4 cities are getting a bump up in their minimum wage they range from an extra $0.05 an hour to an extra dollar and some areas in Seattle the largest employers are mandated to pay their workers at least $16.00 an hour more than twice the federal minimum wage u.s. Stocks higher this hour the Dow's up $39.00 points at $23364.00 The Nasdaq is up $38.00 points more than half percent as some piece up 6 points I'm Lakshmi saying n.p.r. News support for n.p.r. Comes from n.p.r. Stations other contributors include the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and the estate of Joan Kroc whose bequest serves as an enduring investments in the future of public radio and the John d. And Catherine t. MacArthur Foundation Ed Mack founded dot org. Welcome to Nancy's bookshelf a program of conversation and readings with local and regional writer now here's your host Nancy Whitman. Wayne Pease began his career as a forest fire lookout in the Sierra Nevada Mountains in 1962 he is a poet playwright and traveler who has lived in Greece Germany and England to write his book cloud watcher a fire lookouts book of days he combined the events of several fire seasons into one making it a diary in the tradition of the rose Walden. Alone most of the time with his cat he lives through storms fires and tourists probably struggles with the future course of his life and internal strife in the forest service when peace welcome Oh thank you very much I'm glad to be here thank you for having me and I might notice just in case people are hearing your last name is p.e.a.c.e. . Yeah I know it's always misspelled so yeah that does help but it's nice and then if your last name is like this unless you're a kid in their eyes saying one piece I mean it's like. Well. I think I don't know if I'm typical but I used to wonder how can somebody sit up in that tower all by themselves day after day it must be a special kind of person so when did you know you were you were the kind of person that could do that. Well I don't know that I knew I did but 1st went to look out when I was 11. And Pinnacles National Monument and we hiked up to look at that and the guy had a am radio as well as a sync level view and I thought I can talk to the whole world and see everything out here so that's stuck in my mind and then at 17 I fly in Montana did not get a job and then when I was 20 they say you were too young I mean it's. Probably at that time yeah they may have said that and then when I was 22 I was just about to get out of college and I went to visit my mother up in Placerville in a campground and the guy in the campground said oh somebody decided not to come to look at this is in June I mean you know so season starting and so I went to fly and I got that day so in one day you're suddenly Ok look out yeah yeah and. It was much harder in the early days when you're young you know you want to be out carousing and so. So. After 4 years I took 2 years off I lived in Europe but then I came back and started where I am now have done it ever since well were you born in California yes but my father was in the army and we moved around and lived in Utah Montana kinds of places so you had a chance to sample other places and consider what you want to do with your life and to think about fire lookout is it is seasonal So does that mean you have to miss college or missing things so you started at what age then did you actually have your 1st job $2222.00 So here you are 22 year old right and what kind of preparation did you have to grow up into a tower because your oh they just have me have to. Basically give you a you know the the job itself is pretty simple as far as reporting fires I mean you you have this fire fighting to do aim at like a conference you take a reading you figure out how far away it is and call it in and then they want to know what the smoke is doing you know is that what color is that is it getting bigger is it getting smaller those kinds of things so in terms of the actual job your main thing is staying awake. And observant I mean that's but I've always been a kid in class who looked out the window all the time and I got paid for looking out the window and I thought wow this is direct Also I want to read I want to be a writer and so I wanted time to myself and that was the other thing that kept me going for a long time. Now would you describe this. You know when reading your book that some of these names I got the guy's name is not examined you know no no I just I'm all you say get you caught game wardens on a do. You know they would change that Joe Smith or say any name your characters rather creatively. And you do you say. That names have been changed time revamped in places altered to protect the innocent and the guilty and to give this story the air of a theri tale. So in what regard did you consider your story a fairy tale well none of the things that happened I mean I just described I remember what was it. Oh some hang gliders just coming around the look out and then disappearing or. Other things like months they were searching for. Around my look up my 1st look and they were searching for some bank robbers and they were flying helicopters around and then these guys showed up in a car and said they were last going to like time but they sure look like back. So I call that in but you have all these little bits of things that are sort of out of space I mean people said told me they saw you know I was Bishop's over my lookout I never saw them but I was told down ones hovering over my lookout one night by another lookout. So it has that fragmentary I think when you one thing is that I read we day we our minds wander 30 percent of the time. And some of us more than that answer a lot of this is daydreaming and what happens is that you get so used to a landscape you know you're daydreaming you're not thinking about if it's not it just goes off like radar in other words you're so attuned to that the no matter what your thoughts are the time it breaks through the night and so I think that was a lot of I was they have one of the great pleasures in life is just daydreaming I mean if you have the time to daydream you lucky and you also include a lot of your night time dreams your actual dreams in the story yeah Will you include a historical note in the front of your book because I remember growing up seeing these fire towers as a kid and you said the use of lookouts and this term can denote either the person or the structure in the forest of Canada and the United States began in 1900 I don't know if most people realize it goes back they go back that far the 1st look out towers were platforms mounted in trays Yeah the trees even tall trees are not that high well they'd cut down all the rest of the trees leave one tall and that's be basically it and you say these were followed by simple structures used primarily by patrolmen as observation points on their route gradually they were converted into permanent lookout stations tall steel towers or 2 story buildings with telephone connections to the dispatcher's headquarters. The number of Lookout towers used in the state forestry departments and the National Forest increased steadily until 953 when they reached a peak of 5060 towers since that time there's been a steady decrease and conversely the number of aircraft used for fire detection has rapidly increased so it is surprising that they're even in existence at all still because we have other technology now oh yeah well if I 1st got the job everybody said oh this is not going to last year. It's almost finished now as you know over 50 years ago because you say that they had already the time you were hired to these had already peaked pretty much and I mean our tower Yeah the force I'm on now used to have 26 now I 6. And so they have a lead in other words the idea was if 2 people can see it and they give 2 different readings where they cross is where the fire is then. They started using helicopters to chase them and the main thing is that look at a really cheap to run Ok I guess after 55 years I get v.c. 5 years in case people missed that yeah I have years and yeah I get whatever you call it is your basic $15.00 now but it's surprised me too that they pay you for 8 hours well you don't just go off if you see a fire after an 8 hour shift you're not you're going to still report it right so that is kind of odd they say Ok we're paying for 8 hour day yeah well only assume that the temps will go down the humidity will go up I think of a lot of fires after hours and as I says I get paid overtime for that so I can even out well I just always have to have it no matter how long I'm up there so every night when I get up look around so I pick up a lot of fires at night that way it's. Yeah I just wish they were a lot more lookouts and there are right now the state used to have a whole mess of them and they closed them all about 2003 all of them I was like 80 look out something and. The rationale is that you know people on the ground are going to report them and so forth but where I am people on the ground can't see more than you know the side of the highway so I'm very very much prolife out. There is the national fire lookout Association which revamps a lookouts and promotes. I read recently that p.g. And e. Wants to install a fire camera that cost $700000.00. That would probably build. System and run it for a 100 years so. It's the whole thing is that technology is going to take care of this Well technology is going to be probably our problem. And that it doesn't technology is not going to take care of airplanes cost a lot more than think about it you've got an airplane up there maybe flying this part of the worst it takes an hour to get over the other part of the force and so forth so anyway I have lots of arguments. To keep a look as well here's the way the job is described in a handbook Lookouts are the eyes of the forest service their response will for the early detection accurate reporting of all fours far out breaks in an assigned area and some say the lookout slot is a long mean one the forestry radio and telephone are his only link to the outside world and visitors appear rarely depending on his own resourcefulness and his ability to organize his own life the person who can appreciate the advantages will find his work as a rewarding experience as documented by the lookouts who have come back for many seasons and for whom the tower has become a 2nd home this is certainly proof this certainly proved true for me because if it didn't have these rewards you would've come back you know 55 years. Well I think. You really have to have a way of preoccupying itself you know and and so I wanted to read and that was started when I was like 3rd grade and so you know once I read like 71 books about all kinds of things and I was them I read 44 books by a young you know when I was and I'm still here. And so if your research is great and then what's really changed and improve things is of course cell phones you're much more connected now with the Internet I have a. 100 feet away I now have. A rise in Tower and so I'm actually where I started in that the guy had a ham radio I could talk to the whole world well now I can be up there and be related to the whole world so that part of it. As changed and I tend to get more visitors now and so forth but I notice that it says because you seem to have a good many visitors young this book in your book it is a lookout a lot is a lonely one and visitors rarely appear but from reading your book as visitors fairly often well the 1st year was impressed you know you do say that these are several seasons that the row compressed his day at Walden into one year yes one season and so that's what you did but still it seemed like you had visitors very well the 1st years I didn't very much I don't know if I read about that the 1st years are very different because. One thing I was a long way from I was 50 miles from highway was a dirt road. People didn't get up there that my Sometimes during honey season it's over where they get after I hid away from him so I didn't have to talk. Because I get really withdrawn those 1st year we're going to take a break and when we come back more of my conversation with Wayne Pease poet playwright and traveler you're listening to Nancy's book shelf on North State Public Radio and Nancy Reagan. What's it like to be job hunting at 50 where. You're really retirement. We're talking about ages I'm in the workplace that's next time on the take away from. This morning following Nancy's bookshelf at 11. Support from the public radio comes from the bookstore. Nor state since 1976 open 7 days a week. In Chico the bookstore buys and sells books and carries selections including literature fiction books kids' books and more special orders are welcome the bookstores on Facebook and books. I mean see Wiegman And you're listening to Nancy's bookshelf on North State Public Radio My guest is forest fire lookout Wayne Pease author of cloud watcher a fire lookouts book of days on day 11 of your book you say I think my days as a lookout her number. Numerate my positive feelings about the job there you list what you like about the job you say I like being in nature it gives me peace I like the drama of the sky and clouds the sun in the moon coming up and down the view I'm doing a job it connects me with other people I like picking up fires I like the drama and I'm recognized for my skills this is my home a place to call my. Paycheck supports my writing and travel habits while I'm here I can't spend money it's a creative space I have time to read and think I like myself better by the end of the summer it's a meditation retreat renewing my sense of I did to. Still work that way I mean there are things like Amazon I spend a lot more money now. Very nice I mean heard I delivered No but I think I have when I come to town so I always buy too many books other things as well then for about 15 years I got in for Target fee and I spent a fortune on cameras as and finally I don't follows now use my phone and I'm perfectly happy thank you make movies now yes and I used a mag from my to Mexico City and took hundreds of pictures and I'm perfectly satisfied with them so spending $40000.00 on equipment did not do me any good. And I guess you have me. My guest is Wayne p.z. And he has written a book cloud watch or a fire lookout book of days and you just listed all the things that you like about your job and they must have overcome any disadvantages because of the fact that you continue to do this your. 3 years and I think a lot of what you list as the advantages would appeal to a lot of us being out in nature and you say you like the peace there was there that the sky and the clouds and and that. You say this is my home a place to call my own because you said your dad was in there with Terry he moved a lot as soon in that right and then you spent a season in the lookout tower and then you travel you have traveled over 40 countries and then you've lived in some of them so because you like to travel as soon that you don't actually have you ever bought a house oh no I had I had several decisions I made when I was like probably 17 when I was never violent Ok the other one is the most important is not have children children having children is the biggest. Decision anybody can make and once they have children life is out of control more so if you don't have to also I knew that was one of my decisions it was because partly my thought was that you're not even out of your teens are you saying 2 things I'm not going to have a house I'm not going to have kids right and the other thing was not watch television. So it's 17 I stopped watching television I marched with her you know I look at things on the web and this book I had actually had a t.v. For a while so there's t.v. On it but I figured you'd watch t.v. Or do something else with your life and I was 17 so. I'd say to everybody if you met there's certain decisions you can make when you're young that are going to really either healthy or Hendrie as you go along but those have been really good I never would have been a good father I'm not I can't pin that much attention to another person obviously I'm sensitive about myself and in terms of what the other one house everybody I know buys a house is you don't buy a house house by you and from then on you're fixing the rush you're fixing it so it's a big trend so I called the plumber this morning thank you. So so many of those decisions have really helped me a lot over time and so so even though you were to drop that doesn't pay very much you don't need very much because you don't have these huge expenses that you just mentioned right children sometimes totals what a child costs right and a house there are huge expense so if you can get by without those 2 things then you do have the wherewithal to travel Yeah it seems to me Well I think you're just a lot more independent in general you know you don't have to rely on other people for it to make decisions as I've traveled with people and I enjoyed it certain people and so you are making mutual decisions and so forth but I think my part of it is just being in life being out of your control really spends. With those things well one thing that I noticed too is that you travel to say Pastor next grade Oh yeah that some of these Russian writers that you go visit. Or that was. I mean some of the quince that incident been amazing to me and that was when a friend and I went to Petersburg and Moscow I stopped at this there was a corner where some guys were selling books and so I started talking and they were Russian They're both poets they and they spoke English guy so you know he's right and it turns out one of them worked as a guide to pass next house Ok so he invited me out there the next day. To go out to pass the next house when it wasn't open to anybody else and of course he had to convince the people caretakers there and so I had this whole day pass next house and I think I'd always that novel had always had a big effect on the story of a poet you know it's you might make that novel you know yeah. Dr survived go yes so and I took along a glass of I mean a little bottle Vikings and cups I didn't tell them but we went out so fast and I scraped so I pull out the cuffs and they all had Vika and I mention to this one of my favorite poem and so he was I did it from memory it's about a candle burned on the table and it's the end of Dr Chicago so I've had all kinds of coincidences like that that somehow. You don't know if they're fated or just you're sending things out of your polling thanks to you but lots of things happen that you just don't expect when you're on your own but writers do play a row in your choices when you travel Oh yeah you know I go to some others that you wouldn't go past next house oh I've been to stranger exhaust in Stockholm one time I got a book on where people lived in Paris and so I just met with a book and I went to all these of a place where where Hemingway lived and Joyce lived in search of Stein and so forth . Yeah in fact that was my reason for doing a lot of things was I thought Ok well poets really do this they go places they honor other poets they see what the world is like and they have things happen to them so in a way it turned to be out to be an excuse just a moment around. I felt that next city I went there's the museums but probably after a month there the biggest effect was just wandering around the streets especially during the day of the dead and thousands of people around you. And you just sort of absorb the atmosphere and so I think that's part of traveling for me the writers are an excuse and when you mention that the last line in Dr Zhivago and he quoted it I don't know about you but I just I found it thrilling that sometimes I can perish there's a bridge Tell me a hobble and there's a poem and read a poem you know and sometimes if I start reciting a Frenchman will join me and. And it's for me it's through ing to share this culture I don't know if it was for you same traveling so here's a person on the other side of the world who has read this book and who is 6 thrilled about it as I am and could quote from this book. Well that's one thing event if you travel chief you end up meeting a lot of people. Because you're saying this is a result tell no I mean when I just stayed in I stayed in a 16 bed room for a month you know there were all kinds of They've all kinds of languages everybody going through it's hard to meet people are they because everybody's looking at their cell phone this is everywhere and a couple sit down at the table they're having dinner the 1st thing is both of them pull out their cell phone so you have kind of a strain there that wasn't there before. But it's very Yeah because that you need be from Australia or whatever and you're much more likely to find people like that in that situation my guest is Wayne Pease and he has written a book cloud watch or a fire lookouts book a days and you have your work a seasonal thing that leaves you time to travel to on various places. And I imagine if you mention you don't have t.v. And you're reading books you say that being in nature gives you peace in your other nature but I was thinking as you were describing that well I think if you're out of touch with world news. And u.s. News that that would. Allow you to be more cities fall than those of us who follow the news yeah I know that most of the news this decade later 80 percent is speculation what might happen you don't get an in news you constantly have this fear brought up of what might happen and the actual facts are almost nonexistent so. And for t.v. In general also with the ads and just keeps you hyped up it constantly works on your nerves if you just listen to an ad you feel how it's raising your temperature level. And also I think it's hypnotizing you at the same time I think hypnosis is one of the secrets of life and we're always have been sizing ourselves and that the main way we change ourselves as we go to a therapist we get a different story about ourselves we switch our story or the same thing with Art I think all of our really switchers you end somebody else's thinking and it's like a little vacation from yourself it may not change you but for that time it's a vacation from this hypnosis so. So I think that's basically we're in a trance most of the time and it's t.v. Especially would be made there to transfer you into buying things. But I've worked in theater they say that toward the end of a play you want everybody in your audience to go in a trance for 20 minutes that's your goal just before the end of it and this happens I think with movies I think it happens if you think about read a book the repetition of a lot of things you go into another world and so your own thoughts are forming in different ways than they normally do as soon as you close the book you're back at are you wake up in the morning and you're back in your. World of yourself. And so it's very hard to shake yourself unless you have brain damage that's the one thing that will change. For sure when you mention meditation and several times in your book you mention meditation or yoga and you tell a little insert a little Zen story in your that day's recounting of the day was like where does all this come from well I've gone through periods of number one I was then in shamanism I was really interested now in probably my twenty's and even now go back and read a zen book and so for. Now the one thing that I've tried not to do is adopt any particular system in other words most people are a lot of people I should say most. Will adopt one system and they're out there read everything and Zanla go to. Buddhism things that's like buying a Harley Davidson you buy a Harley Davidson I don't think I've ever heard anybody compares them to a Harley Davidson is the same as the way you're you're immersing yourself in a system so you buy that you ride with other guys but the main thing is you trick out your whole thing your whole bike with different things and when they go to these rallies everybody's like and everybody's like to see how they tricked out you can spend your whole life thinking and being inside Harley Davidson you can do the same thing as an meditation you go to monasteries. And so any system that you adopt is security but it's also a limitation and so you're limited to say the way the Bible says things and you see people writing notes in Bibles for years in cafes and stuff same thing they're obsessed with that system or that particular way of looking at things and so anyway I've tried to break that and not do that so sometimes I've gone through long periods of yoga meditation therapy I've been to all kinds of there in fact one point you say I could say myself a lot of money if I just read this. For a 95 self-help book so I don't get therapy Yeah I was the one that they that actually you know is talk of exchanges like that I have one that actually did and that was I used to get a lot of trouble by being a savior and trying to save other people who are in trouble for think they feel drugs or whatever and I always got them in more trouble and then I wrote a book called When helping others is hurting yourself. And that was all about how we are trained to be saviors usually by a parent who can vides everything and as and we become their savior my mother was sick a lot when I was young and so you're trained to be a savior. And I had I gave it up finally and it was much better for other people but I think I did a letter for other people for you to quit trying to help but now I'd say I think I did a lot of. Trying to help it intentions best intentions Yeah so by getting out of that mode I realized what was going on and therapist was that oh your mother and your sister really trained you to take care of women. My guest is Wayne ps and he spent 55 years as a fire lookout and he has written a book cloud watcher a fire watchers a fire lookouts book of days and you name number the days you describe and you're just talking about the fact that you don't follow one narrow path that may put it that way right and don't you think it's probably because of all the world travel you've done that you see there are other ways of seeing the world looking at things I think that might be true. Maybe more reaction other people who get on a one track way of thinking and. Really annoys because they think their way is the way all of this and you really can't convince somebody like that you spend a lot of time trying to change their mind forget it they're locked into this whole system and that's what I said like self-hypnosis were locked into our own way of thinking and I mean the danger is that we don't realize oh no so we're at the mercy of we think that's our personality when they think that's us you know and so it's very hard to let go of those things and so usually you need help I just listen to book that was called How to change your mind and it's by Michael Pollan and it's about the recent use of. Psychedelics and therapy where you actually work with a therapist they give you a psychic Ok And it gives you a completely different experience of yourself that's I think that's the main thing he talks about how you know you love everybody and so far but I think the main thing is it takes you on a different track and so you've had an experience that's really outside your yourself and your own experience and so it can have long lasting ramifications so. That's that's one way you can do it another way you can travel the world you can fall in love I mean there are lots of ways but. Yeah we're locked in their cells and we don't know it. Well at one point in your book you say yeah look out to crack up. Oh yeah I think you've cracked up the way you know but I had one look at jump off a look at killers out another one. That I don't know if I put it in there but it's my boss told me about a story where one time look they heard this guitar playing on them on the radio early in the morning and they couldn't figure out where they were coming from and finally they figure and the guys that reported seeing a dragon going through the lake below him and things like that they finally figured out who it was it was one of the look I am and they got up they found out his wife had committed suicide this summer or winter before and so this guy went off the deep it being alone is not you know people talk about the benefits of solitude I think it's more like Young said he wouldn't analyze some people because they were on the edge of psychosis he would not analyze it because it would push them into psychosis and I think the same as I saw it is not. For everybody and not to be taken lightly so it does take a particular kind of person that's what you said before they do come back year after year well you say so many people say to me it's their children are running around he said they. These people say many people say this I always want to do something like this but then I got married. Well and that's part of having kids you got married and that's people say that a lot and it's true. The other is there was a lot of people said like they'd like to do but. For Service guys I work for they don't like being stuck on a lookout they want to be out fighting fires they want to be in action so look at it is really more for a contemplated kind of person and so that's why so many read somebody who paints writes poem the rights. You have a kind of as if again it's kind of fairy tale you're living I read a lot of fairy tales when I was a kid I just saw a sign in the lives of what were you what did you want to be when you were 5 and almost everybody put down dinosaur. That was the answers but at 5 I was reading all kinds of picture books and as was playing in the woods by myself no mother said when I was little I played so much alone she didn't think I would have any friends or I'd be everything to do with people so she was happy when she found out I had a few friends but evidently that was there from the beginning before I was what they were even as a kid you were I content with your own company and also my grades but I look at my early career 1st and 2nd grade work hard everything is good except working with other people. I always got a d. And. My guest is a veteran fire lookout Wayne peace author of cloud watcher a fire lookouts book of days you're listening to Nancy's bookshelf on North State Public Radio I'm Nancy Reagan. This in This American Life will got some news that most of us will never get is x. Wife is making a movie little in the movie about a couple of white like them that got divorced his biggest fear the thing I was the most afraid of is that the movie would portray me accurately Well watches for the very 1st time with us this week. As Friday evening at 8 o'clock. Support for n.-s. P.r. Comes from Bauer's corporate and oriental rug Karen reading serving the north States since 1980 providing clean restoration and oriental rug care from refreshing to read. A full list of services rugs dot com and by phone 245-9274 which spells 245 wash. I'm Nancy Whitman and you're listening to Nancy's bookshelf on North State Public Radio My guest is fire lookout Wayne Pease author of cloud watcher a fire lookouts book. Tourists and they'd My Space not to mention the occasional rattlesnake. You know that's pretty scary yeah so these are some of the things you say you don't care for things you don't like about the job but one of them is that you have to leave it in the same. Well I was thinking about what I found that one of the most used word in English is time I never knew that and I was reading about time the other day and I think the main thing with me is the evanescence of things and so it's just an awareness of time at a therapist who said I was too impressed by death when I was young. And I was being around probably my father's funerals one friend of mine was killed like I was 11 that was not long after I had my 1st one to look at. We were playing Monday this is in Indiana and it was putting lighter fluid on his hands and lighting it and putting it out well the next day he got killed walking down the street like it was up in his room cleaning his 22 white you went off he had to skin a juggler been so the next time I saw that kid was in his coffin in the living room and had a glass coffin any of his all dolled up you know with with makeup in every kinds of things and there were all these women and black around the room is in his living room and also and I got very afraid and I ran out of there so the whole thing of time and death is as always been a problem and so I think that's one reason I wrote day by day was probably time and measuring time passing do you know as you say that the people were preoccupied with time I remember in college there was a psychology class and she the professor said to fill in this end of the sentence mostly I worry about. And I feel in that sense with having enough time to do everything. I think concerned about time as far back as I can remember I'm trying to get better about it but I always wore a watch and I was always worried that and I have time to get this done I've got to get down no matter what it was and so I too was preoccupied Tom I'm trying to get over it. But I didn't realize that that was a concern or is it yeah Deepak Chopra I was going to he said as a regular holder the 2 things you worry about is what other people think of you because you don't feel old yourself that's when Oscar Wilde said when you get old you won't feel right when you look in the mirror you see and then the other thing is it will you have time and the decrease in time so you can look up things that you know there are a lot of things about you'll have time you have plenty of time to do whatever you want doesn't matter when it is in fact that's what I change my thinking your ammo and I will Montreux tell myself I've got plenty of time. And so time became not something that was limited for me because that's the way I always knew it and it really helps. Well I was looking at others and book the other that's called being time and the whole philosophy of this was echoes and was that we are time we're not separate from time and that everything around us is a depository of time so time is not something we're chasing or there's chasing us it's just here it's like a being in the room it's easy enough to say that it's actually the half that is pretty are. Well you in your book you deal with the fact that. I'll the 1st service I'm just a lowly hourly wage earner in there and they don't listen to me well that's still can be very true I mean I think I'm in a good situation as I work a lot of people. We had a fire by the lit fires all the time I look at last year and are like 25 of my pick those. And so I do get a lot of respect from them but another look I quit this summer when Number one they started they used me for 35 years they paid me for lunch hours are good we'll keep watching through the afternoon this year they just are they're going to save money and they close all accounts for half an hour and in the middle of the afternoon temperature and the Lookout was really upset about it and then he reported the fire and they were saying it was someplace he said No it's some around and he said Is anybody out there listening to me and I speaking Russian and he quit right there on the spot. So so I can be it's true lots of times when you start to finish on all this technology even though you have somebody up there watching you used to call me a lot more in the middle of the night to check on things and so far they if they thought they had something and now instead of calling me they just and a helicopter which every time they put it near I don't know how many thousands of dollars that cost but they really do last I forget to look through up there but it depends on your bosses It depends on who's in dispatch it depends on. Your own ability to make yourself heard but it's I think it's anti is this Pro technology anti human thing that everything can be replaced by machines and I just want to talk about I say and the thing about he said one of the things it's going to kill us because we're building bombers drones and things they can fire their own weapons they can choose their own target and so in a sense as losing control of. The end you know the our work time intelligence so anyway. We have this myth is that machines are going to do it all it's obvious that Americans really love with their machines and I think it's true that my guest has spent 55 years as a fire lookout His name is Wayne Pease and he his book is cloud watch or a fire lookouts book of days and you mention in your book he says suddenly I realize all the dispatchers this year are men and what happen to the female far supervisor and district men Ranger for 10 years the judges and Cisco force the Forest Service to hire more women women were promoted faster whether they were qualified or not causing a lot of resentment among the men 2 years ago the judge lifted the requirement and all the women vanished Well I have to tell you that particular thing is the reason I don't have retirement my boss wanted to get changed my position a permanent Fernie yearly but he said a woman might get the job that I they couldn't fly the job and so I'm going to get the job so I have no retirement. So that's part of the resentment of people from that time on the other hand what happened was people thought they were promoted women too fast would work all fine and so what happened is when I was kind of retreated into the background and now they've become as I say the head of the for services upon earth system as a vine head of a lot of force real women I've had women bosses of all kinds and so the situation is not the same as it was then but that's why I think it receded at that time as they try to promote women to fast and and then given the basic training and a lot of the forestry thing now that's not a problem. Well you continue to be a forest fire looking. And where are you where do you go when you go up into your tower Oh I work in not a flicker which is outside of Quincy California you can look from Quincy right up to the bluff and you can see my like a town's about 7 miles I think it's about 9 miles of dirt road. And what can I say Actually I have flushed look at that resented by the other people because they don't my look out that reveal that 30 years ago and. 2 for the radio system they got money so they tore down the old one and this is when I'm on the cover of that I think of your book that's you yeah and that's while I'm looking while they're rebuilding the look out and so and so I had I have running water they put in a new tank so I have a tank I have electricity because they have all the different. Radio sites up there for the for the for the. For the highway patrol and so forth so when I have electricity running water I do use not have so I don't have and I do have a shower now because they put in after 20 years they've had a big enough tank that I can actually have a shower so I'm not suffering I would say in terms of comforts. And on the other hand you still dispense your time alone and you have to stay awake through the afternoon I mean as it doesn't matter how comfortable you aren't that the more comfortable you are the harder it is I read a book we had an essay called sprawl comfort and it was all of that how comfort can ruin your life. And I've often thought I read another when I said everything you've ever wanted lies just outside your comfort zone. And I like that it's a just you know cartoon where somebody is staring at a map map say you are here Yeah and somebody standing looking at this you're here in the caption said Don't get too comfortable. And that's the part of it I mean I started traveling again when I was getting really depressed this thing and she quit all the time I was busy with theater and with. Garvey But then that kind of that's slacked off and so I finally took a trip to Australia a couple years ago and I was miserable at 1st I mean staying in the arms and all this kind of stuff but by. At the end of the trip after 3 weeks I really enjoyed it so the next year I went back to Australia for a month and really enjoyed the whole thing this time and when I got back from that Australia trip I thought Ok I'm going to go to Mexico City and just sit there and go to museums but also be uncomfortable and I think I would give that for everybody everybody wants them all the thing about traveling is traveling is uncomfortable if you do it the right way. Or you've mentioned just now museums in it one point in your book you say boy I do better can get paid for going to music that is absolutely true I have a lot of experience and oh yeah i've suppose I could have been a museum person and I take a lot of art history classes I still do. But again any time you take on a regular job you're you're locked into a circle so working seasonal is work better because then it gives me. The half of the year and when I go back it takes me 3 weeks to get used to sitting still not looking up to when I get used to that real quick but the restriction of movement because I do a lot of walking I mean I've seen my 10000 steps a day in Mexico City. But I do think you have to make yourself uncomfortable once in a while to wake yourself up I mean it's like get used to the fact that you can deal with it you started it most of it is you start thinking about yourself and I can't deal with that I can deal with that kind of that but if you go off and deal with it then you realize oh I can and you do and you come back from the trip. Feeling a lot more confident as a person that's the very word that came to me as you're describing this because I remember one spring it was the coldest weather spring in South of France since the 1968. And as and I was on foot. And I thought if I ever get warm and dry again I'll never complain about the heat in Chico if I can just Norman dry again. Because when you're walking when you're on foot with a backpack I know. But it also that very thing you just said it gave me confidence Well I did that I can do that if I'm presented with these kind of circumstances I can do it yeah well one of the guys I was camping out at Wal-Mart after the fire said you know homeless people live on the rain all the time I can live in the right and I thought that same thing it with we forget how much we can do and how good we have it you know and we're not real yesterday most is how you become so grateful for a warm dry sleep at night yeah and just a warm dry place we're so grateful right right and that's something that I think that thing of gratefulness is really the big question is like I can't be grateful very often I do remember I got hit by a car over a cross mark and thrown over the car and I had a small fracture my foot and for a month everybody was healthy me and I felt grateful but I rarely rarely feel I think it's very hard for most of us to feel grateful because we're so used to what we got and it's a great feeling. As you say you start to have to promote it area have to get it there. It's been such a pleasure talking to you I always think about your book and I think you might talk cause people to take a look at their lives and maybe do a little thinking about their well they can get the book on Amazon myself so the book is cloud watch or a fire lookouts book of. Retired professor Richard Parker who was a Professor of Philosophy at Chico State University he is co-author of a textbook on critical thinking now in its 12th edition Here's Richard Parker 2 things today 1st about this of your mail if you're like me much of your life is measured by how much mail you receive and I expect the new year will be something of a relief this year besides the usual basketfuls of bad for doesn't it. Some during the Christmas season I asked for trouble when I bought something from a catalog a month or 2 ago the trouble came in the form of a blizzard of catalogs that began arriving in my mailbox I should have known that every catalog mailer in the country talks to every other one and that they trade addresses so you and I get the benefit of seeing every blessid one of these examples sometime between Thanksgiving and Christmas ending 2018 will be especially pleasant in the mail department because the excess metal season was extended backwards by November's elections this fall like in most even numbered years the box filled up with political advertisements as well as the usual ads for tools garden implements cleaning services go to maintenance car repair beauty products and you can imagine what else and the political advertisements which I don't ordinarily pay much attention to they had an edge to them this year that I didn't much like in fact many of them are nothing more than hit pieces that attacked an opponent with claims that at least sometimes I knew were not true so I'm glad that's over with I'm hoping we can all relax for a while and not have to visit the mailbox with a wheelbarrow instead and this is thing 2 today we can sit around and wonder how long it will take us to give up our new years resolutions the ones we've Billingsley made at the end of 28 teen I for 1 am not wasting time I've already given up all of all of them except one but it's a big one I've decided to stop drinking I know this will come as a surprise to a lot of my friends since I've been known to have the occasional martini and or a glass of Amador County is in from Dell among other restore of the liquids. I've been watching my intake lately though as a result of my theory of alcohol attraction the theory incidentally is very simple it just says that alcohol that is inside of you exerts a powerful attraction to alcohol that is outside of you. So that 2nd drink is straining to get in there and mix it up with the 1st one so if it doesn't work the next time you lift a glass but I'm going to stop I'm not going to stop all at once however I'm going to taper off sort of like the way some people taper off cigarettes I'm going to give up every kind of alcoholic beverage but I'm going to give them up one of the time I have the immediate future pretty pretty carefully planned actually for example this winter I will give up absinthe in the spring mostly me say goodbye to grappa and next summer I'm going to give up white creme de menthe single malt Scotch will be next fall's deprivation although I've never been able to afford it anyhow so you see how it goes I'm hoping this will be the 1st New Year's resolution I'm able to keep for a while it may give me inspiration to try something even more difficult next year I'll be open for suggestions this is Richard Parker. You can find this in other episodes of Nancy's book shelf on our website and it's p.r. Got more I mean something. You've been listening to Nancy's book shelf our theme music is the mysterious barricades by Francoise Cooper on performed by Warren hath called Nancy's bookshelf is the production of North State Public Radio. After paradise brings you the latest on post camp fire recovery information you'll hear from government officials financial planners trauma experts and local reporters tune in every Thursday evening at 630 and if you have a question you can ask them at my end s.p.r. Dot org. Rules. Good morning as we come to 11 o'clock your tune to n.s.p. Are no State Public Radio. And k.f.d. Are ready streaming on the web and my n.s.p. Are dog org where a broadcast service of California State University Chico. The take away is next 'd 'd. The big business the detaining immigrant the company's song then getting on the trumpet ministration.