[pct-l] Fw: John Muir's Birthplace

[Scott Williams]

Great travels MendoRider.  Years ago Dunbar hardly knew who he was.  That
has changed, and our High School now sends students to Dunbar, and on
alternate years, the Dunbar Schools send them to us.  They tour his ranch in
Martinez, and spend a week backpacking and camping in Yosemite, which is
after all, what he's all about.  We've hosted students in the past, and the
brogues are absolutely wonderful.  You get to hear all about their "Duke of
Edinburgh" awards, and the different camping skills they have to learn to
get top honors.  One girl we hosted was leaving here to do her "Duke of
Edinburgh" which included 5 or 6 days of backpacking alone in the Highlands
of Scotland.  Really cool.

They know who he was, and honor him now.  Martinez and Dunbar have been
sister cities for quite some time, and there's a lot of back and forth
between them.

Here all the local schools send their 4th graders to the Muir house in
1890's costume as part of their Calif. history requirement.  Ranger Tad
leads them for a day, sometimes with a sleep over, in all kinds of
activities from Muir's time.  At the back of the property, (right across
from my living room, as I type) is the Martinez Adobe, the oldest building
in the county, a beautiful early Spanish home that was lived in by Muir's
daughter Wanda and her family while Muir lived in the big Victorian on the
hill.  The walls are almost 3 feet thick.  With this Spanish connection, the
kids spend part of the day squishing mud in their bare feet in an adobe pit,
and then make adobe bricks.  They cook in the old bee hive oven, make
candles, and rope, and all the while are told stories of Muir.  It's a
National Park's program for the locals, and it's wonderful.  Ranger Tad
always ends up with them all in the huge old attic of Muir's house where
they get to ring the big bell in the bell tower, and then he tells them the
story of Stickeen, Muir's dog and his Alaskan escapades.  He ends the day
with ghost stories in the attic, and if it's a sleep over, the kids get to
actually sleep in that great old space.

The most precious thing in the whole place however, is Muir's old writing
desk, in his "scribble den" where he penned articles, books and letters that
changed the country, and ultimately the world.  I don't think we would have
the great parks and trails we do without his advocacy 100 years ago.