Jerry Schad’s gift of enthusiasm

In the San Diego bioregion, Jerry Schad has accomplished more than anyone I know to create a deep sense of place. Word now comes that Jerry has final-stage kidney cancer and is in hospice care. When I spent time with him several years ago, what impressed me most was not his formidable knowledge but his infectious enthusiasm. “If a child is to keep alive his inborn sense of wonder,” wrote Rachel Carson, he or she “needs the companionship of at least one adult who can share it, rediscovering with him the joy, excitement, and mystery of the world we live in.” To this text I would now add: Adults, too, need that companionship. Jerry gave us his. Here is an excerpt about Jerry from Last Child in the Woods:

A few years ago, Jerry Schad invited my sons, then five and eleven, and me to accompany him and his four-year-old son on a hike along Cottonwood Creek in the mountains east of San Diego. We parked along Sunrise Highway and slipped down a rough path toward a valley far below. The path was a tunnel through chaparral, scrub oak and manzanita, widened and deepened by countless hikers who have found Cottonwood Creek Falls — named by Schad — primarily because they have read his Afoot and Afield guidebooks.

As we wound our way down the trail, Jason, my older son, held Matthew’s hand on the rougher spots while Schad’s son, Tom, rushed ahead. Schad told how he grew up in the Santa Clara Valley, now better known as Silicon Valley. He never went camping as a kid. When he was twelve, however, he began sleeping in the back yard during the summers and became fascinated with the night sky, which ultimately led to his career teaching astronomy. As an adult, he favors sleeping on a simple pad beneath the stars in the wilderness.

He spoke with awe about the mysteries of the lost corners of the county, and especially of the night sky. For example, the strange shadows that Venus can cast along the desert floor.

Being at a particularly scatological age, the younger boys, Tom and Matthew, were more interested in coyote poop than Venusian shadows. They poked at it and offered an assortment of names for it. Matthew wanted to know why we didn’t see any large animals.

“Because they have super powers,” I explained.

He stopped in his tracks.

“They can hear and smell us from far away,” I added. He was impressed by this, but only briefly. So many rocks to collect; so little time. The two young boys, competing to be leader of the hike, rushed onward. Small children are not like adults: Schad and I, who had just met, were overly polite; Matthew and Tom were immediately familiar, trading intimacies and insults as if they had known each other for 20 years.

“I want to go bushwhacking here!” Tom announced. He disappeared for a moment into the bushes. “Look out for snakes,” he called. “One could pop his head up any time.” Over the years, Tom’s father has sighted 200 Bighorn sheep, one mountain lion and a lot of rattlers. April, Jerry advises, is the month one should be most careful about snakes. He avoids going off trails or bushwhacking — carving your own trail through the brush — during that month. Snakes wake hungry from hibernation then, and are likely to be aggressive.

“Usually, I take Tom on hikes closer to home, but I like bringing him out here, too,” said Schad. “He’s able to test himself, to explore and take some risks. It’s important for him to learn good judgment about hiking.”

His advice to parents: take your children on easier, shorter hikes, close to urban areas, because small children tend to get bored long before they grow weary.

Matthew was the first one to hear the falls.

We came to the end of the path at a grove of oaks where Cottonwood Creek rushes down through the gap. We walked along the creek to the first of several falls and deep pools that are fed by snowmelt and runoff from the recent rains. As the boys clambered up the boulders and ran along the ledges, Schad and I called to them to slow down to look. “See the darkness?” Schad said to Tom, pointing to stripes of slime that trailed down a rock face into a deep pool. “Don’t step on those; they’re very slick and you’ll slip into the water.”

The boys skittered like lizards up the rocks. Watching them, Schad admitted to a vicarious thrill: “When I take Tom with me, I see all of this freshly, through his eyes.” We sat for a while on a boulder overlooking a deep pool; the small boys used the boulder as a slide. At the precipice, Schad and Jason and I used our bodies to block their descent. After a while, we tired of this and herded Matthew and Tom back up the path, our pockets heavy with rocks Matthew had picked up along the way and insisted we carry.

Tom, once again, took the lead.

His father is proud of his son’s energy and sure-footedness: “Tom can make it all the way to the top of Cowles Mountain without stopping. We hiked up there the other day and then we came home and Tom was so energized by the hike that he ran around the house non-stop for an hour.” Schad smiled. “I wonder what I have created.”

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Editor’s note: Jerry Schad passed away on Sept. 22, 2011. You can find a tribute to Jerry in the San Diego Union-Tribune. 

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