I think most of you out there in reader land already have some inkling that growing old definitely has its challenges. This week Ol’ Dutch got an up close and personal reminder about growing old thanks to a quick trip to the Emergency Room. No one is sure where the saying about “not for sissies” came from originally, but it's been attributed to the famous movie star Bette Davis who also had a pillow with that embroidered on it. 

Staffing and budget cuts at federal land management agencies aren’t just numbers on a spreadsheet, writes Tracy Stone-Manning, president of the Wilderness Society. They indicate empty ranger stations and wildfire teams stretched so thin they can’t keep up. Though people of all backgrounds celebrated when we stopped Congress from selling off our public lands earlier this summer, she warns, a clear pattern is emerging: Shrink these agencies until they cannot function, then claim that selling off or industrializing our public lands is the only solution. Stone-Manning asks people who care about public lands to demand full funding of national parks and forests and to stand together in defense of the places that belong to all of us.