Parks for People? Or Just a Few People?

At the Warming Hut last Winter

The Trail Through the North Grove

Murphys -- The Gulf Coast town where I grew up offered pretty much everything a kid could need: neighborhoods, schools, friends, family and a  park a few blocks away with ball fields, a playground and tennis courts.
If I wanted a wilderness experience I could explore the mostly undeveloped swamps, bayous and hills nearby. The sugar-white beaches of the Gulf of Mexico were close.
If I wanted to go camping I went with my Boy Scout troop, or slept out on an old Army blanket on the sand beaches.
Today private land is mostly closed off for fear of “unsuitable” people or lawsuits and beaches are wall-to-wall condominiums. If you tried throwing down a blanket to sleep you would probably be arrested as a vagrant.
Public parks -- both state and national -- have become much more important to me.
The Great Smoky Mountains provided my first park experience It was stunning to learn that unnamed people in earlier generations saved this special place for me.
 I discovered state parks initially on Florida’s beaches and in her swamps. Fishing from the beach, watching a storm come in off the ocean or snorkeling on a  coral reef were part of  state parks.
When I migrated to California and was living near Yosemite National Park, it was  a dream come true. My first trip there on an October day over 30 years ago,  we woke up to snow covering our old VW camper. Wonderful.
My family discovered the wealth of state and National Forest parks and campgrounds across the state. There were almost no limits to where we could go and what we could see. Waking to the Pacific thundering onto a rocky beach, or a Roosevelt Elk’s bugling call, were made possible because of California’s parks.
All of this was affordable, from Yosemite to Prairie Creek on the North Coast, and could be reached within a day’s drive. A few more days put us into Washington, Nevada and Utah with enough parks to satisfy even me.
Today, the parks are still  available where we can get in touch with our souls, or simply sit on a rock.

The sequoias are the largest trees in the world

I settled in Calaveras County because of my  experience at parks along Highway 4’s corridor.  Our initial criteria for our home was to be as close to Calaveras Big Trees State Park as possible.
A success story in recent years is the little park by the creek in downtown Murphys. It is available to everyone and used by many. “First Friday” concerts in the summer draw more people than live in the town. Kids play in the creek or on the playground equipment while families picnic. Office workers take their lunch breaks near the bubbling water. People dance, sing and play. The park is part of the glue that holds the community together. With no town government, local people support the park through fundraising efforts.
But there are no guarantees any of these parks will be available to our children and grandchildren. And potlucks and raffles won't keep state and national parks open.

A recent investigation by a watchdog group recommends the state system  be revamped and modernized. Interestingly, they did not recommend the park system be privatized, and encouraged better taxpayer support for the system. They did recommend the forging of new partnerships with local communities and people.
National Parks have gone through lean years as well, which led to decisions to raise entry fees dramatically, and the rates for overnight stays in lodging have been climbing dramatically. When attendance immediately dropped, park officials wondered aloud  what had happened.

Neither the California legislature nor the public has been very enthusiastic about parks in the last five years or so.

As a result, state and national parks may some day be reserved for the small group of people that can afford to pay prices too high for the average family. That is not what community should be.That was not the idea when the parks were set aside for everybody. I want my grandchildren to benefit the way I did.
People who love parks have to do a better job of explaining why parks have value for everyone. Parks really are places where knowledge is gained, health is restored, and we learn important stuff about our world and ourselves.
You know what parks do for you. Now is a good time to speak up.

In the old days they knew how to be tourists!

 Note: This was originally written for the local paper, the Calaveras Enterprise, and was published last week. I added the pictures to give you an idea what my local state park looks like.

A week for the ISMISOB* sign

Things have been pretty quiet here in Camp Connell, my home town. But that doesn't mean nothing at all has been happening.

-- The governor announced, and the legislature may go along with, shutting down 80% of the state parks to save money in the budget crunch. He acts like parks don't employ real people-- just scientists, interpreters, law enforcers, and maintenance folks. Here in one of the smaller counties in the biggest state the local park draws 300,000 tourists a year and generates more than double the expenses in the local economy. Everybody is mad at him about something, and now I am joining the angry throng. What can he be thinking?

-- The weather has been unusual for the first week of June. Temps in the 40s in the morning, with a fair amount of rain, even thunder and lightening. I think I lived in this part of the world almost ten years before I ever heard the sound of thunder. What's up with that? Can I blame this on George Bush and the GOP?

-- Thinking about the state park, and the weather, I was on volunteer duty yesterday on the slightly wet trail through the giant Sequoias when I noticed that some visitor left a just-emptied beer bottle hidden under a bench, rather than take it to a trash or recycle bin. His mother raised an idiot. Enjoy nature and dump your trash for folks to admire?

-- We supported the national economic recovery this week by purchasing a brand new car. It's another Subaru Forester, the best snow/ice vehicle for the mountains. And then I discovered they put bigger and fancier wheels on the new car and our almost-brand-new snow tires won't fit. Zapped by the fashion mavens of the auto industry. Why would they do that?

-- Went to a musical today at the historical Fallon Playhouse in Columbia State Park (another place that may close) to see a performance about the Andrews Sisters. Lots of music, dance, attractive young women who sing well, and a very funny man (the only male in the play). The costumes were great. The dancing right on the mark. The singing was absolutely first rate, and the humor had the entire audience rocking. But I made the mistake of reading two reviews in local newspapers. They were luke warm, pointing out that the audience was older (which it almost always is), and even though it was pretty good, the audience (being older, I assume) didn't leap to its collective feet and make the house thump. Don't these part-time reviewers understand there actually was good music before Eminem?

-- A right-wing loudmouth, who didn't notice how the last national election turned out, is trying to take over local websites that report news. He comments on every item regarding state or national government, usually quoting misinformation heard on talk radio and insulting elected officials by accusing them of being Marxist Commie Pinkos. Anyone who disagrees he calls a fool, and he is getting uglier all the time. It has the effect of spoiling useful public forums. He also is testing my boundless belief in unlimited free speech, but I'll stick with it so far. What sort of manners do you suppose he has at the dinner table?

He would certainly qualify for the "ISMISOB" award.

Many years ago my wife and another woman worked in a Cape Canaveral NASA office dominated by older males who thought they were very important. When the men got out of line and the ladies who did the real work could not take it any more, the women had a little ceremony. They delivered a brass and wooden plaque with "ISMISOB" stamped on the face to the egregious offender. It took the guys a while to figure out that the initials stood for "Inconsiderate Self Made Insufferable Son Of a Bitch."*
They got the message.

I have to be very careful not to move from the "merely grouchy" category to something deserving a plaque.

(Added late: I just learned some numbers this morning that REALLY make me grouchy. From the New York Times:
"According to a 2008 survey of physician salaries by the American Medical Group Association, their average annual salary is $201,555, versus $356,166 for a general surgeon and $614,536 for a neurological surgeon."
Now THAT explains a lot about why we have a health care problem.)

Hearst "Castle," or, where the money went

The five mile driveway from Hearst's harbor to his "house,"with the private airport still owned by the family.

San Simeon, CA - One of the more extraordinary state parks in the U.S., if not the world, has to be Hearst Castle, the palace that William Randolph Hearst built for himself on the family ranch he inherited from his mother.
Technically, it is a State Historical Monument, but it comes under the park system and is run like one.

If your idea of a state park is a campground, metal boxes to protect your food from animals, and lots of trees and hiking trails, forget about it. This place is about how the ultra rich spend their money trying to make a beautiful place even more so. You can decide if Hearst made it better, or somewhat tacky.
After almost 30 years of living in California, Pat and I made it a priority this year to visit this beautiful and unusual castle Hearst built in the latter decades of his life. It was, our tour guide said of Hearst building this place, his hobby. It kept him busy, and entertained him in his old age.The main "house" was far to large to get into a picture without an airplane.

It is the location, and the spectacular views, more than the castle, that really impressed us.
Hearst's father made a massive fortune in the silver mines of Nevada in the 1800s and bought thousands of acres of land, including huge ranches here. At one time they stretched for 50 miles along the California coast, they camped here for vacations, and the Hearst family still owns most of the ranch and coast lands surrounding the castle and environs.
Hearst the newspaper mogul, know as "W.R." to friends and "Chief" to his employees, was born into a enormously wealthy family led by a successful but usually absent father and a doting mother. His education was spotty, but polished by numerous "grand tours" of Europe where he caught the collecting bug and acquired a taste for rich decorations.
Hearst's father gave him the San Francisco Examiner which he had accepted for a gambling debt, and hoped it would keep the son out of trouble. It didn't, but young Hearst built the largest newspaper and magazine empire in America with that beginning, and made an even bigger fortune.The main living room, this shows about one-third of it, is where the family children played touch football on rainy days.

What this park is really about, for me anyway, is a era in American history when massive fortunes were made by a very few people, and they had to decide what to do with the money when they got older. After buying a seat in Congress, but failing to buy the governorship or presidency, Hearst built himself a castle. He filled it with celebrities who came when he called, and entertained himself by building, tearing down, rebuilding, and acquiring more stuff.The dining room served the rich, famous and politicians

The tour guide was full of detailed information about Hearst and the place, and did a great job. I came away thinking he admired Hearst, despite his arrogance and questionable business and political tactics.
Biographers have been less kind, but then tour guides are not expected to harp on the sorted details when the family still lives close by. Hearst was not a good husband in the traditional sense. He provided his wife, a dancer he met when she was a teenager, with a rich and famous lifestyle but lived most of his years publicly with his mistress, a movie star barely mentioned during the tour.The outdoor pool, decorated with some imported art and some reproductions.

One of several guest houses.

The indoor pool, with touches of gold leaf, was too scary for some guests so the employees used it.
If you are wondering what I think of all this, here it is:
-- It is a great state park, well run and kept, and shows part of American history we should know and understand;
-- Hearst was arrogant, spoiled, egotistical part looney and part genius. He was not a great journalist, but he knew how to make money;
-- The castle sits on some of the most beautiful land in the United States, and is surrounded by thousands of acres even more spectacular still in family hands. It is preserved as a cattle ranch and will not be developed, which is a good thing even though I suspect the corporation got a tax break for doing that;
-- The park staff does a wonderful job, and every Californian should visit this place.

Wouldn't it be wonderful if the current owners of all that land -- the Hearst Ranch -- would donate it all to the state or the U.S. for a park so the public could actually explore California as it once was-- open and wild and spectacular. The current situation is pretty good, but the land remains a ranch raising cattle, with lots of signs telling the public to stay away.
Most of the coast of California is in the hands of corporations or a few rich families. The public sees it from the road or through narrow windows called "beach access," and some of the agreement calls for more access, which is good, but it could be so much better.
It would be one of the best parks in the state, do honor to the family, and in a small way pay back all those workers who toiled for generations for the Hearst Corporation and created all that wealth.
Maybe now is a good time for the next step.


There's lots more available at:
A New York Times story about the land status in 2003:
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9807E2D8103AF930A35754C0A9659C8B63
The current Hearst organization:
www.hearstranchconservation.org/
The state park:
www.hearstcastle.org/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Randolph_Hearst