AN ICONOCLAST ON THE LOOSE 1

AN ICONOCLAST ON THE LOOSE Martin J Pasqualetti By the time Columbus stumbled upon the vast western hemisphere at the close of the 15th century, the dispersed and lightly equipped inhabitants who lived there had only minor dominion over the land Their impact on landscapes, especially small when compared with the scale of changes in large parts of Europe was, however, soon to soar Those who followed Columbus brought with them such a mighty combination of animals, technology, and avarice that the power to alter landscapes increased drastically, eventually with monumental consequences The legacy of this period in history, now all about us, fueled the craft and career of Homer Aschmann, a gifted geographer who combined insatiable curiosity, broad knowledge, rare insight, and genuine sensitivity with an irascibility, eccentricity, determination, and toughness appropriate to the task of exploring and explaining the physical and cultural mechanics of the evolving landscape By chance and choice Aschmann lived most of his life within the Mediterranean climate along western North America He used the lens of history and archaeology to watch the first contact with the gentle coastal people who occupied this agreeable environment These people led lives unstressed by weather or shortages of sustenance, blessed not only with adequate supplies of mountain water, but also with food easily obtained by hunting and collecting on the rich land or by fishing in the bountiful sea In few other places were these early Europeans to encounter such a welcoming, comfortable, unthreatening, familiar, and salubrious place as that which we now call southern California Aschmann began early to study these and other landscapes, examining how they had evolved from the form found by the earliest Europeans to what he encountered during his lifetime Soon after the arrival of the Spanish, the native peoples were subjugated to foreign ways and decimated by exotic diseases Long-held cultural traditions were quickly swept aside and largely forgotten In place of the altered native cultures, the southern California area began taking on a Spanish flavor Population increased slowly at first, but by the 20th Century the power of exponential growth was in full display, and southern California bulged with fresh arrivals Members of each new group, unconnected to the past and bent on change, contributed to the process of reshaping and redistributing the land to suit their needs and ideals As a geographer, Aschmann was a professional observer of landscapes, and for forty years he had a perfect observation post on the eastern edge of this mild region at the Riverside campus of the University of California Even there, fifty miles from the center of activity around Los Angeles, the impact was obvious and relentless He saw the orange groves and the calmly from Martin J Pasqualetti, ed 1997 The Evolving Landscape: Homer Aschmann's Geography, Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press paced life of his early career submerged by the changes rippling out from the Los Angeles epicenter He looked on as southern California cascaded through the economic rapids of agriculture, oil, aerospace, and service, noting that each was accompanied by residential surges and signature landscapes Aschmann was amazed as, year after year, migration into the area continued unchecked Migrants, undaunted by the growing angst within the populations who lived there, kept arriving, drawn by the residual reputation of a lifestyle of purported ease and opportunity but ignorant of the local landscape history or what they might find once they arrived With increasing frequency they found a place whose natural assets had been buried, burned, paved, camouflaged, crowded, neutralized, or removed It was no longer home to a few thousand Indians but to 12,000,000 mechanized souls who chased the good life through a layer of air pollution so dense it obscured the picturesque landscapes that had helped foster the southern California cliché of panoramic vistas, wide beaches, palm trees, blue skies, and snow-capped mountains The most startling characteristic of the changes in southern California landscape was their speed That it took Aschmannn aback is reflected in a review of a book about the more stable landscapes of Maine: "The tiny amount of change in the [Maine] countryside over a 60-year lifetime comes as a shock to one who has seen southern California modified in a far shorter time."1 Such rapid modifications made California an ideal base for Aschmann's work; probably no other landscape in the world has experienced such a quick and complete remodeling as that which fell under his daily inspection In addition to studying the intense and quick changes of land and life that engulfed him -and perhaps in response to them Aschmann spent much of his time in areas primitive and unspoiled by comparison He focused early on the depopulated Central Desert of Baja California, the Guajira Peninsula of Colombia, aboriginal peoples of the American Southwest, the dry Atacama and Norte Chico of Chile, the Canary Islands, and the northwestern reaches of Australia But his attention always returned to southern California, where the backdoor transformations of the throngs who lived there served as counterpoint to the sparsely inhabited locations he visited elsewhere A powerless and reluctant witness to the effects of the forces of change, Aschmann (in 1981) described their likely consequences with death-knell clarity: "They are frightening I suspect we have twenty, twenty-five years in which time to come into some sort of ecological balance with the environment If not, the possibilities are not attractive."2 Contributing to his reputation as a sometimes outrageous commentator, he went on to suggest one possible solution: "I think that a good nuclear war that knocked out ninety percent of the species might lengthen life by several tens of thousands of years."3 Obviously not a man to extrapolate a hopeful future from present trends, Aschmann nevertheless dedicated his working life to the goal of bringing the elements of landscape evolution into focus by studying how culture and nature are woven into what we now see on the earth's surface He considered this a noble, even expected, aspiration: "An awareness of the intricate relationships between man and his environment is a major realm for scholarly investigation and informed concern on the part of all men who profess to be educated."4 There is probably no more apt name for a geographer than "Homer," and it is perhaps the reason he preferred it over his given first name of Harold, a subconscious reflection of an unquenchable passion for excursion and exploration He must have considered it a functional coincidence to have been born into the age of mobility, a windfall of good timing that facilitated his travels and increased his opportunities to visit varied landscapes, even if he would surely acknowledge such freedom also caused some of the environmental problems he lamented The understanding Aschmann accumulated in these places projected vividly in his writings He believed all geographers should possess, as he did, comfortable command of myriad facts about many places from the work of others, but he preferred to form his own opinions, if possible through extended and repeated personal visits In each location there were secrets he resolved to uncover and mysteries he longed to solve; with each return, he enhanced and refined his opinion about the place He thought of landscapes as palimpsests whose underlying nature could remain hidden to those in a hurry He would, nevertheless, opt for a brief time at a field site rather than no time at all And he loved to wander So when people asked him what profession he would have pursued had he not become a geographer, invariably he would reply without hesitation and quite seriously, "A truck driver."5 Indeed, there was a believable ring to it: being paid to travel As a university professor, Aschmann considered himself a member of the intellectual elite ("What good are we if we are not?", he would ask), but pretense was the antonym of his demeanor He invariably dressed casually in plaid shirts and commuted on a motor scooter (riding it wearing a suit when the occasion was more formal) When he was in the field and not sleeping on a cot, he would share rooms with his students in simple hotels and join them at nearby gathering spots to soak up local culture Aschmann "had an empathy for Indians",6 said a colleague, and this affinity paid dividends in the rural areas he liked to frequent He regarded peasants as people of the earth and thus naturally good geographers with more to teach us about the land than we could learn anywhere else He would seek out these people for casual conversation, gently probing them for their knowledge and wisdom about the environment in which they lived He held equal esteem for other non-professional observers: "I am impressed," he would say, "that it is the amateur who can spend decades visiting and revisiting a region who gets the valuable insights The professional may be forced to rush to print too early."7 Aschmann believed that those best equipped to interpret the messages of the land must possess not just one but several talents, including language ability to facilitate direct contact with the cultures of foreign territories, an attraction for the vernacular to dull the glamour of placeless and meaningless distractions, an appreciation for the opinions of those who live close to the land, an ability to communicate clearly in simple and appealing terms, a mind open to wide interpretations and influences, and a breadth of interest and experience to sharpen the senses for the faintest clues to the proper track toward insight and understanding One of Aschmann's goals, especially later in life, was to try to retard geography's slide toward limited, impersonal, sedentary research He mourned the increasing reluctance among young geographers to leave the comforts of their offices, insisting that those who worked with him get outside to look at the land and sniff the air His message was not just for advanced students, but for beginning undergraduates as well: After all, he would say, "these are real, not imaginary landscapes; some exposure to field observation belongs in the first course."8 Again and again Aschmann demonstrated a willingness and uncommon ability to follow the scent of explanation wherever it led if it resulted in a more complete understanding of the land For this reason he regularly consulted and wrote for a wide variety of journals, including those in linguistics, ethnography, archaeology, botany, soil science, history, geomorphology, aerial photography, anthropology, demography He was always on the lookout for hints and suggestions which others less perceptive would not find He noted that, during his lifetime, geographers who frequented the hallways of other disciplines became a rarity Recognizing that subject specialization was common in many disciplines, Aschmann resisted the trend in his own work, believing it a particularly inappropriate approach for those studying the complexities of landscape origin and function He was especially adamant in dismissing the increasing incentives to find practical application in what he did: "Our rich society can afford a modest number of scholars impelled merely by curiosity."9 Geography's range and freedom were the elements most attractive to Aschmann; he saw them as its strength, its value, and its future: "I expect and hope that many of us would answer the question of why we entered geography first with the statement that it was interesting and congenial, and then with the follow-up that the discipline was non-restrictive It permitted, even encouraged, me to follow my interests wherever they led It is absolutely vital that the subject be kept that way."10 He believed that the increasing compartmentalization of the discipline would diminish its appeal to the very type of broadly talented people who contributed most strongly to building its reputation Aschmann's belief in the necessity of unbridled intellectual freedom reflected the close disciplinary links he came to appreciate most formally in graduate school, particularly those between geography and social sciences such as anthropology He felt that melding anthropology with geography was particularly valuable when studying aboriginal peoples in their natural settings: "Geographers along with anthropologists have consistently made contributions in the form of community and local regional studies among the sedentary Indians descended from the high civilizations of Western Latin America."11 It was his emphasis on landscapes that explains why Aschmann drew so readily from several disciplines He understood that the history of every landscape is written in many languages and that translating just one of them could only provide a partial understanding of how the landscape had evolved His vast interests and knowledge spread nets across several streams, and he was skilled at gathering in and identifying what would nurture his appetite for information about the land Aschmann felt that thorough familiarity with the cultural details of local inhabitants was essential to understanding how landscapes develop This was particularly true in areas once inhabited by aboriginal cultures: "Dietary preferences, agricultural practices, land holding and inheritance patterns, and familial and village level social organization are the sorts of culture elements that may survive from the Indian past "12 He argued that all this information provided the building blocks important to understanding the human use of the earth, and he was steadfast in believing that such an approach had but one natural home: " only geography endeavors to maintain this perspective."13 Aschmann's work on landscapes always demonstrated a strong appreciation for the dimension of time, both historical time and the time necessary for observation He believed that time was of equal importance to a disciplined, well-trained, and receptive mind But when field time was short or the possibility of repeated visits uncertain, he could receive multiple signals from the landscape and develop a quick and often remarkably perceptive interpretation His natural preference, however, was for unhurried study, and in this he reflected the advice of Carl Sauer, his mentor at Berkeley, who encouraged those interested in landscapes to take the time to "sit on vantage points and stop at question marks."14 Such reflection, Aschmann would say, helped avoid the type of baseless conjecture that was potentially damaging to geography Although Aschmann had an unshakable faith in the value of the geographical perspective, only rarely did he write pedagogical papers, believing doing so took time from important long-term projects When he did yield to the temptation, it was with contrition: "too much of our limited research energy is invested in minor descriptive studies or Denkschrifts and apologias of at best only transient interest, of which this paper is an example The academic pressure to publish regularly is admitted, and in my case responded to, but palms should go to him who spends a decade on the substantial monograph."16 Perhaps somewhat surprisingly for such a widely respected and productive scholar, Aschmann was unusually attentive to students He did not hide in his office behind closed doors as academics are increasingly pressured to do, but made himself available without restriction to those with serious questions or points to discuss, whether late at night, on weekends, holidays, or early in the morning That he always seemed to be in his office was an example of his unusual work ethic and an admission of the realities of his profession: "Academics have about as much time to publish as letter carriers," he would say; nights and weekends were work time He thought that being a good geographer took more self discipline, both in the classroom and in the library, than most people could muster When people entered his office, they were likely to find him cloaked in a cloud of cigarette smoke, reading yet another book he had acquired in exchange for a written review He always felt this arrangement advantaged him because he wanted to read these books anyway, and this way he got them free In addition, reviews provided a convenient forum for personal views he felt would be inappropriate to express within more formal papers But he felt that reading books, whether free or not, could never replace being in the field If books and field work were two wells he used to quench his thirst for knowledge, a watertight memory was a third; it was the talent many remembered about him most vividly He would, with little prompting, recite at length from a Gilbert and Sullivan operetta, quote obscure Spanish or German poetry, or tell earthy limericks late into the night at a bar or at his home where he would invite friends and students to eat and talk and share a bottle A good memory is especially helpful in the study of landscapes because there is so much to learn and integrate about each of them that it cannot be done well without a lot of information Normally gathering this information took time, so Aschmann returned again and again to certain areas such as southern California, Baja, the deserts, and South America He knew that his understanding increased each time he went back: "It is not unreasonable to hope," he would say, "that continuing observation and study will be cumulative, making possible the recognition of patterns and trends that one less experienced could not see".16 Believing that unhurried contemplation is the basis of the most valuable landscape insights, Aschmann did not believe in rushing students through their graduate work, even when others might have thought some prodding was in order Although he knew that there was an increasing tendency for many universities to measure success in terms of quantity rather than quality, he was determined not to let this happen where he had any control over the situation Recalling the amount of time he spent in graduate school, one of his former classmates said: "Aschmann used to say that the 14 years he spent gaining the Ph.D degree at Berkeley was about the right amount of time for such an undertaking, which, he asserted, should be leisurely "17 This preference for unhurried study also helps explain why Aschmann, like Sauer, decided to become a geographer rather than a mathematician or physicist: "In the latter fields at the frontier of knowledge, each problem is a unit A brilliant solution allows you to tackle another problem from essentially the same base Typically the greatest achievements are made by persons in their youth In geography, one faces a world so varied that a lifetime is too short to even see it, let alone learn much about how each place got to be the way it is."18 Aschmann embodied the word "juxtaposition" He had the enviable facility to be engrossed in a sixteenth century Spanish Jesuit diary one minute and the next minute be reciting Chaucer's "The Miller's Tale" He could judge an undergraduate research paper with the latitude appropriate to its neophyte author, but become furious when a graduate student missed a key fact through sloth Somewhat socially shy, he would unhesitatingly introduce himself to strangers at professional meetings and in the field While he personified the meaning of curmudgeon to some, he also demonstrated a sensitivity, even a nostalgia when he expressed his worry as he did in the mid-1960s about the degree to which we changed the shape and use of the land: "Until we know better what we want, I can only regard it as fortunate that the moon rather than the places closer to home is receiving our attention."19 As far as Aschmann's preferred haunts, he was particularly attracted to empty or nearly empty quarters, and was especially pleased when such places turned up unexpectedly He often demonstrated a flair for approaching these sites from their least unexplored frontier, and delighted in flipping conventional wisdom on its head with an individualist's twist in perspective Perhaps the best example of this is the paper he wrote pointing out that wild landscapes persisted even in heavily-urbanized southern California.20 Despite Aschmann's strong attraction to wild lands, he had no tolerance for environmental artifice, once calling the authors of a Sierra Club book on wilderness a "bunch of fanatics."21 Neither an activist nor a promoter of activism, he nonetheless admired people who would stand firm and support a solid argument with facts and experience He even admitted, in a particularly gracious moment: "I am glad that fanatics devote themselves to protecting a few areas from spoilation for commercial gain."22 But he saw this as a large task: "Making, by trial and error or by ingenious insight, our humanized world the closest approximation to paradise would seem a task capable of employing human creativity into the indefinite future."23 He could not resist pointing out, however, that such devotion alone will not satisfy "even the present population's need for a chance to experience non-artificial landscapes."24 Aschmann managed during his four-decade tenure at UC Riverside to experience often under less than comfortable circumstances a greater assortment of landscapes than most of us will ever encounter, all the time collecting and cataloging what he saw and learned Judging from the history of his field experience, he seemed to take perverse pleasure in hardships, danger, and tests of physical endurance In Baja, for example, he overcame great thirst, hunger and a ruptured appendix; in the Guajira he was several times held at gunpoint; in Upper Volta and elsewhere he overcame the discomforts of scorching heat He survived these and many other trials without complaint or reluctance, compensated by the hard-won insights others more particular would tend to miss His appreciation of the element of danger bolstered a larger-than-life reputation, as did his attraction to arm wrestling, drinking in dangerous bars, or as if to demonstrate his intent to always see the world from a different perspective than anyone else performing flawless handstands on steep pinnacles at Bryce Canyon or at geography meetings He had a fondness for smoke and drink (habits that added to his legend), admired courage and physical prowess, and remained silent in the face of discomfort The description "a man's man" seemed, for him, a good fit Although his gruff surface was part of what made him intriguing, everyone remembers that beneath this dressing hid a soft heart and an unbending intellectual honesty and tireless energy to pursue facts Like many geographers, Aschmann enjoyed the aerial perspective One of his earliest opportunities for observations of this type was at the controls of "heavys," B-24s, during World War II This was obviously not the safest way to see new places, and it cost him a year of his life despite his ability to read the landscape passing below for clues of origin and development Once with his aircraft mortally wounded, he maintained control until he knew he was over friendly territory After he reached the ground he was imprisoned nevertheless because, in the relatively short time since taking off, "they had moved the border," he would explain when asked how he came to be captured Never one to waste an opportunity, Aschmann used the year of captivity to "polish up" his German and to research and write a scholarly paper ("Kreigie Talk") on the jargon that developed among American airmen in German prison camps He never lost his interest in the aerial view of the Earth, later publishing papers on commercial aviation and high-altitude remote sensing,25 and he also continued his interest in the origins of names, especially place names, as several papers in this book demonstrate Over a beer or around a campfire, Aschmann would talk about these and other wartime experiences to emphasize the point that his definition of a good geographer always included being alert for opportunities to increase understanding of one's surroundings To his chagrin, and perhaps understandably, the message his students tended to hear with their cynical ears was that his POW experience helped explain both his proficiency in German and the high standards he enforced for their own language study Such standards reflected what was in store throughout his students' graduate education Realizing what was ahead, some of them decided they did not want to run the Aschmann gauntlet, and left; others managed to make their way through his two language exams, five written exams, and extensive oral exams, all administered with a rigor appropriate to his view of geography.26 He knew he was being stringent: "The standards of preparation and literacy I am suggesting for doctoral candidates in geography are admittedly revolutionary, even brutal."27 But there was in his mind no acceptable alternative He saw his job as one of attracting the best students and getting the most out of them Otherwise he saw little point to the activity He mourned the continued relaxation of standards in geography, in particular because he knew that landscapes, though often appearing simple, in reality were intricate tapestries woven of fabrics of many types, colors, and lengths He knew that unraveling them and understanding their complex arrangement was often a lengthy process and that it was important to take the time to develop the self discipline for long study This helps explain why, although receiving his BA at twenty and his MA at twenty one, he did not finish his Ph.D until he was thirty four Only part of that long period was attributable to the interruptions of war and the need to support his growing family He knew he needed to follow every lead, walk every trail, talk with every person, and read every book before he would feel comfortable assembling the facts, thinking through what they meant, and writing down his observations The step that usually took the most time he might tell you if you were lucky was thinking and reflecting, mentally sifting and sorting He called it "staring at the wall." Of Aschmann's role as university professor, he knew he had a special duty to identify those who would make good geographers: "Students are admitted to most courses with diverse backgrounds, and the instructor must re-present elementary material if he is not to lose a large fraction of the class For the abler major or graduate student, completing a long series of requirements will be dull and discouraging, and the conscientious but uninspired student will be attracted and comforted Such students may make fine citizens, but if they come to constitute the bulk of geographers, and there are too many symptoms that this is occurring, geography has no future in the better liberal arts colleges."28 Aschmann also felt graduate education in geography shortchanged students and the discipline when it did not require proficiency in related fields of study: "The other threat [to the future of geography] is the denial of the opportunity for a graduate student to serious work in an ancillary discipline This is not a matter of taking a random general course, but a program of study that ultimately will permit him to take a seminar in the other field, to experience directly, and in competition with that field's graduate students, how research is prosecuted on another frontier of knowledge An occasional fine graduate student may thus be lost to another discipline, but its breadth of interest gives geography a singular advantage in competing for minds of wide-ranging curiosity."29 As examples of his point, he offered: "The net reproductive rate in demography, the theory of rent and interest in economics, the concept of culture in anthropology, and functional versus evolutionary models for societies are the sorts of ideas referred to, and the geographer must be prepared to give a clear and accurate exposition of those he feels are relevant."30 Within the same context, he presaged a particularly visible societal emphasis that was to find broad sponsorship three decades later: "Some reactionaries like me even feel noble in exposing students to the notion that there is esthetic merit in a culturally diverse and less than perfectly efficient world."31 Aschmann's devotion to repeated and painstaking observation began early in his career He chose the central desert of Baja California as the site of his early fieldwork after first visiting there with Carl Sauer and two fellow students, Thomas Pagenhart and Brigham Arnold, in the late 1940s Baja seemed to suit his fondness for little-known places Not yet out of his twenties, he honed talents for field observation and interview, widened even more his competency in ancillary disciplines, and developed the ability to read Spanish archival materials Together, these various skills help prepare him to tackle landscape complexities elsewhere as well It is a predisposition of the natural geographer to enjoy reading well-written and perceptive landscape description Aschmann relished such activity, and though he spent most of his time reading scholarly publications, he was always in search of the work of experienced amateur observers Illustrating why he did this, he sometimes recalled Sauer's reference to the book Kosmos, Alexander von Humboldt's attempt to comprehend the physical universe Though considered the marvel of the age, Sauer had pointed out that this tome is now largely unread "On the other hand, any serious student of Mexico today or in the future must read Humboldt's less pretentious essay on the Kingdom of New Spain Put another way, the greatest discoveries of science are destined to be superseded Informal and insightful observations at a given place in time find a permanent place in human knowledge."32 And locating good sources requires devoted detective work, a requirement Aschmann enforced upon himself and those whom he tutored Practicing what he preached about the benefits of cumulative knowledge, Aschmann returned to Baja many times, tapping local wisdom, uncovering just one more fact, producing over the years a stack of articles and books on any Baja theme he found pertinent in explaining how the landscape got to be the way it was, whether in ecology, demography, archaeology, ethnography, cave paintings, or the construction of the Baja highway His most comprehensive and enduring work, The Central Desert of Baja California, set a standard for scholarship and dogged field work that is by now spawning a third generation of research in several disciplines Aschmann was drawn to underendowed, sparsely populated landscapes perhaps as a palliative to crowded southern California Whether examining the Baja's depopulated central desert, the subsistence economy of the Guajira Peninsula of Colombia, the impact of aboriginal lifestyles on the southwestern U.S., the use of offshore islands for settlement, vegetative change in arid northern Chile, or the pockets of habitation in Australia's northern territory, he seemed most at home where few lived The work Aschmann did in such inconvenient places reflected his belief in fieldwork This even came out often when he discussed teaching "Cultural geography", he would say, "is terribly hard to teach in a coherent, interesting, and intellectually challenging manner".33 His approach was "to convince the student that the data of cultural geography are derived from field observation and are only as valid as those observations."34 Landscapes, he would tell them, always had more to tell those who were perceptive and patient enough to hear: "One could continue to become a wiser geographer".35 When statistical techniques and modern technological aids began being adopted by geographers, he argued that it was a Faustian bargain for cultural geographers to favor the use of numerical data and inanimate equipment over hard-won insight and inspiration Such skill might help a student land a job, he would say, but it did not bode well for the discipline: "The rise in employment opportunities for geographers in the non-academic world, as in various planning agencies, is generally considered to be a favorable development, but it presents a dangerous temptation to the major graduate departments Such employers always prefer to hire people with semi-professional skills; in drafting, making detailed surveys, or doing statistical tabulations They are immediately useful and later they can be introduced into more responsible positions where their real geographic knowledge may be applicable The department that emphasizes turning graduate students into technicians is competing with undergraduate engineering schools on their home grounds, and will probably be less successful The short term placement opportunities may make administrators happy but are likely to prove a mess of pottage for which breadth of vision, our academic birthright, is squandered Any good graduate department must at least keep open a path of study that permits the bright student to avoid the detour into acquiring high competence as a low-level technician."36 He never felt fully comfortable when office-bound or when staring at pages of numbers, preferring to draw his understanding of landscapes in situ, usually beginning "by worrying about subsistence problems".37 Being on the land allowed him to integrate information and nuance in ways he felt only properly trained geographers were qualified and disposed to As a cultural geographer "concerned with the diversity of landscapes over the earth not accounted for by physical differentiation ",38 he saw no way to proceed than to be directly, personally, involved in the process Those who followed his advice invariably began to understand "the limitations of modern statistical data".39 One of the inherent limitations of such data was their inability to measure or integrate landscape complexity; he thought a concentration on raw numbers invariably missed the essence of the many interrelated themes that only the human brain is designed to blend and interpret This explains why he promoted acquiring a wide and varied range of knowledge of a place before suggesting explanations of its origins, its developmental history, and its present use He knew that acquiring the necessary skills was a tall order and not for everyone: "the cultural geographer is likely to need a very considerable store of information, and to be self-selected as one who doesn't mind acquiring it."40 One of the reasons that so few are cut out for Homer Aschmann's brand of geography is because it requires an uncommonly large investment of time to develop the necessary tools, and this is especially daunting for those reluctant to leave the conveniences of the office It also runs counter to present university tendencies to reward productivity over reflection Academic geography in the U.S has suffered many blows in recent years and several notable departments have been disbanded Understandably, this trend worried Aschmann, and he believed that one of the problems geographers were having stemmed from not paying adequate attention to how to communicate outside the discipline: "Geographers have not managed to impress the academic and intellectual world with the relevance of their investigations to the welfare of society; nor that their approach is fundamental, based on massive data, and capable of contributing to general understanding Had we done so colleges would find us indispensable; tomorrow's prospective leaders would be widely exposed to an appreciation of man and his environment they will need, for esthetic if not for actual survival reasons, as they remold the world; from the able students, not burdened with immediate economic demands, we might recruit scholars especially capable of advancing our intellectual frontiers In the long run we must."41 In the final analysis, Aschmann felt his professional mission was to understand all that the land could tell him With an ability on par with that of Aldo Leopold and J.B Jackson, this master observer regularly broke into clearings of perception about the land few could find for themselves All the while he prodded his fellow geographers to remember that "Geography's potential contributions to the welfare of the society are major Their realization is our challenge."42 In his seventy-two years, Homer Aschmann worked tirelessly to meet this challenge and, as one admirer phrased it, "to place the treasures he discovered on earth onto the printed page."43 This act of generosity started and ended, as does this book, in California 10 +++++ 11 ... did in the mid -19 60s about the degree to which we changed the shape and use of the land: "Until we know better what we want, I can only regard it as fortunate that the moon rather than the places... territories, an attraction for the vernacular to dull the glamour of placeless and meaningless distractions, an appreciation for the opinions of those who live close to the land, an ability to... of advancing our intellectual frontiers In the long run we must." 41 In the final analysis, Aschmann felt his professional mission was to understand all that the land could tell him With an ability