My Dad Knew Smokey Bear
In Memory of Thomas R. Monroe
My Father’s Day Tribute
As my father’s son, growing up, I had no idea that my life might just be a bit different from the other boys around me. It all just seemed so normal. I never gave it a thought.
I mean, didn’t every young boy have a Wanakena graduate Forest Ranger hero for a dad?
Didn’t other boys get to ride side by side with their Forest Ranger father in his red Willys Jeep? Armed with fire rakes & shovels? Stop to pick buckets full of wild strawberries & blueberries? Bump along backwoods dirt roads keeping a watchful eye out for bears? All while making the rounds of their dad’s many fire towers?
Instead of the standard run of the mill water pistol, didn’t other young boys have at their disposal their own arsenal of DEC Indian pumps for complete and utter domination & opponent annihilation during neighborhood water fights?
Didn’t other young boys get to go to school and tell stories about their dad fighting forest fires? Stories so wild that a young boy’s teachers sometimes made concerned phone calls to Mom.
Didn’t other young boys have a whole family of NYSDEC Forest Rangers for uncles?
Circa 1961
Weren’t other boys’ dad’s pictures in area newspapers almost every other day?
Didn’t all the other dads have their own office buildings in Ray Brook, Warrensburg and Albany?
Get to cruise lakes in boats with NYSDEC Commissioners?
Rub elbows with Governors?
Go island hopping with Vice-Presidential Candidates?
No, I really had no idea growing up that I might somehow be privileged.
Didn’t other kids get to fly with their dads up through Avalanche Pass?
On helicopters with NYSDEC’s Ace?
Weren’t other boys’ fathers charged with taking over for an uncooperative mother nature? Overseeing Olympic snow making operations? Correcting poorly planned traffic flow problems? In general, being tasked by the Governor, “Tom Monroe. I’m putting you in charge. Fix these Goddamned broken Olympics.”
Didn’t other college kids get to spend their summers living and working out of Lake Colden’s Interior Headquarters?
No, it never really began to dawn on me until my late teens, after I had graduated from high school. One experience in particular drove it all home to me.
It was one night in a downtown bar, the Owl’s Nest, I think, where my friends I liked to hang out & shoot pool. It was a pay for play bar room table, fifty cents a game, I think. Winner ran the table, challengers waited their turn & lined up their quarters.
My quarters were next. I stood to insert them in the slot. A burly, bearded man wearing a buffalo plaid shirt & work boots accosted me. “What do you think you’re doing there, Bucksnort? My quarters were next.”
I swallowed hard, gripped my pool cue, and prepared myself for a bar room brawl beat down if I dared protest.
Suddenly, a friendly voice blurted out from behind me, “You got a problem there Monroe?!”
The burly, bearded, buffalo plaid man hesitated. He stood there, pool cue in his hand, looking me up and down.
“Monroe? You Tom Monroe’s son?”
I nodded.
“I’ll step aside for you.”
Without another word I put my quarters in the slot and proceeded to shoot pool.
A true story that I’ll never forget. That’s when I realized the life of privilege I had experienced all those years growing up in the Adirondacks & Saranac Lake as Tom Monroe’s son.
I mean, my dad knew Smokey Bear!
He even made sure Smokey Bear showed up at my birthday parties.
**********
Until Our Trails Cross Again:
Happy Father’s Day
ADKO
(Author’s Endnote: This story appeared in the 6/17/23 online edition of The Adirondack Almanack.)
About The Author
rdmonroe5
Lifelong NYS resident. Raised in Saranac Lake. Cornell graduate(ROTC). Army veteran, Airborne/Ranger qualified, 10th Mtn Div, stints in Honduras and with JTF VI. 3rd degree Black Belt; 3x cancer survivor; published writer with several featured stories in Adirondack Life Magazine. Residing in Watertown NY with wife Robin & our 3 adult children. Loving Life. Living in the Day I am in.
Happy Father’s Day to you Dick, me and all the fathers out there alive and in memory.
Indeed you had a very special upbringing.
Thank you, Bob. A funny side note you, more so than anyone else, might appreciate. I had not intended to publish this post until Father’s Day. However, I also intended to submit it to Melissa, in the event she liked it & wanted to share with her readers it via the Almanack. However, in my efforts to do so, I discovered that I could not share the link with the post in draft status on my blog. so, as I was fiddling around with that, I suddenly discovered that a bunch of folks had already read it. So, I capitulated to technology & just left it published.
A nice tribute. Thank you.
Happy Fathers Day, Dick! Your Dad was an amazing, accomplished person and this was a delightful tribute. Sometimes, when we get older and think about our parents at the age we are in, our appreciation of them is magnified. Hats off to our dads here and for those who have gone on to their Heavenly home.
Love you!
Aunt Susie