“I don’t wanna go to the bathroom. I hafta go to the bathroom!”
Ranger Bill smiled that perfect smile which reminded the boys that he was at peace with himself and the nature that surrounded them, and that he was in charge. “You can’t go to the bathroom yet,” he calmly remarked. “We haven’t reached the campsite.” Ranger Bill’s deep tan radiated enthusiasm for their hike.
“When are we gonna get there? I’m hungry!” another boy whined. Soon, several small heads bobbed in agreement. “Yeah,” they added, “when are we gonna eat?”
Ranger Bill was unhappy that their complaining spoiled the stillness of the forest, but he let them go until his keen eye spotted something hidden by the trees in the distance. Holding up a hand, he ordered the boys to keep quiet. They immediately were. Ranger Bill silently dropped his full knapsack to the ground and crept up to the trees. With a wave of his hand, he beckoned the boys to follow.
Beyond the tree stood a majestic commercial billboard, 60 feet high at least. On it was a picture of Charles Bronson, or, at the very least, an airbrushed portrait of his stunt double, staring into the middle foreground, holding a long, lit cigarette. “I’m man enough to try anything,” the sign read, “even new Magnum 44s, the unfiltered cigarette from Imperial Cancer Company.” In a bottom corner came the obligatory warning: “The Surgeon General has guessed that cigarette smoking might be harmful to your health. But, what does he know, anyway?”
“Shh,” Ranger Bill whispered. “Don’t do anything to disturb it.”
Around the campfire that evening, some of the boys were less than enthusiastic about what they had come upon. “There are lots of billboards in the city. What was so special about that one?”
Ranger Bill smiled a knowing smile, the one he usually reserved for just before a long lecture on nature. “Of course, there are many domesticated billboards in the city, but there are very few wild, untamed ones left in their natural habitat, the forest. A long time ago, huge herds of billboards grazed at the side of large highways and shyly congregated on the outskirts of towns and cities. But, now, the rural billboard is an endangered species, and it may already be too late to save it from premature extinction…”
“Gee, Ranger Bill,” one of the boys, his face alight with knowledge (or, possibly, just a reflection from the fire), asked, “why’s that?”
“Human interference, of course. A few years ago, hordes of ravaging environmentists descended on the wild,” Ranger Bill explained. “They made life hard for billboards by cutting down the natural supplies that sustained them…”
“What are they?”
“Tourists. You see, when an area is infested by tourists, the billboards thrive. But, by insisting that nature areas be kept clean by limiting tourism to a small number of areas, and allowing hunters to destroy billboard grazing grounds along highways throughout the country, the environmentalists cut the lifeblood of the species. Now, only a handful of the once-proud billboards can be found, usually overgrown with vegetation…it’s lights no longer shining so bright…”
“I’m going to carve my initials in it!” one of the boys shouted.
“I wouldn’t do that if I was you,” Ranger Bill grimly cautioned. “Haven’t you heard of the legend of Oboygobibi?”
“No,” a few of the boys responded. Ranger Bill cleared his throat. As he spoke in his calm, overly dramatic manner, the shadows of the campfire boogied around them.
“Oboygobibi was a proud young native boy…about your age. He always boasted that he would one day carve his name into the side of a billboard. ‘Don’t do that,’ his mother reverently warned him, ‘or you will anger the gods of C’merz!’ But, Oboygobibi just laughed at her superstitious fears. Late one night, he slipped out of his family’s condo to look for a young billboard, which was rumoured to be easier to brand than an Elder. It was pitch black, and the forest was filled with strange sounds. It occurred to Oboygobibi as he negotiated a garbage dump that this might not have been such a smart idea…”
Ranger Bill paused ominously. “W…what happened?” one of the braver boys whispered.
“Nobody knows. The boy was never seen again. But, a few months later, a new billboard featuring snow tires was spotted in the forest. And, it was a funny thing, but it prominently featured a native boy who looked a lot like Oboygobibi. One member of the time-sharing tribe actually got close enough to it to see the boy’s named carved into one of the billboard’s poles. They say sometimes, late at night, if you listen very carefully, you can still hear the screeching of tires…
“Now, it’s getting late – who wants to take the first watch?”
RANGER BILL SAYS: “We had fun searching for billboards in the forest, boys and girls, but, in the future, you may not. Remember: we mustn’t allow environmentalists to ruin everybody else’s chance of profiting from nature. Okay?”