A Monumental Fight
When my friend Scott Jones at Just Get Out More asked me to contribute for A Monumental Day of Blogging, I was initially honored but also at once deflated. You see, frankly, in many cases, National Monuments and sometimes even National Parks, aren't always my thing. I get itchy in crowds. I feel sometimes constricted. I don't like the noise. I complain internally about the commercialization, the cheap plastic trinkets, and the stuffed animals in the Gift Shop that aren't indigenous to the area.
Now, I certainly realize that there are crowded monuments, and there are monuments that may not see a visitor a day. And that's what is great about them. They're like America, different but alike. Similar yet unique.
Scott and I camped together recently, and I told him that what I like best about our Monuments, and for that matter, our public lands in general is the fact that they truly belong to all of us. They aren't reserves or preserves for the rich and powerful, the landed gentry, the captains of industry.
These lands belong to the economically challenged, the dirtbag hippies coasting in on a diminished tank of gas without money for their next tank. African American, Asian, all colors, all races, all creeds. There's something uniquely American about cramming your vehicle with as many people as it will hold and simply paying your entrance fee at the gate. All their money is good. No portfolio stuffed with stocks and bonds matters at that gate, they wave you on through. They're for people like my friend @halfpint22 that go to them in winter when no one else is there because it's hard, not because its easy. They're for people like my mother-in-law, that just want to visit the visitor's center and buy a T-shirt.
Others will speak much more elegantly to the history of the monuments, the facts, the economic impact, the ROI vs. expenditures and other such terms.
I prefer to tell you how public lands make me feel.
In a word, they make me feel American. They make me feel proud. They make me feel pride inside that people that came before us gave a damn about their country. They gave a damn about the land, about the meandering streams, the babbling brooks, the misty morning meadows and the massive mountains. Buildings made from adobe, brick, wood and steel. With skies above them so beautiful they make you cry.
But as the title of this post implies, the monuments are in peril. Frankly, America is in peril. I'm convinced that many of us are going to have to fight to keep some of these spaces. Some will and some won't. That's the way of it.
But I'm willing to fight for public lands. I'm willing to fight with my words, with my brain, and with my heart. I don't have money, I don't have influence. But I have a voice. But just like one voice is relatively quiet, many voices are loud. Now more than ever, our monuments need your voice. They need your tweets, your blog posts, your letters to your elected officials. They need you to show others why they are important. Why they are sacred to both Native Americans and to tourists.
They need us.
They need all of us.
Because they're facing the fight of their lives.
Will you answer the call?
