20070831 A Better Man Than I

Recently I learned that Steve, a ranger I have worked with for years in the Everglades, has a very serious illness. I desperately wanted to contact him personally but am in Brooks Camp without telephone. I begged the use of the park satphone, but it did not connect. Katmai Lodge has a satphone for pay use but it was broken. So I had to settle with an email. I feel pretty certain that Steve would not mind if I share it with you.


Steve-

I'm not good at this. I don't really know what to say in a direct way. I'm sure you know how I feel. So I'll just share a little something about the interpreter I have become.

This is the third week in August. August in Katmai is a slow month for bears hence a slow month for visitation, at least compared to July. The interpretation staff usually loses one paid staff and two or three volunteers in early August and runs a bare bones operation through the end of the season in September. This summer we have more volunteers than usual and most of them are willing to stay the entire season. Our short-season paid interpreter has converted to a volunteer and is staying.

This abundance of staff gives us the opportunity to stretch our legs a bit interpretively by offering a Ranger's Choice program daily. Each ranger chooses the topic and designs the program. Matt does a mammal walk, Erica a flower walk, and Greg a beach walk. I decided on a walk entitled "Katmai Controversies". Not that I avoid issues in my every day work, but during this entire walk focuses on the kinds of issues that the NPS and Disneyland generally keep far from the visiting public. Particularly I air the dirty laundry of the ongoing and heated adversarial relationship between this National Park and its concessioner. I give visitors background on the issues and ask them to decide what they, as partners in this enterprise, would decide.

You once told me that your interpretive motto was to "comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable". You found that difficult to do because the NPS does not want interpreters it wants Wal-Mart greeters. I expect that one day I'll be told to tone down the message of my program, to avoid the controversy as that is not what people came here for. It may not be what they came for but it is something they need to hear and I intend to keep telling it.

My interpretation today is the accumulation of thefts over the years, thefts from other interpreters. Far and away I have stolen more loot from you than anyone else, because you see my interpretive motto is that "I only steal from the best". The best has an endless bag of treasures.

As you would remind me, keep the faith. I intend to.

Tim