20071026 Not One, Not Two, But Three

20071026 Not One, Not Two, But Three

As a seasonal ranger I move every few months. Everything tangible I own must fit either in my Toyota pickup or my 5’x10’ enclosed cargo trailer. As mindful as I am about my truck and trailer already being full, I still keep acquiring stuff. A couple of years ago the wildlife refuge where I am staying at the moment was tossing a cafeteria table in need of only minor repairs. This would be perfect for my home office. Who could pass it up?

Last winter Everglades ranger Leon Howell was reducing his 13-guitar collection and had a wonderful Gibson Songbird he let me have for next to nothing, at least compared to what it was worth.

I already owned a guitar, an Alvarez.

My Alvarez is a completely adequate guitar and quite pretty really, but the Songbird is a really nice sounding and playing instrument. How could I let that go?

Two guitars. With the addition of the Gibson I owned two guitars. I don’t even really play guitar. I play around on the guitar but I don’t really play guitar. After a bad day at work, a day where one of my programs flops or I come down with a case of foot-in-mouth disease, dinking on the guitar puts me at ease. But me with space limitations, what was I doing with two guitars? Isn’t one enough?

Well, believe it or not I now own

not one, not two, but three guitars.

After my friend Ranger Steve’s recent passing, his thoughtful wife Amelia gave me the Yamaha guitar he played when he first arrived in the Everglades in what, 1979?

She also passed along the hard case, adorned with a number of well-worn Everglades-related decals she designed herself.

Some years back Steve had relegated this beater to second or third string, playing it when weather and other conditions forced him to leave his newer guitars at home. The guitar needed a bit of TLC. The tuning machines turned but were not happy to do so. Each string sat at a different level above the fretboard.

How Steve played it in tune and without buzzing I’ll never know, but I heard it played sweetly more than once on the schooner Windfall.

Lucky for me the Bay Area is home to a very fine guitar repair shop, Gryphon Stringed Instruments in Palo Alto. For a modest price they put right this historic guitar, a guitar with about 30 years of Steve Robinson in its pick-scraped finish and

salt-corroded hardware. The guitar is still weathered but plays well.

Just because it doesn’t look good doesn’t mean it doesn’t sound good. Have you ever seen the guitar Willie Nelson regularly plays? Though my playing does not do justice to Steve’s guitar (and it will always be Steve’s guitar), I am honored to be its current custodian. But three guitars?

Really now, one of them has gotta go. I’ll let you guess which one won’t.

20071025 Please, No More Stuff

20071025 Please, No More Stuff

For ten years now I have lived the nomadic park service lifestyle, not that I developed deep roots anywhere during the preceding 43 years of my life. Hence the title of this blog—Never Owned a Sofa. It’s true. This wandering began early. With my father’s work installing Cold War era missile silos for a defense contractor, our family moved frequently. I never completed a full academic year in just one school until the sixth grade.

So, the seasonal lifestyle, moving every few months, suits my itchy feet just fine. Problem is, how to accomplish the moves at minimum expense while keeping enough possessions to make life reasonably comfortable.

My first season I took to Sequoia what I could fit in my old Honda Accord equipped with a clamshell-type plastic rooftop carrier. You know the ones, you get them at Sears. They are gray on the bottom and white on the top, have a square footprint, and have a honey bee decal. Everything I owned that would not fit in the car and carrier was crammed into a 5’x10’ storage unit.

One summer at Sequoia NP was enough to tell me that I needed more stuff. The college dorm life may be fun when you are 19, but hey, that was a LONG time ago. At the end of that first season the Accord went to a good home, replaced by a used Toyota pickup with a camper shell. I enjoyed more creature comforts the second summer.

My first winter season at Everglades came after the second summer in Sequoia. On the cross-country journey my belongings totally filled the truck’s cargo area front to back, side to side, and top to bottom. Motels? You must be joking. Each evening I camped out beside the truck.
Generally the camping was fun. I cooked meals on the tailgate with a white gas Coleman stove I resurrected from a couple of dead ones Sequoia campers had pitched in dumpsters. For sleeping, I have a one-person bivy shelter with semi-circular hoops to create some space inside. It goes up in a heartbeat.

Now not all of the places I chose to camp were camping areas per se, because I would drive until I was tired then just find a dark place. Out-of-the-way freeway offramps were popular. Sometimes, though, I had to drive two or three hours beyond tired to get away from a city.
One late night I pushed eastbound through light rain to reach the east side of Dallas/Fort Worth (so as to avoid morning rush hour traffic coming into the city). The city seemed to go on and on and on. Finally, it must have been 1 or 2 in the morning, I came to an area with few lights so I pulled off and turned right. For a mile or two I drove south down what seemed to be a lonely highway, staring at the white lines like a drunk just to stay awake. Not finding anything like a turnout, I just pulled off onto the grassy shoulder. Out came the bivy shelter and instantly I slept.

What must have been just a few minutes later a radio-transmitted voice and a bright light awakened me. A car engine idled. I could here a crackly voice reciting my name and address. These must be the cops. Indeed they were.

The two gentlemen were exactly that, gentlemen (as well as cops, or deputy sheriffs to be precise). They courteously asked for identification without even asking me to exit the shelter into the rain. I explained the situation—that I was on my way to Florida, too tired to continue, and would be on my way at first light.

Not a problem. It seems that some neighbors had heard the truck stop, were concerned for my welfare, and asked that someone come to check. The officers did caution me that, one, the highway would be quite busy with commuters in the morning and, two, that I would be wishing I had not camped in the grass with the chiggers. They were right on both counts. Have you ever had chiggers? I had many, but that is a story for another day.

Right then I decided I must have either more space or less stuff so that I could sleep in the bed of the truck. That way I could sleep in cities and sleep whenever I was tired and sleep out of the elements when I wanted. Less stuff was out of the question. How could I do without my pair of Yamaha 3-way attenuated studio monitors (speakers) weighing in a 65# apiece? It had to be more space.

More space translated into a cargo trailer. I would be able to haul all of my stuff and sleep in the truck. What the heck, my truck already had the hitch and wiring that towing required.
After the third summer at Sequoia, with a little time in San Diego staying with my buddy Clay, I was able to accomplish a couple of things I would have trouble doing while living in parks. First, I got rid of most of what I had been storing for three years. If I hadn’t needed any of it for all this time, couldn’t I do without it? Using my sister’s house in an upper-middle-class neighborhood, I held a garage sale and gave some people some really good deals.

I also had time to shop for a trailer. One day the perfect trailer just popped out from the classified ads. A U-Haul type enclosed cargo trailer with a 5’x10’ box. Plenty of space! For the first journey east all of my belongings filled the trailer to but 1/3 capacity. I had the entire bed of the truck for a comfy bed.

You’ve heard the expression that work expands to fill the time allotted for it? Similarly, my possessions expanded to fill the space allotted, namely the trailer. Just as the truck before it, within two years or so the trailer was filled front to back, side to side, and top to bottom. Even after giving away my precious studio monitors a couple of years ago, the trailer is still full. And heavy!

At 53 my brain is full or seems to be. For every new factoid I must jettison one of the old. Well, not that I must, as if I have any active role in the process. It just happens. I do have some control over tangible things. These days I’m quite careful about what I acquire, since any new addition means some exisiting thing must be left behind.

My sister Shannon, who I love dearly, is one of those people you hate because she always remembers birthdays and anniversaries and acts in time so that gifts arrive on or before the important date. With love she would send me family pictures complete with frame, books, and other massive objects. With my trailer full, for every new object she would send I would abandon something I already owned. Finally, I had to tell her, "Please, no more stuff!" Now she sends food.

20071014 Picture Perfect

20071014 Picture Perfect

Picture it: a park ranger naturalist in one of our nation’s premier national parks like Yellowstone or Sequoia, flat hat silhouetted against the ephemeral oranges and reds of the setting sun, helping park visitors to make the most of their visits to one of America’s wonders. What a great job! Wouldn’t we all like to have it? The job is so good that the rangers work for free, almost. Seasonal rangers anyway.

Since the job is just playing for pay, some say that seasonal park rangers must be willing to take some compensation in the forms of sunrises and sunsets. Sounds good, but when the doctor wants payment for setting your broken leg, half of that aforementioned sunset may not be sufficient. In twenty or thirty years, the rest home may not accept sunrises. And how would you store their value until then? Banks accept dollars, pesos, and euros, but sunrises and sunsets?

For this reason, some seasonal rangers would like to become permanent employees of the National Park Service. Just who do they think they are? They have wonderful jobs in majestic places, and yet have the audacity to desire health benefits. On top of that, they’d like retirement benefits and some job security. Now that’s going too far. But still some of them try.

Seasonal naturalists can walk some rocky trails, but the path to permanent employment requires technical climbing skills or the key to the secret passageway. A secret passageway? Can preferential treatment for some be given by the government that espouses equal opportunity? You betcha. Status as a veteran, the spouse of a permanent employee, a disabled person, or a particular gender, race, or ethnicity can, in some cases, unlock the passageway to a permanent job. While other applicants perhaps more qualified on merit alone struggle up the switchbacks, these special people stride easily through a level tunnel constructed especially for them. Some very good people never make it over the mountain pass the hard way and eventually leave the service. I can think of two right off the bat, Holly and Tia.

Holly and I worked together my first winter season at the Everglades almost nine years ago, where we were both campground rangers trying to get our feet in the interpretive door. Holly had been several summer seasons an interpreter at Yellowstone. Naturally outgoing and charismatic, Holly also wrote wonderful programs. How do I know? I read her script for her campfire program on, you guessed it, fire. Or more specifically, fire ecology. Holly’s programs are so good that to this day Yellowstone uses videotapes of her performances as part of training for new seasonal interpreters.

Holly, a woman in her 20s when we met, enjoyed being a seasonal but ultimately was looking for a career. She tried for a permanent interpretive position with the park service for some time, diligently dotting the eyes and crossing the tees on her applications. No luck. Or is it luck?

Tia and I met my very first season with the National Park Service, a magical summer in Sequoia National Park. I drove the park garbage truck. She was at the top of her game as a seasonal naturalist. I wanted to be a naturalist so in my off time I attended ranger programs including several of Tia's.

Tia is as good as they get. She grabs the audience and does not let them go. More importantly they do not want to leave. Her Giant Sequoia ecology walk stands as the finest single interpretive program I have ever seen. At each stop she adopted a different persona, including Mother Nature, a college professor, and others with a minimum of props. We all wanted to see who she would be next, all the while learning about the natural history of the world’s largest trees.

Tia worked ten summers in Sequoia all told. She advanced to a supervisory level, helping to plan the summer season, scheduling a staff of 12 naturalists working multiple venues with only three cars. Eventually she became a GS-9 level seasonal, almost unheard of in the park service.

Like Holly, Tia tried for many years to get a permanent position as an NPS interpreter. Time and time again someone else was chosen—a veteran, a spouse of an existing permanent employee, and even some well-qualified people. OK, I'll admit that the third class is not necessarily mutually exclusive from the first two.

Both of these wonderful interpeters went on to permanent jobs elsewhere. Holly eventually found permanent work with West Eugene Wetlands, a non-profit partnership of various governmental agencies and other non-profits dedicated to the preservation of, you guessed it again, wetlands. She serves as the environmental education coordinator. Tia stayed with the Department of the Interior but jumped agencies to the US Fish & Wildlife Service. She started her first permanent government job as the volunteer coordinator for a complex of wildlife refuges in the San Francisco Bay area. More recently she became an environmental education specialist, her forte, with the same complex.

The point of all of this is that the National Park Service had the chance to benefit from possibly lifelong service from these two fine interpreters, a couple of the finest and most dedicated. The Service passed. Repeatedly. What’s wrong with this picture?

20071002 My Hero Becomes Legend

20071002 My Hero Becomes Legend

W. Somerset Maugham, in the opening paragraph of "The Moon and Sixpence", notes the difference between a person made great by circumstance and an inherently great person.

I do not speak of that greatness
which is achieved by the fortunate politician or
the successful soldier; that is a quality which
belongs to the place he occupies rather than to
the man; and a change of circumstances reduces
it to very discreet proportions. The Prime Minister
out of office is seen, too often, to have been
but a pompous rhetorician, and the General without
an army is but the tame hero of a market
town. The greatness of Charles Strickland was
authentic. It may be that you do not like his art,
but at all events you can hardly refuse it the tribute
of your interest. He disturbs and arrests.

Like the fictional Charles Strickland, the greatness of the real Steve Robinson was authentic. Who else could disagree passionately with you on many fundamental issues and still like you as a person? A gifted naturalist, orator, and musician, Steve touched and inspired many thousands of national park visitors over a 20-years+ career. As husband, father, and friend he touched many others, including me. Beyond that, I believe he influenced everyone he met. This was his greatness, his art. One could not meet Steve and remain indifferent. One could feel his power and know this was no ordinary human being. I’m not saying that Steve was perfect. He was human after all. His mortality manifested itself yesterday morning, as he peacefully left our lives physically but never spiritually.

The spirit of Steve Robinson can be found in every program I present as a park ranger. Is my style like Steve’s? Perhaps in loquaciousness we are similar and I have certainly adopted other elements of Ranger Steve, but there is no other Pied Piper of Flamingo. Steve’s belief that what we do as interpreters can be worthwhile if we make it so—that is what permeates my work and always will. Had I not met Steve in the fall of 1998, I doubt I would still be a park ranger nine years later.

Steve encouraged me in my work early on, when I knew little of the art of interpretation and much less of the vast, complex, never wholly knowable Everglades. "You da man!" he would understatedly utter, able to use an annoying cliché without it seeming either. He was right. I am just a man. He is more.

Popular culture today seems to worship the anti-hero, a ruthless selfish sort. Whatever happened to noble heroes? They are still around. Steve Robinson is my hero, a larger-than-life embodiment of what I would hope to be, a mathematical limit approachable but never reachable. My hero, once just a great human, has now become legend.