My dad sent me some pictures from when I lived in Nevada.

( More this way )
When talking to Susannah about the place Smokey had in my childhood mythos, the best comparison I could come up with was Santa. But even that isn't really accurate. Something interesting about growing up in my family was that I saw a lot of environmental public policy up close. There were Forest Service posters around the house with different types of messages, and my dad would talk about the way we were realizing that sometimes it was better to let small forest fires burn rather than allowing vegetation to build up to the point that fires could get really big and destructive. My dad's job was law enforcement, but he had done a lot of study and reading on resource management. Sometimes it's easy to forget that not everyone reflexively knows the definition of Wilderness Area, or immediately thinks "Take only pictures, leave only footprints" when they hear the phrase "Leave no trace".

( More this way )
When talking to Susannah about the place Smokey had in my childhood mythos, the best comparison I could come up with was Santa. But even that isn't really accurate. Something interesting about growing up in my family was that I saw a lot of environmental public policy up close. There were Forest Service posters around the house with different types of messages, and my dad would talk about the way we were realizing that sometimes it was better to let small forest fires burn rather than allowing vegetation to build up to the point that fires could get really big and destructive. My dad's job was law enforcement, but he had done a lot of study and reading on resource management. Sometimes it's easy to forget that not everyone reflexively knows the definition of Wilderness Area, or immediately thinks "Take only pictures, leave only footprints" when they hear the phrase "Leave no trace".