I Grew up Outside

Don Henley, founder and co-chairman of the Walden Woods Project, was born and raised in Texas. He attended public school in his hometown of Linden, and furthered his education with two years at StephenF.AustinUniversity and two years at the University of North Texas. He moved to California in 1970. He is a founding member of the rock band, The Eagles, and is best known for songs such as Hotel California, Life in the Fast Lane, and Boys of Summer. He is a recording artist, songwriter and record producer. He currently resides with his family in Dallas.

I grew up outside. Outdoors and outside. I liked my home and my little town, but, in the company of other humans, I often felt like an alien—as if I had been dropped there in that place by space travelers that I couldn’t remember. It wasn’t a bad place, really. It was quite beautiful in the spring and fall, but pretty bleak in winter because it rarely snowed, which left the frozen earth in a dreary state of gray-brown nakedness. I have learned, over the years, that this flies in the face of the general climatic impression of Texas that most people carry. Many seem to think of the LoneStarState as a perpetually blazing desert with cowpokes, armadillos, and cactus all around. That is true for a healthy portion of the state, but it’s a big place and the climate, flora, and fauna vary wildly. Just as surely as a July sunburn will take all the skin off the unwary bather, livestock are commonly found standing up, frozen solid, in February. Cowsicles, we used to call them. Still, I found comfort and wonder outdoors in all seasons. In spring, I would don my raincoat and go walking in thundershowers. This little custom scared the living daylights out of my mother, who was certain I would be struck by lightning or swept away by the malignant elements. We lived in tornado country and my grandmother, guided by some ancient wisdom, had spent a lifetime herding her family into the storm cellar every time a dark cloud appeared in the sky. But I loved weather. Still do. Storms heighten the senses. You know you’re alive.
In summer I roamed the woods with my dog. There were streams and ponds, tadpoles and frogs and chameleons to catch—typical Mark Twain, Norman Rockwell, boyhood stuff. There was not much else to do. Fortunately, the advent of the video arcade was still over two decades away, though there was the occasional pinball game. The local “picture show” had gone the way of most small town cinemas, but the roller rink endured and, only a quarter of a mile from our house, the county rodeo grounds were bathed in a dusty, acrid halo every summer weekend. One steamy Saturday night, an escaped Brahman bull came tearing through my father’s cornfield with three ropers in hot pursuit. The terrified animal somehow ended up on our front porch with his nose pressed up against the screen door, panting and snorting. In my young mind, it was as if he were asking us to let him in—to give him sanctuary from his tormentors. My parents, of course, didn’t see it quite that way. The cowboys finally got a rope or two on him and dragged him back to his pen. Next morning, my dad cursed over his trampled corn. I felt sorry for the bull.
When I got a little older and learned how to use a rod and reel, Dad began to take me on fishing trips to Caddo Lake, a large, elongated body of water that lies half in Texas and half in Louisiana. Named for the Caddo Indians, it is one of those atmospheric, Southern places populated by bald cypress trees dripping with Spanish moss. It is also home to a good many alligators, pelicans, egrets, herons, catfish, snapping turtles, perch, and bass. According to local lore, this rich ecosystem was created by a major geological upheaval some two hundred years ago. This was my Walden. I caught my first fish there.
Along with his love of lake fishing, my father was an avid gardener—a result of his Depression-era upbringing on a farm. He was meticulous and exacting about it, and on many a summer morning he rousted me out of bed well before sunup and handed me a hoe. We had over an acre to tend and the objective was to get as much as possible done before the sun got too high in the sky and the temperature rose above one hundred. The humidity in that region, while good for the skin and for growing vegetables, is oppressive, and heat exhaustion is always a possibility in summer. On several occasions, my thoughts turned patricidal. It was bad enough getting up at such an ungodly hour, but to have to work all day in the sweltering heat and roiling dust was too much, especially, as I imagined, when everybody else was off somewhere having a great time. When he detected signs of rebellion, my dad would remind me that, although I might not like the toil involved in growing the vegetables, I certainly did like to eat them. I found this line of reasoning difficult to argue with, but it usually didn’t improve my mood. Still, once in a while on a Saturday, the old man would lighten up and grant me clemency for the afternoon while he finished up the work by himself. There was a certain amount of guilt that went with me, which, I’m sure, was his intent. But, as the years have passed, I have grown to appreciate, more and more, what he taught me, not only about growing things in the earth, but also about responsibility and the value of hard, physical work. I now derive physical and spiritual pleasure from gardening and there is tremendous satisfaction in knowing that I could survive almost anywhere if I had to. All this galls me a little because he always said it would turn out this way.
I began to read when I was five. My dad sometimes read the “funny papers” to me on Sundays and my mother, a college graduate and former schoolteacher, read to me almost every day from books. As I grew, she made sure that there was always reading material in the house that was suited to my age and ability. The Great Depression had halted my father’s schooling at the eighth grade, but he had a native intelligence, was very good at math and quite competent at reading and spelling. He and my mother were determined that I would go to college. It wasn’t even a question in our home—it was just understood. They didn’t necessarily care what I became, so long as I went—a good, college education—that was the thing. To that end, my father saved from the day I was born, bought savings bonds, and by the time I graduated from high school, there was enough (in 1965 dollars) for my college tuition.
I honestly don’t remember whenI was first introduced to the works of Henry David Thoreau or by whom. It may have been my venerable high school English teacher, Margaret Lovelace, or it may have been one of my university professors. I was lucky enough to have a few exceptional ones and that is sometimes all a kid needs—just one or two really good teachers can make all the difference in the world. It can inspire and change a life (but alas, all the money and attention nowadays is going to athletes, actors, musicians, C.E.O.’s, doctors, lawyers and the military industrial complex, while teachers languish in relative obscurity).
Thoreau’s writing struck me like a thunderbolt. Like all great literature, it articulated something that I knew intuitively, but could not quite bring into focus for myself. I loved Emerson, too, and his essay, “Self-Reliance,” was instrumental in giving me the courage to become a songwriter. The works of both men were a catalyst for a sort of epiphany in which I rediscovered my hometown and the beauty of the surrounding landscape, and, through that, some evidence of divinity or God, if you like. This spiritual awakening brought great comfort and relief becausethe Southern Baptist Church just wasn’t working for me.
I have volunteered all this because, as Thoreau declared in the beginning of Walden, “I should not talk so much about myself if there were anybody else whom I knew as well . . . Moreover, I, on my side, require of every writer, first or last, a simple and sincere account of his own life, and not merely what he has heard of other men’s lives . . .” Also, there has been a great deal of curiosity, speculation and, in some quarters, skepticism bordering on cynicism, as to how and why I came to be involved in the movement to preserve the stomping grounds of Henry David Thoreau and his friend and mentor, Ralph Waldo Emerson. What, in other words, is California rock & roll trash doing meddling around in something as seemingly esoteric and high-minded as literature, philosophy and history—the American Transcendentalist Movement and all its ascetic practitioners? Seems perfectly natural to me. American Literature, like the air we breathe, belongs—or should belong—to everybody. I’m an “Everyman” kind of guy. I studied the big “E” in college and subsequently, with a little hard work and some stroke of fortune, have had a respectable degree of success communicating with him for the past thirty years. In short, there is a job that needs doing; needs some “plain speaking,” and I think Ican help—even from here in Gomorrah-by-the-Sea. Indeed, living and working in Los Angeles has taught me a great deal about the stormy confluence of art and commerce—about how the “real world” operates. And, though I often disagree with some of the principles (or lack thereof) involved, the preservation of historic Walden Woods is going to require a healthy dose of “operating” in the real world. The great halls of learning may keep Thoreau’s literature and principles alive, but they will be of little help in fortifying the well whence they sprang…
In Thoreau’s time, although Walden was not heavily inhabited, it was home to a number of ne’er-do-wells, transients, freed slaves, and shanty Irish. Thoreau, a Harvard graduate, apparently had no qualms about sharing the woods with such company. The townspeople, however, looked upon Walden Woods as a dark and forbidding place. Over the years, the woods have been ravaged by fire (Thoreau accidentally burned down about a hundred acres in April of 1844), uncontrolled woodcutting, and political neglect. Unfortunately, the focus of preservation efforts has come to rest on the pond and its immediate surroundings. That is all well and good, except that there remain approximately two thousand six hundred acres that are inside the historic boundaries of Walden Woods and deserve protection as well. Thoreau did not live in Walden Pond, he lived beside it. The man did not walk on water, he walked several miles a day through the woods and his musings and writings therein figure at least as prominently in his literature as Walden Pond does. In other words, the width and breadth of his inspiration, the scope of his legacy is not limited to one sixty two-acre pond and it is absurd to think so. Walden Woods is not a pristine, grand tract of wilderness, but it is still, for the most part, exceedingly beautiful and inspiring. It is, for all intents and purposes, the cradle of the American environmental movement and should be preserved for its intrinsic, symbolic value or, as Ed Schofield, noted Thoreau scholar, so succinctly put it, “When Walden goes, all the issues radiating out from Walden go, too. If the prime place can be disposed of, how much easier to dispose of the issues it represents.”

Little Tin God

A new age is dawning
On fewer than expected
Business as Usual"
That's how the headline read
Some shaky modern saviors
Have now been resurrected
In all this excitement
You may have been misled
People want a miracle
They say "Oh Lord, can't you see us?
We're tryin' to make a livin' down here
And keep the children fed"
But, from little dark motel rooms
To "Six Flags over Jesus"
"How are the mighty fallen"
So the Bible said
You don't have to pray to a little tin god
Step out of the way for a little tin god
you might fear the reaper, fear the rod
But you never have to get down on your knees
You don't have to holler, "please, please"
No, you never have to get down on your knees
For a little tin god
The cowboy's name was "Jingo"
And he heard that there was trouble
So in a blaze of glory
He rode out of the west
No one was ever certain
What it was that he was sayin'
But they loved it when he told them
They were better than the rest
But you don't have to pray to a little tin god
Step out of the way for a little tin god
You might hate the system, hate the job
But you never have to get down on your knees
You don't have to holler, "please, please"
No, you never have to get down on your knees
For a little tin god
Throw down a rope from heaven
And lead the flock to water
The man in the middle would have you think
That you have no other choice
But to wander in the wilderness
Of all the upturned faces
If you stop and listen long enough
You will hear your own small voice
But you don't have to pray to a little tin god
Step out of the way for a little tin god
You might fear the reaper, fear the rod
But you never have to get down on your knees
You don't have to holler, "please, please"
No, you never have to get down on your knees
Never have to holler, "please, please"
You never have to get down on your knees
You never have to holler, "please, please"
You never have to get down on your knees
For a little tin god

THE LAST RESORT
The Eagles

She came from Providence, the one in Rhode Island
Where the Olde World shadows hang, heavy in the air
She packed her hopes and dreams like a refugee
Just as her father came across the sea

She heard about a place, people were smiling
Spoke about the Red man's way; how they loved the land
They came from everywhere to the Great Divide
Seeking a place to stand or a place to hide

Down in the crowded bars, out for a good time
Can't wait to tell them all what it's like up there
They called it Paradise, i don't know why
Somebody laid the mountains low, while the town got high

When the chilly winds blew down across the desert
Through the canyons of the coast, to the Malibu
Where the pretty people play, hungry for power
To light their neon ways, give them things to do

Some rich men came and raped the land, nobody caught 'em
Put up a bunch of ugly boxes and, Jesus people bought 'em
They called it Paradise, the place to be
They watched the hazy sun sinking in the sea

You can leave it all behind, sail to Lahaña
Just like the missionaries did so many years ago
They even brought a neon sign "JESUS IS COMING"
Brought the white man's burden down, brought the white man's reign

Who will provide the grand design, what is yours and what is mine?
'Cause there is no more new frontier; we have got to make it here
We satisfy our endless needs and justify our bloody deeds
In the name of destiny and in the name of God

And you can see them there on Sunday morning
Stand up and sing about what it's like up there
They call it Paradise, I don't know why
You call some place Paradise, kiss it goodbye

The Garden of Allah

It was a pretty big year for fashion

A lousy year for rock and roll

The people gave their blessing to crimes of passion

It was a dark, dark night for the collective soul

I was somewhere out on Riverside

By the El Royale Hotel

When a stranger appeared in a cloud of smoke

I thought I knew him all too well

He said, "Now that I have your attention

I got somethin' I wanna say

You may not wanna hear it

I'm gonna tell it to ya anyway

You know, I've always liked you, boy

'Cause you were not afraid of me

But things are gonna get mighty rough

Here in Gomorrah-By-The-Sea"

He said, "It's just like home

It's so damned hot, I can't stand it

My fine seersucker suit is all soakin' wet"

And the hills are burning

The wind is raging

And the clock strikes midnight

In the Garden of Allah

"Nice car......

I love those Bavarians.....so meticulous

Y'know, I remember a time when things were a lot more fun around here