Having Everything Right (18 page)

A N
OTE ON
S
OURCES AND THE
B
OOK

You are holding the thirtieth-anniversary edition of this book, which first came out from Confluence Press in 1986, then in paperback from Penguin in 1987, as a Japanese translation from Editions Papyrus in the early 1990s, and from Sasquatch Books in 1997. The original edition won a Special Citation for Excellence from the Western States Book Award in 1986. The book was submitted as creative nonfiction, but the judges found it so filled with stories they chose to create a separate category to honor it.

Readers wishing to pursue some of the names and stories in this book may find the following sources helpful:

In the “Introduction,” the Kwakiutl names are from Franz Boas,
Geographical Names of the Kwakiutl Indians
, Columbia University Contributions to Anthropology, No. 20 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1934). Thomas Jefferson's word list is from volume seven of the
Original Journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition
, 1804–1806, ed. Reuben Gold Thwaites (1905; rpt. New York: Antiquarian Press, 1959). The list of Iroquois lacrosse players is from
Archives: Mirror of Canada Past
(Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1972).

The literary passages in “Out of This World” are from the standard editions of the authors mentioned.

The Nez Perce Coyote tale in “The Story That Saved Life” is after “Coyote and the Shadow People,” in
Coyote Was Going There: Indian Literature of the Oregon Country
, ed. Jarold Ramsey (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1977). The poem “I Was Old” was written by Vicki Lynne Smith.

References to Ishi in “The Separate Hearth” are from Theodora Kroeber,
Ishi: In Two Worlds
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1963).

The full story of Grizzly Bear's death in “Dancing Bear of the Siuslaw” is in Leo Frachtenberg, “Siuslawan (Lower Umpqua),” Smithsonian Institution Bureau of American Ethnology, Bulletin 40, Part 2, which forms a part of the
Handbook of American Indian Languages
, ed. Franz Boas (Washington: GPO, 1922).

Some of the stories by old-timers of the Siuslaw Valley in “Dancing Bear of the Siuslaw,” “River & Road,” and other essays are in the oral history collection of the Siuslaw Pioneer Museum, Florence, Oregon. Thanks to Eileen Huntington, Mary Johnston, Wyma Rogers, and others in Florence for their support of my work as an oral historian collecting these stories, and to the American Revolution Bicentennial Commission of Oregon for supporting the oral history project in 1976.

How did this book originally come about? In the summer of 1984 I was driving from Portland, Oregon, to Billings, Montana, to speak at a gathering of librarians, and stopped in Lewiston, Idaho, to sip Wild Turkey on the back porch with my friend Jim Hepworth, publisher of Confluence Press. We got to telling stories about our beloved places in the territory, and as the sun slanted toward the western horizon, Jim announced out of nowhere, “Stafford, you're going to write essays!” Essays? I thought of essays as the dithering of scholars, and I'd had enough of that in grad school. “You're going to write me an essay about
the poetry of Jim Welch,” Jim said, “for an anthology I'm editing. Then you're going to write essays of your own, and if they're any good, I'll think about publishing them as a book.”

As I drove east up the Clearwater, dusk settling over the river, I thought about Jim's challenge. Was there something there that could be native to my way in the world? Well, I thought, if I'm going to write essays, I'll do them like poems, or long letters to a friend—rambling, festive, capricious, in my own way.

By midnight I had made it to Dixon, Montana, and was sitting at the bar where Welch had written his famous poem, “The Only Bar in Dixon,” the one that ended:

Take the redhead—yours for just a word. . .

And by God there she was, still working the till. A bit older, perhaps, but salty. And I knew in that moment I could write essays.

For an hour, I sipped my beer and savored details seen and overheard for my essay on Welch's poetry. Then I got in the car and drove south through the little town of Lolo, and along the Blackfoot River to roll out my bag in the wee hours and sleep at Chief Joseph Pass, before heading down the road to the Big Hole battlefield the next morning, as described in this book.

Given this history, I would like to thank Jim Hepworth, publisher at Confluence Press, for believing in this book before it existed; to my agent Lizzie Grossman for her early enthusiasm and assistance; and to Jonathan Gallasi at Penguin for taking on the paperback edition. Thanks to Robin Gill at Papyrus Editions, who managed the translation and publication of the Japanese edition. I would like to thank Gary Luke and Joan Gregory for helping to keep this bundle of stories alive in the Sasquatch edition, 1997. And thanks to my kind readers for telling
me, now and then, how the book has reminded them of their own places and stories.

Finally, I would like to thank Bob Pyle for his generous introduction to this edition, and for bringing the project to Pharos. My thanks to Harry Kirchner at Pharos, and to Jack Shoemaker at Counterpoint Press, for bringing forth this thirtieth anniversary edition. They have gone the distance in helping me to sustain the original legacy of the book, and to enhance this edition for readers now.

Much has changed in the three decades since I first drove up the Clearwater River in Idaho to begin these essays, but something wild and original remains—the importance of listening to places, the resonant place called The Pacific Northwest, and the old idea called
h
′lad
, “having everything right.”

Kim Stafford
has taught since 1979 at Lewis and Clark College, where he is the founding director of the Northwest Writing Institute. He also serves as the literary executor for the estate of his father, William Stafford. He holds a Ph.D. in medieval literature from the University of Oregon and has worked as an oral historian, letterpress printer, editor, photographer, teacher, and visiting writer in communities and colleges across the country, and in Italy, Scotland, and Bhutan. Stafford has published a dozen books of poetry and prose, including
The Muses Among Us: Eloquent Listening and Other Pleasures of the Writer's Craft; Early Morning: Remembering My Father, William Stafford
; and most recently
100 Tricks Every Boy Can D
o, an account of his brother's death by suicide, and the struggle of a family to understand, and to live beyond that event. . He lives in Portland, Oregon, with his wife and children.

Robert Michael Pyle
is the author of eighteen books, including
Chasing Monarchs, The Thunder Tree: Lessons from an Urban Wildland, Sky Time in Gray's River: Living for Keeps in a Forgotten Place
, the recent poetry collection
Evolution of the Genus Iris
and the Pharos Editions'
Wintergreen: Rambles in a Ravaged Land, 30th Anniversary Edition
. . A Yale-trained ecologist and a Guggenheim fellow, he is a full-time writer and naturalist living in the Willapa Hills of southwestern Washington.

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