Parks and People : Freaks vs the Straights (1970s?)

you've got uh college students that uh have start to rebil and uh it become a a very serious problem my my estimation that for law enforcement officers and for the P for the public in general the seasonal who is in charge or second command or whatever say go over to that Campground and see what the hell those hippies are doing well you know je you go over there and there's five or six Vans you know what what hippie they talking about or what the hell's a hippie and uh there's a bunch of long hairs in C3 go over there and check them out why make sure the Camp's clean you know if the Camp's dirty kick them out you know and I feel you know it gives me a kind of a weird feeling just have somebody say well if they're not doing everything perfect throw them out but I've never yet been sent over to the campground for what we call the straight society and say throw them out not once personally I don't quite know what a hippie is unless he says I'm a hippie he has a different Farm of dress from the other people uh uh I think the average American citizen rather expects him to tend to W violence because they have seen him on the TV acting violently I remember the preacher was telling me uh that he run across a young lady down there was just uh bare ass naked um and she didn't think anything about it she's just talking to him just like you and I standing here talking now he says I don't know what you do about that she wasn't disturbing by that me I'd say uh no doubt that the majority of the problems in this park are with the youth we describe them as hippie types the long-haired the under the 21 age group I I definitely think they're wrong I think they're causing the problem I think they're doing things that are illegal you can talk generation gap or you can talk sociology you can say uh he didn't have the same chance that you had but I think they're causing the problem I think uh since the majority of the trouble is with long hairs that actually probably subconsciously or consciously most Rangers now have a prejudice against long hairs law enforcement's getting so out of hand it's unreal like you know they just you know uh they see the way that you carry yourself you know majority of people are clean I sure hope so for their own benefit but uh you're hair's a little long or something and like uh yeah like I need a haircut yeah right that's what I hear that's it they theye you look a little different and they think that you're in an entirely different person you think that you're not you're not from this Earth or something One Cop he I know he was from uh South you know and he'd sit there and talk to me keep on talking about my dog and my ID and he'd get me in a corner where I couldn't answer and he' nudge his but and go ha dig it I got him this time you know and they did this for about 2 hours I've tried to be nice to you know hundreds and hundreds of them and they have no respect for you it's really nice they're a lot nicer here than in a lot of other places you know more willing to of course it depends on if you have long hair I think with the long hair I harass him a lot more than I do with the uh with the other type of individual is because he's that way he's long- haired cruddy I think he he was born and raised and brought up a lot better than that and he just it's one of those things you just changed it it's just a hassle man the only time i' come back here is if uh you know I was riding with about 200 bikes man sometimes I'm harassing the people yeah some of the young kids and the narcotics and all these problems we have out here we We R them we keep them moving because we have an idea what they're up to that's all we have been getting as hassle since we got in this park we do get a lot of feedback from the young people because they do not like to see police forces in here uh they do not like to feel that uh they would be arrested for underage possession or possession of Narcotics or the disorder they cause um they resent it more than the visitor who comes here to enjoy the park uh as we think it should be enjoyed the older generation comes up here and they get very turned off as to what what they see and and being kept awake at night in the campgrounds and all the noise and the drunkenness and dis disorderly conduct etc etc and they stay away well the space AI behind uh means one more Campground which is open for uh uh the individuals who want like the drugs and the parties and uh you know what goes with it so consequently we have the one segment of the population is avoiding Yia like the plague and at the same time another segment is flocking in for uh all the the lawlessness we encounter quite a few visitor who would be described as a straight who comes to us and wants us to take action against the long hair just because he's he's a long hair and we try to find out what what is being done wrong and quite often nothing is being done wrong he just objects to uh the scene so to speak of this person or this group being next to him and he feels that they must be wrong because they look so totally disreputable by his standards when we have well like our motorcycle gangs we'll event uh come in occasionally um the good people or the quiet people just pick up and move out and unless these gangs they in most instances will conform to the regulations because uh my general Spiel to them is your places are running out if you should screw up here that's one more place you can't go and eventually there's going to be no place that you can go the people who come here who have come here in the past never saw a park ranger and so this area got a reputation kind of like for freaks it attracts Freaks and they come down here and they try and get away with just about everything they can I've had communes set up down below the falls and they never last very long because food's a problem down here and they usually resort to stealing food from the campers I've busted up one commune and uh I've chased two guys out for stealing that I caught at 3:30 in the morning during Easter vacation here the local population or the so-called straight population they they seem to have no tolerance for long hair one occasion last year we had arrested two young young men for indecent exposure took them into the Shannon County Jail where we booked them and then arranged a court hearing a very short while later the the Magistrate Judge who was 84 years old issued a court order directing myself and two other officers who are Deputy sheriffs in that county to take the two young men to the local barber shop for a shave and a haircut we advised the judge that this was contrary to Supreme caught rules and was held to be cruel and unusual punishment and he promptly informed us that we would not have to compel them to get a haircut but we would take them to the barers shop under penalty of contempt ourselves if they elected to refuse to get the haircut we were directed to bring them back into his court once daily each time he planned to assess the ma maximum fine for contempt of court or this sort of pressure the boys elected to get their haircuts we have a lot of hippies uh I'll have to speak very frankly and honestly and say that in 8 years experience of working both day and night that uh 80 90 even as high as 95% of them have not given us any trouble and when asked to leave an area or asked to put out a fire they have done so most of the the people here in the valley that we do get all of our problems from as far as law enforcement are the long-haired individuals we shouldn't just assume that all kids are thieves and that all all adults are are good and that for example that all long-haired kids are problems and that if they cut their hair why they're complying with adults and are automatically good it's kind of hard for Rangers to uh keep a breast of things like that to deal fairly with uh both sides and in a changing social world we hitchhiked um up from San Diego here and it's you know everybody's been great to us turning a sun into a lot of food free food and it's really been great and these beautiful people would like to live down here forever ever because it's such a beautiful area and they go around to the campers and beg food and that kind of thing and I eventually have to step in and put my foot down and be kind of nasty to them the young people say this is Eden and I represent the snake in the Garden of Eden in the campgrounds we have some people who like to partake of Narcotics uh alcohol they want to sing along uh look for the girls and to to have a party while they're here in yemane now you said we come up here and do what we want to do well a lot of things we want to do we can't do because let's face it it's human nature you got to keep your thing together you know we're not animals it wasn't so bad last year the Rangers just said keep away from the camperas but now that they're wandering out in the woods you know picking out toward me see quite a few guys get wrest yeah they even have people in plain clothes you know just reg people with Levis on arresting you searching you down I I think that probably we have some people who are uptight about this class of person now whether they're doing anything wrong or not they want to really keep an eye out which maybe maybe they know more than I do about this but with the job I have all winter long I just can't see it you know because I sit and talk to kids of this nature uh we talk about different things and uh I can't see where they're you know a person's got to prove to me that they're an ass before they are an ass in other words and just because they have long hair they're wearing the beads and and the girls got no bra which that's up to them too uh that doesn't mean that you know that they're on pot and they're they're acid heads and uh all they're going to do is run around and sell it and give it to other kids I mean I don't go along with that theory that uh fact it bugs me a little bit uh we just don't have time to sit down and WAP with those kids to find out what they want from a national park and at the same time to tell them what we consider to be minimal acceptable standards in the park in other words uh the problem of disorderly conduct in the campgrounds I mean gee that's a growing phenomena we can hardly uh pass a week without having some kind of type of Confrontation in a campground well G I think we could solve our problem or a part of it at least if we could sit down and say look man like we don't think this is a acceptable behavior in a national park you come to a national park not for a 3mon rolling party but there are other values you know but jeez we don't have time there's an accident down the road here 5 miles an hour there's a guy drowning in the lake uh there's another there's a car prowl there you know we just don't have time to do that quite often a lot of these young people tend to be some of the deeper appreciators of the park and are more aware of it kind of interesting you know you always think of long hairs uh as being a problem and a change but uh some of the most intensely interested and interesting people are some of the long-haired people who are really interested in the par some of my Best Contacts most Pleasant enjoyable contacts in any given day are uh all hippie types freaks or whatever you want to call them by the same token some of the most unpleasant and toughest contacts are with the same type of people in a slightly different situation ation but primarily if we can talk about Yellowstone and we have something in common why we do all right my finding has been that they're not a bunch of grammar school dropouts there for the most part are probably all college graduates I don't say all but a great part of them are college graduates or college students at least and they're very intelligent and for the most part also I found that they're really the ones that are concerned about What's happen happening in the country concerned about uh environment the destruction of the environment we have very little problem with them the younger kids come and take over and they don't seem to have too much regard for what other people feel are their rights you know for decent language Etc and uh we get a lot of complaints about kids raising can and they swore in front of my wife and this kind of stuff I don't know if that's anything abnormal or if they're just they're kids I guess they do that young people have come up here to get away from the city to have a nice vacation to gather and more or less to party if you want to call it partying just a matter of getting together and talking and rapping and having a nice time and they can't do that anymore because the forcement come in and they make them clear out or they may be interrupting some person's lunch hour and they're asked to leave they have a great need to get together in large groups to really enjoy themselves and uh we uh feel that it's h it's terribly wrong if a number of them get together in one area we're sure they're doing something wrong it's an illegal assembly or something so we uh break this up they run off all the toilet tissue and you go in there there's none no mirrors they try to break the commode right off the wall or off the floor break the lids off oh I mean that cost taxpayers money these restrooms in Camp 12 cost the government $2,400 a piece couple over there doesn't have a mirror left in it you think we're too soft on sure we're too soft they wait too long before they try to do anything new breed the hippies the hippies whatever name to be used for them I think the only point that we have trouble are the radicals I'm not a long ha myself but uh I don't have anything against them what really got me mad with the chicks is when they're searching them you know they're putting their hands underneath their clothes and everything and and they're just put yeah they're just putting their hands anywhere they want to and that don't get it at all they're going to search a chick they're going to Pat them for a weapon not stick their hands underneath their blouses and down their pants and everything and I saw a lot of that yesterday well I think it's disgraceful we came here to have a very nice weekend with five children and we put up our tent and we were quite happy and there were a lot of hippy kids over there creating a lot of noise but they were having fun in their own way and the way this whole thing started it was just like a like a stepo movement the way they just came in and threw them all on the ground the kids started crying it was just awful it should not happen in the Parks parks are where you you come to have a recreation and fun with the children not to have someone coming along hassling you and arresting you and I don't really care much whether they cut them with dop or that they didn't all I know is it wrecked our whole weekend it got everybody uptight and it was just miserable if they want to arrest these kids for dope smuggling there's a highway in and a highway out can't they do it on that why must they do it here I think that they should take these policemen and the whole the whole thing that they're starting here and stop it right away and if they have to arrest somebody do so on the highways because they must reinforce the law we all realize that we need the law more than anybody does with the children but we don't want displays of it like that exhibition the other night it was disgraceful it's disgusting to see one set of human beings treat another in that fashion disgusting you can't just curtail uh the enforcement of the law because it's a park so uh if these things are brought into the park and uh the park people are made aware of it why then they it's their Duty bound to make an arrest in this case they felt that the uh people were pedaling dope at this at the park uh this caused trouble and uh I felt that their coming in was right the manner in which they did it was a little bit abusive I felt it was a little bit strong the way that they uh attracted the kids the way they pushed them around and in some cases uh one or two cases where they were aggravated uh the police reacted two actions by the uh fellas themselves the kids themselves when they tried to scratch the backs of their necks they kicked them and so on and this made her awfully upset this this whole inhumanity to man you know got her completely freaked out it's too bad it's really too bad the long hairs that that were coming in contact with the 95% of them are polite and and uh and seem to be interested in in the National Park Service and their first national River and that sort of thing they do bug the the seem to bug the straight people just by being here the straight people don't like to be around them but but as far as the the long hair is going out of their way to create problems for the for the Rangers or the or the straight people I have never observed that they just there's just a a friction between the two groups that an animosity and I think it's mainly on the part of the straight people they have more patience you know I think it's a total Trend now that younger people are getting to have more patience with other people than some of the older Rangers or even older people in general the younger people are harder to control mainly because they have in their mind every time they see a policeman that he's going to do something to them a lot of policeman stereotype long-haired type people uh and you can't really blame a lot of policemen that are continuously on demonstrations for doing this except it just takes experience from the with the policemen and a lot of demonstrations to realize that just because someone has long hair he's not really basically a troublemaker there's a potential he is but you got to wait till you know wait till he does something wrong before you can actually say he's a troublemaker the older people that come here to demonstrate are extremely peaceful we've had all kinds of demonstrations young and old but uh the older people that come here or you ask them to do something they do it because they have respect over the years for the police department they're older people above my age above 30 above 40 that just make me sick to my stomach to deal with and there's just as many below that age group that give me the same feeling and there people above and below that line and I like it's an individual thing you can't group it when adults see that kids don't take their advice they become terribly indignant about it and feel that their role in society is threatened I guess and and so they say why don't you do like we tell you to do and so I suspect that's a good part of it we don't really try to accommodate them and try to understand their point of view as much as we should I would say that U there really is no problem at all uh getting along with the long-haired person uh as long as you as long as you treat them with respect and uh and don't try to order them anywhere or out or otherwise I don't make an effort to uh or should I say I don't go out of the way to establish a a wrap or repo or what have you with the long hairs but if they approach me neither do I completely ignore them there are Rangers in our service who view the the young visitor who wears his hair long uh with or without a beard with or without granny glasses and Beads uh who is going Barefoot without a shirt perhaps as uh simply instinctively an undesirable you know in quotes an undesirable visitor and this is something that that in our service I would suggest to to our Rangers that we can't countenance this is getting us into an area of rendering personal judgments about who is a good Park user and who is a bad Park user and this is not a function of either management or of law enforcement until uh until anyone whether he's driven in in a Cadillac or whether he's come in uh on his bear feet with a pack on his shoulder and with long hair until they violate clearly a park rule or regulation or some other law which is applicable uh the judgment is not called for and we cannot be guilty of uh selectively enforcing law on the basis of appearance among the Rangers are good and bad Rangers there are the kinds that take a harder line uh and there there are those who uh who don't unfortunately most of the kids see the bad ones and they think that everyone in the the ranger staff is that way is a labeling process the whole group gets identified with the bad ones uh and that's exactly the case um among the thinking of the rangers they see uh a number of kids who are are doing some things that are are really bad so really freaking out on on reds and and wine and Yus or stealing and they see the way these kids are dressed which which is not very very appropriate by conventional standards and they see the length of the hair and everything and they say oh yeah I I know that type and then every other person who looks that way is labeled in the same way and so um this tends to polarize the groups a great deal because the the whole group is identified with with a relatively small proportion of bad people and I'm convinced that in both groups that proportion is small I've forgotten the figures but uh as we look like at the next uh national election s some 25 million people over the age of 18 and below the age of 25 is it uh will be uh eligible to vote and likely will vote in large numbers and I think it's with this group of people that we see the the greatest change in attitude and uh view about what parks are all about in a national political sense we've we've legitimized young people not specifically the freak youth culture but freaks are part of the the general 25 million people um economically for a long time business has has recognized that there's a a different group of people young people who uh have different needs and they've they've responded to those needs very very uh very greatly um very various marketing techniques have have encouraged young people to to buy certain products that are oriented you greatly towards them uh so why shouldn't uh why shouldn't the Park Service respond and legitimize this group of people too Park programs are traditionally have been built upon uh the American family and that unit as the basic user of National Park facilities and programs consequently we have geared our programs our operating programs our public use programs and we have geared our facilities to the family unit the young people today uh don't use the parks as a family unit they're they're apt to use them singly and in twos but very often and most often in in relatively large groups 15 25 30 and even larger and yet our facilities our campgrounds are not designed for this kind of group use they're designed with individual sites based upon you know a maximum perhaps of six people per site again the family unit uh concept our picnic grounds are established and designed in much the same way so that we uh really don't have programs that are youth oriented if the objective was to knock the young person with long hair out whether we call him a hippie or whatever we call him I think that's true we'll probably stop having him come in the large numbers we uh are out from the time they enter the Park through the entrance station to the time they depart or keeping a sharp check on them with the idea of uh getting rid of them actually and I think once the they really do crack down I think the word will gradually get out that yuse isn't such a great place for parties after all that uh people who work in yuse and who enforce the rules and regulations and they will be enforced and that uh possibly we may get a change in the the clientele up here this this is what what we're hoping for no I think this is a natural park and I think that everybody should be welcome up here I don't think it should be limited to the people that have campers and that have money that can afford to come into the park and sit down and play cards I think it should be open to everybody uh I think we would have gone nuts if we had been over on this other side because or the people around us would have because we're constantly singing and we constantly have very noisy campfires at night we stay up allall hours at night and it's really great we're not very apt to make judgments about uh a Boy Scout group or a conservation organization group as they're making use of the park uh because I think we have accepted that they have their uh credentials and therefore they're good Park users yet I know from having talked with many Rangers that they have observed the behavior of conservation groups Boy Scout groups and other similar kinds of groups in the park that has simply not been acceptable they have abused Park resources uh to a similar degree as any of the uh young groups in society who were using the park in their way you're mixing two groups and of course one group don't see eye to eye to the other group and causes a lot of hard feelings because one group doesn't come here for the same thing the other group does they should make a campsite for the young people you know the ones that like to make a lot of noise and some for the for the older folks like us I I think there's a lot of validation you know and say a special area if they want to stay up and sing all night well fine you can't have any music on after about 9:00 or something 10 something and if you do they don't just tell you to turn it down they come tear your van apart and look through all those setting up special camp areas where uh whatever you want to call them freaks long hairs or whatever ever can have uh their way as one way of dealing with the problem yet I don't think it particularly fits in the overall Park Service idea I think that uh once we start setting up special areas for one group then we have to set up special areas for another group and U pretty soon you have quite a problem problem uh Without Really vastly expanding your facilties if they'd make one camp like Camp 11 a party Camp you know like Camp 11 and just put everybody wants to Gig and Hoot and Holler over there that solve half the problem cuz that's that's most of the problem is these old people complaining to them about the noise a moderate a moderate type of segregation like that I think would be great like they come in here you pay stay in the campground you get a big group think they can make noise all night long and other people come in the camp too they're not the only one they to go in some desolated place out in the middle of the desert somewhere they want make noise all night my opinion everybody's got to live together in some Manner and the only thing we would do by separation in this in this context would be to reinforce the the problem that already exists I think people likes to be free to Camp where they choose in a park really if those in the majority in this case is the establishment staits don't see a kind of action which they say is a crime um maybe it isn't a crime then I mean it's the old question of whether a a tree falling out in the park Woods uh makes a sound when it crashes uh the relativity of what is deviant has much to do with the perception of those people who Define it as deviant I think that uh the uh management concept of um having special campgrounds with special regulations for the various types of groups that come to the park is really the only way to go um the uh the incompatibility of the two groups in the same Campground is just going to lead to a continual uh confrontations between the two groups and consequently it's going to require law enforcement response and this is what we want to get away from anything that we can handle through a management process to eliminate a problem instead of having to engage into a law enforcement response to it is what we've got to do we've got to go to a management concept of it uh we don't need a sophisticated uh campsite costing $2500 $3,500 a site uh to accommodate these youngsters what we do need are group camps and hosts we likewise uh need to recognize that uh the age span that we have in coming to our Parks uh has increased and normally in times past we had a rather affluent uh group of uh fairly above uh middle AG people come into the parks they came there they hiked uh they got tired they wanted to go to bed uh many of our visitors coming there today don't get tired and want to go to bed at 10:00 and I think we have to recognize this and the kind of programs that we offer and the kind of facilities that we offer uh I don't believe that we ought to provide youth campgrounds but I do think that in our campgrounds we should make some change in program times and in curfews and these kind of things there isn't a hassle between our young long hairs and the older people that come down they each uh go their separate ways and uh do their own thing really and they they pretty much accept the the attitude and the the way of life of the other individuals in relation to my position as a school teacher I attribute all of it as far as I'm concerned my personal opinion that is Parental Control the kids are running more uh they're more mobile they have cars they do what they want the parents don't know where they're at and quite often they don't care 20 30 years ago they ate go goldfish today they wear long hair this one holl us this way and the fathers and mothers are still complaining about the children with seem to get along all right and have very few instances that I can recall when there was any agitation uh either way from the Rangers towards them or them towards us it's a different Cape cot is has a different uh policy than the other Parks I've been to especially the the Western ones uh I think it has uh it has worked and certainly um by by measure of crime uh Cape Cod has last year had 32 reported acts of major crime um which accounted for less than 1% of the total amount of crime reported in the National Park system not considering the uh the uh DC area um y had 14% And Lake meat had about 8% so measured as measured in terms of Major Crimes Cape Cod is working measured in terms of the way the Deviant groups um see the park rtion it's working too I had nothing but but praise on my interview uh pad when I was talking to the gays and the freaks the gays thought the Park police were were not the Park police the Rangers who were doing a very good job and uh that was that was true for all the other deviant uh deviant groups in Cape God it was exactly the opposite that in the western parks there were criticisms about hassling I think law enforcement is the only way to go about it with these with particularly the young kids uh I think they want to get their wrist slapped so to speak they're out there seeing what they can do how much they can get away with so we try and give it back to them I think uh our image is not much different than the typical police officer in the typical urban area and uh in some ways you see uh we're hassling him or this young person in the same way that uh the police are in his communities we're asking him to keep quiet we're asking him not to blow dope next to Mr Joe average American uh we're asking him to uh camp in designated areas we're asking him uh not to um let his dogs run out without a leash I mean we're hassling him and we have to but uh he doesn't regard us as any uh any savior of the wilderness any Joel Ranger just another Federal Pig but I still believe that it's that it's very possible that we could uh get a dialogue going with the kids again and uh not add to the generation gap but actually contribute finding some means of closing a little in the park because there's a tremendous background to talk that we can all dig that's the scenery and uh we could stop being uptight us I think maybe we could strike up a pretty good dialogue with the kids whether we recognize it or not everybody yearns to belong and what they yearn to belong to most of all is to the human race and the human race is a great stream that has been flowing through history for thousand thousands of years and they want to be a part of it and uh I don't really believe that it's necessarily a generation gap I don't have any generation gap uh with our children uh it's simply a question of uh do you appreciate them as individuals and respect them as individuals or do you categorize them as young people who don't really understand what the problem is and uh sometimes I feel that that's really the problem uh is that uh people at my age level don't recognize that these are very very smart young people who are deeply interested and committed to the ideals of national parks to the value systems in this Society even though sometimes they demean them or criticize them the very fact they're criticizing them as an indication they appreciate them otherwise why would they be criticizing you uh so that it's a matter of self-respect again and your attitude about people do you like people do you love people do you believe that people are your brothers and if you believe this then you can communicate with them because trust in genders trust and if you don't trust the visitor if you don't trust the uh uh young person who may deviate in hair or dress then there is no basis on him to trust you uh so that somebody's got to trust somebody first before we're going to restore Communications and my attitude is let's trust him and see what happens