Straight and Narrow Path : California Conservation Corps Members Learn Discipline From Hard Work

Young, muscular hard hats in the California Conservation Corps are “watching their dimes”--military parlance for keeping 10 feet apart--as they work along the flood-damaged Backbone Trail.

“Move it out!” shouts crew leader Christopher Jones.

“Move it out!” each corps member echoes in turn, until the last one hollers, “Got it!” and the line moves out to work on the rugged trail, which extends from Los Angeles to Point Mugu.

Under the CCC’s paramilitary discipline, the Camarillo-based corps members work hard, sweat hard and do everything by the numbers.

Their heavy steel picks thud rhythmically into the rain-rutted trail bed at Hellacious Acres, off of Latigo Canyon.

They stop only to swill from canteens and to wolf cold box lunches in a pocket of shade along the partially completed 72-mile trail.

Then they go back to work, busting sandstone boulders, raking the dirt path smooth and lugging 40-pound rocks to fill gullies that February’s downpours cut through the trail.

They gave up a year of their lives for this: carving trails through rugged state and federal land, sandbag and shovel duty at floods such as the devastating Ventura River flood of Feb. 12, and digging trenches in the heat of summer brush fires yet to come.

They had to leave their homes and friends to live in a dormitory, abstain from alcohol and drugs, follow the CCC’s harsh code and agree to work for minimum wage--$4.25 an hour.

Money, for many, is not the goal. Experience is.

Some were sent by parents hoping to toughen them up for the real world. Some sought that experience themselves.

But many of the CCC workers interviewed said they hope that the discipline and the forestry training will carry them into exciting work as firefighters and forest rangers.

“You can’t just go there and say, ‘I want a job as a firefighter,’ ” said William Clifton, 22, of Palm Springs. He wants to apply for work as a Los Angeles County helitech--a helicopter-based firefighter. “I think it’s a good opportunity to finish my schooling,” Clifton said.

“I want to finish out my year and I want to go to parks and rec and be a ranger,” said Berkeley native Eric Pitts, 19.

Pitts used a rake-like hoe, called a McCloud, to level a dip in the path so it conformed to the 10% average grade required by the National Park Service.

Pitts said he is happy in the CCC. “You have your space to breathe, you can see the great outdoors. You’re not trapped in an office.”

Gwenetta Andrews, 20, said she joined to get away from her family and from the gang violence around her home in South-Central Los Angeles.

“I’m going for my full year and graduate, and then I’ll go to college to be a lawyer,” said Andrews, the only woman on the 10-member crew. “If I can accomplish this, I can accomplish being a lawyer.”

CCC administrator Nacho Pina visited the site for a few hours last week--long enough to stop Pete Ortez, 22, of Selma, from hurting himself.

Ortez had been whacking away with a pick, grunting at each huge, circular blow.

Pina demonstrated a better technique, deftly lifting the pick head by rocking its handle across his thigh like a seesaw, then letting the tool fall so its weight drove it deep into hard-packed earth.

“I know this because when I was a young man, I worked with an old man, and I was dying, and he kept going,” said the grinning Pina, a former crew supervisor. “When you learn to use the tool, then the tool doesn’t use you.”

Crew supervisor John Owens rode his charges hard, gruffly ordering loafers back to work one minute, gently coaching them the next. “Approach it like you were building a bridge, like you were an engineer,” said Owens, guiding the repair of the badly rutted trail. “You gotta see the end result in your mind.”

Owens explained his role later, away from the crew, where the rush of Santa Ana winds was broken only by the sound of his voice, the cries of circling hawks and the dull, distant ring of metal tools on rock.

“I’m like a guidance counselor, a father figure,” Owens said. “I’m also their tormentor.

“I try to get them to do things they may not want to do . . . to work better, to feel better about life and set goals for themselves.”

At times, Owens took aside crew leader Chris Jones, 24, trying to explain why the New Jersey native’s trailside manners had put him in enough hot water to threaten his future with the corps.

At first, Jones bristled upon learning that he would have to report to his superiors because his crew had complained behind his back.

“The mountains is cool, but this ain’t me,” he later said bitterly to a reporter, adding that he was considering going back to his trade as a plasterer. “If I can’t get what I want, I’ll call it a day, go back East, get out of California.”

But he huddled again with Owens, listening more intently this time. At Owens’ insistence, Jones said he would try harder to listen to his superiors and to make the improvements they suggest.

“I like working with people,” said Jones, who graduated from his yearlong stint on Jan. 22 and moved up to the position of acting crew leader. “I feel as though I could lead people.”

Some of the crew almost lead themselves.

Hacking steadily with a pick, Richard Fisher worked on repairing a deep rut where rain runoff had nearly sliced the trail in half.

He showed no sign of the serious back injuries that he suffered nine months ago when he stepped off a trail’s steep edge in Sycamore Canyon and into a painful, bouncing tumble through the brush below.

“I was scared I broke my back,” said Fisher, 19, of Sacramento, who had lain in pain for nearly an hour before searchers found him.

The CCC paid him workers’ compensation. Then the corps let him re-enlist, and here he was attacking the trail again with restless energy and good humor.

“They take really good care of us,” Fisher said, as he chopped the rut into a teardrop shape, cut steps into it, then began building a foundation for the trail by moving large rocks onto the steps.

Crewmate Ezekiel Hodges ambled by, headed for the canteen.

“Hey Zeke, since you’re coming through, can you hand me that rock?” Fisher asked with a sly pause. “That really big one?”

“Just cause I’m strong,” Hodges sighed, bending down.

“Use your legs, man,” Fisher cautioned.

“I am,” Hodges said, lifting the small sandstone boulder, which promptly broke in two. “Now it’s in half.”

“Oh man !” Fisher said in mock exasperation. “Gimme the big half.”

Hodges said he too savors the hard work and the respect for the land given to him by the CCC.

“It’s hard work, but it’s very good work. Money’s not the thing right now,” said Hodges, 19, of San Jose.

“You’re not changing the land, you’re making a path to make it easier for people to enjoy the view and the scenery, the beauty and the peace,” he said. “The trail is just a tool for people to see the scenery.”