History

The Long Way to Work

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Hey Kids,

Working on Saturday isn’t right. It just isn’t. At least not when it’s for someone else.

Looking over the needs for next week, I came to the conclusion, I needed to come in to work today so to avoid total disaster on Monday. It’s a grown up thing I think. I hate being a grown-up.

However, I learned last week that a working B-17 bomber from WWII would be in a town not too far from here.

Usually it’s a 10 mile ride to work. A quick zip around the hill, buzz by the Capitol building and straight up the hill to the University. Easy and quick.

Not today!

My commute on this day would lead me onto a beautiful morning drive up into the mountains, past Park City, one of the venues for the winter games, cruising past

WWII B-17 Bomber

WWII B-17 Bomber “Sentimental Journey”

lakes and rivers, and on to Heber City and its small private plane airport. About 60 miles total.

I’ve seen a B-17 before, but I’ve never seen a working one. I watched it fire up its four engines, coughing out smoke and flames. I took in its sound and aviation fuel fumes as it taxied away from us and roared back down the airstrip, somehow lifting that big body off of the ground, I hung around to watch it circle the airport and land, setting down so gently it amazed me. I only wish I had the Mucho Denaro’s to buy a ticket to go for a ride.

I looked over the other aircraft they had and some old WWII vehicles on display- many if not all working, and boogied my way back down the hill after about 2 hours and got to work.

It’ll be a short day today, maybe 4 hours or so. Just enough to keep the alligators off my butt next week.

I wish every work day was like this one.

 

Day 110

Pony Express April 3, 1860

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Hey Kids,

Today is the 155th anniversary to the beginning of the Pony Express.11091219_745659045547218_8470744831674224782_n

The Pony Express only lasted about a year and a half but not because they were unsuccessful. The exchange of horses and riders could carry the mail from St Louis to California in just 10 days. Only one mail bag was lost in that time, and the cost wasn’t prohibitive to use. The problem was simply that the future happened. The birth of the telegraph made 10 days as slow as the wagons before the Express.

Yet the legend of the Express lives on. I am captivated by the grit the riders had to have. The stories of the station keepers, the rugged, desolate places through which the trail passed; they all beg me to wonder if I would have the ability to tough it out.

The pioneering spirit is no different than the pioneers of today. Stretching the possibilities and doing what others never even imagined. Changing the world and pushing it forward. Without the Pony Express, the telegraph would have been delayed at best and seen as not needed at worse. The telegraph opened the door to the train. The train to the car. Etc. Etc. Etc.

There remains not just the memory, but still foundations, and remnants of the Express. Scars upon the land where the trail cut its way remain. A trip to the west desert of Utah makes one feel like the riders are just a moment removed from our present.boyd station

For just a small span of time in our history, the Pony Express has etched itself so deeply, I cannot imagine it will ever be forgotten.

And never by me.

 

 

Day 39

Surrounding History

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broadwayHey kids,

Last Sunday we went to the movies, one that I had not been to in some time, Broadway Cinema, downtown Salt Lake City. State Street and Broadway to be more precise. It’s a unique theatre, so much different from the ones built nowadays. Tucked away between buildings, it’s barely noticeable and within the company I escorted, only I knew of it. For me, it holds some nostalgia and some history.

It is where I watched the Return of the Jedi on its original opening run in the early 80’s. I’m not sure what winds your clock, but that’s some history in my neighborhood.

But the site played host to at least one more nugget of historical events that shrouds them all. At least in my book. State Street and Broadway, a time ago, represented the address of the Colorado Stables. Owned by Mr. Porter Rockwell. It is in these stables that Rockwell met the end of his trail, dying on a cot in the back office.IMG_20150304_213936_017-1

I wonder as I look at the surrounds, how many people know that? How many people who would care to know that, know it?

I wonder how many historical ghosts I pass daily unaware.

Is it important to remember the past? I vote yes.

 

Day 9

A Humble Summation

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a18c2b14be267d88057121afa27d1e09Located very near to the gravesite of Porter Rockwell, I found this head stone. It has since deterorated even more than this photo.

Despite having lived through the incredible time of Nauvoo, crossing the plains, establishing the Salt Lake Valley, serving as a Bishop, the simple summary of his life was inscribed as follows:

Sacred to the Memory of Bishop John Mills Wooley

Born November 20, 1822 in

Chester County, Pennsylvania

Baptised Nauvoo Oct 7, 1840

Ordained Bishop of the Ninth Ward October 1856

Departed this life August 18, 1864

Died by a blow from rocks by a sliding log in Cottonwood Kanyon

 I find the forgotten history sad. I find the deterioration of the headstones tragic. And I find the fact that all this will be my fate harrowing.

I know I mean very little to the world. I hope I mean something enough to someone that when my head stone begins to fall apart, someone cares.

My Year in Review (2013)

mikemjensen History, Interesting Stuff (to me anyway), Porter Rockwell, Vanity, Writing Tags: , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Here are some of things that I did or were of importance to me:

Fred

Fred

Got a new fish. My first fish in my adult lifetime.

IMG_20130210_152754

Visited Hardware Ranch to see the Elk via horse drawn Sleigh.

Dinner with a Vampire Valentine's Day

 

Valentine’s Dinner with a Vampire at Castle of Chaos.

Mercur Cemetery

Mercur Cemetery

Visited Mercur Cemetery.

Salt Lake Marina

Salt Lake Marina

Visited the Great Salt Lake

Visited Great Basin National Park.

Arrowhead Hunting

Arrowhead Hunting

Arrowhead Hunting

Strawberry 20" Cutt

Strawberry 20″ Cutt

Ice-Off at Strawberry

Little Red

Little Red

100 Mile Bike Ride for Annette

Pony Express Station Remains

Antelope Island Farm

Antelope Island Farm

Meeting of the Rails

Meeting of the Rails

Porter Rockwell's Cabin

Porter Rockwell’s Cabin

Visited many Historical Sites

Hunter Graduation

Hunter Graduation

My Eldest Son’s Graduation

Manti Mountains

Manti Mountains

Motor biking.

Kayaks

Bountiful Pond

Tried out some Kayaks

Geodes

Geodes

Dug up some Geodes

Farmington Canyon

Farmington Canyon

Mueller Park Canyon

Mueller Park Canyon

Hiking

IMG_20131110_123316 IMG_20131110_081846 IMG_20130918_140841 IMG_20130918_181947 IMG_20130811_105440

Fishing (Including November 11th trip to Strawberry)

IMG_20130927_223627 IMG_20130927_223639 IMG_20130927_223648

The Wheel Bearing Incident

twins

My books making Kindle and Print version debuts (TTC was out in Kindle in 2012)

Christmas with my baby

Christmas with my baby

And Finally Christmas with my baby!

As My Great Grandmother Saw It

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a597fbb0dadb896142f7fa9f236922b0

I read once in a written family history that when my Great Grandmother, as a little girl, first arrived in Utah from Denmark. she saw a valley filled with teepees and it frightened her. In the early aught years of the 1900’s, things were not exactly settled and after what she would have known about America and the west before arriving, her fear would have been well understood.

The image that she described set firm in my mind and when I saw the image I found on Pinterest today, they seemed to match.

It is also the same image I hope to provide the reader within my book Ain’t Dead Yet.

Thanks Great Grandma.

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A Touch of the Past

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Every once in a while, two paths cross: the past and the present.

I’ve been zigzagging across these paths for a while now and especially over the last few months. Following along the Pony Express Trail, passing old stations and land marks known and marked from history, sometimes the past isn’t so long ago.

On one trip this past spring, I came across the preserved cabin built by Porter Rockwell in Eureka, Utah. It stands outside, under a protective roof, like a proud trophy or monument to a remembered hero. While I stood admiring the work that must of been used in order to move and protect this old structure, several other passer-thru’s stopped to look as well. Ol’ Port still can draw them in!

I snagged a picture and touched the cabin. Although the oils of our hands didn’t mix, the act of touching something that someone who died nearly a hundred years before I was born had touched, made that person real and become a part of me.

IMG_20130407_190007

IMG_20130407_190033Within the echoes of the past

Stirs the whispers of the future.
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