Go for it

Talking parks last night in Montpelier, Vermont with Helen, who used to work as an interpretive ranger at the Grand Canyon. She applied for two jobs and got calls on both of them. When I started out I did two internships, then applied for 100 jobs. I took the first one that called, so I don't know how many calls I would have got, but judging by later experience, not many!

I've met people who say: "It's easy to get a ranger job." That's because their particular experience has been quick and easy. There are lots of stories that trend the other way. How about being a seasonal for eleven years before finally landing a permanent job? How about never landing a permanent job despite oodles of experience?

Becoming employed in the national parks, as a ranger or anything else, depends on so many different factors, it's really a crap shoot. Right now the odds are against most of us because of the economic situation of high unemployment, therefore more competition or every job even temporary ones, and also because of the seemingly huge number of veterans vying for these jobs. Veterans get preference.

So, as I go around talking about my book, people ask me about their prospects of becoming a ranger. "Go for it" I say, "With your eyes open. It's not easy but someone has to do it."

By the time I get to Woodstock . . .

. . . the leaves will be changing and the Forest Festival will be in full swing. All the trees will be trying on dresses of red, gold and brown, and discarding any leaves they feel they can do without. The sun will be shining and maybe a soft rain falling to intensify the colors. Have you seen the desert after a rainfall? The shrubs appear clad in previously unknown shades of red, green and yellow.

Now, it's elegant Woodstock Vermont I'm talking about of course, not the Woodstock of rock festival fame - that's in New York State, half a million miles from here.

I'll be donning a ranger hat for a few weeks (well, I take it off at night) to help out during the leaf-peeping d season at Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller National Historic Park, Vermont's only complete National Park property. We also have share in the Appalachian rail, 90 miles in fact, but it is shared with 13 other states. (Can you name them?) And, yes, the AT is part of the National Park Service. . .

. . . as I will be for three weeks. Please come visit me there. It's beautiful (understatement).

Plus, Thursday October 10, at 6:30 pm I'll be putting on a slideshow at the Norman Williams Library in Woodstock (VT) - the show is all about my favorite subject - me! And how I discovered everything I know about the National Park Service - some pretty neat stuff, and nice photos. We could make and evening of it - eat next door at the Woodstock Inn afterwards!

Words of Encouragement

My friend Susan takes me walking on the Blue Ridge Parkway whenever I visit her in North Carolina – which isn’t often! She lives so close to the Parkway land you could throw a stone from her cozy dog-infested cottage onto one of the trails. Not that you’d want to be throwing stones, of course - you might hit a deer.

The Parkway itself is a 469-mile road that wanders along the ridge of the Appalachians through several states. Surrounding it is a total of about 80,000 acres of storied land, full of historic sites and wild trails. I know that I’ve explored only a little of it!

The little I have explored is near Susan’s house. Now, I’m a little older and a little heavier than my sprightly friend, who habitually hikes with a backpack full of rocks in order to maintain her condition. So when Susan suggested we hike up the 5,964-foot Grandfather Mountain near her house I said “Well, I might not make it to the top, but if you can put up with my slow pace, I’ll try.”

Young black bear in the Blue Ridge mountains. Drawing by Jessica Valin

 

Readers, I made it to the top. Susan turned out to have an interesting psychology of motivation. It’s one I’ve encountered before in India.

In 2000, when I went to volunteer at a community near the city of Pune, I was entrusted with a mission from a friend in Burlington, Vermont. She wanted me to track down an old friend of her father’s whom she’d lost touch with.  

So one day during my stay in India, the community’s driver, Shankar, took me in the old jeep to track down this lady in Pune, a large city. The address we had was, apparently, vague, because locating it proved to be a challenge. Shankar kept stopping to ask the way and every time he asked, the reply, with much smiling, positivity and nodding of heads was that our destination was “just around the corner”.

After going around about 20 different corners, it began to dawn on me that these well-meaning people may, or may not, have had some faint idea of which way we needed to go, but they were much more interested in telling us what they thought we wanted to hear – that we were close! They wanted to encourage us.

And so Susan, who refused to sit down at all during the hike - every time I sat down for a rest she stayed on her feet, rocky backpack and all – kept telling me we were nearly there.  Her encouraging “it’s just around the corner” reassurances must have started around the 3,000 foot mark. By the time we reached the top I’d rumbled her, but the strategy had worked, and we summited to enjoy a beautiful view and feelings of accomplishment!

Oh, and back in India, the dear Hindu gods, after laughing at our performance for two hours, finally took pity on Shankar and me. We finally found a street with a name that looked like the one we wanted. I hopped out of the old jeep to accost a playing child: “Do you know a person of this name?” I asked. The answer was not mere encouragement, it was amazingly factual:  “Oh yes, that’s my auntie, she lives here!”