Vote Wild!

It was socked-in so thick on the west side of Glacier National Park today that I rarely and barely saw small, ghostly shadows of some mountains and almost forgot they were there, until I felt them, and then I remembered this: 

In the late 1980s, while working at the Sula Ranger District for the U.S. Forest Service, we had a German-exchange student named Stefen who went backpacking with me into a remote part of the Selway Bitterroot Wilderness. 

Lots of cold rain; all fogged in.

Stefen said something in German. I asked what it meant. He tells me it’s something he and his friends say when the mountains in Germany disappear. 

“But what does it mean?” 

“It means, ‘There go our mountains; some rich American stole them.’”

Seems a sadly appropriate thought today, considering that the lying, narcissistic self-described billionaire from New York City was just here again, for the fourth time — and his millionaire son and pence keep coming here, too — to push their agenda of eroding protections for, and maybe even selling, these irreplaceable, precious wild public lands that belong to us all and sustain lots of other special species, many of whom we’ve harmed and diminished enough. Like wild wolves. Like wild grizzlies. We owe it to them to leave them something. 

It’s their homes, and we get to respectfully visit. 

So fuck Trump. Fuck Republicans. Fuck their bizarrely-disturbing rallies and scary sense of nationalism poorly disguised as ‘patriotism.’ 

Real patriotism, true patriotism, is literally fighting for our land; protecting and defending these sacred wild places — places where wild wolves and wild grizzlies still roam wild and free! — places that belong to us all! 

Let’s remember that when we vote. I did.