In Pete’s Own Words
This is the first time I believe anything has been done like
this around here to save wilderness areas. It’s a wonderful feeling to know
that in spite of a highly developed built up city like Whittier, that up behind
the city there lies small wild undeveloped mountains.
Many of you, especially you Scout mothers and fathers and Boy
Scouts, thrill to wake up in the wilds
alone in the early morning, breathe the fresh, crisp air and watch the sun
light up the sky with gold.
The blue smogless sky is above you. Minutes later the warm
rays of the sun strike you and your buddies. The rays give the canyon a touch
of magic and make you feel not dead, tired and depressed, but alive with
sparkling brilliance. How wonderful it is to be alive. This is really what
reality is. All around you there is a cool dampness, and dew drops
sparkle brilliantly like jewels, while at the same time you hear sounds
also.
The humming of bees and bubbling songs of birds, is almost
dream like, but still, one knows that it’s reality. One is not escaping
reality, but entering into it. This is what life is meant for.
Very few people get a chance to see what I’ve seen and it is
a privilege for you to enjoy this rarity. Unlike many slide shows and talks
I’ve been to, where making a fast buck is their only goal, this is for an
almost entirely different purpose.
I love to thrill my audience and put zest for life into their
hearts.
Like a dream, the sometimes unpleasantness of everyday life
in
the city far below is temporarily shut out of your mind as
you have a day or a whole week to explore the wilderness, the same as our true
American pioneers and settlers did. This is the land we respect and
are proud of, and fought for. Why not save the little that is left? When we deface and destroy our
remaining wilderness it is no longer progress, but foolish and thoughtless
destruction.
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