Park Ranger Says Job Is the Greatest

The scenery is different from the place where Paul Jones was reared, but not much else has changed in the way he lives.

During those early days, some of his fondest memories include a favorite fishing hole near the dense woods of Florida where he lived and the hunting rifle he carried at age 11.

Less happy was the penalty for missing the bus after school. It was a 10-mile hike home.

“That’s one of the reasons I was never able to go out for any sport in high school,” recalled Jones, 44, who nevertheless feels that he had a good life as a youngster. “I wouldn’t change anything.”

Today, he is just as isolated, but this time it is his choosing.

He is the park ranger at the 46-acre Rancho Las Flores campground near San Onofre, leased by Camp Pendleton to the Orange County Boy Scout Council.

Jones, his wife, Rosalinda, 30, and their 2-year-old son, Jessie, are the only permanent residents there. He met his wife at the campgrounds while she was helping her father, a camp volunteer cook. They were also married at the camp.

They live in a mobile home with two dogs and some birds.

And that suits them fine during the week, when few campers are there, said the veteran Marine paratrooper who joined the corps right out of high school. He served in Vietnam where one of his duties was grave registration.

“I had to help clean up dead bodies for shipping,” he said. “It almost drove me insane.”

After he was discharged and settled in California, Jones looked--unsuccessfully--for work with the state Division of Forestry. He returned to Florida to sell insurance but quit after three years.

“I didn’t like working indoors. Besides, it was a 25-hour-a-day, eight-day-a-week job. It was very stressful,” Jones recalled. He joined the ranks of the unemployed and later hired on as a seasonal firefighter.

Then, a friend in Orange County wrote to him about the ranger opening at the Scout camp.

Jones feels that his job is a throwback to yesteryear, pointing out that he works at his own pace. “I can paint something or go take a nap if I want to.”

Scout leaders obviously like the way he operates the camp.

Jason Stein, a Scout Council spokesman, says: “He is a fantastic employee who runs a superb camp.”

The freedom to run the camp fits his lifestyle.

“I guess I’m one of those people who likes the outdoors and my solitude,” he said. “I can do pretty much what I want to do. My bosses don’t come down and bother me a lot.”

What he has done includes innovative changes in the campground, such as the archery ranges he set up for the young visitors, most of them Scouts. Other campers are from YMCAs, schools and other youth organizations.

“Any kid can come here,” said Jones, who once attended West Valley College in San Jose, where he majored in police science.

On weekends, about 300 Scouts regularly set up camp and, at times, up to 1,500 campers may spend the night. “It’s an ideal campground that is cooled at night by ocean breezes,” he said.

Jones, one of four brothers, feels his job is “heaven-sent. You couldn’t ask for a better job. It’s the greatest thing in the world.”

But if others find his job appealing, Jones warns that they need not apply. “I want to keep doing this the rest of my life.”