Hear , Hear !

Beebe would have been proud ...well , maybe not , as he was thin-skinned about criticism . I was not aware of the Beebe-Holbrook rivalry...Reminds me of the bitchy rivalry between the two competing squires of '70s glam-rock, David Bowie and Elton John ! Beebe-Clegg books were the first books most of us owned about railroading . The embroidered mauve prose was as inpenetrable as a week-old bunt-cake . Sometimes Beebe waxed atmospheric , and that was certainly helped by Clegg's superior photography and that of Jim Morley ,Jim Shaunnessy and others . Was Beebe full of manure ? Yes , but he could evoke what the stuff of legend that makes the lore of the Old West our civilzation's most compelling Iliad .
On some dark , lonely lane in the West of Nevada the Fremont cottonwoods' leaves rustle as the revanant of Beebe strides "haily-gaily" ,"all pranked out" in top hat and tails, sporting the bear's head silver cane and a wolf's head ring ,bellowing, "Ho!for Sandy Bowers'Mansion!",
for eternity ,fashionably late for the jubilee that attended now only by other wraiths of that bygone era . Beebe makes his entrance as the region's literay grandee , but instead of the competing aromas of cigars ,whiskey , sweat and cheap cologne he is greeted by the empty taste of ashes and dust .Instead of laughter and music , the shadowy husks of miners and whores rustle ,like the leaves of the trees that surround this mogul's lonely mansion . Wait ! Isn't that Clegg trailing dutifully with his jodhpurs and Hasselblad ?