7. Out of a Job

Abstract

7. Out of a Job Bill Broyles (bio) In the years between his retirement and his death, Ronald tried to keep busy. He participated in search and rescue missions with the county sheriff department. He continued to conduct research and write articles, though at a slower pace. And like many people of his age, he was forced to make frequent trips to the doctor for assorted symptoms, tests, and maladies. Life became a routine, and many days—maybe most days—he ate two of his meals at the Plaza Pharmacy's counter fountain. He hunched over his coffee cup, frequently stirring its slush of sugar. He usually chatted with the waitress and pharmacist, but always sat alone. The pharmacist surmised that Ives liked to be around young people, and that was one of the reasons he served in search and rescue. And he waited. If a call came announcing that a search was on, he raced out the door without finishing his coffee—he was just gone.287 Ronald had never married. When asked why not, his stock answer [End Page 338] was, "I do my own thinking."288 It was a subject that friends usually let lie. In response to the question, Have you ever regretted at all not having children, he replied, "I live from day to day. The back trail is largely worn. There's nothing I can do about it. I have things to do in the future, so I'll do them. Or try to. I spent practically my entire life either in the Army or related to it, and always had plenty, and sometimes too much, to do."289 Following his retirement he also tried to keep busy by continuing what he had always done: go into the field and solve problems. Of that stage in his life Ives told us, I followed a great many of the historic routes on foot. I followed them in a jeep. Occasionally, I've ridden horseback. And several times I've flown over them in a plane or helicopter. The final answer is right on the ground. You can scout it out and get the rough outline from the air. You can get more from a jeep, but when it gets down to exact checking, you've got to get out and walk on your own two feet. Cooking right now I have some work on the patterns of visibility related to early maps. The people put down what they saw. We found a number of fantastic errors that have occurred because of mirages or things over the curve of the earth so that the man saw what he thought were three mountains, but was seeing only the top of an island. I've gotten enough data on that, and I've even photographed one of the famous mirages. We can find out why a number of errors occurred on these early maps, and I can suggest that what some people claim were cartographic booboos were actually proof that the man did his work, because what you could see is what he saw and was exactly what he reported. He was wrong, but it was an honest report. These errors have continued right up into the 1890s. We had one of Gilbert's maps.290 It's badly skewed. After checking very carefully, I found the reason it's skewed. The cartographer was using the magnetic declination for Salt Lake City. He was 100 and some miles away from Salt Lake City, and the compass was off about 5 degrees. So the whole map is skewed. Again, the fact that the thing was wrong is proof that he did an honest job. The record shows what he had done. He did just what he said he did. So knowing that there was that error and how it occurred, we can take the map and redo it, correcting the skew, and I've done that in one case, and it checks out beautifully [End Page 339] with a modern map. This wasn't a booboo. This was a plain justdidn'tknow. He used the best he had, said what he used, and it was a thoroughly honest job...