March 30, 2005

• Earlier this evening I heard this story on the radio. It's from Living On Earth, which is a show about environmental concerns, and the story is a guy who was a park ranger for a state park about to be flooded under a lake made by a big dam project.

  The state (Calfornia) had bought up all the land, or condemned it, in order to clear the property for flooding. They made it a state park in the meantime. But the dam project got held up for many years, and folks sort of settled back into the land. Part of the story here is that these two valleys that would be flooded are on the American river, in the Sierra Nevada mountains, famous for the northern California gold rush back in the 1800s. So fast forward to the time of this story, and prospectors were still fighting and killing each other in order to get the gold.

  So imagine you're a park ranger at this state park where anarchy rules, and you're not a cop, you're not able to arrest people in the way cops are, and you're not really even trained in law enforcement. These guys got by by simply enforcing the park rules, such as a rule forbidding loaded weapons in the park.

  The radio show made me want to buy the book the ranger wrote, called 'Nature Noir,' which I might just do.

  But what's most amusing about this story to me, what makes me laugh when I think about it, is that around the time this story takes place (the late 70s), I remember being up in the Sierra Nevadas with my mom and dad, and we were visiting my mom's sister and her husband and son, who all live in the area. My uncle is very conservative, and we were driving through this very valley, and he says, "Just think. All this could be a nice lake, generating some power, and giving you a place to go boating. But some doped-up hippies and kayakers want to keep it like it is, where it's not doing anybody any good." I specifically remember 'doped-up hippies.'

  So I'll have to get ahold of 'Nature Noir' and find out if there are any doped-up hippies in it.

  • 5:00 am
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