Baby Ranger

Day 213: Here's a story from when I was just a "baby ranger." I don't think I've ever shared it on my blog, but it merits being preserved for posterity. In my opinion, anyway.

I'm a volunteer. I've always been a volunteer. Never wore the green and grey for a variety of reasons, but I still consider myself a ranger, and most of my uniformed colleagues have no problem with that. It was back in the days when dinosaurs roamed the earth (or close), and I was working in the forgotten corner of the Park, green as any little gourd which ever grew on the vine. I'd been left in charge of things while our tech (we called them "techs" in those days) took two weeks' leave. I was alone, and had no particular sense of unease until one day when I was in the shed with the open safe where we kept the radios and the money, and our solitary weapon was locked firmly in a separate compartment therein. Suddenly, the interior of the shed darkened, and I looked around to see a tall man in the doorway, leaning against the jamb and effectively blocking my exit. I wouldn't have weighed 100 pounds in those days even if you'd hosed me down in full uniform. I rested only marginally easier when he said in a drawling voice, "Hi! Is this where I can take my snowmobile to the summit?"

I put on my best smile and said, "Oh, you can't take a snowmobile to the summit, not here, not anywhere in the Park."

The man felt compelled to dispute my authority. "They told me I could take it up there from someplace over here."

I replied, "Whoever told you that was wrong, sir. Snowmobiles aren't allowed in the Park."

That still failed to satisfy him. "I got this letter from the superintendent, Briggly." (William Briggle was our superintendent in those days.) "He says I can take my snowmobile to the summit." He began patting his pockets, as if in search of the letter. I waited politely, my smile still firmly in place. "I'll show you. Briggly" (again with the y ending) "says in the letter I could do that." More patting of the pockets, and I was really hoping he'd shift his stance just long enough for me to dart under his raised arm into the outdoors where I could run for my life. "It says so in the letter I got from Briggly."

"Sir," I said, still trapped inside the shed with the money and the radios clearly visible at my back, "someone has misled you badly. Snowmobiles are not allowed in the Park. Someone is pulling your leg."

At that point, a voice I recognized came from in back of the shed, "Nope, we're pulling yours! Meet Scott. He's from East District." It was our trail crew boss who had known me for years. That was not the only prank they pulled on me during that season, and I never did figure out how to pay them back for it, although some years later, I sent a hapless intern out for paperwork stored in the basement of the warehouse. After moving any number of boxes to reach the non-existent access door I'd directed him to find, he realized the warehouse didn't have a basement.