Okay, so the surf looks pretty dismal again this morning. It's small and the wind is already on it and it's a good morning to swill coffee (French roast, double cream, single sugar) and get some shi... stuff done. Monday and life is good ? dare I admit in part because one of my favorite shows is on tonight. I love the outdoors, recreate "out there" as much as I can, but one of my vices is educational television. You know, the History Channel, Discovery Channel, Cooking Channel, and... well, oh hell, tonight is all about
Prison Break and
24. Are there any
Jack Bauer fans out there? You know, the lean, mean, counterterrorism fighting machine played by Kiefer Sutherland, whose lines are usually shouted with extreme urgency into his ever-present cell phone and go something like this: "THIS IS JACK BAUER! I NEED A BOMB SQUAD, SATELLITE COVERAGE ON MY COORDINATES, AND A HELICOPTER, STAT! AND GET ME THE PRESIDENT..."
I just had an epiphany. How great would it be if Jack was my research assistant?
Ponder that, and I'll come back to it in a few minutes.
Checking out the comments from yesterday's blog: In addition to the kind words (thank you very much) I see that there is someone who is curious to hear more about The Beaver Incident. I'm going to try to find a copy of the story and scan it for tomorrow's blog. Also, I got personal emails from two individuals who were all fired up for me to discuss the whole "East Coast versus West Coast book reviewers" mention. Wow. Struck a cord with that one. More on that tomorrow as well. Need to think that (and the future of my career) through. Other things I'll cover include my most magical day, to date, in the Eastern Sierra. That's a tough one, but likely it was spent with Craig, Kathy, or Alden present ? Kathy, of course, carrying the heaviest pack with the most remote destinations in mind. We all need motivators like Kathy in our lives.
Meanwhile, how about this for cool news:
(A little background first…) The Last Season, as you know, tells the true story of backcountry ranger Randy Morgenson's amazing life and mysterious disappearance in the High Sierra Mountains of California. It also provides an in-depth look at exactly how a search-and-rescue operation is conducted in the wilderness, including the emotional strain it puts on the searchers. Part of my goal with the book was to tell the story of National Park Service rangers in general, albeit through the lens of Randy Morgenson's career of more than 30 years as a seasonal.
I found out a lot of sobering information about seasonal Park Service employees ? especially rangers: how they pay for their own law-enforcement training and EMT training and how they don't get medical or health benefits. No pension, either, even after decades of seasonal service. It's a longstanding joke among rangers that they do it for the "great" pay; they consider themselves "paid in sunsets." Seasonals also don't get any sort of gesture of thanks for multiple years of service. Full-time, or permanent, rangers, at least get 10-, 20-, and 30-year pins and a plaque when they retire. They all deserve much, much more.
Within a few months of The Last Season hitting stores, I started to receive emails from individuals who wanted to do something to help the backcountry rangers at Sequoia and Kings Canyon, who had just begun to take it upon themselves to PAY FOR THEIR OWN "length of service" awards.
I put these readers in touch with Ranger George Durkee (some sent me checks to forward along), who is a major character in the book. At the time, George was looking into the feasibility of having ice axes made for rangers, each axe representing 10 years of service in Sequoia and Kings Canyon. The company Grivel offered the rangers a good deal to have beautiful old-school-style ice axes made with the rangers' names engraved on the shafts. Well, the cool news is that the generous readers of The Last Season donated enough money to the cause to fund the entire first run of these well-deserved awards. George just sent me a photo of the rangers who received the ice axes:
Getting this photo made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. Combined in this photo are literally hundreds of years of ranger experience. It's a start, at least, toward recognizing these unsung heroes who look after our wildlands and the people who pass through. Now, if somebody could start an official program in the NPS, wouldn't that be cool?
Back to Jack Bauer and how great it would be if he was my research assistant, especially since I don't even have a research assistant (unless our cat Jonesy counts).
A big part of writing nonfiction is, in a sense, detective work ? a hunt for the perfect bit of information, anecdote, or quote from a reputable source.
I spent eight years researching Randy Morgenson and during that time, I talked to hundreds ? okay, at least dozens ? of people, most of whom (or is it "who"; that one always gets me) were either close to Randy, had taken part in the search-and-rescue operation for him, or had been rescued by him. He was the wise man of the woods with a big, bushy beard, not unlike the one that Jack Bauer sported after spending two years in a Chinese labor camp, only to be released just in time to fly back to L.A. and save the world...
This may seem a bit inappropriate, considering that The Last Season is a true story about a tragic disappearance, but rangers as a group are pretty macabre when it comes to dealing with such topics, so I sense they will forgive me.
And all of you writers, reporters, and aspiring writers will likely appreciate the following fantasy: Here I am, interviewing for the first time a "source" about, let's say, my next book, and we're going through that "getting to know you a little bit process," which, truth be told, I enjoy very much. I'm a social animal. I like people, and even if I don't like them, I like them for having character flaws that are sometimes as interesting as their more likeable traits. I also like opinions, honesty, and rants off-topic. I always try to respect a person's privacy, as long as doing so doesn't jeopardize the overall accuracy of the story. I believe in karma.
So midway through this "fantasy" interview, I realize that the person isn't being honest ? is maybe keeping something from me that's crucial to telling the story. Usually when I sense this resistance, more often than not, I give in. Once in a while, I kindly try to get at the truth ? a time-consuming endeavor that just as often doesn't yield results. But this time, I'm calling in my research assistant, Jack Bauer.
With my nod, he walks casually to the source (it's better here if you imagine a smug and condescending jerk) and clocks him (or her, for that matter). While the source is still stunned, Jack heads to the nearest telephone or electrical appliance and rips the cord out of the wall, picks the source up off the ground and puts him/her back in the chair, ties his/her hands and feet with the cord, then dumps the person's drink over his/her head to restore consciousness.
Eyes wide with fear, the source looks at me, then Jack, and Jack says, "OKAY, I DON'T HAVE TIME FOR THIS. YOU ARE GOING TO TELL ERIC EXACTLY WHAT HE NEEDS TO KNOW IN THE NEXT FIVE SECONDS, OR I'M GOING TO HAVE TO HURT YOU!"
To this, the source wiggles bound fingers and says, "You already are hurting me!"
Jack lowers his tone an octave, and the volume goes down as well ? which means he's not only serious, he's pissed.
"No," he says calmly, "I'm not hurting you... yet."
Jack grabs a cattle prod and the source suddenly opens up ? and for 45 minutes I'm in journalistic heaven, hearing Pulitzer-like prose spewing from the source's mouth like mulch from a woodchipper.
It's beautiful.
Alas, that's when a sniper from across the street shoots me. Foiled by my own fiction. Every couch potato knows that no character ? good guy or bad guy ? is safe around Jack Bauer.
But there's one thing you don't know. I'm left-handed and a writer of nonfiction! I will rise to blog again tomorrow, because the truth IS always stranger than fiction.