Saturday, March 5, 2005

Keeping the Leopold legacy alive I left home early this morning, heading east across the state to Lodi for the 6th annual Lodi Reads Leopold day. Tom Heberlein had invited me to be one of the guest readers of Leopold's work and I jumped at the chance. Mist hung low over the road, so I kept one eye out for other early risers while the other roamed the fields for signs of life. Three miles from home, the unmistakeable syncopated wingbeat of a sandhill crane caught my attention. First one I've seen this year. Two miles and a half-dozen pheasants later, there was another sandhill, this one standing in a field. A few miles down the road, a flock of turkeys gleaned breakfast from the free hot lunch program provided by freshly spread manure on snow-covered corn stubble. The birds I could see clearly were all hens, but just as the road took me below the level of the field, I made out one tom in full strut, evidently showing off for the ladies surrounding him. My permit this year is for 6th period, but I'll be calling for a first-time hunter on April 9 in the Learn-to-Hunt program, so it was good to see the boys are feeling their whiskers already. By the time I got to West Bend, the roadside wildlife was pretty much reduced to crows and the occasional redtail posted in a tree, so I devoted full attention to my driving. At about Beaver Dam, it occurred to me to look for a bur oak or two, since I would be reading that passage from A Sand County Almanac. When you want to see one, they are not to be found; but when you're not looking, they are everywhere. I did see a couple, but none so grand as those I see routinely on other drives. Lodi Reads Leopold, an event started by UW professor of Rural Sociology Tom Heberlein, was the inspiration for what has become a statewide event. Last March, Gov. Doyle signed legislation making the first weekend in March Aldo Leopold Weekend across Wisconsin. The complete list of events across the state can be found at the Aldo Leopold Foundation's website. Most events were held today, but there are still a few things going on tomorrow. Lodi is stretching its Leopold events over two weekends, with a sourdough pancake breakfast and several outdoor activities set for next Saturday. Today's Lodi event, held in the Lodi Women's Club Public Library, was a marathon of readings selected by Curt Meine, Leopold's biographer and the event's emcee. To add a visual element to the passages, Curt put together a Power Point presentation of photos that complemented the texts. Some were photos from the Leopold family archives, some just stunning shots of the place or species depicted in the passage. "One of our goals with this event," Tom Heberlein told me, "is to get local people reading Leopold." And of course, encourage them to think like Leopold. One thing several of us noted afterward was that single lines or short passages jumped out at us as they never had before, no matter how many times we have read Leopold's writings. I jotted down a few lines that struck me: "No species is inherently a weed, and any species may become one." (from a satirical essay entitled "What is a weed?" which was inspired by an official state of Iowa publication teaching farmers how to eradicate weeds, most of them native wildflowers that simply had the misfortune of not being "useful" to agriculture) "I wish I were a muskrat eye-deep in the marsh." ( from "The Geese return," where Leopold marvels at the sights and sounds of the spring arrival of a flock of Canada geese) "I have congential hunting fever and three sons." (from "Goose Music," where Leopold tries to explain why he [and man] is a hunter) "How like fish we are: ready, nay eager, to seize upon whatever new thing some wind of circumstance shakes down upon the river of time! And how we rue our haste, finding the gilded morsel to contain a hook." ( from "The Alder Fork") "...no prudent man is a fisherman..." (from "The Alder Fork"} "Once you learn to read the land, I have no fear what you will do to it, and I know many pleasant things it will do to you." (from "Wherefor Wildlife Ecology?" a lecture Leopold delivered to his students near the end of the term, when they were ready to hear it) "Pioneers usually scoff at any efforts to perpetuate pioneering." ( from "Wilderness," where Leopold speculates on whether Alaska and Canada will have the foresight to save wild lands from development) "To build a road is so much simpler than to think what the country needs." (from "Marshland Elegy") Other highlights included Leopold historian Susan Flader's revelation that an official Chinese middle school textbook now contains the entire text of "The Good Oak" in Chinese translation, so now every Chinese middle schooler will read one of Leopold's most enduring (and most provocative) essays. I had the pleasure of reading two passages: "Thinking like a mountain" and "Bur oak." About halfway though "Mountain," I looked up and caught a glimpse of Kathy Miner, naturalist at the UW Arboretum. She was mouthing the words along with me! I was so stunned, I stumbled for a moment and then made a conscious effort to avoid looking at her again. During another reader's passage, I stole a glance at Kathy and again she was silently mouthing the words along with the reader. Later, I asked her if she had the entire text of A Sand County Almanac memorized! "Just a few passages," she confided. It threw me enough that I explained to her why I was avoiding looking at her after that. She laughed and said that the late Al Carr, who performed dramatic readings from Leopold's work at the last two LRL events, had the same reaction. A bison dinner and a performance by Mike Irwin capped off the day. Irwin dramatized Aldo Leopold's last live radio broadcast from April 1948, a week or so before his death. The piece began with Leopold (Irwin) telling Estella about a dream he had in which he was fighting a grass fire on the neighbor's place that was threatening to spread to their farm. In fact, that was how he died, so the "dream" was a poignant beginning to "The Last Radio Show." It will take me some time to digest all that I took in today. Suffice it to say that I came away with a renewed love for Leopold's wit, wisdom and scientific knowledge, and a promise to read more of his work. Tomorrow, it's on to Alma for the national premiere of a BBC documentary on Kenny Salwey, the "Last River Rat" of the upper Mississippi River. I'll report on that event when I get back home. Later... 10:36:27 PM    comment []

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