Over the years, human beings have shown that we’re very good at destroying habitats. Now we have to show that we’re smart enough and thoughtful enough and caring enough to restore what we have ruined. from Nature’s Best Hope, (Young Readers’ Edition) by Douglas W. Tallamy.

My father, Alfred J. Stern, who my sister and I always called Daddy, was a nice guy, not always a good man, but always a nice guy. He was humorous, friendly, kind, and generous. He was a Democrat, but, more importantly, he was a democrat. He died in May of 1968 at the age of 61, about a month before I turned 28.

My family was not interested in California’s wildness, not many people were in the 50s, we – the collective we – were interested in California’s wild lands as a blank canvas to be covered by man’s creations. I was going to say that my family were not outside people but that is not true, however, to us, outside meant the backyard in the San Francisco suburbs. In the summer of 1956, my mother heard about and suggested I go on a thirty-day trip led by Jules Eichorn, my former eighth-grade teacher. It was a backpack in the Sierras although nobody in my family even knew what a backpack was. As an aside and sort of as proof of our lack of wilderness knowledge, my mother bought me a pair of motorcycle boots to fill the boot requirement. End aside.

The trip was billed as a thirty-day trip from Independence – which I had heard about because it was President Harry Truman’s hometown – to Bishop which I had never heard of. I imagined a road trip. It turned out that the actual trip was a hike in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, carrying everything on our backs, from a trailhead outside of Independence, California to a trailhead outside of Bishop, California, with much of the walking done above timberline. For the first time in my life, I felt the enchantment of the Wild, in the solitude, for the first time in my life, I felt the Mystery. Those thirty days changed my life.

I think it also changed my father’s life. When Pat Brown won the governor’s race, my dad was offered one of the political appointments that are part of the perks of the winning party. Daddy chose the Chairman of the California State Park Commission which shocked almost everybody including me. He then set out to enlarge the system with a huge increase of funds from a Bond drive. He became a proponent of saving California’s little remaining wild land and its slowly vanishing history. The Park Commission had the money and they used it to buy land and build facilities.

One of my favorite memories is Daddy’s excitement when the Park Commission bought the Ed Z’berg Estate at Sugar Pine Point on Tahoe’s West Shore and he and his fellow Commissioners spent the night in the mansion. Another story Daddy loved to tell was about taking Governor Brown on a camping trip to a wilderness lake that the State Park Commission wanted to buy. It was what is called Glamping now and included an airdrop of ice for the five o’clock cocktail hour.

One of the ways that Daddy and I bonded was by arguing. Not fighting arguing, more like discussion arguing. We argued over politics and the changing world of the sixties, we argued over the Vietnam War and the murders of students by the National Guard at Kent State, and, probably in 1967 or 68, we argued over a crazy idea that he loved; running a tramway from Palm Springs at to a point within San Jacinto State Park at 8,516 feet. The landing spot is about a five-and-a-half mile walk to the Peak at 10,834 feet. Daddy thought the tram would be a marvel.

Mount San Jacinto is one of three major peaks that surround the Los Angeles Basin. The other two are Mount San Antonio at 10,064 feet and San Gorgonio at 11,502 feet. Mount San Antonio has a ski area near the top but the other two peaks are Wilderness areas and are rare treasures. In early 1966, I had climbed, walked really, spending one night near the peak of San Jacinto and it was breathtaking, an exquisite alpine wilderness ten thousand feet and about a three-hour drive from 12,534,000 million people. I thought this is a sacred place and should be protected, that the solitude would be destroyed by the tram, and my dad thought people who couldn’t make the walk, or didn’t even want to – for that matter – should still have the opportunity to enjoy the mountain. Reflecting back and adding a dash of projection, I think he thought, even without the solitude, people like him could taste the miracle of the natural world.

Last weekend, Father’s Day Weekend, to find some sun, Michele and I drove to Palm Springs and took the tram up Mount San Jacinto. It was not my first trip on the tram, but it was my first time in about fifty years. It brought tears to my eyes. The tram building is what is now called Mid-Century Modern or – strange to my ear – just modern. It reminded me of my dad and so did the people milling around at the top.

I now understand that Daddy was right about the tram. I also now realize that I’ve felt this way for a long time. The solitude backpacking can provide takes a lot of space but there is still a lot of wild space left in California. The top of the tram is not that kind of space, it is obviously not wild, and the people that have made it there are not the same people as those who are backpacking into Pioneer Basin and they probably never will be. Even so, everybody I saw was enjoying themselves in the cool mountain air and some of them might even have their lives changed.

Thanks, Daddy.