After reciting the Pledge of Allegiance, our elementary school teacher would sit down and play the piano and we would sing patriotic songs such as “My Country ‘Tis of Thee,”  “God Bless America,” and others, like Woody Guthries’s “This Land is Your Land.”  My first experience with public lands access was hearing my father tell us about a time when national parks were free and the growing restrictions of being able to access “our ” public lands.

In our travels, I find that many people we talk to have no idea of how our public lands are administered.  Terms like BLM (Bureau of Land Management) are foreign to them.  Designations like “wilderness,” and “limited use” areas cause them to look confused.  Perhaps it is the growing ignorance of Americans about their own country that is partly to blame for this growing infringement of access to our lands.

My father kept an eclectic journal of pictures and clippings and made commentary on a variety of issues, from family events to national and world affairs.  It is the picture above, that I found in his journal, that brought back memories of his comments made to us as children back in the 1960’s.

Perhaps it was the Wilderness Act of 1964 and subsequent legislation that locked away our lands to all but the most physically fit.  Perhaps it was motivated by some other intrusive government act.  Dad did not comment.  But this political cartoon made it into his journal of life events that were important to him.  Dad has gone on to heaven, but his journal pages live on, scanned into my computer.

Land issues are important and we should not be ignorant.  Educate your self because “this land is your land.”