Best Summer Ever: Yosemite National Park Job - '81

by Mark Zeitlin
(New Jersey)

In the fall semester of '80, my roomie and I were at a keg party. We found out that night that two of our suite-mates were seriously considering going to work at Yellowstone National Park the following summer.

We said to ourselves that if Peter and Victor can do it, then we sure can.

We woke up the next day on a Saturday and headed straight to the campus library. We made a list of about twenty National Parks and then headed straight to the post office to buy generic post cards.

I remember what it is we wrote: 'Book knowledge isn't enough. Kindly send us any/all information on possible summer employment in your park.'

Well, after all is said and done, we were hired at Yosemite National Park. Although not assigned to any job in-particular, we were guaranteed employment.

The spring semester of '81, my buddy Doug went to go study in England and I was left in charge of all correspondences and list making of all that we would need. We needed to cross the country in order to get there and had no problem roughing it.

Our moms took care of our itinerary and after a flight, a bus ride, a night of sleeping behind the Merced train station for a night, we finally arrived at Yosemite National Park.

As luck would have it, we weren't yet assigned to park jobs for a week.

We had tent accommodations and a meal ticket for a week. Finally we were assigned to work in Curry Housekeping Camp and we lived in Boystown.

I remember that we were the only tent that had shag carpeting.

We were known as The New Yorkers. My buddy Doug is from New York and I am from Jersey and originally from New York. We made a lot of friends and lucky for us, we were given the same two days off and we would usually hitch-hike to San Francisco for those two days.

One of our jaunts was to visit a friend of a friend and we went to Sequoia & Kings National Park and saw the Sequoias. Man, those are some trees!

We knew all along that our stay in Yosemite National Park would not last the whole summer. Our intention all along was to eventually send half of our stuff home and then hitch-hike the California coast and that's exactly what we did!

We ended up working a Yosemite job for about six weeks or so and then, we were on our way.

We each carried a backpack, had the same Walkman that had just come out (it was like carrying a brick). My buddy Doug carried a folk guitar with a case and we were off.

We first hitch-hiked to Sacramento to visit a friend we had made at Yosemite National Park who left to go back to school at UC Davis, which is where we had pizza with pineapple and bacon.

From there, north to Reno, north to Lake Tahoe and from there, northwest to Eureka. From Eureka, we hitch-hiked south to Encinada Mexico via Highway 1 and The Pacific Coast Highway.

One of our favorite experiences was seeing the Jerry Garcia Band twice at The Stone in San Francisco. We saw the band America at The Greek Theater in Los Angeles with my four girl cousins who I love dearly.

Along the way, we literally slept along sides of roads In Lafayette, just outside of San Francisco, we slept in a little league field dugout.

We had some rides that kind of scared us, but all in all, we traveled well and did it right, and met some really kind folk along the way.

For me, that summer Americanized me. Working in Yosemite National Park was both a great job, and also a vehicle to do what Doug and I wanted to do during those years of our life.

During our employment at Yosemite National Park, we were part of the parks bodily movements. In return, it gave us back ten-fold. The universe, the planet, the earth, the country, the park, the beauty...the meaning of life!

I consider myself lucky to be an American who was able to enjoy Yosemite National Park's beauty. I believe that my country gave us that summer of '81 as a gift.

Yosemite National Park was a place to go and the experience there catapulted us to go further in our lives. Thanks Yosemite! Can't wait to see you again!

Thanks, Perry, for giving me this venue to share my stories as a former Yosemite National Park employee!

Warmly, lovingly and sincerely,

Mark Zeitlin