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Watching the fires out west, I recall the uncle I was named for who was killed by a drunk driver when I was about 4 when he was in his early-20s.
My mom showed me pictures of him & his friends as teenagers. Each summer they would go out west and "fight fires."
It appears /1
My mom showed me pictures of him & his friends as teenagers. Each summer they would go out west and "fight fires."
It appears /1
...that in the 60s and 70s a right of passage for high school and college young men was to head out west to fight fires & then come home in time for football camp to start. I still have the knife they issued him. They lived in tents in camps in the great forests of CA, OR, WA,/2
...& ID. He blew out his knee his senior year in HS, so he wasn't physically qualified for the draft, so his time fighting fires was doubly meaningful to him as his friends went to Vietnam.
I assume that program went away a long time ago. I'm thinking, knowing the problems /3
I assume that program went away a long time ago. I'm thinking, knowing the problems /3
...we have with our young men other generations didn't, that we've lost something from taking that option away. Hard, physically demanding & slightly dangerous work checks a block in many young men's subconscious to-do list. If they can't find a path to do such things /4
...constructively, then they will find something else to fill that void ... or if they can't ... that missing part of their self-definition will manifest itself in some other - and probably destructive - way.
Just a thought, and a nod to the uncle I only have one passing /5
Just a thought, and a nod to the uncle I only have one passing /5
...memory of, but, a half a century later, my Mom & I still speak of.
BT
BT
