Speaker 1: It's Nightside with Dan Ray. I'm tell you Easy Boston's
Speaker 1: new video.
Speaker 2: Halfway through the show, Good Evening is Nightside. Dan is
Speaker 2: off until August twelfth. Gary Tangway will be here tomorrow
Speaker 2: during the front Friday night version of Nightside. I'll be
Speaker 2: here Monday, not Tuesday. I'll find out by Monday who's
Speaker 2: doing the Tuesday version of Nightside, and I'll be here Wednesday,
Speaker 2: Thursday and Friday of next week. So that's the schedule.
Speaker 2: And for the next two hours, we are going to
Speaker 2: talk about national parks, of which there are four hundred
Speaker 2: and thirty of them. I know a lot of you
Speaker 2: listening right now will be going to a national park
Speaker 2: for your summer vacation. And I've got a gentleman who
Speaker 2: was a ranger, still has his uniform at included, and
Speaker 2: is here to give you pointers that you might need
Speaker 2: to know if you're going to the Grand Titans or
Speaker 2: Zion or Yellowstone. Its name is Ranger Richard Turando, but
Speaker 2: his nickname is Dixie, and that's what we all call him, Dixie.
Speaker 2: Good Evening, Welcome to Night's Side.
Speaker 3: Good evening, Morgan.
Speaker 2: How about those socks?
Speaker 3: How about them? No? No baseball talk tonight's soft topic topic.
Speaker 2: Well, let's talk about national parks.
Speaker 3: All right, we will We will do that as soon
Speaker 3: as I say hello to Nancy at the information keyboard,
Speaker 3: Gray Kitty in a comfy spot, and to mister Morgan
Speaker 3: White at the broadcast console, jor.
Speaker 2: Thank you, and let me say this to you. There
Speaker 2: was a bump I'm being facetious out from Yellowstone about
Speaker 2: eight to ten days ago. I'm sure you heard about it.
Speaker 2: Tell people listening what happened at Yellowstone?
Speaker 3: Well, actually there were three bumps. Three bumps one two
Speaker 3: were okay, but one was not. And the one that
Speaker 3: was not was when the person who used to work
Speaker 3: there decided he would take a gun and try and
Speaker 3: shoot people. Oh no, that and the protection rangers took
Speaker 3: care of that quickly. Unfortunately they had to. There was
Speaker 3: no other way to deal with it. The two other bumps,
Speaker 3: which were quite natural, so to speak, were two geysers exploding.
Speaker 3: Now supposedly and the stuff that I've read this happens
Speaker 3: quite often, except that it happens ten miles from any people,
Speaker 3: and so no one ever knows about it. But these
Speaker 3: two were right up close and personal. And there were
Speaker 3: two there were about three or four days apart. They
Speaker 3: were actually about twenty seven miles apart, two different places,
Speaker 3: two different geysers, and suddenly these two geysers decided they
Speaker 3: would go off, and they did, and one was captured
Speaker 3: on film on somebody's phone with rocks coming down on people.
Speaker 3: It didn't get nobody got hurt, but it was exciting,
Speaker 3: certainly was exciting.
Speaker 2: I recall one of those National Geographic specials on Yellowstone,
Speaker 2: and they predicted that within one hundred years there's going
Speaker 2: to be a big explosion from Yellowstone. No, I don't know.
Speaker 3: I don't know about one hundred, maybe five hundred.
Speaker 2: All right, what do you know about five hundred years.
Speaker 3: Well, it's the thing is that Yellowstone is a volcano.
Speaker 3: I don't know about the people who are walking around
Speaker 3: out there every day, you even take that into consideration.
Speaker 3: But the whole thing is a volcano, and it could
Speaker 3: go up whenever it feels like it. That's the thing
Speaker 3: about Mother Nature. She's not taking any any direction or
Speaker 3: scripts from anybody.
Speaker 2: She does what she wants. You can't say I'll take
Speaker 2: it in twenty nine.
Speaker 3: Yeah, good luck to you.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 3: So it's a volcano. There are parts of it that
Speaker 3: are going off all the time. Probably these two explosions
Speaker 3: lessen the pressure underneath some of the park, but the
Speaker 3: possibility is always there that's something big could happen.
Speaker 2: Okay, I just know what I saw on TV.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I know. All there are ten thousand guys, is there.
Speaker 3: You can't keep track of all of.
Speaker 2: Them, and every now and then one or two, or
Speaker 2: three or four or five of them will go pop.
Speaker 3: That's right. And if they're five miles away from anyone's
Speaker 3: path or any trail, they could be going off without
Speaker 3: anyone actually knowing it.
Speaker 2: Okay, and anything else of note that you want to
Speaker 2: share with the audience.
Speaker 3: Yes, I do, because oftentimes when I come on for
Speaker 3: our national parks, we never really get to talk about
Speaker 3: the foundation of national parks. We go quickly into calls
Speaker 3: some and then we're often going So I've asked you
Speaker 3: to not take any calls before the first break because
Speaker 3: I just wanted to talk about the parks and put
Speaker 3: everybody now. You can pick your cliche here. Either get
Speaker 3: all your ducks in a row or you get on
Speaker 3: the same page. Take either one. So for all you
Speaker 3: people out there who don't really know a lot about
Speaker 3: National Parks. There are now four hundred and thirty of them,
Speaker 3: and that is up to date. Sometimes we don't know
Speaker 3: how many there are because new ones come into the
Speaker 3: pack a lot. But we know that the last one
Speaker 3: came into the pack about a week and a half
Speaker 3: two weeks ago, and that was number four thirty. And
Speaker 3: that is Blackwells School, which was built for Mexican American
Speaker 3: children out in a place called Marfa, Texas. And believe me,
Speaker 3: to get to Marfa, Texas, you want to be going
Speaker 3: to Marfa Texas. It's not something you come on by accident.
Speaker 3: So Marfa Texas has the latest national historic site, this school,
Speaker 3: and it is out there between Big Ben National Park
Speaker 3: and Collegsbad Caverns National Park. It's very close as a
Speaker 3: matter of fact of Fort Davis, a place where the
Speaker 3: Buffalo Soldiers were, and that's in Western Texas. Okay, I've
Speaker 3: actually been there, but this place was not a National
Speaker 3: park when I was there forty years ago, so I
Speaker 3: couldn't I couldn't go to it.
Speaker 2: May I give the phone numbers now you can six seven, two, five,
Speaker 2: four ten thirty or eight eight eight nine, two nine
Speaker 2: ten thirty. And because we are hitting thirty eight states
Speaker 2: and parts of Canada. Some of you may want to
Speaker 2: ask about A a National park and stone's throw away
Speaker 2: from you, or B a National park states away, but
Speaker 2: maybe your plans will involve you going there this summer.
Speaker 2: Either way, call here. Dixie's here and he knows about
Speaker 2: pretty much every national park there is. So if you
Speaker 2: ask a question about Zion, he's been there, he can
Speaker 2: tell you about it. If you ask him a question
Speaker 2: about the Grin Teetons, ditto. Let me take my break,
Speaker 2: and by the way, you already have a call Dixie
Speaker 2: from the Catskills. Margie, you'll be first after these messages.
Speaker 2: Time and temperature here on night Side ten sixteen eighty
Speaker 2: five degrees.
Speaker 1: Now back to Dan Ray Mine from the Window World,
Speaker 1: Nice Sight Studios on WBZ News Radio.
Speaker 2: This is night Side without Dan Ray. Dan. We'll be back,
Speaker 2: not next week, but the week after. I am Morgan.
Speaker 2: I'm here with Dixie and we're talking about any one
Speaker 2: of the four hundred and thirty national parks. Let's go
Speaker 2: to Margie in the Catskills. Martie, thank you for calling.
Speaker 4: What's up?
Speaker 5: I am so thrilled. I've had thirty eight years in
Speaker 5: the Park Service, And I don't know Dixie's background, but
Speaker 5: I love to know the years that he served.
Speaker 3: Dixie Teller nineteen eighty three to two thousand and twelve.
Speaker 5: Oh my goodness. Still I started in nineteen eighty three
Speaker 5: and retired in twenty twenty one.
Speaker 2: Wow, and Dixie still gets his fingers wet dealing with
Speaker 2: park service stuff.
Speaker 5: I'll give him a little trivia question. The side I
Speaker 5: worked at was the site of the first Presidential library, Dixie.
Speaker 3: How about the Adams House?
Speaker 5: Nope?
Speaker 2: What was it?
Speaker 5: Franklin Roosevelt Library, Hyde Park? Yes? Yes, and the odd
Speaker 5: thing was Dixie. I spent my entire career at one site.
Speaker 5: Did you move around a lot?
Speaker 3: No, I stated, at Boston National Historical Park. Well, actually
Speaker 3: that's not true. I spent half my career in the
Speaker 3: Public Affairs Office representing all of the parks in the Northeast,
Speaker 3: and then the other half at Boston National Historical Park.
Speaker 5: That's great, we must have Vanderbilt Roosevelt must have been
Speaker 5: in contact with you constantly because that was our sector.
Speaker 3: Well, I was there the first day of Eleanor Roosevelt's
Speaker 3: house opening.
Speaker 5: Yes, I was there.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 5: I'll tell you something funny. About that Eleanor Roosevelt and
Speaker 5: God bless it was the only woman national park. The
Speaker 5: rangers had a party at her house the night before
Speaker 5: the public was going to open it. We had a
Speaker 5: hot dog gross supper, of course, celebrating that the Roosevelts
Speaker 5: had the King and Queen of England for hot dog roast.
Speaker 5: So we got to be in the house before anyone
Speaker 5: was let in the next day and I went into
Speaker 5: the bathroom to look around, and I tried to look
Speaker 5: in a mirror, and it was so far over my
Speaker 5: head I couldn't see a thing. Apparently she was about
Speaker 5: five foot ten, Yes, I.
Speaker 3: Believe she was that tall, and of course it was
Speaker 3: set up for her, so it was her house.
Speaker 5: You know, it's interesting, isn't it the only First Lady
Speaker 5: National Park.
Speaker 3: Well, now there are a couple that are sort of
Speaker 3: associated with other First Ladies, but there's First Lady National
Speaker 3: Park in Ohio, which covers ten or twelve of them. Okay,
Speaker 3: but as far as the house goes way back then,
Speaker 3: yet it was the only one.
Speaker 5: I'm interested in. What was your daily duties, mostly with
Speaker 5: it administrative or tours or.
Speaker 3: What Oh, that depends on which part of my career
Speaker 3: you're talking.
Speaker 5: About any part.
Speaker 3: Well, when I was part of the part of the
Speaker 3: regional office, in the public Affairs office, it was doing
Speaker 3: all kinds of stuff. I mean, I helped write speeches,
Speaker 3: I answered the phone like a good secretary. Uh, did
Speaker 3: a lot of work that way. Helped out when there
Speaker 3: was a special event, take pictures, write some stories, do
Speaker 3: all that kinds of stuff, and just do things so
Speaker 3: that the public affairs officer did not have to mingle
Speaker 3: with the low lifes. She only had to meet. She
Speaker 3: had to mingle with the high life. And that was
Speaker 3: hard enough for her to do. And then when I
Speaker 3: when I when I moved over to a park, Uh,
Speaker 3: it was you know, I was just on the front
Speaker 3: line doing talking to people all the time.
Speaker 5: Isn't it the greatest career there ever was?
Speaker 3: Yes, And you shouldn't take it if you what if
Speaker 3: you want to make a lot of money, I'll.
Speaker 5: Agree with that. I'll just tell you one more thing,
Speaker 5: because everyone wants to talk with you. I'm sure. I
Speaker 5: was walking back from patrol. We only have two hundred
Speaker 5: acres at Vanderbilt, so it's rather small, and I was walking.
Speaker 2: Back wait wait, waits small?
Speaker 5: Oh, to the rest of the National Park. It's tiny,
Speaker 5: yes it is, but we have great views of the
Speaker 5: Catskills on the river. But this day I had become engaged,
Speaker 5: and I was to my fiance and he said, are
Speaker 5: you ever going to retire? And I was walking back
Speaker 5: from patrol with a fellow ranger, and I looked at
Speaker 5: him and I said, he is sixty years younger than me.
Speaker 5: It's about time I retire at age eighty five. Only
Speaker 5: in the park service, right, Yes.
Speaker 3: You just continue to go off until you get tired
Speaker 3: of it.
Speaker 5: Thank you so much. I enjoyed it very much. Goodbye,
Speaker 5: You're welcome.
Speaker 2: Night night. All right, you want to do what Margie did.
Speaker 2: We're talking national parks, and I know that's somebody listening
Speaker 2: right now, plural, there are some bodies listening right now.
Speaker 2: That you have a tour planned, you're going to go
Speaker 2: to the Grand Canyon, You're going to go to Zion,
Speaker 2: wherever your plans are, call in share that news with
Speaker 2: Dixie and I I'm more.
Speaker 3: Or if you've already come back from a from a tour,
Speaker 3: from a trip, tell us about that.
Speaker 2: Yes, definitely, all right, I have.
Speaker 3: Some business to do here, all right, go ahead, I
Speaker 3: must say hello to Lottie on the Cape, Miss Jean
Speaker 3: and Lawrence, and Susie v in Brookline, the favorite aunt
Speaker 3: of Zoe Rabel, the Queen of the Pinball.
Speaker 2: Machines, who got mentioned earlier.
Speaker 3: Oh, I didn't hear that one, but I did hear
Speaker 3: some of the two programs. And I guess on the
Speaker 3: comic relief for the Night at Dan Ray show.
Speaker 2: Not comic relief.
Speaker 3: Anyway. A couple other things people who are not that
Speaker 3: familiar with national parks should know. Of the four hundred
Speaker 3: and thirty parks, sixty three of them are called national parks.
Speaker 3: The others are called either National Historic Sites, National Historic parks,
Speaker 3: national lake shores, national this, national that, National battlefields. But
Speaker 3: they are about twenty five different designations that hold up
Speaker 3: all of the rest of the parks. But sixty three
Speaker 3: of them are in fact national parks. And if you're wondering,
Speaker 3: If you're wondering, there are twenty thousand, maybe twenty one thousand,
Speaker 3: who knows, employees of the National Park Service who try
Speaker 3: and guide you and teach you and entertain you and
Speaker 3: protect you from various things when you're visiting.
Speaker 2: Here's my question. Yes, I know, Teddy Roosevelt gets credit
Speaker 2: would with creating national parks or segmenting lands to say
Speaker 2: this area will now be a national park. But there
Speaker 2: must be other people who are instrumental in the beginning
Speaker 2: of an area being designated a national park. Who are
Speaker 2: the unsung names?
Speaker 3: Well, Teddy Roosevelt, Johnny cum Lately. He was very good
Speaker 3: as a Johnny cum Lately. And we certainly appreciate everything
Speaker 3: Johnny com Lately did, but he was a Johnny cum Lately.
Speaker 3: Yellowstone was started in eighteen seventy two, and so Ulysses S.
Speaker 3: Grant was the first guy to put his pen on
Speaker 3: a piece of paper to say, Okay, this is going
Speaker 3: to be a national park. When there were no other
Speaker 3: national parks anywhere on the planet, Yellowstone was the first one.
Speaker 3: And as ken Burns told you in his film It's
Speaker 3: America's best idea now the national Parks. There were several
Speaker 3: national parks that were already in use when Teddy Roosevelt
Speaker 3: decided it would be good to have places that were
Speaker 3: not quite as big or maybe as important as the
Speaker 3: specific national parks that were in existence in nineteen hundred
Speaker 3: and nineteen oh five. So he signed into law in
Speaker 3: nineteen oh six the national monuments which were kind of
Speaker 3: smaller than national park areas. That's how Devil's Tower got
Speaker 3: to be the first national monument in the United States.
Speaker 3: The Star of Close Encounters of a third kind?
Speaker 2: Right, that was Wyoming? Am I right?
Speaker 3: That was Wyoming? Yes, so that there were a lot
Speaker 3: of as. As the years went by, more and more
Speaker 3: areas were decided to be important enough to save and
Speaker 3: large enough to become national parks. But then in nineteen
Speaker 3: oh six we had an influx of smaller areas and
Speaker 3: also historical sites, not just not just wilderness areas or
Speaker 3: natural areas.
Speaker 2: Let me stop you here because if a break to
Speaker 2: take and I'll let people know if you want to
Speaker 2: call in and join our conversation. Six one, seven, two, five,
Speaker 2: four ten thirty or eight eight nine, two nine ten thirty,
Speaker 2: please call in and join our conversation. I mean Dixie
Speaker 2: and I will be here in at midnight. You may
Speaker 2: as well come on board. Time and temperature ten thirty
Speaker 2: eighty four degrees.
Speaker 1: You're on Night Side with Dan Ray on WBZ, Boston's
Speaker 1: news radio.
Speaker 2: We are speaking with Dixie aka Ranger Richard Tranto, who
Speaker 2: worked for over thirty years in the Parks Service, and
Speaker 2: we're talking national parks. And if you'd like to join
Speaker 2: the conversation six one, seven, two, five four ten thirty
Speaker 2: or eight eight eight nine to nine, ten thirty. And
Speaker 2: if I'm not mistaken on the information you sent me
Speaker 2: ahead of time, there's a new center at Constitution Park
Speaker 2: where old ironsides it's located.
Speaker 3: Well, there's there's going to be. There's not one right now. Okay,
Speaker 3: they have to have to take care of a lot
Speaker 3: of things first before building it. But that is one
Speaker 3: of the plans for Boston Park. Is then they've been
Speaker 3: planning this since I was there twelve thirteen years ago.
Speaker 3: Is who is to take down a building or two
Speaker 3: and to use it for a brand new visitor center
Speaker 3: and different different kinds of other things replacing what they
Speaker 3: have now, which is true all over the park Service.
Speaker 3: One thing that the regular visitors to the parks do
Speaker 3: not understand or know is the number of things that
Speaker 3: need fixing in national parks. The backlog of work is
Speaker 3: now at twenty three billion dollars of what needs to
Speaker 3: be repaired, fixed, upgraded or built new.
Speaker 4: Give me a couple of examples, well, a couple of
Speaker 4: years ago or a year or so ago, Yellowstone had
Speaker 4: a road taken out by a combination earthquake and a flood.
Speaker 3: And things like that have to be fixed all the time.
Speaker 3: And you're talking about areas where there are not streets
Speaker 3: everywhere where. You've got to bring in equipment from all
Speaker 3: over the place and work going to maybe a mile
Speaker 3: of road. It's going to be completely rebuilt and fixed
Speaker 3: so that people can travel on it. And things like
Speaker 3: that happen all the time. But what has happened in
Speaker 3: the last twenty five years, well more than that actually,
Speaker 3: But let's just take this century. The parks. The parks
Speaker 3: have budgets. Okay, everybody's got a budget. The parks have budgets,
Speaker 3: But the parks really have three budgets. Now, I know,
Speaker 3: there wouldn't be a superintendent worth his or her assault
Speaker 3: that would it would tell you this, But there are
Speaker 3: really three budgets. The one that the superintendents of the
Speaker 3: park submit for money, the one that they actually get
Speaker 3: from Congress, and the one that they should get from
Speaker 3: Congress but never get. And that there's a big difference there,
Speaker 3: and the reason why they don't get it, it's because
Speaker 3: there are other things going on in the country that
Speaker 3: take precedent. Now that only can happen so many years
Speaker 3: in a row before you end up twenty three billion
Speaker 3: dollars down.
Speaker 2: I was about to say, if it's nineteen sixty and
Speaker 2: they needed to make improvements at the Grand Canyon, they
Speaker 2: didn't get done because other things happened in nineteen sixty
Speaker 2: that took priority. And now it's nineteen seventy. What was
Speaker 2: supposed to be done ten years earlier didn't get done,
Speaker 2: and they keep pushing or kicking the can down the road,
Speaker 2: so to speak.
Speaker 3: Well, some things are like that. In some parts, some
Speaker 3: of the work actually gets done. New visitor centers are
Speaker 3: put up eventually, but every time you put up one
Speaker 3: visitor center, there are two or three that are fifty
Speaker 3: years old and need to be fixed or knocked down
Speaker 3: and start all over again. So that's what they're facing.
Speaker 3: But the thing is that the visitors hardly ever recognize
Speaker 3: the fact of what money the park that they're at
Speaker 3: doesn't get. So you could be visiting Park X and
Speaker 3: you could be having a marvelous time. What you don't
Speaker 3: realize is that if the park had enough money, they
Speaker 3: would have two or three more rangers, and you would
Speaker 3: be getting two or three more, two or three more
Speaker 3: times during the day where there would be park ranger
Speaker 3: tours or lectures or something else. Instead, you might get one.
Speaker 3: You might get one a day, which is you know,
Speaker 3: when you're there, you don't realize you could have three
Speaker 3: or four, but you only get one. And that's the problem.
Speaker 3: The problem is the parks are trying to do as
Speaker 3: best they can with what they have, but they don't
Speaker 3: have enough. Ever.
Speaker 2: Okay, let's talk about the Grand Canyon.
Speaker 3: All right, it's a big hole in the ground.
Speaker 2: I understand that, and I know of the Grand Canyon
Speaker 2: because in nineteen seventy five thereabouts, I took a Grand
Speaker 2: Canyon tour from Las Vegas via helicopter, and you know,
Speaker 2: they flew in a big arc and you got to say, ooh,
Speaker 2: and I looking at the vast expanse of the big
Speaker 2: hole in the ground.
Speaker 3: Yep.
Speaker 2: But from my helicopter looking out, I could see other
Speaker 2: vehicles flying a route around the Grand Canyon. And they
Speaker 2: have since kept back on the amount of air traffic
Speaker 2: allowed circling the Grand Canyon. And that's just one change.
Speaker 2: There have been many changes to that specific tour, so
Speaker 2: speak to changes at the Grand Canyon and they have
Speaker 2: built a big jack Gunda hotel.
Speaker 3: Correct, well, there are six hotels there all, right, at
Speaker 3: least the Altivar being the biggest and most fancy one,
Speaker 3: the fanciest one.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 3: If you get to eat breakfast at the Ultavar, you've
Speaker 3: done well, and you get to stay at the Altavar,
Speaker 3: that means you're really doing well.
Speaker 2: What's on the menu at the Altovar.
Speaker 3: Just about anything you could ask for. Anyway. As for
Speaker 3: the Grand Canyon, yeah, they cut back on the amount
Speaker 3: of planes and helicopters flying around because the people who
Speaker 3: were there to enjoy the quiet of the canyon were now,
Speaker 3: you know, being bombarded by plane and helicopter traffic. Aside
Speaker 3: from the fact that they were, you know, some of
Speaker 3: them were hitting each other and that's never good. So
Speaker 3: they decided to cut back a little on that. I
Speaker 3: don't know how much they did, but I'm I'm sure
Speaker 3: it's less than it was back in nineteen seventy five.
Speaker 3: But anyway, there are you know, there are really only
Speaker 3: two roads, two roads to go into the canyon and
Speaker 3: one along the southern rim and one that comes to
Speaker 3: a point at the north rim. So there isn't much
Speaker 3: of a road system there to take care of, but
Speaker 3: it still has to be taken care of no matter what.
Speaker 3: And if you're getting four million people a year, which
Speaker 3: the canyon often does, then you've got to fix things
Speaker 3: and repair things. As for the ask for the attendance
Speaker 3: at national parks, the last ten years, the average attendance
Speaker 3: total for the year for all national parks is three
Speaker 3: hundred and eight million. That's the average.
Speaker 2: That's a big number.
Speaker 3: For a couple of years, it was three hundred and
Speaker 3: thirty million, but it got cut down during COVID. When
Speaker 3: it was left it was under three hundred million. But
Speaker 3: for the last ten years, three hundred and eight million
Speaker 3: people are going to national parks every year. Now, the
Speaker 3: as I said, the backlog is twenty three billion dollars.
Speaker 3: The budget for the Park service is about three four
Speaker 3: five billion. So how long do you think it's going
Speaker 3: to take to fix everything If your budget is let's
Speaker 3: say five billion at best and your backlog is twenty
Speaker 3: three billion.
Speaker 2: Well, I'm assuming that they have not adjusted their budget
Speaker 2: adequately to make sure four hundred and thirty national parks
Speaker 2: get their fair share of the pie.
Speaker 3: Well that's that's the problem. I mean, and they and
Speaker 3: you know, like I said, two weeks ago, we had
Speaker 3: our four hundred and thirtieth park made, which in one
Speaker 3: respect is fabulous because that means there are still places
Speaker 3: along the way out there and some place in the
Speaker 3: rural west or the urban east that are deserving to
Speaker 3: be a park. But who's paying for this? The other
Speaker 3: parks are already not getting the money they need, and
Speaker 3: you're throwing new parks in there, and the Congress isn't
Speaker 3: giving them the money to run anything. So somebody has
Speaker 3: to do something about this or else the parks are
Speaker 3: just going to keep getting worse, getting worse and getting
Speaker 3: worse until the park is destroyed.
Speaker 2: Let's put you in the White House to make sure
Speaker 2: these things get.
Speaker 3: A dressed well, I said twenty five years ago.
Speaker 2: Now now we're looking back. I'm looking forward.
Speaker 3: By the way. For all you people there who are
Speaker 3: counting your coins, there are like I said, there are
Speaker 3: about twenty twenty one twenty two thousand people that work
Speaker 3: for the National Park Service in various degrees, and that
Speaker 3: includes front of the front line park rangers, protection ranges
Speaker 3: who have guns, who will take you into custody if
Speaker 3: you're doing something wrong. Just the people who take care
Speaker 3: of the administrative work of all the parks, and there
Speaker 3: are there are those people are needed. The jobs generated
Speaker 3: by having national parks in this country is about three
Speaker 3: hundred and fifty thousand jobs. And all of those dollars
Speaker 3: go back to the communities. For every dollar, every one
Speaker 3: of your your wonderful tax dollars that you worn't hard,
Speaker 3: work hard for, and if the park Service gets one buck,
Speaker 3: it generates ten to fifteen dollars in your area. So
Speaker 3: please don't start talking to me about tax money and
Speaker 3: everything else. He goes. The Park Service is paying for
Speaker 3: itself hand over fifth, So get with the program.
Speaker 2: I'm going to stop you here so I can take
Speaker 2: a break, but I'm going to ask you when we
Speaker 2: come back, let's talk about just jumping in the car
Speaker 2: and taking a day trip. Half an hour forty five minutes,
Speaker 2: our two hours top tops driving from Boston to wherever.
Speaker 3: Let me draw it a trivia question. Since this is
Speaker 3: the Morgan White program, throw trivia question. Okay, everybody knows
Speaker 3: that Yellowstone was the first national park. What was the second?
Speaker 2: More Lago?
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's that's good Morgan.
Speaker 2: On that note, let me take my break. Temperature here
Speaker 2: on night Side ten for six eighty four degrees.
Speaker 1: Now back to Dan Ray live from the Window World
Speaker 1: Nightside Studios on WBZ News Radio.
Speaker 2: We are talking national parks, of which any one of
Speaker 2: the four hundred and thirty may be a destination for you.
Speaker 2: You've got planned to throw the kids and your spouse
Speaker 2: into the old Volkswagen bug and drive off into the sunset.
Speaker 2: And I'm gonna let Dixie talk about a few national
Speaker 2: parks that are within a short sprint from Boston.
Speaker 3: All right, why don't we start off a little bit
Speaker 3: wider range. But the biggest park in the northeast, which
Speaker 3: is a kd up in Maine, Okay, So that's a
Speaker 3: good what is four hour drive? Maybe, but it is.
Speaker 3: It is the only national park in this area. The
Speaker 3: next closest national park is the one down in Virginia
Speaker 3: in Great Smoking Mountains, not great Smoking Mountains, Shenandoah, Okay, Shenandoah.
Speaker 3: So a ride out to Acadia gives you hiking trails
Speaker 3: and seacoast things and a little swimming if you don't
Speaker 3: mind the water being twelve degrees. So that's a great
Speaker 3: place to be. Friends of mine, we're up there camping
Speaker 3: last month or two months ago. Sorry, I had a
Speaker 3: marvelous time, even though it rained a couple of days.
Speaker 3: So if you want a real National Park primo experience,
Speaker 3: then Acadia is the place to go around here. All
Speaker 3: of the other sites or areas National Park areas are
Speaker 3: usually historical site, except for maybe the Cape Cod National Seashore,
Speaker 3: But of course the seashore is surrounded by hotels and
Speaker 3: everything else, so it's it's not a completely natural area
Speaker 3: within five hundred yards of the seashore, but it is
Speaker 3: part of the National Park Service and the people in
Speaker 3: the Cape are lucky to have it. Everything else is
Speaker 3: pretty much or Fire Island Seashore in New York there's
Speaker 3: another one, all right, So there you have a couple
Speaker 3: that are that are fairly close by. But if you're
Speaker 3: staying in Massachusetts or just kind of wielding your way
Speaker 3: up to New Hampshire, then it's usually National Historic sites
Speaker 3: or National Historic parks, And the only difference is that
Speaker 3: national historical park is sometimes a larger area encompasses more
Speaker 3: in terms of buildings or sites, whereas a National Historic
Speaker 3: site most of the time is just one building that's
Speaker 3: and they're all over the place. I mean, you go
Speaker 3: to the Adams House in Quincy. If you want to
Speaker 3: learn about John Adams and Abigail, that's where they lived.
Speaker 3: You can't get better than that. And it's a fabulous
Speaker 3: place to get a tour of, see how they live,
Speaker 3: see what went on there revolutionary war times. So all
Speaker 3: that kind of information the rangers know, and we'll tell you.
Speaker 2: Is Paul Revere's House a national anything or No.
Speaker 3: That's a privately owned place. Okay, Now you're outside in
Speaker 3: Springfield where the Basketball Hall of Fame is right only
Speaker 3: a mile or so from it is the Springfield Armory
Speaker 3: National Historic Site where there are loads of exhibits about guns,
Speaker 3: various guns that were used by Revolutionary war people, civil
Speaker 3: war people, all kinds of people. But that's the main
Speaker 3: idea of that armory is guns and who use them.
Speaker 2: Is there a test that rangers have to sit down
Speaker 2: and whip out their number two pencil and take, because
Speaker 2: it sounds like you past the test easily so.
Speaker 3: Well, I don't know if I could if they have one.
Speaker 3: I don't know if they have one. The thing about
Speaker 3: National Park Service jobs is that you can almost be
Speaker 3: well versed in anything and there is a space for
Speaker 3: you in a National park if you want one. You
Speaker 3: can be a biologist, there's plenty of places for those.
Speaker 3: You can be an accountant, you could work in the
Speaker 3: administrative office, you're a history major. Hundreds of places you
Speaker 3: can work. So it really is what you want to
Speaker 3: do if you want to take the time and work
Speaker 3: for the Park Service to see it, if it is
Speaker 3: your kind of place. There are very few people who
Speaker 3: stepped into the National Park Service the way I did.
Speaker 2: This job.
Speaker 3: Very few. Well, the fact that it was available, okay,
Speaker 3: and the fact that the job I had I hated.
Speaker 3: I had been at a job for ten years. I
Speaker 3: no longer liked it. I despised going. And it was
Speaker 3: suggested to me by the lady of the house, who
Speaker 3: was actually kind of my boss at the place that
Speaker 3: I hated, that I should take a look at this
Speaker 3: ad in the paper and the Globe for volunteers for
Speaker 3: the National Park Service. And I said, okay, I'll go
Speaker 3: down there see what's going. This was summertime, so it
Speaker 3: was easy for me to go down and see what
Speaker 3: this was all about.
Speaker 2: So you went. They had a uniform that fit you, and.
Speaker 3: No, no, no, no, oh no, okay, no, far from it.
Speaker 3: So I get to this place downtown State Street, and
Speaker 3: I walk into this building and the Park Service as
Speaker 3: a nine story building where the regional office is there.
Speaker 3: And the regional office at that time in nineteen eighty three,
Speaker 3: accounted for New York, New Jersey, and all of New England,
Speaker 3: all of the parks, all of their stuff, all of
Speaker 3: their accounts and everything were connected to this regional office
Speaker 3: along with the Public Affairs office. And the Public Affairs
Speaker 3: Office were the people who put the ad in the
Speaker 3: paper because they wanted somebody to come in and help out,
Speaker 3: just do volunteer stuff. So I talked to a nice
Speaker 3: lady about what I could offer coming into work and
Speaker 3: not work, but volunteer. And I said, well, I used
Speaker 3: to be a newspaper reporter, so if you need something written,
Speaker 3: I could do that. I can certainly talk on the phone,
Speaker 3: which looks like you need that. And she said, is
Speaker 3: there anything else? I said, well, I've been to one
Speaker 3: hundred parks. She looked and she looked at me, and
Speaker 3: she said what. And I said, I've been to one
Speaker 3: hundred parks. She said, you're kidding me. I said, no,
Speaker 3: I've been to one hundred parks. She said, I've been
Speaker 3: to twenty five parks and I've worked here for five years.
Speaker 3: And I said, well, I've been to one hundred. So
Speaker 3: she said, come on in.
Speaker 2: And that gets all hired.
Speaker 3: That got me hired as a volunteer. Now, as at
Speaker 3: that very moment, there were at least seven other volunteers
Speaker 3: doing various things. The trouble is is that the leader,
Speaker 3: the actual person being paid to run the operation, was
Speaker 3: soon going to leave, as was a second in command person,
Speaker 3: and the third person, the lady I spoke to, was
Speaker 3: going to be sort of left in a lurch by
Speaker 3: her lonesome. So as the days this was in, oh
Speaker 3: that's right, this was in late June, the first thing
Speaker 3: that came up was the July fourth holiday. Okay, so
Speaker 3: everyone had something to do. All six other volunteers had
Speaker 3: someplace to go, and the three people who were actually
Speaker 3: working for pay had someplace to do, someplace to go.
Speaker 3: And so she said to me, could you handle the
Speaker 3: office for a day, And I said, yeah, sure, nothing
Speaker 3: to do it.
Speaker 2: I got to stop you here because I have to
Speaker 2: take my news hit. All right, the story in the
Speaker 2: other half of the two hours you've been allotted to
Speaker 2: be on night side anyone else who wants to call
Speaker 2: in lines The wide open six one, seven, two, five, four,
Speaker 2: ten thirty eight eight eight, nine, two nine, ten thirty
Speaker 2: Time and temperature ten fifty eight eighty four degrees