(June 25) Most of the scenery today was scorched earth. It gave me a lot of time to think. I was hiking by myself. I woke up much earlier than the others. I had hiked in to the Benchmark Resort and obtained my resupply package. It was drizzly to start and then overcast.
The name Scapegoat Wilderness intrigued me. Who came up with that name? I know officially it was named in 1974 after Scapegoat Mountain, but didn’t somebody raise a hand to object? The full weight of Congress went ahead and honored a Wilderness area by naming it after a person who is blamed for the sins or shortcomings of others?
Not to sound like an old guy, but it used to be you honored people who would own up or fess up to something. I seem to recall there was a certain pride (and consequences) for accepting responsibility for what you did. I’m talking about the short, sweet “Yes, I did that” variety. Not the kind the modern athlete has their attorney prepare when they get caught doing something stupid.
Apparently, we needed to honor the scapegoat, the fall guy. The one who takes it for the team. I guess in today’s world with 24 hour digital access and scrutiny we need to have those folks around. One of the most famous (and tragic) I could recall was the TV station that announced the names of the pilots of an Asiana airliner that crashed in San Francisco. In case you don’t remember, the news station wrote out the names, displayed them and read them on the air: Captain Sum Ting Wong, Wi Tu Lo, Ho Lee Fuk, and Bang Ding Ow. So, who got blamed for this? a summer intern at the National Transportation Safety Board was blamed for “confirming” the names. Not the station reporter who made up the names, not the producer who was responsible for the show, not even the NTSB manager who presumably had the power to tell interns not to confirm information about airline crashes without approval. The summer intern as a scapegoat must get used a lot.
Sorry to rant about the name, but it was burned over country and I had time to think. One certainty for me is that I promise to visit the next wilderness area that Congress designates: the Imavictim Wilderness Area.
backpacking over the hill 