In the Footsteps or Bike-Tire Tracks... My Trip to Interview Gennie and Bob DeWeese

By Thomas J. Steele, S.J. -- Regis University, Denver CO, Coauthor of the "Guidebook to Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance” (ZMM).

I have enough trouble remembering what I did fifteen minutes ago, so I have had considerable trouble reconstructing the days in June 1987 when I repeated a small portion of the ZMM trip. I do know that on 14 June 1987 I left Riverton (St. Stephen’s Mission on the Wind River Reservation), drove through [DuBois], passed along the NW side of Yellowstone Lake, and came shortly to the [ZMM Route & I "joined the trip" at] intersection of the road I was on, with the road that went from the NE gate of Yellowstone to Gardiner. At that intersection, I "joined the trip"[really continued it] and traveled from there to Bozeman, a distance of about 80 miles. After staying overnight in an el-cheapo motel, I went out the next morning to visit Robert and Gennie [DeWeese] – another ten miles or so, I’d guess – and returned after a visit of a couple or three hours; I spent the afternoon running the paper trail in the Montana State University (no longer "College"), Bozeman.

The next day, Tuesday the 16th, I left Bozeman on I-80 eastward, thereby doing the trip backwards for about 25 miles. At Livingstone I departed from the trip and stayed on I-80 at least as far as Columbus, then I turned southeast and went through Bearcreek to Red Lodge, a point on the ZMM trip, but after only a quarter of a mile I left the ZMM path again and drove through Belfry, Cody, Meteetsee, Thermopolis, and Riverton and returned to St. Stephen’s. [Editors note: I believe Father Steele in mentioning “Bearcreek to Red Lodge is referring to the road in Rock Creek Canyon, not Bearcreek. This is the road to the Beartooth Pass, and the route over the Beartooth Mountains to Yellowstone, a route followed in ZMM.].

So much for the geographical journey. The psychological experience was much more interesting – imagining the two cycles as if they were running down the road a few dozen yards in front of me, seeing the scenery as they might have seen it, and viewing the towns as they might have viewed them. The time at the [DeWeese]s’ home was terrific because now I saw the real home (I had imagined more of an A-frame), the actual deck where the group sat with the ground below it falling away sharply to Cottonwood Creek, the genuine Peter Voulkos pottery that John "almost kicked over," and so forth. It turned out that Gennie and I grew up within about three-quarters of a mile of each other in University City, Missouri; when she asked me, "Does Flynn Park School meaning anything to you," I almost fell off the chair. Bob [DeWeese] acted out for me the time when he was doing some yard work near the road and a fellow came along on a bike, caught a glimpse of the [DeWeese] name on the mailbox, and slammed to a stop. He stared at the mailbox and at DeWeese three or four times each and then said, "You’re ... ?" DeWeese nodded. The biker went on, "And this is ... ?" DeWeese nodded again. The biker gazed around and said, "Oh ... . Oh!" Then he gunned his motor, put the cycle in gear, and roared off up the road. –The home was as idyllic as John and Sylvia said it was: hard to leave, especially since the DeWeeses were so hospitable.

I have always had sense that I can’t thoroughly know anything until I know the history (if there is one, and there usually is) and the geography (ditto), so if I can I try to "walk the ground." (I make exceptions: I wrote a Foreword to a book on the Franciscan missions of California without ever having set foot in California.) But perhaps the best part of "driving the ground" – retracing the path of the ZMM journey - was the feeling of having entered into the book itself, of participating in Pirsig’s and Phaedrus’ and the narrator’s discourse, sharing in his and Chris’s and John’s and Sylvia’s journey. The experience in Wyoming and Montana gave me something of the sense of what happens in Woody Allen’s hilarious "Kugelmas Episode": the title character, a literature professor, takes a copy of Madame Bovary into a magic box, and he emerges from the box and finds himself in the novel! Normal time and place are suspended, and the participating reader becomes one with the journey, one with the story. What happened to Kugelmas happened to me: I was in Pirsig’s novel – or maybe more accurately and more satisfying, I was simultaneously in the real trip that led to the novel and in the novel as well. In sixties jargon, it was a nifty experience.

DATE-LINE Dec 10, 2023, A History Note by Henry Gutt ZMMQ SiteMaster:
…Thinking back to 2005, when I wrote to Professor Steele asking if he would write up his “Trip To DeWeese”, I had always assumed the purpose of his trip was to interview Bob & Gennie, the results of which were published somewhere. It never occurred to me to look for a write-up of this interview, until just now => I can not find any record of the actual Interview Gennie Bob DeWeese by Thomas J Steele, in either “The Guidebooks” or Bing or Google Search.
…Please send email to me HenryG@USCA.edu, if you have any clue as to how to find thes, Although difficult to find this is likely this is in Father Steele’s archive stored papers.

For Further Reading => Internet Resources & Links.

Father Thomas J. Steele Was A Respected Member Of The Regis University Faculty And Curator Of The Regis University Santos Collection.
… A prolific writer, Fr. Steele published over 35 books and 77 articles on the arts, history, and religions of the American Southwest. There are over 30 unpublished manuscripts within the Thomas J. Steele, S.J. Papers in the Regis University Archives and Special Collections.
Click Here For A “Historical Note”, Which Is A Brief Bio Of Father Steele’s Life & Career. AFTER this page comes up, you will be able lo learn more about the Santos Collection, and click around, to learn more about The Regis University, of Denver, CO.

As Mentioned Above => A prolific writer, Fr. Steele published over 35 books”:
Many Of Tomas J. Steele’s 35 Books Are Available & Are Listed. Click Here.

Book Available Titled => “Years of Collecting 1966-1996, 1997”, by Father Thomas Steele, S.J., Barbe Awalt and Paul Rhetts.
Describes The 30 Years Collecting Efforts of Thomas J. Steele. And has One Photo of the Collection Room.

The Thomas J. Steele, S.J. Santo Gallery Dedication And Opening Reception, October 24th 2013. By Emccaffr
…The Santo Collection includes nearly 900 items and is housed at the Dayton Memorial Library. Father Thomas J. Steele, who retired as a Regis College faculty member in 1997, assembled the collection from the mid-1960s until his death in 2010, and the collection continues to grow. A selection of santos from the collection is on display in the library’s third-floor gallery whenever the library is open.
Additional Description Of The 30 Years Collecting Efforts of Thomas J. Steele. And has One Photo of the Collection Room.

Jesuit priest Thomas Steele, 76, Was Expert On Santos, Donated His Santos To Regis University, Which Has The Largest U.S. Teaching Collection. By Colleen O'Connor of The Denver Post. PUBLISHED: October 28, 2010
…Jesuit priest Thomas Steele bought his first santo in the mid-1960s, decades before that style of New Mexican religious art hit the cultural mainstream. By the time of his death on Oct. 23, his passion for the art of the santo — a Spanish word meaning “saint” — had led him to create the Regis University Santos Collection, the largest teaching collection of santos in the United States.
Describes The 30 Years Collecting Efforts of Thomas J. Steele. And has a Very Nice Portrait of him.

Thomas J Steele’s With Ronald DiSanto Created The “Guidebook to ZMM”, Published By William Morrow In 1990.… Which Presents A Puzzling Concerning => “How Did This “Guidebook" Come About? '
… Knowing Human Creativity Nature, we can suppose that, sometime after ZMM Book was published in 1974, Professor DiSanto & Steele became enthralled with Pirsig’s Book. This led to The first clue is in “The Guidebooks” Acknowledgements => “We thank our Regis College students who performed so superbly during a semester-long course on ZMM in the fall of 1985.”
…The second clue is in Father Steele’s Above “A Visit To Gennie & Bob DeWeese, for which he started out on 14 June 1987. This was to interview them, likely as a part of preparing for writing their Seele & DiSanto” “The Guidebook”.
…The second clue is in Section 8: “Critical Reception of “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance” : This Section 5 gives full-text of Academic Published Articles, that analyze the literary properties of ZMM.
… This Section 5, is where we find the next step => Prof Steele’s, 11-page published article “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance” “The Identity Of The Erlkönig.” … Where the end of article Notes, tell us that the first version of this article was for A Book Club presentation (1976), Then presented at The Modern Language Association Convention (1976), and then was published In Ariel (1979)
…In the “Notes” at the end of Section 7 (page 238-9), we find => More Clues as to what & when Steele & DiSanto were thinking =>

…Of course, all this above “involvement” meant a lot of inter-personal discussions & thinking about Pirsig’s book!! And of course concurrent thinking, as to what to do with what they found our.
…The third & final clue is in “The Guidebooks” Acknowledgements => “We thank Professor Richar Rodino of Holy Cross College, chair of the section of Modern Language Association, who helped us assemble the bibliography and provided abundant encouragement.” < This was likely around 1979, as mentioned above.
…We may assume that all this above mentioned “involvement” led to a full effort to create what we now see as=>
Ronald DiSanto & Thomas J Steele’s “Guidebook to ZMM”.

Created by Henry Gurr, Feb 18 2005... RevHSG10Dec23.

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