Joy is a Choice!
Welcome to my "Ponderables" Page Eight
Paul Rokich is my hero. When Paul was a boy growing
up in Utah, he happened to live near an old copper smelter, and the sulfur dioxide
that poured out of the refinery had made a desolate wasteland out of what used to be a
beautiful forest.
When a young visitor one day looked at this wasteland
he saw no animals, no trees, no grass, no bushes, no
birds, nothing but fourteen thousand acres of black and
barren land that even smelled bad, and said, "This
place is crummy." Paul knocked him down. He felt
insulted. Then he looked around him and something
happened inside. He made a decision. Paul Rokich
vowed that some day he would bring back the life to
this land.
Many years later Paul was in the area, and he went
to the smelter office. He asked if they had any plans
to bring the trees back. The answer was no. He asked if they would let him try
to bring the trees back. Again, the answer was no, they didn't want him on their
land. He realized he needed to be more knowledgeable before anyone would listen to
him, so he went to college to
study botany.
At the college, he met a professor who was an expert in
Utah's ecology. Unfortunately, this expert told Paul that
the wasteland he wanted to bring back was beyond hope. He was told that his goal was
foolish because even if he
planted trees, and even if they grew, the wind would only
blow the seeds forty feet per year. That's all he would
get because there weren't any birds or squirrels to
spread the seeds, and the seeds from those trees would need another thirty years before
they started producing seeds of their own. Therefore, it would take approximately
twenty thousand years to revegetate that six-square-mile piece of earth. His
teachers told him it would be a waste of his life to try to do it. It just couldn't
be done.
He tried to go on with his life. He got a job operating
heavy equipment, got married, and had some kids, but
his dream would not die. He kept studying on the subject, and he kept thinking about
it. Then one night, he decided to take action. He did what he could with what
he had. This was an important turning point. As Samuel Johnson wrote, "It is
common to overlook what is near by keeping the eye fixed on something remote. In the
same manner, present opportunities are neglected and attainable good is slighted by minds
busied in extensive ranges." Paul stopped busying his mind in extensive ranges
and looked at what opportunities for attainable good were right in front of him.
Under the cover of darkness, he snuck into the wasteland with a backpack full of seedlings
and started planting. For seven hours he planted seedlings.
He did it again a week later.
Every week, he made his secret journey into the
wasteland and planted trees and shrubs and grass.
Most of it died.
He planted seedlings for fifteen years. When a whole
valley of his fir seedlings burned to the ground because
of a careless sheep-herder, Paul broke down and wept.
Then he rose up and kept planting.
Freezing winds, blistering heat, landslides, floods and
fires all destroyed his work time and time again.
He kept planting.
One night, he found a highway crew had come and taken
tons of dirt for a road grade, and all the plants he
had painstakingly planted in that area were gone.
He just kept planting.
Week after week, year after year, he kept at it - against
the opinion of the authorities, against the trespassing
laws, against the devastation of road crews, against the
wind and rain and heat, even against plain common
sense - he just kept planting.
Very slowly, things began to take root. Then
gophers appeared, then rabbits, then porcupines.
As times were changing and there was political pressure to clean up the environment, the
old copper smelter eventually gave Paul permission to do what he was already doing.
They provided him with machinery and crews to work with. Progress accelerated.
Now, the place is fourteen thousand acres of trees, bushes and grass, rich with elk and
eagles. Paul Rokich has received almost every environmental award that Utah offers.
He says, "I thought that if I got this started, when I
was dead and gone, people would come and see it. I never thought I'd live to see it
myself!"
It took him until his hair turned white, but he managed
to keep that impossible vow he made to himself as a child.
What was it you wanted to do that you thought was
impossible? Paul's story sure puts things in perspective,
doesn't it?
The way you get something accomplished in this world is
to just keep planting. Just keep working. Just keep
plugging away at it one day at a time, no matter how long
it takes, no matter who criticizes you, no matter how
many times you fall.
