addition to the publicity included a $10,000 prize. The organization thought that surely the award would cause Stony Field to emerge from the shadowsâwho would pass up $10,000? But no one appeared at the awards ceremony and the $10,000 went unclaimed for the first time in thirty years. By now people wondered if there was such a person as Stony Field. Some suggested the column might be the work of several writers collaborating.
Stony Field remained a mystery, but nonetheless a well-informed, albeit controversial environmental writer not afraid to take a position, but who also invited those disagreeing with him to speak out. More than once he had written that his goal was to get people thinking about the environment and then acting responsibly. But he was highly critical of those who failed to produce arguments supported with facts and clear, critical thinking. Occasionally, and more often in recent years, he found himself taking on the loud-talking, fact-lacking radio and TV pundits who made a lot of noise, much of it directed toward him and other environmental writers who dared to stand up for the natural environment and argued for a balance between decisions that enhanced the economic well-being of a community and at the same time protected the environment, as well as a communityâs identity and history.
Ambrose opened the door to his little office, a door he kept locked for here is where he wrote his columns, kept his considerable collection of books (Gloria mailed him new and what were considered significant environmental books as soon as they came off the presses), scrapbooks of his published columns, a wall of awards he had won for his writing, and framed letters of congratulations from a variety of notables including Al Gore. He was proud of what he had accomplished, and perhaps even more pleased that he was able to do what no one thought he couldâa stuttering person had become a nationally known environmental writer. How could that be? He chuckled at the thought of it. He sat down on his well-worn office chair, picked up a sheet of typing paper, and fed it into his old Remington manual typewriter. This typewriter had served him well; after all these years, he still enjoyed the feel of the keys beneath his fingers, and the ding that announced he should throw the carriage and start a new line of type. It took some work to type on a manual typewriter; each key required a definite push before a little lever rose up from its resting place and slammed against the paper with a definite âthunk.â
He had not admitted this to Gloria, but it was when he was sitting at his typewriter, watching letters, words, and sentences line up on the paper in front of him, that he felt most useful, most wanted. His main loves these days were working his garden, smelling the fresh soil as he turned it, his pet raccoon and dog, walking the trails on his farm, and writing his weekly columns. And of course he had never gotten over Gloria, the one and only true love of his life. There wasnât a day that went by that he didnât think about her and the wonderful times they had together, now so many long years ago.
He began typing:
FIELD NOTES
Mining for Sand
By Stony Field
My sources in little Link Lake, Ames County, Wisconsin, have informed me that their village board has approved a sand mine to be opened in the villageâs Increase Joseph Community Park. They are offering a twenty-year lease to the Alstage Sand Mining Company of La Crosse, a company with several operating sand mines in western Wisconsin and in eastern Minnesota.
Alstage Mining has indicated that the only reasonable access to this proposed mine requires that a famous historical tree, known as the Trail Marker Oak, must be cut down. This old bur oak once pointed the way for Native Americans on their way to the Fox River and for the French trappers who followed the same route. The old tree has a rich and unique historical past, and Iâm
Stony Field remained a mystery, but nonetheless a well-informed, albeit controversial environmental writer not afraid to take a position, but who also invited those disagreeing with him to speak out. More than once he had written that his goal was to get people thinking about the environment and then acting responsibly. But he was highly critical of those who failed to produce arguments supported with facts and clear, critical thinking. Occasionally, and more often in recent years, he found himself taking on the loud-talking, fact-lacking radio and TV pundits who made a lot of noise, much of it directed toward him and other environmental writers who dared to stand up for the natural environment and argued for a balance between decisions that enhanced the economic well-being of a community and at the same time protected the environment, as well as a communityâs identity and history.
Ambrose opened the door to his little office, a door he kept locked for here is where he wrote his columns, kept his considerable collection of books (Gloria mailed him new and what were considered significant environmental books as soon as they came off the presses), scrapbooks of his published columns, a wall of awards he had won for his writing, and framed letters of congratulations from a variety of notables including Al Gore. He was proud of what he had accomplished, and perhaps even more pleased that he was able to do what no one thought he couldâa stuttering person had become a nationally known environmental writer. How could that be? He chuckled at the thought of it. He sat down on his well-worn office chair, picked up a sheet of typing paper, and fed it into his old Remington manual typewriter. This typewriter had served him well; after all these years, he still enjoyed the feel of the keys beneath his fingers, and the ding that announced he should throw the carriage and start a new line of type. It took some work to type on a manual typewriter; each key required a definite push before a little lever rose up from its resting place and slammed against the paper with a definite âthunk.â
He had not admitted this to Gloria, but it was when he was sitting at his typewriter, watching letters, words, and sentences line up on the paper in front of him, that he felt most useful, most wanted. His main loves these days were working his garden, smelling the fresh soil as he turned it, his pet raccoon and dog, walking the trails on his farm, and writing his weekly columns. And of course he had never gotten over Gloria, the one and only true love of his life. There wasnât a day that went by that he didnât think about her and the wonderful times they had together, now so many long years ago.
He began typing:
FIELD NOTES
Mining for Sand
By Stony Field
My sources in little Link Lake, Ames County, Wisconsin, have informed me that their village board has approved a sand mine to be opened in the villageâs Increase Joseph Community Park. They are offering a twenty-year lease to the Alstage Sand Mining Company of La Crosse, a company with several operating sand mines in western Wisconsin and in eastern Minnesota.
Alstage Mining has indicated that the only reasonable access to this proposed mine requires that a famous historical tree, known as the Trail Marker Oak, must be cut down. This old bur oak once pointed the way for Native Americans on their way to the Fox River and for the French trappers who followed the same route. The old tree has a rich and unique historical past, and Iâm
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