“Summer at scout camp”

Chester David Myers, Harold “Moe” Stephens and I were selected to be staff members at Camp Packentuc BSA camp near Ozark, Illinois.  I suspect the name came from the road being impassable a lot of the time and gear was packed and tucked down the long winding rock and gravel road.  It was unusual to have more than two staff from one troop or Explorer post.  Moe had been there before and I had both Red Cross and BSA lifesaving and they needed waterfront personnel.

   The camp was located in the Shawnee national forest and there was a eighty foot waterfall with a cave and big spring underneath the falls and a creek splitting the camp in half.  The cabins were little more than tents with roof`s and screen.  Each had four built in bunks.  The staff cabins were a bit larger with army bunks and screened but more house like.  I think we had eight bunks.   The small cabins were grouped on the hill sides so that each troop had three or four cabins separated from the other troops.  This was much better than the barracks type usually seen in camps.

   The first day Sam Linebaugh and I volunteered to clean out the storage in the snack bar.  We knew that each year at least one rattler was found in there.  We were nearly finished when we heard a buzz.  We slowed and one of us carefully picked up a lawn sprinkler and realized that was where it was coming from.  Just as we got it to the door the biggest bunch of bumble bees I ever saw came pouring out.  We dropped it and took off running.  Lucky neither was stung.  We went back later and finished the job and never did find our rattle snake.  He and I were setting up a nature exhibit and really wanted one.   We caught a couple of pine snakes and the prettiest corn snake I ever saw. 

   The first week was to open camp and get ready for the campers.  The life guards had to close the gate to the dam and raise the water level making a small lake for swimming in cold water.  There were several big rocks with one that was easy to climb with rope and the rock made a great diving platform.  On the cabin side the water was shallower and was roped off for non-swimmers.                                                        Even for a 16 yr old life guard can be a stressful experience.  We had trials day one and the water was divided by depth with two ropes and floats.  Without fail at least two kids would swear to be swimmers who could not swim a lick or panic after three or four strokes.  We soon learned which to watch the closest.  In a public pool or at camp the weak swimmers would get a panic look on their face when they reach too far and we usually hit the water before they gave up.

    We also taught BSA lifesaving and this was a treat to do.  Most who took it were really good swimmers.  Once we had two of them pretend to be drowning and I was to demonstrate s-l-o-w-l-y how to separate two people about to drown and holding on to each other with a bear grip.  I was to put my hands on ones chin and place my foot on the others shoulder and push.  I had no idea that one of them had panicked and was really bear hugging the other.   When they thrashed my foot slipped between them and they both clamped on each other.  Knowing that someone about to drown is doing anything possible to get up to air I pulled them both down deeper.  They both let go and started climbing for air.  I pulled the one out and the other kid was OK on his own.   My two coworkers on the bank and Warf had no idea what was transpiring in the water.

   The very first task, to open camp, was to clear the road of large rocks and boulders.  This took all hands and was an all day job.  The only vehicles allowed to use it were service and emergency vehicles.  Everyone parked their transport at the top and packed and tucked their gear. On Thursday nights families were invited to share supper in the dining hall and participate in the evening campfire afterward.  This is the campfire that the Order of the Arrow would usually pick to perform their Indian dances and tap out the new initiates to the Order.

   There were lots of trails and the rock formations were huge.  There was one called Bread Loaf that no one was ever able to climb.  There were two trails to the top of the falls.  One by was by rope and the other a long steep walk.

   The year after the camp closed our post took a week camp up there.  Upon arrival we had to clear the road to get our buss down the hill and then it was treacherous because it had not been dozed in over a year.  Everything was as it had been left.

   At our first campfire I told the camp story about Mad Myrtle who lived above the falls, in the 1800s, and had lost her mind and took a hatchet to her husband and children, killing them all.  It was said that her ghost returned to the falls quite often at night.  I noticed Pat Green was really taking it in.  Ed Roberts had already taken a white shirt and flash and went to the top of the falls early.  He was ready with the shirt pulled over a small bushy limb. 

   I asked for three volunteers to go with me to the spring under the falls for cold drinks.  This was the ideal place to keep anything cold. After we crossed the creek I pointed to the top of the falls where Ed had his light inside the shirt and was walking it around.  I pointed up at it and turning off my light I threw it and took off running and screaming, leaving them in the dark.  I hid near the campfire and I heard Pat report to Dr. Barber.  “Doc I just know she got him” he said.   That was when I made my appearance.

    One night during the week we would give the troop leaders a break for an evening by taking the troop on an overnight rough it.  Different troops would go on different nights and most times the leaders whose kids were camping out would take off for Harrisburg and a meal and movie.  Usually two or three troops each night would be on camp out.  Two staff members would escort.  Sam Linebaugh and I would take ours over the falls and up the creek a ways to a bunch of pine trees.  We would demonstrate building a shelter and proper cooking fire and how to make a pretty comfortable bed.  This trip and the swimming hole seemed to be the favorite camp activities.

   The camp was eventually closed and the new camp at Kentucky Lake was opened.  It was just not the same.

“Growing up in Oakton and Clinton”

If only I had a dime for every mile John Miller and I rode bicycles to fishing holes.  I hated a basket on my bicycle but would put it on just for a fishing trip and then remove it after.  I expect we were a sight riding down the road with a fly rod and a bass rod held across the handle bars.  We used two piece rods but they still stuck out.  I just had a small tackle box but it was more than enough for the hooks, quills and the two or three lures I had.  Hard baits were seventy five cents to a dollar each and that was about what I was paid for mowing a yard with a push reel mower.  No motors. About the only lure choice available was at Peggy Young five and dime as we called the Ben Franklin store.  About all that was available were Jitterbug, Hula popper and a Lucky 13.

   One of ourfavorite ponds near Clinton was the Gore sisters between Clinton and Croley.  The best part was stopping by the house to let them know who was there.  I have always loved history and they gave us a history lesson about every time we stopped.  I would forget about fishing they made it so interesting that it was like living it. 

   There were some good bass in the pond, but the bream were really nice ones, big and thick.  They loved a white popping bug with red spots and a black gnat was good as well.  Seems the bream in each fishing hole have their favorites and you cannot force feed them something they do not like. 

   We preferred the last hour of light out there.  We would leave just in time to be in Clinton by dark.  Traffic was not very heavy back then.  On one of these trips I stayed until dark and when I pulled my stringer out of the water a cottonmouth had swallowed one fish hole.  Not thinking I threw the stringer fish, snake and all into the water.  I should have known that a snake with a mouth full of fish cannot bite.  Lesson learned.

   After we started driving we changed to Mr. Harry Wayne and Jack Roberts ponds.  I was fly fishing a little pond below the hill from Jack`s parents one day and hooked a limb on my back cast.  Easily done as the trees ran to the water and the trail down the hill was the only place I could swing the line back to cast.  I did not notice until I cleared the snag and I looked and there Jack stood arms crossed and serious looking.  “Bobby,” he said, “ I told you to fish here all you want but leave my **** birds alone.”

   Eddie Roberts and I were fishing Mr. Wayne`s pond one day and were really catching a lot of bass on our bass rods.  We raised the stringer to put another one on and there was the biggest snapping turtle I have ever seen in a pond.  He was firmly latched onto one fish so I raised him to the top of the water and Eddie grabbed his tail.  We swung fish, turtle and all over the side into the boat.  Then one very agitated snapper reared back, with his mouth wide open, daring one of us to get close.  We decided that I would stick the sculling paddle out and when he clamped down Eddie would drive his hunting knife into its neck.  This was much easier said than done.  First he bit completely through the blade of my paddle.  I turned it around and he grabbed the thick end.  Eddie hammered and hammered with the heel of his hand before finally driving it into the turtle’s neck.  This is one stunt we never repeated.  Together Eddie and I corralled a lot of snakes both poison and otherwise but none were the challenge that that turtle was.

  Thinking of Eddie reminded me of our experiment with alcohol.  We bought a cooler of beer, groceries and headed to the river bank across from Wolf Island.  I remember Ronnie Beck, Toby Brady and Wayne Latta being with us and there were a couple more.  It was probably Johnny Miller and Skip Muscovalley as we were usually a team.  We set up camp in the woods and headed for the river bank to put out our throw lines.  While we were there we picked up a huge pile of driftwood.  We had already picked up enough wood for the camp and this was to build a fire on the bank of the river.

   When it got dark we grabbed our cooler and headed to the shore where we built a fire with some of the drift.  We then lay back in the sand and drank our beer and listened to the hounds running coons on the island.  This is what we went for.  Each coon hound had a different voice and we named them.  We could imagine what they were by the howl and how excited they were.

   When we decided to call it a night and head back to camp we were climbing up the steep part of the bank and Wayne fell twisting his foot.  We fashioned a loose splint on it and helped him back to camp,  We offered to drive him to the ER but he assured us he was OK.  When we woke Wayne was gone.  We packed all our supplies and headed to Clinton and called his mother.  She was not the happy camper.  She informed us that he came home in the early hours on morning with a hangover and a broken ankle.  She also informed us of his grounding when the cast came off.  Naturally our parents found out what we had been up to and we all paid, really paid.

        For a while Frieda and I lived next door to E. C. and Marion Wayne on East Clay st.  They were the kind of neighbor most only dream of.  This was before our girls were born.   Frieda worked at the bank and I had not been long at the Post Office and lots of days I would get home and Marion would meet me in the drive way.  She never asked but informed me that we were eating with them this evening when she gets home from work she will not feel like cooking, she would say.

    Now this usually meant a beautiful grain fed beef steak at least 2” before cooking.  She cooked each the way each wanted and then I wanted mine very, very well.  She always said, “I know you want yours incinerated.”  Now I know what she meant for there is not a restaurant that can try to cook a medium done steak without burning it up.  Oh for a restaurant that knows how to treat a steak and not turn it to ashes.

    They raised beagles and ran them a lot and I so loved seeing her as they left or came home with her hunting clothes on.  She was always the lady and such a surprise to see the tom boy come out in her.  Friends like them you never forget.

“Random thoughts of growing up Clinton and Oakton.”

    While I am thinking of teachers I cannot leave out Mrs. Martha Woodrow.  I remember taking algebra 1 as a freshman and our teacher had a nervous breakdown early in the year.  We had had at least three substitutes trying to fill in and did not do too well.  Our first semester was a wash.  Then, Martha walked into the room.  First thing she said, verbatim, “Children I do not know what I am doing here.  I am an art major and I was never good at math myself but they called me in to work.”  “I will have to study and stay one lesson ahead of you and you brighter students will have to help the rest of us.”  That was all that was needed to win us all over and we all worked together.  She started us off with the first chapter and in the second semester we finished the book.  She was honest with us and that is what kids need.

    My junior year I needed an elective so I chose ninth grade math as I had skipped it for Algebra 1 and 2.  I wanted something easy.  She found out that I loved art and after I got my work done she helped me with art.  She took me from flat pictures to using shadows to form a three dimensional look.  She was a gifted and dedicated teacher and a wonderful person.   After Frieda and I married she became one of our closest friends.

     Thinking of marriage brings to mind that It has been years since I have heard of pranks being played on newlyweds.  I remember when Gene and Doris Dowdy got married.  He was one of our Explorer scout leaders.  We borrowed a pair of handcuffs from state trooper Lawrence Gresham and handcuffed Gene and Doris through the steering wheel.  They were informed that the cuffs would not be removed until they led the wedding caravan through all the main streets of Clinton.  We also put a note on the gas cap suggesting anyone reading it congratulate them on their marriage.

   The meanest was pulled on Bill and Carol Morgan.  The reception was at Carol`s mom`s house.  We parked a car in front of their car and one behind it.  They were bumper to bumper.  Not being satisfied with that we jacked up the car and put a coke crate under the rear axle on both sides.  We then placed one half of a watermelon under each rear wheel.

  As I walked out the back door I noticed a crate of potato`s by the door.  Naturally I picked up two that were about the right size and jammed one up each tail pipe on their car.  I did not know then that Tom Morgan, bills twin brother, had done the same.  It was not until we were all trying to get them out later that we found out that David Samuel had done the same.  We did not get them out.  This was a period when it was popular to have cutouts placed on our cars to bypass the mufflers and have straight exhaust with the flip of a cap.  Bill opened up his cutouts and they were on their way.  I never did find out if he got a ticket for not having a muffler.

   I have heard of people putting limburger cheese on the manifold to stink when hot but I cannot attest to that as I never tried it.  Really, I never did.

I just got off the phone with John Miller and while we were talking I was thinking of how much fun we used to have.  We fished together all the time and before we got our license to drive we put many miles on our bicycles going fishing.  We loved surface baits and just would not use underwater baits.  His daddy, John Miller, was the veterinarian here then and must have been part marine biologist for he constantly pushed us to use deep running baits.  Boys, he would say, when you fish the bank with those surface baits the bass are behind you and deep in the water ninety percent of the time.

  But that was not what came to mind while we talked.  We were a part of a pack I guess you would call us and we were constantly thinking of something to pull on someone.  We wore out the old bell in front of the school at night.  John, Jack Jackson, Skip Muscovalley, Toby Brady, Ronnie Beck and sometimes a couple of others were always looking for a prank to pull.

    Mr. Jim Phillips and I had duck blind together years later and he mentioned some of the things we had pulled in school.  I said that he and his teachers must have been relieved when we all graduated.   He looked at me and said, “Bob you all were no trouble.  You were mischievous and into something all the time but you were a fun group of students.” 

     I will never forget how much he trusted my word.   One time “Gruder” accused me, falsely, of some infraction, in her class and marched me to his office and demanded he paddle me.  She was furious.  Now this would not be the first time he used his paddle on me but he told her to go on back to class and he would tend to me when he finished what he was doing.  When she was gone he asked me if I did it and I told him no way.  His reply was, “You always admit when you are guilty.”  “It is only ten minutes until next bell so have a seat and when it rings go on to your next class.”  He and I sat there and discussed him, me, Johnny and Joe Weatherford fly fishing at the Gore sister`s pond the day before.

“Growing up Clinton and Oakton” “Ms Dola, and Ms Laverne”

   I would be remiss if I mention my youth in Clinton and Oakton without a mention of two wonderful, but tough ladies.

   I had Ms Laverne Kimbro in seventh grade and she was a hoot.  She usually punished by using a wooden ruler on an out stretched palm.  She was also adept at grabbing a hand full of a boy`s hair and giving a shake if she saw him asleep or not paying attention.

   She had pulled about every head but mine so I decided to outfox her.  I went to Alfred Kell and had him give me a flat top haircut with no more than three quarter inch of hair in front.  He called my dad to see if he approved.   He was reluctant but said if I wanted to make a fool of myself go ahead.  Short hair then meant trouble makers and it was not desirable with the older folks.

    I read an article once where the writer wrote about kids and long hair being trouble.  I agreed with him.  His punch line was that he was quoting Ben Franklin in Poor Richards Almanac.  In the almanac Franklin was quoting Aristotle.  If the parent had long hair the child will have it short.  We are so determined to be different we are conformist without realizing it.

    Anyway back to my story.  The next morning when the bell sounded first class I was in my seat near the back and close to the door.  When Ms Laverne got to my seat she reached out and caught my short stubble between her fingernails and her palm.  Then she gave a big shake and said, “Robert Templeton did you really think that I could not shake your head with that hair cut?”  (I was not called Bob until I was in the service and there were four of us named Robert.  We became Robert, Rob, Bob and Bobby.)  She never did shake my head again.  I think I somehow was one of her favorites.  I know she was one of mine.  She did use her ruler a time or two and each was deserved.

   I was a poor speller and she made me so mad that I vowed that I would be able to out spell her by the time we finished the year.  Little did I realize that I was responding to her challenge exactly how she wanted.  I finished our speller in a few weeks and started on the dictionary.  I never did out spell her.  I am so thankful that when I started carrying mail that she was on my route and I took the first chance to tell her how much she helped me get my job.  A large portion of the test then was correct spelling, capitols and memory.  She was tough but also a softy.  She weighed every bit of ninety pounds wet and holding a brick.

   A few years after I had her for a teacher she went to the Central Office and had the duty of truant officer.  One day several of us decided to play hooky from school.  We headed to Pools grocery at lunch to get a drink and sandwich.  We looked out the window and there she was pulling into a parking place.  Sharecropper Williams and I ducked behind some boxes near the front and two others headed out the back door.  I think it was Charles Poole who ran to the back and ducked behind the counter.  Like a bird dog she headed straight too him.  I suspect she saw him through the door glass.  She reached behind the counter and grabbed his ear between her fingers and that palm of hers and twisted it leading him out to her car and off to school and Mr. Phillips well used paddle.  As little as she was seeing her leading a big old boy out by the ear was a comical sight.  How could a ninety pound light weight intimidate so many roughneck boys?

  Another teacher I remember so well was Miss Dola Camp.  She started in a one room school on Wolf Island before transferring to Central School.  The funny thing is that I never had her for a teacher.  She had two double blackboards in her room.  One working board behind her desk and she had another installed against the wall of the room for notes and for decorating at holidays and season changes.  She knew that Ronnie Beck and I were pretty good artist so, when we were in high school, she would send a note to Mr. Phillips.  She never asked, she instructed him, to have us in her room at a certain time and day to decorate her board with seasonal scenes using colored chalk.

   We were doing a Christmas scene one time and I had my back to her.  Suddenly there was a wop and an eraser hit the wall over my shoulder just missing my ear.  She laid back and chuckled.  I will never forget what she said next, “I never had you for a student but I have had most of your family and you have always been one of my favorites.”  She meant it too.  She knew that she was also one of my favorites even though I was never in her class as a student.  I always hated that I never got a piece of chalk thrown at me to get my attention for I hear she was as accurate with chalk as with an eraser.

   Mrs. Mariah Brinkley was another favorite.  We were neighbors and Priscilla and I both collected and traded comic books.  Ms Mariah had shelves mostly filled with the classics.  I would borrow hers and loved reading them.  I finally read all that she had.  Once when I was in her English and Lit class she assigned me to do a report on a piece of classical literature.  I was reading something else at the time so I ran by Henry Featherstone drug store to buy it in classic comic form. 

   When I gave my report she was really giving me praise on my report when Richard Puckett reached under my desk and pulled out my comic.  He said, “Ms Mariah, he did not read it.  He used a comic.”  She replied that I was instructed to give a book report not to read a book.  Richard, she said, I know that he probably reads more books in a month than most people read in a year.

   Poor Richard, that same year he caught it again because of me.  I was beaten along with four others by Phoebus Pruitt the year before as freshmen and I heard that he printed out the same word every year, really a chemical compound, and would give ten percent extra semester grade to anyone who could pronounce it correctly.  I wrote it down and memorized it over the summer.  As juniors in chemistry he wrote it on the board with the ten percent offer.  I raised my hand and he asked if I really thought I could.  I replied that I would like to try so he told me to have at it.  I intentionally turned my back to the blackboard and looking out the window said, “Paraparadimethylaminoazobenzinesulfonicacid.”  His face was livid.  Poor old Richard had a big piece of bubble gum which, when he laughed so hard, landed in the hair of the girl in front of him.  I am not sure but I believe the girl may have been either Shirley Wilburn or Bertha Davis.  Regardless, she had long dark hair.  He proceeded to take five percent of Richard`s daily grade while he was adding ten percent to my semester grade.