Oldest Full-Time Park Ranger, Betty Reid Soskin, Furloughed

[struggle4progress]

"This is my last decade, and I can't afford to have anyone waste my time," she told NBC Bay Area
By Lisa Fernandez and Cheryl Hurd
Tuesday, Oct 8, 2013
Updated 8:26 AM PDT

... At 92, the San Francisco Bay Area woman is the nation's oldest full-time national park ranger. On Monday, she told NBC Bay Area that she is "thoroughly confused" as to why she has had to leave her job and remain "idle" at home ...

"At this stage of my career, I have a sense of urgency," Soskin said from her home in San Pablo, Calif., about 20 miles northeast of San Francisco. "This is my last decade, and I can't afford to have anyone waste my time" ...

Soskin was among the roughly 800,000 federal workers furloughed on Oct. 1 at midnight when the government partially shut down. For the last seven years, she has worked three days a week giving tours at the Rosie the Riveter/World War II Home Front National Historical Park in Richmond, Calif., and two days a week at park administrative offices. During her birthday week last month when she turned 92, Soskin was up in a cherry picker, checking out the peeling bark of a giant eucalyptus, something she wrote about on her blog. Before she became a ranger at the age of 85, Soskin was a social activist and a small businesswoman in South Berkeley, where she worked to battle crime and create subsidized housing. She co-owned Reid's Records with her late husband since 1945 ...

During World War II, Soskin worked as a clerk for the all-black Boilermakers A-36. In the true sense of the word, she is not a "Rosie," because that title is typically held for female wartime shipyard workers who were white. Still, Soskin feels her views -- and experiences as an African-American woman during World War II -- are invaluable to the country's collective wartime memory ...

[Cha]

1. Wow.. what an amazing woman.. one of the thousands

of personal stories highlighting those who were furloughed by the terrorist teabaggers.

thanks struggle~

[pinboy3niner]

3. +1

She's an inspiration!

[niyad]

2. k and r

[spiderpig]

4. She looks 30 yrs younger & sounds 60 yrs younger

than her calendar age.

Once this government farce is over Mr. pig & I are going to go to her park (just a few miles from where we live) & seek her out. Go Betty!