p. 1
“Yosemite brought to you by Nike is more palatable than Nike State Park.”
Krysti Argylian, general manager of Hill Holiday Advertising Agency
Roger Ramsey, Heather Heidi Walsowski-Smith, and I canoed across the north end of Jackson Lake and hiked up the Berry Creek drainage. Heather Heidi brought whole grain gnocchi and Roger carried a backpack full of Starbucks Frappuccinos. I brought along a copy of Walden by H.D. Thoreau. It’s lighter than a Frappuccino.
“Did you hear the rumor?” Heather Heidi asked. “The Park is selling naming rights to the new visitor’s center in Moose. It’s going to Jaegermeister Center of the Tetons.”
“I’m not sure they can use Tetons in the title,” I said. “Delores told me Victoria’s Secret has an exclusive to the T-word. The want to call it The Grand Tetons brought to you by the Miracle Secret Embroidered Satin Demi-Bra™.
“Viagra has a bid in on Old Faithful,” Heather Heidi said.
We were on a roll now. “Golden Arches National Park.”
“The Lincoln Lincoln Memorial.”
If you haven’t heard, our federal government, who once passed itself off as the Great White Father, has run out of money. In a panic, the administration based out of that scenic wonderland, Crawford, Texas, has suddenly realized the West is a check waiting to be cashed. They’ve ordered the Park Service to start a naming program whereby corporations who donate money are allowed to rename museums, trails, entrance gates, visitor centers. The law says they can even rename natural features, but the Department of Interior has said that even though it’s legal and they can if they want, they are much too tasteful to rename a mountain after a product.
The administration says we should trust them on this.
I’ll repeat that for those of you in denial — the administration says we should trust them not to take advantage of their own rules.
Heather Heidi stopped to drink a Frappuccino and explain the limits of the new policy. “They decided a corporation can’t rename an entire park after itself, but they can use Brought to you by or Official Beer of.”
“Beer is okay?” asked Roger.
“Alcohol and tobacco are both encouraged. The Park Service can advertise things so bad for us that they aren’t allowed on television.”
For those of you who have never been up there, which is pretty much everyone, Berry Canyon is the nastiest hike in the Tetons. Besides the boat ride to the base of the canyon, the lack of a trail, the only verified poison ivy in northwest Wyoming, and more grizzly bear traffic than human, there’s basically no reason to be there. So why did we go? I asked that myself.
“We’re looking for two old mines,” Roger said. “I have to prove they’re here before I can restake the claim and privatize them.”
Heather Heidi sat on a rock and pulled out her gnocchi. She’d brought a spork from McDonald’s. Back in my day a spork was called a runcible spoon. “What would anyone mine in the Tetons?”
“The two old geezers who had the claims never told anyone what they were mining. Locals thought they were just up here, digging holes for the fun of it.”
“Sounds like a Brokeback relationship,” I said.
“The Brokeback boys were sheepherders, for Godsake,” Roger said. “I can’t believe Hollywood couldn’t’ tell a sheepherder joke from cowboy mythology.”
“Let’s not go there,” Heather Heidi said. “We’re under orders, no Brokeback humor and nothing about vice presidents shooting lawyers.”
“I’d rather talk about reality anyway,” I said. “Why do you need to find these mines?”
“The Republicans rewrote the Mining Act of 1872. Anyone who can find a mining claim on public land can buy it. You don’t even have to mine the land. I’m going to subdivide and put in a Marriott,” Roger said.
“Is it a law yet, or only a bill?” I asked.
“Only a bill now, but sooner or later the government is going to realize they can make a dent in the deficit by selling off the forests and parks. There’s two plans out there now, with more on the way. Maurey already has a clearing out by Taggart Lake picked out. We’re going to build a water park.”
“At least the government is out to make a profit,” Heather Heidi said. “I would think the Republicans would give the land to themselves.”
“They’re selling it for a thousand a acre,” Roger said. “Teton County land is worth a million an acre. Do the math.”
“That’s why they want to rename Jackson Lake Sotheby’s,” I said.
This whole renaming thing sounds outlandish to me, although it’s no worse than the old way we named new rape ’n’ scrapes out West. Back in the old days, say the 1980s, whenever a natural feature was destroyed, we named the replacement after the person most likely to be devastated by the loss — Lake Powell, Colter Bay, Jim Bridger Power Plant.
Heather Heidi lifted her boot. “Is this grizzly bear poop? This is grizzly bear poop. I’m not picnicking on gnocchi if there’s grizzlies in the area. Bears love this stuff.”
“It’s coyote,” Roger said.
“Coyotes don’t eat berries.”
I stayed on the subject of the column. “But how can you get people back here,” I asked. “There’s no road.”
“That’s why I have to move now, while Phil Hoffman is still Deputy Director of Interior.”
“You mean Pave-the-Park Hoffman?”
“That’s the guy. He rewrote the Park Service operations manual and threw out the old language about conservation and preservation. He wants to build four-lane highways in Yellowstone and new roads wherever anyone who can profit by them wants one. It’s so bizarre a writer of satire can’t make it funny by exaggeration.
Heather Heidi was amazed, which just shows you how naïve Heather Heidi is. “How can he get away with it?”
I always thought certain freedoms in America were absolute, but now I realize, if the votes are there, and this summer they are, there’s nothing anyone can do to stop the American concepts from being wiped out. Maybe I’m as naïve as Heather Heidi.
Roger finished his Frappacino and threw the empty bottle into the creek. “This fella Steve Martin, whose a big shot with the Park Service, he testified before Congress, and he said the more radical changes to the operating manual were ‘inadvertent.’ ”
“Inadvertent means a mistake. It’s a nice way to say ‘Oops’.”
“That’s right. The parts of the new manual doing away with protecting plants and animals in the park system are only typos. They slipped through with no one knowing about them.”
Heather Heidi waded out into the creek after Roger’s bottle. She said, “That’s weird, even coming from a politician.”
“These Park Service administrators weren’t politicians six years ago,” Roger said. “They were stewards and scientists. At the worst, bureaucrats. But Hoffman has sent down word that anyone who disagrees with him publicly will be punished. Forced to choose between losing their pensions or making claims like this entire 138-page document is “inadvertent,” the ones who can’t afford to quit have decided to say “Oops.”
The whole thing made me so ill, I opened Walden and started reading.
Roger looked over my shoulder. “Did you know Snapple is the official drink of New York City. They bought the title for 166 million dollars. Pepsi bought San Diego. Coca Cola has Huntington Beach. Maybe we could make Frappuccino the official drink of the Teton Wilderness. I wonder how much we could make?”
“I wonder what Thoreau would think.”
“Thoreau would have turned Walden Pond into Maxwell House for twenty bucks. He wasn’t stupid, you know.”
Heather Heidi said, “I’ll stake my reputation on it. That is grizzly poop.”