On Politics and Parks: People, Places, Politics, Parks

Prologue

xi Sometime late in the spring of 1961, when I was twenty years old and attending the University of Texas, I learned that a prospective summer job with an oil company would not materialize. That was fine with me, because I really wanted to go to Washington to aid President Kennedy in his work addressing problems at “the edge of a new frontier,” as Kennedy put it. But by then all summer internship positions were filled. Fortunately, I had to go to the Texas capitol and stopped by State Representative Don Kennard’s office. Don was from Fort Worth and was a close friend and ally of Congressman Jim Wright. Don and I had campaigned together for Wright in the run-up to the special election held in May to fill Lyndon Johnson’s US Senate seat. Wright lost, but we had worked hard, helping him carry a number of Central Texas counties, and he was grateful. Don phoned and told Wright about my situation, and he said that he would look around and find something. What he found was a summer job for me at a national park. Stewart Udall, President Kennedy’s secretary of interior, was a former House member who had served with Wright. National parks were under his jurisdiction and the parks had all sorts of seasonal jobs. ฀ telegram from the National Park Service told me to report to Rocky Mountain National Park. I knew where that was: Colorado. But a second telegram directed me to go to Glacier National Park to work on trails. Mother and I had to find Glacier on a map, and then the challenge was how to get there. ฀s I remember, there was no thought of flying in those days, so that left the bus, car, or train. I didn’t have a car, and a bus trip would have taken forever. That left trains: the Rock Island Line to Minneapolis, then the Great Northern’s Empire Builder to Glacier. I had to report on June 7, so we made coach reservations, and I expected to arrive at Belton, Montana, on June 6. I packed as best I could, not knowing what a trail crew worker would need. I borrowed $100 from Granddaddy Donoho, then went to Fort Worth to say goodbye to a girlfriend and catch the train. The Rock Island pulled out in the evening and I began a journey that would last a lifetime. PROLOGUE PROLOGUE xii Throughout the evening and during the next day, I watched the ฀merica I had dreamed of unfold: cities and villages, industrial giants and open fields. On the first night I ate from a box lunch that my granddaddy and my step-grandmother, Sue, had brought to the station. There were dining cars, but the meals were expensive, so many passengers, like me, had boxes or sacks of fried chicken, sandwiches, deviled eggs, and apples. ฀t most stops, I hopped off and ran to the front of the station to look up and down Main Street. In many towns that was the only street. In those days trains stopped more often than they do today, so I got a peek at ฀merica—at work and asleep. On and on the Twin Star Rocket rolled northward, into the next day. In the late afternoon I finally arrived in Minneapolis and got off at its busy, cavernous train station. The depot was huge because of the great number of lines that fed into it. Many, including the Rock Island Line, no longer exist. I was homesick and wondered out loud whether I should head back to Texas. It occurred to me that this was the first journey I was making alone, and it was all the more daunting because it was a journey into the unknown. Somehow a depressing night passed. Then the announcer called out that the Great Northern would leave on track such and such. When I asked which car would stop at the Glacier Park, I was directed to the last three cars. Still glum, I boarded. There, before my quickly smiling eyes, were beautiful young women. I am sure there were young men there, but most were girls congregated in those cars, many of them blond Scandinavians from the colleges and universities of Minnesota, recruited to work for the summer at Glacier National Park. Things brightened considerably In an adjoining car I found a seat—a window seat, fortunately, because I wanted to see as much as possible...