In woods deep and dark at the George Washington Carver National Monument is a statue of the famous scientist as a boy.
The bronzed boy sits upon a rock, a plant in his hand, staring contemplatively into the trees, chin at a slight upward tilt.
But who is that older gentlemen, visitors may wonder, standing near the statue and reciting Alfred Lord Tennyson?
Volunteering has always been a part of Charles Barker’s life.
But things are starting to wind down.
Barker retired last week as a volunteer historian / interpreter at the Carver Monument, where he has spent the past couple years as a colorful addition to the park.
What’s in a life? For Barker, it was growing up during the Great Depression, serving in the Korean War and cutting hair for 30 years in a small shop off the Neosho Square.
But, really, those are just marks on a timeline. It’s what’s between those marks, the everyday actual living, which makes up someone’s wisp-puff of experience on Earth.
Again, for Barker, it’s playing the acoustic guitar. Or observing life around him and jotting it down to paper. Or reciting the major poets. Or writing a little poetry himself.
Or sometimes just stepping back and laughing at it all.
“When you’re interviewing prospective volunteers, if they even remotely mention that they’re a poet say ‘we don’t need any right now but there’s a big state mental institution up the road and you’ll fit right in,’ ” Barker joked at a recent farewell party thrown in his honor at the Carver Monument.
About two and a half years ago he was at a point in his life when he needed a distraction in a big way. His wife and son had both died within a short time period and he had had triple bypass surgery.
“If you live long enough, life has a way of hitting you hard — you can depend on that,” Barker shared. “I was old when it got to me.”
Thinking back to happier times, one place kept popping up: Carver Monument.
He had taken his fiancé, and future wife, Viola, there way back in the early 50s, when the place pretty much consisted of a farmhouse manned by an on-site caretaker. He later brought his children there regularly.
So Barker offered his services as a volunteer.
“When you’re old and you lose your mate, you’re kind of a leftover,” Barker explained. “People don’t mean anything by it, it’s just the way they deal with you. You find yourself pushed to the periphery of society and that’s where you’ll stay. It’s a very lonely life being old and single. So you find something to do.”
Barker found something in Carver Monument. It was about a six-week training process just getting on board as a volunteer.
At Barker’s retirement party last week, fellow volunteers and park rangers talked about the way he had “saved the day” on the very first time he was out on his own. They call it the “angry pregnant teacher” story.
A communication mix-up had resulted in a double booking. There were already 131 kids scheduled for a tour and then two more busloads unexpectedly arrived from a different school. No one knew they were coming, so there wasn’t a park ranger available to lead them around.
But there was Barker. It was Day 1 for him as a volunteer.
The teacher, who was noticeably “with child,” from the latter school group wasn’t too happy about the mix-up. She was sullen for most of the tour, Barker recalled.
And then the group came upon the boy-Carver statue in the woods along the park trail leading to the Moses Carver house.
Barker pulled a parchment paper from his knapsack. Above a sketch of a little black hand holding a blooming flower were the words of poet-laureate Lord Tennyson in the poem “Flower in the Crannied Wall.”
Barker recited the poem, which arguably touches on the meaning of life, and then gave parchment copies of the poem to a little boy and girl in the class and told them to ask their teacher if she would put it on the bulletin board at school.
The once-dour teacher was pleased.
“I had her then,” Barker laughed. “She was my friend the rest of the trip.”
He later got a sweet thank-you card from her and the class and she revisits the monument every so often with her now-toddler.
After that experience, Barker recited “Flower in the Crannied Wall” on every tour and at the very same place — the statue of young Carver holding the plant in his hand and deep in contemplation.
He loved working as guide on the interpretive trail at Carver Monument, especially when there were kids on the tour. At the end of his time there, health issues forced him behind the greeting desk, which he didn’t enjoy as much.
But his self is not what Barker would like to talk about. He brushes the subject away like an annoying fly and starts in with praising the rangers of the National Park Service. One of his life’s regrets is that he wasn’t interested in becoming a ranger when he was younger.
“Those people in the gray and green are a breed apart,” he said. “They are very unique and have to be very knowledgeable about a lot of different things. Because people ask all kinds of questions and you have to have a good, broad base of knowledge to be a park ranger. Little kids are going to ask one question just right after another and you need some sort of an accurate answer. It would be a very rewarding job.”
If a subject pertaining to him personally comes back up, it isn’t long before Barker’s talking about the park rangers again — or the national parks. In about a 10-year span, he and his late wife traveled to 35 states and six Canadian provinces visiting different parks.
“When you go the Grand Canyon, or Mesa Verde or Acadia and drive through the gate in that green and gray uniform with that hat and badge on, it’s very impressive,” Barker said. “Because you know that person is a steward of that park…they’re knowledgeable, they’re there to help you learn, they’re there to show the kids a good time. And I envy them a lot. I respect them very highly.”
Though he won’t be working side by side with the rangers at Carver Monument anymore, these past two years as a volunteer park interpreter have made Barker a happy man in the waning light of sunset.
“I was standing on the side of the road and someone came along and picked me up,” said Barker, as one by one he told the rangers and staff at Carver Monument good-bye “It’s been quite a little ride.”
