Back to Greenville: Big Trees, Blue Lakes and Big Dreams

As a seasonal forester in northern California’s Plumas National Forest, Ron Cerruti expected to face some challenges. Fighting forest fires was a part of the job. Rattlesnakes were simply part of the landscape. The two cattle rustlers he encountered one summer were unusual, but not outside the realm of possibility. He was, however, completely unprepared for the world’s meanest, most satanic duck. Join Ron as he recounts his adventures and misadventures as a seasonal Forest Service worker for the Greenville Ranger District in the 1970s. Told with irreverent good humor, Ron chronicles both the people and animals who called the wild regions of the northern Sierra Nevada home. During his years as a student and forester, Ron worked with loggers, firefighters, and forest rangers. He also encountered a miner, a thief, a couple of cattle rustlers, and one particularly ornery and obnoxious duck —all bizarre characters with their own weird stories. His animal acquaintances included Elmer the deer, dangerous Black Bart the rattlesnake, and the evil and mean spirited Satan the duck. Hopefully that duck’s gone though. It may have been forty years, but Black Bart the rattlesnake might just be too ornery to die. The Greenville District no longer exists, after being merged with the Quincy District to form the larger Mt. Hough Ranger District. The land and forest remains though, just as Ron Cerruti fondly remembers it. A light-hearted and comical journey chronicling Ron’s love of the forest, its animals, and the humans who pass through it, Back to Greenville is a beautifully written reminder of the fragility and value of America’s natural resources.