When I was a college student way back in the 1980’s, I had a recurring and amazing summer seasonal job on a survey crew working for the USDA Forest Service. Once I graduated, my new husband and I stayed and worked the full seasonal appointment of 180 days, starting sometime in the spring and ending sometime in the late fall. Eventually I was hired on permanently with the Forest Service in another state.
I arrived with a pitiful 110 instamatic camera that I never got a good photo with. I say this as an apology for the few and rather miserable photos that accompany this article. I didn’t have the college dorm experience, so my summers in the bunk house, a cabin at a work station or tent camp life was as close as I got. Lack of alone time wasn’t so bad; I could always retreat into a book. Believe me, it was a great joy to read whatever caught my fancy and not feel guilty about it as there was no homework to catch up on.
I remember a 1981 backpack trip to Colorado with a truck load of people. We stopped in Boulder, I think, on the way home and did a little shopping where I picked up the next couple of books in the “Dune” series by Frank Herbert. Everyone wanted to see the afternoon matinee of the hottest new movie “An American Werewolf in London” (there was no movie theater in the town where our home base was located). Movies freak me out in a way that books generally do not, so I opted to hang out in the truck to spend a very contented two hours reading one of my new purchases.
A couple of summers later and I was the crew boss of my own survey crew and we spent most of one summer at tent camp. Which means we were working far enough away from our home base to make it worthwhile to camp near our survey site during the week. No TV, no running water, only a two-way radio to check in every morning with the home office. My crew and I started reading books aloud to each other around the campfire after dinner. It was delightful and of course we picked Stephen King novels to read; “Pet Cemetery”, “Cujo” and “The Shinning”.
The summer of 1987 found me headed to Oregon to help fight fire on the Rogue River NF. Lots of fire, steep slopes, huge trees and the biggest fire camp I had ever been in. I brought another Stephen King book, “It”. Fire camp was always mildly chaotic, but mostly during downtime I would sit on my sleeping bag and read.
1988 was another drought year and I was plenty busy all summer between my regular job as survey crew boss and traveling around the west as a fire crew member. We were eventually sent to Yellowstone and I brought “Dr. Zhivago” by Boris Pasternak. Reading the story was an interesting juxtaposition between 1988 hot, dry Yellowstone and early 1900’s cold, miserable Russia. Unfortunately, I did not plan well and finished the book before we were sent home. I begged from the crew and ended up with a Louis L’Amour book. Well. Gotta say, I wasn’t too impressed after the complexities of Russian literature, but at least I had a book!
Summer reading to me always has this specialness to it. I look back on those young adult days of working and adventure as magical; it felt so freeing to not have homework and to be in a totally different environment than the rest of the year. I remember lounging in my bunk reading, sitting around campfires reading, snuggled in my sleeping bag with a flashlight reading and reading on long trips in the vehicle. I enjoyed being at the bunkhouse compound with co-workers on a Saturday morning with a hot cup of coffee and a good book at the picnic table. It was the best of summer jobs and the best of summer reading.
Ah – those pictures and stories bring back lots of memories (at least from 1984 on)… The top one is awesome as it brings me back to days of surveying with a chain, hand level, and clinometer. My eyeheight is ~5′ 2″ and your height was/is 5′ 2″. So – for me to read the slope from point A to point B – I would aim the clinometer at the top ribbon on your hardhat (if I recall properly). Those were great days!
I know we worked very hard and had lots of very long days, but in my memory it was also so much fun – being outside all the time and the beauty all around us as well as working with amazing people!
Great to read about your experiences and how you always fit reading in!
Thank you Nancy!