RSS
 

Archive for May, 2010

Where Did I Learn That?

26 May

By Kirk Carter Mona

As winter drew to a close I took an “active seniors” group on a snowshoe hike. It was the last snowshoe program of the year. We took off our snowshoes, stowed them away for the season, and came into the warmth of the building. We’d had a wonderful time exploring and learning. I finished off the program inside by answering just one more question and telling just one more story. Maybe it was because I was working with an adult group after working so much with kids, but I was on a roll sharing information. There is something cathartic about being able to expound on almost any topic on a deep level without worrying about going over the heads of the audience. I had already taught enough programs involving felt boards and monosyllabic words for the season. As I finished my program, we all walked upstairs and a woman asked in amazement how I knew so much.

I’d spent the last two hours chatting with the group as we strolled though the hilly terrain of our wooded property. I told them about snowshoes, owls, trees, forestry, ecological succession, black cherry burls, lichens, tornadoes, straight line winds, glaciers, ancient river valleys, groundwater movement, lake levels, animal hibernation, torpor, quinzee construction, winter camping, tracking, and probably a dozen other topics. She was clearly amazed by the varied string of knowledge I had at my fingertips. She asked very directly where I learned all this. It should not be an odd question, but it caught me off guard.

I stumbled and started to give the answer that part of my degree in college was in environmental studies, but that sounded silly as soon as it came out of my mouth. That’s the answer I gave fresh out of college trying to impress audiences that I really am a college graduate and, yes, this is really my job. I’ve been out of college for over a decade now and while I can’t be certain, I would guess nothing I learned in those four years made it into the actual information I gave out on that hike. So where do I learn then? How do I know what I know?

As in interpreter, I am constantly amazed by the resource I interpret. I explained in an interview with a journalist recently that the more I learn about the forest, the shorter distance I make it into the woods. I love to go on long, meandering hikes but sometimes it seems I only make it a few feet into the forest. There are simply so many interesting things to see that I’m constantly stopping to take it all in. There are trees, shrubs, herbs, fungi, lichens, insects, birds, mammals, rocks, soil, weather, and the signs of interactions between them all. I stop to look at and study each of these things but I use the other senses, too. There are things to hear and touch and smell and even taste in the world around me. All science begins with observation and there is much scientific learning to be had by simply observing. The best answer to give the woman when she asked me where I learned about the woods should have been “in the woods.”

I have learned to interpret the place where I work because I spend time studying and living with the everyday experience of the place. Learning is more than personal observation though. I can never see it all. To learn it all, or at least as much as we can, we have to share what we learn. I learn from my coworkers, I learn from professional journals and books, I learn from the experts I seek out, I learn from direct experimentation. For example, when the snow finally melted off the grass in the spring, it revealed a web-like frost on the ground. I wasn’t satisfied until I had touched it and studied it and checked references to learn what it was. It was a snow mold, and I’m glad I took the opportunity to study it, as the web-like mycelium had dried and nearly vanished a few days later.

Being an effective interpreter means you are constantly learning. You can’t help but constantly learn about a resource that continues to fascinate and compel you. “Where did I learn all this?” I learned all this working and living it in the field of interpretation.

Kirk Mona is the outreach coordinator for the Lee and Rose Warner Nature Center in Marine on St. Croix, Minnesota. He has been an NAI member since 1996. Kirk welcomes your comments at kmona@smm.org.

 
2 Comments

Posted in The Frontline

 

The Moon Can Help Us Know Ourselves Personally, Culturally, and Scientifically

21 May

By Keliann Laconte

The Lunar and Planetary Institute is bringing the art of interpretation to science through nonpersonal media: images, text, exhibits, and stories. As you can probably guess from our name, we love the moon! Our education department brings the universal concepts of our origins, violent history, and pioneering explorations to life through the lenses of geology, astronomy, chemistry, and physics. Our goal is to provoke visitors into viewing the moon (and other planets) in new ways and reveal personal connections with a dominant feature of the sky that is a source for personal, cultural, and scientific inspiration worldwide. We invite you to bring a resource that we all share—our beautiful night sky and Earth’s own history—to your own communities through these resources, available for free on our website.

Interpretation makes a great tool for bringing the wonders of the universe to people who might not be in the habit of learning about science. The moon’s story is rich in universal concepts that everyone can relate to in their own unique ways. The moon’s birth occurred during a time more violent than any epic battle experienced by humans. When the solar system was still young, 4.5 billion years ago, debris littered the orbits of the earth and other planets and caused frequent collisions. A small, planet-sized object collided with the early earth and the ejected rubble, dust, and vapor from that collision coalesced into our moon. Dark circles remain etched on its surface from the continued violence of our early solar system, when comets and asteroids impacted the moon and—although the rock cycle has destroyed the evidence—Earth. The moon’s ancient rocks and cratered surface record its long, shared history with Earth. By understanding the moon, we piece together that ancient story of Earth’s infancy.

Every meal was a space picnic. Dehydrated bite-sized morsels and puréed foods were rehydrated with water and eaten.

The moon’s continued friendly presence in the sky is immortalized in cultural references. The fall full moon’s label of “Harvest Moon” recalls the moon’s helpful nighttime light. Cultural tales highlight different stages of the lunar cycle. The Apollo missions to the moon represent not only a patriotic triumph for the United States and a historical turning point for our world’s political landscape, but tell a tale of human survival in a hostile environment.

We develop the stories of the physics of the moon’s origins, chemical analyses of lunar rocks, and observations of the moon’s surface and changing phase under thematic statements that relate science to personal experience. We provide online interpretive albums, which are a product of the Lunar and Planetary Institute/Johnson Space Center team of the NASA Lunar Science Institute, at www.lpi.usra.edu/nlsi/education. Images are accompanied by interpretive text and links to download the files. Interpreters can create their own exhibits with high-resolution, poster-size images or print the lower-resolution files for educational and personal uses. The album “Camping Trip to the Moon” is intended to highlight the connections between a common recreational activity and a remarkable engineering and physiological feat: sending people to the moon and bringing them safely home. Our gallery of interpretive albums will continue to grow and explore topics such as lunar exploration and the moon’s formation and evolution, including “Treasure Hunt in Earth’s Attic.”

Are we there yet? It took a long trip—three days—in a cramped vehicle to get to the moon. Astronauts (from left to right) Armstrong, Collins, and Aldrin performed pre-flight checks.

Each of our growing collection of traveling exhibits consists of three pop-up panels that are available for institutions to borrow. They highlight the stories of the moon’s birth from catastrophe, the violent history that pockmarked its surface with impact craters to create the familiar patterns we see in its face, and the untold stories it holds for the next explorers. Place one of these small exhibits in an atrium, visitor center, or hallway and engage your visitors with related hands-on activities.

Bring science and culture to your campfire programs with our SkyTellers (listen to one free story or purchase the DVD at www.lpi.usra.edu/education/skytellers) and “World Tales of the Moon” (available for free at www.lpi.usra.edu/mymoon/?p=tales), collections of cultural stories recorded by professional storytellers. Adapt these products to your site’s unique resources, message, and audience!

Keliann LaConte is the education specialist with the Lunar and Planetary Institute. Reach her at laconte@lpi.usra.edu.

 
No Comments

Posted in Feature Stories, Interpreting the Universe

 

Becoming an Interpretive Journalist

17 May

By Allison Martin

I am a journalist who hated my journalism classes. Anyone else out there with me? I loved to write, to tell stories, and get people to think. In college, I used to hang out in our campus newspaper office long after hours “just because.” I started volunteering as a writer at a nonprofit organization to get more chances to put words to paper. But I could not stand my writing classes.

Don’t get me wrong—I learned some valuable information from my coursework. Proper punctuation, when to use digits and when to spell out numbers, and the difference between ensure and insure, entitled and titled (look them up—you probably misuse them yourself!). What I couldn’t stomach was the formulaic approach some of my teachers took to writing. From the lede (journalist talk for the first sentence of your article, pronounced “leed”) to the closing ’graph, my writing was consistently marked up in the name of making sure I was clear and concise, and that my product met the needs of my audience.

Those are qualities I desperately wanted my writing to possess, and yet I hated the training. I was consistently told what I needed to do, but I never understood why. I was given the outline, but I never understood the reasons the outline worked.

Until I became an interpreter.

In my journalism classes, I wasn’t taught to make connections, to provoke or evoke. But why not? After all, one of the goals of a working journalist is to write an article about something people want or need to know in order to, ultimately, sell your product (the publication for which you write). But the most compelling newspaper articles or magazine features are those that tell a story you enjoy, that connect to your own life experiences, and that stir in you a sense that you should do something. In the end, a great piece of journalism is one that makes you, the reader, tell your friends about it. Isn’t that the mark of a good museum exhibit, or park visit, too?

The Epiphany
I never thought about using NAI’s interpretive strategy in my freelance journalism until I was working on a particularly challenging article. I couldn’t think of very much to say, and the words I did manage to type out sounded dull and lifeless. At one point, I threw up my hands and hollered at my laptop, “I don’t even know what this article is about!”

To distract myself, I started filing some paperwork away, and among the files was my Certified Interpretive Guide packet. I started flipping through the explanations of how to craft an interpretive message. All of a sudden, I stopped flipping, turned to my computer, and began typing.

In the months since I experienced my interpretive-journalism epiphany, I’ve noticed the writing process getting easier and easier. Words come more naturally, and I find that when I write, I try to simply tell a story rather than get bogged down in form and function. As a result, I work more effectively and I turn in better content in the end. Specifically, I’ve noticed the following changes in how I work as a writer:

Identifying a Purpose and Theme
This sounds like something so simple, but making a conscious choice to identify these two elements in my writing provides a sense of direction as I write—a roadmap so I don’t get lost. Sometimes, I see my writing assignments as boring “must-dos” that pay the bills. Sometimes, I’m so interested in the topic I veer off on tangents. Knowing why I’m writing and the big idea I hope to communicate to the audience alleviates both of these bad habits of mine.

Using Better Mechanics
I’ve always been a fan of good grammar and punctuation. You know what I’m also a fan of? Run-ons: those long sentences that just go on and on and on without end. Since becoming a CIG, I now read aloud everything that I write, because if it can be said easily, it can be read easily. That’s not to say I write all my articles as if they were interpretive talks or speeches, but reading aloud helps me identify areas where I’ve let an idea or sentence go past its peak into the danger zone.

Knowing My Content and My Audience
Again, it sounds like something so simple—to know what you’re talking about and whom you’re saying it to. But I think many times journalists fall into the trap that humor columnist Dave Barry pointed out: “We journalists make it a point to know very little about an extremely wide variety of topics; this is how we stay objective.” I now keep a copy of the interpretive equation handy whenever I write: knowledge of your audience plus knowledge of your resource (or subject matter) plus appropriate techniques equals an interpretive (or journalistic) opportunity.

Deciding Why and How to Make an Emotional Connection
Emotional connections aren’t really something my journalism professors taught us. We were instead trained (sometimes repeatedly) that we needed to remain unbiased at all times. But since merging my journalistic and interpretive training, I’ve concluded that tapping into emotions and keeping yourself objective are not necessarily mutually exclusive. In Indiana University’s Eppley Institute for Parks and Public Lands courses in interpretation, students are given entire lists of techniques they can use to read their audiences’ emotions. Imagery, allusion, irony, quotation—those are at the heart of good storytelling, and at the heart of good journalism as well. Henry Anatole Grunwald, former editor of Time magazine, once remarked that journalism “must speak, and speak immediately, while the echoes of wonder, the claims of triumph, and the signs of horror are still in the air.” What a boring article it would be if the journalist left those emotions in the air without acknowledging them on paper as well.

Paying Attention to the Beginning and End
The last thing that has really hit home for me concerns something I take a lot of pride in: the beginning and ending of my articles. These elements are often my strengths, and I am grateful to my CIG training for renewing the respect and care I give to these sections as I write. Eppley Institute’s course on Interpretive Talk states, “The beginning and ending of a talk are critical. What you say in the opening few minutes sets the tone for your presentation. It creates a first impression. In many locations audiences are able to come and go, so an effective introduction is essential to drawing in an audience.” The same is true in journalism. How many times do we start a newspaper or magazine article, read a paragraph or two, and move on? How many of us never even get past the headline? As a writer, my first priority is to grab an audience and make them want to stay with me through my whole story. That’s something my professors always told me, but never truly taught me.

Thanks, Mr. Tilden
It really should not surprise me that learning interpretation made me a better journalist. After all, Freeman Tilden himself was a newspaper columnist before he started working with the National Park Service. Ultimately, interpretation, journalism, and many other fields are, at their hearts, subsets of the discipline of communication. Knowing how to tell a story, exchange ideas, explore new concepts—and understanding how to do it well—are universal tools that live beyond any one profession. As I think about my two jobs—zoo interpreter and freelance writer—I realize that I owe a debt of gratitude to Mr. Tilden, and doubly so. We have many opportunities throughout the years to learn skills that will make us better at our jobs. It is a rare privilege to be given the chance to understand what your job, your passion, is truly about.

Allison Martin, CIG, is a play programs facilitator at Brookfield Zoo outside Chicago. She is also a freelance writer and part-time speech coach. Contact her at allison317@gmail.com.

 
No Comments

Posted in The Frontline

 

Knowing the Stars Will Change Your Life

11 May

By Scott Mair

Photo by Charles Banville

It’s a crisp, clear night in Victoria, British Columbia. From the top of Observatory Hill the Milky Way streaks south across the sky towards Olympic National Park in Washington State. It’s like God has sprinkled a handful of diamonds against a black velvet night, as thousands of stars wink at me.

At moments like this, with star chart in hand, I used to try to figure out the constellations. Beyond the Big Dipper I was pretty much lost and I became convinced the Greek astronomers that named the constellations must have been heavy into the ouzo that night. I’m sorry: Ursa Major doesn’t look like a bear to me; it doesn’t matter how much my friend Don tries to describe where Boötes, the herdsman, is, I can’t make out its ice-cream cone shape; and Bernice’s Hair (Coma Berenices) may be a cool name for a constellation, but I can’t even see any stars in that part of the sky much less make out its shape.

Then I got a job running an astronomy interpretive center. There’s nothing like the fear of appearing stupid to focus the mind!

That’s when I discovered there are tricks to navigating the night sky. The first was: Find an anchor point. Most of the constellations might be unrecognizable, but a few are bright, distinctively shaped, and easy to find: the W shape of Cassiopeia, the distinctive belt of Orion, and the “big dipper” part of Ursa Major, for example.

The constellations that surround these anchor points may not be distinctive, but they always have at least one bright star. That is my second trick: Don’t worry about all the stars; just worry about the bright ones. If you follow the edge of the cup of the Big Dipper, the first bright star you come to is Polaris (the North Star), the brightest star in the Little Dipper, more properly known as Ursa Minor (the little bear). Once you have Polaris the rest of the Little Dipper is easy to pick out.

This photo of the Andromeda galaxy was taken by Charles Banville, an amateur photographer in Victoria, British Columbia.

Follow Orion’s belt up and the first bright star is Aldebaran, the brightest star in Taurus, the bull. Before you know it you’ve tracked your way from one constellation to the other right across the sky and your life will never be the same again!

Once you know the constellations you will always look up at the night sky. It won’t be a casual look like the “old you” used to make. You’ll make a point of seeing who’s up in the sky tonight. And the more you look, the more you’ll see.

You’ll begin to notice that the stars scroll across the sky each night, a telltale sign that the planet you’re standing on does indeed rotate. When you look through a telescope eyepiece and the object you are viewing tracks across the field of view, it’s not the object moving, you’re actually seeing the effect of the rotation of the earth.

As the constellations change with the seasons you’ll be able to visualize the orbit of the earth around the sun as we look into a new patch of outer space each night.

You’ll notice that the sun, the moon, and the planets don’t track randomly across the sky, they all follow the same path—the plane of our solar system—and that the Milky Way marks the plane of our galaxy.

When you notice that Venus and Mercury go through phases like the moon, but Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn don’t, you’ll grasp where our orbit fits into the solar system. Planets between the earth and the sun go through phases. Planets beyond our orbit don’t. If you were magically transported to a new solar system you could easily figure out where your new planet fit into its solar system.

When you can navigate the night sky and understand why it moves the way it does, your understanding of your physical place in the universe is no longer an amorphous, academic concept. Where you are on the earth, where the earth is in the solar system, what part of the galaxy we’re in, and who our neighbors are in this corner of the universe will become tangible and concrete. It’s a really cool feeling.

On that frosty night in Victoria, I want the people lining up to look through my telescope to begin to get that feeling, to grasp the wonder and beauty of the cosmos.

If we’re looking at the moon or Saturn, astronomy interpretation is easy. With those objects the resource speaks for itself. Sometimes I don’t even say anything. When the person looking through my telescope asks, “What are we looking at?” I just say, “You tell me.”

With the moon the response is immediate: Wow, cool, amazing! Or they don’t say anything, struck dumb by the beauty of it all.

With Saturn it sometimes takes them a while. “Well, it’s…. It’s…. Oh, oh, oh! It’s the one with the rings! It looks just like the picture.” And then they say, wow, cool, or amazing, or they’re struck dumb by the beauty of it all.

For most of the “deep-sky objects” I show the public (nebulae, galaxy, star clusters) it’s not quite so easy. The problem is they expect to see a Hubble Space Telescope picture and get a humble Scott telescope image instead. For me and my fellow amateur astronomers, doing “public outreach” (as the astronomy community calls interpretation) will be all about managing disappointment.

Luckily, I’m an interpreter! I know all about linking the tangible and the intangible. Freeman Tilden is my best friend and the social contract model of interpretation is tattooed on my rump.

I hope it helps because I’m going to try to convince the person looking through my telescope that the Andromeda galaxy (M31), the gray smudge they can barely see in the eyepiece, really is a galaxy with billions and billions of stars, millions and millions of light years away.

Before I even start though, I remember that I’m not just talking to the person looking through my telescope; I’m also talking to everyone in line. It’s never fun waiting, so I make my stories big and entertaining to reach them, too.

Although the stories I tell will vary with each person (I try to tailor my talk based on their questions or conversations I overhear), I prepare everyone for what they are going to see before they look through the eyepiece. I tell them they are going to be looking at an island universe of more that 500 billion stars, as much as a light-year across. I want their brains to fill in what their eyes can’t see. It’s not a gray smudge; it’s an island universe!

While they are looking I want them to appreciate how special this moment is. The light that is reaching their eyes right now started on its journey 2.5 million years ago—before there were even human beings on the earth. Ninety years ago we didn’t even know that other galaxies existed. They use to be called spiral nebulae (nebula is the Greek word for cloud) until Edwin Hubble was able to resolve individual stars in Andromeda with the 100-inch Hooker Telescope in California.

I want to tie them to the place we are observing from. Observatory Hill gets its name from the 72-inch Plaskett Telescope that towers above us. It was built in the same year as the Hooker. Even though the Hooker Telescope was finished first, the Plaskett’s design was so good it was up and running immediately, doing science for six months before the Hooker was completely operational. For six months, the Plaskett was the largest operating telescope in the world. (Hey, I’m Canadian—I take my glory where I can.)

I want to tie the cosmos to popular culture, too. The Milky Way is gravitationally tied to Andromeda. We’re part of a little gang of galaxies that travel through space gravitationally tied together. We have a really cool gang name—The Local Group. Wouldn’t that look good on the back of a jacket?

I also want to tie their own bodies to the observing experience. I remind them they will get a better view of Andromeda if they don’t look directly at it. Astronomers call this averted vision and it works because of the anatomy of our eyes. We have two kind of light receptors in our eyes: cones for color vision that require bright light to work and rods for low light that give us black and white vision. The cones are concentrated in the center of our eye. If we look directly at Andromeda the image falls on the cones, but there is so little light reaching our eyes from the galaxy it’s not enough to cause the cones to fire. If we look slightly off to the side the image falls on the rods, which can fire in low light. A black-and-white image is better than no image at all.

Most of all, I want them to have fun. I want them to have so much fun, they will want to do this again and again and again. I want them to know you don’t have to be a math genius, that telescopes are easy to use, and that astronomers may be kind of geeky, but they’re nice, too. I want them to know there is a wonderful show above our heads every night. They just have to tilt their heads back and enjoy.

Scott Mair came to Victoria, BC, as the founding director of the Centre of the Universe (how’s that for a job title?). He still does astronomy programming at the Swan Lake Nature Sanctuary, where he is the program manager.

 
No Comments

Posted in Feature Stories, Interpreting the Universe

 

An Unexpected Host

06 May

By Alan Leftridge

Water lapped against my ankles as I strolled the soft white sands. The big Pacific waves were arrested by the barrier reef several hundred yards to my right. The left side of my face was warmed by the late morning sunlight, my feet by the 80-degree water of the lagoon. It was Sunday morning, and the visitors that had filled the few hotels on the island were almost three hours into their bus tour of Saipan. I walked alone on this impeccable beach, enjoying the untroubled ambience, well aware that this was where the Second Marine Division came ashore during the invasion of Saipan, June 15, 1944. A pair of binoculars directed at what might be mistaken for rock outcroppings in the lagoon would focus on relics of the invasion that floundered in the shallow water.

The gleaming roof of a low-lying building caught my attention. Typical of Pacific island houses, it was constructed of concrete block, with a metal roof designed to blow off when typhoon winds reached super velocity. The building looked like more than a residence, due to several tables scattered about, suggesting a restaurant. I saw no customers, but a lone man sitting in an Adirondack chair was watching me. Interested in a late breakfast, I took a step toward him, and without pause, he waved me forward. We greeted one another, and I asked if breakfast was still available.

“Yes, of course. Ohana!” he called out. A woman approached from the building. “What would you like?” the man inquired of me.

“An American breakfast.”

“Fix this man some Spam and eggs and toast. Coffee?”

“Yes, please.”

“And get him a cup of coffee, too.” Ohana nodded and disappeared into the house as he remained in his chair and I sat across from him.

“Been on the island long?” he asked.

“Just a couple of days. I came to do some diving and look around. I’m working for the DOE on Guam. How about you?” I shuddered at my lame question. It was apparent that he was an islander.

“I came here June 15, 1944.” He motioned with his head, “By way of that beach. Stayed with the Marines for a while. Then back to the States. Moved here for good with Ohana in the mid-70s.”

“So, you were part of the invasion?”

“Yes, I was here. They even made a movie about me in 1960, and what I did here during the war. It’s called Hell to Eternity. Jeffrey Hunter played my role. Can you believe it? Nice guy, but six feet tall, light-brown hair, and blue eyes! And here I am, Guy Gabaldon, barely over five feet, and Mexican-American. Have you seen the movie?” he inquired.

I told him I wasn’t familiar with it, but I would like to hear his story.

“Before the invasion, Saipan was a possession of Japan, given to Japan by the League of Nations as a concession of the first war. By ’44 most of the population was not the local Chamorros, but people of Japanese ancestry. As the war went on, many residents believed the propaganda that Americans were butchers and would slaughter civilians if we ever took the island.”

“Oh, I did my share of killing during the invasion, but one time I was behind enemy lines and captured a group of Japanese soldiers. My commanding officer scolded me, because we had no place to hold prisoners. But about the same time, civilians began leaping from cliffs in mass suicides. One day, I watched as a mother threw her baby over a cliff. Then, she jumped. Because I could speak Japanese, I decided to talk people into surrendering.”

“How did you learn Japanese?” I inquired.

“I was raised in East LA. In those days, kids would spend a lot of time with neighbor-kids’ families. Throughout high school, I practically lived with a Japanese family, hanging out with their two sons. I learned street-Japanese. When the war began, I tried to join the Navy. Too short, they said. The Marines wanted me though, because I could speak Japanese.”

“So, because I knew the language, I’d go alone day or night and seek out the caves where people were hiding. I would go up to the cave’s mouth and jabber, and soon people would start coming out. Sometimes I’d bribe them with chocolate, cigarettes, and food. Other times I’d capture about six soldiers but release three, telling them to spread the word about good Americans and fair treatment. Then I’d tell them that if they didn’t return, I’d kill the others. It worked! The military credited me with capturing, or persuading to surrender, up to 1,500 Japanese soldiers and civilians—including 800 in one day. Afterwards, my commanding office tagged me ‘The Pied Piper of Saipan.’

“I was wounded by machine-gun fire about the time the battle was over, and they gave me the Silver Star. I left the Marine Corps still a private, though.

“I married Ohana, and after several years living in the States, we moved here in the mid-70s. Many people have campaigned for me to receive the Medal of Honor. I plan to write my memoir some day, and hope to include the award in my story.”

I sat transfixed throughout Guy’s narrative. With measured bites, I ate breakfast. I asked a few questions, he said a few things more, but I could tell he was growing weary. Excusing myself, I said while shaking his hand, “It is an honor meeting you Mr. Gabaldon.” Turning to Ohana, I thanked her for the great meal, then said, “I am glad your restaurant was still open for breakfast.” She looked at Guy and they both laughed. I looked back at Guy, who revealed, “This is not a restaurant, it’s our home.”

This episode happened almost three decades ago, yet the story looms large in my memory. I have since learned more about the war in the Pacific and found that everything Guy told me was accurate. He finished his memoir in 1990, but died in 2006 without receiving the Medal of Honor. I recently rented Hell To Eternity on DVD, and saw that he was listed as a consultant on the movie.

I visited Saipan with the aim of exploring the sea life that abounds in its surrounding waters. The generosity of a war hero introduced me to the complexities of the island’s cultural heritage, as well. This episode helped me realize that wherever I travel there are rich human and natural history stories to be heard. All I must do is be open to the myriad narratives. I may not be looking for them, but they are revealed when I am open to unexpected opportunities.

Alan Leftridge is a contract interpretive trainer, visitor services trainer, and interpretive writer based out of the Swan Valley of Montana. Contact him at www.leftridge.com.

 
1 Comment

Posted in The Interpreter

 
« Older Entries