Blogs

By Dean Norman

Forest Fire Lookout is a man’s job. Live alone in a tiny cabin on top of a mountain. Go into the woods to haul drinking and washing water from a spring. Go into the woods to cut firewood for your stove. A woods full of bears and mountain lions. Yep, that is no job for a woman.

The U.S. Forest Service found out that the hardest part of the job was living alone. Hardy young men would walk down from the mountain after about two weeks and say, “I can’t take it anymore! No one to see or talk to.”

So they built some larger cabins, and hired young married couples. But the old cabins were too small for more than one person. Only young men were put into those.

WWII created a manpower shortage. Some women were hired as lookouts. Women who could go into the woods for water and firewood. Each lonely lookout on a mountain top was encouraged to talk to other lookouts on the party line telephones. When they weren’t busy looking for fires, of course.

When any lookout or headquarters wanted to talk to someone, they cranked a lever on their telephone. Every lookout heard their phones ring. But you only answered if it was your ring, which might be something like two long rings and one short ring. If others answered, they would hear the conversation, too, and that wouldn’t be polite.

Anyway, the story I am going to tell is about two lonely lookouts who had frequent telephone conversations. When they weren’t busy looking for forest fires, of course. Adam and Eve became good friends. I don’t know their real names, but it is a true story told to me by a veteran Forest Service carpenter who built many lookout cabins. Eve suggested that someday when Adam had a day off, he might hike 10 miles to visit her at her cabin. Lookouts got a day off when it rained, and there was no fire danger.

One fine rainy day Adam made the hike, and the two friends enjoyed an in-person conversation. When he got back to his own cabin that night, he was pretty tired. So Adam and Eve figured out how to be together more often, and not make Adam hike 20 miles in a woods full of bears and mountain lions.

When Eve heard her party line telephone ring one morning, she picked up the phone. It was headquarters checking in on her.

“Everything is fine on Paradise Mountain,” she said. “No smoke or fires to be seen.”

Then she hung up, and a few minutes later headquarters cranked the ring for Wolf Mountain. Adam picked up the phone and reported perfect conditions on Wolf Mountain. The headquarters operator heard a voice in the background say, “How do you want your eggs for breakfast, Dear?”

The district ranger set out hiking a five-mile trail to Wolf Mountain. When the ranger got to the lookout, he saw Adam hiking up another trail to the cabin. A trail that led to the spring, and to Paradise Mountain. Adam was hiking fast and was pretty tired.

“Where have you been?” said the ranger.

“Uh ... to the spring to get some water.”

“Why didn’t you take your five-gallon water can with you? Do you go to the spring every time you get thirsty?”

Well, both lookouts were fired for dereliction of duty. But maybe the story had a happy ending. Maybe Eve cooked eggs for Adam’s breakfast for many years, and they lived happily ever after.

— Dean Norman 

Dean Norman is a cartoonist and humor writer, whose work has appeared in greeting cards, The New Yorker, MAD Magazine, The Cleveland Plain Dealer Sunday Magazine and The Kansas City Star. He's also written comedy for cartoon shows and written and illustrated children's books. He illustrated a cartoon book for Cleveland Metroparks, Cleveland Metroparks Adventures.