Totally self-serving

OK, so what I have to say in this post has no meaning beyond patting us on the back. Having said that up front, let me get on with it.

Yesterday a fellow with an accent that was obviously not learned in West Texas came into the Visitor Center. He wanted a 'back-country permit' that would allow him to use the River and maybe camp along the Santa Canyon (on the US side). He seemed to be aware of rules and regulations about using the River and back-country camping. So, taking his $10 fee, I issued him the permit. Only then did he tell me that he wanted to fish in the River as well. So, instead of issuing an additional piece of paper, a non-fee fishing permit, I simply hand-annotated his permit as a 'license' allowing him to fish wherever he wanted.

Today, Thomas, returned to show me the photo of the large carp he had fished out of the Rio Grande, and then wise to the health of the River, released it. I told him that had he not produced a picture I would have doubted his veracity as few if any 'fisherman' end up catching anything.

He and his family had returned to the Visitor Center to be a part of the audience for my demonstration about making an adobe brick. Altogether, there were 27, about equally split between adults and children who spent 45 minutes at the demonstration, my helpers were the kids. Having children there is always a real hi for me and I so do my best Mr. Rogers impersonation, sans sweater.

In minutes the kids were up to their elbows in clay, water and horse poop to hand-mix and knead the mud mixture into the consistency of biscuit dough. Once again, with all the kids crowded around the wheelbarrow, I had only to do the final kneading and mixing and placing the globs of mud into the mold. Thus, again with breath to spare, I could address the adult audience with bon mots about sun-dried brick making and the linguistic origin of the word 'adobe.'

On the way down the hill to view the oldest adobe building in the Park, The Alvino House, one of the boys, Leon, said something that made me guess that his mother tongue was not English but German. When I asked him, in German, if he could speak that language, he responded, "Ja, das kann ich sprechen. (Yeah, I can speak that.) Thus I learned that his father's accent, while only scant, was Teutonic.

When we came back up the hill from viewing the oldest adobe house, Leon and his brother, Jonas, wanted to help me clean up the wheelbarrow and the mud mess. While taking their time with the clean-up, they fashioned a few tiny 'bricks' and made a miniature mud house.

When they were finally finished, they brought me their completed workbooks, with what they had learned about the Park, to qualify them to receive a Jr. Ranger badge and embroidered patch. Their Dad, Thomas, told me that they had about a dozen such badges and patches from other National Parks in the Southwest.

So when I 'swore them in' as Jr. Rangers, I didn't ask them to take the printed 'Jr. Ranger Pledge' on the back of their workbook. I said to them, "You have already taken the Jr. Ranger pledge a dozen times, so I am asking you to take a unique Ranger pledge, auf Deutsch, in German. Then I asked them to raise their right hands and repeat after me: Fuer meine Mama und Papa, ich verspreche ein hilfreiches Ranger zu sein. (For my Mom and Dad, I promise to be a helpful Ranger.)

A video was recorded by their Mom and their Dad said, 'If they deny that they have promised this, we will have it to show them.'

As I turned to go back into the Visitor Center, the Dad pulled me aside and said, "We have not introduced ourselves. My name is Thomas and my wife is Sandra. I am an officer in the German Air Force, serving duty in El Paso. See that truck over there. I bought it when we came here three years ago. We use it only for our vacations. I have driven it more than 45,000 miles to nearly all the National Parks in the west of the USA. We take all our vacations to visit the National Parks. Are you going to be here next year at this time?" "We'll, we haven't decided," I replied, "my memory is not as good as it once was in answering visitor questions." "You must return," he said, " in all the Parks we have visited, we have never met a couple like you and your wife." He extended his hand and gave me a sincere handshake. He then went into the Visitor Center so that he could personally say, "Auf wiedersehen," to Jane.

Just when both of us thought our time had about run out ...