Tim Lillebo, The Practicing Conservationist
by Ric Bailey
A “Conservationist?” You bet. The last time Tim Lillebo threw anything away was back in '79, and that was only because the two inch chunk of jerky had morphed into petrified venison, virtually unchewable. He leaves it for the voles.
Want a clearer picture of the consummate Conservationist? Let's go on a hike with him:
You are immediately struck by the backpack, an early ancestor of the Trapper John, possibly owned by some U.S. Cavalry captain in the Civil War. Stained with elk blood and sweat, held together with duct tape, it is built for spurious abrasions and is somewhat functional. “Onward!”
At a break on a knoll with a stellar view, Timmy yanks out the “whiskey bottle,” a predominantly shapeless piece of plastic besotted with five-pointed stars drawn skillfully by its owner. It proudly sports a precarious amount of George Dickel, which Timmy audibly proclaims is not the cheapest whiskey available (it is the third cheapest). “Care for a splash?”
Our mentor and guide has lots of food on the hike, which he shares selflessly: soda crackers he jacked from a restaurant, for starters. And oh yea, the only reason he went to the restaurant was because it was happy hour at the D.C. establishment, and for the price of one $1.50 drink you got all the munchies you could stomach. That was dinner, the crumbs he stashed in his brief case (an old brown Food Mart shopping bag) is sustenance for the hike.
Also along for the hike is a plastic bag, circa 1993, which dwells inside another more ancient plastic bag, which contains a newer bag, which after painful anticipation and a lot of effort, eventually reveals five coddled potato chips.
And, ah! The binoculars! At first glance you figure they're bound for a museum until you witness him actually try to look through them. “Check it out, check it out, an olive-sided fly-catcher!”
And the grande finale? The maps. Map after map after map. Some of them display lands hundreds of miles away. But, “What the hell, we might get there eventually.” Each map has to be pieced together, ragged shards barely bound by alternating strips of scotch and electrical tape.
That trademark felt hat is a distraction amid the salvaged booty of the hike guide. It has a story. On a 1984 Hells Canyon float trip, Tim and friend got cast out of the boat in Waterspout Rapid. The bold tow-head was hollering (in exhilaration, not terror) and flailing. Yet he was not making his way back to the boat. In the midst of the aquiline turmoil, the ten foot waves and boiling holes, Tim went straight for the hat. At camp that evening, he's asked if it was a gift from Teddy Roosevelt. “Naw,” the Conservationist responds, “Found it in the woods hunting a few years ago.”
But if you did go on a hike with Timmy, wherever you went, you were familiarized with every rock, every tree over 20” diameter, every spring and each and every meadow. He knew where the elk were, where the pileated woodpeckers tend to hang out, and the scientifically-documented niche of each and every critter and scrubby bush in the hallowed web of the ecosystem's precariously balanced life.
And the only reason those big trees are still standing, that stream still offers wild trout, the ridge bears no road scar and the meadow is green and clean, is because when the bulldozers and bovines threatened, your hiking companion was there.
In Timmy's world, nothing was wasted or depleted. Nothing was abused, or defaced.
One last thing: you never had to build the fire, in fact you didn't dare. It was a sacred process from pine needle to cottonwood twig to pine bark to fir branch. It was a cleansing, a progression that produces a warmth more poignant and personal than any fire you ever dreamt. “Stay warm, rascal.”
Ally of the wild wood, conscience of eastern Oregon's natural soul: our beloved friend, the practicing Conservationist.