Roughing It at Philmont, August 1973

I recently found this essay, which I wrote 50 years ago. In August 1973, to cap off my years in the Boy Scouts, I joined a trip to the Philmont Scout Ranch in Cimarron, New Mexico with other teens from the Rio Grande Valley of Texas. Once I returned home to Mission, I immediately turned my notes into this travel piece, about our sweaty, exciting, exhausting and enlightening adventure in the mountains of New Mexico. The altitude and cold were challenges for us flatlanders used to living at sea level. I omitted the "Lord of the Flies" vibe that settled over our hardy band on the way home, where male energy and tiredness led to some pushing and snarling, but at least no knife fights broke out. I wrote this when I was 15 years old.

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Anyway, this Sunday I got back from a trip to Philmont. We gathered at our Council camp, Perry, on August 1. We gathered up health forms and spent about two hours decorating up our dilapidated bus. On one side we had “Rio Grande Council” and “Stewardess Wanted Badly.” On the other side was “Mafia Staff Car” and “Philmont or Bust.” Also there were initials, foot prints, “Army Surplus” and “Navy issue” on the front with “Don’t Honk we’re peddling as fast as we can” on the back window. I guess I was pretty excited because I didn’t get much sleep that nite.

Finally in the morning we stowed our gear, had a lite breakfast and waited around for a TV crew which never arrived. At long last we departed for the Kingsville Navy Air Base for lunch.

Now, describing our crew, it was not too large; 24 boys and two adult advisors, Mr. Don Hensel of Donna and Mr. Robert Barbosa of McAllen. We split into crews of 12. The bus was slow, loud and too small. Most of us had to share a seat, which isn’t much fun on long bus trips, especially when you feel like stretching out. One guy brought a tape player and another a cassette but they couldn’t be heard above the noise.

At Kingsville the young man in charge of us gave us a tour of the base, then we had lunch. One thing that impressed me was the food. Also, they give you a choice of about 10 drinks. I usually got chocolate milk.

From here it was on to Lackland of San Antonio. We had a long wait as Mr. Hensel tried to get us through, but I suppose it was worth it. It was the biggest and best of the four bases we stopped at. We stayed at the gym. That evening we went to a Rec Center where we blew our $$$ on pinball machines. Some went skating, but I was chicken (no co-ordination). Some of us wanted to go to a movie but that was voted down. We walked over to a bowling alley but couldn’t get in. We started talking with some black airmen and one happened to be an Eagle Scout from N. Carolina, I think. Also, he was (I think he said) Chief of his OA [Order of the Arrow] area and had attended the ’69 jamboree. All he could say was, “Man, I sure had fun in Scouting.” He was so enthusiastic it took ten minutes before we could leave. He says he might want to be a Scoutmaster once his hitch is up.

After this we went to the gym where we lifted weights, played handball and basketball.

The next morning after breakfast we took a tour of a museum and left. The next leg of our trip was from San Antonio to Goodfellow in San Angelo for lunch then on to Carlsbad. The scenery up to San Angelo was nice, but then it pretty well flattened out. From here to Philmont, most of the way was of dry, almost uninhabited, rolling land. It impressed as a huge, vast zip on the map. It was hard to imagine a place so big and empty, mile after mile. Another item that struck me was “Who would come out to string and erect all these phone poles?” They just run all over the place. I suppose somebody lives way out there. The evening of August 3^rd we arrived at a Scout Aquatic Camp there. We spent most of the evening at an amusement park adjacent to us. Again, we went crazy on the pinball machines and the 25-cent “challenge” kind. When we left, most of us slept on the bus. We had a box dinner that we picked up at Goodfellow.

The morning of the 4^th we ate breakfast at a restaurant then went to Carlsbad Caverns. We all wore red windbreakers and looked very sharp. I suppose it was OK, but since I’d been there before it was not very exciting. The walk through the Big Room was pretty much a drag. After this we got back on the bus and went to Las Vegas, N.M. We stopped in Artesia for hamburgers and drinks. We went to Las Vegas for dinner then to Storie Lake Park. We slept in cement picnic shelters. It was really cold.

Stowing my cardboard suitcase at Tent City after arrival, on the left,
Ranger Doug Kennedy in cool shades on the right. 

The morning of the 5^th we started on the last leg of the trip. We reached Philmont about 1 PM. We all shivered a little to see those high peaks. We met our Ranger, Doug Kennedy of Kansas City, put our gear in Tent City, then had lunch, then the shakedown. Most of the afternoon we were at the Trading Post. After dinner we traded patches. I swapped the Ana Topa Hutsi I have and one 35^th anniversary for a World Jamboree-Japan and two throw-ins. Also my lodge flap for a Tonkawampus in perfect shape. That night we went to the New Mexico Story campfire. It was OK.

That's me on the left with my elbows on my knees.

The 6^th we started camping. A bus took us to near the stockade and we walked to Lover’s Leap. That morning I bought a film roll, hip strap and more patches. At camp we set stuff up then Kennedy herded us up a ridge for compass training. We then bush whacked to Lover’s Leap. On the way I lost my Army canteen. We amused ourselves at Lovers’ by throwing rocks and branches off (280 foot drop straight down). After the others left Doug and I tried to find the canteen. He left soon and I tried to find it alone. I learned an important lesson: obey the Rule of Three. I darn near got lost. I got down the ridge OK but couldn’t recall what road or trail went to Lover’s camp. Luckily two staff members came along and gave me directions.

The 7^th it was off to Urraca—a scenic but-near the end—rough hike. That afternoon we went to the rapelling program. It as fun but the way to too long and I got to up and down once. That nite our crew Talespinner told us some Edgar Allen Poe stories and jokes. We were at the edge of a steep valley and they were having bear problems here and the bear came up the valley. That nite a staffer told us “Blue Lights on Urracca Mesa” which scared us all. We all made a big thing out of the bear and got nervous. It didn’t both me too much but I slept with my tennis shoes on, just in case.

The 8^th we had a long hard hike to Crater Lake. Bad camp, lots of flies. Had the farthest back camp and had a long walk after we arrived. Program-orienteering, my team was almost last. We beat one guy who lost his card and pardner. Rained hard that afternoon while we were instructed, actually, pretty fun to go crashing thru the wet brush.

Just a pleasant stroll in the high country.

August 9^th, hike to Trails Peak. Left packs in brush, hiked to top. It took a long time to up for there are no switchbacks, just straight up. Our camp that day was Lower Bonito, which was beautiful and had a good view of Trail Peak.

Aug. 10^th, Off to Fish Camp. We relaxed there for a while and picked up food. A staff member gave us cold water and a tour of the fishing lodge, we also made flies. We walked about 1.5 miles to Aqua Fria, with Lower Bonito these were the best camps. Here we fished under a dark sky. I got a point blank foto of a chipmunk here. Had to walk back to Fish Camp to get a sweatshirt I left there.

Aug. 11^th, camp at Apache Springs. This place had the best program along with Miner Park. The Indian culture, teepees, corn-grinding, arrow-making and Indian sauna really interested me. My crew ground corn. We cooked the ground corn up and nobody would eat the slop. The arrow making didn’t go very well and a storm forced us to stop. It got bone-chilling cold and rainy. Within an hour it passed on. Three others and myself tried the sauna but we didn’t heat the rocks enough, so it wasn’t effective.

Aug. 12^th—Off to Porcupine for 2 days. Another dark day. Had campfire that nite. The 13^th we hiked up to Clear Creek for Black Powder Shooting, another enjoyable and instructive stop. We were hiking most of the day. I took a shower here, the only one I had on the trail. Also washed clothes.

Aug. 14^th—Got up late that day-7:15 am. Out schedule was to travel from Porcupine to Beaubien for food then on to Black Mountain Camp. Well, we made a slight wrong turn and went all the way down to Fish Camp before realizing it! We really felt dumb. We rested awhile then took off to Porcupine to pick up the trail. WE had lunch at the bend, we goofed on. Right after we started after lunch it started raining. Hiking in the rain is fun, but wearing a pack really makes you miserable. After an hour or so it stops. We had a surprise at Black—couldn’t find a camp. The ones near the front were taken so we walked on down the valley. We came to one—too small. There as no use in all of us walking, so four guys were sent ahead to scout around. They found one. It was narrow, rocky, sloping with high grass—but it had to do. The next morning we had a cold breakfast and left as soon as possible.

Showing my climbing skills.

Aug. 15th—to Miner’s Camp. We had a fairly easy trip that a.m. We had a lumbering days program which I thoroly enjoy. It consisted of pole climbing, log sawing, log hoisting, and starting a match with an ax. The only other crew was from Arlington, which was nice. Afterward about a dozen of us went on an Earth Science hike That nite we attended a really engrossing campfire story., mostly about Cimarron, Clay Allison, etc.

Aug. 16th—Finally, the last day! We got up at 4:30 for pancakes, it was fairly warm morning, not the bone chillers we got higher up. We were to hike ten miles to base camp. We went up and down and finally along Tooth Ridge. We left our packs and struggled up the Tooth—exhausting. From here it was all downhill and slippery. I stumbled about five times on the way—pretty bad. It was really maddening when we could see the Base—but from afar. We walked . . . it was hot and my mouth dried up badly. At long last we made it! We all flopped down on the side of the shower building. After recovering we went to Tent City, check in tents and cooking gear, then just messed around. It’s hard to describe the feeling of RELAXATION at base—especially after a nice (tho cold) shower. I bought a drink, then patches, a belt buckle and neckerchief slide. A few of us went to the Seton Museum which I enjoyed. We ate in the mess hall then got our Arrowheads that nite at a campfire.

The next morning we had the Continental breakfast, packed and left. The entire trip home was rather long and boring. We stopped in Lubbock and at Randolph A.F.B.

Home to Mission, ready to get cleaned up. 

The Copy Editor's Dossier on "The Bucharest Dossier"

First-time novelist William Maz captured lightning in a bottle with 2022's The Bucharest Dossier. Drawing on his experiences as a childhood immigrant from Rumania and then student at Harvard, he spun a deliriously complex tale of campus spy recruitment, espionage mentorship, double- and triple-crosses during the bloody Rumanian Revolution of December 1989, and lost love. The book's film and TV rights have been optioned and a sequel will debut in June. 

It brims with great passages, as in this one from page 83, about main character Bill Hefflin and his undergrad mentor, high-society Catherine Nash:

That evening was to be followed by countless other magical nights during which she slowly brought him along, carefully, tenderly, until he had let go of his inhibitions. She had been his teacher in love as well as in spycraft.

Love and spycraft—you can't have one without the other, at least in fiction. 

As I devoured the novel about CIA analyst/maverick field agent Hefflin, I found myself taking notes, not just on striking writing but also on evidence of the decline of copy editing and fact checking in the publishing industry. One flub I could accept, but I made notes on at least six. 

The errors weren't typos, but rather indicated that the team at Oceanview Publishing needs to brush up on homonyms in English—words that sound alike but have different meanings—as well as history. Some are obvious and jarring, others a master of history and foreign language that could be explained as usages that, if corrected, could bog down the narrative. 

Here's my discussion, offered in the spirit of one writer/editor to others.

Page 25. "No need for that, Bill." Avery's face lit up with his spook's smile. "We've already put you through the ringers, and we're satisfied." Here's the first homonym. For a novel that pays attention to mangled idioms, this one really jumped out at me. You put something "through the wringers" to indicate squeezing or twisting to extract information via pressure, or to remove water from wet clothes. "Ringers" are people who make noise with bells, or an imposter or fake, as in a sports event. 

Page 26. Avery continues his spymaster spiel: "The issue is that we've never had an asset whose identity we don't know. That's a problem on many levels. We can't monitor him, provide aide if he puts up a flag, or influence him if he starts to waiver." "Aide" is a noun; "aid" is what an aide provides.

Page 36. Hefflin is musing about corruption in Rumania and worldwide. "I don't judge," Hefflin said. "In the Congo it may be a sack of flour, in Brazil a few reals, in America a lot more." This is the most subtle issue I found. It only jumped out at me because I've studied Brazilian Portuguese. The real is the name of the national currency of Brazil, but the plural form is reais. I could understand an English speaker creating the plural by adding an "s" to real, but, really, that's not accurate in Brazil's language. A worldly CIA analyst would know the difference.

Page 54. Let's go to Boston public transit matters. Hefflin is partying with fellow undergrad femme fatale and spy Catherine Nash. "We've both had too much to drink," she said to Hefflin. "He'll drive us back, then take the Metro." Would two Harvard students refer to the Metro? Author Maz graduated from Harvard and I doubt he called it that. Locals call the subway system the T.  Granted, that may sound baffling to readers who don't know Boston, so Metro conveys the transit idea. Still, "Metro" showed a lack of awareness of local nomenclature. 

Page 343. Hefflin is talking to his Soviet spy contact, Boris, who gives Hefflin details on his background as a soldier in the Red Army during World War II. "After the War, I joined the KGB. I was good at it, partly because I was no longer afraid to die." The reference to the KGB is technically accurate, since the KGB did exist after World War II, but the war ended in 1945 and the KGB didn't exist by that name until 1954. As of 1946, Soviet intelligence agencies were the NKGB, MGB and MVD. As a shorthand term for all these agencies, KGB works; explaining the name of whatever agency Boris joined would be distracting for readers in the context of the discussion. On the other hand, I'd expect two savvy Cold War operatives to use the right reference. 

Page 348. Let's finish off with another homonym. Boris is waxing nostalgic about fast times in Rumania 1989 (Christmas Day, to be exact). "Let us go back to the day when the Ceausescus were executed. It was a grizzly affair, no point masking that fact, but they deserved what they got." Dictator Nicolae Ceausescu and his wife Elena (a/k/a "Mother of the Nation") were indeed executed, but by a firing squad; they were not the main course at the Christmas dinner of revolutionary grizzly bears, even if they did deserve that manner of dispatch. Boris meant to say "grisly." 

All this said, the book resonated with me on many levels. It had passages of great lyricism. This one deserves quoting at length from page 302, when Hefflin learns of the death of a beloved gypsy neighbor and fortune teller from his Bucharest childhood:

Hefflin sank into the chair. Tanti Bobo. in his child's mind he thought she'd always be there, the same way he had thought of his parents, and of Pincus. Now she, too, was gone. His past seemed to be evaporating, one person at a time, like a dream that fades away as one awakens. And now he'd be forever carrying the guilt."

That's powerful, something I'd like to write in my fictional efforts. I'm looking forward to the next book, The Bucharest Legacy—The Rise of the Oligarchs. I'm hoping Maz's success with his first novel gains him a bit more copy editing support for the sequel.