Pass off point

Tuesday, May 27, 2008

By Brooke Williams

I’m camped at the base of a splendid granite outcropping a few miles east of Jeffrey City, Wyo., which is on the road between Lander and Rawlins. The mid-May sun is low and the air is gold and cooler than I deserve. Since there is no obvious sound, my ears search for something to do. Part of that deep hum that could be mistaken for the complete absence of sound might actually be the scraping together of the minute pebbles ants are clearing from the entrance to their mound combined with the noise of air being cut by raven wings. Or it could be the buzz and crackle of all the organisms working in the factory made out of the dead horse in the clearing above me, where death is systematically turned back into life.

Although this old camp I’ve found at the base of these rocks is only a few feet higher than the broad plains of sage and black brush, I feel as if I am seeing forever. Although I cannot see them, buried pipelines carrying natural gas frequently rise to the surface out in front of me. Remnants of an old uranium mill can be found nearby, and there is talk of re-opening particular mines. All the land has been grazed and grazed again. What I can and choose to see are all the antelope to the south and to the west, six horses - all wild, I’m told - periodically lifting their heads from the bright grass to face the red sun. Turning east, I can watch a marsh hawk fluttering above the sage, its white rump glowing in the low light.

In the middle of this beauty, my mind splits: half of it focused on the scene laid out in front of me; half of it on a conversation I had earlier this evening in Jeffrey City, with its vacant buildings and rusting trucks and all the other signs of a town surrounded by land from which much was taken, but nothing was given back.
“There’s the main thing we have going, now.” The man sitting next to me in the Split Rock Café was not referring to new development. He was pointing to the bright yellow Corvette from the west that had pulled alongside of the monster black pickup from the east. “We’re the pass off point,” he said. “We’re halfway from nearly anywhere in Wyoming to anywhere else. The Corvette - he’s from Lander. I think she’s now in Rawlins. It gets busy out there on weekends.”

“Pass off point?” I asked, watching as the Corvette’s driver gets out of his side, a young girl - maybe she’s six - climbs out of the other. He comes around and gives her the big hug where he picks her small body up off her feet, as if he can’t get enough of her. Her doll is wrapped in a blanket, part of which dangles to the ground. He sets her down, and she hurries around to the driver’s side of the truck, gets in the rear door of the crew cab.

“Energy - oil and gas, coal. It’s tough on a marriage,” he said.
 I wonder what will be left out here 50 years from now, when we’ve converted to renewable sources of energy and all this land can begin healing itself. Will the promised measurable benefits - large and steady paychecks, the new schools - tip the balance over the costs that can’t be counted? Do we know the full extent of what we’ve “passed-off” or traded away?
PERMALINK:
Pass off point | Planet JH News Article: Left Wing Local

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