Midlife Meditation

If I wanted to be cynical, I'd say it was the washout that made the difference. I've been camping all my life. Summer vacations for my family always meant finding a campground and locating there for a week or two. As a Scout, the frequency went up to monthly campouts whenever weather permitted. In Oregon, weather permitting meant anything but snow--and as rare as snow is in the Willamette Valley, we camped a lot. At the end of every Scout campout, we rolled up our sleeping bags and tents, loaded them in whatever vehicles we'd come in, then policed the area. This meant criss-crossing our campsite, search-and-rescue style, eyes to the ground, picking up every bit of litter we saw, whether or not it came from one of us. This could be a nasty activity, especially in early 1970s Idaho, where the national forest campgrounds we favored were often carpeted with cigarette butts. I'd gather handfuls of the loathsome things, as well as pull tabs from beer cans and occasional...

It's the most iconic footprint in the history of the human race, and every time I look at it, I think about how permanent a scar has been left on a pristine landscape. Left behind in 1969, that footprint is almost certainly still there, nearly identical to its original impression. There is erosion on the Moon, but it exists on a millennial scale, as solar wind and meteoroid bombardment slowly smooth away such imperfections. Barring impact with a huge meteor, this footprint, and the many hundreds more like it, not to mention the tire tracks left by the lunar rover, will still be there long after humankind has forgotten who put them there. If you've had anything to do with Scouting lately, or visited a National Park, or even been to Burning Man, you've encountered the words "Leave no trace." It's an ethical approach to outdoor recreation that has its roots in the environmental movement of the 1960s. I didn't hear the words until about 2003, when I was tr...