DCR Virginia

Ed Note: Readers you are in for a treat as Tom Cervenak, Visitor Services and Marketing Manager for Virginia State Parks, weaves the story of how he came to work for parks and what his career has been like. This series will run nine chapters, with many of them split into two parts.

Chapter 2 The Wonder Years (Part 2)

I also received a love of nature through a great upbringing by my parents and grandparents. Besides going fishing with Dad and that great time when he lets you actually drive the boat, there were a lot of other cool family things that you just don’t see as much these days. I remember my parents taking us kids to parks on Saturday mornings and cooking breakfast on an open grill with wood, not charcoal or gas. Us kids would run around and have such great fun and then sit down together as a family to eat.

I also remember on those trips to the cottage from Cleveland we would look for mushrooms on people’s lawns and in cemeteries. When we saw this certain type my grandparents or whoever was driving would pull over, give us kids a bag and a knife and tell us to run and go get them. First of all, who nowadays tells their kids to run with a knife. But there was a strategy in this thinking, you see you had to be quick to outrun the dogs that chased you out of the yards. It was some good times and to this day I’m still picking mushrooms, but more so from an aisle in a grocery store.

I also joined Boy Scouts late in life, at the age of 16 years old. I actually only joined it to go on a trip to Philmont Boy Scout Ranch in New Mexico with one of my best friends. It turned out I enjoyed it so much I stuck around a couple more years and today I’m an Assistant Scout Master. But any Scouting organization gives you a great foundation for a career in the outdoors and I strongly recommend them.

Through my love of nature and people one day while watching Yogi the Bear cartoons and seeing Ranger Smith, I new I wanted to be a Park Ranger. But then appeared a second love in my life…