Travel Archives - From a Rocky Hillside

February 20, 2025February 20, 2025

Goler Gulch, March 2005

Ralph at Sam's Cabin in the Majovie, near Randsburg, CA

An early morning drive in the desert

Last week, I told a story about an adventure with Ralph into Central Nevada. This week, I rewrote a piece I wrote in 2010, shortly after Ralph’s death. This trip I spent more time jotting down in my journal some of Ralph’s unique bits of wisdom. Hopefully, you’ll get a better view of my friend who died 15 years ago.

Ralph and I stayed the night in Ridgecrest. Before heading out for the desert early in the morning, we stopped at a grocery store to pick up fruit and pastries along with coffee and juice. Dawn broke as we drove along the highway toward Goler Gulch. In the soft morning light, the carpeting of highway shoulder with flowers amazed me. The wet winter had given growth to white and yellow asters, daisies and bluish heliotropes. Even beyond the road, the flowers grew under clumps of greasewood.

It was March 2005. I had flown out west the day before so I could officiate at a wedding. I picked up a rental car in Las Vegas. As I had a few extra days before the celebration, Ralph took a bus down from Cedar City and met me in Vegas. We then headed over into the Southern California desert, to see where he grew up. We’d talked about doing this trip several times while I lived in Utah, but had never gotten around to it.

Our next stop this morning was Sam’s Cabin, located just off the highway. Arriving, we sit outside on a picnic table and ate our breakfast while watching the changes in the morning light across the El Paso Mountains to our north. “You can find any kind of mineral up there in those mountains,” Ralph noted. “Just don’t start a mine, because whatever your digging will quickly disappear.” It was the words of one who knew a bit about the folly of mining.

Sam’s Cabin

I’d heard a lot about Sam, who’d built this cabin seventy-some years ago. Once, I met his daughter, who’d recently died in her mid-nineties. Sam was an old-time miner. He’d worked in Nevada and as a young man headed up to the Klondike in 1898. He supposedly made enough money up north that he didn’t have to do much work the rest of his life. In the 1930s, he showed up in the Mojave, working as a caretaker for a mining firm. It didn’t take much to live like he did. He had a wife, who lived over on the coast. Sam would go visit her a couple times a year and occasionally she’d come out to the desert, that being the extent of their marriage.

Sam's homestead in the Mojave Desert — Sam’s homestead

My favorite story of Ralph and Sam was their trip to Death Valley in Ralph’s family Model T truck, taking it across China Lake early in the World War II, before the government converted the dry lakebed to a Naval Aviation bombing site. Ralph had fond memories of the trip, including meeting Scotty of Scotty’s Castle in Death Valley. Today, this trip would be impossible because the bombing range is still in use.

We discovered Sam’s cabin in a state of “arrested decay.” The BLM keeps it from blowing down and one can rent it for up to two nights. Sam died in 1965, in his early 90s.

After breakfast, we looked around the old cabin while waiting for Bill, a friend of Ralph’s from Southern California to arrive. Rocks and boulders of all shapes, colors and sizes dot the yard. Ralph pointed to many of them and told me which gulch from which they’d been taken. Most of the rocks had been hauled in by Sam with the help of Ralph and his brother Charlie.

Sam's place in the Mojave — Another view of Sam’s homestead

Ralph’s family homestead in Goler Gulch

Bill arrive a few minutes later, driving a huge Suburban SUV. We decide to take his Suburban and leave my rental car at Sam’s Cabin. We climbed in and Ralph began the tour of Goler Gulch. The gulch has always been a placer mining district, meaning the ore is found in sediment washed down from the mountains. Attempts have been made to find the ore body from up in the mountains, but no one has ever identified the source. When Ralph was a kid, old miners held to the belief the gold had been pushed down during the last ice age, by glaciers. Of course, there is no evidence of glacier activity this far south. Another popular theory, according to Ralph, who reported this with a straight face, is that the gold came from Alaska.

Old Behren homestead in the Mojave — Ralph showing us around the old Behren homstead

Ralph’s family’s Model T

Ralph was born in Kansas. When he was an infant, his parents moved to California. They added a bed to their Model T coupe, making it into a truck in which the family made the journey. After a short stint in Los Angeles, they headed into the desert, where his dad worked as a miner and a cook. Interestingly, the Model T still runs. Ralph has driven me around in it and even let me drive it.

Ralph told about his brother Charlie and him taking the Model T on trips through the desert. In the spring or after rains, when the water would be raging in the gulch, they’d stop the car on one side of the stream, take off the fan belt and drive through the water, hooking the fan belt back up on the other side. The car seemed to go anywhere; you just had to know the tricks. If the fan was spinning, it would kick water over the distributor cap and short out the electrical system. The engine could take a little more heat than the electrical system could take water.

Behren homestead around 1930 — The homestead around 1930 with Ralph, his father and his brother and pet dog. They often slept outdoors, especially in the summer.

Ralph’s family homestead includes a collection of buildings. Ralph pointed to a building he and Sam had built at the beginning of the war for some women from Pasadena who wanted a place to flee when the Japanese invaded. “They were sure the Japanese were coming to rape them,” Ralph said sarcastically. They hired him and Sam to build them a home in the desert. Another building Ralph rescued from the Navy, who’d set up operations at China Lake during the war. Abandon as surplus, he brought it and hauled it home so he could have his own room when he returned from the Pacific.

The Old One-Room School House

We made another stop at the site of the old one room school. Ralph and his brother attended school here with eight or ten other kids from 1932, when the schooled opened, to 1936 when they were bused into Randsburg. He told us about his first-grade teacher who’d just celebrated her 100th birthday. Ralph pointed up stream and said that the girl’s outhouse was up there, and the guys were downstream. “Why didn’t they just have a unisex bathroom with a lock,” I asked, “since there were never more than a dozen students.” Ralph, in all seriousness, responded. “I assume the school board had concerns about mixing urine.”

We saw the shaft for the Yellow Aster mine, one of the larger mines in the district. As we explored, Ralph picked a leaf of Indian Tobacco and talked about as a kid he’d harvest it and sell it to an old miner. The other miners forbid the old miner from smoking it underground because it stank. He also found an “Indian pickle,” a plant with a long stem and an open chamber on the end where you could place your tobacco as you drew the smoke up the stem. The “Indian pickle” made a perfect bong. He also showed how the new growth on a greasewood (also known as Creosote bush) could be crushed and smoked for a “natural high.” “This also stinks, which is what you’d expect from such a plant,” Ralph informed us. None of us wanted to try it out for ourselves.

Heading up the gulch

We next headed into the gulch itself, a canyon where much of the mining took place. There were five shafts dug down into the dirt, named Fine Gold Number 1 though 5. Only Fine Gold #1 had a traditional gallows frame, the others being pick and shovel operations with a windlass. In time, the miners discovered that the gold was mostly deposited in the sand within a few feet of bedrock, some eighty feet down. They’d sink a shaft then work out following the bedrock as they made their way up and down the gulch.

Old miners Ralph knew

As we drove up the gulch, Ralph told us about miners he’d known growing up the desert. One was a kid, just 18, who discovered enough gold to buy himself a brand new ’36 Ford with an 85 horsepower V8 engine. Another was a guy named Happy, who was the first pot-head Ralph knew. This was before the Second World War. Happy came looking for work and the miners wanted him to work with them. So, he asked where he might find a place to prospect. One of the old-timers, to be done with him, sent him to the most unlikely place around. Happy discovered a 14-ounce nugget. He remained happy for some time thereafter.

Some of the miners were more adapt at mining outsiders, an ancient trick of the mining trade. Curly would pull out his pan anytime he saw a tourist driving by. They’d get to see him work out some nuggets from his washings. He’d tell him he dug the ore at his mine, Eagle’s Roost,” up in the mountains. It they seemed interested, he’d ask if they’d like to buy a few inches or feet of the mine from him. During the war, Curly talked to a man from Kansas. Ralph’s father, who was from Kansas, warned the man not to trust Curly. Curly moaned to the man about how everyone talked bad him and were always saying that he was dishonest because they were jealous. So, the man brought from Curly a bunch of land that wasn’t worth much and most of it, Curly didn’t even own. Afterwards, Ralph said, “Curly went into Randsburg and brought war bonds and became a hero.”

Turning around and heading for lunch

The creek ran strong, and the ground softened before we reached the end of the gulch. Bill said he had a shovel in the back if we wanted to keep going, but none of us were excited about using it. We turned around and headed back to Randsburg for lunch. That’s a story I’ll have to share at another time.

Postlude

Ralph lived in the Gulch until he graduated from High School in 1944, at which time he joined the Army Air Corp. He was hoping to become a pilot, but they had enough so he became a crew member of a B-24. He made it to the South Pacific in time for the war to end. Ralph received a combat citation, and just so no one thought of him as a hero, he loved telling the story about how some General thought he should have another medal, so the General sent several hundred airplanes into the sky to blow the hell out of some island a few Japanese soldiers had the misfortune of being marooned on as their island had been leaped over in our drive toward the Japanese homeland. “We blew the hell out of them,” Ralph said. His second mission was to drop supplies, mostly boots, into POW camps after the surrender. After the war, Ralph attended school on the GI bill and became a chemist. He spent the rest of his life in the Southwest. Ralph died in 2010. Two weeks ago, on his birthday, he would have been 99 years old.

A Great Basin Mining Adventure

Photo of Ralph's truck around Hamilton, Nevada

This was a trip I made with a friend from Cedar City in the late 1990s. I wrote this piece for another blog about 15 years ago, around the time of Ralph’s death. I bring it back out because in last Sunday’s sermon, I mentioned this trip. I have updated the writing a bit. I should go back through my slides and pick out more to feature (or maybe add a map of our travels).

Camping on Main Street, Treasure City

“This street used to be bustling with noise,” I think, as I stroll down Main Street, Treasure City. The sounds of wagons and the clicking hooves from horses, added to the cussing of teamsters, the pounding of stamp mills and the music from saloons would have too much. But I swear I can still hear voices in the brisk wind, bringing a chill the summer air. My belly is full. Ralph and I had just eaten a steak and a baked potato, along with a salad. We’d drown it with a beer. Before hitting the sack, I decide to walk the length of the road. Ralph stays behind to tend the fire. The distant mountains are turning purple. This street had once a thriving business district with forty stores and a dozen saloons, but today just the shells of collapsing rock structures remain.

By the time I get back to the truck, Ralph has let the fire die down and is already in his sleeping bag. I blow up my mattress and rolled my bag out on the other side of the truck. Plopping down, I watch the summer stars and listen to the wind and Ralph’s snoring. Soon, I too am asleep. I wake at first light. The wind has died and silence seems eerie. While the coffee perks, I explore some nearby ruins. The evening before, I stayed on the gravel road for the mountain is pitted with mine shafts. A wrong step could send you several hundred feet down and into oblivion.

History of the mining region

In the later part of the 1860s, miners from Austin and the Reese River Mining District in search of another mother lode discovered rich in what became the White Pine Mining District. One of the first discoveries, in 1865, was named Monte Christo. It’s just a few miles west of here. From there, miners set out in all directions and in 1867, discovered what became known as Treasure Hill, the mountain upon which we’d camped. The land was unforgiving. There was little shade in the summer and an altitude above 8,000 feet created brutal winters. But with some of the ore as pure silver chloride and assayed as high as $15,000 a ton, people were willing to put up with the hardships.

ruins of an old mill — Ruins of an old mill

By 1869, Treasure City with a population of 6,000 had been established on top of the mountain. There were nearly 200 mines along with ten mills to crush the ore into powder, in preparation to leaching out the silver and gold. A water company laid pipe and had the ability to pump 60,000 gallons a day to the top of the thirsty mountain. But it was all short lived. Most mines played out after a few hundred feet and the rock proved a formable challenge. Early in 1870, the excitement began to wane. By the end of 1870, only 500 people remained. In 1880, when the Post Office closed, there were only 24 people left living on the mountain.

Economic lessons for the region

A look at Treasure Hill’s rise and fall provides an economic lesson in the danger of speculation and bubbles and international finance. Western Historian W. Turrentine Jackson, in his classic study on the region, Treasure Hill, goes into great detail of the financing of the district. In the late 1860s, so much money was poured into the region, more than was ever needed to develop the mines. Much of this capital was wasted; some of it spent on bogus mining operations that existed only to mine the pockets of capitalists who hoped to make a fortune and were willing to take great risks. Then, as the availability of high grade ore begin to wane, money begin to be withdrawn from the region. John Muir visited the area after the rush and wrote in Steep Trails:

“Many of [the mines] do not represent any good accomplishment and have no right to be. They are monuments of fraud and ignorance—sin against science. The drifts and tunnels in the rocks may be regarded as the prayers of the prospectors offered for the wealth he so earnestly craves; but like prayers of any kind not in harmony with nature, they are unanswered.” (Elliott, 105)

Leaving Cedar City

Ralph and I got an early start for this remote spot in the Nevada desert. Leaving Cedar City, we drive north to Minersville and then on to Milford, where we cross the Union Pacific tracks and set out across the desert on Utah 130. Our travels take us just south of the ghost town of Frisco and north of the Wah Wah Mountains. We enter Nevada at Baker. Shortly after meeting up with Highway 50, we leave the pavement for a rough road that skirts the north boundary of Great Basin National Park.

Osceola

Our first stop is at the site of Osceola. Here, In 1872, a unique mining community for Nevada existed. Hard rock mining is the norm in Nevada. This was industrial mining. Miners dig shafts and drifts as they blast into rock for ore. The ore was then crushed and chemically treated to extract the metals. However, in Osceola, free ore existed in sediment. Placer mining, as was done in the California gold fields, was possible. All one needed were shovels and pans, some water, and perhaps a sluice box. The difficulty with placer mining here was the lack of water. Early in the town’s history, they dug a ditch up Wheeler Peak to divert water to the town. This mining district boasts the largest gold nugget ever found in Nevada. There is not much left of the town that existed here for nearly fifty years. Fires, the bane of mining camps, sent most of the town up into smoke. Modern mining operations destroyed the rest. Only the graveyard and some mining equipment used more recently remains.Interestingly, even with gold near historic lows (this was in the late-90s), there’s still a few people mining in this district.

Ely

Leaving the cemetery behind, we drive out of the canyon and head west, across an alluvial fan and toward the highway. Reconnecting to US 50, we continue on to Ely where we stop and have lunch at the historic Hotel Nevada. I suggest we eat on the road to make better time, but Ralph cringes. “If I can’t sit down and enjoy my meal, I’m not living right,” he insists. After lunch, we continue west on US 50, passing the huge open pit copper mine at Ruth and thirty minutes later, the Illipah Ranch. Somewhere between Ely and Eureka, we abandon the pavement and head south on a gravel road.

Ralph inspecting som kind of left-over equipment

Hamilton

Hamilton is our first stop, nine miles south of US 50. It sits on the north side of Treasure Hill and served as a logistical point for the various mining communities south of here. The town was first called Cave City as so many miners from the mountains sought refuge there in caves during the harsh winters. As mining flourished, they laid out a town. By the spring of 1869, more than 10,000 people lived here. It became the county seat for the newly established White Pine County. They built a courthouse. Stage coaches connected the town to Austin and Pioche and the railroad at Elko.

But the town’s life was short. The excitement lasted on a few years and by the time of the 1870 census, less than 4,000 people remained. The town struggled on. In 1873, a shopkeeper by the name of Cohen, seeing his investment falter, set his store on fire in the hopes of collecting on his insurance. The fire spread and much of the town burned. Another fire destroyed the courthouse in 1885. In 1887, the town’s future died as the county seat moved to Ely. Today, only a few ruins and a cemetery remain. There’s plenty of mining junk left out, along with the leftovers of a cyanide leaching operation and a few junked house trailers used in the last attempt to mine in the area. We see no one as we poke around.

Treasure City

After Hamilton, we head south to Treasure City, located just a mile and a half from Hamilton, but on top of the mountain. We take the wrong road and I find myself out in front of the truck with a shovel, clearing rocks as we make our way up a switchback road to the top. Had we known, another road to the west would have taken us to the top without any trouble. It’s getting time for dinner and we find a place along Main Street where we stop for the evening.

I build a charcoal fire behind the truck. As soon as we have coals, I put in two foil wrapped potatoes and, in a wire basket, begin to grill the steaks we had socked away in the cooler. As the sun drops toward the horizon, the wind picks up and soon we’re both pulling on jackets. We eat dinner, washing it down with a beer. I throw a few pieces of pinion onto the coals and the fire blazes. After chatting for a bit, I take off on my walk.

Shermantown, Eberhardt, and Charcoal Kilns

The next morning, we head south off the mountain and stop by the sites for Shermantown and Eberhardt. We link up to the Hamilton-Pioche stagecoach trail and follow it to US 6. Turning left, he head back into Ely in time for lunch and to gas up the truck. Then we head south, stopping at the Ward Charcoal Kilns, a state historic site. It’s interesting that there was a large charcoal operation in this desert region. They harvested all the pinion and juniper for miles around to feed these massive kilns. The charcoal was mostly used to roast the ore in the milling process. Leaving the kilns behind, we head down US 93, stopping at Pioche, another mining town.

Pioche and Home

Pioche is still alive and holding on now as an out-of-the-way tourist town. The community received a new lease on life in World War Two, at a time when the government was forcing the closure of gold mines as non-essential industries. But the ground around Pioche included large deposits of zinc,. Considered an essential mineral for the war effort, zinc mining lead to a revival of Pioche. They continued mining zinc around Pioche till the 1980s. We stop long enough to have dinner at the Overland Saloon, and then headed on home. At Panaca, a Mormon farming community, we leave US 93 and head east, toward Cedar City. An hour later, as we approach the city with the sun setting to our back, the red hills glow in the evening light.

A photos were slides which I digitally copied.

Camp Bangladesh: another adventure with Ralph

Sources:
Shawn Hall: Romancing Nevada’s Past: Ghost Towns and Historical Sites of Eureka, Lander and White Pine Counties(University of Nevada Press, 1994)

W. Turrentine Jackson, Treasure Hill, (University of Arizona Press, 1962)

Russell R. Elliott, History of Nevada, revised edition. (University of Nebraska Press, 1987).

_________., Nevada’s Twentieth-Century Mining Boom: Tonopah, Goldfield, Ely (University of Nevada Press, 1966).

December 31, 2024January 2, 2025

Jimmy Carter’s Sunday School

title slide with photo of Main Street, Plains, GA and Jimmy Carter

The article below was published in The Skinnie, a magazine for Skidaway Island, Georgia, for the November 17, 2017 (vol. 15, issue 23). The title the editor gave the article was “Plains Speaking.” With Jimmy Carter’s death on Sunday, I thought it time to pull it out and make it available again. Carter, who was appreciated more after his presidency than before will be missed. I was moved to see that even Buckingham Palace in London had lowered the Union Jack to half mast in honor of his life.

“I don’t often attend Baptist Churches but when I do, it’s under the cover of darkness,” I quip as we turn into the driveway of Maranatha Baptist Church in Plains, Georgia. Everyone is quiet. It’s a little before 6 AM, on the first of October. The stars are still out. Yet, in the driveway is a man with a warm Southern accent welcoming us. He tells us where to park, that the church building will open at 8 AM, and that if we need to use the bathroom before then, there are some porta-johns in the back. He gives us an index card numbered 17. That’s our number when it is time to line up and enter church and it means there are 16 cars here before us.

This is the earliest I’ve ever arrived at church, but Jimmy Carter’s Sunday School class starts at 10 AM and we don’t want to miss it. I park and we all fall asleep. An hour later, as dawn breaks, I wake to a Marine leading a dog sniffing all the cars in the parking lot. I’ve never had a vehicle sniffed for bombs while attending church. I doze off again.

By 7:30 AM, it is light enough to see. People are gathering in the front of the church. We join them. Cars still drive in. But the parking lot is full. Those who arrive now park in the overflow out back under a grove of pecans. A woman lines everyone up according to their number. At 8 AM, we’re ushered forward, one group at a time. They have us take everything out of our pockets while a secret service agent scans our bodies with a wand. Only then are we are allowed to enter the church. There’s more waiting.

As the sanctuary fills, a woman from the church welcomes us and informs us of the rules for a Sunday School class led by the former “Leader of the Free World.” We’re to refer to him as President Carter, not Mr. President (the latter is only appropriate for the current President). The woman reminds us the former First Lady’s name is Rosalynn, not Roselyn. We’re also reminded that while it is President Carter’s birthday, we’re not to sing happy birthday or make a big deal out of it. President Carter wants our focus to be on the lesson and not him. I had not known it was his birthday before arriving in Plains and didn’t think about bringing a card. Others had. The woman collects the cards. We’re told not to hand the Carters anything. However, she assures the Carters will receive the cards, but only after the Secret Service examines them. We’re told the Carters will be happy to allow us to have a photograph taken with them and are informed this will be conducted after the 11 AM worship service. If you skip worship, there will be no photographs.

A few minutes before 10 AM, a number of Secret Service agents enter the room and take up their positions. Then Rosalynn Carter enters with a group of friends and family members. I recognize Maureen Dowd, a columnist for The New York Times. They are all seated in a reserved section of pews. The room is nearly full.

A moment later Jimmy Carter enters with his ever present grin. He begins by asking where we’re from. There are people here from at least twenty states. He acknowledges each state. When someone says Washington, the former nuclear submariner informs us that it’s the home to the world’s finest submarine. He pauses a second for effect, then says, “the USS Jimmy Carter.” Another is from D.C. and Carter quickly quips, “I used to live there.” Everyone laughs.

When a woman identifies herself as Puerto Rican. Carter pauses to ask if she knows how her family and friends are doing after Hurricane Maria, which had struck the island ten days earlier. She sobs, saying her family is fine, but the island is devastated. President Carter acknowledges her pain and tells us to keep them in prayer and to help out anyway we can.

There are people in the sanctuary from at least twenty states and seven foreign countries: China, Korea, Germany, Peru, Canada, Russia and Cuba.

Next, President Carter asks a woman missionary to open us in prayer. After a few remarks about the state of the world, especially the danger posed by North Korea, Jimmy moves into his morning lesson. He first notes he’d been teaching on giving for the last four weeks. It troubled him that the collections were down. We all chuckle.

This morning, Carter begins a new series on the Apostle Paul’s letter to the Galatians and its theme of freedom.

“We are raised with the concept that you get what you earn,” Carter says, “but Christianity teaches that we are all saved, loved and forgiven in Jesus Christ. We only need to have faith.” Drawing from Jesus’ parables of the “Prodigal Son” and “Workers in the Vineyard,” he speaks of grace and notes how we’re all the same in God’s eye.

His Sunday School message avoids politics, and he never mentions the current President. But at one point, he lets his politics slip in as he emphasizes freedom in Christ, saying, “Jesus is the number one wall tear-downer.”

Carter insists that freedom doesn’t mean we can do whatever we want, but that freedom comes with responsibilities. He ends, inviting us to ask ourselves what kind of person we want to be. He suggests that if we are not satisfied with who we are, we should go to God in prayer and ask for help as we strive to be a better person.

At the end of his class, Carter says we have a real treat waiting in worship and introduces his favorite musician, pianist David Osborne. During the transition between Sunday School and worship, the former President takes a seat next to his wife in a pew that’s just across the aisle and a row up from me. Osborne sits down at the Steinway grand piano that had been brought into the sanctuary for this occasion, and plays a melody of tunes, beginning with, “Seek Ye First the Kingdom of God.” Later in the service, Osborne is joined by a Las Vegas singer, as they perform a selection of gospel hymns with “Happy Birthday” and “Georgia on My Mind” mixed in.

The pastor, Brandon Patterson, is a young man just finishing up seminary. His sermon is from the book of Ruth and he mentions how Ruth observed the Jewish custom and sought the protection of Boaz, her deceased husband’s kinsman, instead of running off with a younger man. To make the point, he emphasizes Boaz’s age. Rosalynn puts her elbow into her husband side. After all, it’s his 93^rd birthday. Carter laughs. The preacher notices and turns red and immediately attempts to crawl out of the hole he’s dug, saying that he didn’t mean that old. Everyone erupts into laughter.

When the service is over, a very efficient line is set up and each group is allowed to have their photo taken with Jimmy and Rosalynn. Afterwards, we leave Plains and drive back to Skidaway Island.

Billy Carter's Gas Station — Billy Carter’s Gas Station

To be in place for President Carter’s Sunday School class, we had made a weekend of it. We spent our nights in Americus, Georgia as there are no major hotels in Plains. On Saturday, we explored Plains. The old school where Jimmy and Rosalynn attended high school is now a museum and visitors center. The depot, which was Carter’s campaign headquarters and served as a backdrop for many photos, is also a museum that focuses on the 1976 Presidential Campaign. It was chosen as a headquarters as it was the only available space in town with a functioning bathroom. Ironically, the bathroom is no longer open.

The park between Main Street and the railroad tracks is a butterfly garden named for Rosalynn. Across the tracks and highway is the gas station, which was owned by Carter’s brother, Billy. This station became a favorite hangout of reporters who listened to Billy tell stories while guzzling beer. Today, it’s a museum dedicated to Billy Carter. There are two peanut processing plants in town and on this first weekend of October, the smell of peanuts is in the air as tractors pulled wagons of nuts into these facilities. There are also a few shops in town, mostly selling Carter memorabilia, and the Buffalo Café, which is where we enjoyed lunch.

Jimmy Carter's homestead (where he grew up) — The homestead where Carter grew up.

After lunch, we drove a few miles west of Plains to the Carter’s homestead. This was where Jimmy grew up. Seventeen acres, which includes their home, farm buildings and barns, and a country store, are preserved by the National Park Service. Park service employees, some dressed as farm hands, described life on the farm in the 1930s.

After touring the homestead, we drove back through Americus, to Andersonville, the site of the Confederate Prisoner of War camp along with the National POW Museum. Today, Andersonville is mostly a large field circled by a drive. Only the bunkers in which Confederate cannons where placed remain from the Civil War era. The gateway and part of the wall around the entry into which Union POWs were marched have been rebuilt, but around the drive are a number of signs and monuments describing the horrific conditions of the prisoners. In the National POW Museum, the stories of those captured are told, with major exhibits on POWs in World War Two, Korea and Vietnam. The exhibits reminds us of the price many paid for our political freedom.

Plains is roughly 230 miles west of Skidaway Island, depending on which route one drives. Before making the trip, one should check with the Maranatha Baptist Church to make sure that President Carter is planning on being there. This December, President Carter is scheduled to teach Sunday School on the 10^th, 17^th and 24^th.

Jeff Garrison is pastor of Skidaway Island Presbyterian Church

December 12, 2024December 12, 2024

Cape Lookout 2024

Photos of sunset off Harker's Island and of Cape Lookout Lighthouse

my father on Masonboro Island after a good day of catching flounders, 1980s — A good day of catching flounders off Masonboro Island (sometime in the 1970s or 1980s)

My dad, who died this past May, loved fishing. I have fond memories from shortly after the time we moved to the Wilmington area in 1966, of riding with him in a jon boat over to Masonboro Island. We’d camp and fish. It was an annual fall ritual, generally done in October, once the weather cooled.

During the daylight, we’d roam the surf with light tackle, looking for holes. Finding one, we’d cast a minnow, hoping to feel the bump of a flounder biting. We’d let the fish take it for a minute before setting the hook and reeling it in.

After dark, we’d sit in lawn chairs on the beach, with a lantern for light, and fish using cut bait. We’d stay on the beach late into the evening. With the sound of the surf filling the air, I’d watch the winter constellations or the moon rise. The moon always sent its rays glistening across the water straight at me. We’d catch a short night of sleep and be back on the beach before sunrise, fishing again as the birds took to flight as the sun peaked over the horizon. Breakfast might be a bluefish grilled on coals. In time, Dad started to spend more time on the deserted island fishing so that by the time I was in high school, he’d spend a whole week there, coming back every day or so to clean and freeze fish and take a shower.

Sadly, by the time I was in high school and working, it was hard for me to spend much time on the island fishing. But I still made it over occasionally, sometimes paddling a canoe or kayak over. Then I moved away and started my ramble around the country.

Cape Lookout Lighthouse has stood guard since 1859

Back in the 1980s, when I living in Nevada, my father started taking a weekly trip every year, right after Thanksgiving, to Cape Lookout. While he would have never called it “global warming,” the weather had changed enough so that the blues and trout wouldn’t be running in October. For the next twenty-five or so years, he made the trip to Cape Lookout. His brother, my uncle, along with my brothers and their kids and a few friends, would make the trip. Occasionally, my sister and I were able to join him for a few days, as we were both living in other parts of the country. After my mother became ill, a couple of times we took off a week and split out time between staying on the island and staying with our mom.

I’m not sure how many times I’ve been to Lookout, but probably a dozen or so. Sometimes it was for a night, other times for several nights. I’ve been over on the island when it was warm and the mosquitoes were horrible. And I’ve been when it was frigid, and the wind chill made it bone cold. But I loved those nights camping on Lookout. Sometimes we’d fish in the surf like we did on Masonboro Island, other times we’d fish from the boat in the marsh or out on the jetty south of the Cape.

Six or seven years ago, they stopped camping on Lookout. It just became too big of a problem to haul everything over on the island. Instead, they rented a house on Harker’s Island and would ride over in a boat each day to fish. My dad’s last time on the island was in 2020, shortly after my mother’s death. That year, my sister and I split the week so that my dad would have someone in his boat. After 2020, my uncle kept up the tradition.

Now that my father’s no longer with us, one of my brothers and my sister joined my uncle and his brother-in-law for a week on the island. My youngest brother couldn’t make it as he’s currently living overseas. It was good to be together, but cold. I’ve even been over on a solo kayaking trip.

This year, we only had one decent day of fishing at the jetty. We all caught our limit on gray trout, but that’s nothing to write home about because the limit is one per person. But it was enough for a good fish fry on Wednesday night.

Thursday’s wind from the east end of Harker’s Island

The wind blew like crazy on Thursday, with gust over 50 mph. No one had a large enough boat to go out that day as there were large waves in the sound. Instead, I spent time in the Core Sound Museum. I’d been there before, but it was rebuilt after it lost its rough to a hurricane a few years ago. They were getting ready for their duck decoy festival and Christmas. While I never duck hunted in these waters, duck hunting is just about as big as fishing in the Core Sound area. Our last day on the island it was bitterly cold. We stayed inland and fished for nearly five hours. I only had two bites, but no fish were caught.

Despite the weather, it was good to be on the water and to spent time with my siblings and uncle as we fished and prepared banquets at night while watching college football.

November 21, 2024November 22, 2024

Last Month’s Travels

title slide with a photo inside Providence Presbyterian Church and a sunrise on Hilton Head

Recent travels:

Early last month, I spent four days on Hilton Head Island attending a Theology Matter’s Conference. It was good to be back in the land of good seafood. I saw several sunrises (the only day I missed was when we had tropical storm winds and rains). The only downside to the trip was missing a wonderful show of the Northern Lights. While I was able to see them faintly on Hilton Head (see photo), from what I heard and saw from friends’ photographs around home, things were amazing in the sky in the mountains.

aurora over Hilton Head, October 10, 2024 — Aurora over Hilton Head

Despite not seeing an amazing aurora, the lectures were stimulating, and it was good to meet up with old friends. I especially enjoyed after hours with Jeff Newlin and Steve Crocro at Hinchey’s Chicago Bar and Grill. (If you ever go there, be aware they serve a stiff drink and one an evening was more than enough.). It was also good to introduce Jeff and Steve, as I was the common contact. Jeff was our consultant for church building campaigns when I was in Hastings. While he’s now retired, I think our campaign remains the largest (membership/funds raised) campaign he conducted in his career. Steve started as the librarian the year I began seminary at Pittsburgh. He would go on to later serve as the theological librarian at Princeton and Yale as well as an interim librarian at the United States War College.

Jim Miller lecturing inside Providence Presbyterian Church (where the conference was held).

In Wilmington

When the conference was over, I drove up to Wilmington, NC, where I stayed with my sister and preached at Cape Fear Presbyterian Church’s 80^th Anniversary service. It was good to be away for a week and to see old friends both at the conference and in Wilmington and eat some good seafood along with Vietnamese and Indian food. I also helped my sister by going through 1000s of photos from my parents (and we have yet to tackle the slides). I found a photo I thought was long lost, which I took of my grandparents on my mother’s side on Christmas Day 1966. This was the first photo taken on my first camera (Kodak 126) and probably the last taken on my grandfather, who died three weeks later. A few years ago, I wrote this poem about him and this photo!.

The anniversary service went well, and it was nice to see such a crowd in the church where I attended with my family from the fourth grade through college. I got to spend some time out with my brother on his boat. And then, on Monday, before driving home, I had coffee with Wayne, a friend from High School, and dropped by to see my parent’s grave.

Highlights of the conference:

Instead of giving a run-down of all the speakers and preachers, I am going to highlight three speakers and an idea they presented.

John Burgess, “For the Next Generation”

John is a professor at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary (from which I graduated a decade before he arrived). In his first lecture, he combined two of his interest: Christian formation and the Russian Orthodox Church. John has published books on both. I reviewed his book, After Baptism: Shaping the Christian Life a few years ago and have just read his book Holy Rus’: The Rebirth of Orthodoxy in the New Russia. You can look for a review in a few weeks when I review three recent books I’ve read about Russia.

In his first lecture, John introduced us to Pabel Floresky, a Russian Orthodox priest and scientist killed during Stalin’s purges in the late-1930s. While he was in the Gulag, Floresky was interested in passing on to his family what he valued. These letters are available in a book (in Russian) titled; All My Thoughts are about You. Floresky felt an obligation to three areas.

His family’s unique heritage
To familiarize his children with important cultural achievements
And to encourage them to spend as much time as possible in creation.

While he was deeply devoted to his faith, he knew writing about God would catch the eyes of the censors and his letter would never make it home, so he used coded words for God and faith. Interestingly, all five of his children became major scientists in Russia.

John ended his lecture by asking what God has prepared us to pass on? What is our legacy?

Han-Luen Kantzer Komline, “Augustinian Insights on the Law of Double Love”

Kantzer Komline is a professor at Western Theological Seminary in Holland Michigan. The Double Love Law comes from Jesus’ command to love God and our neighbor (Matthew 22:36-40 and Mark 12:38-41). I particularly enjoyed her lecture having devoted much of the past summer to Augustine’s City of God.

She speaks of Augustine as a man on the margins (in time, space, politics and the church) as he wrote during the collapse of the Western Roman world. Love mattered for Augustine for three reasons:

You are what you love
Love makes Christians, Christan
All you need is love (with a nod to the Beatles)

Augustine believed that everyone loves, but sometimes our loves are misdirected. The question is the object of our love. Is it toward God or toward self? The later creates a destructive environment while the love of God allows us to properly love ourselves and our neighbors. Love makes us Christians, for if we do not love, how can we be a follower of Christ? And finally, although Augustine was a theologian and interested in knowledge, knowledge is not enough to make us Christian. We must show love and charity.

Richard Burnett: “Learning to Say No for the Sake of God’s Yes”

The evening sessions at the conference were more sermon-like than the day sessions. Richard Burnett spoke on the second evening using Mark 2:13-17, the call of Levi” as his text. As he worked through the text, Richard emphasized the need for parties when we say yes to Jesus (as did Levi). In these parties, we celebrate God’s love. But then Richard changed direction and spoke how saying Yes to Jesus means there are things to which we must also say no. Of course, saying no is never fun, but is necessary. Richard then began drawing upon the Barmen Declaration, a part of the Presbyterian Church USA confessions.

The Barmen Declaration was made by a group of German Churches at the time of Hitler’s rise. It addresses the idolatry of nationalism (Christian nationalism), which attempted to place the allegiance to the state over the church’s allegiance to her Lord. Barmen is unique in that it not only professes what it believes (Jesus is Lord, etc.), it also has a series of negations. These deal with things we can’t accept because we accept the Lordship of Christ. While Richard focused on one an overture from the General Assembly being currently debated within the presbyteries of the denomination, I couldn’t help but think of the upcoming election and why I could never support one candidate for President. “Our ‘No’ is only for the gospels and God’s yes,” he proclaimed, “not to be hateful or spiteful.”

Comet taken from home in October 2024 — Once back home, I began watching the comet that was faint in the evening sky.

September 12, 2024September 12, 2024

Riding the Greenbrier River Trail with my Brother

title slide with photo of me and my brother on bikes

former railroad crossing in Clover Lick — former RR crossings in Clover Lick

In 1899, the C & O railroad began building a line running north alongside the Greenbrier River to tap into the rich timberlands of West Virginia. The next year, the railroad reached Cass, 80 miles north of the mainline which cut through White Sulfur Springs and Lewisburg. A few years later, the line continued north until it connected to the Western Maryland. The Greenbrier division consisted of a little over 100 miles, most of which was along the river. Of course, the success in cutting the timber led to the demise of the railroad.

By 1920, most of the virgin timber in the lower section had been cut and the line began to financially struggle. But it kept going, providing an outlet to the larger world for communities in Greenbrier and Pocahontas County such as Anthony, Spring Creek, Beard, Hillsboro, Seebert, Marlinton, Clover Lick, and Cass. Except for Marlinton, which is the seat of government for Pocahontas County, most of these communities today are a shell of their former selves.

a radio telescope at Green Banks Observatory — Green Banks Observatory (one of several large antennas)

One of the more interesting pieces of freight for the railroad were sections of a large antenna for the Green Bank Observatory. This observatory has several radio telescopes, including the largest radio telescope which can track a point in space. Because of the sensitive antennas, the area is in a radio restrictive zone. This limits the height of antennas and the power of transmitters. If you visit Green Bank Observatory, you had to turn your cell phones off! Much of the area along the rail trail has no cell phone service and there is limited radio stations cover the area. The designer of the antenna had a mockup built to ensure it could be transported to near Green Bank, as it had to pass through two tunnels.

Passenger service along this branch of the C&O ended in 1958. In the late 1970s, freight traffic, which had dwindled to a weekly run, ended and the tracks removed. As the logging company which owned Cass Railroad had done when it closed in 1960, the C&O turned 80 miles of the right of way over to the state. The Cass Railroad is operated as a tourist train state park

A Cass railroad Shay engine — A Cass “Shay” locomotive

Today, the old railroad bed is a trail is a linear park enjoyed by hikers, bicycles, and horses. Adjacent to the trail are several other state parks: Cass Scenic Railroad, Watoga, Droop Mountain Battlefield, and Beartown. Additional land is held by both state forest and the Monongahela National Forest. These parks and forest provide ample opportunity for camping or staying in cabins, many of which were built by the Civilian Conversation Corps during the Depression.

Cass West Virginia — Monday mornings were quiet in Cass

This past Sunday, my brother and I headed up to a cabin in Watoga State Park. We spent Monday and Tuesday riding 60 miles of the Greenbrier River Trail, from Cass to Spring Creek. We had two idea days to ride. Both mornings, we left the cabin with temperatures in the 30s, but my mid-day we were in t-shirts.

We started at Cass, at the northern end of the trail and road south. Highlights included the town of Clover Lick, which has one of the few remaining stations (others are in Cass and Marlinton. 14 miles south of Cass, we passed through the Sharp Tunnel, which exits on a trestle, taking us to the east side of the river. Below the trestle were ropes hanging from a river birch. I could imagine on warmer days, children swinging out into the river. Nearby were some camps with fire rings that may have seen a few hobos in earlier days.

my brother and I at Sharp Tunnel — With my brother at Sharp Tunnel

Just before you get into Marlinton, there was an old water tower, the only one which remains on the river trail. In Marlinton, there is a bike repair stand, which allowed me to put my bike up and adjust the gear changing lever. While I had enough tools with me, the stand also had such tools attached to a cable (so they’d remain for other bikers in need of a repair). We ate our picnic lunch at a table along the trail in Marlinton.

After Marlinton, we had about 12 more miles to ride before we arrived at Seebert. I had left my vehicle there, so we loaded up our bikes and drove back to Cass to pick up my brother’s vehicle. Afterwards, on the way back to Watoga, we stopped again in Marlinton for dinner at the Greenbrier Grille and Lodge. If I had known they had rooms, I might have stayed here. Then we could brag about staying at the Greenbrier (there is another 5-star Greenbrier in White Sulfur Springs, a place visited by 28 Presidents).

plate of the "West Virginia Original" — West Virginia Original

We ate outside on the porch overlooking the Greenbrier and a hoard of ducks waiting to be fed scraps. They had a meal titled “The West Virginia Original” and is probably not on the menu at the other “Greenbrier.” But as we were there, we had to try it. There were lots of fried potatoes, along with kielbasa sausage, sautéed onions and mushrooms. It was served in a cast iron frying pan and included sides (I got pinto beans and cole slaw), and a slice of cornbread. I downed it with a local IPA.

Outside Droop Mt. Tunnel — me at Droop Mountain Tunnel

We decided not to try to ride the rest of the trail on Tuesday. We both had places to be on Wednesday. After shuttling cars, we rode our bikes to Spring Creek. This section passed a state prison, the Droop Mountain tunnel along with idyllic scenery of hayfields being cut and baled. The Droop Mountain tunnel runs under the site of a Civlil War battle up on the mountain . We finished up and had the cars shuttled by mid-afternoon, said our goodbyes and headed toward our respective homes. It had been a good trip and was nice to catch up with my brother in person for the first time since our father’s death.

I planned to stop at the Pearl Buck’s birthplace at Hillsboro on my way home. Buck was a missionary to China and a wonderful author. Her book on China (The Good Earth) won the Pulitzer Prize. She also wrote another good book on Korea titled The Living Reed. Sadly, the place was closed. This is the third time I have tried to stop there, and it seems to always be closed. So I drove on home.

Lunch spot along the river — Tuesday Lunch Spot

June 19, 2024June 19, 2024

Camp Bangladesh

Ralph and Olga at "The Joint" in Randsburg, CA — Ralph and the bartender Olga at “The Joint” in Randsburg, CA in 2005. Ralph grew up and went to war (WW2) with her son.

I came across this piece that I wrote in August 1999, five years before my first blog. It brought back good memories. That summer, I played the role of scoutmaster for Troop 360, chartered by Community Presbyterian Church of Cedar City, Utah. Joining me as assistant that summer was my friend, Ralph Behrens. Ralph and his wife Pat were good friends of mine in Utah, and I often stayed with them when I would return to visit Cedar City. Sadly, both have died.

We took a dozen boys that summer to camp along Bear Lake in Northern Utah. The camp week ran from Monday morning through Saturday, so we loaded up after church on Sunday. I drove a 15-passenger rental van with the scouts and Ralph followed with his pickup truck, the back of it filled with gear. We made the 330-mile drive to Logan, Utah, arriving at dusk, where we stayed overnight at the Presbyterian Church. Early Monday morning, after a stop for breakfast, we drove Highway 89 up Logan Canyon and across the mountains, before dropping down to Bear Lake. This was an incredibly beautiful drive and the lake before us as we dropped out of the mountains was so inviting. My story will pick up on our arrival at camp.

I looked for the camp and it appears that it is no longer in operation. Probably because the Mormons pulled out of the Boy Scout program, there seems to be a consolation of councils in the West and fewer camps. This camp had a lot of strikes against it as it consisted of small spit of land between the lake and the highway. However, I am sure the land was very valuable as it had so much lakeshore footage. I have edited my story slightly. I’m also sure I have a few more pictures of the camp, but am not sure which of many tubs of photos they’re in. The one of my son preparing to scuba dive was in a collection of albums and the only one from camp that summer.

Camp Bangladesh
August 1999

A lot has happened in the fifteen years since I was last in a scout camp. Back then I was the Camp Director at Camp Bud Schiele in Western North Carolina. With grounds manicured like a country club and lots of trees, it wasn’t a bad place to spend the summer. However, after eight weeks in an all-boys camp with very few females, I knew the summer was winding down when the camp cooks, who were older than my mother, started to look attractive. In order to see what improvements made to the scouting program, I signed this summer for a week at camp with our local troop. I knew a lot had changed. However, I wasn’t prepared for what I experienced, especially girl counselors.

Ralph's truck on the "Hole in the Wall" Road in Central, Utah — Ralph’s truck on another trip

Ralph and I and a dozen boys arrived safely at Camp Bangladesh on a Monday morning. It was supposed to be an aquatic camp, but it felt like an overpopulated refugee settlement on the eastern shore of Bear Lake in Northern Utah. Greeting us at the gate was Gilligan, looking fresh and neat from his recent cruise on the S.S. Minnow. He wore Navy khaki, we assumed, because he didn’t meet the six-foot height requirement for the Coast Guard (and would have been unable to walk ashore if his boat had sunk). Gilligan directed us to our campsite and told me to report to the pavilion and check in. On the way, I stopped at the head (euphemism for latrine), where I quickly surmised that the U.N. and International Red Cross Refugee Commissions hadn’t yet inspected this site.

At the pavilion, the powers that be lightened my wallet as Robyn gave the troop a tour of the camp. Robyn substituted for our camp friend Randy who was, we later surmised, in the bushes with a female staff member. We never saw Robyn again; some think he got lost in the sage brush. Unable to see over it, he may have traveled in circles till he passed out. As for Randy, he and the Misses showed up hand-in-hand halfway through the week. We learned then that Randy was quite a philosopher and explained all the world problems as “someone must be smoking something.” We all assumed he was the “someone.”

At the opening scoutmaster’s meeting on the first day, I qualified for the BSA’s “Safety Afloat” certification by listening to a lecture. Little did I realize the camp practiced another form of safety afloat. They kept most of their boats in dry dock. They reserved the fully functioning boats for staff use. Our troop re-christened the small sloop named the “Ark” into the “Love Boat.” They had suspicion as to what the staff did on the boat that they kept safely moored offshore and off-limits to campers.

I will forever remember the galley experience at Camp Bangladesh. They served dinner in two shifts (called watches). If you’re unlucky enough to be on the second watch, as we were, it was like eating in an emergency canteen following a Kansas tornado. Another unique experience was dining in this open-air pavilion during a thunderstorm. Paper plates and cups flew with the wind, ridding the camp of rubbish by sending it all to Idaho. I’m sure it was from such an experience that the shifts became known as a watch, for we watched our food fly away.

The day following, the camp staff must have had a knife sharpening contest. The cook took first place. That night we were treated to beef trimmings, trimmings so fine we didn’t even notice them. Even the camp’s sole vegetarian seemed satisfied. In all seriousness, the night with the gluey noodles made up for the undercooking of the previous night’s rice, things have a way of balancing out in the end. Quality aside, the real problem was with quantity and our neighboring unit leaders resorted to rattlesnake hunting to supplement their boy’s diet. Ralph and I, being more practical, took our boys for milk shakes at the ice cream stand on the south end of the lake.

Of course, what goes in must come out, which brings me back to the subject of the rotten white buildings dotting the landscape and were a contributing factor for the outbreak of constipation that struck our campers. The smell of these buildings was so bad that I stopped using flashlights and followed the stench from one to another on the path back to our site. People had reported several large skunks along the highway east of the camp . They all facing east, obviously running across the highway afraid another skunk laid claimed the territory when they meet their demise under the tires of moving vehicles.

Our troop’s strawberry blonde commissioner was Ms. Pope. We could never remember her name, so Ralph and I started calling her Hillary, in honor of the First Lady. In addition to serving as our commissioner, she was also the commandant of the dining hall and ruled with an iron fist. Hillary was an electronic engineering technician student at Weber State (MIT on the Salt Lake). We found her knowledgeable about most everything except for the difference between a foot and a yard. If she gets that confused between volts and watts, we’re afraid she may be in for a real shock.

In addition to her commissioner duties and studying electricity, Hillary is looking for a good Mormon husband who will allow her to stay home and tend to a scout troop. If Robyn hadn’t gotten himself lost in the sagebrush, they’d made a cute couple. Of course, I’m sure Hillary would have wanted Robyn to grow up a bit, but until then they’d be shoe-in winners in a Dennis the Menace and Margaret look-a-like contest. However, I secretly doubt Hillary desires a husband. She really harbors ambition to be the first female Chief Scout Executive. I just hope she doesn’t get her sights on the Presidency of the U.S. of A, or our country will never be the same.

There were three classes of staff at Camp Bangladesh. The elite, like Hillary, wore Navy uniforms and look like they just walked out of a surplus store or off the set for a remake of McHale’s Navy. The second tier wear dark green sea scout shirts and various colored pants. Our favorite in this class was Hot Legs—the blonde lifeguard with a nice tanned body fitted into a red one piece swimsuit. When on duty, she looked more like a movie star posing than a lifeguard as she stretched herself out sunning on the pier. I never saw Hot Legs without large sunglasses. She wore them even when the sun wasn’t shinning. Our boys, seeing her without the glasses one day, reported that she had a serious case of raccoon eyes and better keep them on.

The bottom rung of the staff hierarchy was the kitchen crew. Without regular uniforms, their selection was based on their lack of speed and foresight. Or maybe they were pressed into service, like the British did to our seamen before the War of 1812. If that’s the case, they’ve decided as a group that indifference is a subtle way of protest. Or, maybe they really didn’t think we wanted nor needed anything to drink with our uncooked rice until the meal was nearly over.

Speaking of drinks, choosing the beverages of one’s choice was another interesting experience. Any other camp would have put labels on the coolers, but that would be too much work for the staff of Bangladesh. We learned that the way to tell what a cooler contained was to look underneath at the color of the puddle on the floor. Since we were the only non-Mormon troop in camp, the dining hall didn’t serve coffee. Suspecting such, I brought my own stove and percolator and fixed coffee every morning. I quickly became popular and found myself having to go into town to buy more coffee midweek as all the neighboring Mormon leaders decided to forgo their prophet’s word of wisdom and have a several cups of Joe a morning with Ralph and me.

Scuba divers on the dock waiting to dive — my son learning to scuba dive

Our patch for the week informed us we’ve been on an aquatic land cruise—I supposed it’s a land cruise because most that’s where most of the boats remained. But there were some good things about the experience. First, I wasn’t in charge and could blame everything on the camp director, Captain McHale himself. Instead, I passed the hours sitting in my camp chair or laying in my hammock, reading books.

Our boys averaged three merit badges and only one fight a piece and they all eventually got to sail on the one of the few fully functioning sailboats available for campers. I even spent a wonderful afternoon on a Hobie (that was reserved for scout leaders). For an extra fee, I allowed my own son to experience the underwater world as he took a scuba diving class. Now that I’m home, I’m hoping to break my Valium addiction by the end of the year.
—

Afterwards:

Even though I put a light spin on this, from my experience of working within the Scouting program in the Southeastern part of the states, it shocked me the camp passed the Boy Scouts of America’s rigorous peer inspection program. The waterfront controls were lacking, and I spent less time in my hammock and more time playing lifeguard than I hoped.

After this experience, I‘m not sure why, but we signed up for another year. In 2000, Ralph and I took the troop to a camp in the Ponderosa pines south of Williams, Arizonia. It was one of the best run camps I’ve seen. Sadly, there was no large lake, just a pond for canoeing and a swimming pool. But the food was great. After that camp, it shocked me to learn most of the boys preferred the camp on Bear Lake. But they cherished the freedom, and the lake was a great.

June 12, 2024June 12, 2024

A Four-Day Hike in the Sawtooth’s

Title Slide with view of Hell Roaring Lake, Idaho

A car approaches from the north. I turn around and stick out my thumb. “Was this a good idea?” I ponder. I haven’t hitchhiked since the summer before, when I completed the Appalachian Trail. And now I could use a ride back to my car at a trailhead. Otherwise, I’ll have an eight to ten mile walk beside hot asphalt under an intense sun. But they’re few cars in this lonely country. The car rushes by, its wind providing a moment’s relief from the heat. With no clouds and no wind, it’s hot, even at this elevation. Heat rises from the asphalt, its waves blurring the scenery. I turn back and resume walking along the shoulder of Highway 75, south of Stanley, Idaho.

I hear another vehicle crest the hill behind me. It sounds like a truck. I turn around and stick out thumb. It’s an old jeep; this will be my ride, I’m sure. Jeeps always pick up hitchhikers.

I recall an autumn day on the beach, six years earlier. I’d been on a conference on Wrightsville Beach. A hurricane was offshore, and we had to leave the island. When I got in my car, I realized that I my gas gauze was on “E.” Shortly after cross the waterway bridge, the car sputtered and quit.

Out of gas, I crawled out of the car and hoofed it in the rain a mile or so to the closest gas station. They lent me a can and I purchased some gas and when I started back when one of those bands of blinding rain hit. About that time a jeep came by, without a top. He shouted for me to jump in, and I did. His windshield wipers worked overtime, but it didn’t make much difference for there was as much water inside the glass as out. I began to wonder if riding his open top jeep was a good idea. But it beat walking. The rain was so hard; I could hardly see my car parked on the other side of the road. I put the gas in and headed home. Thankfully, the hurricane turned and went out to sea.

This jeep in Idaho didn’t stop. “Son of a…” I started, and then thought better. I couldn’t believe he ignored me. I turned and continued walking south. A few other vehicles rushed by, but none of them stopped. Each time, I’d resume walking. Then I spotted a minivan. I didn’t expect them to stop but still stuck out my thumb. The driver flew by, then hit her brakes, pulled over to the side and began to back up. I ran up and noticed that there were kids in the back waving at me. This wasn’t who I’d expected to offer a ride, but I was thankful for not having to walk all the way to my car.

“I don’t normally pick up hitchhikers,” the driver confessed, “but the kids recognized you as the hiker on the ferry when we came back across Redfish Lake. Looking into the back seats, I smile. The oldest is probably eight or nine. We’d played some silly games on the ferry ride across the lake and they were curious about what was in my pack. I thanked her for the ride and told her my car was at Hell Roaring Creek trailhead, just off the highway about eight or so miles south. She then asked about the trip.

Hell Roaring Lake with the “Finger of Fate” to the right of center

“I started out four days ago, spending the first night at Hell Roaring Lake,” I began, “camping under the ominous ‘finger of fate’ peak. It’s a lone bent rock pinnacle could have served as a model for Michelangelo’s “Finger of God.” The lake was surrounded by dead tree trunks from winter avalanches. Many of those trunks were waterlogged, but the ones not provided plenty of firewood. Although open fires had been banned for the summer (Yellowstone and Hells Canyon were being consumed with flames while I was hiking) I counted four campfires along the lake. I was invited over to one’s family campfire. I joined them and was shocked to learn that one of men was a Forest Service employee.”

“The next day I continued hiking deeper into the Sawtooth Wilderness area, climbing over a steep pass. There were so many lakes, I can’t recall them all,” I confessed. “Imogene, Virginia, and Hidden were some of them, each surrounded by rocky peaks sparsely covered with gnarly trees. After leaving Hell Roaring Lake, I was alone with only the pikas keeping me company at night. I ran into a group of smoke jumpers, hoofing it out after having extinguished a small lightning fire deep into wilderness. We talked for a few minutes, as I picked up my pace to keep up with them, but then they left the main trail and headed to their pickup point.”

“It’s all beautiful,” I said, “but my favorite had been the Cramer Lakes, each with a waterfall outlet that spilled into the next lake.”

“We were there,” she said. “We took the ferry across Redfish Lake and hiked up to Lower Cramer for a picnic and a hike up to the falls.”

I’d been looking back at her kids as I talked. Suddenly she yell, “Oh my God.” I turned around and looked out the windshield. There was that jeep, lying on its back in the edge of a field. The dazed driver stood.

“I’ll check it out,” I said. “Park down the road a way.”

Jumping out as she slowed down, I ran over toward the jeep yelling, “Are you okay?” Another car pulled up. The driver, shaken and with tears in his eyes, begged for a fire extinguisher. No one had one. Drops of gas dripped onto the ground and the fire was began to burn under the jeep and in the grass. Without a fire extinguisher or other equipment, there wasn’t anything we could do. I told them I’d get a ranger and ran back to the awaiting minivan. I knew a ranger’s station was across from the trailhead from where I’d left my car. We flew down the highway, turning off and leaving a trail of dust on the dirt road up to the ranger station. I reported the accident and the fire. The ranger called it in and got into his truck.

Then the lady in the mini-van drove me over to my car. Rushing, I thanked her for the ride, I dropped my pack in the trunk and headed back to the accident site. There, I helped the ranger, and several other men dig a line around the fire. Luckily, as dry as it was, there was no wind, and the fire didn’t get out of hand. With everything under control, a fire truck arrived and hosed down the jeep and extinguished the grass burning inside the line we’d established. All that was left of the jeep, that I was so sure could have been my savior, was a charred pile of metal. I got back in my car and headed back to camp.

I think it was C. S. Lewis who said, “we’ll spend half of eternity thanking God for prayers not answered.” And I was thankful this jeep had not stopped to offer me a ride.

Another story of a solo backpacking trip during my Idaho summer of 1988

June 5, 2024June 5, 2024

Up North

Title Slide with photo of me along the shore of Lake Huron

I’ve been wanting to post something about my time in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, but things have conspired to keep me from writing about it. After a week of Continuing Education, I took a week of vacation to head further north.

Saturday, April 13, 2024

Looking at the Presbyterian Church in DeTour Village, MI — Union Presbyterian Church, DeTour Village, MI

After finishing up with the Festival of Faith and Writing at Calvin University in Grand Rapids, I meet up with Bob, a friend of mine from my Michigan days. I had invited Bob along on this trip, as I have always enjoyed spending time with him. Professionally, he’s an editor and a saxophone player. He has incredible knowledge of plants, with a fondness of carnivorous plants. And he’s a storm chaser. Bob had a friend bring him up from Hastings, so he wouldn’t have to worry about where to leave a car. He threw his sax and his suitcase in my car, and we were on the road. As it’s over five hours, I wanted to get as much driving done before dark as we headed north.

As the sun began to set, we could see we were entering a different climate zone, as farmland disappeared and hardwoods gave way to forest of paper birch mixed with pines and spruce.

We had a great conversation, talking about several topics along with listening to some Robert Raurk short stories from The Old Man and the Boy. We didn’t stop until after dark, picking up fast food at Burger King in Kalkaska, a town featured in two short stories by Ernest Hemingway. A hour or so later, we stopped for gas in Petoskey. These were our only stops and we arrived in DeTour Village a little after midnight.

Sunday, April 14, 2024

Ship heading up to the Son — Heading toward the Soo

In a way, my time off was a busman’s holiday. The church in DeTour has a nice manse overlooking the St. Mary’s River. I agreed to preach (I reused sermons I’d preached in January) for the opportunity to stay in the Dmanse and to relax for the week. This meant that we had to get up early on Sunday morning. Knowing that I was arriving late the night before, some people in the church provided food in the refrigerator so that Bob and I could enjoy bacon and eggs with toast for breakfast the next morning.

Church came early the next morning as we were both exhausted. I preached and Bob excited the crowd by playing a couple of songs on the sax. Afterwards, we had lunch and the Mainsail, one of two restaurants open this early in the season in Detour. Afterwards, we both retreated into our bedrooms and took a nap, before going out and spending some time exploring fins along Lake Superior. These wetlands that were separated from the shore by dunes are diverse with plant life, most of which was left over from last season. Bob pointed out several carnivorous plants: pitcher plants and sundews. While he continued to look around, I hiked out onto the rocks jutting into the water and discovered a nest laid by Canadian geese.

We can back to the manse for a nice dinner of cabbage rolls made by another Bob, along with his wife Nelda, members of the church. As Bob had never seen “A River Runs Through It,” and there was a DVD of the movie in the manse, we watched it.

Canadian Geese Eggs along the shore of Lake Huron

Monday, April 15, 2024

Monday, we set what would be our routine for the week. We spent the mornings in the manse. While Bob would work on his edits, I spent the time reading and writing. We’d take an occasional break to watch a ship make its way up or down the St. Mary’s River. Bob was especially excited when I pointed out the Arthur Andersen, the ship that was behind the Edmund Fitzgerald the night it sunk in November 1975. On my first day, I read The Cellist of Sarajevo. Later in the week, I started reading Danielle Chapman’s Holler, along with sections of Augustine’s City of God, along with some writing. The afternoons were reserved for hiking.

In the afternoon, we spent time exploring some of DeTour and the trails nearby. Then, as the day sun dropped lower into the sky, we drove to Cedarville for the grocery store. We had dinner at Snows Bar and Grill, located above Snow Channel, along the north shore of Lake Huron. The place was wonderful. I had the walleye special and a Great Lakes Brewing CEO Stout while Bob had the UP special, a Cornish pastry. Afterwards, we went back to the manse and watched “The Jesus Revolution,” a movie I had brought along with me to watch in preparation of using it on a movie night at church. Bob, who is more familiar with contemporary Christian music, knew more about those portrayed in the movie than I did (Chuck Smith, Greg Laurie, and Lonnie Frisbee). We discussed this movie several times over the week.

Walleye Dinner at Snow’s Bar and Grill in Cedarville, MI

Tuesday, April 16, 2024

Tuesday afternoon, we hiked to around Cranberry Lakes to Caribou Lake, a walk of about 6 miles which I had done before. The trail takes us through cedar swamps with high ground consisting of paper birch forest mixed with spruce. It’s too early for wildflowers, but lots of smaller plants under the canopy have begun to brighten up after the winter.

After our hike, we head back to Snows Bar and Grill, where I enjoyed a wonderful Pepper Jack Burger with an Atwater Dirty Blonde. The burger was great, but the CEO Stout of the previous night I felt was superior to the Dirty Blonde. As there were a set of movies that featured Sandra Bullock. Since we both like her, we watched “Two Weeks’ Notice.” We were surprised to see Donald Trump in the movie, as he was featured much in the news with the beginning of his latest trial, as well as we recalled Sandra Bullock’s refusal to back him for the Presidency.

Wednesday, April 17, 2024

Wednesday was a rainy day. I still did a couple of miles hiking in the rain, coming home to a hot shower. We stayed close to home for dinner, eating a great burger in the DeTour Bar and Grill, where we got into a conversation with locals. We watched Sandra Bullock in “Ms. Congeniality” in the evening.

The Arthur M. Anderson freighter — Arthur Anderson, a freighter built in the 1950s
and the last ship to see the Edmund Fitzgerald afloat in 1975

Thursday, April 18, 2024

Thursday morning, I received a text from my sister, telling me that our father would be having surgery. I called, but he was already being prepped for surgery for a blockage in his intestines. I talked with my sister and brother for a bit. Little did I know this event would change my plans for the next month. She later texted to say he came through the surgery and was doing fine. We went for an early evening dinner at Snows in Cedarville, followed by a stop at the grocery store there for food to serve that evening. A group of people from the church came over and we had desert and a Bible Study.

a 1000 foot freighter — 1000 foot freighter leaving Lake Huron

Friday, April 19, 2024

Friday, Bob and I spent the day on Drummond Island. After talking with my father in the morning, we caught the ferry over the island. David and Sandra, members of the church in Detour, picked us up and toured us around the island. Then they dropped us off at Maxton Plains for a hike.

Hiking in Maxton Plains

I was hoping to make it to the cliffs along the northeast side of the island, but the recent rains had created ponds on the alvar surface. Alvar is limestone pavement. The glaciers of the last ice age had smoothed the limestone leaving only a minimal amount of topsoil. At places the pavement is like smooth finished concrete, allowing plant growth only in cracks. Unfortunately, for us, water takes longer to work though the rock, so the rains of Wednesday and Thursday have resulted in ponds which we have to work around. We make it almost to the cliffs, when we are blocked by a larger impoundment of water due to beaver activity.

Beaver dam — A beaver swamp blocking our path

As it’s getting late and we’re scheduled to be at a dinner at 6 PM, we hike back. This is my second failed attempt to make it to the cliffs, as I’d tried to find them when in the UP in 2021.

We were picked up at the trailhead by Dave and Sandra and taken to a home on the lake where a group from the Lighthouse Church on Drummond was holding a potluck. There were a few musicians present, Bob got to play the sax with them. I spent the evening getting to know new friends, especially Scott, the pastor. A former Episcopal priest, he’d been the pastor on the island for 10 years and joked about how he no longer dresses up on Sunday morning. Instead, he just finds a clean pair of jeans. We had a good time with everyone and caught the 9:30 PM ferry back to DeTour.

Saturday, April 20, 2024

A ship going through the St. Mary's River, MI — A “Saltie” (grain hauler),
making it’s way up toward the Zoo

On Saturday, winter returned. We had several snow squalls. Bob was working on a project for a new client, so I left him and hiked out on DeTour Point, through a large Nature Conservancy protected area. At times the blowing snow, mixed with sleet, pelted against me. Then the sun would make a brief appearance before the wintry mix returned. I saw several ships, both salties (ships that travel across the oceans and enter the Great Lakes through the St. Laurence Seaway and the Wellington Canal, and lakers (ships that haul mostly iron ore, coal, and limestone and are too large to leave the Great Lakes Basin. I arrived back to the manse around 6 PM and grilled steaks for dinner. Then we began to pack up.

Photo of shoreline along Detour Point — Between snow squalls

Sunday, April 21, 2024

The next morning, we had a joyful time at church where Bob again played the sax. We then went out to lunch at the Mainsail, before packing up and heading back south. I dropped Bob off in Hastings, then drove to friends in Portage Michigan for the evening. On Monday, I drove back to Virginia.

An old laker heading south toward Detroit or maybe Cleveland

Previous posts on trips to DeTour Village

July 2021

September/October 2022

Photo of author of blog in a snow squall — Selfie during a snow squall

April 18, 2024April 19, 2024

While away, I’ve been reading

Title slide with cover of three books that were reviewed

Lake Huron from the St. Mary's River in Michigan's UP — Looking toward Lake Huron from St. Mary’s River

I’m away for two weeks. I left early on Monday, April 9, and quickly drove across West Virginia and Ohio, to position myself in South Charleston for the eclipse. After 2 minutes of awe, I headed up to Michigan. I attended the Calvin Festival of Faith and Writing in Grand Rapids (and will write more about it later). Then I headed up to Michigan’s UP and am in Detour Village for 8 days of reading, hiking, and discussions with a good friend. These reviews are from books read so far during this trip:

Freighter heading up toward the Son — Heading up to the Soo

Jonathan Healey, The Blazing World: A New History of Revolutionary England, 1603-1689

narrated by Oliver Hembrough, (Random House Audio, 2023) 19 hours and 42 minutes.

A lot happened in 17^th Century England. It was an age of conflict between ideals.

Did the king rule because of divine right or at the consent of the population?
What role would parliament play in a monarchy?
What was the best way for the citizens to practice religion?
And would England remain Protestant or would it resort to Roman Catholicism?

These ideas were debated and fought over. It was a century of much bloodshed. From civil war(s) to frequent executions of those who challenged order (from a king, to dissents, to a few condemned for witchcraft), blood flowed freely through much of the century. By the end of the century, with the Glorious Revolution, the Stuart’s dynasty was out and England began to resemble the country we now know.

While listening to Healey’s book, I couldn’t help but think of the parallels to the American Revolution. Taxation was an important issue to both revolutions. In England, only parliament could authorize taxes which curtailed the king’s power. But the king could send home the parliament if he felt things weren’t going his way. The king tried other ways to raise funds, which eventually led to a war between the king and parliament. By the end of the century, parliament had more power and no longer ruled only at the king’s behalf.

Much of the middle of the book focuses on Cromwell. In a way, as the “protectorate” he became like a king. There is much to dislike about him, but the same can be said about Charles I, who lost his head after the first revolution. As a Puritan, Cromwell tried to push Puritanism on England. Not only did this create turmoil in England, but it also drove a wedge between the English and the Scotch Presbyterians and Irish Catholics. Cromwell’s armies killed large numbers in Ireland, and he also brought in Scots to replace the Irish Catholics.

The religious issues were numerous during this era. The Stuart kings looked more favorably on Catholicism than most of their county. Mary’s reign at the end of the 16^th Century, which she attempted to steer the country back to Catholicism and executed hundreds of Protestants, left a bad taste for such a tradition. In a likewise manner, the harsh Puritan rule left a bad taste and after the death of Cromwell, England was more than ready to compromise with a king and parliament. While the country maintained an established religion after the restoration, it became more tolerate of other traditions, including the Quakers, Dissenters, and even Catholics. Interestingly, Roger Williams, the founder of Rhode Island and the Baptist tradition in America, played a role in England as he modeled more tolerance toward other traditions.

While Healey mentions the Westminster Parliament which created the Westminster Confession of Faith, he says little about it. Of course, after the restoration, it had little impact in England. However, the Church of Scotland adopted the confession and because of this, the confession has influenced Presbyterians around the globe. (For more information, see my review of John Leith’s Assembly at Westminster).

I may obtain a written copy of this book and spend so more time studying it. I recommend the book because I think understanding the English revolutions helps Americans understand our own history.

Steven Galloway, The Cellist of Sarajevo

(Riverhead Books, 2008), 235 pages, no photos.

I enjoyed this short novel. Drawing on a real-life event during the siege of Sarajevo, Galloway shows us how people struggled to live in a city reduced to rubble and under constant mortar and sniper attacks from the surrounding hills. After a mortar kills civilians waiting to buy bread, a cellist decided he’ll play a concert every afternoon for 22 days to honor those killed in the attack. Will the cellist also become a victim to those attacking the city?

Galloway uses three characters to tell the story. Each story of survival provides an insight into the tragedy of Sarajevo.

Kenan walks every few days with a bunch of containers to obtain water for his family and an older woman in his apartment building. The city’s brewery is the source for potable water. To make the trek requires a difficult crossing of bridges and intersections that exposes individuals to guns of the snipers in the hills.

Dragan is a baker. His wife and daughter fled the city, but he stayed behind. His home was shelled in the opening days of the battle, so he has moved into a small apartment with his sister’s family. He doesn’t get along with his brother-in-law, but he’s tolerated because he brings the family bread.

Arrow is a young woman who had been on the university’s rifle team. We’re not given her name, at least at first. Her father, a police officer, was killed in the opening battle for the city. Because of her shooting skills, she’s recruited to serve as a sniper. She kills the men who have laid siege to the city. It was an uneasy transition, from shooting at paper to shooting men, but she’s a good shot.

After introducing Arrow as a sniper, she’s called on to protect the cellist. He has become a symbol of defiance and those laying siege to the city want him dead. Studies the cellist’s location, she attempts to get into the mind of the enemy sniper. She almost makes a mistake and the enemy sniper shoots at her, but misses. Then, she kills the sniper even though he hasn’t yet aimed his gun and is listening to the music. The psychological battle between the two snipers reminds me of Liam O’Flaherty’s short story, “The Sniper” which I first read in Junior High.

In a way, Arrow becomes the main character. After protecting the cellist, she has had enough of killing. They assign her to a new group but refuses to kill the enemy civilians. She runs away. Her story ends with the city’s soldiers coming to kill her. At first, she thinks about killing them, but then decides against it. She doesn’t want to be a fugitive and waits. As they bust down her door, she speaks, “My name is Alisa.” While we don’t know what happens, I’m left with the sense she decided her death was preferable to continuing to kill. In this way, she becomes a Christ-like figure in a world of turmoil.

All three characters reminisce about the city’s past and have hope for its future. I recommend this book and found myself constantly thinking about those in Ukraine who now live under such situation with the Russian invasion.

John Lane, Gullies of My People: An Excavation of Landscape and Family

cover for John's Lane's "Gullies of My People"

(Athens, GA: University of Georgie Press, 2023), 204 pages including source material and black and white photographs.

Lane explores his family’s past while also learning about the gullies which washed away much of the Piedmont near his home in Spartanburg, South Carolina. The chapters of the book flip back and forth. In some he’s traveling to see where his relatives lived and farmed, often with Sandy, his older half-sister. In other chapters, he hangs out with geologists, studying the erosion of the soil, building their explorations upon the research of the Soil Conservation Service of the 1930s and early 40s. And in others, he writes about his family’s and his own history. Like the gullies, which can never completely heal, the hurts of the past still haunt the lives of the living.

The Second World War creates a dividing line and hangs over the book like a dark shadow. The gullies in the Piedmont were well established before the war, driving many of Lane’s ancestors from the land and into the mills. During the war, Lanes mother, a young mill worker, became semi-famous as a runner-up to a beauty contest for women working in the mills. She would carry around the magazine article with her on the cover for the rest of her life. But her fame flamed out and after her first marriage (Sandy’s father), she struggled with alcoholism for much of her life. Lane’s father spent the war in the army. He served in Africa, on the second wave on Omaha Beach, and across Europe. He suffered emotionally after the war and took his one life when his son was still young.

The war also brought an end to the Social Conservation Service work in the South. It wasn’t that there were more no gullies to study. Instead, the war took away the resources and the scientists became engaged in other activities. Interestingly, among the early soil scientists was the son of Albert Einstein. Lane even has a vision of Albert at the river site of his son’s laboratory on erosion.

In addition to recollecting the memories of his family and learning about the erosion of the land, the book highlights the difficulties of memories. Lane even tells some of the family stories from the perspective of different people to show how such memories can manifest themselves differently.

Toward the end of the book, Lane allows his mother’s a chapter which he drew from her personal journal. In this chapter, we get a sense of her hard life. She died in 2004.

John Lane recently retired from Wofford College, where he taught environmental studies.

From his other writings, I knew Lane and I share a common birth location. Both of us were born in the Sandhills of Moore County, North Carolina. Lane is a few years older than me. He was born right after Hurricane Hazel blew through the area (I was born two days after Humphrey Bogart’s death). Lane spent his earliest years in Southern Pines. I spent my earliest years a dozen miles away, along the Lower Little River, between Pinehurst and Carthage.

Both of us left the area before starting school. Lane’s mother moved him back to Spartanburg after the death of his father. My father moved his family away from our family’s roots after starting a new career. Through this book, I learned of another connection. One thread of Lane’s family (the Mabes) is from Carroll County, Virginia, where I currently live. And, on the eastern side of my property is a large gulley which I suspect washed out after the death of the chestnuts. As I read this book and looked at the cross-cut of the gulley used on the title pages, I couldn’t help but think of my own gulley.