Ode to da Boss

All good things must come to an end. 

After 6 years of working for the Friends of the National Park trail and maintenance program, its architect, Boss Jeff, has moved on. Jeff started this program with his wife, Deb, who is an RN and got her NP while working on STJ. Jeff and Deb sailed from Vermont to STJ and lived on their boat, DAYDREAM.

I was one of the first to join up; me and a couple other faithful followers - Mora, Stu, John, Chuck. Every Tuesday and Thursday able bodied people, and not-so-abled, locals, vacationers and snowbirds, would meet to be driven to the latest project. Generally it was trail work such as clearing or erosion control, vistas, or ruin clearing. 

In time college groups, the Sierra Club, AMC, AHS, Elder Hostel - all makes and models of interested hard working groups came for a week or two to put in time and valuable expertise. The perk was they got put up at Cinnamon Bay Campground for a pretty fun week.

Jeff trained us well to respect the site, to leave it to his standards, to manage the woods properly. Even today I could walk down a trail and think "Jeff would NOT have left things this way!" No one should know we'd been there. 

Park policy didn't allow mechanized tools so all the work was done with hand saws, loppers, ropes and carried into a site on hand build litters. There was no access for a vehicle. It was like going back in time, which was ironic since we wound up working much the way the people who lived on these sites in the 1800's worked. 

It involved moving boulders with cut down trees as leverage, a bucket brigade of gravel transported down the Reef Bay trail, a 10 gallon drum cut lengthwise to make a sledge for rocks.  It was frustrating to hand clear a huge site only to have everything grow back after the first rain. People who came for a day felt they were accomplishing something, for me it was often like digging a hole to fill with dirt then digging it out again. It wasn't until well into the program that Jeff was allowed to use weed killer, and even then with continued controversy and antagonism.

Oh, the smell of Garlon 4 in the morning!

Jeff's goal was (like in other programs in parks such as Acadia in Maine and Denali in Alaska) to develop a nationwide volunteer program. In any US National Park on the same two days of the week, visitors could show up for work. 

Sadly, the higher ups here, and their small Napoleonic ways, were too short sighted and afraid of Jeff's popularity and success. They were so blinded by the perceived threat to their position that they couldn't see the good the program was doing.
Tourists were happy! They weren't getting lost, injured or stuck on an impassable trail, the trails were safer, historic elements were being saved, there were sights to see. There was a legitimate map (Bob G's) that showed trails that were now open. It was an ongoing battle to do the work, get funding, get supplies, fight politics and surmount constant obstacles meant to derail his success. Jeff's enthusiasm,  charitable attitude in the face of these nay-sayers and his focus that took the project to that extra mile, made the trails and historic sites what they are today. But time ran out, Jeff knew when to take his toys and go home. 

With his program gone and no one to replace him, the fate of the park trails has been written.  I know because I was there before he came. 

El Volunteer

It was great fun, wonderful exercise, lots of laughs, fantastic people, and worth every drop of blood. There's that Selective Amnesia at work again. And I got a couple t shirts!  Sorry I didn't get one more spin on the Boss's boat Daydreamer before he literally sailed it off into the Puerto Rican sunset.

 See you later, Boss!

"Daydream": in My Next Life!

Deb on Daydream - Wonderful!

Deb and Jeff - What? No Hat?