This is the story of a quiet boy from a small town in Northern Ohio whose discovery and love of the outdoors led him to a career with the U.S. Forest Service. His journey begins in the idyllic town of Chagrin Falls in the late 1940s and proceeds to the adventures and joy of being a working forester in the great national forests of California, Montana and Oregon. His story vividly portrays encounters with wildfire, bears and roaring whitewater rapids, and confrontations with passionate environmentalists and single-minded, sometimes vindictive timber industry 'hired guns'. In candid detail the intrigue, manipulation and political maneuvering associated with the 'timber wars' of the late 1980s is related in a highly personal way. This period was characterized by the changes in political parties that brought abrupt and dramatic reversals in ideology and policy. The effects wrought on the U.S. Forest Service, its employees, and ultimately the forest are described with clarity and insight.