RIVER CITY JOURNAL: SAD DAY IN OZARKS: LOOKOUT TOWERS NO LONGER NEEDED

The conservation department is going to sell most of its towers now that other methods have proven more economical when it comes to fighting forest fires.

There was an interesting news story earlier this week about plans to sell a couple of lookout towers used in years past by folks who watched for forest fires across southern Missouri.

I had no idea that the towers -- there are more than 50 in the wooded bottom half of the state -- are obsolete. The towers have gone the way of lighthouses along our coastlines.

Lighthouses are more popular now than ever, mostly for their tourism value. Even though the mostly remote lighthouses are no longer manned by solitary individuals willing to spend a lot of time by themselves with storms and heavy seas raging around them, there is a romantic side to the structures, which are usually placed on some scenic spot on the coast.

When I was growing up in the Ozarks west of here, I had never seen an ocean, much less a lighthouse. To me, the miles and miles of forests were the closest I ever came to the vistas of the Pacific Ocean that I now enjoy so much along the Oregon Coast during our almost-every-year visits.

There are a few spots in the Ozarks, of course, where you can get that same sense of vastness, of an unbroken expanse of greenery that stretches to the horizon. You have to get to the top of a pretty big hill, though, before you experience the same sensation as looking off a cliff toward China across the Pacific.

Or you can climb to the top of one of the forest lookout towers.

There were plenty of lookout towers in my neck of the woods. Still are. The handsome conservation department signs along the highways still point to the towers I remember: Garwood, Coldwater, Mudlick Mountain, Taum Sauk.

For a special outing, we used to drive to a lookout tower, particularly in the spring when the dogwoods were blooming or in the autumn when the leaves were putting on their grand show.

The lookout towers were sources both of grandeur and agonizing fear to me. Even from the bottom of a lookout tower -- most of them are on prominent hilltops -- you get a pretty good view. Climb to the top? A painful experience for someone like me who is afraid to climb to the top of most stepladders.

I made it to the top of a lookout tower. Once. I was overwhelmed by the views in every direction. I was impressed by the device the conservation agents who manned the towers used to pinpoint the location of a column of smoke. I think it involved math, which pretty much ruled out a career in the conservation department for me.

Not to mention my fear of heights. I'm the guy who saw the Grand Canyon from the parking lot while hanging on to the bumper of a huge tour bus loaded with visiting Germans. It was the biggest thing I could find to grab hold of closest to the edge of the canyon. My sons told me the canyon is really deep and you can see the Colorado River at the bottom. I'll take their word for it.

My sons, of course, not only went to the edge of the canyon, they also climbed atop the rock wall that was supposed to keep visitors at a safe distance from the sheer drop into the abyss. They even leaned over for a better look while I clutched my chest trying to ward off complete heart failure -- which is hard to do while you're trying to keep a firm hold on a bus bumper.

Climbing to the top of a lookout tower in the Ozarks is no big deal for my sons. Sometimes, just to make it interesting, they don't even go up the steps, choosing to scale the framework of the tower itself. Meanwhile, there I am on the ground in a cluster of hysterical mothers whose sons and daughters are defying gravity -- and my stern warnings to be careful. I think it is in the nature of all offspring to do death-defying things right in front of their parents' eyes. How else can you explain why they do it so often?

The news story I read earlier this week said the conservation department is going to sell most of its towers, now that other methods have proven more economical when it comes to fighting forest fires. I have no idea what anyone would do with a used lookout tower.

But I can tell you this: Even though I am deathly afraid of climbing to the top of one, I will sorely miss the lookout-tower signs along the highways. Those sentinels above the treetops told me someone was watching out for me and all the rest of the good folks who call themselves hillbillies.

Now I guess the thrill seekers in the Ozarks will have to find new ways of giving heart attacks to their doting parents. Like bungee-jumping from a hovering helicopter.

You guessed it. I won't be doing that either.

~R. Joe Sullivan is the editor of the Southeast Missourian.