By Michael O’Keefe, ADVANCE CONTRIBUTOR
Who would have thought that a folk singing wordsmith from the Dust Bowl era, Woody Guthrie of “This Land is My Land” fame, would feel so relevant in this age of unstable artificial intelligence and artificial stable geniuses? But who would ever have thought that the once proud, now politicized, National Park Service would even consider approving a public land swap in Yosemite National Park to provide a billionaire with exclusive private entry to those sacred public lands.
That proposal feels especially evil to me. Everyday Americans who treasure democracy steadfastly cling to the principle that all humans are created equal. Meanwhile, Trump gleefully imposes upon everyday Americans DOGE-forged NPS staff cuts that create extremely long entry lines at national parks and dangerous shortages of NPS safety and rescue services. All the while, Trump continues to remove environmental protections on thousands of acres of public lands, promote private development of the same lands, and champion exclusive national park privileges for the rich.
Our national parks preserve and protect unique and beautiful places in nature from private exploitation. Growing and conclusive evidence is connecting global warming and its ills with the over-exploitation of fossil fuel natural resources. Common sense and science are guiding us to, among many important actions, create more national parks and to preserve more public lands, and to better protect all of them.
Not long ago, I spent a week hiking through the ethereal beauty of the Arches and Canyonlands National Parks. I camped along the Colorado River outside Moab, Utah, in a deep canyon that amplified the already majestic aura of that region which also is an International Dark Sky Park preserve. I left the rainfly off my tent each night so that I could Milky Way-gaze myself to sleep. My best description of those moments is that they were akin to worshiping in awe in a cathedral of nature.
I waited in line with people from all over the country at the park entrances each day as hardworking but grossly understaffed park service employees processed our entry. Park rangers warned me, when they realized that I planned to hike on remote trails, to be extra careful because DOGE cuts have seriously limited NPS search and rescue capabilities. If you get lost or injured or experience any other emergency in a national park these days, you likely will have to save yourself.
Even in his own temporary backyard in Washington, D.C., Trump is ruining national park land. East Potomac Park/Hains Point is a place I know well. It is a peninsula that juts out eastward from the Jefferson Memorial near the 14th Street Bridge over the Potomac River. A U.S. Park Police station stands sentinel at the entrance to the peninsula, which is entirely comprised of national park land. East Potomac Park is its official name, but most people just call the area Hains Point.
A one-way loop-road frames the peninsula and its municipal public golf course. Local residents have long considered the course an affordable and accessible cultural gem. The peninsula’s eastern tip is the actual Hains Point, and it overlooks Reagan National Airport across the Potomac in Virginia. It also used to be home to an iconic sculpture known as The Awakening, which now graces the harbor complex on the Maryland side of the Wilson Bridge.
I lived near Hains Point as a child and young adult. It was and remains a unique picnic oasis and grand fishing spot, surrounded by the Tidal Basin, the Potomac River and the Washington Channel. It also remains a safe place to golf, run, walk, bike, play, listen to music, and just hang out. Each day, hundreds of people use the ring road to run, walk and bike, and to access all the other uses. The one-way in-and-out aspect, and the police station at the entry, have always seemed to keep the bad guys and the grifters away—until Trump showed up.
I learned a lot about golf and life on that public course at Hains Point. It had flat and forgiving fairways and fast greens, and it was a wonderful mixing bowl of human beings.
On occasions when my chronic all-boys Catholic high school blues coincided with beautiful fall and spring weather, I risked extended Saturday detention to play 18 holes at Hains Point. My best friend and I would sneak out of our school’s back door, weave our way furtively through the parking lot, and then push-in-neutral the old convertible back-firing bomb that Murph named Lola. We’d nudge her all the way to the precipice of the hill adjacent to the school parking lot. Halfway down that steep hill, Murph would pop the clutch and fire-up Lola, and sure enough she’d cough up a couple loud backfires and then her thrush pipes would gurgle a sweet bass rhythm that worked well with all the songs on Murph’s White Album 8-track. Needless to say, Lola went topless on those days.
Those mornings always felt peaceful and serene when we ramped off the 14th Street Bridge onto Ohio Drive and cruised into Hains Point—at least, until we approached the starter and had to swear to God and slip him a Jackson to convince him that we were NOT truants and that he should let us play. The starters were always retired men of endless patience and good humor. They usually insisted we team up with a third player, inevitably another retiree who was the starter’s friend. Murph and I pretended to resist the pairings, but we were happy for the company. We knew our new golfing partner would enthrall us with tales of the city, and school us on our golf swings, putting strokes, and life. Friendly wagering would leave our partner monetarily enriched, and our spirits were always more than fairly compensated.
At Hains Point, we learned how to spin a chip shot, bend a five-iron around a sand trap, and read a double-dip green. More importantly, we learned the give and take of human conversation that helped us bridge the gaps of age, experience, race, religion and economics.
We’d also use our fake IDs after each round to share a couple beers with our newfound mentor. Seated atop a picnic table outside the course clubhouse, we’d take in all that was around us. Scores of teeming little kids were always climbing like ants all over The Awakening and sliding down its extended raised arm. The presidential yacht, Sequoyia, in all its polished wood glory, docked within easy view across the Washington Channel. And we could always count on seeing a line or two of way-too-serious bikers on ten-speeds, with the lead riders blasting out heads-up alerts from whistles clenched between their teeth, as they sped past us on the Ohio Drive loop road.
On one memorable occasion, there was a guy nearby waxing his cherry-cola-hued ’68 Mustang while his tape deck belted out the Kinks’ “Lola.” Now THAT felt a little freaky to us; maybe it was the beer. We tried but failed to figure out if that was a good or bad omen. Regardless, it made Murph and his heap happy.
While we were throwing back our very last round of beers on our very last sojourn to Hains Point, just days before our high school graduation, someone in the clubhouse turned on the outside speaker, amped it up, and Sly & the Family Stone started belting out “Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin).” Those parenthetical words are part of the actual title. Believe me, that perfect springtime sunny day song got everyone’s feet tapping. It was an appropriate coda for that joyful final day at our happy high school hideout. And just about then it hit me, basking in the sun and the glory of the entire experience, that even a well-worn municipal golf course with its unique and valuable quirky components can be a cathedral of sorts.
People are saying that Trump ruins everything. I’m not saying that, but that’s what people tell me. So, maybe they’re right. All I know is he about to ruin Hains Point golf course, and he’s following the same plan he used elsewhere in our national parks—the “Screw Everyman and reward the rich” plan.
If Trump is not neutered, Hains Point municipal golf course won’t be a magical mixing bowl of sacred and blessed American values. It’ll be just one more exclusive playground for the wealthy.
If Trump is not neutered, all our Cathedrals of Nature and a heck of a lot more will remain at risk.
I can only think of one lawful means for neutering Trump.
VOTE to MAKE IT SO.
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Michael O’Keefe is a Fredericksburg-area resident and a graduate of Alexandria, Virginia’s Bishop Ireton High School, which promptly upon his matriculation abandoned the open campus policy that enabled his truancy. Somehow, he managed to graduate from a couple police academies, a college, and a law school—but, much to his chagrin, not from the PGA Qualifying School.
Amen to that Mike.
You are so right.