Old Man River

"No Nature for Old Men," by Jim Schutze, April 17

So spend "10 hundred kabillion dollars" to sanitize the [Great Trinity Forest], put in trails, cut out those nasty weeds that are actually a part of the ecosystem and light the place up like a Christmas tree so the North Dallas white people feel safe from us poor Southern sector folk, but don't you dare pave over the upper Trinity portion. Talk about an oxy-MORON.

How about we keep the ecosystem intact like it should be? Forget about the lights. Put a minimal amount of trails to provide access for the handicapped but enough spacing in the concrete so the white North Dallas folk crash and burn on their Rollerblades. Then use the kabillion dollars for some sanitized nature area somewhere above Interstate 30 that the rich people of North Dallas can enjoy. Sounds like a winner to me!

Back in the day, I made the requisite canoe trip down the Trinity, and I've got to say that the experience was transformative—in a good way.

The trip took our sizable group of rich white people the better part of a Tuesday, stopping for lunch under the Houston Street viaduct to imagine 16 lanes of high-speed traffic sharing the river way with us, and then on through the Great Trinity Forest to pull our boats out under a highway overpass near Loop 12.

We loaded the boats back on the transport and were back at our starting point in roughly 20 minutes.

And here's the thing I remember: the difference in the pace of the river and understanding that it took nearly the whole day to experience a canoe journey and only 20 minutes to get back by car.

I found tremendous value in realizing the "dimension" of the river and the forest and in how auto travel distorts the reality of damned near everything in our lives.

And yes, Jim, democracy can be brilliant at times.

My idea of a hike is using my Alpenstalk to navigate the stairs leading to my basement garage. Thanks be to God there resides a Cadillac to convey my rather oldish and fat ass on my merry way. I happen to live near the Keaton Golf Course, which is connected to the Great Trinity Forest. Now, should I wish to take a hike, this is where I would enter the woods. I suppose I could drive to the Turner Courts area, risking life and limb and perhaps even the beloved Caddy to make entrance into the woods, but since I live in proximity to the golf course, that would just be plain silly. My neighbor and dear friend Rawlins typically enters the forest on his daily walks through Gateway Park. I suppose one could even canoe from downtown and disembark deep in the woods. Or like me, one could simply stay home and shut up. Thank goodness we have a choice.

Two years ago, along with two other photographers, I spent many months photographing in the Great Trinity Forest for an exhibition we presented on the forest. The three of us all went into the forest individually scores of times, and not once did any of us have an experience as described by Jim Schutze.

The Great Trinity Forest is a greatly underappreciated natural asset of Dallas and the greater North Texas area, and there is much more there than just a bunch of trees.

The thing that always struck me on my hikes on the Buckeye Trail and other trails was the volume of the birds, from hawks to woodpeckers and much more. While the forest is by no means the prettiest forest in the world, there is a lot of beauty to be found. If you look for the bad, you'll find the bad. If you look for the good, you'll find the good. My personal experiences show there to be much more good than bad, and I have thoroughly enjoyed my time in the forest.

For anyone who would like to know more about the forest and of positive things that are happening there, I suggest they find out more about the nonprofit Groundwork Dallas organization that has been doing great work in and around the forest on a shoestring budget for the past several years.

CORRECTION

Last week's featured story, "The Right Guff," provided an incorrect Web address for the "Ace of Spades" blog. The address is ace.mu.nu. Sorry about that.