Take
Down Flag & Feed Horses
by
Bill Everhardt
Part
memoir, part reportage, and all good reading, Take Down Flag & Feed
Horses is the first volume devoted to the daily work of staff members
at Yellowstone National Park. Written by a retired National Park Service
historian, the book is divided into two parts, the first chronicling
daily life at Yellowstone and the second detailing the savage fires
that hit the park during the summer of 1988 and their aftermath. Bill
Everhart lived at the park during the summer of 1978, accompanying the
superintendent and his staff of rangers, naturalists, and scientists
on daily rounds. His lively anecdotes and observations will lure readers
farther and farther into the book--and perhaps into the park as well.
He gives a gripping account of the unstoppable fires of 1988 and shows
how fire, a presence in the Yellowstone ecosystem for thousands of years,
ensures biological diversity. One of an elite cadre of Park Service
employees who served in the system for many years, Everhart would smile
knowingly at a comrade's recollection of an old-timer who left often
unnecessary instructions that regularly concluded with, "Take Down
Flag & Feed Horses."
His
book, a gentle excursion through places and among people, will be attractive
to a wide range of readers.
"The
best account I've seen of the kinds of people responsible for a big
national park and the challenges they face in managing it. It's a fine
piece of reporting, full of engaging anecdotes and personal observations."
-- Barry Mackintosh, National Park Service Bureau Historian
BILL
EVERHART held jobs ranging from park historian to assistant director
during his twenty-six years with the National Park Service. A recipient
of the Department of the Interior's Distinguished Service Award, he
is also the author of The National Park Service and coauthor of America's
Historylands. He lives in Reston, Virginia.
Take
Down Flag & Feed Horses is available from the University of Illinois
Press (ISBN 0-252-06681-2) for $18.95 in paperback.
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