June 2010 River Ranch Diary

By the time you read this article, I will have been in France for about two weeks; so maybe I will change to the present tense and write as if I am already there when in fact I have not yet left the States. I do, however, know where I will be when I arrive. I have often visited Lyon (southeast central France) since I was first there in 1984 as a post doctoral student attending L’université de Lyon II.

From Lyon I go to Avignon and thence to Nîmes where there is an ancient Arena, the center of attraction for most visitors to the city. There are two events held simultaneously in the Arena between the 19th and 24th of May. These are the Feria de Pentecôte (Pentecostal Celebration) and the major opening of the Spanish style bullfighting season, at which will be the announcement of the Prix Hemingway short story competition’s winner. As I am not bent toward religious celebration, I am there for the announcement of the new “laureate,” and the formal presentation of the award. I have a story, “Patriots,” entered in the contest, and I have no idea what the final results will be; so I am anxious to hear the announcement.

After the cheers and tears of several days of diverse activities (music, drama, etc.), when the dust of the bullring has settled and the winners and losers of both contests, literary and life threatening, have been decided, I go to Carcassonne to visit my long time friends, Cathérine et Didier APARD, whom I have known since 1984. My friends’

residence overlooks the Aude River and has a direct view on La Cité, an excellently preserved medieval fortress city built on the summit of a rather steep hill. La Cité is the best place in the world to go for Cassoulet, the signature bean dish at its place of origin, served so hot as to be dangerous to eat without letting it cool first.

It was in France that I first came to appreciate the importance and value of the concept of the Farmers’ Market, even though I had helped my mother with her Victory Garden throughout the years of World War II. We grew much of what we ate; we canned vegetables and fruits and used our ration stamps very sparingly for shoes, soap, gasoline, and meat. We raised chickens in the backyard; so we also had eggs; and on Sundays we ate wonderful fried chicken dinners. I think the only chemicals we ever used were a little fertilizer to amend the soil. But that is where the chickens came in handy.

At that time I lived about twenty miles from the first national herd of buffalo that was established about 1905 in the Wichita Mountain Wild Life Refuge near Cache, Oklahoma. Fifteen buffalo were shipped from the east coast to Cache. The Kiowa and Comanche Indians who lived in the area welcomed the arrival of this tiny herd—and may have been the only people who saw these animals as a valuable asset, and not simply as a curiosity. Almost all local residents would conduct a tour of “the mountains” and take visitors to “see the buffalo.” That attitude still persists; but it has changed, too. Now the buffalo are again a staple and a commodity.

Now, many private owners hold herds of buffalo, which means many things. Primarily the animal has been brought a long ways back from the brink of extinction. It is very rapidly coming to be seen as a life source, a lean, hormone and chemical free, red meat and not simply a curiosity for the casual passerby. And the producers who maintain an integrated herd of animals in large, free range, grass environments have aided immensely in the return of the animal to its native habitats ad as much as is possible within a world of fences, to its original condition, as a true native of this land and as a source of sustenance to the people of this land.

There are no buffalo in France and I am thinking now about my return trip to the States, to South Dakota, the Cheyenne River Ranch, and to a wonderful herd of buffalo.