Terry Dossett
Gene Sands is a happy, excited, involved, committed, 93-year-old former Alton High School biology teacher who has no intention of discontinuing his meaningful legacy of passing along his special brand of enthusiasm and zest for life.
Indeed, his intense, flashing blue eyes tell the whole story of his love for all things living, especially the Great Plains prairie.
A U.S. Navy radio operator during World War II, he has seen parts of the world in ways few of us these days have experienced. Stationed for a year in Australia, then over to New Guinea, and finally to Subic Bay in the Philippines, he remembers his war with the passion and empathy and sympathy of a man who reveres life, even for the enemy Japanese.
But these days, Gene’s passion is for something considerably less violent in nature. Very simply, he says, “I love the prairie. The prairie is fascinating!”
To him, the plains prairie is a microcosm of life, teeming with varieties of flowers, bee-attracting plants, insects of all kinds. Indeed, to Gene, it is a living breathing entity unto itself.
Heartland Prairie, north of Gordon Moore Park, is 30 acres of one such entity. The plot has been leased to members of the Sierra Club and Gene, ever the botanist, has seen to it that it will be returned, in toto, to the prairie it was once was, rather than the manicured lawns we all try to maintain. Allowed to flourish, it will return to those days of yesteryear, where multitudes of buffalo grazed on belly-deep varieties of grasses.
But what Gene needs most is help! He is in need of volunteers willing to see the wealth of learning found in his precious prairie. An outreach program will help in that endeavor. Gene has solicited some like-minded friends to help him get things going.
Vernon Leclaire, a Vietnam veteran who also thrives on such things as polk salad and sumac tea, and who spent many happy hours as a youth in Vaughn’s Woods (before I-255 bulldozed it from the map) is right beside Gene all the way. He has always had the passion for all things natural, and God-given, and clean. A retired McCluer North teacher, he instilled in his students a love of Mother Nature and what she can do for us: how one can survive relying on nature to provide shelter and sustenance when things go awry in the wilderness.
Another veteran, Brad Lavite, is also learning from Gene, the senior ambassador. A retired company commander from the Iraq war, Major Lavite is being influenced by the knowledge and lore of the other two veterans. Brad contacted Gene when a portion of his property needed to be rescued from erosion and dangerous mowing! Gene came up with the solution of building Brad’s own private prairie on a two-acre plot.
The three vets volunteer at the Heartland Prairie project, using their quality time and drawing on their individual experiences, helping one another cope with the incredibly difficult experiences these heroes went through. The prairie project is therapy for all three of them.
So, each of these gentlemen is also a gentle man — bearing one another up from wounds and anxieties others can only imagine. If any readers of this column are willing to get their hands dirty and have something wonderful to show for it, please let Gene and Vernon and Brad know. They maintain anyone, even novice botanists, you readers, can be proponents of the Great American Prairie, if for only a few square feet of soil.
But these friends have found a comradeship far more important than a few sprigs of grass and wildflowers. They have bound their hearts together as veterans.
And as Henry V put it in his St. Crispin speech from the Shakespeare play, these men can faithfully say, “We few ... we happy few ... we band of brothers.”