Any relation to Mission 66, as far any change in temperament?
I think so, yes. We restructured a lot of things. I know by the time I went to Washington, the mid-60’s, there was the Office of the Chief Scientist back there. These were things that were unheard of previously for years back. Like I say, the naturalist programs were good programs in those days. They were excellent programs, a lot of them. Of course, a lot of them were poor and let’s face it some of them are poor today. It depends on who’s doing the job. How much they are interested in it; we draw in poor rangers and we draw in poor naturalists.
Did you do any Interpretive Programs?
Yes, we did. The rangers did. I didn’t do it as much here as I did later on. In Olympic, I did quite a bit of it, and particularly at Bryce Canyon, I did a lot of it.
Evening Campfire Programs?
Both. Out on viewpoints and campfires and well, just generally manning stations where you were talking to people which was, of course, not just a naturalist job but it was also a ranger job. You know later on we went into the I & RM concept, the Interpretive and Resource Management concept. Perhaps you haven’t heard of that, Steve. But that was a concept we went into where we put them all together.
Was that just for a short time?
No, that lasted for quite a while. I suppose it must have lasted ten years. Some of the smaller areas used that, perhaps Crater Lake did. I don’t recall. It’s something you might check into. It started in the early ‘60’s. They did the same things as a Park Ranger. They were about a half step below a park ranger (13). I can’t recall what we called them. It was supposed to be people who didn’t have quite the education to become a park ranger could become this other name. We used them quite a bit. We found this was a way to become a park ranger is to go into this way and work long enough and get transferred over and become a park ranger. And it was also found that they were doing almost exactly the same work as the park ranger were doing, and it just fell by the wayside. There’s probably still a few of them left but not many.
Uniforms stay about the same during all that period?
Yes.
You didn’t have to wear the boots?
The boots were out by the time.
Part Two
Part Three and Four
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