“Who you gonna call?”

The summer smash of 1984 hit theaters June 8 and pulled in a whopping $13,612,564 opening weekend. One website ranks it fourth in a list of The 30 Best Summer Blockbusters Ever. Of course I’m talking about Ghostbusters.  Here’s a bit I wrote about the Ghostbusters splash a decade after. I confess now to making some minor alterations and corrections in the transcription process. For some reason I don’t have an electronic file from when I wrote this in 1994, though if I could find it I couldn’t open the original Lotus Word Pro file anyway; thankfully I saved a hard copy. My, how times have changed.

 

Friday the 13^th on Urraca Mesa

When the “paranormal” craze swept the nation in 1984 with the release of the movie Ghostbusters, the staff at Philmont was not left out. Never mind that viewing the movie that summer required a trip to Colorado or some other distant destination. Those who were willing to make the journey returned babbling phrases like “Who you gonna call?” and “I ain’t afraid of no ghost!” Soon we were all caught up in the madness that surrounds a box office smash.

Note the highest ground to the left.

As any Philmont staffer knows – we all heard the stories during training – the ranch has a few paranormal focal points of its own. Perhaps the best know is Urraca Mesa (take a look on your Philmap and note how its contour forms a skull in profile). Needless to say, when we noted that July 13^th came on a Friday that year, we began plotting our own ghostbustin’ adventure.

Soon some of my buddies from the big trading post in Base Camp and I began planning our days off for a fright-filled night on top of the haunted mesa on Friday the 13^th. It was a night none of us would ever forget.

Although I was working the Cantina del Duke at Abreu, just on the other side of Urraca Mesa, I decided to meet Pete Steinhoff and Tom Bolland in Base Camp rather than hike over to Urraca alone from Adobe Central. We hitched a ride on a bus to the Stockade turn-around and hit the trail from there. Along the way we met up with “Doc,” the cook from Beaubien. We enjoyed the sunny day, watching wild turkeys and checking out new (to us) views of the Tooth of Time, for we knew the night would bring a chilling darkness and that some of us might never see the light of day again.

Tooth of Time to the left, Urraca Mesa to the right, under tree limb.

On the way up to the camp we talked about what we knew of the mesa. Its name means “magpie” – the Devil’s messenger bird. It was said to  be haunted by the ghosts of lost scouts, old ranchers, mountain men and Indians. The remains of one mountain man were reportedly found at the base of the rock face, supposedly by a staffer who was heeding the call of nature. That was about the extent of our knowledge on the subject, though.

We arrived in camp too late to take in program, but we talked with some other staffers who shared our idea and got psyched for the evening campfire. Later, as the Urraca staff began spinning some ever-so-believable yarns about the mesa’s haunted history, we began to doubt the wisdom of our adventure. While I remember precious little of the ghost stories we heard that night (just the story of the spirit of a lost scout often seen on the mesa and accounts of locals who fear that geological feature of Philmont), the details of our own experience on that special eve are carved into my memory more permanently than the wretched graffiti in any backcountry latrine.

We had lost track of Doc, so Tom and Pete and I departed for the mesa’s top after the campfire, never learning whether he went to the top or stayed below where it was safe. Smartly seeking security in a crowd, we joined a crew or two and some other staffers led by the same adventurous spirit on their way to the top. We tried our best to not talk about the tales we had just been told, and laughed heartily when someone joked about seeing shimmering images or will-o-the-wisps. In an attempt to fortify ourselves, we even made a few nervous jokes of our own.

It was late when we reached the top, and our puny flashlights were straining to provide enough illumination to lead us to a suitable spot for sleeping. We finally did locate a few soft, grassy patches amid a jumble of large rocks close enough to make us feel secure in each other’s presence. As we lay down to sleep, we were jolted upright by a loud (m)ooooooooo…

“W-w-what was that?” whispered Pete.

I couldn’t answer. I had scrunched down inside my mummy bag and pulled the hood tight. But Tom, ever the curious intellectual, was scanning the vicinity with his light. The beam settled on a large, dark blob and he laughed.

“It’s a cow! You chickens ought to recognize the call of your barnyard brethren,” he teased.

“Thanks a lot,” I called from deep within my sleeping bag.

The presence of the cattle nearby  was a bit unsettling in itself, but we figured the big rocks among our sleeping bags would keep our bodies from getting crunched under the hooves of some boneheaded bovine in the middle of our nightmare-laden slumber. Soon we nodded off and had a relatively uneventful sleep under the stars of the southwestern sky.

No ghosts were seen, no disembodied voices heard, and no mysterious messages appeared in the grass or in the sky. When the three of us woke, we were relieved to see familiar faces around us. We had survived a night (Friday the 13^th, no less) on Urraca Mesa. We jumped up out of our bags for a brief victory dance and rendition of the Ghostbusters theme song … and brief it was. We froze in mid-dance as we realized that our sleeping bags were uncomfortably outside the protective jumble of rocks amid which we had bedded down the night before. Pete’s bag was a good ten feet from its original location. My bag and Tom’s were at least that far removed.

“How did you get over there?” Tom asked Pete.

“You tell me, you’re the ghostbustin’ expert,” Pete shot back. Tom was, after all, the only one of us who had traveled to Colorado to see the movie.

“Why don’t we just get out of here,” I said, adding my two cents’ worth.

So we hastily packed up our gear and hit the trail without so much breakfast as a granola bar. There’s be time for food when we reached a safer location.

I miss Philmont to this day, and I’ll never forget that ghostbustin’ expedition of July 13, 1984. But at least today, in the comfort of my own home in the middle of Illinois, I know where I’ll wake up in the morning.

“There are stars in the southern sky…”

I first ventured to Philmont with a Prairie Council contingent in 1980. The trip out, in a van-load of teenage boys with two adult leaders, had me regretting the generosity of my parents and wishing I’d just stayed in Galesburg for the summer, content with the annual week-long camp at Fellheimer Scout Reservation near Gilson. 

We younger scouts, three of us in particular, were teased and pestered by some of the older guys. Long-haired Leroy had gum stuck in his locks. Chris and I were jostled awake in the wee hours as we hauled through Kansas – “Wake up, you’ll miss the scenery.” It was just good-natured joshin’, though. And it pretty much ceased when we arrived at Philmont. Perhaps because we were all in awe.

We trained for Philmont: Took a long, hot hike on the old Rapatuk Trail near Fellheimer, which had become quite overgrown in spots, and suffered a mock shakedown under the tutelage of a guy who had camped at Philmont, or maybe even worked a summer on staff there.

While the shakedown hike was beneficial, it didn’t exactly prepare us for the adventure that awaited in New Mexico.  And while it didn’t meet my expectations, it surpassed them as life outside the cave surpasses the shadows on the wall Plato warned us about.

My boyhood imagination was driven by popular western films and TV and other media. I’d always loved the West, thanks to the influence of my Grandpa Buck and his Louis L’Amour novels. In anticipation of my trip I’d begun to peruse magazines like Western Horseman and True West, which I found on the shelves of Dave’s Book and Card Shop. Somewhere in those pages I found ads for Nocona boots that fueled that imagination. And while I didn’t fancy hiking in cowboy boots, I figured it was quite likely I’d step on a rattlesnake at some point and a sturdy Buck knife would be required to dispatch the vile serpent.

As I didn’t have said knife in my gear, I am thankful I never stepped on the aforementioned rattler, though years later while on staff we killed a few snakes that posed a threat, or so we perceived. One amateur herpetologist admonished us for our crass attitude – Abreu staffer Matt Kenyon grew up in New Mexico and said the prevailing attitude was, “see a snake, get a rake.”  The snake-loving scouter suggested we requisition a pair of snake tongs (can’t remember the official name he used, which at one time I was familiar with) and relocate any problem reptiles.

Sorry, pal, too much trouble. One rattler reluctant to move off the trail to our campsites suffered our judgment. We doused it with a fire extinguisher and pelted it with stones. Stunned but still slithery, it vexed us. Finally we moved in closer and cleaved it head from its body with a shovel and an ax. Knowing the head could still bite reflexively for a while, we dug a hole and buried it, and scooped the sinuous body onto the shovel to have a snake bake. I didn’t have the opportunity to sample snake, but I’m told the fried flesh tasted a little like chicken.

But that all came four years later. Back in 1980, I was happy to not encounter any rattlesnakes and a little disappointed that my only bear sighting was the fanny of a mama shooing her cubs off the trail ahead of us well in the distance. Given the circumstances, that was fortunate; it could have turned into an ugly close encounter.

We experienced plenty of amazing Southwest magic. From summiting 12,444-foot Baldy Mountain to a horseback trail ride to gold panning to hiking into base camp over the iconic Tooth of Time, we reveled in the full Philmont experience. Afterward, back in civilization, I heard for the first time The Eagles’s “Seven Bridges Road.” It immediately struck a chord in my soul and I sought out the single at the downtown record store called, I believe, “The Platter.” By single, kids, I mean the 45 rpm vinyl recording. I have no idea, without researching, what was on the B side.

Well, lucky you, thanks to Google, research is no longer my arch enemy. Here’s what Wikipedia has to say about the song. The answer to the trivia question is “The Long Run” (live) was the B side. But you really should read the song history, it’s pretty interesting.

Bridges

It occurred to me today that in terms of physical achievements – like running – we can never really be sure what we can do. Not until you’ve actually done it do you know for certain – and then you simply know that you did it once.

Today's silly finds.

Having run the Bix 7 a couple of times, I believe I can do it. But I my body is aging and joints are getting creaky and sore. And my gut has grown again. So while I believe I can accomplish the Bix again, only time will tell. That’s not meant to be a defeatist attitude, but rather an inspiration to be ever striving.

So I strive. My fat, old body needs conditioning to meet the challenge of Bix and the Brady Street hill (and the subsequent hills nobody really talks about). I lit out this morning at the ripe hour of 10:30 as the thermometer began its climb. I felt the cool morning air as I lay in bed well past waking, so I figured the storm was keeping the temps down. Well, sort of. The mercury rose from 70 to 77 degrees in the 50 minutes or so that I was out on the road. And I felt it.

As is often the case, I headed out with no real route in mind. OK, that’s not quite true. I thought I’d head west and north and back – my 3.2-mile route – just to get a run in on a Monday for once. But as I approached West Street I began to think I should hit the bridge(s) for a little uphill running in preparation for the Bix. So I turned south. And boy, did it feel good. Really. Sinceriously.

First came the Don Moffitt Overpass on West Main Street. It’s a shallow, long grade. Hitting Henderson Street I turned south to Third Street, where I’d pick up the W.C. Jackson Bridge over the BNSF rail yards. Strangely, the old wooden bridge that once spanned the yards – which I’m told my grandfather worked on – was called the Fourth Street Bridge. It lands on Fourth Street on the east side, but begins on Third Street on the east side. Seems to me it could be called either, which in a way makes a good case for actually naming it for a person.

 

Western slope of W.C. Jackson Bridge, 2010.

I think I’ll be traversing the W.C. Jackson Bridge a lot in my training over the next month. I’m moving next week into a house at the east foot of the bridge. I may just run back and forth across the bridge for a little specialized training. Assuming I don’t seriously strain anything in the upcoming move.

Today's Stats

Temp: 70-77 degrees F

Distance: 3.8 miles

Weekly Total: 3.8 miles

Treasure: 1 penny; 1 large steel washer; 1 letter G from an Illinois license plate; 1 sunglasses frame (green, no lenses, no temples); 17 cans.

iPod Playlist (Shuffle):

Foolin – Def Leppard

The Wanton Song – Led Zeppelin

Now Comes the Night – Rob Thomas

Girls on Film – Duran Duran

Steve McQueen – Sheryl Crow

Cold Roses – Ryan Adams

Message in a Bottle (live) – John Mayer

Sometimes When WeTouch – Dan Hill (Fond memories of this song from marching band. Odd? Sure.)

Let’s Be Friends (Skin to Skin) – Bruce Springsteen

Turnaround (studio version) – Robert Plant

Is There Something IShould Know? – Duran Duran

Mountain Memories

Sensory triggers are weird. I mean, how is it that a swig of day-old, room-temperature water from a plastic 20-ounce Mountain Dew bottle should send my mind floating back 30-plus years to summer days hiking the Sangre de Cristo Mountains of northeastern New Mexico? 

The Abreu staff, from left: Me, Ken, Mark, Bill, John and Matt.

You know how it works: a whiff of soapy apple scent conjures memories of a girlfriend who shampooed her hair with a potion of that fragrance; a passing face resembles your grandmother, but seeing as she's been dead six years you know it can't be; that first caramel apple of autumn launches you into a reverie of childhood hayrack rides and grade school Halloween parties.
So it was that the lukewarm water at my desk tasted like the refreshment imbibed on a mountain trail three decades ago. After all, while that iodized stream water might be ice-cold in the morning when you fill your bottle — which is how you want to remember mountain stream water — it's taken on a seeming thickness from half a day baking in the Southwestern sun at 8,000 feet as it sloshed in the upper pocket of your backpack.

I’m a nostalgic sap. Those who know me know it, so there’s no sense in attempting to hide it from the rest of the world. If only my past were exciting enough and I could recall enough detail to write a captivating memoir – something more honest than “A Million Little Pieces” – I’d be set for the rest of my life. As it is, I’ll indulge myself and maybe some of my friends will be entertained in the process.

That swig of warm water earlier this week opened a floodgate to memories of my teen years from early high school to early college, when I traversed the trails for Philmont Scout Ranch near Cimarron, New Mexico, as a scout camper and staff member.  Oddly, as influential and foundational to my being as my Philmont experiences are to me, I’ve shared precious little with others – even family – over the years. I guess it just seemed too personal somehow. Like nobody else would really understand, unless he or she had been there and experienced it, too.

For whatever reason, I feel compelled to share now. So I’m beginning a little writing project. It’s lacking in form and focus, but I need to write. And while the lack of form and purpose might logically consign writing to a personal journal, the narcissist in me needs an audience. I need to know, or at least to believe that I am being read. So forgive my indulgence. All I can explain at this point is that I’ve compiled a playlist of tunes that in some way tell of my Philmont experience. 

‘One of these days I’m gonna climb that mountain…’

 

I can still picture my first camp director, Bill Tsukalas, kicked back in a chair in the Abreu cabin, lip-synching the words to the opening line from Alabama’s “Mountain Music.” It must have been my first night in the backcountry camp. I’d started the 1984 camp season around mid-June as a trading post clerk in base camp. Toward the end of the first week I was approached by trading post manager Eric somebody, who started  an odd conversation.

“I hear you like the South Country,” he said.

Philmont, 214 square miles of wilderness dotted with a couple dozen staffed camps and several more unstaffed sites, roughly in the shape of a dancing Snoopy, is generally divided into three sections: North, Central and South Country. The North is most mountainous, Central Country is the rockiest part (if it’s possible to declare that in northeastern New Mexico) and the South Country tended to be a little more barren and arid, sprawling eventually into the plains as the Sangre de Cristos petered out.

Frankly I’d always been more partial to the mining country to the north, but I was eager to carry on a friendly conversation with the boss, so I agreed.

“How would you like to work there?” Eric asked. “They need a cantina manager at Abreu.”

It seems the guy who was supposed to sling root beer and bags of chips in the adobe Cantina Del Duke backed out of the deal, leaving Philmont high and dry in need of a cantina man. I jumped at the chance. To rise from base camp to backcountry just like that was an incredible boon.

Cantina Del Duke, Abreu, 1984.

Ironically, while I looked on the opportunity as a blessing, I was told later Eric had asked several others and all had declined. Years later I read comments by past staffers who called Abreu the “armpit of Philmont.”  Ouch. Sure, it lacks the mountain glory of Baldy Town and the lush meadows of Beaubien cow camp. The front yard of the staff cabin was a freakin’ dessert. But it was backcountry – a damn site better than base camp in my opinion.

Just a couple days into my first summer in the backcountry, though, and I wasn’t really appreciating the honor of the appointment. Honestly I was feeling homesick for my new friends in base: Pete Steinhoff and Tom Bolland. We started in the TP together. Pete and I met on the bus west. Pete’s brother Wayne was at Philmont, too, hired as cook at Cimarroncito, a rock-climbing camp in the Central Country. I’d made new friends and I hated being separated from them.

Sensing my unhappiness, Bill introduced me one afternoon to one of Abreu’s non-program activities: fly fishing. The official program at Abreu (technically New Abreu, Old Abreu having been abandoned after the Flood of ’65) consisted of adobe brick-making and burro racing. But with the Rayado River burbling through our locale, campers were given the opportunity to cast a fly. Of course, few pursued it; Fish Camp, which specialized in fishing, was just up the trail.

Something in the camaraderie of that couple hours of fishing before dinner that evening calmed me and assured me I was in the right place. Bill deserves a lot of credit for that. Pretty amazing for a college guy who wore a moose hat and lip-synched to Alabama and the Oak Ridge Boys.