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Show Russell Jacobs 24 February 2010 MD: There's a lotta sacrifice involved in his life too, right? He had to be a farmer for a number of years. He had to write books. And then, ya know, in doing all that and being a mountain man, he, according to some versions of his biography, he had to sacrifice a huge chunk of his family life, that he actually really cared about. RJ: I don't know I mean it's hard to classify it as a sacrifice. I mean I think that for John, he wanted a family, ya know. He made the commitment to his wife. He had two girls. Um, married a well-to-do family. Had land. I think for his concerns, for everybody, he fought politics his whole life. I think that wore him down most, probably more than anything else. He had to fight, ya know-his biggest headache was the demise of Retch Hetchy Valley. And, that probably put him in an early grave. He lost that, obviously. But I think that, ya know, if he didn't have to concern himself with the means, he probably would've just lived in a cabin in the mountains, and not worried about what would happen inevitably. But, he cared enough to make that his goal in life. And books I think was his passion too. He wanted to write books. He just wasn ' t able to write as many as he wanted to, because of his battle with, ya know, with congress. I mean, he traveled extensively. I mean, jeez, for, ya know a hundred years ago, and getting all the way from Alasaka, from his hometown, of course his father brought him to the states. MD: It's interesting because even, you said that if he had the means he probably would've just lived in a cabin, but I'm not sure that he would've, because this was a man who was driven by protecting, driven by the idea of protecting these lands that were sort of under assault. So he was a man that was given to work, right. I mean, I don't know that he could've, he wouldn't've been John Muir without the work. 5 |
