About the Author
Joe Bill was brought up in the small town of Arcadia in western Wisconsin and lived in Rochester, Minnesota during his early working career. His love of hiking the wooded hills of that area was transformed into a passion for hiking the mountains of Arizona after moving to Fountain Hills in 1987. In the process, he became fascinated with the diversity of the Southwest - its climate, terrain, people, cultures, and lifestyles.
Over the years, numerous visits with different lookouts in their fire towers yielded some entertaining and thought-provoking conversations. Their views from the towers were breathtaking, but their views on life etched equally deep impressions. In the course of their life journeys, the lookouts reached the top, but by climbing a much different ladder. And so the idea was born for his book, Climbing the Ladder Less Traveled.
Joe’s professional career has been devoted entirely to healthcare where he served in a number of marketing and administrative roles. When asked about his visits in fire towers on so many mountaintops, Joe says it is one of his greatest life journeys and adds in jest that he has never worked at a ‘higher level.’ Although bitten by a rattlesnake and stung by a scorpion, his love of the outdoors remains undeterred.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Excerpt 1:
The entertaining part of Scott’s story begins with his move south. “When I got hired for this job, I didn’t even know what a fire lookout was. I just sent an application to the Forest Service. I even forgot about my application. Then somewhere around June, I got a call saying, ‘We have this job for you in a fire lookout tower.’ Since I didn’t know what a fire lookout tower was, I said, ‘Are you guys going to train me?’ And they said, ‘Yeah.’ So I came down here and I thought I was set for life. I thought I was going to be this ranger, you know, a paradise job and I was going to get a truck and everything. When I got down here, I had no car or anything. They said, ‘Well, you can’t go out there without a car.’ I thought, ‘There goes the free truck.’ I think I had about 200 bucks or so. I called my mom and she sent me another 200 bucks. Well, I was really tired because I had just quit everything in Olympia to come down here just after traveling a lot playing a bunch of gigs. Yet I had to run around Flagstaff like hell for a couple days to get a car and everything I needed. And picture this. I had to walk to buy that car. And I was tired before I even started walking! I walked for miles back and forth across Flagstaff. Anyway, I finally found one for 300 bucks that ran on three cylinders and came bombing out here.”
As soon as Scott arrived at East Pocket in his smoking, three-cylinder car, things started out crazy, literally. “As soon as I found this place, opened up the tower and walked in, there was a fire already going. Now even though I had just learned the procedures, I had to take all these readings, judge the distance, which is tough, and then get on the radio and sound like I knew what I was doing. What a wild start! I guess I did okay though. I nailed it dead on. It was named the Crazy Fire, because it started in Crazy Park, about three miles away. When my day was over at five o’clock, I was half dead from what I had gone through the past week. I immediately rolled my sleeping bag out on the catwalk, the temperature was perfect, and I slept under the stars straight through to the next morning. When I woke up, I said to myself, ‘I’m home. I love it here.’ That feeling has never worn off.”
Excerpt 2:
Being a relatively new lookout, Helen shared one more worry. Lightning. She heard many “enlightening” stories, but still wasn’t sure that a severe lightning storm was on her list of desired new experiences. Of no help was the constant reminder that a four-inch hole in the tin roof overhanging the exterior catwalk of her tower was supposedly caused by a lightning strike. Nevertheless, Helen found the positive, as she foresaw another good use for her new quilt. “When a lightning storm gets within a mile, I am supposed to disconnect my main radio, turn off my hand-held radio, and sit on my insulated chair in the middle of the room. Then I’m probably going to take my quilt and put it over my head.” At this point in the conversation, it would have been imprudent to share with her that Moqui, the name of her fire tower, is a Hopi Indian word meaning “the Dead”.
Helen is a shining beacon in a lighthouse for those yearning to leave a stressful life behind and start over. Some people have a philosophy about life that can be summed up in one sentence. Helen’s requires a paragraph. “I’m one of those people who believes you have to try new things in life. If it doesn’t work out, at least you learn from it. But you need to try to learn to do something new every year, experience all you can experience. What’s it going to hurt? If you want to make it work, it’ll work. If you want something bad enough, go get it and you’ll do fine. There are a lot of people who get themselves into a difficult financial situation. You know, up here there is no mall around the corner, there are no fast food restaurants, so you don’t spend as much money. And even though I left an executive position and came up here, I haven’t regretted it one second. I just don’t look back. Maybe that’s good advice for life in general – don’t look back!”
