National Parks Need a Boost

In 1916, President Woodrow Wilson signed a bill that created a National Park Service that is by law supposed to "to conserve the scenery and the natural and historic objects and wildlife therein, and to provide for the enjoyment of the same in such manner and by such means as will leave them unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations." The National Park Service maintains 59 different National Parks, and several hundred Memorial sites. But these parks were not created just for the simple entertainment value of watching boiling hot water spew out of Old Faithful systematically. The protection of these lands was granted in the time period when Americans were starting to truly adopt the Teddy Roosevelt ideal of carrying a bigger stick, when Americans began to buy into the ritualistic ideas that America really was awesomer than everyone else. "Look, America is so much prettier than everywhere else, we should protect the beauty of God's blessed lands from sea to shining sea." Families all pack into the wagon and go look at the massive Grand Canyon, or the impressive Redwoods that tower hundreds of feet tall, all while listening to a dedicated Park Ranger who knows that park inside and out, and can tell you three times the information you really want to hear. Ah, those were the days, when Americans used to think they were the best country ever.

But that's also when the national government was scrambling to create economic boosts. Lets build roads that we can use so the huge amounts of poor people have a way to put a little bit of food on their family tables. Lets make National Parks so that there are jobs for scientists who went to college can study plants and have educational tour guides so that little Timmy can explore the world of science. Instead, we have a government that is more concerned with cutting the national budget down $85 billion so that they can continue to hand out money to unemployed rather than coming up with new jobs. The cuts in the budget are simply eliminating thousands of American jobs. Now little Timmy has to hike (unguided by a Park Ranger) another mile farther to an unlocked bathroom with a line, and all he can remember several years later was that was the family vacation when he really had to pee instead of the possibility of piquing an interest in science because the cool Ranger taught him about rocks when his school teacher knows only the two paragraphs in their textbook.

Sure, the $85 billion cuts may make a dent about the size of pea sized hail,  but is it necessary when your eliminating thousands of American jobs? How can the American people have more money to spend and  boost the economy when there just aren't any jobs for them to have? We are coming up on the 100th anniversary of what we know as the National Park System, and you can't even get a hiking permit in the Grand Canyon let alone a cabin in Yellowstone. Maybe I'm the only one that misses that old school wonder that a National Park brings. Maybe I'm the only one that seems to get that jobs state side are a lot more helpful that jobs over seas. Maybe Froggy and I will go visit that last Park Ranger up in Estes Park on an oxygen tank before he looses his job, that guy knew more about that area than anyone I'd ever met.