The Last Word, March 2022

The Tetons in March. Part of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. Photo by James Mathieu.

The Last Word—for discerning readers—by author Gregory Zeigler.

Something good to read. The Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles.

Every bit of evidence would suggest that the will to move is as old as mankind. Any child of ten can tell you that getting up and going is topic number one in the record of man’s endeavors.

If The Lincoln Highway is a road trip. (It’s not actually, I’m working up a metaphor here.) Then Towles’s A Gentleman in Moscow is a trip on the Orient Express. The former delivers delights separated by ho-hum stretches. The latter delivers a delight-a-minute, old World charm and a true escape from reality. I recommend both, but obviously if you only have room on your stack for one….

And this.  Yellowstone at 150: busier yet wilder than ever, says park’s ‘winterkeeper’

Todd Wilkinson for The Guardian, 2/28/2022

Something I wrote. Well, am writing. “Old Faithful” is the working title for a short story in progress.  (My protagonist, B. is a young woman college freshman in the year 2122 on a field trip to Yellowstone. She is writing her parents.) Before the wolves returned the park was suffering from overgrazing, after wolf populations became healthy again the benefits of them naturally culling elk herds “cascaded” (learned that term today) down to healthier streams and healthier mammals. The fish in those streams, and birds living by those streams also thrived. All thanks to the wolf doing what comes naturally! Even beaver and riparian (streamside) plants and trees returned stronger. Many ranchers hated wolves because they wrongly accused them of predation on food animals. (Yuck! Eat an animal? Can’t even imagine.) That lasted right up until the Great Awakening and the end of meat-based diets.

Something to consider.  I’m working on a piece about Yellowstone 100 years from now. My draft is excerpted briefly above. I would like you to consider thinking creatively about Yellowstone in its 250th year.

Something to do. Please visit Free Range Writers (FreeRangeWriters.com) and read my short piece that ponders Yellowstone 100 years from now. Then send me your creative thoughts about what the world’s first national park will be like on its 250th anniversary. Email your ideas to gzeigler@wyom.net.

Happy reading. Gregory Zeigler, author of the Jake Goddard and Susan Brand eco-thriller series.

Website: http://www.gzeiglerbooks.com  Book trailer:  https://youtu.be/je1zwN3g-W8   

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