i hate to see the older generation of forest service folks retire. they joined up from a certain idealism and love of the woods. they had favorite spots, they felt protective, it wasn't just a job. alas, the newer people simply see it as a job to perform, a salary to get, a ladder to climb. a good example is the washington people now in charge. in their last public proposal they urged the selling off of the public lands to the timber industry and mining interests. hard to blame them, since this is the general direction and attitude of the present administration. but do they really have to go with the flow? in the past resistance would have risen from within the service itself, those who didn't think of expediency and profit. true, not everything in the past ideal. clear-cutting in the sierra, for example. when i joined up, the mountains here had not been desecrated. the head honchos said, 'we'll leave rows of trees along the road to hide what we're doing.' alas, thousands of people fly across these mountains every day. the scabs not hidden. and often they won't grow back, the soil unable to hold the moisture. i remember one boss saying how great this program would be. yes, one of the yes-men who approved everything out of the head office. and i could find many examples of bad practices. still, as one forestry teacher at chico state said, ' the forest service divided into 1. those who care about the forest, 2. those clawing their way up, and 3. those who simply go with the flow for a job. unfortunately, the first group growing smaller. this reflects the change in the country. at first it was seen as god's creation, fully of mystery, to be preserved. luckily, teddy roosevelt jumped in and created public lands, even as much of it was being sold off to the railroads in a great scam, right-of ways never used. the forest service created to care for what was left. despite mis-steps, this did happen, along with national parks and monuments. and the country went along with it, enjoying the natural spaces. this lasted for a hundred years. what has changed? probably the growth of cities. citizens no longer need the visions of the wilderness to sustain the american myth. in the 1960's the preservationists created the sierra club, friends of the earth, and an environmental movement arose from the university of california, santa cruz. their influence did wonderful work. of course, now everybody blames them for blocking the greed of miners and loggers. they say the conditions of the forest lousy because of them, when the truth is in the reagan era budgets slashed. this leaves almost no people in the field whose job it is to further the health and growth of the forest. and this is my point, only lookouts go back to work with a love of the land, deeply appreciative of the beauty they enjoy. as the season has begun, they post photos of the first days at work. this is one reason i would like to see many more lookouts built and staffed. at least there would be someone watching the store. of course, this is a thorn in the side of those who see only with the bottom line. the concern for the public trust fadse into history. only those on towers see what is worth preserving.
i always find myself trying to correct a public error. there's no profit in it. in fact it makes me miserable when nothing happens. i keep expecting to create a life-changing blog, one shaking up the world, making it come to its senses. fat chance. crying in the wilderness, that's what it feels like. the tree that falls in the forest with no one to hear! ok, enough weeping. i'll soon be gone to a better world, leaving this one behind. let's say it again: FIRE PREVENTION IS NO LONGER THE NAME OF THE GAME. and why is that? in 1962 when i started looking out for the forest service, plenty of patrols were out there checking on campfires and logging. lookouts dotted the landscape to give early warning. alas, most of the patrols disappeared and a huge number of lookouts were closed, especially the california system. the reason given always financial. we don't have the funds. lookouts too expensive, even with their staffers supplying their own vehicles and working for minimum wage, which i still am after 56 years and no benefits. "the upkeep, the maintenance, it's all too much!" other than a paint job and new appliances, my lookout has had nothing new in twenty years. "patrols have to take care of you!" i started taking out my garbage and bringing up my own drinking water so that didn't have to happen. what is really going on here? i've heard the forest service now spends half its budget on fire. and it used to be if a forest had big fires, the next year they would get more funds. now, if they have big fires, they get less the next year. this happened on plumas national forest the year after one of the worst disasters in fire history: the burning of paradise california. were we being punished? i don't think so. we were encouraged to have bigger and better conflagrations. then we would get huge amounts of money to fight a particular fire, without any increase in next year's budget. yes, money comes to big fires. people celebrate the firefighters: thank you, thank you. if the crews extinguish small fires nobody says boo. the organizations become heroes. opposed to the forest service in california, calfire, the state organization, has been flooded with money: new planes, helicopters, engines, cameras, on and on. they have benefited tremendously from the increase in homes and lives lost, from the immense growth in acreage. i have answered my own question. prevention keeps fires small. if the aim were to do so, THERE WOULD BE MANY MORE LOOKOUTS FOR EARLY WARNING. unfortunately, lookouts work too well. they have reported themselves out of job. expensive technology costing much more than tower maintenance feeds the ego. of course, no one in any organization would tell the truth, they might not even think it. when will legislatures and voters wise up? i suspect not any time soon.
I'm not the best person to organize this post. having been suicidal most of my adult life, i should be an expert in saying goodbyes. trouble is, i want to choose my own time and place - to jump off a cliff. i don't particularly like the idea of a virus suffocating me. still i am preparing, and i have a few recommendations. WRITE YOUR OWN OBITUARY even my best friends and family knew very little about me. and especially when familiar faces around town depart, i'm astounded by their stories. i decided to make a preemptive strike. why let others make up things, or deliver platitudes. why not tell them the good, the bad, and the ugly? at least you will be real to them. the more you reveal, the more unforgettable you will be. if you're afraid of being a character and pass as a normal citizen, the less your image will live on. here's my own example: https://smokysunsheaven.blogspot.com/2020/02/obituary.html
WRITE DOWN ALL YOUR PASSWORDS give them to family and friends. don't forget your facebook password so everybody can be notified. as for banks, be sure and give them to whoever you deam responsible. if you don't do this, it will play havoc with those who would like to help clean up your act. this is also a way of letting them know who you are (were). COLLECT ALL YOUR DOCUMENTS that's what i've been doing today, making sure everything on an external hard-drive. these have gotten incredibly cheap. make sure you get one with enough space. i have thousand of pictures, drawings, digital artworks, personal documents and records. i spend 40 years as a writer and 15 as a photographer/artist. as usual, if you don't have an advocate, all your precious creations will go in the garbage. recently i've seen this happen to half a dozen fine artists in town. CREATE A FEW BOOKS AND MANUSCRIPTS i have fifty books on amazon. anyone who has amazon prime can download them for free. i have failed to find a audience, so this may have been a futile endeavor. i encourage you to try. a least write your life story for your children. forever after they will be full of questions that can never be answered. i've thought of dozens of questions for my mother. alas, those can never be cleared up. she did make four and a hours on tape about my childhood, plus several other manuscripts. they make feel i have an identity. KEEP YOURSELF HEALTHY i know this seems odd. my feeling is: the healthier you are when you die, the better you will feel about letting go. for example, i've doing everything to boost my immune system, faced with this crude and stupid virus. here's a list: sleep exercise reduce stress (avoid the news if possible) vitamin C zinc probiotics vitamin A garlic black elderberry l-phenylalanine quercetin citrus bioflavonoids vitamin D3 echinacea beta glucan unlike many people, i'm an absolute believer in using supplements with a shotgun. true, my doctor once said, "you have very expensive pee." i would rather have that than missing the one small item my body absolutely needs. best of luck to you.
Wayne finally discovered the key to his life, and he wasn’t exactly happy with it. The answer should have been obvious. His family moved 32 times by the time he graduated high school. Restless came naturally to him, as did impatience. He could get annoyed over the slightest things. And being upset, he could make snap decisions, travel about the world looking for romance and material as a poet. This last did drive him for many years. In the 60’s to New York, a Greek island, Berlin, Oxford, and eventually to Asia: India, Japan, Sri Lanka, Nepal and Thailand. Luckily, his addictions didn’t include drugs. Brief experiences with magic mushrooms and pot were enough. He did have to worry about alcohol and around age fifty fell off the wagon for a couple years. Fortunately, the desire to live overcame it. On the other hand, a fear of suicide and a desire for it arose too often, part of the impatience pattern, aroused on cliffs and bridges. In the end he made a list of all the things he wouldn’t have to do when dead. Here’s a sample. Tying my shoes Wearing a hat Washing my clothes Taking a shower Cooking breakfast Starting my car Driving to coffee My heart My kidneys My teeth My bank account Rent Catching a bus Global warming Aging And so on, for six pages! So even simple things like making his bed could become a chore. For better or worse, his mother taught him how to tie his shoes and encouraged him to be a great man. For starters, she thought he might be genius engineer. Even quite young, he took things like hoses and telephone boxes apart. He did try engineering his first year in college, but couldn’t cut the mechanical drawing. In high school he’d been sports editor on the paper. Alas, he became bored with journalism and turned to his first love, literature. Luckily, he found a job made romantic by Beat poets, by whom at seventeen in San Francisco he was surrounded by. Wandering in and out of the Co-existence Bagel Shop and Mike’s Place, he often walked the city where his father stationed as a chaplain on The Presidio. A very young Allen Ginsburg read from Kaddish in a UC Berkeley writing class. He studied with Josephine Miles who encouraged him. A reading by all the Beats at Columbus Hall in North Beach rather bizarre. The audience occupied the ground floor, while the poets read from a balcony, a odd group of bedraggled angels. Only in the recent days, did Wayne realize how this set the tone for his life. Yes, he did have a facebook page called The Youngest Beatnik. So even a couple years ago he did take this as his public role. True, he did get sidetracked by theater. Again, his mother’s influence. She acted in small productions and suggested he write for it, since there were so few great playwrights. Now, he always competed with his father’s sermons, basically saying , “Look at me!” And for many years he had he urge to stand up in the middle of a forum or lecture, “Hey, I’m the great one here.” He did return to New York for acting classes at The New School, a play done off-off broadway, GRANDMA, later plays done in Santa Cruz, San Francisco, and Chico. Alas, he didn’t have the self-promotion gene. And his mother (again) said he played so much alone as a kid she never thought he’d have any friends. His adventures in drama an attempt of join with he world. It never worked the way it needed too. Eventually, he turned to photography and sent 15 years taking pictures of landscapes, parades, theater productions, and dancers. He felt bereft when the photographing wore off. The best he could do was travel - Australia and Mexico twice - and take photos to post on Facebook. The travels did help, as they had in the past, to give him a sense of seven-league boots, something new every day. That said, after seven years in Santa Cruz, he floated for five years - New York, San Francisco, Vancouver, Tokyo - and he realized he needed a community. That lead to forty years in Chico, California, a logical choice since grandfather and grandmother were married here. His earliest memories are from Chico, he spent a year here as a three year old, when his father worked for the USO during WWII. He remembered, for example, cutting off his younger sister’s hair. Her curls were getting too much attention! And he was fit to be tied when his sister was born, deposing him from parental regard. Evidently, by hear-say, he became a little devil. Though he regarded childhood highly, evidently his own had kinks. He berated himself for never overcoming childish responses. He sends good wishes from beyond the grave. In truth a few good friends are a treasure. The last time his mother visited Chico she was surprised he had any. She often controlled her children through sarcasm, so along with the positive comments she mixed some rather dangerous emotional cocktails. His father existed in the background with a preference for his sister. He could recall very few instances with is father alone. That said, they provided for his upbringing, which probably not the worst. He first visited a lookout at age 11, impressed by the view and the lookout’s amateur radio. It stuck in his romantically inclined mind. He first applied at 17, and at 22 fell into one called Bunker Hill. The die was set. Never wanting children or a house, his family in debt their whole life, he made the choice for having most of his time for himself, Coast Guard boot camp the worst experience he ever had. At least he didn’t end dead in Vietnam. He ended his life amazed at his luck. Three psychics said the had so much responsibility in past lives, he’d be free to play in this one. Creative projects, though always time limited, certainly gave him the feeling this prognostication true. True, the memories and adventures of the past did make for a painful nostalgia, and he missed those times. He couldn’t believe they could be matched, no matter how he tried, and he wrote a note for himself, “Don’t outlive your life.” In the end he felt he had. Turning 80 an unexpected transition. He never expected to live so long and wondered how it had happened.
Coming back to California after two and a half months in Mexico, i keep wondering what makes Americans so different! What makes me what i am? Compared to any other country the US has an enormous amount of variety in people. How can it all hold together despite eras of tremendous conflict? How can i not go completely nuts making so many changes, living in different cities, different countries. Yes, sometimes i do feel crazy. I’m going to a history of American music. I realized in mexico our music is everywhere, either in its original form or transmuted through another language. It has a variety and sprightliness which keeps the whole world dancing to our tune. And out of that Jazz obviously our national music. Not because everybody everywhere listens to it. Pop music much more the call. However listening to a history of jazz and how it works, i see it reflects all our lives. Basically, there’s a ground structure over which the tune is improvised. And it may be polyphonic, several tunes playing against each other. This is how we learn to live. Even the most stable of occupations demands it. New problems arise and we have to roll with the punches. We could say “life is an emergency room.” Everybody in a hospital faced with a crisis every day, some more intense than others. As a firelookout, i have to keep myself alert as the days roll on. Suddenly there’s a smoke and all hell breaks loose. I keep wondering why college students required to take history courses, politics, and so on. There’s two years worth which they pay through the nose for. I mean, thousands of dollars to learn about the culture! Why not study a trade for much less and get on with it. No, the students must learn to improvise on a whole range of topics. And when they ultimately leave the classroom, they have to flounder for ten years, until they come up with a way to earn a living and pay back their loans, which may mean a job they hate. Why do kids get thrown out of the house at twenty? Sink or swim, that’s the American way. It’s a free fall society. If the economy goes south, everybody’s in trouble. Many people end up sleeping under park benches and bridges. Here’s where the structure, the ground over which the tunes normally played disrupted and the players have to accommodate to the new conditions. Those who improvise the best come out eventually on top. Even though i change places a lot, i manage to keep my feet on the ground. In large part that’s a matter of luck.
I’ve discovered it meeting travelers in hostels. Mostly young. Nicolas works in Mexico City, transferred from Columbia. In a year he’s made a lot of friends and improved at work, a financial center. I congratulated him on taking a chance, leaving friends and family. And that’s the way i feel about most of the people I’ve met. Zack taught two years in Korea and about to return to japan to do the same. Alicia, from Brazil, loves to skin dive and her go-pro! Alberto working as a gardner in Australia but a business graduate from Chile, about to go see what all the demonstrations there are all about. The list goes on. Allen a 74 year old linguist from Belgium who has rented a studio here in Guadalajara, 150 a month. Great find. I run into him for coffee. He’s taught in Greece and other countries. His objective to improve his Spanish and to live on a meager pension. He’s interesting as long as we stay away from religion and politics. He’s very, very conservative. For him Obama represented Satanism! For the first time i could understand how twisted a Christian could be. Others met briefly and in parting. That’s problem with travel. I meet people i like and then they’re gone. It’s making me homesick, to see the same people everyday, to walk the same streets and see the weather change. In very practical way this is crazy. In chico it’s raining like crazy and cold as hell. Here in Guanajuato the nights are cold but the days sunny and warm. I have realized my ideal is A COLLEGE TOWN. No wonder I’ve lived in same small city so long, where my life circles around the university: classes, concerts, demonstrations, lectures, visiting artists and public figures. I also encourage students to adventure. And I’m always posting things on facebook i think people will enjoy and or learn from. And my friends must be exhausted by all the stuff i send them to encourage them to grow, learn, be delighted by. I suppose i should have been a career counselor. If only i could suffer the constraints of a regular job lightly. The first psychic i went to. Gloria, and subsequent advisors, reading my past lives said I’d had so much responsibility in the past, blowing up Atlantis for example, this life supposed to be dedicated to fun. Unfortunately as Baudelaire said, “Work is more fun than fun.” A lot of truth in that. I delight in all the jobs these travelers have. Next lifetime: a career!
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.
