PRISONER EXPRESS

At the elementary school I went to, the sixth-graders with no disciplinary problems, a perfect attendance record and who got A and B grade scores were rewarded with a three day field trip to Prude Ranch. Only about 20 or so students, after getting the required parent's signature on a consent form, would be allowed to take the trip, accompanied by seven or eight school faculty members to oversee them.

On a Friday school morning when the school-skipping, misbehaving, C-and-D-grade-getting students were beginning a boring first period math class, the 20 or so perfect- attendance- A- and- B- honor- roll students and their adult supervisors were jam- packing two school buses and departing from the school campus, with a few parents standing by waving goodbyes and snapping pictures of their children waving back excitedly through the bus windows, faces beaming with adolescent anticipation. They would be back by Sunday afternoon

I first heard of this Prude Ranch trip in the third grade. The lucky field- trippers would return with stories about spending nights in log cabins with no electricity or running water, horseback riding with cowboys, watching buffalo run wild, riding bulls, swimming in shimmering blue lakes, meeting Indians decked out in traditional regalia, hunting rattlesnakes and cooking the meat alongside eggs and bacon in an iron pan on a campfire surrounded by old chuck wagons and a cowboy playing a guitar and singing traditional folk songs, all under a panoramic starry night sky. IN fourth and fifth grade the Prude Ranch tales grew outlandish and with every retelling more incredulous. Like the one about a boy named Mike who got bit by a rattlesnake while hiking and was at the threshold of death when an old wrinkled-face Indian discovered him and performed some Indian ritual, sprayed Mike with snake's blood, danced and chanted around Mike's body. He survived, though I'd never seen him at school. In another version of this story Mike was helping cowboys herd cattle when a wild bull rushed towards him and gored him to death. No shaman could save poor Mike this time.

The veracity of these stories aside, when I heard them they just fueled my curiosity about Prude Ranch. I envisioned it as a place where the spirit of the wild west still thrived, where buffalo herds roamed the prairie, where cowboys lived like true frontiersmen of Texas yore and Indians still dressed like old Comanche warriors.

I gotta go to this place, I'd tell myself. A rascal like myself will have plenty of opportunities for mischief, not to mention a chance to ride a horse. Finally, after multiple suspensions, attending special education classes, visiting to the principle's office and enrolling in summer school, I barely made it to the sixth grade. I was determined to make the trip to Prude Ranch, so I began the school year paying attention to the teacher, studying hard and staying out of trouble. But my academic acuity was weaker than my determination and before the end of the first semester I received my first C and D grade scores of the school year, recorded for posterity in the school report card. With my hopes for the three day excursion dashed I backslid to my usual mischievous, misbehaving ways.

On the day the kids departed for the trip, in class I stared at the empty desks feeling a mix of dejection, indignation, and a little bit of resentment directed not so much towards myself as towards the school, the teachers, and especially the A- and- B honor roll students. I tried my best but my best wasn't good enough. When my fellow classmates returned from the trip with their personal experiences and adventurous tales, I would abruptly cut them off the second they tried to share their stories with me or were within my earshot. "Shut up, no one wants to hear your lies," I would say with an unwelcoming, sharp icy glare. And I really didn't want to hear their exaggerated stories. I wanted to experience them myself.

In junior high school they sponsored the same three day field trip to Prude Ranch, again only for the academic geniuses with a perfect attendance record and no disciplinary problems. But by then I cared more for the trips marijuana gave me than a silly school trip to a stupid ranch. In junior high I never heard stories about Prude Ranch as I had in elementary school because, frankly, I was absent most of the school year. My junior high school days can be summed up in two words: fun and failure. Fun because I did what I wanted to do and broke any rules I chose to without thought of the consequences; failure because I flunked in every class and test, with the exception of art class. I'm good in drawing.

When I did decide to show up in school I was good at disrupting the class by talking and cursing out loud, throwing textbooks at the teacher's desk and walking out of class while the teacher was lecturing. I would slam the door hard as I left making a very loud bang that reverberated through the hallways like a shotgun blast. I got into fights in the halls, vandalized school property at night and teachers' cars too whenever one really pissed me off in class.

In eighth grade the school's prayers for salvation form this miscreant were finally answered when I assaulted the principle during lunch. I was expelled form school and permanently enrolled in Alternative Education School. Alternative school is where all the black sheep of the school district are herded and, if necessary, culled for placement in juvenile detention, which is conveniently located next door to the school. It was in alternative school, however, that I was given another chance to go to Prude Ranch.

In the beginning of my second year at the school it was announced that students with a perfect attendance record and no disciplinary problems would be able to take the trip. There was no mention of a student's grade scores. I received this news with skepticism. This is too easy, I told myself. There must be some hidden academic catch to this. The main reason for undertaking this field trip was to reward students with academic excellence and not just for showing up to class. Hell, anyone can come to school everyday and still fail.

Then again this is alternative school where there are cameras in the classrooms and most students are gang members and have their own probation officers, and have spent the night in juvenile detention at least once. There is no A and B honor roll at this school. Maybe that is why student qualifications for the trip are lower than the other schools. Whatever the case, I just showed up to school, paid attention in class and avoided the principle's office, and something unexpected happened- my grades improved. It was around this time, for the first time in my life, that I read a whole book from start to finish. Only about a dozen students were able to take the trip, my self included. We were accompanied by two women, both counselors, for the girl students and two men, both also school counselors, for the boys. We all filled up one school bus and departed on a cool morning. Everybody carried backpacks filled with their personal stuff for the three day trip. I brought along three sets of clothing, some candy, toothpaste, toothbrush, deodorant, soap, shampoo, swimming shorts, and thirty dollars in cash with some loose quarters.

As the bus sped along the highway to the place that had occupied my mind as a third-grader, my mind replayed all the stories I heard in elementary school and how I wasn't allowed- wasn't good enough- to take the trip then. Now, as an eight grader with years of failure in school, I was finally on my way to the ranch.

It took about four hours to reach the Prude Guest Ranch, as it is officially called, located near the tiny town of Fort Davis, population 1,000, in the region of Texas dubbed Big Bend Country which is the fringes of the Chihuahuan desert. We were greeted by a portly old man and a middle-aged woman, both of whom worked at the ranch. They led us into a big, spacious wooden building that served as the reception and dining area with a small cafeteria and long dining tables. On the walls hung black and white photographs, hunting trophies of bucks with long antlers, a buffalo head, and a Texas longhorn. After a brief discourse on the history of the ranch and its surrounding area, we were shown to our lodges. Our group occupied two wooden lodges, one for the boys and the male school counselors, the other one for the women and girls to stay in. The lodge had eight double-bunk beds but unlike the stories I had heard in elementary school these quarters did have electricity and running water, except no T. V.

That first day we were given a walking tour through the surrounding terrain of lonesome prairies dotted with yellow flowers, prickly pear cacti and craggy mountain peaks on the horizon. The cloudless sky was cobalt blue and nature was at its most magnificent. Following a narrow trail our guide pointed to a big white dome sitting atop a mount far away. He said it was the McCloud Observatory at Mount Locke, where people could peer at the celestial heavens. Throughout our tour I didn't spot no bulls, buffalo or deer, no wild fauna anywhere. I did spot birds with long wing spans occasionally, gliding in the sky.

Man, them damn kids in elementary school were good storytellers, I told myself, somewhat disappointed. Later that night we all ate dinner in the big, spacious wooden building and retreated to our lodges for the night.

The next day after eating a delicious breakfast of scrambled eggs, bacon, rice, hot potatoes with warm, brown gravy and copious amounts of orange juice, we finally had our first encounter with wild animals. Well not really wild, but to us youngsters raised within city limits this was our first experience with horses so they were wild animals to us. The only time I had seen a horse was in a parade a long, long time ago when I was a little kid. Now standing close to one they looked taller, stronger, meaner, and just plain wild. I picked a dark brown horse with a black mane and tail to ride, gently running my hand smoothly against its neck to introduce myself, like two strangers shake hands when they first meet. Every time the horse's eyes nervously watched my every move I was afraid it was about to bite me, so I'd gently pat it on its back to reassure it. I avoided going behind it, fearing it would kick me with its muscular hind legs.

A man and woman in their 30's wearing rough Wrangler jeans, soiled button-up long sleeve shirts, dirty boots complete with spurs, a red bandana tied loosely around the woman's neck and their faces shaded from the sun by their cowboy hats showed each of us how to secure the saddle on the horse and helped us mount. They gave us quick lessons on horseback riding, like how to make the horse turn left or right by pulling left or right on the reins. With our whole band mounted on horses we followed the cowboy and cowgirl through a wide dirt trail at a slow gallop. The horse in front of mine, ridden by a girl whose name I can't remember, must have had a bad case of diarrhea because it kept defecating. You'd know when it was about to do its business when the horse's tail would suddenly spring up as a warning sign and release thick chunks of waste from its huge rear- in front of my horse's face, who didn't seem to mind. We kept this slow steady pace until the trail opened up into a wide-open prairie where we began galloping faster, our column dispersing across the seemingly limitless plain. I rode that horse so fast the wind was brushing heavily against my face, like sticking my head out of the window of a car on the highway.

We rode them horses for hours through partially- hidden trails and up craggy hills where the horses would trod cautiously so as not to slip their hooves on rocks, an act that one couldn't help but interpret as if the horse was consciously protecting its rider from a dangerous fall. After a while my dark brown horse no longer seemed the menacingly strong, intimidating, wild creature ready to bite at any moment but rather a vulnerable, submissive, gentle, and loyal animal like a very close pet dog. When our horseback riding was over and we all headed back to the ranch, I felt a strong impulse to snap the reins and ride the horse fast on the highway back to my hometown and feel the wind whipping my face once again.

This was the best- and most memorable- part of the trip and so far the only Prude Ranch story I heard back in elementary school that I was able to experience.

Later that evening we visited Fort Davis National Historic site, an old military fort established in 1854 to protect pioneers and gold-seekers traveling west in the mid- 1800's from hostile Indian tribes. But not once did I encounter a Native American during the whole trip. A tour guide showed us the inside of the reconstructed wood- and- brick quarters where soldiers lived and in the visitors' center I bought a few trinkets and an illustrated book about the Mexican- American War of 1846-48.

That night, another ranch tale turned out to be true, sort of. The night was cool when we all followed the same cowboy and cowgirl through another dirt trail until we reached a secluded open area where an old rickety chuck wagon lay abandoned like a broken-down car in a junkyard. The cowboy asked for volunteers to help him start a fire and three of my classmates helped him start some sparks and in less than a minute a modest fire lighted our secluded area. We sat on logs in a semicircle taking in the warmth of the campfire. We didn't cook rattlesnake meat in an iron pan as the stories in elementary school went. Instead, the cowgirl, who was sitting amongst the girls, reached inside a backpack she brought with her and pulled out two packs of marshmallows, opened them and passes them around, everyone getting 3 to 4 of the white spongy treats. With marshmallows in hand we searched for twigs or small thin branches which were easy to find; our campsite was littered with them, as if someone planted them before our arrival. As we roasted marshmallows over the campfire the cowboy began playing the guitar he brought with him and sang folk songs about cowboy life and horses. When someone asked if he knew any rock-n-roll songs he started playing the melody to that famous song by Richie Valens: La Bamba. While the cowboy sang, now joined by clapping, I looked up at the night sky and was astonished at what I saw; up above, scattered all around were thousands of bright stars, sparkling like tiny diamond pieces embroidered on a king's black velvet robe. Never have I seen the night sky studded with so many stars.

On the third and last day of our trip we went swimming. Just us students got wet. The school counselors, whether out of timidity or embarrassment to appear in bathing suits before the students and other counselors, refused to participate in this activity. We didn't swim in a shimmering blue lake like the kids back in elementary school supposedly did. No. Instead we swam in an Olympic- size swimming pool inside a long, wide wooden building across from the big, spacious wooden building where we'd been dining at. But still, we swam like fishes in that swimming pool, challenging each other on who can stay underwater the most.

Afterwards we hiked through the areas we went horseback riding on the previous day, where I longed to ride that dark brown horse again throughout the beautiful rugged landscape. Back at our wooden lodges we hurriedly packed all of our stuff, said farewell to the cowboy and cowgirl, and quickly jumped into the bus and sped away back to our hometown.

I know this sounds like a boring trip. A trip to Disneyland or Sea World would make for a far more exciting, fun-filled trip. Although most of the stories I heard in elementary school about Prude Ranch turned out to be false, this trip is still my favorite. Not because it was the first and last time I rode a horse or the first and last time I roasted marshmallows over a campfire while a cowboy played a guitar or the first and the last time I saw thousands of shining stars in the night sky, all aspects of the trip I will never forget. This will always be my favorite trip because it showed me that there were some people who were not ready to give up on kids labeled as failures and that other schools had written off as lost causes. That is why this is my favorite trip.