Some of these missing links were addressed in an interview last week with longtime Heber-Overgaard resident Sylvia Allen who with her husband Rick owns a local drywall business. Like her brother Lewis Tenney, who ran a close U.S. congressional race in rural District 1, Sylvia has a fundamental view of economics, particularly rural and local economies.

"The real wealth of America is on the ground," she says. "Retirement, tourism, technology, government salvation of rural Arizona are only the result of the tangible wealth created from what nature gives us. Minerals and metals mined from the ground are true wealth creators. A tree you cut and use is a wealth creator."

As we spoke, smoke from the White Mountain Apache Reservation where salvaging and forest restoration is going full steam ahead, floated over Heber/Overgaard, Snowflake/Taylor, Concho and drifted to the east over Eagar, Springerville and St. Johns, mocking the workers and residents of those communities who are not allowed to touch the forest and salvage the wood awaiting rescue before bugs and rot render it useless.

If the tribes are credited with knowing so much about working with nature, why, we wondered, aren't we following their example and salvaging and thinning the forest like they are on the reservation? There seems to be enough work there to keep both tribal members and their neighboringn communities employed and super busy for months beating the bugs to the dead timber.

Tourism and retirement are certainly important components of the White Mountain economies, Sylvia said, but NOTHING can equal the value of people at work using their local resources and turning even disaster into livelihoods, basic commodities and community stabilization.

In the last decade, wildfires have blazed over more than 40 million acres, mostly in the west, on national forest land. The majority of the timber has been left to rot and for bugs to feast on, due to government policies and opposition to commercial salvaging operations by radical environmentalist groups. The lost wood, which is only salvageable for six months to a year, was enough wood to build 5 or 6 million homes or more, with scraps to create untold amounts of paper and countless other products. The value of jobs that could have sustained families in rural communities is incalculable.

The amount of wood and wood products IMPORTED by the U.S. has almost tripled since 1995 (according to U.S. Government Census Trade data)!

Our thrifty ancestors would tremble in their graves at such waste.

"In the 1980s, we had at least 10,000 good paying jobs in the timber industry in Northern Arizona," Sylvia said. "Now we have more and more young people on AHCCCS, WIC, Medicaid, every kind of social program you can think of. In rural communities, long lines form at the Food Bank. In Heber-Overgaard, the main thing that keeps the private sector going is construction-related businesses catering to the second home or retirement population. All the retail stores are having a hard time of it, trying to make a living for the year from May to September. Businesses continually start up, can't make it and go out. And this year our tourist season was ruined by the fire. Restaurants open and close. The Bison Ranch is having a huge struggle. They opened in the summer, went through the winter staking their success on the coming summer, then the fire came."

Sylvia said construction in the area is way down. So is real estate. Frank Damato of LNR Realty and a member of the Navajo County Planning and Zoning Commission said fall is usually the busiest time of year. Things have slowed considerably. "What is selling is lower priced properties,' he said. "Intel, Motorola, those people with big bonuses, those days are gone. The building that's going on right now is people who bought their properties years ago."

For the last four or five years, Heber-Overgaard was THE place to retire or have a second home. The promise of those days has indeed dwindled for now. "Only two properties have sold in the entire area for $200,000 this year," Damato said. "Last year I sold four properties for that price or higher myself."

But in addition to bringing value to the community, the second home and retirement population has also brought increased demand on fire and law enforcement services. Sylvia said that while the fulltime population of the community is around 3,500, the summer population swells to 10,000 or more.

"Our calls for ambulance service is almost the same as Show Low," she said.

"Our annual numbers are only 15 or 20 less than theirs. It wasn't long ago that our fire department was entirely volunteer. Now we have several fulltime paid members and remain dependent on a lot of volunteers.

But Damato still has faith that things will change. He has studied many historical reports indicating that major disasters in communities such as flood, fire and earthquakes are followed the next year by robust economic activity. Strange, but true, he said. "But, of course a lot depends on what happens with the national economy."

"We have a great Chamber of Commerce, all staffed by volunteers," Sylvia said. "If nature provides the wet winter as forecast and with the Chamber doing its work, next summer could be better than ever.......

"Especially if we can put people back to work in the timber industry."