One of the fondest recollections of being at Crater Lake was the tremendous people that I met. I’d like to mention specifically in the protective staff of my first season up there Jack Broadbent, who was the chief ranger, who was a typical stereotype image of a park ranger. He was rugged. He was very, very positive, very much his own person. I think of Slim Mayberry, who became a very good friend of mine. He was very, very influential in my life and our family. He kind of took upon himself to be the park host. It was he and his wife who set up the Green Guard Program for the kids of the seasonals during the summer, where they had a summer program for the youngsters there. We had square dances and things like hobo picnic, where we’d have to go out and beg a potato or an onion or a carrot. We’d generally have these out in the remote areas of the park. One was out there by Boundary Springs. We went out one evening and we had two giant garbage cans with stew in them and we sang. It was such a community type of experience, just like something you read about in books. I think of Len Williamson, another ranger who was a very, very fine person. And these, Slim and Len, were both involved in rescue activities. I think it was in my third or fourth year there that I finally was accepted on the rescue team, which was another big experience in my life at Crater Lake.
As far as getting back to seasonal naturalist, I was offered the position, accepted it, and as a result of that one of my responsibilities was to do a lot of auditing nature walks. [This included] evening campfire programs, and of course, the Sinnott [Memorial] talk, meeting with people, and making suggestions. I probably wasn’t as skilled as I could have been, but, be that as it many, I did the level best I could in working and trying to help them fit the park philosophy on interpretation. I also did the scheduling and took care of the Crater Lake Natural History Association inventory and stock and this sort of things.
They didn’t have any of their own employees at that time, so it was simple something that the seasonal person had to do?
Right, in conjunction with the naturalist secretary. We both worked on that.
One of the things that we did experience was quite a turnover in naturalists and of course, I have very, very fond recollections. I’ve mentioned Dick Brown. Bruce Black, in my book, was one of the finest individuals I ever worked with (3). You didn’t work for him, you worked with him. He was extremely conscientious and wanted to have a top-flight interpretive program. He and his wife were just superb in that position. They tried to build a real esprit de corps, and instill pride and performance in the whole group. I just thought he was one of the very fine people that I worked with.
