Journal of Alta California Winter 2020

LAURA FRASER “The Life of a Ghost Town,” page 52 Your family spent a lot of time in the Colorado ghost town you write about in this issue. Ever have a spooky encounter there? The river near Inez was icy, rocky, and rushing, and many hikers and four-wheelers over the years lost their lives falling in. The river was loud, and whenever I was by the edge I also heard groaning noises—trees, maybe, but they sounded like the echoes of people who had slipped away. LYNELL GEORGE “She Blew Open Doors,” page 114 Your remembrance of the late trumpeter Clora Bryant has us wondering: What’s your favorite jazz club in Los Angeles? I still miss dressing up to go and hear a couple of sets, supper-club style, at the old Vine St.…

One by one they were all becoming shades. Better pass boldly into that other world, in the full glory of some passion, than fade and wither dismally with age. —JAMES JOYCE, “THE DEAD” The October issue of Alta featured painter Russell Chatham in what would become his final interview: “You’re an Artist. That’s What You Do.” Sadly, Russ died a few weeks after the edition came out. With his passing, we have promoted him on our masthead from our Editorial Board to a position on the Our Inspiration roll. This list recognizes people who have shaped the arts, culture, and life of the West, and whose contributions help guide our editorial ambitions. The western sensibility is like the Grand Canyon, built up layer by layer from those who came before…

In 2019, my hometown, Arcata, in Humboldt County, California, removed the statue of President William McKinley that had stood in the central plaza since 1906. Arcata has long been an ultraliberal hippie haven, and the eight-and-a-half-foot bronze sculpture had presided over many a drum circle. I’ve seen bras hanging from McKinley’s hand and traffic cones on his head like a dunce cap. More than once, he has been covered by political banners demanding justice. The vote to take down the statue was part of a nationwide trend to dismantle monuments of controversial figures. It was sent to Canton, Ohio, where the president is buried. McKinley, who was assassinated in 1901, ran on a campaign to establish U.S. colonies, including Puerto Rico, Guam, and parts of Hawaii. Today his expansionist policies…

I’ve been sleeping with my lions and haven’t even thought about going home,” says Tim Bovard, pointing toward a gray bedroll and a bag of clothes in a corner of his workshop. He’s standing beside a pair of Tanzanian lion skins—one male, one female—that were taken out of deep freeze at the Natural History Museum in Los Angeles several days ago. “The skins are about 30 years old, and we have to keep them supple and malleable while we work—day and night,” says Bovard, the last full-time museum taxidermist in the United States. Large parts of the male’s furry, muscular body are wrapped in wet white toweling, and spray bottles and towel-filled buckets are close at hand in the cramped workshop. For now, the lion is marvelously coiffed in what…

When she first moved to Monterey in 2012, Tia Fechter volunteered with a street ministry, serving hot breakfasts on Sundays to local people in need. She noticed that a certain population of women, in their 50s and older, were living out of their vehicles. They kept their homelessness a secret, dressed well, and attended church services. But at night, they drove from place to place, looking for a safe location to park, worried about being harassed by the police or worse. It was clear to Fechter that their cars were the last thing keeping these women from the black-hole spiral down to life on the street—and that they were often just one parking ticket away from having their vehicles impounded. Across the country in Maine, Fechter’s own mother had bounced…

Drab images of walls, fences, barbed wire, and lookout towers flash across the screen. A chyron displays the name of the fearsome prison. Inmates talk about solitude and the abandonment by friends and family they must deal with while doing time. But then comes salvation in the form of one of America’s greatest musical acts, dressed head to toe in black, greeting prisoners in their cells, ready to bring a voice to these voiceless with a concert. You’ve heard this one before, of course. But no, you haven’t. Fifty years ago, Johnny Cash recorded the live album At Folsom Prison not just to sell records but also to bear witness to this country’s inhumane penal system. To honor that storied performance, conjunto norteño legends Los Tigres del Norte followed in…