Is it true: Oregon, Arizona, and Canada Named

vaudeville

Flora Spiegelberg, "Reminiscenses of a Jewish Bride of the Santa Fe Trail" in Sharon Niederman, ed., A Quilt of Words: Women's Diaries, Letters and Original Accounts of Life in the Southwest, 1860-1960. Boulder CO: Johnson Books, 1988, pp. 27-28—

During the long expeditions of the Conquistadors, Coronado went from Mexico to Colorado in search of gold and silver treasures. He was greatly surprised to find among the peaceably inclined Indians a well-regulated community life in their pueblos or villages. While the Conquistador was transversing what is now Oregon and Arizona, he met several tribes of Indians with very large ears, so he called them "orejones," or "Big Ears." Another tribe that had very long noses, he called "Nazizones," or "Big Noses." We Americans have translated these Spanish names to "Arizona" and "Oregon." 

Another similar incident: the first explorers of what is the province of Canada today, were Spaniards, as usual, in search of gold and silver, and not finding it. As they marched away, they said, "Aqui Nada," meaning, "There is nothing." Later on, when the French explorers came and asked the Indians the name of their country, they replied what they had heard the departing Spanish say, "Aqui Nada," and thus the French changed it to, "Canada."

New National Parks Posters | Hartman Reserve

National Parks Poster Exhibition (2019)

Above In recent days a new exhibition has been installed of full-color posters on the theme of National Parks and Monuments. The exhibition will remain on view throughout March and April 2019 in the interpretive building at the Hartman Reserve Nature Center at 657 Reserve Drive in Cedar Falls IA.

Of the twenty-six posters featured, three were designed in 2016 by Allison Rolinger, and can be viewed online here. Rolinger, a graphic designer at 5IVE in Minneapolis, is originally from Cedar Falls, and a graduate of the University of Northern Iowa, where she earned a BA degree in Graphic Design in 2017.

The remaining posters were designed in recent months by Roy R. Behrens, UNI Professor Emeritus and Distinguished Scholar. A graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design, he taught graphic design, illustration and the history of design for forty-six years at American universities and art schools, including UNI. He retired from teaching in December 2018. His National Parks posters can also be viewed online.

The Nature Center's interpretive building is open to the public from 8:00 am to 4:30 pm, Monday through Friday, and from 1:00 to 5:00 pm on Sunday. The building is not open on Saturdays. The exhibition is free and open to the public.

Poster (2019) © Roy R. Behrens

National Parks Poster Series | Big Bend

Poster (2019) © Roy R. Behrens

Above Big Bend National Park (2019). © Roy R. Behrens. From an on-going series of posters about wildlife habitats, and national parks and monuments.

Baby Hummingbirds Nesting in Mexico

Baby Hummingbird © Craig Ede

Above and below Baby hummingbirds in nest in Mexico a few weeks ago, as photographed by artist Craig Ede (sounds like tweed), long-time friend and schoolmate.

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After living elsewhere for almost two decades, in 1990 I moved back to Iowa, where I had been born and raised. Soon after, as I browsed in a second-hand bookstore, I was surprised and delighted to find a paperback volume of essays by American satirist H.L. Mencken. Even as a high school student, I had read nearly all his writings, and had purchased at the time a series of Vintage paperbacks, the covers of which had been designed by graphic designer Paul Rand. It was one of the books from that series that I suddenly found on the shelf in that store. I felt a surge of nostalgia as I reached for the book; it was not only a touchstone, it was the exact same edition as well. Imagine my greater astonishment when, seconds later, as I turned to the flyleaf—I found my own signature.

I recalled this recently while reading the memoirs of British writer Richard Aldington, titled Life for Life's Sake (New York: Viking, 1941). Although the circumstances were different, I thought of my own experience as he described what happened to him when he returned to London after serving in World War I (pp. 202-203)—

[In a London bookstore] A little further down was a display of French books. One shelf of about forty particularly held my attention. I thought: This is a remarkable coincidence; it's the first time in my life I've ever seen a row of second-hand books, every one of which I've read. Mechanically I pulled down one of them and opened it. On the flyleaf was written: Richard Aldington. I took down another, with the same result.

My first thought was that the house where I had stored my books had been burgled; and full of righteous indignation I plunged into the shop to try to trace the thief. Again the bookseller remembered me, and at once looked up his records. If I had suddenly and unexpectedly been hit between the eyes I could not have been more stunned than when I learned the books had been sold by a "friend," a Bloomsbury intellectual, who had rooms in the house and therefore access to the storeroom. Evidently he had come to the conclusion that I was unlikely to return from the front, and that since the books were no use to him he might as well change them into beer.

Baby Hummingbirds © Craig Ede

Richard Aldington (from the same book), p. 206—

My French colleague, Henry de Montherlant, making a pilgrimage of devotion to the sacred field of [the Battle of] Verdun, found skulls of our dead comrades on which tourists had scratched their names and the initials of their country.

•••

Rex Beach, Personal Exposures (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1940), p. 166 [his recollection of having been attacked by a huge crocodile while making a wildlife film]—

To this day it gives me a chill to see an alligator-hide suitcase with the lid open. I don't trust those creatures even when they have brass fittings and a monogram.