Muir Woods National Monument

I was stationed at Muir Woods for three years, and WOW actually had my job title changed from Administrative Assistant to the exulted title of Administrative OFFICER.

I have some slides of the park, but they haven't been scanned to CD as yet. The company I've been using for scanning, DigMyPics.com, suffered a terrible fire back in May, and I was lucky as I didn't have any slides with them at the time. They had some 100,000 slides and negatives when the fire took place, and have spent the last several months salvaging what images they could save from their servers. They did such a fine job of scanning for me that I've waited until they were back in business again (which seems to have taken place in the past couple of weeks), so now I can continue have my slides scanned.

In the meantime, I will feature one photograph from Muir Woods in this post. While I was working there, two different movie companies were allowed to film some scenes in the Woods. The first film was "Petulia" starring George C. Scott, and he was there for the filming. The film director was Richard Lester. The second film was "Finian's Rainbow" starring Fred Astaire and Petula Clark, and was directed by Francis Ford Coppola (yes, even he did have some flops). All these people came to the Muir Woods "set", and the one photo here is of yours truly enjoying a moment with Petula Clark.

Point Lobos Interlude - More rocks and sand

Tonto National Monument - Part 2

By far, the nicest aspect of living at Tonto was being in the Arizona-Sonoran desert. Having seen many, many, "nature" programs on PBS over the years, I'm convinced this desert is the most beautiful in the world with its wonderful variety of flora and fauna including the iconic giant Saguaro cactus.

Tonto National Monument

My first assignment as an administrative assistant was at Tonto National Monument in central Arizona. Tonto was set aside to preserve the ruins of the Indian cliff dwellings found there.

There was a "huge" staff at Tonto: the Superintendent, Park Ranger, Maintenance man, and myself. But we also hired a couple of seasonal employees in the summer.

During the year I worked there, a new visitor center was built (see picture above), and we had a brush fire started by a thunderstorm that burned off almost half of the monument acreage. When the fire was out, I was sent up in a helicopter (first time and scared to death) to take record photographs of the burned areas. The black and white photo in this group of the upper ruins was taken on that airborne journey. I was using a 4 x5 Speed Graflex camera.

Another Point Lobos Intermission - Rock & Sand

So Long to Carlsbad Caverns

Moving On!

Once again, it became time for a change. At Carlsbad, I realized I really wasn't cut out for "ranger" work particularly the police aspect. And this was in the days well before rangers had to carry guns and to attend special Federal Law Enforcement Training schools to do their jobs.

But while I was at Carlsbad, I learned that each park had an Administrative Officer position responsible for personnel, procurement, the park finances, property management, park housing, and other fun stuff. He/she also sat at the right hand of god - The Park Superintendent -- and as such was a principle adviser.

So, I took the Federal Entrance Exam again, and this time I passed! As a result, lo and behold, an offer came along asking if I wanted to transfer to Tonto National Monument in Arizona as the Administrative Assistant (officer). The answer of "yes" is now part of history as I remained an administrative officer living in eight different parks for the remainder of my 30 year career in the National Park Service.




















Please enjoy some final black and white Cavern photographs.