Reading the Rocks

Thursday, September 20 2007 | Send to a friend

Reading the Rocks

Jerry Spangler - more >>

Jerry Spangler spent years working as a journalist, and he has now turned his investigative skills towards a very personal quest: Jerry is trying to save archeological sites that are threatened by the production of oil and natural gas in Utah.

The land around Nine Mile Canyon and Range Creek in Utah is rocky and rugged, and it is full of petroglyphs and pictographs. Jerry first visited the sites as a college student, where he discovered cliffs covered in hundreds of thousands of images.

Dick Gordon talks with Jerry about what he has seen in the rocks, and what he is doing to preserve them now that the U.S. Bureau of Land Management has given natural gas companies permission to drill.

• See Jerry's photos
  
• Learn about the organization Jerry works with.

Music heard in this story: Voices of the Ancient Ones and Walking In Two Worlds by Nancy Rumbel for the album Southwest

Marrying Straight

In August, The Story profiled Bill Shipley. Bill had hidden the fact that he was gay throughout an entire career in the Coast Guard and his marriage. Bill finally came out to his wife and children. That story inspired one with Erick Wiger. Erick wrote to say he was on the other side of that story, a "straight spouse" whose wife came out to him after years of marriage. 

Deadra and Joe Moore

And now one more: Joe Moore wrote in to say, "I want to thank you for airing Erick's story. Like Erick, I too was dragged into my former wife's closet. It took a while before I learned that my story is mine to tell and I don't need to carry the burden of my (then) wife's secret. In fact, Joe says, "I met my wife in a str8 spouse support group. My ex came out as a lesbian after 16 years of marriage and 3 children. My wife's ex who was a minister of a conservative baptist denomination came out after 13 years of marriage and 2 children."

The couple joins Dick to talk about how they learned to trust again, and the hilarious first date that brought them together.

• Explore the group that introduced Joe and Deadra.
  

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