God’s Country
One of my favorite movies is Forrest Gump. The story and acting and stuff are all great but the real reason I love the movie is the scene about 3/4 into the movie when Forrest finishes running back and forth across the country. He looks dead tired from all the running when he stops on Highway 163 in Southern Utah which runs between the little town of Bluff, Utah and Monument Valley, Arizona. It is the most beautiful place on earth (Here’s a great picture). I’m often embarrassed when I watch this scene with anyone else because I always have to wipe tears off of my face. I only lived in the area for 9 months or so on my mission but that part of the world is very dear to me in a way that is kind of hard to describe. I don’t know of another place where the air is so clear and where everything is so quiet and peaceful.
I read this story in today’s Salt Lake Tribune and it brought back lots of memories. I remember sleeping in a small apartment behind Whitehorse High School that the church rented from the San Juan County School District. There was a crude oil storage facility about 100 yards behind our apartment and I remember often being kept up in the middle of the night because the fumes stunk so badly. I remember playing in the desert in what I thought was the middle of nowhere with a bunch of the friends we had made (uh wait…I mean tracting all day long in the wilderness) and wondering at the fact that everything seemed so primitive. Whenever this thought crossed my mind I was quickly brought back to reality when coming across the oil well on the other side the closest butte (they really are nearly everywhere on the Utah Navajo reservation). I remember knocking on the doors of the box shaped houses built by the government for the Navajo people only to find them completely filled with property…used as storage sheds while the families lived comfortably in nearby hogans made of the native timber. There was a huge plastic tank of water in the bed of nearly every family pickup truck and the truck was nearly always idling nearby with an attached power cable used to supply power to the home’s lights, TV and satellite dish. Everything was such a weird contrast.
I hope the State of Utah isn’t trying to hide the fact that it mismanaged funds that are meant to go back to the Navajo people. I’m afraid they probably are. Why else would the government be fighting so hard to avoid producing a detailed accounting of how the oil trust money has been spent? I can’t help but think that a lot of money could be saved for Utahns if the state gave up fighting Utah Navajos and gave them the money they are owed. Its going to have to happen eventually anyway…why add 2-5 years of legal bills to the amount the taxpayers have to pay? Utah Navajos have had their land, which is among the most beautiful on the whole earth, pocked with oil wells and the other trappings of the oil industry for over 50 years. While it is true that they have experienced many benefits in the form of jobs and the basic subsistence of the local economy…it would sure be a shame if they aren’t receiving every penny of the compensation they are due.
Would this be as big a problem if there were more balance in Utah State government? I can’t help but think that in a more competitive two party system there would be more political pressure on government officials to make an accounting of how money is being spent everywhere in our government…including the Navajo Oil Trust.
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Here are some more pictures of God’s Country: http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/monumentvalley/interesting/
Comment by Daniel — March 9, 2006 @ 1:14 pm
Dan,
Thanks for that comment. I spent over an hour looking at Monument Valley pictures on that site.
Comment by Jeremy Manning — March 9, 2006 @ 10:15 pm
Forrest Gump? Never seen it.
Comment by Michael — March 13, 2006 @ 2:00 pm
Wow, I never knew you to be so sensitive.
You might like Pixar’s Cars movie. It looks like they will have a bunch of scenes of Monument valley. I forget what they called it… trophy valley or something.
Comment by Michael — March 14, 2006 @ 7:31 am