Eric Schwennesen: Terry Wheeler

Many others are able to better document Terry’s biography than I can; but that said, he has been a great friend, colleague and guide for the forty-three years we have worked together.

I first met Terry in 1977, shortly after I came off the northern Nevada range as a working cowboy/ranch manager, still carrying the impression that there weren’t any actual people in the world. (Nevada can have that effect.) Together with wife Jean we made the move closer to grandparents in Prescott, jumping at the promise of work with the UA Extension on the Navajo Nation. Our first official activity was at the Extension Annual Conference in Tucson, and I still recall a vast roomful of technical people dominated by one rowdy voice which seemed unimpressed by the academic pomp all around us. That was Terry posing, as I later learned, as himself.

Even at that time he was a fixture as THE Extension agent for the San Carlos Apache. He was well-known for his sometimes unorthodox but always-effective programs in support of good livestock, and good range management. During his many years there he was central to the UA Animal Science cooperative effort with the Apache, helping to bring about the noted R-100 Hereford herd.

Rarely have field programs meshed more effectively with academia, as Terry helped keep UA’s AnSci and Range Departments on their toes, on the range, and in the manure.

 

(following initial comments)

In light of Terry’s unintended life as a figurehead of pioneer Arizona cowboy existence, it seems only right to propose a Memorial to his underappreciated efforts. A proposal for such a Memorial has now been suggested with the following criteria, inviting any and all craftsmen and artists to submit designs and appropriate themes:

1. Central figure to be offered as a larger than life-size, realistic representation of Terence (Terry) Wheeler, standing, possibly attended by his horse held loosely by the reins; figure to be in an attitude of relieving himself, from a point somewhat above surrounding secondary figures.
2. Central figure should be so designed or assembled that active plumbing will be installed internally, to render actuality to the figure’s relieving stance.
3. Such active plumbing should be so designed as to allow a controllable rate of flow, this being of importance to the overall message conveyed by the Memorial. (Rate of flow calibrated from “Light Sprinkling” to “Pressure-Wash”, possibly individually targeting secondary figures,)
4. In the event that the successful design includes Mr. Wheeler’s horse, the horse should also be presented and designed in an attitude of relieving himself, such plumbing and design to be added into the overall effect of the Memorial, possibly in the form of a small waterfall.
5. It is proposed that the central figure be installed on an actively rotating base, as this forms a critical piece of the Memorial’s message, viz.: a generalized urination upon the upturned heads of a substantial number of secondary figures.
6. Secondary figures to be presented in classical forms of torment and anguish such as those created by Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci; some to be presented as clinging to, clambering over or wielding overhead, massive volumes of Regulatory Statutes.
7. As it is anticipated that this Memorial will be installed on or near the present site of Mr. Wheeler’s triumphant “FLOSB Mine Spoils Reclamation Demonstration”, the secondary figures should be tastefully arranged such that the majority of them will have their backs turned, or faces turned away from, the dramatically transformed Demonstration landscape.
8. Secondary figures are intended to metaphorically represent Government Agencies at all levels from Federal to local; therefore the majority of them should be represented as having hands unsoiled by labor.

Submissions, plans, proposals and contributions should be made to a designated receiver/coordinator c/o Gila County Cattlegrowers’ Association in Globe, Arizona.

Eric Schwennesen: Seago

Don't let the name fool you; that's the name we tagged onto an untried saddle horse some years back. About the only thing we knew about her was that she came from country just as rough and rocky as our own. It takes a special kind of caballo to consider running from canyon bottoms to ridgetops not only possible, but necessary; and we have spent a lot of time interviewing new candidates for these jobs. Over the years, about one horse out of eight has made the grade.

So: big gather, a chance to try her out in real conditions, with friends and family aboard everything else we had (including my saddle, leaving me to do my best with a nearly discarded old kack without a breast collar.). We drew the rim ride. I was watching ears and footing; the trail was less than a foot wide. Cattle were being choused out of the canyon down below. My newbie seemed tense but alert. Just ahead a juniper reached over our trail; very low, but no place to dismount, so we applied the hug-a- neck-and-pray formula and moved ahead.

That's when the old saddle started to turn, rotating me over into the canyon as my horse expressed her discomfiture by trying hard to shake loose of everything aboard and heading for solid ground. Quick as a wink I cleverly rotated in midair, saving my body from damage by landing on my head. I was just in time to see her disappearing across the ridge above with one stirrup already snagged by her foot.

It took a while to sort things out. We eventually caught up with her on a flat down below, standing quietly, the left stirrup leather entirely gone. Bad start, but we stayed with the herd and helped finish the move the rest of the day. Riding mountain country with only one stirrup is hard work.

A few days later, another try, between the hills instead of on top of them. Working alone, I had gathered a bunch and was sorting off pairs against a fence when a cranky single cow decided to steal the show and broke away. Working alone, this can sure make trouble, but this horse had already read the scene and broke so fast in pursuit that my hat spun on my head and it was all I could do to hang on. The cow was as surprised as I was; it was over before she ever got a start. For the next hour this Seago demonstrated cow sense and solid speed that left the cattle gaping and very much intimidated.

Over the following weeks she made her influence known: rank cows watched in amazement as she vaulted prickly pear to cut them off; an escapee in an arroyo was sure to find her waiting at the top to turn her back; free-running calves found their sprints cut short by a blur.

Gradually I began to see that she was also teaching me. With patience she got me to give her free rein. She showed me a special set to her ears when she was in range of a lion or bear: no panic, just sayin' it's there. And she has showed the world the exaltation of a true wild-horse full-blown gallop: to this day she has made a point to outrun anything with a notion of passing her.

Sure makes the cowboy life worthwhile.

Eric Schwennesen is a commercial beef rancher in the Mogollon Rim country. He grew up in Belgium, cowboyed in Nevada, and helped Navajos and many African peoples with rangeland conflicts for over 35 years. He recently published "The Field Journals: Adventures in Pastoralism" about his experiences. 

Eric Schwennesen: Return to the Navajo

Recently I made a long-delayed revisit to some old stomping grounds: the Navajo Nation. It was not a whimsical trip.  A tragedy had pushed it to the top of the list and heading that direction was enough to start recalling the deep feelings I had carried away when I left in 1980. The Navajo has had that effect on many of us: a deep sense of being a part of something much closer to real human existence than modern life generally offers.

It is a perspective that has the look and feel of timelessness. The land is vast beyond imagining, created by forces impossibly old and yet comfortably near; landscapes sculpted in bright colors, in terraces and mesas that cover the horizon and make even the clouds look small. The Diné, the People, have existed here for many generations, bridging a past with origins and language a continent away; one wonders what provoked their ancient migration. In any case, the Diné recognized the value of what they found, and learned to stay.

In my time there, I also learned something of the need to stay. Being there it was possible to imagine being the First People; the Earth was a landscape without boundaries, waiting for a human's grasp of what lay in offering. Somewhere in that discovery Navajos learned the value of solitude. Wordlessly this value was passed along through the generations. Most of what we were living in the 20th Century would have been recognized and approved of by those of three centuries ago. "Civilization" as the modern world promotes it, was a senseless, meaningless term.

Not any more. Forty years ago horse-drawn wagons and battered pickups still often made their patient, rare visits to "town", usually once a year. It was an event for all; a social obligation that fitted with the rhythm of solitary life. It took days, possibly weeks, to make the trek, allowing the People to appreciate their lands with fresh eyes. The horizon was the boundary of the day's travel.

Modern civilization has struck the Dinetah with the subtlety of freeway construction: bulldozers are the instruments of preference for advancing civilization. High-speed is the watchword to justify every effort to push the past aside. New blacktop and paint have replaced ancient wagon ruts through the sands. Powerlines string out for miles, connecting the scattered dwellings and solitary hogans to a new reliance on electricity which few thought they needed a generation ago. The universe of the night sky is blurred by new stands of yard lights; prefabricated "homes" are clustered around the hand-built dwellings of the ancients.

Many of the principal crossroads are enveloped in shopping centers, parking lots and giant neon signs. The horse-drawn wagons and pickup trucks have been replaced by shiny new sports cars incapable of quitting modern pavement, and which traverse the vast, ancient landscape in new terms: (previous) days per hour. The far horizon is a brief hour away, unappreciated and unearned.

I stopped overnight in Chinle and felt compelled to ask the Navajo girl at the desk of a big new motel what she thought of all this, trying to recall enough words to express myself. She looked puzzled. "I don't speak Navajo", she confessed.

Eric Schwennesen is a commercial beef rancher in the Mogollon Rim country. He grew up in Belgium, cowboyed in Nevada, and helped Navajos and many African peoples with rangeland conflicts for over 35 years. He recently published "The Field Journals: Adventures in Pastoralism" about his experiences.