Remove outlook, then get creative
Published 2:19 pm Friday, April 6, 2012
Regarding ongoing discussions about the Green Mountain fire watch station: It is time to face reality and find an appropriate use for the rare opportunity offered by the order to remove the structure. Hopefully, this structure will be removed the same way it came. Where will it go?
This is the opportunity and challenge to artists, landscapers, garden clubs and the general public to locate an area to place this building. It can be a place that would be of great value for teaching the future guardians of wilderness areas. Can you see very small children learning from experiencing, as well as teaching?
Picture the fire outlook sited on a mound or small hillside that could easily be accessed, climbed by preschoolers and maintained by volunteers. This rise could be covered with gentle paths, rocks and sturdy, appropriate plants — and possibly a sloped lawn to roll down.
The structure itself could be used for classes given by preschool teachers, forest rangers and firefighters, and with visual materials to be used by parents and older siblings when professional instructors are not available. The larger area could also be used as a mini-museum to display forest-firefighting equipment.
This area could be designed for all those who are no longer able to access wilderness areas to refresh old memories. And for those who will never be able to experience them.
This is a time when public funds are not available. This a time and challenge to invest in the future. All you need to look around you and see the items around you that date to the 1930s and earlier that we still enjoy. Many of these were built by the Civilian Conservation Corps (public funds were enhanced by the skills and imagination of the unemployed.) And the generosity of private donors (which built the Carnegie Libraries and many university and government buildings.)
We cannot wait until wilderness is only a lesson taught in future history classes. Respect for what we now have must be taught through experience, even before electronic and reading aids can be used. There is more to life.
Frances M. Brown
Arlington
