Goodby, Guanajuato, Mexico

After a month and a half, I’m still enchanted by the historical center of the town and the views of the houses perched on each other as they climb the hills. The university sponsors all kind of event. I’ve been to a dozen foreign movies, for examples, with Spanish subtitles I barely understand! There always seems an excuse for parades and festivals. This week the anniversary of the Mexican revolution. This gives the place a definite vitality worth experiencing. 

 A tourist destination for Mexican people as well as foreigners, it must have a hundred hotels and dozens of hostels. I stayed  at Casa de Dante for a month. A wonderful breakfast included, beautifully illustrated inside, clean, comfortable, fresh bedding. The staff very helpful. The only drawback: 175 steps up from the street! This old guy did it every day and  I a sure I’m in better shape for it. The city extremely hilly, which gives it it’s beauty. 

Americans views of Mexico completely off base. The country more prosperous and sophisticated than it was 35 to 60 years ago on my previous visits. The country safe, as long as you stay away from narco traffic. Here’s video which goes into some detail:

                              https://youtu.be/kULFS6tsRPI 

What I worry about most is tripping and falling. The sidewalks often a landline. Rough stones, broken tiles. As video says, building codes not as strict, I did fall getting off a bus on my first day. After being hit in a chico crosswalk a few years ago, I don’t really trust anybody.  In Guanajuato the drivers generally conscious of you, but the streets very narrow the walkways almost non-existent. That said, you just have to be careful. 

Sorry I  to leave. I hope México City turns out to be as much fun as it was last year. Okay, later. 

CAL FIRE, PG&E, AND THE BELIEF IN MAGIC

  

Yes, it’s one big black hole. 





I am amazed when I scroll through the engines and airplanes cal-fire has acquired while the fires in California keep getting bigger and more deadly. What is all this expensive stuff doing for us? Huge airplanes that can fly only during the day on flat land and rolling ridges. In 2003 they closed 77 lookouts, saying they were too expensive. Three years later they rented their first DC10 for three million dollars, 5,500 dollars an hour to run. One plane vs. five lookout seasons. Crazy, no? How are they getting away with it?

It’s our belief in technological magic. For some reason we think bigger bombers, helicopters with fancy names (black hawk, etc.) can save us from conflagrations in front of 80 mile an hour winds. Forget it. And again, none of them can fly at night or in powerful updrafts of smoke. And the bigger the aircraft the less useful it is. But they play well on TV and when they fly overhead, everybody goes OOOOOH!  Basically, it’s a pr stunt to buy them more magical toys.

God, their budget has gone through the roof. And what real good has it done?Cameras can’t beat lookouts, this has been proven over and over again. As for warning people by telephone, what about those with phones dead because of PG&E blackouts? Not to mention those with wells whose wells won’t pump and they’ve no water to put out the sparks on their roofs. Yes, PG&E does have a grip on the real magic ELECTRICITY. Our whole world runs on it.

Why aren’t these two mega corporations focused on real answers EARLY DETECTION AND BURYING POWER LINES? PGE is merely punishing people for suing them. They’re saying, “We have the real power. See how much you need us” isn’t it really nasty? And as for cal - fire, they won’t install air-raid sirens all over the state. That’s too easy, not technological enough, like telephone calls thousands won’t get. Both organizations trading in magic in their different ways. And we remain   Gullible. 

https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2019-11-06/california-lookouts-fire-watchers

A knife in the heart of the Forest Service

My first boss 1962 shipped beer to guys on a fire! That would never happen today, alas. The forest service has become a dehumanized bureaucracy living off faint memories of what it once was. And what was that in the old days and why did it change? 

There are three basic reasons: First the cuts in the budget by Ronald Reagan in the 1980’s. Services once provided by the outfit like road crews, nurseries, people in the field who gathered seeds, the patrols once making sure fires didn’t get started. In other words, all the field people vanished.  Gradually there were simply desk generals supervising seasonal ‘employees.’ If the forests degraded over a period of forty years, this is what happened.

And secondly, small districts combined into mega-units. This meant the small family feeling of people living together at ranger stations disappeared. Those who were intimate with each other and with the lands within their charge no longer were. A large separation appeared between supervisors and the supervised. It became much more like an army fighting fire. Or perhaps like a monastery. Sure, comraderie still exists, but it’s that of soldiers in the field, not a family in a home. 

And the final blow came from sending all administrative personal into exile in Albuquerque, New Mexico. This meant mainly the women who ran the district offices, who organized all gatherings for birthdays, who gave sympathy and help to the home crew. Now celebrations are few and far between, meant to boost the hierarchy of the church, highly organized and essentially impersonal. 

Not that a few small units in the service don’t have a residue of humanity. I’m often touched by facebook posts by dispatchers who managed to create an intimate group despite the extreme tensions of working under fire and in confined spaces. This doesn’t often happen, as I know from my own experience,    But the potential Is there. Otherwise, it’s mostly small units boosted by action under fire the way soldiers are. 

There’s no returning to the past. The whole country has gone this way. My own family used to have large reunions. They kept contact with family letters. This was a chain-mail togetherness. A letter was sent from one family member to the next, pictures added, news traded. This very personal connection can’t really be replaced by facebook. The news travels too fast and intangible, a complete lack of smells and fingerprints. Yes, it’s sad to be a survivor of a past almost no one knows. 

LOOKOUT! ending the fire season

wow, nothing like a fifty-mile an hour, freezing east wind to make the end of the season welcome. the pipes froze (again) and finally i had to throw my clothes over my feet despite two heaters running. my dreams rather sad accounts of suffering people, which i should have expected. my fingertips freezing on the keys even with another heater going by my chair. and i had been feeling melancholy about closing up two weeks earlier than in past years.

i wonder how other lookouts feel about closing. i look at their faces on facebook and they don't seem really happy. life on the flatland much more confusing, certainly more noisy. i get so used to the silence and the wind in trees, i feel rather desperate  when i hit the pavement to live among so many other people.  usually, though they give us laughter and company, other folks add a lot of confusion to my life. too many thoughts circle around pleasing and being pleased.

it's not like i have complete solitude, not with three telephones and two radios. tourists do visit to check out the view. when fires happen, the radios crackle and hundreds jump into action. then i am part of a team, plenty of company there. and i do have days off. alas, on those days i feel mostly stunned, moving like a zombie, only livening up when i return to the tower. up here, i can avoid biziness for it's own sake. a visit to movie can slow me down. being part of an audience does something for me even the tower doesn't.

even up here everything i own demands an obligation. computers want to be work, books to be read, musical instruments to be played. if i don't put them to use i feel guilty. i suspect other people feel overwhelmed by their possessions. a garage full of stuff, a storage space, drawers and closets to be cleaned. whatever we own gives us a sense of identity, and at the same time we have to make sure that identity clean and tidy, acceptable to ourselves and our neighbors. i keep trying to get rid of stuff, yet little things like books keep creeping back. everything gets heavy.

once again, i've bought a ticket to mexico. this lightens my load to two small carry-ons and that's a relief. i've reserved simple places to stay. if i don't have a plan, the end of the season can be disastrous. one year i simply wanted to jump off the cliff below the lookout. that was rather scary. i do need someplace to go, something to look forward to. one 83 year old lookout goes to a small town in western australia to stay with  a friend. another hooks up her little trailer to head south. others hibernate in their houses, waiting patiently (or not), for next year. nothing, i think, can really can replace your glass cabin on top of a mountain.

good luck to all you arranging your visage to live in the world. and welcome back when next season arrives!

The Forest Service has a public relations goldmine in firelookouts

this is so obvious it makes me crazy no one at the national office realizes it. if you work on a lookout, you experience it every day. people astounded lookouts still exist and they are fired up by the romance of them. the views take their breath away and they can't believe people still looking out for them. i get all kinds of questions about the forest, how it's taken care of (or not). lookouts remain the best advocates the forest service has. 

here's a quote from Poets On The Peaks by John Suiter:

                                      click to read

 the poets gary snyder and jack kerouac established the romance of lookouts in literary history. kerouac wrote of his experience three time in Lonesome Traveler, Darma Bums, and Desolation Angels. these books remain in print. and gary snyder is always asked to read the one lookout poem he wrote:

he also included his lookout journals in Earth House  Hold. 

another lookout who came a little later and actually had even more success: edward abby. he experienced every lookout's fantasy when he worked on the north rim of the grand canyon. a young woman walked out of the woods and they had a torrid romance. she suddenly disappeared and his heart broken. he wrote of the experience in a novel Black Sun. he finished his most famous book Desert Solitaire while staffing Harness Peak on lassen national forest. 

fortunately, the park service does realize the value of what they have and this lookout undergoing a very complete restoration. 

i can't resist including this fun audio of edward abby reading:

both symbol and myth, lookouts do more than merely spot fires. they represent america at its best. i would like to see more lookouts renovated and opened. the state of Pennsylvania has re-established  25 lookouts and built two more. i wish the forest service and the state of california would open their eyes. 

DON'T REMOVE THE HUMAN WITNESS (remember cameras can lie)

this came to me after thinking how all fire managers want to remove the human presence. then they've no one to say, "you just screwed up!" of course, blaming it on cameras means nothing. everybody knows technology goofs up: the electricity goes off, the alarm fails, the airplane misses it's drop. and yet, the public believes only human beings can fail.

this is definitely a cynical ploy! here's what a long-time fire-pilot says:

alas, the state of california fire having too much fun spending millions and millions on air-tankers and helicopters. it gives the illusion they can stop fires incinerating a town in a matter of hours. there's no question global warning making fires so fierce they suck the life right out of any human bodies they run across. 

and as for what is true, this is a very interesting Ted Talk called Why do we believe what is not true. 

he says none of us knows enough on our own. we collect our notions from other people and we fail to examine them in any depth.

i'm as guilty as anyone. for instance, the amazon touted as the source of 20% of the earth's oxygen. this a great rallying cry. unfortunately, it's not true. much of that oxygen re-absorbed to re-energize plant growth. maybe 7% escapes. another statistic: evidently the amount of burning area on earth has declined 25% in the past twenty years. others claim elsewhere forests making a come-back. 

this doesn't mean the west won't burn, temperatures rising, whatever the cause. and what about the seas rising 23 feet? we will just have to wait and see. bill gates wants to drop a chemical in the upper atmosphere to dim the sun. and isn't that like introducing rabbits into australia, then dingoes to control the bursting population? 

so, just like i'm saying we need living eyes on lookouts, i'm claiming we need watchdogs and not just computers to win elections, to catch crooks not paying taxes, to help old ladies across the street. 

ALL ALONG THE WATCHTOWER (is anybody watching?)

so, bob dylan has sung this song almost two thousand times onstage. and i can't help humming it up here in my tower:

There must be some way out of here
Said the joker to the thief
There's too much confusion
I can't get no relief
Businessmen, they drink my wine
Plowmen dig my earth
None of them along the line
Know what any of it is worth

No reason to get excited
The thief, he kindly spoke
There are many here among us
Who feel that life is but a joke
But you and I, we've been through that
And this is not our fate
So let us not talk falsely now
The hour is getting late

All along the watchtower
Princes kept the view
While all the women came and went
Barefoot servants, too
Outside, in the distance
A wildcat did growl
Two riders were approaching
The wind began to howl

++++

lookout towers have more than a functional interest (spotting fires). they announced the fall of troy. in ireland they warned of the vikings coming. in japan they fended off burning arrows. they really are the symbol of the nation. 

Man is preceded by a forest, followed by a desert said this graffiti from the 1968 student demonstrations in paris. and it's only too true. look at the deserts of north africa where ancient roman, greek, and carthaginian cites once flourished. in FORESTS, THE SHADOW OF CIVILIZATION robert pogue harrison  says human beings have always had a fight with  the forest. civilization means to tame them. well look what is happening in the amazon so men can raise cattle:

20% of the oxygen on earth produced by these forests. i can feel breathing getting harder. everybody seems to be looking, but nobody is watching. it's too abstract, two thousand miles away. alas, they have no watchtowers to tell us what is actually is happening. pictures on the tube won't do it.

when my relief lookout called to tell me about planes crashing into the twin towers, i turned on the tv briefly. then i switched to audio, listening to the screams in the street. the whole scene became real. without human voices describing the scene, we feel it as unreal, just another movie. firetowers across the united states necessary to make the coming climate change real.

i like a human witness, in fact i need them. otherwise the emotions of the moment get lost. i feel fire lookouts now necessary to tell people, GET OUT OF THE WAY! otherwise we can't take the alarms seriously, just another matter of crying Wolf! Wolf! and i feel the same way about the coming changes in the climate. like the frog in a pan of water, we can't feel the increasing heat until we're boiled alive.