Suddenly, late summer
It turned hot, and then it turned humid in this mountain valley that receives only 9 to 11 inches of rain a year. Although our swamp coolers can’t keep up, we tell ourselves to enjoy this damp and still warm August weather – slant light announces that fall isn’t far away.
Lots of summer visitors have stopped by to say hello or tour the news hive here: Four-year-old Ian Hamilton from Boulder, Colo., spelled his name on a big facilitator board for us while his father, Scott, took a break from a camping trip near Marble. The rest of the family, including walking but wobbly 16-month-old twins Adam and Dylan, hovered just outside our glassed front door.
Marianne and Charles Siller visited from Lago Vista, Texas, near Austin, where they work in a candle factory, and Vashti “Tice” Supplee, a game chief for the Arizona Game and Fish Department in Phoenix, said a quick hello on her way to Glenwood Springs for a women-only camping trip in the Flat Tops Wilderness. Alex Benson, who read HCN while an undergraduate at Middlebury College in Vermont, told us she’ll be a graduate student soon in bilingual education at Columbia University in New York.
There is a preserve near Telluride, Colo., run by the San Miguel Nature Conservancy, and Eric Lane stopped in on his way there. He does graduate research in natural resource policy at the University of Michigan.
“No Safeway, no Wendy’s” was what artist Blythe Ousterman, of Palo Alto, Calif., noticed when she dropped in on her way to visit friends in the Aspen area. That same day we chatted with writer Kathleen Stanton of Tucson, Ariz., and two Yuma, Arizonans, who had fled 120 degree heat: subscriber Marie McGee and friend Jeff Denman. She teaches biology at Arizona Western College.
After looking at petroglyphs in Utah and Colorado, Vern Gonnsen and Jean Benson of Golden, Colo., dropped by. He is a member of the Utah Rock Art Research Association.
Robin Miller and Deborah Maligno of Gainesville, Fla., stopped in on their way to Carbondale, Colo., just over McClure Pass. He is an organic citrus grower; both lead environmental trips for children.
A reporter for the new Environmental News Reporter newsletter, Heather Draper, spent half a day with staff recently. She was working on a feature about HCN, headlined this month as “Small-town paper; big-time readers.” Heather begins her story: “The downtown of this flyspeck on a map is either three blocks or four blocks long, depending on whether or not you count the residential block with a gas station on the corner.”
We now think she exaggerates: The downtown is two blocks. A sample copy is available from TJFR Environmental News Reporter, 545 N. Maple Ave., Ridgewood, NJ 07450. The eight-page newsletter costs charter subscribers $295 a year.
Feedback, pro and con
We’ve stored up several responses to issues over the summer, including this rejoinder by way of Internet from Peter Baldwin about Shara Rutberg’s job as “a Sherpa for MTV.” Not so, says Baldwin, she was a porter. “On trekking expeditions in the Himalayan region of Nepal, Sherpas function as guides.” We’re grateful for the correction.
Speaking of Internet, while a reader from Austin, Texas, thought C.L. Rawlins’ essay, “My kingdom is a horse,” was “worth more than many books,” Tobi Van Dyck notes that “some of us in the grass roots neither own a computer nor want one.”
Reader Wayne Ranney from Flagstaff, Ariz., gently informed us that a picture accompanying an essay by Edward Abbey – first published by the Museum of Northern Arizona’s Plateau magazine, in 1976, by the way – was printed (-oops’) upside down. Check out the Aug. 7 issue, pages 8-9 and you’ll see he’s right.
In the same issue, we incorrectly identified Brucella abortus as a virus; it is a bacterium. The article about Yellowstone bison also said the bacteria first appeared in the United States in 1954; its first appearance was likely as early as the 19th century. Thanks to two microbiologist readers for setting us straight.
An untold story of bravery
Our lead story Aug. 7 on conscientious objectors to World War II who became smokejumpers prompted several letters. First, a correction on the photo credit, which should go to Phil Stanley.
Ernie and Verena LeVon, from Winthrop, Wash., reminded us that “we of the Methow Valley in Washington take special pride in the fact that smokejumping started here. And though the first jumps on fires were made in Montana, the idea was developed here and the first jumpers trained here. Please forgive our pride.”
African-Americans have reason for pride, too, says Carl Gidlund, a public affairs officer for the Upper Columbia River Basin Team that’s working on a gargantuan environmental analysis. Gidlund says members of the world’s first black airborne unit, the 555th Parachute Infantry Battalion, helped save millions of acres of Northwest forests from fires in 1945.
Some of the wildland fires the smokejumpers fought weren’t caused by lightning. They were set off by balloon-borne fire bombs that the Japanese launched into the jet stream. When the bombs landed in West Coast forests, blazes erupted, sending the jumpers, dubbed the “Triple Nickles,” into action, action that was kept secret during this last year of the war and rarely written about since.
The men were used to parachuting; what was new was combining that skill with disarming bombs and fighting fire. Now-retired Col. Bradley Biggs told Gidlund that the Forest Service and Army put the paratroopers through an intensive three weeks of training that included demolitions, tree landings, firefighting, jumping into pocket-sized drop zones studded with rocks and tree stumps, survival in wooded areas, and extensive first-aid training for injuries – particularly broken bones.
Wearing football helmets outfitted with wire masks instead of GI-issue steel helmets, the Triple Nickles (their spelling) made 1,200 jumps in 1945.
“There were casualties,” Gidlund says. “One man was killed while trying to lower himself from a 150-foot tree with a smokejumper “let-down” rope. He slipped or lost his grip and plunged to rocks below. Thirty others suffered injuries that included a crushed chest, broken legs and a fractured spine.”
Nearly a half-century later, during the celebration on the Washington Mall last summer honoring the agency’s mascot, Smokey Bear, the vets’ bravery was finally acknowledged, the Forest Service’s Gidlund says.
“If you were at the Mall for Smokey’s 50th, you probably saw a knot of aged, African-American vets. Now you know why they were standing tall.” For their little-known contribution to the war effort, the men were presented a belated award from the Department of Agriculture. For more information about this missing chapter in the history of smokejumping, contact Carl Gidlund, EIS Team, 304 N. Eighth St., Room 246, Boise, ID 83702 (208/334-1770).
* Betsy Marston for the staff
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Dear Friends.
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