Letters for November 1, 2007

That’s cool
Re “Nice day for a green wedding” (Green, Oct. 25):

Loved what you had to say about having a green wedding. It may be surprising, but area wedding chapels offer a green solution for getting hitched. Places like the Antique Angel Wedding Chapel offer gown and tux rental, as well as on-site florist services. You can also eliminate all the driving by having your reception at the chapel, too!

Most wedding chapels are already decorated, which means you don’t have to buy flower arrangements, or cheesy paper things that are just going to end up in the trash.

Something old, something keen, something borrowed, something green!

Angela Refsland
Reno

Goodbye, Blackie
Re “Blackie Evans, 1935-2007” (Upfront, Oct. 4):

I am so sorry to hear about the passing of Blackie Evans, a man who was always a true Nevadan and leader, who helped a young woman in a wheelchair believe she could run for state assembly in 1982. I will miss him.

Madonna Long
former Battle Mountain resident

Forgotten history
Re “Out of the park, Yosemite: Art of an American Icon,” (Art of the State, Oct. 18):

Here is something most Indians in Northern Nevada don’t know and won’t see when they go to view this exhibit. The original Indians of Yosemite were not Miwoks, but Paiutes. Most of the area that Yosemite now covers was once a Paiute homeland. Chief Tenaya was a Paiute born at Mono Lake who took about 200 to 300 Paiutes into Yosemite to establish the Paiute Colony of Ahwahnee. When gold was discovered, the Sierra Nevada was inundated with gold miners looking to get rich. One person named James Savage, who had married several Miwok women, got too close to the entrance of Yosemite Valley and was attacked. The whites decided to go into the area to clear out the ‘troublemakers’ who were preventing them from prospecting for gold.

James Savage, with the help of his Miwok scouts and the Mariposa Battalion, decided to go into the mountains to get the Indians who lived there. Chief Tenaya came down and turned himself in as his people escaped across the snowy Sierra Nevada to Mono Lake. Some were caught, and Chief Tenaya and some of his people were taken to a reservation on the western side. Chief Tenaya escaped with his people and returned to Paiute Mono Lake. He was caught again, but escaped back to Mono Lake the second time. Later, when his brethren where off hunting, Chief Tenaya and his band paid back the hospitality of his relatives, the Mono Lake Paiutes, by stealing their horses and returning back to Yosemite. The Paiutes snuck up on Tenaya and his band as they were lying around, bellies full of horse meat, and the Paiutes pounced on them and decimated them. The young chief of the Mono Lake Paiutes killed Tenaya with a rock to his head and the remaining surviving women and children were taken back to Mono Lake. They where then absorbed back into the Mono Paiute population.

So any Paiute person who goes to view the Yosemite exhibit, remember that Yosemite was really one of our homelands and part of our history. The word Yosemite in Miwok means “they are killers,” meaning that the Paiutes were their enemies at one time.

Those big baskets in the museum were made by Paiutes and their families who once lived along the eastern side of the Sierra Nevada in Paiute country. So don’t be surprised if you go there and see that our history has been changed to another tribe, a tribe that later came in with the soldiers and settlers.

David Andrews
Sacramento, CA

Real advice
Re “What’s your motivation?” (Editor’s note, Oct. 25):

In response to your quest for motivation and inspiration, I submit that you need to broaden your scope of what is success, consider what reference group you are in and call upon your inner being for your strength.

Scope of Success

1) Are six-pack abs a worthy goal?

2) Aren’t there other signs of abdominal fitness?

Reference Group

1) What group of people are you comparing yourself with?

2) When you started your quest, were you in the front of the line or the back?

The Power Inside

1) How hard have really pushed yourself?

2) What rationalizations do you use when you don’t get it done?

Practical Tips

1) Keep a log of all your activities that you consider helpful to meeting your goal.

2) Pick a physical challenge that you consider difficult. Focus your inner Power—Attempt it!

3) Do not limit yourself to a specific time frame. Who cares if the timekeepers have gone home? Live the journey, and the results will follow.

My Results

I have log books that cover 32 years and counting. They show over 117,000 miles of either running or walking. Six times I have done 300-plus miles over a period of six consecutive days. I have a seven-day best of 371 miles and climbed vertical miles (over 8,800 stairs) in 92 minutes.

I have two seven-day treadmill records of 294 and 301 miles.

All these results came from using the above advice—not from worrying about how a specific body part looked.

Michael Moilanen
Reno