Texas Fauna Project

TRANSCRIPT

INTERVIEWEE: Joseph Heiser

INTERVIEWER: Thomas H. Kreneck

DATE:  August 14, 1984

LOCATION: Houston, Texas

TRANSCRIBER: Trint, David Todd

SOURCE MEDIA: MP3 audio file

REEL: OH314 (Houston Metropolitan Research Center records)

FILE: 

HoustonToad_Heiser_Joseph_Jr_14August1984_OH314_HMRC_AudioMP3.mp3

Joseph Heiser, Jr. [00:00:02] Just saving the special things isn’t going to discharge our responsibility as custodians of this nation’s natural features. That we have to somehow save something of everything.  As the present day custodians of of the the natural treasures and features of this country are passing through our hands.

Joseph Heiser, Jr. [00:00:27] And our responsibility is not to save what appeals to us, or what happens to be best able to resist change, but everything that comes into our hands that we inherited from those ahead of us. It is our responsibility to save as much of those things that we can to pass them and pass them on. And what belongs, I say.

Joseph Heiser, Jr. [00:00:52] It is up to us to save the magnolias and the whooping crane. But the Houston toad and the chinquapin tree and all of those things: whatever belongs on the land.

Joseph Heiser, Jr. [00:01:11] As much as we can we have got to save those things as they were because as I say, those are not ours we’re merely tenants here temporary. We were born here and live and die and the land is continued.

Joseph Heiser, Jr. [00:01:26] And what what what Americans have after we’re gone is what we were wise enough and smart enough and responsible enough to save.

Joseph Heiser, Jr. [00:01:37] And that’s what, see what it says there? What belongs? I say it isn’t up to us to say what we like, or what is best fitted to survive. But whatever belongs on the land and what is ever a part of our inheritage. That’s what we’ve got to save. And that’s my story.