This is a collection of short stories from when I worked at Urraca Mesa Camp on the 1988 Philmont Staff. There's several stories, so just page on down through them. They're all true and I hope you enjoy them.

ANKLE THE SIZE OF AN EGG

It was early evening when we had a medical situation come up. A scout popped something in his ankle while playing frisbee. You read or hear about these things; some body part gets hurt and it'll swell up to some unimaginable size. I could never comprehend parts of the anatomy doing so, but I became a believer when I saw that ankle. It looked like a surgeon placed a large egg under the skin around that boy's ankle. It was swollen, and I mean swollen!

Here we are, after dinner trying to get this situation taken care of and calling the Health Lodge on the radio. One of the guys, Mike, was studying to be an EMT and he felt that a vehicle should come now to take the boy in while Health Lodge wanted to wait until tomorrow. It was Mike's opinion that serious problems could develop from such an injury and the best thing to do was to get that ankle down to someone who knew how to take care of it.

Well, whatever. We still had to do the Philmont Story Campfire, and it was supposed to start soon. Advisor coffee hour and everything else had been going on, so we were stretched pretty hard to keep things moving.

An impromptu decision was made; Dave and I would go do the campfire while Mike tended to the patient and Kelly would handle the radio and help Mike. Dave and I got to the campfire 30 minutes late, but everyone was there, waiting patiently. They all pretty much knew what was going on so they didn't mind too much.

When we did the campfire we pretty much did our own parts so now everything was thrown out the window for that. Dave and I were pretty tense and worked up over the rush of trying to pull off all the evening activities, all while a medical problem was occurring. It was from life and death, but it was way beyond a band aid.

Me and Dave, we dove into that Philmont Story Campfire, and be damned if it wasn't one of the best campfires that ever occurred at Philmont. Everything clicked. We were sharp, everything was on cue, the timing was perfect, and the scouts and advisors were about the best crowd you could ever hope to have in front of you. Movies stars get paid a million dollars for performances like we put on. The whole group had bonded.

It was that good.

Afterwards, when the Health Lodge vehicle came up and the driver looked things over, he pulled me aside and informed me that this ankle was something that could have waited until tomorrow. He was telling me we screwed up. I just acknowledged his complaint and left it at that. I told Mike this after the truck left and he spelled out the medical complications that could result from the injury and he was pretty angry about how the Health Lodge responded.

I tried to keep it all in stride; it was a difficult evening for everyone and I was glad it was over.

But that campfire. To have put on just one campfire like that seemed to make the whole summer worthwhile.

THE HAUNTING OF URRACA MESA

For anyone familiar with Urraca MEsa, they will know that it is haunted. At least, that's what they say. Regardless, the legends and stories are there, and periodically people would pass through because they were going to spend the night on the mesa and experience any supernatural phenomona, if they were lucky.

So when a group of USAFA Rangers came up, we weren't susprised to hear of their desire to spend the night on top Urraca. USAFA stands for United States Air Force Academy; cadets form the base in Colorado Springs had an arrangement with Philmont where some of them could be Rangers for part of the summer.

It's pretty dark when the Philmont Story Campfire is through, and as we were walking through the meadow up to the cabin, you could see a huge bonfire that the Rangers built on the edge of the mesa. The light from the fire created shadows of the Rangers, making huge outlines of their bodies on the trees behind them. It was quite an effect. At the same time, they were yelling down to us, make "ghost" noises, and you could actually hear them. "OOOOOoooooooo!" "OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOooooo!" "OOOOOOOOOOOOO!"

They seemed to be having a good time.

The day was done for us, and we would usually gather in the cabin and talk or play cards. Normally I don't turn on the radio because the evening chatter is usually dull, but my arm reached out on its own and flipped the switch. Ten seconds later Dave Bates' voice was bellowing, "BASE TO URRACA!"

"This is Urraca, go ahead Base."

It tuned out that a PHILSAR (Philmont Search And Rescue) team had been organized and we were about to be invaded by an army from Base Camp to attack the forest fire that was on top of the mesa. Apparently those USAFA Rangers were doing a good job on their bonfire.

We were instructed to send a team on top of the mesa to assess the situation. Well, there was no situation. I told Base that it was probably the USAFA Rangers and that you could actually see them. Dave Bates was pretty adamant about us sending someone up there to I decided to play it by the book. Kelly and Mickey volunteered to go up, and they did, talking to the Rangers for a bit before coming back down. This process took about 45-50 minutes.

"Urraca to Base"

"This is Base, go ahead Urraca."

"It's the USAFA Rangers with a bonfire."

"Thank you Urraca. Base clear."

I didn't realize until later that this had been a fairly serious situation. The resources required to send a group of people on top of Urraca Mesa late at night is not a trivial thing, and to send them up on a wild goose chase would have been a big deal to certain people. I heard the USAFA Rangers got in trouble, but I never knew to what extent or if it was just a rumor.

What did I think? When this was occurring, from my position, it was fairly obvious what was going on. You could see those Rangers up there having a good time. From the way they were carrying on they were probably the most evil spirits to have visited the top for quite some time.

But how do you explain the obvious?

When I was on the radio with Dave Bates and trying to resolve this the easy way, my one thought was that I didn't have the guts to get on the radio, and broadcast to all of Philmont, and say "Dave, those Rangers are up there going 'OOOOOOOOOooooooo!'"

THE DAY WE ATE BAMBI

Of all the lies and legends about ghosts and evil spirits on Urraca Mesa, one of the biggest whoppers is that cattle refuse to graze on the sweet grass that grows up there. Well, there's cattle up there all right, and where there's cattle, you'll find Philmont's cowboys.

It was late afternoon when some scouts came running up to the cabin, excitedly carrying on about some wild dog in camp who was killing the deer. This seemed to be a bit of a stretch, but from the way these campers were acting, something was happening. I followed them to their camp and there was a dog, his jaws clamped around the neck of a fawn, thrashing it about in a playful and joyous way and savoring the kill.

It was Rod Taylor's dog.

Rod had rode through earlier to check on the stock on the mesa, and his dog just follows him around, coming and going wherever he pleases. I knew Rod's dog, so I just bent down on my knees, clapped my hands, and called out "Here, puppy! Here, puppy!" The dog dropped the dead fawn and rushed over to me where he gladly accepted my offer to stroke and pet him, the way dogs always do. The crew just stood there, somewhat in shock over this staff member who seemed to be at one with the wild animals of the forest.

But now we had a dead fawn, a body, evidence of a murder that had to be disposed of. Dragging it out into the woods meant the possibilty of discovery, an option that didn't seem to be a good one lest we be implicated in the crime. It just wasn't fair that the fawn was killed, at least in that way. It if had to die, then something good should come out of this whole mess.

I looked at the advisors and asked them, "Do you know how to skin and cook a deer? If so, could you give some of it to the staff?"

Those advisors didn't say a word, but they looked at each other and you could see the light bulbs above their heads begin to burn. The choice between eating freeze-dried trail food or fresh meat seemed to have an impact on their decision.

Nothing more was said; everyone understood what was to be done. A little while later a delivery of venison was made to the staff cabin where it was promptly cooked and eaten. All remains of the deed and been devoured and therefore we were free to carry on with our lives because there were no traces that a murder had ever taken place.

I don't know if there is a moral to this story; I've never been able to find one. But it was the day where we all settled down around the dinner table and ate Bambi.

MIDDLE AGE

In the spring of 1988 I was 29 years old. I (finally!) graduated from college that May, but my life wasn't going anywhere back then. I was burned out from the long haul through college and I was broke. I was laid off from my job and the unemployment compensation had run out a long time ago. I was having no luck finding a new job. Even my teeth were going bad; I had to have braces put on so I had them slapped on quick before the insurance ran out from my previous job. I didn't know how I was going to pay to have the rest of the work done. The list went on. I figured my problems weren't going away but I had an open window to the summer. What do you do? Go back to Philmont!

My last summer at Philmont had been in 1979 and it was like a dream come true to come back. But Philmont isn't a utopia to escape to. At the end of the summer I would still be broke, unemployed, and homeless. Well, maybe it wasn't that bad, I had options, but I was far from being in control of the events that dictated my life that year.

My birthday was in July, so that's when I turned 30. I guess it was a good excuse to have a party and since Urraca isn't too far into the backcountry, some of the guys made a quick run into town for some ice cream. They brought a couple of their friends with them so we had a nice little birthday party for me. It was a good time.

To be 30 years old, wearing braces, jobless, and all that, well, that's one thing. But to be in the mountains, experiencing what life is all about, to live your life the way it should be lived, if only for three months, is the only way to turn 30. Urraca Mesa belonged to the 5 of us that summer, and it will always be ours in 1988, a special moment in all of our lives.

Broke? Jobless? Homeless? Hell, I was on top of the world.