In 1982 I was a winter seasonal National Park Ranger (interpretive naturalist) out in Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, Arizona. It wasn't the most dangerous park in the system as it is rated today, but was a sleepy little park on the Mexican border with lots of "Snowbirds" (folks who head south for the winter in their camper trailers) and a few visitors who defy easy description. One of these was a fellow who looked rather like I imagine Icabod Crane looked, and he traveled in his Volkswagen van. He was difficult to track down when it came time to get his camping fees paid, he overstayed his two-week limit, and he was frequently hanging around the visitor center, not just for programs and walks and films and to buy postcards, but to sometimes ask some pretty unusual questions. I, like all of the other rangers, knew him on a first-name basis by the time he left.

Fast forward a few months to the summer season, in which I had relocated to the Great Smoky Mountains of Tennessee, again as interpretive naturalist ranger. I was working in Sugarlands Visitor Center, when who walks in but Icabod Crane. I walked over and smiled and called him by name and when he looked like he was going to have a stroke I reached out and shook his hand and explained where he knew me from. Close call!

The Organ Pipe story that I cherish most, though, is of an older gentleman who gave me his driver's license in order to show his age to get the "Golden Age Passport," the senior discount camping pass. I remarked on his Burlington, Washington address, telling him that I'd passed through there often each year when my family traveled north from Seattle to spend our summers at a remote place on Lake Whatcom. Turned out that he was the conductor on the train that went across a trestle at the lake's edge in a narrow valley. We lived where the valley widened a little and the train went past between the road and our house every day. He remarked that there was one place where there were "several little tow-heads who always waved." That was us! Small world, indeed!

SRS