4.06.2008

Gotta Get An Early Start If You Want To Volunteer

Earlier this week, heard that The Stream Team of WildEarth Guardians was going to be out on the Santa Fe River, and were looking for volunteers to help plant trees from 10:00-3:00.

Thought that it'd be a worthwhile activity, and a chance to get outside. But Saturday morning started a little late, and then Stacy had a special hour-long show for the pledge drive. So it was noon by the time I headed out, the site was further away than I thought, and it was around 12:30 by the time I got there. It was easy to find, with the crowds of people walking out of the riverbed and back to their cars.

Turns out there was a big turnout in the morning — who would have guessed, something on Santa Fe that started on time? — and so they were pretty well wrapped up. There was one last crew headed out to finish up, so I joined in on that.

 

There were a couple of big augers doing the tough work of making the holes, so the team's work was really just to put in a bundle of cottonwood clippings and then bury them back up. With around a dozen people and two pieces of heavy equipment, we were done within a half-hour or so.

Left me with the afternoon free, and more than enough time for us to make it to book launch for a new biography of Bill Mauldin. Just learned about that Friday morning, and thought it'd be worth checking out — I've long admired Mauldin's cartooning, his ability to convey so much in a single panel.



Todd DePastino is the author of Bill Mauldin: A Life Up Front and the editor of Willie and Joe: The WWII Years. The event was a small, informal one; there was apparently another event Thursday that I completely missed, a big presentation of some sort. So this one was more just Q&A and anecdotes — including the story of pitching the biography, and how he couldn't generate any interest among the 30-something editors who'd never heard of Mauldin, and only got the book going when his 60-something agent found a 70-something editor for it. There were also plenty of tales from Mauldin's life (that I'm assuming are covered in the book) — and some from several of Mauldin's relatives in the audience.

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