Amongst the clutter of so many events in 2016, I've been spending my summer with an oft overlooked part our country's history and interior: National Parks. This year marks the centennial for the National Park Service. Yep, it's been 100 years since Congress passed the "National Park Service Organic Act" under president Woodrow Wilson. Since its founding, so many parks have been added, monuments, heritage sites, battlefields and natural landmarks alike. So that means that there's a park for everyone to enjoy.
This idea is summed up in the Park Service's catchphrase this year, "Find your park", and find my park I did. I've been spending my last few summers (but more heavily this summer) volunteering at the Cushwa Basin, a branch of the wonderful C&O Canal, which stretches 184.5 miles, all of it prime National Park.
Every Friday for these past two months, I've been getting to know this park and the people who work there, and of course all of the people who visit it. It's a park I've grown up with my whole life as a resident of Williamsport, Maryland and I've loved giving back to the place where my childhood happened. My job as a volunteer was running the front desk, and that means signing people up for boat rides, taking calls, giving tours of the building and generally answering questions from any visitors that walk in. During my time I met some dedicated rangers, whose duties go from steering boats to alerting NPS dispatch to rogue goats on the towpath. It's these people (along with fellow volunteers) who were my mentors, co-workers, and friends. After a while, it began to feel like a bit of a Canal family.
But overall, the best part of the job was meeting all of our visitors. Some people might stay five minutes or two hours, but you make connections. Whether it's sharing the history of the park with newcomers from Utah, or Oklahoma, or having the honor of granting a smiling child the status of Junior Park Ranger, you help people make memories at the park. And to me, that's what the national parks are all about. I think when the founders of the idea of the parks, people like John Muir and Theodore Roosevelt, set out to make what is the National Park Service today a reality, this is what they had in mind. The National Parks are a place to relax, learn, and escape the struggle and monotony of our daily lives. After all, in this new era, when so many things threaten to divide us, shouldn't we seek what unifies us? That's what the parks are for. Something anyone and everyone can enjoy, that Americans of all backgrounds and creeds work to maintain and conserve. So, I insist, find your park, America. It will help you make memories you'll keep for a very long time.
