Last week I made my camping reservations for Warrior Creek Campground at Kerr Scott Reservoir, a lakefront park in Wilkes County run by the U.S. Forest Service. I go there every year in April for some springtime camping. The place is filled with waterfowl and deer and the camping sites are comfortably isolated from each other.

Of course, it’s impossible not to run into other campers at Warrior Creek. Many are like myself, tent campers who leave the electronic devices at home—folks content to sit around the campfire at night and pluck out a few cowboy tunes on the guitar. Most of us “tenters” wake up early, grab a cold-water shower at the conveniently located communal washroom, and embrace another day of hiking, fishing and canoeing.

Separated from the tent campers are the RV lots. That’s where you’ll find the older campers who like to sit on folding chairs and talk to each other until the sun goes down. Then it’s time for them to climb in the Winnebago and watch television for half an hour before going to sleep. I like the older campers but have learned that if you strike up a conversation with them you’d best be prepared for at least an hour’s worth of talk about grandkids, Florida, and the good old days.

Occasionally you’ll run into the inconsiderate brand of campers who don’t have the first clue about spending a little quality time with Mother Nature. You can hear their boom boxes blaring through the trees late at night and you can see the debris from their parties littered around their campground the next morning. They are the kind of campers who are oblivious to the fact that their dogs are running through other people’s campgrounds. They are also the kind who will try to bum firewood and other supplies from their neighbors because, unlike the boy scouts, they were not properly prepared for a stay in the woods.

Fortunately, people like this don’t like to go camping that often.

I mention my love of camping because of some disturbing news that hit the papers this week. The Bush administration announced that it intends to sell off 307,000 acres of national forestland in an attempt to raise $1 billion to pay for rural schools and roads. In North Carolina, the parcels for sale include nearly ten thousand acres in the Pisgah, Nantahala, Uwharrie and Croatan national forests.

Let me try to convince you why this is wrong.

First of all, selling off our national heritage is a bad idea. Once this land is sold we can never get it back. It doesn’t matter if it is loggers or strip mining companies or condominium builders who are the buyers. The plain fact is that no one is going to buy this land except for people interested in making a profit on the deal. And keeping forests natural for tent campers like me is not exactly a profitable operation.

Secondly, this is an administration that feels like a billion dollars of our tax money is chump change when it comes to waging war in Iraq. The bill for our efforts to destroy and rebuild Iraq is quickly approaching half a trillion dollars (with the zeroes, it looks like this: 500,000,000,000). Just this week, President Bush asked Congress for an additional $65 billion to be added to this year’s budget for the war effort. Surely we can divert a single billion dollars of our money to schools and roads without having to sell off our national parks.

Thirdly, I thought North Carolina had already made its deal with the devil last year when our leaders in Raleigh voted in the lottery. Like it or not, the lottery will be here shortly. And with some prudent money-handling (not always a guarantee in Raleigh), it should raise all the cash we need to build new schools and attract qualified teachers.

This whole decision to sell off national forestland seems fishy—like it was made in a smoky backroom in Washington with no real public scrutiny. It will be interesting to see who the potential buyers are when this land is put on the auction block. Don’t be surprised if you see the usual suspects (oil companies, foreign real estate investors) with the winning bids. My guess is that it is pressure from these buyers and not the potential $1 billion for schools that is the real impetus for this land sale.

At least it will give us something to talk about around the campfire this April. See you in the woods.