Cartoonist Phil Frank, creator of the San Francisco
Chronicle’s cartoon strip, “Farley,” has devoted a lot of ink since
1986 to the political travails of Yosemite National Park in
California. This is a park so loved – and so roaded – it is visited
by more than 3 million people each year. In hilarious fashion,
Frank has created a dysfunctional array of park residents,
including Ranger Stern Grove, “a bear management officer with a
chip on his shoulder. Thinks the bears are lazy bums. He is right.”
The bears include three dumpster divers from the Bay city, all
terrified of their new homes in the wild. Then there’s bureaucrat
Horace Malone who “prefers his oaks as office paneling,” and the
indomitable tourist Velma Melmac, who runs a leaf blower over
trails and sports a tattoo: “Death to Dirt.” “””How do the bears
mesh with the folks in RVs? You’ll find out, and laugh, while
reading Fur and Loafing in Yosemite: A Collection of Farley
Cartoons set in Yosemite National Park (for a preview, see pages
12-13).
The $12.95 paperback is published by the
nonprofit Yosemite Association, P.O. Box 230, El Portal, CA 95318
(209/379-2646); Web site http://yosemite.org. The group is
“dedicated to the support of Yosemite” and over the last decade has
donated $3.5 million to the park.
*Betsy
Marston
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Fur and loafing.
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