Jay Erskine Leutze came to speak to us today about his book, Stand Up That Mountain and his experiences growing and living in the mountains of North Carolina where he was able to call Belview Mountain his very own backyard. He is basically a conservationist who made a huge effort to save and preserve what we know as much of the Appalachian wilderness that happens to be one of the most beautiful sights on the east coast. I feel as though his book showed several different messages but I believe that one of the biggest points that he added onto at the convocation was the fact that realizing who you are and realizing the importance of the world and environment and creatures around you is the only way to truly understand everything around you. There are many small battles that have to be one before you can win a war and Mr. Leutze demonstrated this …show more content…
I found that some of the values he pointed out in his book were shared during this time. For example, I found that he valued remote locations that were clear of industrial growth, pristine wildlife, and a deep respect for nature, other creatures and the environment in general. He told this one story about this amazing waterfall that was on his property at some point that he didn't even know about for over three years. He then went on to say that he brought in a friend from California who commented that something as a amazing as that would be considered a national forest area that would be protected. This made me continue to think that we, who are supposed to protect and take care of the environment we live in, take a lot of things for granted. So I definitely found the main message or at least what I believe to be one of the main messages was the fact that we should all be aware of whats going on around us and we should decide in our minds what we want our “backyard” to look like, meaning the world around