Idaho

Summer Jobs Provide Lessons for Life

Summer Jobs Provide Lessons for Life

The mass on my desk was beginning to pulsate, taking on a life of its own. Hundreds of tiny legs began to emerge, disentangling, disengaging, apparently seeking a way out. At least five grasshoppers had already hopped off my desk and were making a clean getaway across the office floor. Several groggy beetles were zigzagging in random patterns across the surface of my desk; one was obligingly headed toward the sorting trays to my right. A few mayflies were literally trying to rise above it all.“Dang! The lab didn’t use enough carbon ‘tet’ again this morning,” I muttered to the slowly shrinking mass in front of me. My job had just become messier and more physical than usual. Bugs are much easier to count and sort when they are dead. I was glad that I had worn an older dress to work, but slacks would have been even better for…

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Dreams of a Four-Year-Old Forest Ranger

Dreams of a Four-Year-Old Forest Ranger

Not that it’s easy now, but being a forest ranger was hard work in the 1940’s.  Being four years old is always hard work.  Combining the two experiences was especially challenging—at least that was the way I saw it.My uncle was a forest ranger during the summers of the mid- to late-1940’s. My aunt was the “chief cook and bottle washer” for the dozen or so rangers stationed at the Big Smokey ranger camp/station in Idaho.Located north of Fairfield and upriver from Featherville, the camp was close to neither.  In fact, as with many ranger stations in those days, it was not easy to get to.  Always winding, the miles of narrow dusty gravel roads included steep mountain passes.  Each turn had its own surprises. Dodging wildlife or boulders, punctured tires from dead porcupines, vapor lock, steaming radiators, the infamous “red-ants-at-the-side-of-the-road” dance and getting carsick were considered normal, if not…

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