As you listen to or read this essay, you will be celebrating the beginning of a brand-new month. But it is being written and recorded on another milestone -- the 50th anniversary of Earth Day.
I was present for the very first one, as a student at the University of Illinois. Seminars, programs, speeches and leaflets urged the protection of our environment and an appreciation of the outdoors.
For me, that appreciation would continue for a lifetime. This was the era of the "back to the land" movement and Mother Earth News. REI and Backpacker Magazine. Community cleanups and widespread tree planting.
I would be fortunate enough to acquire a small hobby farm in Northern Wisconsin, if only for a few years. I often think about that property and can imagine in my mind how the land has changed, and how it hasn't.
I will celebrate today not only by getting outdoors, but also by revisiting some of my favorite outdoor writers: Henry David Thoreau, Aldo Leopold, and Sigurd Olson. Their thoughts are as timely today as when they were first written.
We have only one Earth. So please...let's leave it clean and habitable for our children and grandchildren.
I'm Jim Kline, and that is my Perspective.
