and this first encounter, Townsend said "Allie manifested the same cool courage in managing that unruly horse that she has ever since shown when called to the test, and I guess I fell for her right then." After their meeting, Townsend, a Ranger who was then stationed at Presidio, made sure his ranging expeditions frequented the Marathon area where Allie resided.

Before long the duo became Mr. and Mrs. Townsend, and from then on were perpetually on the move with E.E. Townsend's rangering duties. During their first year of marriage, Allie went on scouts with her husband that covered a thousand miles. During their scouting expeditions they encountered every type of weather - dust storms, blizzards, rain and bone-chilling winds. Hardly any modern woman's ideal honeymoon, to be sure. But Allie, having been orphaned at age twelve, was no stranger to adversity. She ran a clean camp and kept stomachs full - she always made the best of it. "She was a royal pal and ever strove to do more than her share of the labor" her husband said. Having the hard times hade the good times they had much more memorable. E.E. Townsend describes Allie looking at the work of "ole Sol" creating magnificent sunrises as if painting the sky with a paintbrush. She loved to marvel in wonder at the glorious colors that were created, and would sit for hours discovering figures in the prismatic clouds of the Big Bend.

After their many scouting missions, Allie remained at home to look after their daughter Margaret and protect the homestead. "Bye bye Allie sweetheart" her husband would say as he trekked away with a heavy heart to fulfill his duty. Always a daunting task, Alllie worked diligently to keep their home and land in good working order. She darned socks, sewed buttons and took care of the family. She was never short on adventure, which brought both hilarity and danger alike. Several times when strangers approached on the horizon, Allie donned Mr. Townsend's clothing and a formidable looking weapon desperately hoping it would be enough to keep unwanted and unknown visitors away.

Today, it's hard to imagine having that type of life in our world. I don't exactly inspect the horizon for outlaws prior to entering my front door. When my husband comes home from a long day's work and I'm not feeling particularly productive, ordering a pizza is certainly not out of the question. If a button needs replacing, there's a chance I might consider the work involved, weigh my options, and favor ordering a new garment online. Bearing this in mind, as I pour over Allie's biography so lovingly written by E.E. Townsend it never fails to move me. I can't help but long to be as she was. To have my actions, even those diminutive daily tasks, mean something. While she may not be quite so in the limelight as her husband, the part she played in making the Big Bend what it is was formidable. As a "guardian of the West" her desire to protect its beauty was equally as profound and resonating as Mr. Townsend's. He said of her, "knowing its beauties, its strange and unnatural elements, as well as its ugliness, Allie was an enthusiastic booster and worker for the Big Bend International Peace Park and some day her dream and my dream will come true." And it did.

Six years after her induction into the Rangers at the age of 66, Allie fell ill and was confined to the hospital. Reflecting on her last days, E.E. Townsend wrote "I could write many more pages as a tribute to this noble woman, whose love was an honor to me. The doctor had told me that afternoon that barring accident she would be with me another three months. The next morning, answering an urgent call I returned hastily to the hospital and found that she had just gone - God bless you, Allie Dear, bye bye sweetheart."