Turns out we were some of the lucky ones.  Not all of my friends were allowed to attend the matinees.  Their parents didn’t approve of the movie content unless it was a Disney offering or some cartoon.  Subsequently, these are the same parents now who ban movies such as Harry Potter and anything that has to do with magic and evil nemeses.  It all makes me wonder though; are they really avoiding such movie elements by allowing G rated Disney movies and other happy cartoons?

Take, for example, Snow White, a little princess who is so pretty her stepmother hates her. HATES her because she’s pretty.  In fact, this woman hates her stepdaughter so much, and is so completely and totally jealous of the girl’s beauty and charm, (and by the way, I’m just SURE she coveted that heavenly, melodic singing voice that seemed to tranquilize small birds and mammals too.  Who wouldn’t want that power? ) that she hires a hit man to murder the girl. (and just where is the loving father in all of these cartoons anyway? It seems the father is always absent and therefore totally oblivious to the abuse his freakishly gorgeous daughter suffers at the hands of some evil woman he’s married to) Evil Queenie demands the hit man cut poor little Snow’s heart out and threatens him with his own death if he does not return with the heart in a box. (Do you suppose she was going to keep the heart in the box on the mantle? Or preserve it and display it in the trophy room?)

So, the hit man, a hunter by trade, somehow coerces Snow White to follow him deep into the woods.   The moment he raises his hand to stab Snow White the hunter realizes he’s in the wrong line of work and should stick to killing animals.  He lowers his knife and instead runs Snow White off  like a stray dog.  The deer heart he brings back to the Queen tricks her for a while, but soon that magic mirror gives the hit man away and she knows Snow White is still alive.  So, she whips herself up a magic potion, yes I said MAGIC, changes her identity and tries to poison Snow White numerous times.

Well, Snow White, by this time, with no obvious survival skills and brains whatsoever, runs like a scared kitten through the dark and scary woods until she finds a little cottage.  No one is home, so she goes ahead and breaks in. It just happens to be dirty so what does the brainless little pretty do? Well she cleans right up and then bakes a pie for the poor orphans who live there. Because that’s all women know how to do apparently; clean and bake after running blindly through the dark and scary woods. She is but a meek, mild, frail girl and so pretty that when the grubby little men who inhabit the cottage she has broken into and rummaged through come home, they are awe-inspired by her beauty and let her stay once she promises to be good eye candy AND cook and clean for them.

So stay, she does. But Snow White is so stupid, she lets the evil queen trick her and poison her twice before she finally succumbs to the famed poison apple. The Evil Queen soon meets her demise as she tumbles off a rocky cliff. And creepily enough, the grubby little men who are lamenting the loss of their gorgeous new slave just can’t bring themselves to bury her dead body so they encase it in a glass coffin, creating a shrine unto which they bow daily.

But OF COURSE a handsome prince of regular height finds the sleeping princess and just can’t resist a lovely kiss on her dead, frozen lips under that glass coffin (isn’t there a syndrome or a sickness for people who do stuff like that? Isn’t it illegal?) The kiss awakens the dead Snow White (can you imagine the morning breath that girl had? Death breath! Mmmmmmm…attractive!) and they fall instantly in love and are married that same day. I think he may have already known what a stellar housekeeper she was though.  I’m sure her pie baking skills were renowned throughout the kingdom by this time as well because, after all, it’s hard to keep seven little men quiet who just hit the domestic jackpot.  It’s truly a great premise for a wonderful children’s cartoon isn’t it?

I guess singing and whistling dwarves are what makes it all okay.  The Brother’s Grimm wrote many dark, scary, gory tales but Hollywood movie producers clued into the whole “musical numbers makes it all better” trick and now turn many dark movies of magic and mayhem into box office gold.  The underlying themes are all the same, but singing dwarves and pretty princesses who can charm small animals and rodents somehow make the subject matter more endearing and precious.  I’m not sticking to the Disney only route, however. I learned early on that Disney movies are just as scary and thrilling as non-whistling dwarf movies.  Thanks to the Vernal Theater (and never-heard-from-again actors like Stewart Peterson, the blonde, teenage God who starred in “Where the Red Fern Grows” and “Against a Crooked Sky”) and the Saturday Morning Matinee series.

A wise old cattle rancher once told me, “Anytime cows are involved there is bound to be a dirty job somewhere.”  Not all aspects of cattle ranching are dirty, but when you’re dealing with five thousand cows, things can get a little messy.  Just ask Greg and Maggie McKee of McKee Farms in LaPoint.

Started as T&L Livestock by Greg’s father, the late Larry McKee and the late Tom Anderson, Greg and Maggie are carrying on the McKee family legacy of cows, horses, mud, poop, feed, cattle doctoring, and fun.  The McKee’s own and operate a large feed lot in Western Uintah County, hosting more than five thousand calves each year from October through June.

Feeding time for 5,000 cows is a HUGE job- and not the most clean job around either.

While most cattle farmers are calving out the yearly crop of new calves in late winter/early spring, McKee Farms is still working on the previous year’s herd, fattening them up for sale and butcher.  Greg and Maggie buy calves every fall from Basin cattle ranchers and keep them in the feed lot until May or June when they’re ready for slaughter.

“We get calves that have just been separated from their mothers.” explains Maggie.  “We wean & background them then feed them until spring and market them through what we call our “sister states”, such as Wyoming, Colorado and Nebraska.”   “Backgrounding” is “a management system where recently weaned calves or yearling cattle are grazed for a period of time before they are placed in the feed yard. After they reach a desired size, or at the end of the “grazing” season, they are sorted into uniform loads or pen-size lots and placed in a feedlot.”

Maggie says the first 90 days the new calves are on the lot are one of the busiest times for their hands, Greg, Jim Huber and Chris Walker.  “Chris will drive the feed wagon and Greg and Jim follow along on their 4 wheelers.  Usually all the calves will run up to the feeders to eat, but the ones who stay behind and don’t come for the food are the ones who need medical attention.  So, Greg and Jim will rope them and doctor them.”

Greg, Jim and Chris manage the feed lot no matter the temperature or weather conditions.

To a guy like Greg cattle doctoring is second nature and just part of life.  He says, “You can’t be squeamish if you own cattle.  I doctor my calves myself.  I see a lot of pink eye.  I pop cysts, give shots for pneumonia and check for hoof rot regularly.”  Cattle themselves are not the cleanest of animals and checking for and doctoring ailments is not always a clean job, although most vaccines are easily given as a quick shot and the animal is released as quickly as it was roped and tied down.

The dirtiest part of the job would definitely have to be dealing with all that cattle waste, but again, it’s just part of life for Greg.  “Greg’s been around the cows since he was 5 years old.” tells big sister Kari Morris.  “To him, this is just what you do every day.”  Pens are cleaned out regularly, but Greg says that with modern machinery, it’s really not that bad.   We say he’s only being modest, however.  Poop is poop and dealing with poop is definitely a DIRTY job.

McKee Farms has grown over the years and now includes a fertilizer business as well as thousands of cows.  Greg McKee’s job may seem dirty to the rest of us, but to him, it’s just business as usual and proof that a man can take pride in his work no matter the task.  Greg’s sister, Kari, sums it up, “This is really the only life Greg knows.  He worked side by side with dad [Larry McKee] since he was a kid up until Dad passed away in 2005, so it’s just life to him and it’s also important to him to carry on this legacy and continue to work the farm.  I think Dad is proud of him.”

Shopping…There’s No Place Like Home

Published in the December 2010 issue of The Edge Magazine, Uintah Basin, Utah

It’s no secret that shopping isn’t one of my favorite things to do, but I lighten up considerably when it’s Christmas.  I don’t mind doing a little shopping as long as I don’t have to fight huge crowds and stand in line for hours or get up at 3 am to hit a super sale.  I like to shop the smaller, local, specialty shops and other local stores for Christmas gifts, and can usually find the perfect gift for someone in the downtown business areas of Vernal and Roosevelt.  This suits me perfectly, especially after my experience at an outlet mall recently.

I was in the market for a new dress and few nice clothing items so I went in search of a store to suit all my needs at once.  I was looking for a more upscale clothing store when I stumbled upon one that seemed to have everything I needed and the clothes inside looked pretty nice, so I decided to give it a try.  Everything was fine until the bubbly sales girl accosted me with a phony smile and a snap of bubblegum as I entered.

“Welcome to Dress Barn!” she gurgled. “Just let me know if you’d like to try anything on!”

“DRESS BARN?” I thought to myself. “Are you kidding me? There is really a store called Dress Barn? Am I’m actually IN it?”

Yes, it’s true.  There really is a store called Dress Barn and I found myself in it, in a big city, no less!  There I was, surrounded by all manner of nice clothing, in a store named after a farm staple building.  I couldn’t help but giggle and fantasize just a little because, well, you see, Dress Barn has a large selection of plus size clothing and the name, Dress Barn, was just too much for my rural mind to handle.  Because, you know, barns invoke images of hay, tractors, and horses, cows and pigs.  I couldn’t help but wonder just want kind of message this was sending to other plus size gals.

I swear the sales girl said to me “Here ya go, you good lookin’ cow, you! Wear this tent. It’s expensive material and vertically striped so it’ll make you look great. You and the other prized hogs are welcome back anytime at DressBarn!”

And then I could just picture the television commercial.  Picture one of those used car sales lot type ads, but instead of a car lot there would be an excited dude wearing farmer clothes…a well worn straw hat, old plaid shirt, dirty hanky in the back pocket of his baggy overalls, and old ratty boots.  And he’d scream into the camera…

“HEY LADIES! DID YER MAMA DROP YOU ON A GOOD GRASS YEAR? ARE YOU TIRED OF TRYING TO SQUEEZE INTO THE LARGEST SIZE THEY’VE GOT OVER AT “THE FARMER’S DAUGHTER’S CLOSET”? WELL IF SO, HERD YERSELVES ON DOWN HERE TO DRESS BARN! THIS YEAR’S TENTS FROM PASTOR AVERY’S REVIVAL WERE A BIT WORN AND WE JUST GOT IN A SHIPMENT OF HOG FEED LAST WEEK IN OVERSIZE BURLAP SACKS SO WE PUT OL’ ERMA TO WORK A’ SEWIN’ UP THE FINEST, DRAPIEST, BLUE RIBBON WINNIN’-EST DRESSES WE COULD DESIGN OUTTA ALL THAT EXTRA MATERIAL. PLENTY OF ROPE TA CINCH IT UP, TOO! OL’ WILEY CONNORS DONATED SOME OF HIS OLD LARIAT’S JUST LAST WEEK. SUUUUUEEEEEY! THESE DRESSES ARE FINE! WE’LL EVEN SET UP A TASTY BUFFET FER YER GRAZIN’ PLEASURE. THAT’S DRESSBARN….THE SECOND DIRT ROAD ON THE LEFT PAST THE RUSTED OUT TRACTOR JUST A MILE DOWN FROM MILLER’S CORNER. SUUUUEEEEEY!”

Ok, so maybe my imagination ran away with me, but, admit it, you thought it too, didn’t you?  The Dress Barn store is, of course, nowhere close to this type of an establishment and actually looks nothing like a barn in any way, shape, or form.  In fact, they really sell quite nice, upscale clothing items so the whole Dress Barn personality I had pinned on them baffled me.  I guess the thought of outfitting plus size women at a store with the word Barn in the title just kinda struck me as odd, and hilarious.

I never really got over my fit of giggles, so I left without buying anything.  When the salesgirl asked me to fill out a survey form rating my shopping experience I took the opportunity to appeal to corporate and went ahead and suggested a name change.  I think I asked them to rename the store something like “Dress Boutique” or “Dressy Closet”.  But from now on, I’m sticking closer to home for all my shopping needs.

So, I’ll see you around the Basin this Christmas season.  I’ll be the one happily shopping in all the little local shops and probably letting my imagination run away with me there too.  It should be interesting!  See you around town.

Mutton On Main: Aluminum sheep herd on the lawn of Vernal Mayor Gary Showalter's Ford Dealership, Showalter Ford.

Yes, the sheep on the lawn at Showalter Ford are gaining much popularity these days and are the talk of local gossips and coffee klatches throughout the Basin.  “Why is one black?” one curious Vernalite asks.  “I think maybe he wants us to be sheep and buy a Ford like everyone else.” another person guesses.  “Maybe it’s some political statement.” quips another.  And yet others can’t seem to refrain from making off color jokes and funny sheep noises.  Can you blame folks for wondering though? After all; “Enquiring minds want to know!”

Vernal Mayor Gary Showalter, proprietor of Showalter Ford, and owner of the metal sheep herd says he put the sheep on the lawn just to get people talking.  “Well, I come from a long line of sheep ranchers.” Showalter admits.  “I grew up around sheep.  I really just kinda like sheep.  I didn’t put them there for any real purpose other than to get folks talking about them.  I just thought they’d be fun.”

“Maybe” the mayor continues, “the sheep are a soothing thought to prevent road rage.  People want to know the meaning of them and I just tell them they mean whatever you want them to mean.  They are there for whatever you want them to be for.  I like my sheep.”

Several pranksters have tried their luck at removing the sheep, but failed to do so.  Mayor Showalter says that doesn’t deter folks from trying to vandalize the sheep though.  “People keep knocking the black sheep over.  I don’t know why they pick on the black sheep.  I guess somebody’s got something against black sheep.”  he deadpans.  “I guess I need to secure them a bit better.”

Whatever the reason, the sheep are there to stay.  For a while, at least.  And the folks of the Uinta Basin can go on enjoying, wondering, and gossiping about Mayor Showalter’s aluminum sheep herd a bit longer.  Sounds like a good story to me, anyway.

by: Jennifer Rook

Published in The Edge Magazine, Nov. 2010

You may live in Uintah County, but you camp, fish, hike and hunt in the Uinta National Forest. So, is it Uinta without an ‘H’ at the end or Uintah with an ‘H’? As you can see, there are two different spellings for the word Uinta. So, how do we know when to spell Uinta with or without the letter ‘H’ at the end? What’s the story behind that?

Western Heritage Museum director, Evan Baker, explains, “We spell Uinta without an ‘H’ whenever referring to a geographical feature. We live in the Uinta Basin, fish in the Uinta River, climb the Uinta Mountains, and enjoy the Uinta National Forest. If something is a natural, geographical feature, the spelling is always without the ‘H’. If something is man-made; however, we put the letter ‘H’ at the end of the word. Such as ‘Uintah County’, ‘Uintah School District’ or other organizations/features thought up by man. If we were to create, say, a new reservoir, we could name it Uintah Reservoir and place the letter ‘H’ at the end of the word Uinta. That is unless we named it Uinta Basin Reservoir, in which case it would retain the correct geographical spelling without the “H’ — for the geographical feature.”

Says Who?

So, who set up these rules anyway? “The federal government set up the basic rules for determining which spelling to use for the word Uinta. As the American West was expanding and names were being created the government realized they needed to standardize the naming system. It’s always been an issue.” reveals Baker.

The organization charged with clarifying the spelling turned out to be the USGS, or United States Board on Geographic Names. They began working in the late 1800′s to unify spellings. Information on the USGS website states, “The original program of names standardization addressed the complex issues of domestic geographic feature names during the surge of exploration, mining, and settlement of western territories after the American Civil War. Inconsistencies and contradictions among many names, spellings, and applications became a serious problem to surveyors, map makers, and scientists who required uniform, non-conflicting geographic nomenclature. President Benjamin Harrison signed an Executive Order establishing the Board and giving it authority to resolve unsettled geographic names questions. Decisions of the Board were accepted as binding by all departments and agencies of the Federal Government.”

After many arguments and repeated misspellings of Uinta Basin, which Mr. Baker and retired Uintah County Historian, Doris Burton take umbrage to, Baker contacted the USGS to clarify accuracy of local spellings; Uinta vs Uintah. The reply he received states, “Uintah, a variant of Uinta, is applied to political entities, whereas Uinta without the ‘h’ is applied to natural features and to the Uinta Utes.” Baker goes on to explain that their reply reinforced the fact that “Names of other features being derived from a physical feature (such as Uinta Basin) should continue to be spelled without ‘h’ at the end of Uinta”. For example, Uintah Basin Standard should be spelled Uinta Basin Standard without the ‘h’. If it is spelled with the ‘h’ it goes against common naming practices” and accepted rules.

So, citizens of the Uinta Basin, we have been informed. The Uinta Basin has no ‘h’ in its spelling and names for geographical features also have no ‘h’. Those are the facts, folks. That’s the story and we’re stickin’ to it!

Managing big game, whether it is alive, dead, dying, injured, or a safety issue, can be a very nasty job.  Not every task associated with the job is “nasty” or “dirty” in the literal sense of the word, but wrangling big game, humanely dispatching injured animals, scraping up road kill, and removing problem animals has plenty of “nasty” and “dirty” associated with it.  It’s all in a day’s work for Conservation Officers, Depredation Technicians, and Landowner Specialists who work for the Division of Wildlife Resources.

Motorists account for a large number of big and small game deaths each year.  Ron Stewart, Outreach Manager for the DWR Northeastern Region in Vernal says that even though our main highways are found on the benches, which are typically winter and/or transitional ranges, road kill can occur year round and depending on the road it’s on, the job of removing road kill can and does fall upon the shoulders of the DWR technicians, officers and specialists.

Stewart says it’s never a fun job, but winter road kill is much more pleasant to pick up than summer road kill.  “Winter is better than summer as the animal will likely freeze overnight.  Summer temperatures can cause an animal to rot and melt down before someone can get to it to pick it up.” he relates with a grimace.  Generally, road kills are picked up and hauled to a land fill, but sometimes further testing may be necessary to check for diseases, parasites or Chronic Wasting Disease.

Dealing with dead animals is all part of the job for DWR employees.  Anytime an officer or biologist discovers a dead animal, he or she looks for signs of how that animal died.  Sometimes a technician or officer will have to dig a bullet out of a carcass or maybe run a metal detector over the rotting animal to find the bullet.  Other tests to determine cause of death may include cracking some of the larger bones open to look at bone marrow.  Other parts of animals that get checked over include the eyes, ears, neck and internal organs.  Also, every deer hunting season DWR employees stop hunters at checkpoints to take lymph node samples from the neck to check for CWD.

Often times DWR workers are put to the task of humanely dispatching injured or problem animals.  Animals get caught in fences quite frequently, are mortally wounded during hunting season or by poachers, don’t always die instantly when struck by vehicles, or fall into water holes and drown.  Anything can happen, but the task of putting the animal down is usually handed off to a DWR employee.  “Putting animals out of their misery is actually a kindness we can do for them, but it about breaks my heart every time I see an animal suffering.” says one retired Depredation Technician.  “I never liked having to kill animals, but I couldn’t see them suffer either.  That about killed ME.”

Removing problem animals is pretty tricky business that can turn nasty and dirty for a DWR worker in an instant.  Bears in traps can be angry, dangerous animals.  Bears in trees often have to be darted and sometimes tracking problem animals down is a major task.  Stewart recalls a particular wiley bruin.  “We had a call of a bear in town, over by Wal-Mart.  It actually ran down the middle of the road and eventually made its way out to Maesar.  We had half the Division out looking for it, a lot of law enforcement officers and other volunteers.  Eventually the bear went up a tree and we were able to dart him, but it took us a good 4 or 5 hours chasing him through thick brush and undergrowth and tricky places before we found him.”  Luckily for that bear he wasn’t a problem and was merely passing through town.  He was successfully released in the Book Cliffs, south of Vernal and lived to tell the tale.

Trapping animals for relocation is common practice for DWR employees, but the intended target is not always the one who gets caught in the trap.  Skunks and other small game may be in the traps and sometimes an even meaner adversary is discovered; raccoons.  “Raccoons, when cornered, are very mean, especially the big males.” says Stewart.  “They are really nasty.  They have a vicious bite and they’re quite agile.  Fortunately we’re not really trying to capture and release those animals so we don’t have to deal with them on a daily basis, but there are times we come across them and it isn’t pleasant.”

Whether it’s lifting a 1,000lb moose for relocation, capturing an injured hawk, digging through a rotting elk carcass, or dealing with an angry coon, DWR employees definitely have one of the Basin’s Dirtiest Jobs.  These people are also vital to the success of our big game herds, small game populations, habitat and the health of the wildlife we enjoy.  Hopefully we can also gain a new understanding and appreciation for all the often-unpleasant functions these people also shoulder to make our everyday life more enjoyable, safer and often cleaner.  Thank you, DWR employees for all the dirty work and the awesome “clean” work you do too.  We salute you and officially crown your job as one of the Basin’s Dirtiest.

When Ryan Harrison and his 16 year old daughter, Kadea, started out for an evening deer hunt during deer season in October 2009, neither one knew this hunt would leave an indelible mark, both figuratively and literally. Neither one could have known that this year the buck would fight back.

The hunt started out like any other. Ryan took Kadea to some neighboring pastures and wooded areas hoping to get his daughter on a decent buck. The pair was hardly settled in when they jumped a nice one. Ryan let Kadea take him and she made quick work of her hunt. The buck was down in a matter of seconds and Ryan began the task of field dressing. As he worked, some movement caught his eye across the draw. Not one, but two bucks were sneaking their way through the trees. Ryan could tell one was pretty nice so he decided to follow them to see if he could get close enough for a shot with his muzzleloader.
He followed for quite some distance before a shot opportunity presented itself, but when it did, Ryan let the lead fly and sent a ball into what he had hoped was the buck’s lungs. When the smoke cleared Ryan saw that he had indeed hit the buck, but that the shot was a little further back than he had expected. He immediately began tracking the wounded buck following a good blood trail until daylight faded into dusk and it became too dark to track any more that night.

As he picked up the track again early the next morning, Ryan saw something glinting in the first sunlight not far from where he had left off the night before. It was the buck’s antlers! He had fallen in some thick sage brush and as Ryan approached, he soon realized the deer was still alive. When the buck stood up a few seconds later Ryan didn’t hesitate to shoot and fired off a shot aimed squarely for the buck’s vital organs. Ryan was sure he had made a solid, fatal hit but a split second later, the buck was up and charging.  He rushed at Ryan from twenty feet away, taking him down full force, gouging his sharp antlers deep into Ryan’s arm as he reached out to defend himself.  The buck didn’t stop there either.  He kept fighting – raking his sharp points up and down Ryan’s back, puncturing the skin in several places.

Instead of panicking however, Ryan kept his wits about him and put his rifle between himself and the deer, but as the buck continued the assault, the sling caught on the deer’s antlers and suddenly the gun was out of Ryan’s control. Thinking quickly however, he remembered he was carrying a sharp knife in his calf pocket. Reaching down and grabbing the large butcher knife Ryan went right for the buck’s jugular and with a crude swipe across the throat the fight was over as quickly as it began. A few tense moments later, the buck finally sagged down with Ryan’s muzzleloader wrapped up in its antlers.

Ryan and his gun were both gouged up a bit, a little worse for the wear, but not hurt too badly.  As he dressed the buck out, Ryan found that the first shot from the night before had indeed hit far back on the deer’s body, taking out part of his genitals but that the bullet he had fired off just before the attack had taken out the buck’s vitals, shattering ribs and leaving a large hole as it exited.

Looking back on the incident, Ryan realizes it was a freak accident that doesn’t happen often, but thinks that when he wounded the deer the night before and took out part of his “manhood” it angered the buck just enough that when he saw an opportunity for revenge, it didn’t hesitate to go from prey to predator and turned the tables on Ryan in the blink of an eye. Others may argue differently, but that’s Ryan’s story and he’s sticking to it!

It’s early evening as darkness sets in and the November winds whip in from the North.  The crisp fall air turns icy while comforting campfire smoke smells waft on the breeze as folks stoke up the fire in their homes.  The nice weather of October is long gone, winter is right around the corner and folks start thinking about hibernation as a cozy alternative to having to go out into the chill air. Out come the cozy socks, sweatshirts, fleece vests and the ever increasingly popular invention that allows folks to stay warm while their arms are free; that ridiculous blanket with sleeves that not many people admit to owning; The Snuggie.

(That’s ME in the Snuggie!)

My nine year old daughter wants a Snuggie worse than anything.  She sees the commercial and begs for the magical blanket with sleeves.  I refuse to give in though.  I’m sure we can make-do with, say, a bathrobe that you don’t wear backwards, or a regular blanket or two, right?  These are items that you’d find around the house anyway.  They are also items that STAY in the home, because, let’s admit it, hanging out in a robe isn’t the most glamorous look around and you just shouldn’t wear your bathrobe out in public and as far as I can tell, most folks understand this and have the decency to not even be seen wearing their bathrobe in their home, so I just do not understand the urge to wear a backwards robe in “cute and cuddly” zebra print.

Bathrobe=home attire; not a “go-out-in-public” outfit, and yet, there you see those people on the television commercial, cavorting about in public in the Snuggie.  Do they KNOW how ridiculous they look high-fiving at the baseball game wearing those robes?  Backwards, no less! You know, if Sunggie wanted to make it worth our while, they’d at least throw in a pointy wizard hat and a wand to complete the outfit.  Then it could double as a Halloween costume as well.  Freezing cold Uinta Basin Halloween Trick-Or-Treating would be a thing of the past with the super-cool Snuggie Wizard Costume Kit.  (I can just picture the commercial now…)

The thing with The Snuggie is, they are quite warm and I know that if I were to buy a Snuggie for my daughter she’d surely fall in love with this warmth generating miracle blanket and its ease of use as she snacks on chips in front of the television without disturbing the blanket around her shoulders and then she’ll want to take it places with us.  She’ll begin wearing it “just in the car” to keep warm, then she’ll accidentally “forget” to take it off when we go into, say, a sporting event at the local high school.  She’ll end up looking like those fools on the commercial wearing their Snuggies in front of other people, cheering in the bleachers, high-fiving, and jumping around in oversize fleece dresses.  The poor girl would never get a date if she wore that thing around “raising the roof” at the ball game.

The next thing you know, she’s wearing it to church, running to the bus in it with her backside exposed like a bad-fitting hospital gown, or hanging out at the movie theater or with her date to the Sadie Hawkins dance in his and hers matching zebra print Snuggies.  It’s like a bad fashion nightmare trend that will never end, almost as bad as those saggy, baggy, butt-crack showing jeans, or those plastic foam shoe-like creations called Crocs!  Other than maybe a run-away American Idol gimmick song or a semi-hilarious Saturday Night Live skit, no good can come of this.

Seriously, any item that resorts to composing a jingle to the tune of “The Macarena” and then features a demographic hodgepodge of fake-smiling, overly-comfortable, perfectly groomed, Snuggie wearing actors ranging in ages from pre-adolescent children to blue haired retirees doing that insipid early 90’s pop line-dance to sell itself, is in dire need of a cultural reconsideration. I mean, who really thinks they are going to be hula-hooping in their powder blue and cloud mosaic Snuggie at a neighborhood barbecue? Looks pretty flammable to me!  And if the Snuggie is the ultimate in comfortable attire, doesn’t it make sense that you would probably only want to wear it in your most relaxed condition, after you have taken off your makeup or like right after you get up in the morning, before you even comb your hair and brush your teeth? Yeah, I’m not sure how much snuggling and cuddling is realistically going to be going on between Snuggie wearers, and ESPECIALLY NOT IN PUBLIC! At least I hope not…

So, as the weather cools off considerably this month and our surroundings turn into a frozen wonderland again, folks will be throwing more wood on the fire on Friday nights, staying in and getting cozy.  I’m sure they’ll be pulling out blankets and hanging out with loved ones and plenty of you will be “raising the roof” together, high-fiving, and sipping hot cocoa, or reading The Edge Magazine while wearing your ultra-cool Snuggie.  And I guess I’m ok with it, you do whatever you need to do to keep warm but I don’t want to see you in your Snuggie.  Keep ‘em at home, kids…keep ‘em at home.

Devil’s Stump- Taking a trip to Devil’s Stump is not for the faint of heart.  The blackened tree stump on an abandoned ranch in Duchesne County is said to have spontaneously combusted one night during a satanic séance ritual.  Apparently, the stump bears the likeness of the Dark One and the evil presence of something wicked can be felt just by being in the vicinity.  Not many dare get too close, but many make the attempt.

VooDoo Cabin- There is an old, long-abandoned cabin, several miles south of Ouray that was once occupied by a successful cattle rancher from Louisiana.  The cattle rancher was happy with his grazing acreage in the scarcely traversed land, but an infiltration of deer hunters soon disrupted his peace.  Local hunters soon learned the hard way however, to stay away from this man’s lease.  Hunters began complaining of sharp, disabling pains in their shooting arms that would overtake them as they drew their rifles in the rancher’s self proclaimed territory.  Some out of state hunters decided to be brave one, chilly October night.  The men entered the cabin only to find shocking evidence of voodoo, complete with small dolls made in their likeness and plenty of evidence of animal sacrifice.  The men beat a hasty retreat and warned all who may go near to stay away.

The Glowing Headstone- The story of the glowing headstone in a Vernal cemetery that marks the grave of a once beautiful young woman dates back to the early 1900s.  The young woman buried inside the grave is said to have been left at the altar by her love.  Heartbroken and stricken with a deep depression the jilted bride jumped to her death off a tall, sandstone cliff near Vernal.  She was buried in a local cemetery and her parents placed a white marble headstone atop their daughter’s grave.  As soon as the headstone was placed, locals began to notice a strange glow in the cemetery.  Two young men were walking by late one night when they noticed the glowing headstone so they ventured into the cemetery to check it out.  This would prove to be a fatal mistake for at least one of them.  A cold chill crept over the cemetery and a strong wind began to blow.  Scratching noises were heard beneath their feet near the glowing headstone and a terrible wailing and moaning sound ensued.  It was “confusion and mayhem” as the men ran for their lives, but only one man made it out alive.  The other was never heard from again, nor was his body ever found.  Many locals believe the young bride found a suitable companion to join her forever; others believe she still searches for the perfect mate, while others believe she is just getting revenge.  After all, hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.

Baby’s Crib- In yet another graveyard near Vernal an urban legend begins with a child’s grave surrounded by an iron fence.  By day it’s a regular iron fence around the small grave.  By moonlight it takes on the strange likeness of a baby’s crib, with iron bars forever keeping the baby inside.  Late night thrill seekers have reported hearing the cries of a baby as they approached the “crib”.  Maybe he just needs you to pick him up…

UFOs- Visitors from another planet? Yes indeed.  The Uinta Basin is apparently a hotbed for alien activity.  National Institute of Discovery Science researchers, Colm Kelleher and George Knapp, have dubbed the Uinta Basin, “a heavyweight contender for UFO capital of the world.” Since the 1950s, thousands of UFO sightings have been reported in the area.  Many Basin residents have reportedly seen evidence of signs of life from un-earthly visitors.  Crop circles, cattle mutilations, flying objects with many lights, varying in shape, size, and color and intelligences that “just seemed to know what we were thinking” have also been reported.  These stories of UFOs are compared with Native American legends, such as otherwordly entities called “tricksters”, and “skinwalkers”, which have the reputation of being malevolent and are capable of being transformed into another form such as a person, wolf, coyote, bear, bird, or any other animal and would be also capable of mind control and other trickeries.

Bigfoot- “In a remote mountain range, near the town of Altamont, Utah, the search for a “large, hairy, ape-like creature” continues…..”  Anyone been messin’ with Sasquatch lately?  It may seem like fun on television, but anyone who has encountered Bigfoot is not laughing.  Basin residents have reported seeing creatures that could only be the legendary Bigfoot from the mountains above Vernal to the far reaches of the Basin near Hanna and Tabiona.  A truck driver fighting his way home during a snow storm, trying to find traction on snow packed and slick roads near Bluebell says he definitely encountered Bigfoot when he decided to stop his truck to chain up one blustery winter night.  The man stopped his truck and peered into the whirlwind of snow coming down to make sure there wasn’t any traffic coming towards him.  His heart skipped a few beats as he found himself staring straight into the face of a large, hairy, ape-like beast standing a few feet in front of his truck.  The beast approached the side of the driver’s truck, not taking his eyes off the driver the whole time.  The truck driver knew immediately he was staring right into the face of Bigfoot and decided not to chain up after all.  Especially since the ape-like creature was at eye level with him as he sat in the driver’s seat of his semi-truck.   Driver and Bigfoot stared at each other for just a moment before the driver decided it was time to move out.  The creature kept pace with the truck as the driver began to roll away, but eventually disappeared in the snow bank along the side of the road as the trucker pulled away.  The driver didn’t stop until he got home…not even to change his underwear.

There are many more stories of specters and otherwise strange happenings in the Uinta Basin and plenty of opportunities to frighten even the bravest man.  Just remember to be respectful of the dead and their final resting places or you might just become the next Basin Urban Legend.  See you in the cemetery!