Summer Solstice Moon
Several years ago Kate and I rented a cabin on Snowbank Lake. One morning I set out on a hike that would take me near Snowbank Lodge, a good ways from our resort. As I hiked in the woods, it was late September, I heard voices, then chainsaws. Not far ahead I saw a group of young men working hard, mostly clearing brush.
When I approached them, I learned they were a group of hotshots from Utah. It was a slow fire season out West that year so they had come to Minnesota to do preventative clearing after the blowdown in 1999. These were polite, ropy muscled kids, none of them more than 22 or 23.
They lived at Snowbank Lodge, closed for the season. They worked hard, went back to their bunks, got up and did it again. Probably a life similar to the old lumberjacks. I remember being struck by their dedication to their work, their level of seriousness, yet the way they did their work with humor and lightness.
That group of young men were the first thing that popped into my mind when I read about the deaths in Arizona. Their are many groups that act out of the light of publicity, usually poorly paid, doing something they love that benefits others: firefighters, hotshots, emt’s, police (most of the time), mosquito control, game wardens, fish and wildlife folks, ski patrol, most of the armed services.
We think of them, typically, when they die, calling them heroes. Not heroes in my book, a word whose meaning has drained out by over use, much like grade inflation. No, not heroes. Just good people, doing a hard thing, something that needs doing. Not heroes, at least not in the normal conduct of their work, but perhaps something as honorable. Folks who show up when needed.
