Short story long. Took April and fam to Travis Air Force base to catch military stand by back to Okinawa. But flight got canceled leaving us time to show the kids San Francisco, the Golden Gate Bridge, and most importantly...the Muir woods, which is a stand of old growth coastal redwoods. At the gate of the woods while the kids were being unloaded and taken to the bathroom, I stepped up to a ranger type guy to ask about the hike through the woods since we had a baby with us. And while he was answering my question, I tossed a couple of carrot sticks into the under brush that I had picked up off of the floor of the van. (Aprils idea of snack food, dont even get me started on that). Well the poor mans eyes bulged out in horrified amazement at my audacity and stupidity. I realized suddenly how what I had done would appear to him, so I quickly assured him it was ok, it was just carrots. He then exploded in my face. He chewed me up one side and down the other. I was dumbfounded. I had seriously thought that I had done a good thing, you know feeding the squirrels a healthy snack. He said not only was it unsightly, whereupon we both looked in the direction of the offending carrots, but they were out of sight. No matter, he was furious and on a roll. He stood with his fists clenched and sucked air in thru gritted teeth. I took advantage of the momentary pause to apologize, to no avail. He wasnt done yet. It is not only unsightly, he listed the things people leave along the trail, then he started in on the possible chemicals that the carrots are probably soaked in which may be ok for my grand children but could kill off the local wildlife. He sucked in air and I apologized again, but he was just getting started. At this point, I began to consider crying and blaming it on George Bush, or Michele Obama, but I wasnt sure which one would work. More air in more apologies out. I wanted to tell him how unfair this was since I am a recycling old tree hugger from way back. I was green before they even called it that, but I felt the futility of it so I meekly continued my groveling and promising to never do it again until he finally did run down. He then stepped off of the sacred boardwalk onto the forest floor and rummaged around in the under brush until he found a carrot for which I stuck out my offending hand to receive. I didnt have the nerve to tell him that there had actually been two carrots. He found a popsicle stick which I also accepted and then horrors of horror he found a wad of chartreuse green chewed gum. I stuck my hand out again but he whined he wasnt going to touch that. It had been in someones mouth. I said just wrap it in a leaf and I will throw it away. Again the glare, the gritted teeth, the sucked in air. He said leave the leaves alone, lady Much later as we were leaving we saw that the parking lots were full and the cars line the road for about a mile and it occurred to me that if everyone who came to see the redwoods tossed a carrot stick into the forest, we would bury these beautiful trees in garbage, and I was ashamed.
Posted on: Tue, 21 Oct 2014 19:08:13 +0000
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