Just Keep Planting
By: Adam Khan
When Paul was a boy growing up in Utah, he happened to
live near an old copper smelter, and the sulfur dioxide
that poured out of the refinery had made a desolate
wasteland out of what used to be a beautiful forest. There
was nothing living there-no animals, no trees, no grass, no
bushes, no birds-nothing but 14,000 acres of black and
barren land that even smelled bad. Paul vowed that someday
he would bring back the life to this land.
Many years later when Paul was in the area, he went to the
smelter office. He asked if they had any plans to bring the
trees back. The answer was no. He asked if they would let
him try to bring the trees back. Again, the answer was no.
They didn't want him on their land. He realized he needed
to be more knowledgeable before anyone would listen to him,
so he went to college to study botany. At the college he
met a professor who was an expert in Utah's ecology.
Unfortunately, this expert told Paul that the wasteland he
wanted to bring back was beyond hope. He was told that his
goal was foolish and that it would take approximately
20,000 years to re-vegetate that six-square-mile piece of
earth.
He tried to go on with his life, but his dream would not
die. One night he got up and took some action; he did what
he could with what he had. This was an important turning
point. As Samuel Johnson wrote, "It is common to overlook
what is near by keeping the eye fixed on something remote.
In the same manner, present opportunities are neglected and
attainable good is slighted by minds busied in extensive
ranges." Paul stopped busying his mind in extensive ranges
and looked at what opportunities for attainable good were
right in front of him. Under the cover of darkness, he
sneaked out into the wasteland with a backpack full of
seedlings and started planting. For seven hours he planted
seedlings.
He did it again a week later. And every week, he made his
secret journey into the wasteland and planted trees and
shrubs and grass. But most of it died. For 15 years he did
this. When a whole valley of his fir seedlings burned to
the ground because of a careless sheep-herder, Paul broke
down and wept. Then he got up and kept planting. Freezing
winds and blistering heat, landslides and floods and fires
destroyed his work time and time again. But he kept
planting.
One night he found a highway crew had come and taken tons
of dirt for a road grade, and all the plants he had
painstakingly planted in that area were gone. But he just
kept planting. Week after week, year after year he kept at
it, against the opinion of the authorities, against the
trespassing laws, against the devastation of road crews,
against the wind and rain and heat...even against plain
common sense. He just kept planting.
Slowly, very slowly, things began to take root. Then
gophers appeared. Then rabbits. Then porcupines. The old
copper smelter eventually gave him permission, and later,
as times were changing and there was political pressure to
clean up the environment, the company actually hired Paul
to do what he was already doing. They provided him with
machinery and crews to work with. Progress accelerated.
Today, the place is 14,000 acres of trees and grass and
bushes, rich with elk and eagles, and Paul Rokich has
received almost every environmental award Utah has. He
says, "I thought that if I got this started, when I was
dead and gone people would come and see it. I never thought
I'd live to see it myself!" It took him until his hair
turned white, but he managed to keep that impossible vow he
made to himself as a child.
What was it you wanted to do that you thought was
impossible? Paul's story sure gives a perspective on
things, doesn't it? The way you get something accomplished
in this world is to just keep planting. Just keep working.
Just keep plugging away at it one day at a time for a long
time, no matter who criticizes you, no matter how long it
takes, no matter how many times you fall.
Get back up again. And just keep planting.
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