Publisher's Synopsis
As the oldest daughter, I graduated from Union high school, and my first job was on Oregon forest service fire lookout towers near La Grande and Kamela, Oregon. The habitat and isolation of the area and job was interesting and created some apprehension at the beginning of the summer. My family had a daughter Bonnie at Doernbecher Children's Hospital in Portland with a malignant brain tumor so my little 5 year old sister Julie spent most of the summer with me. In a small rural town everyone pulls together to help each other in a crisis. The Forest Service installed child safety wires on the stairway up the tower for the times when I needed to be watching a child and watching for fires. This story is about working on the forest service lookouts (Glass Hill and Tip Top), a first summer away from home in a job that would help with college fees. I packed water, used an outhouse, split wood, cooked on a wood cookstove, washed my clothes by hand, hung them on a clothes line, and had few visitors. It also touches on the family trauma of losing a 13 year old child to cancer.
