Children dream of  becoming  fighter pilots, astronauts, Olympic champions, models and movie stars. Most settle for selling insurance, teaching school, building houses and other mundane but secure careers.

In 1919, counties across the nation printed books very much like high school annuals celebrating the class of World War I. Like the rest, Big Horn County’s WWI book listed hometown boys who had served in the armed forces, a smaller number who had died and locals who had supported the war at home rolling bandages, assembling care packages and collecting scrap metal.

The boys were coming home and America anticipated a new era of prosperity. A sidebar in the Big Horn WWI volume ran beneath an artist’s sketch of a dam blocking the mouth of the Bighorn Canyon.

The canyon would hold half the water in the world, water for sailing, water skiing and fishing. Water to irrigate thousands of acres. Water to generate enough electrical power to run factories, smelters and a city that could someday rival Billings. Hardin would become the center of a resort and recreation area, a budding industrial complex and an explosion of irrigated agriculture.

Hardin lived on the promise for decades. The dam was a reality that just had not been built yet. Banks, retail merchants, a radio station and dairy products boasted theirs to be “the best by the dam site.”

Robert Yellowtail, who served as U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs superintendent and later as chairman of the Crow Tribe, battled the Bureau of Reclamation’s plans to dam the Bighorn River. To appease or to spite Yellowtail, BuRec named the project for the Crow leader. In the 1960s the dam went up and most of the dream crumbled.

The first to fade was the dream of industrial growth. Since World War I America had built a power grid that transported electricity from any point to any other location. There was no longer any reason to locate near the power source.
The vision of the Bighorn bench growing sugar beets became mired in land ownership conflicts. Most of the land belonged to Crow Indians or the Crow Tribe. Allotted parcels were owned by as many as 200 descendants of the original allottee. Try negotiating an easement with 200 owners of an 80-acre tract.

The fishing, however, did not disappoint. Before the dam was built, the Bighorn river ran thick with silt, brown most of the year and red during the flood. Now flowing crystal clear and planted with browns and rainbows,  the river became one of America’s top trout streams.

It did attract tourists, but not like locals had imagined it might. BuRec proposed a road from The dam to Powell, Wyo., a “trans park” highway that would make the reservoir more convenient to fishermen, sailors and water skiers. The plan was dropped after wrangling with the tribe exhausted both the Crows and BuRec.

A Crow politician summed up tribal opposition: “We want you (outsiders) to come look, but we don’t want you to look until it’s all gone.”

Today, five miles of pavement gives limited access to one of the most beautiful vistas in the national recreational parks system. The canyon and its several tributaries gash brilliant red, pink and purple scars across a desert landscape. Utah juniper and sagebrush draw mule deer, cottontail rabbits and a rich mix of rare birds. Limestone rims tower above crimson hills.

But don’t take my word for it. See for yourself. Drive to Powell. Take pictures but don’t tell your out-of-state friends and relatives. We almost lost this place 30 years ago. Let’s not take another chance.

• • •

A group of gay Republicans have launched a drive to draft Dick Cheney to run against Barack Obama in 2012.

Chris Barron, political director for the conservative, gay Log Cabin Republicans, found the LCR too liberal for his taste, moved further right  and founded GOProud.

The ultra conservative (but not necessarily ultra-gay) GOProud hopes to draft Cheney, although the ex-veep says he is not interested.

Good luck, GOProud. The Dick man has a stellar record in dodging drafts.

In fact, Cheney’s draft dodging might have predisposed him to GOProud’s favor. The facts are:  

Aug. 29, 1964: Dick and Lynne Cheney marry.

May 19, 1965: The Selective Service classifies Dick Cheney 1-A, “available immediately for military service.”

July 28, 1965: President Lyndon Johnson says draft calls will be doubled.

Oct. 26, 1965: The Selective Service declares that married men without children, who were previously exempted from the draft, will now be called up. Married men with children remain exempt.

Jan. 19, 1966: The Selective Service reclassifies Dick Cheney 3-A, “deferred from military service because service would cause hardship upon his family,” because his wife is pregnant with their first child.

July 28, 1966: Elizabeth Cheney is born.

Jan. 30, 1967: Dick Cheney turns 26 and therefore becomes ineligible for the draft.

Those who are counting will note that that Elizabeth Cheney’s birth date falls precisely nine months and two days after the Selective Service publicly revoked its policy of not drafting childless husbands.

• • •

Barack Obama’s decision to send an additional 30,000 troops into Afghanistan makes that war his own. Hail to the chief. Hail to George Bush’s successor.

It’s a bad war, one that will not end well.

If Cheney and Obama did find themselves facing one another in 2012, I might find it convenient to go fishing on election day.