Area 51 Barracks Nothing Happening Here Either.

The picture at the left is supposed to be an aerial view of the living quarters at the famous "Area 51" airbase. Looks pretty calm to me. No doubt the objection will be heard: "Well, those are just the barracks. You wouldn't expect to see any aliens or secret stuff there, that's just where the people live when they're not on duty." All right: here's a picture of the runway. Still nothing. So I suppose now people can stop talking about it and get back to more important tasks. Actually, the whole mystery of Area 51 is that there is absolutely nothing going on there at all, not even regular passenger flights, yet a strange part of the human mind gets focussed on it. Similar lacunae: The disappearance of people who are not that important—that's to say, not actually controlling millions of lives—and the resulting public curiosity about this person's whereabouts. So what if they've disappeared? People have a way of coming and going, being and non-being, getting hung up at restaurants, going to the movies, not answering the telephone. So?

Medicine Bow, Wyoming, 1920's — J.D. Sagris.

There are several toponyms containing the word "Medicine". The Medicine Bow Mountains in Wyoming are named for the fact that the Indians used to come there for the good wood which they would use to make bows; and they also took the opportunity to mix together various medicines. The town of Medicine Bow became famous from the novel The Virginian, by Owen Wister.

C.P.R. Station, Medicine Hat, Alberta, 1920's.

Medicine Hat, on the other hand, is named for the place in the river where a Cree medicine man lost his "hat" during a battle with the Blackfoot. Apparently it used to be called "Medicine Man's Hat", which is rather clumsy. (Those quotation marks around the word "hat" mean that, for some reason, the word "hat" always seems to imply a European-style hat—a fairly modest thing with a brim, like a fedora or homberg or something. A beret is not a hat. A helmet is not a hat. Nor is a cap a hat. To be a hat, pure and simple, a thing has to be moderate in colour and construction, and perform only the unostentatious function of covering one's head. It cannot have feathers, or bits and pieces, or written text, or "icons", or equipment of any kind, because then it would be more correctly considered "headgear". As some French general famously remarked, observing a friend's "hat" : "C'est magnifique, mais ce n'est pas un chapeau.")

Medicine Lodge Public Schools, 1930's.

There doesn't seem to be much information available about Medicine Lodge, Kansas. It is the hometown of Carrie Nation.