HV124- Walk in the Park

Hearing Voices from NPR®

124 Walk in the Park: National Parks, Neighborhood Parks

Host: Barrett Golding of Hearing Voices

Airs week of: 2011-10-19

“Walk in the Park” (52:00 mp3):

Yellowstone, Zion, the Everglades, and William Pierce Park in DC:

From the series Neighborhood Stories– Park Life, profiling the daily life of a community’s urban oasis: “Country Bobby” Lowry is the guardian of Walter Pierce Community Park in Washington, D.C. He’s been keeping an eye on the park for almost three decades, and knows more about how it than any city official — he knows the trees, the plants and the kids. In the first of four stories about the park, we meet this transplanted farm boy who never takes shortcuts in his work. See NPR’s has great photo gallery.

Utah’s Zion National Park draws 2.7 million visitors a year, and a major attraction for hearty hikers is a trek along the Grotto trailhead to Angel’s Landing. From the banks of the Virgin River, the yellow-and-red sandstone sides of Zion Canyon rise 2,000 feet. It feels like being inside a huge body. The canyon walls are the rib cage spread open and Angel’s Landing is like the heart.

Take an Angels Landing eHike. Photo gallery at NPR.

From Neighborhood Stories– Park Life: An ode to Leah at Walter Pierce Community Park, who braids hair by the basketball court while the guys play 5 on 5.

Music from Who Is Jill Scott? Words and Sounds, Vol. 1

Another Neighborhood Stories– Park Life: Meet Don Victor Zebina, who has the last word always at the community garden in Walter Pierce Community Park. You need a piece of land, you have to go to Victor. You don’t, your plants might get ripped out. Davis maps the intricate boundaries and passions of the community garden in Adams Morgan — the most diverse neighborhood in Washington, D.C. Recently, there has been a line of people asking for new plots. The tension among gardeners has even led to “garden wars.”

Rick Hutchinson is research geologist for Yellowstone National Park. His main job is minding the more than 120 thermal features in the park: geysers, fumeroles, mud pots, steam vents. He tour us thru the geyser basins — step carefully, the crust is thin and the water is boiling just under the surface.

Rick and a friend died in 1997. They were caught in an avalanche at Heart Lake, while out cross-country skiing on a park-wide inventory of the hot springs. Read Rick’s “Yellowstone Ode.”

The Final Neighborhood Stories– Park Life: Sit by the basketball court at Walter Pierce Community Park and you will find the men in the neighborhood vying for ranking. This competition peaks every summer in the annual Hoopin’ in the Hood Basketball Tournament. It’s the day the neighborhood men plan for all year long. They recruit, talk trash and then play their hearts out trying to win bragging rights for the rest of the year. Hear the call and response of the playground game.

A story of war and sanctuary, of beasts and obsession. The salvation of one Vietnam veteran, writer James P. McMullen, came through his struggle to save something else. McMullen lives in Everglades National Park, and devotes his time to tracking and protecting the endangered Florida Panther. He uses this mission as a way to make peace with his memories of the war.

Produced by Christina Eggloff and Jay Allison, talking w/ Lance Corporal James McMullen, author of Cry of the Panther: Quest of a Species; audio available at Audible. Music by Stacy Bowers, Gary Cavisted and Stew Quimbay.