My uncle's wild heart ...

Wednesday, July 25, 2007

By Brooke Williams

In the west, and especially here in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, we have the advantage of being able to see the things we work to conserve on a daily basis: wild places and wildlife. Most of us with a choice, live here because of the natural beauty of this place. It has been argued that this natural beauty is a major contributing factor for Teton County being the most financially affluent place in America and therefore, on Earth. The question I take with me daily to the Murie Center is, why? What is it about wildness that we value?

The more I think about this as a means to developing programs that contribute to new strategies for conserving wild places, the more I hear Jack Turner’s voice telling me, “Wildness means freedom.”

I did two things this past week that stand out. I reread C.A. Meier’s essay, “Wilderness and the Search for the Soul of Modern Man” and Terry and I made a pilgrimage to Salt Lake to see my uncle, J.D. Williams, who is 81-years-old and has cancer.

Meier, a Jungian psychologist, defines wilderness as “Nature, in her original condition, undisturbed ... .” Free, in other words. He says that “excessive interference with outer nature creates disorder of the inner nature, for the two are intimately connected.”
I don’t believe that walking in the Tetons or watching a cow moose play in the water with her red twins is entertainment.

I believe that when we are in a wild place we are sensing a hidden, personal freedom that, due to modernity’s constant quest to “tame” the planet, is becoming more difficult to experience.

This may sound strange, but for me, my uncle’s life-quest for personal freedom embodies the same relentless, self-regulating, unconfined drive toward order represented by the natural world.

He grew up in a Mormon family – a direct descendent of Brigham Young – went to Stanford and Harvard instead of B.Y.U. and took a job in political science at the University of Utah. He nearly lost his job when he called for Nixon’s impeachment.

He ran for the U.S. Senate as a liberal Democrat, losing in a landslide. Without leaving it, he took on the Mormon Church anytime it moved to restrict the freedom of its members. He taught tens of thousands of students about freedom of speech and the U.S. Constitution. He inspired us to learn, question and defend our knowledge.

For months after he retired, people wearing buttons proclaiming “J.D. taught me,” could be seen on the streets of Salt Lake. He never cared which political party we preferred, only that we studied and thought critically and believed in ourselves.

This has resulted in a few disappointments. He has a letter from Karl Rove, senior advisor to our current president, in which Rove, a former student, apparently gives J.D. credit for much of what he has become. Bea, J.D’s. wife, framed it and it is now hidden behind the couch. “He was one of my best students,” J.D. says. “Damn.”

Since J.D. won’t show anyone the letter, I found this in a speech Rove gave in 2002.
… recently a wag said that I was J.D.’s greatest failure. I guess he was suggesting [that] because I hadn’t exactly turned out like J.D., but I disagree. None of J.D.’s students have been failures, regardless of their political views, as long as they left understanding a few simple messages – love of country, love of our political system, a desire to participate in our political system, and a recognition that true patriotism is serving something greater than self. Those are the greatest gifts that a teacher can give a student.

Every summer, J.D. would take me and a car full of cousins and neighbors backpacking in the Uinta wilderness, east of Salt Lake. His heavy pack had everything including a blue plastic sink for washing dishes. We’d need to help him up the steep pitches in the trail. I thought of this last week, helping him slowly down the hospital hall to his daily radiation treatment. “Vote democratic,” he said to each person he passed. “Be free.”
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