It was most fitting, I believe, that Ken Burns' PBS documentary series, The National Parks, ended with the words of John Muir echoing ever after. The passionate naturalist embodies the quest to preserve for our children's children the finest treasures with which nature has blessed us.
The battles, the politics involved, have been harsh—even brutal—but in hindsight, I don't believe there is a man, woman or child among us who would argue that America would be better off today without a Grand Canyon, or a Yellowstone, or a Denali.
The documentary was, for me, a trip down memory lane. I couldn't help but recall my own encounters with America's wilderness as a child in the mid-60s. I vividly remembered our time spent living out west and our family's frequent excursions to California's high country.
Mom and Dad would pack the camper, and we three kids would ride on the top bunk as Dad's old truck wound its way around the narrow logging trails, up the side of a mountain. From our perch over the cab, we could look out the window as the top-heavy truck swayed precariously close to impossibly steep ravines—not a guard rail in sight—around and around we climbed the mountain until there before us unfolded a beautiful meadow embraced by towering evergreens.
We'd park near the crystalline stream that ran through it and spend long days exploring those wild places where we felt surely no man had gone before. It was our little secret, and we kept it safely there, near and dear to our hearts.
Now, many decades later, I'm certain our secret has been discovered, and the high meadow has been lost, the evergreens...gone. I can never go back to visit that place save through the clarity of my mind's eye, can never take Collin there to play beside the crystalline stream, where the wind whispers to his heart through the pine needles.
That place may be lost, yet all is not lost through the passion of John Muir and his words that echo ever after.
The battles, the politics involved, have been harsh—even brutal—but in hindsight, I don't believe there is a man, woman or child among us who would argue that America would be better off today without a Grand Canyon, or a Yellowstone, or a Denali.
The documentary was, for me, a trip down memory lane. I couldn't help but recall my own encounters with America's wilderness as a child in the mid-60s. I vividly remembered our time spent living out west and our family's frequent excursions to California's high country.
Mom and Dad would pack the camper, and we three kids would ride on the top bunk as Dad's old truck wound its way around the narrow logging trails, up the side of a mountain. From our perch over the cab, we could look out the window as the top-heavy truck swayed precariously close to impossibly steep ravines—not a guard rail in sight—around and around we climbed the mountain until there before us unfolded a beautiful meadow embraced by towering evergreens.
We'd park near the crystalline stream that ran through it and spend long days exploring those wild places where we felt surely no man had gone before. It was our little secret, and we kept it safely there, near and dear to our hearts.
Now, many decades later, I'm certain our secret has been discovered, and the high meadow has been lost, the evergreens...gone. I can never go back to visit that place save through the clarity of my mind's eye, can never take Collin there to play beside the crystalline stream, where the wind whispers to his heart through the pine needles.
That place may be lost, yet all is not lost through the passion of John Muir and his words that echo ever after.
"Few are altogether deaf to the preaching of pine trees. Their sermons on the mountains go to our hearts; and if people in general could be got into the woods, even for once, to hear the trees speak for themselves, all difficulties in the way of forest preservation would vanish."
~ John Muir (1838-1914)
~ Robin
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