After reading USFS 1919: The Ranger, the Cook, and a Hole in the Sky by Norman Maclean, I first have to mention that without the uniqueness of this author, this narrative story couldn't have grasped my attention. I remember when I first started this reading and thinking to myself that this story was going to be very long. The first passage that directed my attention to the style of writing was on page 131, when the author describes how the horses had no saddle sores and described it as "one wet satin back after another..." The narrator was describing the beauty of unpacking the horses after a long ride up treacherous terrain and keeping the horses healthy. This was the first visual that struck me. Even though I had never packed horses or thought about the beauty of not getting saddle sores, I could appreciate and connect with the piece from this point on. Basically, it was at this point, I comprehended the rest of the reading as a story truly reflective of this individuals life and could appreciate the authors in-depth writing.
Through this story, the narrator is seventeen and he takes us on his journey in Montana during the summertime when he worked for the forest service. The language and ideas are very consistent with a seventeen year old thinking. For instance, the narrator hated the cook in the story, he looked up to the Ranger named Bill, and is the only person I know that can go about 30 miles on foot without a sip of water. Also, I will mention that there many ideas he had that were hilarious along with visuals that were beautiful.
To give a brief summary of this story; it starts out as the crew is heading up to the fire station to watch for fires. Then we are taken to the lookout spot where we get a great visual and explanation of how the clouds look when there is a fire after lightening. After receiving a few bumps and bruises up there, the narrator then takes us back to Hamilton where he has forgotten to drink any water on the way but tells of hunting for mountain goats and envisions his father and one of his ex girlfriends watching him. He is headed to Hamilton, ahead of his crew who were following behind with intentions to take the town in a card game. The cook was an excellent trickster with cards and they were going to play his hand and win. Once in Hamilton, he got really sick because after dehydration, he chose sodas instead of water. When the crew arrived, they ended up playing the card game and winning. A fight broke out, but the crew took their winnings. After it was all said and done, the Ranger Bill headed back into the canyon, and the narrator thinking that he would see this man again, did not.
What I realized from this writing is that it is relatively close to real life situations. In life there are sometimes lessons learned and sometimes not. The narrator was young and he looked up to this Ranger and maybe, for a moment, thought his life course was going to be much the same. Yet, he never returned to see Bill ever again. At the end of the book he mentions; "Everything that was to happen had happened and everything that was to be seen had gone. It was now one of those moments when nothing remains but an opening in the sky and a story-and maybe something of a poem." (page 217). This allows me to conclude that this was just a story that was a glimpse into this young seventeen year old life for this certain time. Really, I didn't take anything more from it. Yet, I was inspired and appreciative of the in-depth and creative sharing (if you will) style of writing.
