Howard Haight's Graffito

Throw a coke can out the window of your car today, and it is just trash; let it lay by the roadside for 50 years (or more), and it becomes a "cultural resource." Likewise, graffiti: Leaving your tag today is vandalism, but leaving it yesterday is part of our heritage. In southern Utah, and around the west, the bark of an aspen tree has long been viewed as the billboard on which to leave your inscription. To me, an aspen carving from today is an annoyance, but a carving from 50, or 70, or even 100 years ago is worth noting. I stop and wonder, was this the work of a lonely cowboy, a passing tourist, or a ragged hunter? I try to imagine the shape of the forest and the size of the tree on the day it was carved. Could this artist have imagined that his work would last for seven decades?

I found this particular note from Howard Haight in the mountains above Cedar City on a tree that is still alive. Yesterday, I found a carving from 1934 on a dead tree near Yankee Meadows. Since the average lifespan of an aspen tree is probably around 80 years, finding stuff from the 1920s and 1930s is likely to be near the limit. Indeed, the oldest record that I have is from a tree on the Sevier Plateau. It is dated September 22, 1921. When your carving celebrates its 90th birthday, I will no longer consider it to be trash.