Tracker – Intro.
Music; Ambience: Birds
JM: In the 1970’s a book named “The Tracker” was published which told the story of Tom Brown Jr., who grew up in the Pine Barrens of New Jersey and was trained to become a master tracker by an Apache elder named Stalking Wolf. Since 1978, Tom has run a school in the Pine Barrens where, he teaches the art and science of surviving in the woods. I’m Jim Metzner and this is the Pulse of the Planet.
TB: The pine barrens is 650,000 acres of pristine wilderness. People don’t even realize it’s in this state. Very thick, very easy to get lost in, and very little known. When I was seven years old, my best friend had a grandfather, a Native American man, an Apache, who came up to visit him and was only going to stay for a month or two and ended up staying over ten years. Grandfather, Stalking Wolf, became my best friend. See Grandfather was a coyote teacher. He inspired, he made you hunger for something. He would not tolerate laziness. I remember once being in this camp and this entire weekend we kept hearing this bird. The bird sounded vaguely familiar and I was about 9-10 years. Anyway, I’m listening to it all weekend and finally on Sunday before I went home I said to Grandfather, I said “Do you hear that bird?” and he says “Yes Grandson.” I said, “Well what kind of bird is it?” He looked at me and he shook his head and he said “What you’re telling me is that you’re too lazy to find out for yourself.” He turned around and walked away, disappeared with all his stuff for two weeks. Never made that mistake again. You didn’t ask Grandfather a question like that. He was right, I was too lazy to go out and hunt it down, stalk it, and see what bird it was. You know what it was? An escaped parakeet.
JM: More about Tom Brown Jr. in future programs. I’m Jim Metzner and this is the Pulse of the Planet.