National Public Lands Day, September 27, 2008

Are you a bad Bob? National Public Lands Day is this Saturday (Sept. 27) and Americans will be stepping into some of the country's beautiful parks, forests and natural habitats to spruce them up. Established in 1994, 110,000 volunteers worked in all 50 states in 1,300 public lands during the 2007 event (Source: www.publiclandsday.org). With the growing interest in volunteering and voluntourism, the 2008 National Public Lands Day should be another success.

National Public Lands Day: What About Bob?
I recently visited Great Smoky Mountains National Park while in Tennessee last week. Captivated by the park's incredible beauty with soft, rolling mountains fringed with swaying grasses, lush green trees and healthy wildlife I was disgusted by the graffiti and blatant littering made by a bad Bob.

I didn't notice the graffiti until I visited Cades Cove, a valley surrounded by the Smokies and sprinkled with 19th and early 20th century historic buildings. It's accessible by an 11-mile one-way loop road. In each cabin I toured, scrawled on the historic walls I saw ugly 20th and 21st century graffiti. "Bob was here."

As the story goes, Bob felt the need to let future visitors know he toured the cabins and so did hundreds, maybe thousands, of his friends who also left their mark. Graffiti is a problem in public lands. In Great Smoky Mountains National Park the National Park Service has posted signs educating visitors about Bob and why defacing historical markers is destructive and unlawful. Great Smoky Mountains National Park visitors caught writing their names on historical markers are fined $100.

National Public Lands Day: Keep America Beautiful
But Bob wasn't the only unlawful person to visit Great Smoky Mountains National Park and won't be the last. I had the chance to see a litterbug in action during my brief visit. Right before my eyes in front of a historical barn in Cades Cove, a bad Bob grabbed a handful of empty soda cans, plastic water bottles and other trash from his car and with his children watching, tossed it all into the bushes.

Stunned, I couldn't comprehend what I saw. I immediately thought of poor Iron Eyes Cody crying. For those of you who are too young to remember, he's the crying Native American in the1970s "Keep America Beautiful" public service announcements.

I also thought of the contradiction of what I just witnessed. Why would someone visiting a national park throw their trash in the bushes? Didn't this person appreciate the same nature I was enjoying? The tree hugger in me blurted out, "I don't think you should be doing that."

The litterbug, who was wearing a Christian church t-shirt, responded by shrugging his shoulders and shooting me dirty looks. Since he was bigger than me, I didn't say anything else. Looking back, wish I would have asked him, "What would Jesus do?" Or better yet, "What would Iron Eyes Cody say?"

National Public Lands Day isn't the only day we should be kind and mindful of our land and cultural and historical heritage. It should serve as a reminder that we need to be stewards of our environment on a daily basis and be a good Bob to our public lands.

Visit the Web site of National Public Lands Day to find a project near you. Missed the 2008 National Public Lands Day? Mark your 2009 calendar for Saturday, September 26.

Be sure to check out "Safety Tips While Visiting National Parks" when planning a national park vacation.