The only redeeming aspect of the presidential campaign season in which those of us in the United States are presently knee deep is that, just as it does every four years, it causes many of the nature-focused periodicals to direct their editorial attention to subjects of national natural importance. Take for instance the Fall 2008 issue of the National Parks Conservation Association’s National Parks magazine that just appeared in my post box this morning. Emblazoned with a caricature of good old T.R. himself, the issue offers readers Seth Shteir’s enlightening essay “To Dare Mighty Things,” a portrait of the nation’s greatest presidential conservationist.
I have long admired Theodore Roosevelt as not only a paragon of the American conservation movement but as something of a kindred spirit. As Shteir clearly describes, T.R. was not a textbook example of what one might have at that time thought was a rugged defender of the great outdoors; a “conservation-minded cowboy in spectacles and a three-piece suit” (almost the perfect opposite of the nation’s present business-minded empty suit in a cowboy hat). Born a physically sickly child to the privileged world of the New York aristocracy, T.R. was a voracious reader who when he went “out west” did so in a designer ensemble and carried a knife bearing the name of Tiffany (as in Louis Comfort). However he was also possessed of a pragmatic and inner-driven nature; things that led and enabled him to overcome the confines of both sickness and what would be to many others a gilded cage for the wildness of the Badlands.
Fortunately for all of us, he brought back to New York and Washington D.C. the experiences he had there and through the application of his intelligence and determination established the system through which the United States is now graced with so many spectacular national parks and monuments. Perpetually underfunded and occasionally beset by the administrative cronyism of a few less than publicly-minded holders of the oval office though it may be, the nation’s National Park Service is the guardian of some of the greatest treasures the United States can or will ever possess. It is for this reason that whenever I encounter one of the public faces of this service, the uniformed rangers who meet, greet, and most importantly teach the members of the public who visit any of the national parks, I stop and do whatever I can to offer my gratitude for all they do and for what they represent: a tradition of enlightened conservation traced all the way back to the sickly little boy from New York who worked so hard to ensure that the natural grandeur of the nation he knew would forever be discoverable to the generations that followed him.
Peace and good bird watching.
