Tangled Bank: Writings from Orion

Overseer of Butterflies

187 Overseer of Butterflies During a recent visit with my older brother’s family in Colorado, I asked Tom if he was still working at a computer-shop job that he’d held for some years to supplement his photography business.“Nah,” he said.“Once I got my government job, I quit there.” “What government job?” I asked.This was news to me. “Trail inspector,” he said. “What, for the Forest Service?” “Yep,”he said.“I check out the condition of the trails,and the government sends me a paycheck.” I knew Tom had been getting out on the national forests even more than usual lately, making some ambitious hikes in search of downedWorld War II–era aircraft and taking up mountain biking on top of his longtime devotion to motorized trail bikes. So this seemed plausible, except that I’d never heard of such a job for the USFS, which in any case has been so starved under Bush’s budget that staff have been jettisoned like autumn leaves in a gale. Even trail maintenance has devolved largely to volunteers. “So they pay you to do what you’d like to be doing anyway?” I asked. “Darn right,” Tom confirmed. His wife, Mary’s, expression was something between a smirk and Yeah, right!, and I figured there must be more to the story. Tom went on: “The paycheck comes from the Social Security Administration, but the title of the job isTrail Inspector.” I loved the way Tom construed his rightful Social Security benefit, and how he defined the job he undertook to perform with its support. It reminded me of Henry David Thoreau, in Walden. When I returned home I found the relevant passage on page sixteen of my annotated 1995 Houghton Mifflin edition, in the chapter called “Economy”: “For many years I was self-appointed inspector of snowstorms and rain-storms, and did my duty faithfully; surveyor, if not of highways, then of forest paths TheTangled Bank:Writings from Orion 188 and all across-lot routes, keeping them open, and ravines bridged and passable at all seasons,where the public heel had testified to their utility.”Of course,Thoreau also worked as an actual surveyor, a pencil maker, and an occasional laborer,presumably all paid positions.But when it came down to describing his dream job,it was“inspector of snowstorms and rain-storms.” Thoreau goes on to complain that, after he has faithfully rendered these services for years, the townsmen still decline to “make my place a sinecure with a moderate allowance.” How lucky then that Tom, in a similar post, should receive a sanctioned allowance! Come to think of it, our younger brother, Bud, has a similar gig. Disabled by a cattle truck almost forty years ago, he has always worked as a poet, painter, and Neighborhood Observer of hisWest Denver district.His salary is our late father’s Social Security (did I mention that I am a Democrat?). Don’t we all wish for the same: to define our own most desirable employment, and make a living by it? I remember that when George McGovern was the Democratic candidate for president, he called for a guaranteed minimum national income—a pittance, but enough for the likes of me. McGovern imagined that this would relieve the welfare rolls while encouraging all manner of productive activity in the arts and volunteer services. It sounded great: I could have dropped out of the job scene then and there to devote myself to writing and activism. In the end, voters overwhelmingly approved the Republican notion of competing for what you earned—as much of it as you could possibly corner—and that model has clearly prevailed in our culture. For my part, after briefly flirting with regular employment,I pretty much followed McGovern’s plan anyway, maintaining the part about the “minimum” but managing always to evade the guaranteed bit. Contemporary society no more encourages such self-definition than did Thoreau’s townsmen, unless one’s professional aspiration corresponds with what happens to be valued in the marketplace this week, or this year. But just asTom has found, there is nothing to prevent anyone from designating a primary enthusiasm as an alternate vocation.As long as you can manage to keep body and soul together and muster enough time and energy for it, you can proclaim yourself Manager of Marigolds, even if the Marketing Manager still pays the bills.In fact,I have known many people with day (or...