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The New American Digest

For Followers of Gerard Van der Leun's Fine Work

  • About American Digest
  • About New American Digest
  • “The Name In The Stone”
  • Remembering Gerard Van der Leun
    • from the website: Through the Looking Glass
    • from the website: Barnhardt
    • from the website: Neo’s Blog
  • Articles
    • The Overland Stage
      • The Holladay Overland Stage: 1 – The Central Route
      • The Overland Stage – 2 Company Operations
      • The Overland Stage – 3 Exploring The Route – An Overview
      • The Overland Stage: 4 – South Platte/Julesburg/Ft Sedgwick
        • Jack Slade
      • The Overland Stage: 5 – Julesburg to Junction Station (aka Ft Morgan)
      • The Overland Stage: 6 – Junction Station to Latham
      • The Overland Stage: 7 – Latham Crossing to Fort Collins
      • The Overland Stage: 8 – LaPorte to Virginia Dale
      • The Overland Stage: 9 – Virginia Dale to Cooper Creek
      • The Overland Stage: 10 – Cooper Creek to Pass Creek
        • Fletcher Family
      • The Overland Stage: 11 – Pass Creek to Bridger Station
      • The Overland Stage: 12 – Bridger Pass to Duck Lake
      • The Overland Stage: 13 – Duck Lake to LaClede
      • The Overland Stage: 14 – LaClede to Almond
      • The Overland Stage: 15 – Almond to Rock Springs
      • The Overland Stage: 16 – Rock Springs to Fort Bridger
      • The Overland Stage: 17 – Fort Bridger to Weber Station

I find I don’t wish to explore new lands, but to explore again those I have already passed through, trying to see what I’d missed in the first hectic rush … Gerard Van der Leun

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Judges

The New American Digest Posted on March 7, 2025 by DTMarch 7, 2025

I can understand a "judge" blocking Executive branch actions, but that judge should be the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. It is the Supreme Court that is on equal level with the Executive Branch, not all these piddling regional district courts.

Too many judges have come to the conclusion they have more power than they should. And too many have come to the conclusion they represent the Legislative branch as well.

Just my thought for the day (of many that may not see the light of digital bits).

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Dust To Dust

The New American Digest Posted on March 6, 2025 by DTMarch 6, 2025

A comment by John Fleming over on AD struck me this morning. I hope he doesn't mind if I copy his words:

"Some people might like it, conversing with your ghost. But at some point, either your heirs will pull the plug on your echo, or your echo will become so antique that all the new folks are not interested in what you might have said about anything. And then as Gerard says, digital dust to digital dust."

On occasion, simply heading out in some random direction from a point in the back-country brings surprises. I found this grave somewhere out in the Nevada desert. Nothing much out here but sagebrush, badger holes, and the fading ghosts of lost dreams. Any "town" that might have been nearby had fallen into ruins of less notice than this old iron fence. Any headstone or marker - like the body within - had long returned to that from which it came.

An elaborate fence, someone buried with love, care, and expense - they themselves now gone a few generations ago.

I doubt I could find it again.

But I wonder what was once here; the lives lived, hopes flourishing, a town of future substance being built ... being Nevada ... on the hopes of some mineral strike that would turn "our town" into a new metropolis.

Then the mines played out.

Genesis 3:19
“By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return.”

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Heading Home

The New American Digest Posted on March 5, 2025 by DTMarch 5, 2025
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Oops!

The New American Digest Posted on March 4, 2025 by DTMarch 4, 2025

It's hard to keep political discussions away these days.
"Just because you're not interested in politics, doesn't mean politics isn't interested in you"

Headline: "Hours After Trump Paused All Arms To Ukraine, Zelensky Reportedly Ready To Sign Minerals Deal Under 'Trump's Strong Leadership'"

Did someone explain to Z that his life expectancy might be measured in days if he pissed off the US any further?

"Trump wants to announce agreement in his address to Congress Tuesday evening."

Or did the Dems put him up to trying to embarrass DJT once again?

I still say that little squirrel needs an all-expenses-paid, one-way trip to Moscow.

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An 8 Year-Old’s Smile

The New American Digest Posted on March 3, 2025 by DTMarch 3, 2025
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someday home…

The New American Digest Posted on March 3, 2025 by JeanMarch 2, 2025

Jean asked that this be a response to ghostsniper's comments about a house he designed for Deion Sanders

I want a house
with high ceilings
and low floors.
windows never
closed, no locks on the doors.
"welcome friends" on
the mat,
chairs stuffed
and comfy fat.
food in the fridge,
books on the shelves.
don't hesitate
to help yourselves.

I'm certainly not going to disagree ...

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Tax Time

The New American Digest Posted on March 2, 2025 by DTMarch 2, 2025

And they will tax it as "income" next year

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Sunday Special

The New American Digest Posted on March 2, 2025 by DTMarch 2, 2025

Had a request for "Highway Music" the other day.

So - sometimes granting a reader's request - here is a "Highway Song" from 1975:

Though "moving fast" under the Federal mandate of 55mph made that hard.

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Kansas Dawn

The New American Digest Posted on March 1, 2025 by DTMarch 1, 2025
Think cold. Think some more cold.
It was even colder than that.

Must have been Christmas/New Years. I forget which way I was headed: east for Christmas, west coming home. I'll guess I was heading home.

I've been stranded more times in Kansas due to blizzards than any place in all my years in the mountains - not even while I lived in Montana; this was just another occasion. At least it wasn't Salina this time ...

Coming across US34, I got past Phillipsburg in a near-blizzard but hit the storm head-on along about St Francis near the Colorado border. Had followed a snowplow to the state line but that's where they turned around and where I discovered Colorado wasn't even bothering. Snow was above the truck door in places. The Kansas fellows told me they were giving up as well and best advice was to head south on KS27 to Goodland; they had just cleared it - I'd better get on down that way before the road closed again. I-70 runs past Goodland and I'd be able to find a place to crash where I wouldn't be stranded in the middle of nowhere for a few days if I couldn't go on.

I-70 was shut down. Not really a surprise - I've discovered that on occasion the interstates shut down before the local highways ... which may have been the reason I was on 34 instead of 70. Or maybe because I prefer 34 to 70 - I don't recall now.

I don't go out that time of year without being prepared to get stranded - sometime I may tell of the time I was caught between two major avalanches - so I spent the night in the truck. No point looking for a motel; travellers on I-70 had sucked up what was available and "The highway is closed" prices were in effect.

It was >cold< out. Sleep was intermittent; run the engine long enough to get the cab warm - and prevent the radiator from freezing. Windows cracked a bit; the cab cooled off quick. Re-start the engine. Repeat as necessary. Probably every 15 minutes to half-hour.

Anti-freeze to 20 below is not much good when it gets far below that. 35 below is what I later heard. Cardboard on the radiator time.


I have this thing for trains. Unreasonable, unexplainable, but there it is.

So along about not-quite dawn - gave up on sleep, better to have the engine running and wheels turning anyway - I wandered around the RR yard in Goodland and vicinity waiting for the gates on I-70 to be opened. The storm has passed, the temperatures dropped, and it was looking to be a glorious sunny day (and it turned out to be).

The RR left the engines running all night. Wonder why? ...

Someplace in the vicinity, I took this photo. I look at it now - maybe 30 years later - and I still feel the cold. Maybe that's just me and my memories. That stillness of bitter cold, freeze your lungs cold, squeaky snow like fingernails-on-a-blackboard cold, what-the-hell-are-you-doing-out-in-this cold. And I'm out and about taking photos instead of in some warm local breakfast joint, stuffing myself with coffee, eggs, bacon, biscuits-and-gravy.

So this being the first of March, expecting unseasonable temperatures of near 60 today here in the Idaho foothills, and winter perhaps almost over - not that it really got started this year other than a week of pogonip in December and a few inches snow for the week after Groundhog Day - I though it was time to share this picture of what I didn't experience this year.

I enjoy the memory; I don't need to enjoy the experience anymore.

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I Messed Up

The New American Digest Posted on February 28, 2025 by DTFebruary 28, 2025

Nothing particularly serious but I injured myself in a medical accident and it's causing a bit of distraction in the form of not-pleasant pain - sufficient that I've been prescribed narcotics - which I don't care for and dislike ... but not as much as I dislike the level 8 and 9 pain.

I don't see the attraction to take enough of these things to get addicted but then I react to medication differently than most folks it seems.

Anyway, the imps that guide my writing are taking a break - the narcotics affect them more than me - so pictures as headers it is until the imps get off their lazy, doped-up asses and get back to providing me inspiration or desperation.

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Contact: dt@newamericandigest.org

Gerard Van der Leun
12/26/45 - 1/27/23


Gerard's Last Post
(posthumous): Feb 4, 2023
"So Long. See You All a Little Further Down the Road"

When my body won’t hold me anymore
And it finally lets me free
Where will I go?
Will the trade winds take me south through Georgia grain?
Or tropical rain?
Or snow from the heavens?
Will I join with the ocean blue?
Or run into a savior true?
And shake hands laughing
And walk through the night, straight to the light
Holding the love I’ve known in my life
And no hard feelings

Avett Brothers - No Hard Feelings

The following was posted along with the announcement of Gerard's passing.
Leonard Cohen - Going Home

For a 2005 interview with Gerard


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Most Recent Comments

  1. jean on PalsApril 8, 2026

    'stay strapped'...so I should keep wearing a bra? :-)

  2. Snakepit Kansas on PalsApril 8, 2026

    I've killed three cow elk over time in the Colorado Great Sand Dunes near Alamosa. Elk meat is fantastic. Jean,…

  3. azlibertarian on PalsApril 8, 2026

    The village of Supai is remote. The Supai park their cars 10 miles from where they live. So how do…

  4. azlibertarian on PalsApril 8, 2026

    If you're up for it, I can recommend a visit to see the Havasu Falls on the Havasupai Indian Reservation,…

  5. Snakepit Kansas on Pigeon Point LighthouseApril 8, 2026

    I have not been to Santa Cruz in probably 15 years but I remember it being a fun little town.…


Blogroll
The New Neo
Jean's Blog - Pondering
The Feral Irishman

Hey, Mr. Tambourine Man,
play a song for me
I'm not sleepy
and there ain't no place I'm goin' to

Hey, Mr. Tambourine Man,
play a song for me
In the jingle jangle morning,
I'll come followin' you

Take me for a trip upon
your magic swirling ship
All my senses have been stripped
And my hands can't feel to grip
And my toes too numb to step
Wait only for my boot heels to be wanderin'

I'm ready to go anywhere,
I'm ready for to fade
Unto my own parade
Cast your dancing spell my way
I promise to go under it


Men who saw night coming down about them could somehow act as if they stood at the edge of dawn.


From Gerard's site. The picture always caught my eye.

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