A couple of weeks ago, I walked along a spring creek in the upper Madison Valley, just south of the town of Ennis, Mont. As my guide, Jeff Laszlo, explained, the creek is one of the unnamed tributaries of the Madison River, fed by innumerable springs along the valley’s rich bottomland. The creek meanders for miles before it reaches the Madison, gaining water, providing spawning grounds for fish and invaluable wetland habitat for birds. I looked on in disbelief, because the section we were hiking — nearly eight miles of cold, clear waters — did not exist before 2005. – via Editorial Observer – Restoring a Montana Spring Creek – NYTimes.com.

As usual, Verlyn makes us think. His tale of the rebirth of a stream brings to mind all of the stories I grew up with. Stories buried in the pages of The Whole Earth Catalog about Malabar Farm and other efforts to restore lost ecosystem.

I am glad Mr. Klinkenborg forced these memories out of my stuffed head. Because of his walk I took a stroll down memories lane myself. Googleing for the link above led me to the page the link will lead you to…A source of electronic versions of the very books I spent so many hours of my youth pouring over.

I studied the pages of The Last Whole Earth Catalog more than my school books at the time.  I would even venture to say, I learned more from the reviews in the Catalog than I did from many of those school books. It could even be said that Stewart Brand has more to do with the man I became than practically any teacher or mentor I ever had. Just studying the very variety of the subjects that were covered by the catalog and their arrangement and classification taught me the necessity to have a broad base of knowledge going forward in life.

I can even remember where I bought my copy in 1970, Space City News in downtown Houston a block or two from the Humble Building. At $5 it was a hell of a good investment. 452 pages of knowledge between over-sized heavy paper covers. It was huge. Many a night I would fall asleep with this monster on my chest…

Thanks Mr. Klinkenborg for the memories…And thanks Mr. Laszlo for taking on a project of the nature I grew up in awe of.