Purveyors of the Obvious

What I Learned in AmeriCorps

// August 13th, 2009 // Uncategorized

Ten years ago a naive girl from the concrete jungle of Hollywood took a Greyhound up the I-15 and landed in Missoula, MT for an AmeriCorps domestic service stint. I basically wanted to get paid to learn how to backpack. I had spent some time bouncing around NGOs in Costa Rica but figured I would learn to be a burly outdoor girl in the mountains of the US. The Montana Conservation Corps (MCC) backcountry crew seemed like the ticket.

I was reminded of my time with MCC recently when I was helping a friend finish the basement of a home she recently purchased. There was a new wall built and finished several inches off of the foundation wall. The space between the two had to be insulated and was over 10′ long. My friend’s construction-friendly father was given this headache and had no idea how he was going to get R-30 insulation between this new wall and the foundation wall with support beams and untouchable darkness in the way. I went to help out a week into the process of the basement and took a few minutes to look at it. I suggested using cardboard to saddle the insulation and slide it through then remove it by sliding it out. You would be left with insulation in place.

The trick worked and her father was relieved because he had been trying to figure out how to insulate this wall for a week.

So how did I know to do this? My time with AmeriCorps. Towards the end of my stint with MCC I was on a crew that had managed to weasel ourselves into a front country project doing straw-bale construction and building composting toilets. In straw-bale construction cardboard can be used when placing odd shaped pieces of straw as a unit. Same principle, same trick for the insulation with obstacles in the way.

Thinking about it I learned a lot from my AmeriCorps time:

#1. Just because your boss is your boss, they don’t always make the best decisions. Speak up if your safety is being compromised. I had an overzealous crew leader that did not think everything through. I called him on it when we were working with chemicals that did not seem right. I demanded MSDA info on them and suggested alternative action. I was called a troublemaker but my label was discarded after we had several safety issues on our crew. I am now a total safety geek.

#2 The only U. S. land mammal I get really sketched about are grizzly bears. Any mammal can hurt you, they are wild and doing their job to survive as well as ensure the survival of their young. Most have semi-predictable behavior and you can react accordingly. Mountain lions will attack if you seem like food that is not too energetically expensive to get, but we are energetically expensive. Stand tall, don’t look at them directly, and remove sunglasses that may be on your head since they look like giant eyes. Young lions will course you in pairs because they are stupid/inexperienced so you really gotta watch out for the one on the slope above you. With black bears you gotta be calm, look tall, and use your bear voice. You will discover your bear voice when you encounter one (you will not remember to speak loud or soft when this happens but everybody has an instinctual voice they find). My voice has sarcasm, is low, and involves some singing (I have worked in the Yosemite backcountry too, and have built up an insulting repertoire with them since my MCC time). Moose seem goofy, but you will be clumsier when trapped in a mucky marsh when one charges. Keep a heads up before you even get in a marsh, singing will not work on them. Stay alert and don’t startle other hooved mammals when you are too close because if they rear up and start thrashing their front limbs at you it will not end friendly for your face or your torso.

But grizzly bears… all predictability goes out the window! I have not had aggressive experiences with them but I know they will gnaw on your skull for the hell of it without trying to eat you. It apparently is not too energetically expensive for them to f*ck around with you since there is little chance of them getting injured as you are swinging and doing whatever you can for them to go away. Play dead if they start batting you around like a ball.  On my encounters the sarcasm with the bear voice is gone and I am singing like Judy Garland hoping they enjoy the tune.

I empirically learned a lot about wildlife encounters during my AmeriCorps time. I went on to get a Wildlife Biology B. S. a few years after I left Montana.

#3 Hacking the hell out of nature is fun when you have a purpose. If you need to re-route a trail, are removing true hazard trees from recreation areas, or creating fire breaks you want to efficiently use your energy to remove everything in your way. Chainsaws, cross-cut saws, axes, and pulaskis are hella fun when you make your cuts right and get towering giants to fall where you want them to go.

#4 Hacking the hell out of nature is bullshit if it is pointless. I was on a National Park project to return an old highway road, that is now trail road, to historical accuracy by removing all the trees on the adjacent slope with my chainsaw. The highway had been diverted in the last 50 years so there was no real reason for the lodgepole to be cleared. In protest the chainsaws on our crew kept “breaking” and we were assigned a new project constructing jack-leg fencing on the perimeter of the park. You gotta stand up for what you believe in and no one on my crew was happy with that project.

#5 Soyrizo is good in the backcountry. It will spice up anything and travels well. Just cover it well so the scent doesn’t waif through the air as you are transporting it.  And if you are Latin your family may clown you when they find out you are eating it, but perhaps 10 years later they will take to eating it themselves.  Yes, I am talking about my father.

#6 Quality gear makes all the difference when you are away from home. Naive girl from L. A. + Montana backcountry = quick learning lessons. Four days of white out conditions with snow in June are enough to make anyone a quick learner. Thank you for existing Smartwool!

#7 Three things I still love today I learned during my AmeriCorps time. I love outdoor lovin’, outdoor poopin’, and drinking a good beer in the shower after I have traipsing in the woods for a few days.

#8 Your vehicle has to be well-maintained if you are hardly ever in town. If there is any doubt with anything, take care of it immediately.  The over-zealous crew leader from #1 killed our rig by accident when he did not keep on top of a few things. It sucked.  He felt really bad and we were SOL about going anywhere.

#9 If you ever get to work with kids on probation, and it is o.k. with their agency, ask what crimes they were convicted of. Your will be surprised and get to drop some knowledge bombs on the knuckleheads. I had to work with some youth for two weeks cutting up a lot of timber for them to haul around in piles. During lunch we talked and the stuff that flowed from their mouths had me in shock as well as trying not to laugh.  You will have empathy and be better about not underestimating young people.

#10 Go with the flow and enjoy life. It was actually in my AmeriCorps life that I learned not to be so rigid with how plans went. I got to Missoula, and started work the next day. Housing was not provided but I was going to be in the backcountry over 75% of the time. I didn’t need an apartment. I stayed in a hostel at first. New friends invited me to couch surf since I would be partying with them on days off anyway. I sometimes stayed on reservations to help with pow-wows. Then I was invited to stay in a great artist commune since I wrote poetry. Being open and cool with leaning on people made it easy to be a good friend and really enjoy anything I was doing.  I have to revisit this lesson as an adult from time to time because I can stray from it even though it serves me well.

I know I learned a lot. A lot of random stuff. Stuff like the tricky insulation problem. AmeriCorps service is a proud experience for me.  It is also an experience that has affirmed my lifelong duty to whatever community I am a part of.  I think this is a common trait of most AmeriCorps alumni.