It’s Me Again (Part 28)

November 9

It Can’t Happen Here. ~ Sinclair Lewis

It is not the fact of liberty but the way in which liberty is exercised that ultimately determines whether liberty itself survives. ~ Dorothy Thompson

I’m only about a month behind now. ~ Me

[I can’t remember where this was? Anybody?]

Knowledge isn’t power until it’s applied. ~ Dale Carnegie

October 8

A national park is not a playground. It’s a sanctuary for nature and for humans who will accept nature on nature’s own terms. ~ Michael Frome

[A beautiful day for a drive up to Itasca State Park and to see the kids at The Harn . . . ]

If you drive to, say, Shenandoah National Park, or the Great Smoky Mountains, you’ll get some appreciation for the scale and beauty of the outdoors. When you walk into it, then you see it in a completely different way. You discover it in a much slower, more majestic sort of way. ~ Bill Bryson

[We were still too early for full fall colors . . . ]

When I was 16, I discovered wildlife. My father took me to a place called Algonquin Park in Northern Ontario – it has some 1,600 lakes. ~ Lorne Greene

[These photos are all on the drive through the park . . . ]

I fell down in Hyde Park with a friend who’d had a hip operation, and neither of us could get up again. People must have thought we were a couple of drunks rolling around and walked on by. ~ Ava Gardner

[But it’s mostly coniferous anyway . . . ]

In fact, at Olympic National Park in my district, they 3 years ago had 130 summer employees they brought in for temporary work. This summer they have 25 because they cannot afford more. ~ Norm Dicks

[Check in, please, where we also ran into some Alexandrians . . . ]

The coniferous forests of the Yosemite Park, and of the Sierra in general, surpass all others of their kind in America, or indeed the world, not only in the size and beauty of the trees, but in the number of species assembled together, and the grandeur of the mountains they are growing on. ~ John Muir

[Onward . . . ]

I don’t know of a single park without serious environmental problems. ~ Michael Frome

[A U of M research station here . . . ]

I hate small towns because once you’ve seen the cannon in the park there’s nothing else to do. ~ Lenny Bruce

[Once a hostel, now an inn . . . ]

I grew up on the edge of a national park in Canada – timberwolves, creeks, snow drifts. I really did have to walk home six miles through the snow, like your grandparents used to complain. ~ Dan Aykroyd

[We will be here for Thanksgiving . . . ]

I regret the negative press that has come with my climb of the Delicate Arch, but I think that there is a bigger picture. And I would hope that it could open the eyes of the public and the community to the bigger problem of what’s going on, which is the mismanagement of our wild lands and the national park. ~ Dean Potter

[This photo is now my computer background . . . ]

Conservation is a state of harmony between men and land. ~ Aldo Leopold

[The entry for the walk down to the headwaters . . . ]

The fundamental idea behind the parks… is that the country belongs to the people, that it is in process of making for the enrichment of the lives of all of us. ~ Franklin D. Roosevelt

[As the sign says . . . ]

When I was about fifteen, I went to work at Yosemite National Park. It changed me forever. Nature had carved its own sculpture, and I was part of it, not the other way around. ~ Robert Redford

[Any day is a fireplace kind of a day . . . ]

I need to be outside. I need to be in the world and to remember that I am of it. ~ John Green

Every other civilized nation in the world has been compelled to care for its forests, and so must we if waste and destruction are not to go on to the bitter end, leaving America as barren as Palestine or Spain. ~ John Muir

[Without me pointing at it, people could get lost . . . ]

We should just have a lottery. If you lose, you have to be speaker. ~ Rep. Mike Collins

In Yellowstone National Park, there are more ‘do not feed the animals’ signs than there are animals you might wish to feed. ~ Natalie Jeremijenko

[Like the sign says . . . ]

In a world that is becoming increasingly virtual, the parks remain places of visceral beauty. Places where we can remember that we are but a small part of the life on this planet, and that it is a truly wonderful planet and the only one we’ve got. ~ Nevada Barr

[It is a state law that Minnesotans must visit here not less often than every five years . . . ]

We abuse land because we regard it as a commodity belonging to us. When we see land as a community to which we belong, we may begin to use it with love and respect. ~ Aldo Leopold

[Where the mighty Mississippi begins its trek to the Gulf of Mexico . . . ]

People don’t remember each tree in a park but all of us benefit from the trees. And in a way, artists are like trees in a park. ~ Yoko Ono

Without wilderness, we will eventually lose the capacity to understand America. Our drive, our ruggedness, our unquenchable optimism and zeal and elan go back to the challenges of the untrammeled wilderness. ~ Harvey Broome

In wilderness is the preservation of the world. ~ Henry David Thoreau

[As the river leaves Lake Itasca . . . ]

If the national park is, as Lord Bryce suggested, the best idea America has ever had, wilderness preservation is the highest refinement of that idea. ~ Wallace Stegner

Wilderness is a necessity… there must be places for human beings to satisfy their souls. ~ John Muir

The second day of a diet is always easier than the first. By the second day you’re off it. ~ Jackie Gleason

[When hiking in the wilderness, one must maintain a high calorie intake . . . ]

The parks attract us in a deeply spiritual way; they are a place where so many of us have had a transformative moment; where we had our sense of place in the universe confirmed, or at least we were awakened to. ~ Ken Burns

[Beginning the park “roundabout” . . . ]

The farther one gets into the wilderness, the greater is the attraction of its lonely freedom. ~ Theodore Roosevelt

It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see. ~ Henry David Thoreau

Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know. ~ Ernest Hemingway

[Both this and the record red pine lost their tops in storms . . . ]

It is my dream to build a park… that I one day visit with my White House staff on my birthday. And they say President Knope, this park is awesome. ~ Leslie Knope

As a woman of color, my history with the park is a bit different. My experience was not as a Rosie the Riveter; that tended to be a white woman’s story. Black women had been working outside their homes ever since slavery. ~ Betty Reid Soskin

[The identifying bark of the red pine . . . ]

The generation of our kids are more mindful of how we haven’t always taken care of the planet, and with climate change affecting everything, they are demanding action. Nature is more resilient than we think, if we are intentional about it. ~ Barack Obama

God has cared for these trees, saved them from drought, disease, avalanches, and a thousand tempests and floods. But he cannot save them from fools. ~ John Muir

Between every two pine trees there is a door leading to a new way of life. ~ John Muir

If you can get humor and seriousness at the same time, you’ve created a special little thing, and that’s what I’m looking for, because if you get pompous, you lose everything. ~ Paul Simon

Some national parks have long waiting lists for camping reservations. When you have to wait a year to sleep next to a tree, something is wrong. ~ George Carlin

In every walk with nature one receives far more than he seeks. ~ John Muir

Listen to the sound of silence. ~ Paul Simon

[Mary Lake . . . ]

One touch of nature makes the whole world kin. ~ William Shakespeare

[U of M research facilities . . . ]

The scenic ideals that surround even our national parks are carriers of a nostalgia for heavenly bliss and eternal calmness. ~ Robert Smithson

The same people in the Congress who are busy kicking holes in the social safety net are also those who would sell off the nation’s forests for a song, give away its national parks, and trash its wilderness preserves; there is a connection between the two impulses. ~ Paul Gruchow

Heaven is under our feet as well as over our heads. ~ Henry David Thoreau

…Skyscraper National Park ~ Kurt Vonnegut

[Then we left the park from the north entrance on the way to Jami and Danny’s, “The Harn,” about 9 miles farther up the road . . . ]

Glaciers are almost gone from Glacier National Park. ~ Donella Meadows

[Along The Harn way . . . ]

I don’t really think, I just walk. ~ Paris Hilton

[Danny leads Ruthie, Jami, and me on a nature walk through their property . . . ]

Obviously the movement to save the Everglades runs up against agricultural concerns. ~ Carl Hiaasen

[‘Shrooms . . . ]

Folk music isn’t owned by anybody. It is owned by everybody, like the national parks, the postal system, and the school system. It’s our common property. There is nobody’s name on it. Nobody can make money on it. It’s not copywritten. ~ Utah Phillips

This is an especially good time for you vacationers who plan to fly, because the Reagan administration, as part of the same policy under which it recently sold Yellowstone National Park to Wayne Newton, has “deregulated” the airline industry. ~ Dave Barry

[Still hiking . . . ]

I’ve been through legislation creating a dozen national parks, and there’s always the same pattern. When you first propose a park, and you visit the area and present the case to the local people, they threaten to hang you. You go back in five years and they think it’s the greatest thing that ever happened. ~ Mo Udall

[The Harn . . . ]

Nature is located mainly in national parks, which are vast tracts of wilderness that have been set aside by the United States government so citizens will always have someplace to go where they can be attacked by bears. ~ Dave Barry

The earth is the very quintessence of the human condition. ~ Hannah Arendt

Wealth is the ability to fully experience life. ~ Henry David Thoreau

I love sleep. My life has the tendency to fall apart when I’m awake, you know? ~ Ernest Hemingway

[Remaining photos by Jami, here starring Mr. Nature . . . ]

I get half a million just to show up at parties. My life is, like, really, really fun. ~ Paris Hilton

[Zeroing in on the ‘shrooms . . . ]

I haven’t been to Tasmania. I haven’t been to the South Pole, and I haven’t been to the North Pole. I want to see the polar bear migration before there are no polar bears. I want to see Glacier National Park before the glacier melts. ~ Martha Stewart

October 10

The past is never dead. It’s not even past. ~ William Faulkner

[One of our favorite senior college professors. The “poster” below is of another event, but something I could use to display his bona fides . . . ]

What we think, we become. ~ Buddha

[“The Increasingly Complex Global Challenges Facing US Foreign Policy” ~ Tom Hanson, Diplomat in Residence, UMD . . . ]

Never regret anything that made you smile. ~ Mark Twain

Education is what remains after one has forgotten what one has learned in school. ~ Albert Einstein

Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever. ~ Mahatma Gandhi

[China’s population will continue to shrink; India’s population will continue to grow; Nigeria will become the world’s 2nd most populated country surpassing China . . . ]

The noblest pleasure is the joy of understanding. ~ Leonardo da Vinci

[(From other sources: 7 out of 9 people on the planet will be Asian or African; “white” people will represent 1/20th of the world’s population . . . ]

As long as I’m learning something, I figure I’m OK – it’s a decent day. ~ Hunter S. Thompson

The top experts in the world are ardent students. The day you stop learning, you’re definitely not an expert. ~ Brendon Burchard

You can never be overdressed or over-educated. ~ Oscar Wilde 

October 14

The instinct to worship is hardly less strong than the instinct to eat. ~ Dorothy Thompson

[The first batch of chili of the season . . . ]

October 15

I’ve been in companies where they have galas. U.S. companies aren’t government-funded, so they invite wealthier people to come to these events. It’s a very glamorous art form. ~ Sarah Hay

I don’t have a life where it’s galas, posh affairs. It’s me, my dog and a sofa. And a TV. ~ Phillip Lim

[We were late arrivers. The Super scanned the room looking for empty seats . . . ]

I don’t like ostentatious galas and stuff like that, but if you get to the Oscars, you’d better get used to it and you’d better enjoy it. ~ Philippe Falardeau

[The telephoto view from the back row . . . ]

In designing for the first lady, I tried to sort of be in her shoes, but I didn’t really look at her as an important political figure. I looked at her as a woman who would like to wear a beautiful dress to an important gala. ~ Jason Wu

The director is simply the audience. So the terrible burden of the director is to take the place of that yawning vacuum, to be the audience and to select from what happens during the day which movement shall be a disaster and which a gala night. His job is to preside over accidents. ~ Orson Welles

The returning troops marched up Fifth Avenue and girls were instinctively drawn East and North toward them – this was the greatest nation and there was gala in the air. ~ F. Scott Fitzgerald

The ships hung in the sky in much the same way that bricks don’t. ~ Douglas Adams

In the beginning, the universe was created. This made a lot of people angry and is widely considered a bad move. ~ Douglas Adams

[Musicians with a sense of humor . . . ]

War is the unfolding of miscalculations. ~ Barbara Tuchman

Man is made to adore and obey; but if you give him nothing to worship, he will fashion his own divinities and find a chieftain in his own passions. ~ Benjamin Disraeli

An intellectual is a man who doesn’t know how to park a bike. ~ Spiro T. Agnew

Up Next: Something old . . .