Still Running

In posting my Philmont reverie last night I forgot to include the stats from the day's run. D'oh. Well, here they are. It was a long, tiring, revitalizing run. I hit the zone. My legs just moved on their own. It was incredible. It also was a bit of a disappointment. I thought for sure I'd hit 9 miles, maybe even 10. Alas.

From last summer's half marathon.

But, this catch-up entry marks my 302nd blog post. That's pretty awesome. I started this blog Thanksgiving Day 2010, so I've averaged 100 posts per year since it's inception. Not bad. Not great, but it's still going. Good exercise for the mind as well as the body.

Today's Stats

Temp: 50 degrees F

Distance: 8.78 miles

Weekly Total: 8.78 miles

Treasure: Nothing today.

iPod Playlist (Shuffle):

The Woods – The Call

Rock Me Tonight – Billy Squier

I’m Not From Here – James McMurtry

The Rising – Bruce Springsteen

These Dreams Of You – Van Morrison

Lights of Cheyenne – James McMurtry

Waiting For A Girl Like You – Foreigner

Save A Prayer – Duran Duran

I Don’t Wanna – The Call

Jump – Van Halen

The Camera Eye – Rush

Tik Tok – Ke$ha

Frank Sinatra – Cake

Bringin’ On The Heartbreak – Def Leppard

Damn – Matchbox Twenty

83 – John Mayer

House of Pain – Van Halen

If You’re Gone – Matchbox Twenty

Have A Real Good Time – Trampled Under Foot

Where The Streets Have No Name – U2

Last Song, People!

Realizing this is the final song on my Philmont playlist, I was reminded of the introduction to REO Speedwagon’s live version of “Ridin’ the Storm Out” on their Greatest Hits disc. “Last song, people!” shouts Kevin Kronin. Coincidentally, in searching for that particular clip on YouTube, I came up with a different live version in which Kronin talks about the band finally leaving it’s Midwest tour and encountering the Rocky Mountains. Wow! Serendipity. Or perhaps mere coincidence. But the fact is, this last song is all about the Rockies. 

Couple of pages from an early Philmont Adventure
Guidebook. With my notes.

I’ll confess now – because I’m just that kind of guy these days – that I doubt I ever heard “RockyMountain Way” at Philmont. At least I don’t remember it. But it seemed a fitting finale.

In the liner notes to “Look What I Did!”, Joe Walsh says “Rocky Mountain Way” was about the rejuvenation after  his split from the James Gang. He explains it here, too.  To sum it up, he says: “It was special then, and the words were special to me, because the words were like, 'I'm goin' for it, the heck with feeling sorry for this and that', and it did turn out to be a special song for a lot of people.”

I think there’s more in the liner notes, but I don’t feel like dredging them out of the basement tonight. The point is, that like Walsh,  I found revival in the Rockies. OK, it’s different. I wasn’t breaking from something when I moved, if only seasonally, to the Rockies. But, as I wrote in my biography for my 2004 Group Study Exchange trip to Sweden and Denmark, I grew up in the Rockies. Granted, the bio focused on my venture to Yellowstone National Park in 1988, when I ultimately met my wife-to-be.  I rather like my borrowed prose.

I can’t find the original, at least not in a readable format. Made the mistake many years ago of using Lotus WordPro. Now I can’t find a copy converted to Word or even plain text. Alas. Anyway, it started out borrowing from John Denver. “I was born in the summer of my 22^nd year… “ Denver sang, “He was born in the summer of his 27^th year, coming home to a place he’d never been before.”

That was my sentiment with Philmont, though I had been there before. And when I wrote the GSE bio it was in reference to working at Yellowstone in my 22^nd year of life. And the national park was indeed a place I had never been before.

Both were experiences of growth.  Both places immediately felt like “home.”

I want to go home.

I envy my eldest daughter, who has been in the Southwest – Albuquerque and Santa Fe – this month for work. I am also proud and encouraged that she, too, loves the Southwest, at least in her limited experience. Do we not all love those shared experiences with our children?

Embrace them. Cherish them. And seek to find home.

PHILMONT PLAYLIST

Mountain Music - Alabama

Seven Bridges Road – The Eagles

Ghostbusters – Ray Parker Jr.

Music Time (live) - Styx

Slew Foot – James McMurtry

Snowblind (live) - Styx

Y’all Come Back Saloon – The Oak Ridge Boys

Carolina In The Pines – Michael Martin Murphey

Dream On (Single Version) – The Oak Ridge Boys

Cool Clear Water (Remastered) – Sons of the Pioneers

Malagueña – Carlos Montoya

Big Iron – Marty Robbins

Wildfire – Michael Martin Murphey

Roll On (18-Wheeler) - Alabama

Allentown – Billy Joel

Margaritaville – Jimmy Buffett

Man of Steel – Hank Williams Jr.

Worse Comes to Worst – Billy Joel

A Country Boy Can Survive – Hank Williams Jr.

Rocky Mountain Way – Joe Walsh

Man of Steel’s done got the blues

OK, so a woman didn’t give me the blues that summer. At least not beyond the blues of missing her back home. And I’m pretty sure none of my friends – then or now – call me Superman. But Hank Jr.’s voice and boisterous style infiltrate your psyche and convince you that you’re the guy singing. I was a formerly unfeeling-now-lovesick Superman. I was a country boy capable of independent survival. 

1985 Ponil staff. I'd tell you which one I am, but I think you'll
figure it out. Click on pic to enlarge.

Of course pretty much none of that is true. Oh, I embrace the personas (well, maybe not the unfeeling Man of Steel – I mostly don’t mind being an emotional guy), but I’m not those guys. And that’s fine. It’s fun to fantasize and romanticize life. Reality, however, often takes a different turn.

That second summer at Philmont found me facing my second long-term separation from my first-ever girlfriend. Our first was the three-week winter break just two weeks after our meeting Dec. 1, 1984. If I thought three weeks was miserable, three months was sure to be a near death experience.

It wasn’t. I was busy selling supplies and taking inventory and enjoying the Southwest scenery that surrounded me. And Marybeth stayed in touch. She sent at least a letter a week, sometimes two, minimum eight pages of fancy stationery with lovely, loopy, girlie writing. Once I even received a care package with cookies. They weren’t homemade, but the gesture was appreciated.

Here I am in the Ponil trading post, 1985. Go ahead,
make fun. Facial hair was a challenge then.

Then came the letter. MB’s mom was talking china patterns. I’m not freaked out by commitment. I’m not opposed to marriage. MB and I had talked plenty, as young lovers will, about spending our lives together. We dreamed of that. But that little joke (I learned later it was meant to be funny) somehow scared the 19-year-old me. At least that’s what hindsight tells me.

It must have been fear that inspired my own little joke. I wrote a love letter in response. Only it was to an imaginary girl named Jennifer, whom I’d supposedly met at Philmont – there were women on staff. The idea was that I’d mixed up my letters and sent the wrong letter to my steady girl. Oops. Well, aside from some embarrassment when her family asked what the latest letter said, she got over it and knew it was a lame attempt at humor. Or something like that. Anyway, I was forgiven. But I think it was the beginning of the end.

Anyhoo, Hank Williams Jr. was one of our go-tos that summer. We heard him a lot. And, as noted before, Billy Joel was in heavy rotation. So my playlist includes a couple of random Billy Joel songs. Funny, the ones I remember specifically from Philmont have absolutely nothing to do with anything other than that I first heard them back then. So I chose others that tied to memories associated with the time and location.

In brief, “Worse Comes to Worst” makes the list because of the weird way memories work. I’ve always picked up on one simple line from this song. It really has nothing to do with anything:

“It doesn’t matter which direction, though / I know a woman in New Mexico.”

It reminds me of my departed friend Chris Farrar. He actually did meet a girl on staff at Philmont in 1984. Dee Dee lived in New Mexico and Chris told the story that it was her high school that makes a cameo in the 1984 film “Red Dawn.” It’s a tenuous connection, I know, but it’s how my mind works.

And in a way it all makes sense. Or at least it brings us full circle – talk of first girlfriends and all. So there you have it.

PHILMONT PLAYLIST (One song to go)

Mountain Music - Alabama

Seven Bridges Road – The Eagles

Ghostbusters – Ray Parker Jr.

Music Time (live) - Styx

Slew Foot – James McMurtry

Snowblind (live) - Styx

Y’all Come Back Saloon – The Oak Ridge Boys

Carolina In The Pines – Michael Martin Murphey

Dream On (Single Version) – The Oak Ridge Boys

Cool Clear Water (Remastered) – Sons of the Pioneers

Malagueña – Carlos Montoya

Big Iron – Marty Robbins

Wildfire – Michael Martin Murphey

Roll On (18-Wheeler) - Alabama

Allentown – Billy Joel

Margaritaville – Jimmy Buffett

Man of Steel – Hank Williams Jr.

Worse Comes toWorst – Billy Joel

A Country Boy CanSurvive – Hank Williams Jr.

Today's Stats (Sunday, Oct. 27, 2013)

Temp: 55 degrees F

Distance: 4.19 miles (47 minutes, with wait for train)

Weekly Total: 12.51 miles

Treasure: Nothing today.

iPod Playlist (Shuffle):

Prove Your Love – Taylor Dayne

Mutineer – Warren Zevon

I’m Only Sleeping – The Beatles

Missing You – John Waite

You Run – The Call

Be Still – Storyside B

Long Day – Matchbox Twenty

Lively Up Yourself(live) – Robert Plant

Race Car Ya-Yas – Cake

Exit – U2

Spirits In The Material World – The Police

Nothing Compares 2 U – Sinead O’Connor

Further On (Up The Road) – Bruce Springsteen