The madness of our times becomes most stark when it destroys the planet and its treasures..may this madness not come to pass
IT IS SAD to think about the death of one our nation’s most remote and unique national parks, but if the madman in the White House has his way, Big Bend National Park in West Texas will become a shadow of itself.
Apparently, the Trump Administration has revised plans for its border wall, which initially did not include the park and its unique land along the Rio Grande. Now that has changed. For reasons that only can be laid on ignorance or political fearmongering, the idiotic wall that has been constructed elsewhere along the river could now include the stretch through Big Bend.
Big Bend and Brewster County in general are unique. It is the land as it was for the most part, thanks to it being designated a national park, with the state park, Big Bend Ranch, taking over to the west and running up along the Rio Grande toward Presidio.
The park is a combination of riverbank, desert and mountains and I have covered a lot of it over the year, first as part of a Sierra Club volunteer work team. We have worked to restore trails, cut out invasive species, including chopping bamboo along the riverbank. We have torn down century-old barb wire fencing from the early ranching days to reopen wildlife corridors.
In recent years, work behind us, we have gathered as alumni just to enjoy the park and each other. As I type this my fellow workers are going to be heading to the park for a reunion. I won’t be with them physically because of my wife’s declining health, but I will be there in spirit.
The idea of a wall through the park is shocking. Without the river, which makes the Big Bend, much of the core character of the park will be gone and with it, years and years and border life, of people who really are neighbors separated by a ribbon of water.
Let’s get one thing straight. There is no threat to our nation posed by the unwalled border through Big Bend. The drugs Trump likes to go on about come in through ports of entry. Some may be flown over the border and dropped from planes. But no drug dealer is going to give people millions of dollars in merchandise to haul through the Mexican desert, carry across a river and into another desert. People crossing the border are fleeing danger, seeking opportunity as immigrants already have.
For years cowboys from both sides have crossed back and forth rounding up roaming livestock. One sign of the fear imposed on the river by Trump is that Mexican cowboys hesitate to come over. As a result, the land along the river, including the Rio Grande Village Campground where we stay, is overrun with horses, cattle, goats, donkeys.
MANY OF MY fondest memories of the park are of the border…
Listening to the Sweet Singing Jesus near Boquillas Canyon. He’s a Mexican man of undetermined age who sings from his side of the river. Leave some money in a jar and he’ll come get it overnight, or sometimes if the water is low, he wades across…..
I have a hiking staff I bought at the visitor overlook above the river. Mexicans bring them, and trinkets, over at night. Want one? Put some money in a jar and it gets collected at night. Word is the money goes to the local school…..
Swimming in the river up above Lajitas where it narrows down. You can wade or stroke across the Mexican side and sunbath in Mexico…
The views from the hilltop above the campground as evening falls and the fading light bounces off the high walls on the Mexican side and the river becomes a dark ribbon going off as far as you can see…..
Sitting in the “hot tub,” a natural hot spring on the U.S. side of the river. You get there by walking through an area with some old buildings. The wall would cut all that off….
Going to the U.S. immigration post along the river, showing a passport and going down to the bank to hop in a rowboat – $5 – to get to the other side. There you can walk, ride a horse or hop in a truck bed to go into the small village of Boquillas, which has thrived from tourism. The town runs off solar. It is an open air tourist trap but one that is less a trap and more of a gift…
Standing alongside the river where on a hot day we used all manner of tools to cut down invasive bamboo. Later the area would be burned and efforts made to restore native growth..
Looking at the area where we worked to reclaim land and turn it into the sort of grassy area it was before ranchers came in and grazed it down. We hoed up rectangles maybe 20×15 feet, put down grass seed them covered it all with brush about three feet high to keep out the sun and let the rain drizzle through, rather than wash it all away…
Thinking about all the Mexican firefighters from the Mexican national park across the river who came over in force to help fight a major wild fire in our park…..
Most of all, sitting around picnic tables or in a circle of chairs drinking beer and margaritas with some of the best people you could hang with. Some are gone now. Some are going but a few remain to gather twice a year.
THE WALL WILL destroy everything I’ve mentioned here. No longer will people gather by the river. Will the immigration post remain? Maybe.
And will it ever happen, this wall? A lot can happen over the three years this reign of terror and ignorance has left to go. And a lot cannot happen. Maybe it will not come to pass, but I’ve learned with this outfit not to discount the power and hatred and deceit. The destruction of our land, our planet, is full speed ahead.
I will put my faith in the power of the Universe, faith that it will not let petty temporary small-minded and evil humans destroy some of the best nature has to offer.
In the meantime, I am with my friends in spirit this early Spring and maybe, come Fall, while there is no wall, I will go back. The pull of the place is strong.
This past Sunday in Quaker meeting I read a quote from Thomas Kelly, an Ohio-born Quaker. It struck me as timely.
“Pare and trim we must, but not with ruthless haste and ready paring knife, until we have reflected on the tree we trim, the environment it lives in and the sap of life which feeds it.”
Rich Heiland is a retired journalist and semi-retired consultant, trainer and public speaker. During his journalism career he was a reporter, editor, publisher, college instructor, part of a Pulitzer Prize-winning team and a National Newspaper Association Columnist of the Year honoree. He lives in West Chester, PA and can be reached at [email protected].