Our Two Cents Worth

Tom Stienstra, outdoor writer for the S.F. Chronicle, has a great suggestion for counteracting Schwarzenegger's plan to close many beloved state parks. "The baseline math is that the budget the governor sent to the legislature cuts $9 million from state parks, closing 48 park units. For 37.5 million state residents, that figures to 24 cents each per year. That figures to 2 cents a month for each resident. So what you need to do is tape two pennies to a piece of paper, write the words, 'Don't close our parks,' and send to"

Gov. Schwarzenegger
State Capitol Building
Sacramento, CA 95814

Make it a monthly habit. Let's flood them with pennies, reps in the state legislature as well. 

We all have our cherished public lands; one park sleighed for closure is dear to my heart, Tomales Bay State Park. In the old-growth oak forest there, young spotted owls call all night long, and it is blessedly free from invasive plants, the beaches so lovely and friendly, the uplands rich in two native grasses - vanilla grass (Hierochloe occidentale) abounds, Pacific reedgrass is majestic (Calamagrostis nutkaensis). Coastal forest includes evergreen huckleberry understory (Vaccinium ovatum) and California hazel - delicious, also striking and showy silk tassel shrubs (Garry elliptica)

 DON'T CLOSE OUR PARKS. Give 'em your two cents worth!

Here's a poem written about camping at Tomales Bay State Park."

Bead Box
by Judith Larner Lowry

The tent is lit by the moon.
All night I hear the spotted owls
Long and low, over and over again.
Shooting pains down my legs,
My back a solid ache; I will never sleep.
My daughter wakes and saves me.

As on other trips, we laugh and
giggle in the middle of the night.
Have one of the best talks ever.
What to get dad for his birthday. The meaning of life.
Did we put away the marshmallows and Oreos? Is something out there?

In the morning it turns out Yes,
Something has eaten every last synthetic, dreadful item.
We have poisoned some poor woodland creature.
Who has also knocked over the bead box,
And the beads, though still within the box,
Have fallen out of their separate compartments,
Are all mixed up
Each color and type no longer in its own compartment.

After breakfast, she begins the task
Of returning them to their proper places.
Each bead is the size of an ant.
It is One Bead at a Time Work.
It is not my thing. I want to hike, swim, look.
I suggest that as she beads, she could just
pick up whatever color she wants with her needle
At the time of beading.
She regards me, "What's the point?"
Mom, what's the point, the point of her bead box with all its compartments.

We are both surprised I am willing to help.
But darling I will help you put each minute bead back with other beads of the same color
and the same type
In pleasure at this glimpse of your mind.
And what you think about order and places for things.

There is no one around. The oaks are huge.
This is our central coast, bayside version
of old-growth forest. Hazel, huckleberry, oak, and bay. Sword fern, poison oak
Sweetgrass and sedge.
The oak limbs, wavy in age, parallel the ground,
arching variously off,
responding each to its own events.

The pictures they make are endless.
My eyes go rambling.
With the bead box we make great strides.

Judith Larner Lowry, written some time in the 1990s.