This is a guest opinion column

When I called the main number for Yellowstone National Park a few days ago, hoping to plan a vacation, nobody answered. And maybe that’s the problem. With thousands of park rangers, seasonal workers, guides, and desk clerks being fired across the country, nobody knows what to expect when the full tourist season starts in just a few weeks.

Visitors may knock at the door of the venerable Old Faithful Lodge and wonder if anyone will be there to open it. The DOGE cuts have just started, but National Park Service workers must be anxious. Will they get a pink slip, even though their work has been outstanding? Will they be next on the chopping block, the one made of Yellowstone’s Lodgepole Pine? If they manage to keep their jobs, can they do their own work plus take up the slack of those who were let go?

When I worked at Yellowstone between college semesters five decades ago, there were enough people to finish all the tasks. That was a good thing as there were hundreds of tourists to take care of each day. Some had never been out of their cities and into the wild wilderness of our country. We were proud to work in such beautiful surroundings and acted like we owned the place.

Tourists asked lots of questions. They always wanted to know where the bears were, as though they stayed in the same designated place all the time. My work mates and I pointed out that they could be anywhere, and no matter where they were, they were dangerous.

Do not put your toddler on a bear’s shoulder, not if you want that toddler to grow into adulthood, we told them. No matter how many times you’ve read “Winnie the Pooh” or seen Disney movies starring cute bear cubs, bears are animals—wild animals. There were bear traffic jams along the two-lane roads, and we hoped nobody was getting too close to try to get that perfect photo.

Tourists wanted to know where the extra soap was, or the towels for the cabin’s bathroom. They ran out of shampoo and could the cabin girls—which is what we were called—bring them some more? Tourists always need help.

Tourists from New Yawk wanted to know where my roommate and I were from (Alabama and Mississippi) and why we tawked the way we did. They asked us to say certain phrases over and over. We exaggerated our southern accents since that meant bigger tips.

Visitors from around the world came to experience that gorgeous place with its dense forests, bubbling geysers, deep canyons and fast-flowing rivers. The mountain peaks were spectacular; the trails winding through the woods were carpets of brown and green.

Yellowstone Park has been a glorious gift to this country since 1872. My hope is that tourists will still open that gift each time they come. But without enough staff, visitors will face overflowing trash cans, dirty bathrooms, fewer desk clerks to sign them in, and nobody to give them directions to Fishing Bridge, Lake Lodge—where my boyfriend and now husband worked, and Roosevelt Lodge, where our daughter worked when she was in college.

My fellow cabin maids and I couldn’t lay claim to the magnificent place, but we could be proud of it. It gave us lifelong memories and tales to tell our grandchildren. One of mine goes to college just an hour from Yellowstone’s entrance and the other has been there many times.

Let’s don’t let our parks go to waste—real waste that spills out of dumpsters and onto the roads. Let’s keep them up and hire enough people to do just that. Let’s pass this gift along.

Contact Beth Thames at [email protected]