OPINION

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Prideful New Yorker meets his match in Mt. Humphries

BY DAVID LEIBOWITZ Peoria Times Columnist

Having grown up in New York, I can testify to the immense overconfidence of many New Yorkers. Convinced they live in the only city that matters, New Yorkers often display a level of cockiness best described as the personality equivalent of fingernails on a blackboard. Thus, it’s fun to see New Yorkers taught a lesson like the comeuppance recently received by 28-year-old Brooklyn moron Phillip Vasto.

Vasto, who describes himself as an “experienced hiker,” was here in the Valley on business when he decided to sojourn north to Flagstaff. His goal? To hike Mt. Humphries, our state’s highest peak at 12,633 feet.

According to media reports, Vasto set out at 2:30 p.m. March 2 armed with his cellphone and trusty AllTrails app. The hike to the top of Humphries and back is about 10 miles. On that day the trail was so steeped with snow, it took Vasto an hour to find the trailhead.

“Unequipped with a light source,” per the Arizona Daily Sun, Vasto trekked until dark, telling the paper, “It was very easy to get off the trail and fall into the snow.”

Shortly before 7 that night, Vasto dialed 911 and reported being lost. The search and rescue unit from the Coconino County Sheriff’s Office tracked him down at about the 10,600foot mark — in other words, nowhere near the summit.

Most of us would have called it good, happy to survive. Not Vasto. This is where he displays that signature New Yorker confidence.

Despite a stern talking to from rescuers — including being “encouraged to not attempt the hike again,” according to a press release from the Sheriff’s Office — Vasto decided to hike Humphries again the very next morning.

March 3 must have been quite the day: Vasto met fellow hikers who turned back in the face of 25 mph winds — but he kept going. He slipped off the trail and scratched up a leg, Vasto told the Daily Sun.

After about eight hours, he noticed his phone was nearly dead. Only then did Vasto call the search and rescuers for the second time in 24 hours. The deputies contacted the Arizona Department of Public Safety. A DPS helicopter flew up to fetch Vasto off the mountain.

The pride of the Big Apple posted about his adventure on Instagram before deleting his posts — I imagine because he was tired of being called a dumbass. Like many people caught doing ridiculous things, Vasto positioned himself on social media as a wise sage here to warn the rest of us.

“With brutal, chilling winds blowing at (more than) 25 mph and freezing temperatures, Humphreys Peak is no joke in March,” Vasto wrote. “I highly advice (sic) NOT attempting Humphreys Peak in the winter. You can easily injure yourself and get hypothermia up there.”

Uh, yeah. Improbably, the entire population of Arizona, all 7 million of us, somehow managed not to need that dire warning.

Vasto’s travails will undoubtedly revive calls for the state Legislature to pass a “Stupid Hiker Law,” which the city of Phoenix considered back a few years ago. Like Arizona’s “Stupid Motorist Law,” such a measure would force hikers who make improbably dumb decisions to repay the estimated thousand taxpayer dollars an hour it costs to send highly trained first responders and a chopper to save them from their own stupidity.

The law might not be a bad idea. Vasto told the Daily Sun he plans to fly out from New York again in May and try his big adventure one more time.

The immortal Sinatra was right about New Yorkers. “King of the hill, top of the heap?” Like Phillip Vasto, they’re all destined for glory. PT

GAMBLE’S OPINION — King Features

David Leibowitz has called the Valley home since 1995. Contact david@leibowitzsolo.com.

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Meeting with Barry Goldwater taught him a lesson

BY J.D. HAYWORTH Peoria Times Columnist

“You’ve been there before, right?” The driver’s question shook the candidate out of his reverie.

The young man didn’t make a habit of using a car service, but with his campaign manager in a meeting, other workers putting up and repositioning signs and his wife needing the family car, a limo was the best way to ensure the candidate arrived at this important meeting on time.

“Excuse me?”

“You’ve been there before, right?”

“Nope… first time!”

“Well, I have,” the driver responded, with an air of professional competence and courtesy. “The way there is imprinted on my memory, given the importance of the man who lives there and the guests I’ve taken there.”

“Yes sir, it’s quite a place,” the driver said. “When I was a kid, at Christmastime and Easter, cars would be lined up so that families could use the shortwave radio there as part of a special phone link-up to talk to their boys in Vietnam.

“The joke around town was that the landlord there stayed busier on those holidays than Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny combined… and that he served a steady diet of ham on both days… as in ‘ham radio’!”

“How about that,” the young passenger responded, adding a polite laugh of his own.

Actually, the candidate’s nerves were a bit jumpy as the car drew closer to its intended destination. Given his propensity for verbosity, he hoped that continuing the conversation would calm him down a bit.

“I wonder what his workshop looks like,” the candidate said.

“Not sure that he even calls it a ‘workshop,’” the driver responded. “I’ve heard that he refers to it as his ‘shack,’ and sometimes just as the ‘garage,’ since he works on his cars as well as his gadgets in there.”

The conversation piqued the driver’s curiosity. “You gonna ask him?”

The candidate genuinely chuckled this time.

“As you might imagine, I have some other questions in mind,” the young man responded.

“I bet you do,” the driver responded, pulling up to the door.

Ushered into the great man’s presence, in the den just off the kitchen, the young man was every bit the energetic candidate.

“You’re very kind to make some time to visit with me, sir.”

“Well, you’re off to a great start,” the great man said.

“Thank you, sir,” the candidate responded. “It was a hard-fought primary, and we were pleased to come out on top.”

“Oh, I’m not talking about the primary,” the great man said. “I’m talking about the first word out of your mouth. ‘Y-O-U!’ That’s good!”

“Sir?”

“Every letter that you write or your staff writes should start with that same word. God knows we have enough politicians who always begin with ‘I…’ I’ve done this… or I’m gonna do that… makes me sick! By using ‘you’ the attention is focused on the voter… and then, when you win… your constituent!”

The great man’s candid and cantankerous nature, as well as his sage advice, made the hourlong meeting seem much shorter.

Toward the end, it was the great man’s turn to ask a question.

“Who are you running against, anyway?”

The candidate bit his tongue and kept a poker face, remembering that an endorsement from the great man put his opponent into office in the new congressional district two years earlier. Calmly, he mentioned the incumbent’s name.

Sen. Barry Goldwater responded with a snort of surprise… or derision… the candidate couldn’t determine which.

“A GIRL?! Well, I’m not gonna get in your way! Now… where’s my checkbook?”

The candidate wanted to frame the check as a keepsake, but the campaign treasurer explained that federal election finance law mandated its deposit. Besides, every dollar counts in a political campaign.

Thirty years after Barry Goldwater lost his race for the White House, the young candidate won his race for the U.S. House.

Almost another 30 years have passed. Barry Goldwater belongs to the ages, and the young candidate-turned-congressman has now become a columnist.

He wrote this piece, still using the “Goldwater Rule.”

Check the first word.

You see? PT

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