www.pineapplefish56.net
About Me
PhilSongs Songbook
.        IWGBTP!      IWGBTP!      IWGBTP!      IWGBTP!      IWGBTP!      IWGBTP!      IWGBTP!      IWGBTP!      IWGBTP!      IWGBTP!      IWGBTP!      IWGBTP!

.                        IWGBTP!      I Wana Go Back To PHILMONT!      IWGBTP!

.        IWGBTP!      IWGBTP!      IWGBTP!      IWGBTP!      IWGBTP!      IWGBTP!      IWGBTP!      IWGBTP!      IWGBTP!      IWGBTP!      IWGBTP!      IWGBTP!


As a Scout in the 1960's, I could only dream of going to Philmont…
I had read about Philmont in my Boy Scout Handbook and in Boy's Life. I finally made it there in July of 1989, with my
son Brian. To me, going to Philmont was and still is the greatest thing I have ever done in Scouting, or anywhere else.

I was born and raised in Kankakee, Illinois, and joined Boy Scout Troop 307, and later was in Post 307. Then I joined
Uncle Sam's "Canoe Club", rather than waiting for the Draft to catch me. I was very lucky and got duty in Subic Bay,
Philippines, Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, and Long Beach, CA, instead of 'Nam.

I started this website in 2003, but until May of 2011, I had never been on the Philmont Staff.
I was selected for a seasonal position of CHQ Services Staff on the 2011 & 2012 Philmont Scout Ranch Staff.

When I first started creating the “PhilSongs Sing-along Songbook”, I had only done the one expedition in 1989.
However, in June of 1995, I was coming back to California, from Arkansas on Hwy 40. As long as "I was in the
neighborhood"… I stopped by the Ranch to do some shopping at the 'Tooth of Time Traders' and also took the Villa
Philmonte tour, that our crew never did in '89. I was privileged to eat supper at the dining hall near the Villa with the Staff.
I also wanted to climb the Tooth again, but there was a peregrine falcon nesting up there… so the Tooth was closed.

I had purchased the “Philsongs - Remembered Days” cassette tape & the “Philmont Songbook” in 1989 when I was
there at the Ranch for my first trek; I had grown dissatisfied in the print quality, and all the “wrong words
*” in the
songbook (
*not 'as sung' on the tape), but realized that it was fairly good for the times.

I rejoiced when they re-mastered the
“Philsongs - Remembered Days” on CD!
I had been greatly saddened because my old cassette tape was getting worn out and aged;
so of course, I had to buy the new CD, and bought the two other CDs that were also available; Rod Taylor's 'Philmont
Collection' and the Tobasco Donkey's 'Sawin' on the Strings'

Originally, I had started the
“PhilSongs Sing-along Songbook” just as a MS Word document for my own use,
and soon realized, that this was too important and valuable a document to not share it with others.
Then I realized someone might not like me publishing their song lyrics without permission, and I might be violating
someone's copyrights. So I decided to contact the
Philmont Staff Association to get the permissions required...
They were THRILLED! They had been looking for someone to volunteer to do such a thing!
Not only did I get the permission, from Sam Vivian, but he sent me some
Philmont Staff Association goodies!        ;-D
When I first started, I never thought of putting any of this online, let alone receiving so many hundreds of web hits
monthly. It has been a labor of love to keep this website updated and in working order, but a very satisfying experience.

I had determined right from the start that the lyrics would be: “AS SUNG on the CDs”.
.        << However, I drew the line, when it came to the use of Proper Names >>

I found that the PhilStaffer, Tom Coffee had a Philmont Songbook website: that was on www.geocities.com
Tom's site had a number of the Philmont song lyrics that I needed, already in a downloadable format.
...So, I “Picked up the ball where I found it, and ran with it”.
I found that I needed to do some extensive editing to Tom Coffee's groundwork, to make it into the:
“As sung on the CDs” condition that I really wanted. I believe he may have since done some 'borrowing-back' from me.
.        But Geocities is no more, and neither is Tom Coffee's website.
There is now a copy of all of Tom's original lyrics from his website, on the "Lyrics Download" page.
There are other Philmont songs and many guitar chords there, that you might not find elsewhere.

I hope that someone - sometime will help make some more “improvements” to these documents by adding some more
guitar chords, because:
.      "I don't know nothin' 'bout, birthin' no guitar chords"        Sorry about that, Margaret Mitchell!

See the Lyrics Download page for those who have already helped me with chording.

Very Important:
Please format them using the 'single-line' format which is the same as on "The Fly That Rode to Cito" on the
Yarn Sessions page, and using an actual copy of my lyrics. Otherwise, by using the usual 'two-line' format,
it creates a whole lot of problems with 'fixed width' and 'variable width' fonts, and 'Bold' width vs. 'Non-Bold'
widths. All this causes the 'spacing' between the chords to move all around when E-mailed to a different
computer ...Unless the SAME font is used all the way through the entire process.
There are several pages of songs in MS Word on the "Lyrics Download" page, on the “PhilSongs Sing-along
Songbook” that unfortunately needed to be formatted using very small fonts and/or much smaller spacings
between the lines, due to the length of the song's lyrics, because of the use of the 'two-line' format.
I wanted to keep all the song lyrics on just one page if at all possible.         Could you please work on those?

There may still be some individual lines of lyrics that I have not been able to decipher and am needing some assistance
there. (Look for the asterisks *******)        PLEASE
E-mail me with any corrections.

.            IWGBTP!      IWGBTP!      IWGBTP!      IWGBTP!      IWGBTP!      IWGBTP!      IWGBTP!      IWGBTP!      IWGBTP!      IWGBTP!      IWGBTP!


Well, in 2006, I finally made it back HOmE for Trek 9, 728 O1&2 was our Contingent numbers.
I got to meet three of the Tobasco Donkeys: Andy Gerhart, 'Dirty Larry' McLaughlin and Mike Griffis.
Spencer 'Otto" James
(Crater Lake 06) had just bought a new banjotar and received a lesson in the Advisors Lounge
from Mike.
        See Page 2 of 2006 Photos.

.        Then at Baldy Town, I met ROD TAYLOR !!!!
I had been hoping to meet Rod, but the chances were mighty slim due to our northern trek route and locations that
we would be traveling at Philmont.
He was there at Baldy Town to drop off some bales of hay for some horses that were coming in.
He seldom gets that far north!
        See Page 7 of 2006 Photos.



I later met George Michaels at the 2006 W3b Conclave
(He wrote the Black Mountain Cabin Song on the
.        'Philsongs - Remembered Days' album)
I had noticed he had a Philmont Staff Arrowhead on his uniform
and had been talking to him for quite a while, about Philmont,
and my website. I looked down at his ID card that we had all been
given, when I recognized his name! I guess he hadn't mentioned
it before, or if he did, it didn't ring a bell!
.                                                                                                                                    George (on right) and Me
.                                                                                                                                    Click to enlarge thumbnail

George gave me some little-known details about when and where he wrote the Black Mountain Cabin Song.
.       When it was originally written, it was NOT AT nor ABOUT Black Mountain!
He told me, that he was working on Staff at French Henry when he wrote the song, and it was about the French Henry
cabin. That is when he first sang it, but it was late in the season.
The next year he was on Staff at Black Mountain - so he just changed the title.
Many more people heard it sung originally by him at Philmont as 'Black' then heard it sung as 'French'.


.   Getting back HOmE to Philmont and meeting some of my heroes.
.                                                    Now I call THAT a really GREAT Summer!


IWGBTP!      IWGBTP!      IWGBTP!      IWGBTP!      IWGBTP!      IWGBTP!      IWGBTP!      IWGBTP!      IWGBTP!      IWGBTP!      IWGBTP!      IWGBTP!
.
This is a real HOOT!
For a long time, I thought the line in NIGHT RIDER’S LAMENT  was "Kankakee" and not "Camp Cookie".
I was working on my truck engine when I got the ‘Sawin’ on the Strings’ CD in the mail, so I just had to get out my portable CD player out
and listen to it.
I dropped my wrench when I believed that I had heard “Kankakee” I played it back several times to 'confirm'... ( I still do hear it, even now )
You see, I was born and raised in Kankakee, Illinois, ‘till I joined “Uncle Sam’s Canoe Club” at nineteen.

I had read the lyrics to Night Riders Lament in my 1988 era songbook but had never heard the song played before.
When I first read the lyrics, I thought that “You never heard camp cookie sing” did not make any sense (sentence wise).
I thought it should have been:
“You never heard
our old camp cookie sing”, or  “You never heard our camp cookie sing”, or  “You never heard old camp cookie sing”.

I really thought it really WAS “Kankakee” and that the person who typed up songbook way back then, had gotten the word wrong.
Look at how J.B. Westfall, who wrote the Philmont Hymn, became mistakenly known for many years, as Davy or David Westfall.

-- How many people have ever heard of Kankakee, let alone would know how to pronounce it, or spell it correctly?
.                 I was also thinking that:
-- I was the one person in many, many thousands that would be able to recognize the word in the song, let alone know how to spell it!
-- I was in the just proper position as the one person able to set it right!
-- I just happened to have the right website already, to be able to do that!
.           -- The great serendipity of it all!                                                                          Pronounced: can - ka (as in 'cup') key or sometimes as: kank-a-key.
.           -- The sheer coincidence was uncanny!                                                            It is the name of a County, Town, and a River in N-E Illinois.

.                        -- But, I was so WRONG!

Mike Griffis wrote me to say, "Ha! That's funny. I didn't realize that my "tater mouth" southern accent yielded
"Kankakee" for "camp cookie.
I certainly sang "camp cookie".  Hope it didn't confuse too many of you guys"

Regards,
Mike Griffis
.                                                                No, Mike, it was I who confused everyone!

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.                May God Bless Waite Phillips,
.                                                He certainly has Blessed us…  

IWGBTP!      IWGBTP!      IWGBTP!      IWGBTP!      IWGBTP!      IWGBTP!      IWGBTP!      IWGBTP!      IWGBTP!      IWGBTP!      IWGBTP!      IWGBTP!


Back when I was in the 5th grade, there was a poem in our Reading Book that I loved immediately.
It reflected the kind of man I aspired to be. However, at the time, I did not copy it down, and many years later, I had
almost forgotten it.

Years ago when I got my first computer, I did a search for this poem. Search engines were still something relatively
new at the time. However not knowing the author's name and only remembering fragments of the poem, the search
failed to come up with a direct hit.

Earlier on the same day that I received the E-mail from
Sam Vivian of the PSA, granting me permission to publish
this website: The “Philmont PhilSongs Songbook”, I was finishing reading Daniel Carter Beard's autobiography,
"Hardly a Man is Now Alive", on the next to the last page…
there it was!



As ‘Uncle Dan’ writes:
"A number of years ago, while sitting in front of the fire-place in my home
in Flushing, (Long Island) Hamlin Garland took up a pencil and wrote..."

.                                       DO YOU FEAR THE WIND ?

.                                       Do you fear the force of the wind,
.                                       The slash of the rain ?
.                                       Go face them and fight them,
.                                       Be savage again.
.                                       Go hungry and cold like the wolf,                                        Hamlin Garland
.                                       Go wade like the crane.
.                                       The palms of your hands will thicken,
.                                       The skin of your cheek will tan--
.    Uncle Dan                  You'll grow ragged and swarthy and weary,
.                                       But -- you'll walk like a man.

.                                                                                          -- Hamlin Garland
.                                                                                               (written 1899)
"and pinned it over the fire-place.
Consciously or unconsciously, Garland put a great truth into that verse,                
(Garland was a contemporary of
the history and development of our race is there."                                                      Jack London & Robert Service.
.                                                                                                                                         They had all mined for gold in
.                                                                                                                                         the Yukon, as well as being
.  This poem is reproduced on the "Scouting Fun" page and nicely formated as a poster                        prolific authors.)


.        . . . Kind of reminds me of the
.                                                Philmont Rangers.

.                P.S.   And a BIG ‘Thank You’ to Wendy Post,
.                     Ranger for Philmont Expedition # 701J, 1989

.                Another BIG 'Thank You' goes out to AJ Turo,
.                     Ranger for Philmont Trek 9 # 728 O2, 2006

.                Another BIG 'Thank You' goes out to Robyn Ruggles,
.                     Ranger for Philmont Trek 12 # 718T, 2009


.                                                                                            For GOD and Country and the BSA …       David


IWGBTP!      IWGBTP!      IWGBTP!      IWGBTP!      IWGBTP!      IWGBTP!      IWGBTP!      IWGBTP!      IWGBTP!      IWGBTP!      IWGBTP!      IWGBTP!


.
Uncle Dan Beard
George Michaels (on right) and Me
Hamlin Garland
Hamlin Garland
Hamlin Garland
Hamlin Garland
Philmont's Official web site is at: www.philmontscoutranch.org/
Tooth of Time Traders: (Philmont's Trading Post) www.toothoftimetraders.com/philmont/
Only Philmont Management is authorized to speak on behalf of Philmont.
THIS website, and Philmont Staff members maintaining their own Philmont-related sites are expected to clearly communicate
that images, information and opinions expressed on their websites are:
Neither authorized nor approved by Philmont Scout Ranch and/or the Boy Scouts of America.
pineapplefish56 E-mail me!
Download Page
Download a copy of the '89 Songbook
from the 'Lyrics Download" page!