“But I know, it’s my own damn fault”

Here I am in the Ponil Trading Post, LL Bean River Driver's
Shirt, sporting a "Brillo Pad" beard. Yes, I was a dork.

My second season on Philmont staff took me to the other end of the ranch. I went from a far-southern camp to far north, though not the farthest north.  From a camp I later heard called the “armpit of Philmont” to the former Five Points base camp – Ponil, the lap of luxury. As a former Philmont base camp, Ponil had a huge dining hall – way underused by our small staff – two staff cabins, a wrangler bunkhouse, which I never saw, and the cantina and trading post, which were two sides of one building with a covered porch connecting them.  Oh, and we had propane-heated showers! (We had 'em at Abreu, too, but some staffed camps had to rely on wood to heat the showers.)

We also had a “ranger” who did maintenance around the camp. He and his wife and young daughter, from Salina, Kansas, I think, or maybe it was Colorado, lived in a log-cabin house on the east end of the camp. The ranger’s wife was our cook, preparing meals for the staff of program counselors, our camp director, the wranglers and the retail proprietors (cantina manager Dave Mote and me, trading post manager).

The Bar S Saloon at Ponil.

 The down side to being trading post manager and not cantina manager is the lack of tunes. OK, that’s retrospective regret. At the time, I don’t think I missed the music. Silence was conducive to reading. So I read during the slow hours behind the counter, waiting for crews to come in for apples, Little Debbie peanut butter bars, batteries, film, postcards, white gas, what-have-you. I remember Louis L’Amour’s “The Walking Drum” and Vonnegut’s “Slaughterhouse Five.” I’d like to think I read more than that, but I’m a slow reader for an English lit major, so that might have been it. I kept a journal off and on that summer and wrote love letters to my girlfriend, if that counts for anything.

Main (office) cabin at Ponil - my bunk.

Anyway, we listened to music in the staff cabin. As I said, there were two staff cabins: the office cabin, with two small bedrooms and an office space for the radio and check-in purposes, and “Little Norway,” the larger cabin at the western edge of the camp, across Ponil Creek. I have no clue about the name of “Little Norway.” I only visited it once – it was a little like Chris’s venture into the den of his pot-smoking cohorts in “Platoon.” Maybe I should post the question about the origin of the name to the Philstaff alumni via the Philmont Staff Association. Somebody has to know the answer.

A year earlier at Abreu, the tunes all belonged to someone else.  I think the same was true at Ponil, but again they led me to buy some new music: Billy Joel’s “Greatest Hits Vol. I-II,” Jimmy Buffett’s “Songs You Know By Heart” and, years later, something by Hank Williams Jr.  I may have owned the Billy Joel, but it’s unlikely, given I didn’t take my boom box with me.
 
As previously confessed, to my brother’s chagrin, I am a Billy Joel fan. And I was back then. So listening to Joel tunes kept me in touch with my distant girlfriend. And “Greatest Hits Vol. I-II” was a God-send that summer. Ironically, one of the songs I chose for this Philmont playlist is “Allentown,” which reminds me of a girl who had a secret crush on me in high school, and not my girlfriend from college.

Saloon on the left, trading post, right. Ponil was such a great camp.

Hard to explain, but Allentown is a town in Pennsylvania. Said girl, a younger student by a year, moved after my junior year in high school to Hollidaysburg, Pa. I sent her a letter when I was in college, sophomore year I think, and in her reply learned of her crush. But it was too late.  She was miles away and engaged – “promised to someone” is how she put it.

Anyway, Allentown is in the Hollidaysburg region, so, blah, blah, blah. Get it?

 

Moving on…

Everybody’s heard Jimmy Buffett’s “Margaritaville.” I even have a misheard lyric directly from the title. I thought “wasted away again in Margaritaville” was “wasted away again in Nagaridavich.” I guess I was spinning off of Nacogdoches, the town in Texas. That’s logical, right? Blame my John Wayne adoration. Think, the Duke in “Big Jake.” Don’t get the reference, look it up.
 

Like everyone else in the world I had heard “Margaritaville,” if a little confusedly, but I knew the song. But our Jimmy Buffett Margaritaville party in the horse corral one night – sans genuine margaritas – left me with a genuine appreciation for Jimmy Buffett.  “Margaritaville” is a relationship song.  It’s about a guy drowning his sorrows over lost love in margaritas. Over the course of the song,  Jimmy moves from the split being nobody’s fault, to maybe his fault to the final confession: “It’s my own damn fault.”

I can relate.  (Don’t tell my parents. I think after all these years of “It’s not my fault,” I’ve finally convinced them.)

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

Today's Stats (Oct. 20, 2013)

Temp: 39 degrees F

Distance: 4.19 miles

Weekly Total: 12.04 miles

Treasure: 1 thin dime*; 8 cans. *Dime was no thinner than usual. 

iPod Playlist (Shuffle):

Red Barchetta – Rush

More Than This – Roxy Music

Helter Skelter (live) – U2

Let’s Get Funkee – C+C Music Factory

Allentown – Billy Joel

Like Sugar – Matchbox Twenty

A Groove Of Love (What’s This Word?) – C+C Music Factory

I Can Dream About You – Dan Hartman

Only Wanna Be With You – Hootie & The Blowfish

Steve McQueen – Sheryl Crow

Pour Some Sugar On Me – Def Leppard