It’s early morning after an almost-sleepless night when the man in jeans and a green parka steps onto the fragile thermal area and begins toward Old Faithful. It’s hazy, dreamlike as he walks through the fog. I scan his attire for signs of the National Park Service. No tan ranger hat. No pressed khaki slacks. No sturdy shoes. No Park Service badge, but his jacket looks outdoorsy so, still, I figure he must be an employee.
My 18-year-old son sits beside me on the cold aluminum bench for spectators. I avoid eye contact; we rose before sunrise in Jackson, WY, and arrived at Yellowstone before 8, only to learn Old Faithful wasn’t predicted to erupt until 9:33, plus or minus ten minutes. We’ve been sitting long enough that my butt is numb. Sleep did not come easy at last night’s motor lodge, though I’m positive I could drift off now that my coffee is gone and I’m no longer at the wheel of our wheezy rental Prius.
Asking my son if the man walking across the thermal patch of land—scorched white by heat and minerals from the geyser—has a right to be there is a loaded question. If the answer is yes, I’ll be an idiot. If the answer is no, I’ll still be an idiot. When my son is irritable, I am an idiot, plus I veer toward idiocy when I’m tired. What can I say? Earth science is not my forte.
The dozens of other onlookers, sitting on aluminum benches like ours, have quieted. The man continues toward Old Faithful, coming so close he faces certain death if it erupts and sends showers of scalding water into the air. We are within the minus-ten-minute window. Tick tock.
A continuous plume of steam flows from Old Faithful in forceful breaths that rise skyward and curl like embryos that form angel wings before dissipating. Over and over, I watch these embryos grow wings and fly, unable to decipher anything else in the mist.
The instant I realize we might watch a man die, someone in the crowd calls out, “Hey, get out of my picture,” and the laughter to follow is restrained, more like nervous twitters. The comment was innocuous enough for a park ranger or a rogue adventurer. It was a test.
The man in the parka decides he is close enough. Steam hisses from Old Faithful and water churns and splashes over the edges of its caldron. The man extracts a phone from the pocket of his parka and—incredulously—takes some pictures.
The crowd murmurs and gasps in languages from around the world.
My mind reworks the scenario and I know, whether I am or not, this guy is a complete buffoon. I wish I had learned about the force of the eruption and the water’s temperature, but we skipped the indoor exhibition about Old Faithful to walk the path around the other nearby geysers.
Someone in the crowd whistles. The man takes it as support and raises his hands like he’s crossed the finish line of a marathon. This gets a few laughs, but they’re immediately drowned out by a roar of boos.
The booing relieves me. For a second it looked like the guy was going to be some kind of hero. I’m horrified he’s getting any attention at all, after the swagger he’s demonstrated. Mothers of teenage boys often walk a fine line. Delivering life lessons sometimes means letting the masses make the point. A lecture from mom about showboating—or anything—can easily backfire.
Not to mention the disrespect of a national treasure amid miles and miles of protected natural beauty. Isn’t this the root of the problem of our time? That fools don’t follow rules or respect property? That some men are so entitled to a photo they stomp on the fragile ground and take what they want even if it means eventual destruction? Old Faithful is holding off, but my indignation is ready to erupt.
“You’re ruining my picture,” someone else yells. “Get out of the way.”
The man takes the opportunity of having his arms already raised to flip off the crowd.
“You are not allowed to be there. You are facing up to $2,000 in fines!”
Ah, there’s the park employee, safely on the decked area with the rest of us. He gestures to the man to return to the viewing boardwalk.
“What? There’s no caution tape,” the man shouts. “There’s no warning sign. Where’s the caution tape?”
This elicits more booing. It only figures someone foolish enough to risk his life is also angry and argumentative. Would it have been so hard to say sorry and hurry back to safety?
“Get out of the way,” someone says.
They’re right. Nearly everyone has a camera aimed at Old Faithful, waiting for the magic moment. Mine is in my lap. I have no interest in photographing the guy. My son and I, we’re here for the rich history and the beauty of nature.
My son wants to work for the National Park Service. He’s entering his sophomore year of college with a fresh new sustainability major. It’s true he loves the outdoors. He camps with friends and visited Cuyahoga Valley National Park on his own dime. We’ve gone to Grand Canyon as a family.
Now we’re here—just my son and I—on this four-day trip to Wyoming to see Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks. We don’t always get along so it’s a chance to bond if we don’t kill each other first.
I’m thrilled he has an answer to the question of what he wants to be. Not all kids have a lifelong passion or gift for, say, engineering or chemistry. We’ve been telling him for years not to worry; he’ll figure it out when he gets older. This National Park Service job has teeth. I’ve visited their jobs page on the website, which is full of various roles—from environmentalists to geologists, from mechanics to law enforcement, from accountants to historians—and the NPS has internships in many areas for college and graduate students.
He can travel and learn, be trained and groomed for a role based on his interests. He won’t make millions, but I’m a writer so I can’t judge. My husband works in landscaping. Sure, it would be great to have a doctor or lawyer in the family to help us pay for retirement, but our son has a little brother who loves money. Maybe he’ll be the one to pursue rocket science or investment banking.
The environment is ours to protect and save. I couldn’t be prouder that my kid might be a part of that. Plus there are bound to be plenty of jobs to fend off global warming and impending climate disasters. Job security amid saving the planet? Yes and yes.
But now, here’s this angry man breaking all the rules. My son and I learned how President Roosevelt loved nature and worked hard to ensure the beautiful land in our country was protected. We learned how Rockefeller helped keep touristy commerce away from the base of the Teton Mountains and paid for the parkway that connects Grand Teton National Park with Yellowstone.
Just when we were feeling truly submerged in the goodness of nature and the men who helped preserve it, this angry man appears who seems to epitomize those who don’t care about nature, deny climate change science or won’t bother to consider the future of planet earth.
“Where’s the do-not-enter sign?” the man in the parka is asking the crowd. He’s walking toward us, gesturing as if he’s asked the million-dollar question.
“The sign is right there,” my son calls. He is on his feet, pointing to the sign directly in front of us. These are peppered throughout the path around the geysers, with firm instructions to stay on the boardwalk and off the fragile thermal field.
People around us agree and affirm. A few laugh at my son’s delivery; he’s quite funny and his tone holds just enough sarcasm to make the guy in the parka look like an even bigger chump.
“Get out of the picture,” someone shouts again.
The man in the parka stops and appears to make eye contact with someone in the crowd. Thankfully, he’s not focused on my son.
“You have blood running down your legs yet?” the man in the parka asks, again with his wild gestures.
Old Faithful hisses and splashes. It seems the entire crowd silences, holding our breaths. Perhaps we’re afraid for his safety. Perhaps we’re trying to process what he just said. It’s a false alarm.
It takes me a minute to realize he’s referring to menstruation blood. He has said this in front of children, parents, grandparents and great grandparents from who knows how many cultures from who knows how many countries around our beautiful planet.
How dare he, I think. I’m not easily offended, but I am horrified. How dare he speak this way to me, my son who loves the environment and everyone else visiting this place?
The man in the parka reaches the boardwalk safely. He is met by the park employee, who escorts him toward wherever they take guests who don’t respect park rules or can’t follow directions or perhaps can’t read warning signs.
My son and I sit for a while in silence. The plus-ten-minute window passes. Old Faithful does not erupt, but another geyser in the background puts on quite a show. My son checks his phone. We have a schedule planned to hike to the Grand Prismatic overlook and climb Bunsen’s Peak.
“We can go,” I say, wanting to put the unfortunate scene behind us and get back to exploring. Maybe, if my son works at Yellowstone someday, we’ll have another chance to see Old Faithful.
I also save for later the lecture I’ll give him about the angry man who broke the rules, why it’s important to not confront these people when they’re angry, and how I didn’t like the way my son yelled out about the sign. I’ll embarrass him when I confirm whether he understood the blood comment was a demonstration the man is a misogynist, but I’ll do it nonetheless. It’s not easy being the mother of a son.
No doubt the lecture will lead us down the political path, but the discussion could veer in so many ways: ignorance in America, white privilege, climate change, hatred of women, and on and on. Chances are, something will be learned. By both of us.
Later that afternoon, we park the Prius below Bunsen’s Peak and climb. We climb for an hour and a half, stopping to rest each time the altitude makes me dizzy and my heartbeat pound in my ears. I’m terrified of heights, but want to prove to my son I can make it. I want to make up for the man in the parka. We reach the summit and ask a family from Ohio to take our picture. My son puts his arm around me and hugs me closer. I can feel his euphoria about making it to the top.
We sit together on a log to rest and admire the view. We are so high up we see mountains in Montana. The world around us is vast, markedly so, and made clear by the size of the tiny RVs, campers and cars that wind the strip of road that men somehow built into the side of a mountain.
I think about the man in the parka, somewhere below in an office receiving a citation with a hefty fine. Perhaps he’ll be escorted out of the park. I consider again bringing him up to my son during this peaceful moment. I save it, though, for another time. Right now, I’m on a mountaintop with my almost-grown son, enjoying the beautiful land on which he hopes to protect and build his life. Right now is exactly why we took the trip to Yellowstone in the first place.
