Camp Thousand Pines

I think I was in the 5th grade when I went to Camp Thousand Pines for the first time. I remember pulling up in the bus and having all the girls in one group, the boys in the other. It had been a hard year in school for me that year, having just lost my best friend, Louise Pritchard, when she moved away. I've never stopped looking for her.

The bus pulled up in one of the most beautiful places I had ever seen. Little cabins were dotted through the woods with a central hall in the dead center of it all. The kids all piled out and began to scatter in multiple directions before one of the teachers bellowed for them all to freeze where they were and reassemble by the bus.

One by one we received cabin assignments. There was a teacher or parent in each cabin, but that didn't stop the girls from giggling and the boys from trying to pull practical jokes on one another at night. Parts of the trip turned out like the practical joke events in the original "Parent Trap" movie.

We went on night hikes. We met the local Native American tribe and they came to teach us how to do the traditional Rain Dance. I discovered my allergic reaction to bees. I had a metal ladder fall on my leg and sprain my ankle and we all took turns in the kitchen preparing a meal for the other kids before taking any food for ourselves. We even learned how to curl our hands and place our lips in the correct position in order to call the squirrels. I can actually still do it.

We told ghost stories out by the fire at night, roasted marshmallows over the open flames and enjoyed root beer floats while chatting about life in general. Though it seems as if Camp Thousand Pines has changed a lot since I was last there, my memories of the place before technology, live on just as they were.

Boo Hag - a Ghost Story.

You know how they say some folks are lucky at cards and some are lucky at love? Well, that fit Bobby Hansen to a ‘T’. He was the best poker player in the county, but somehow he couldn’t find himself a bride. Oh, he proposed to several girls, and even got accepted by a few. But they always got cold feet a day or two before the wedding, and it was bye-bye Bobby.

After the third time, Bobby was mighty discouraged, and his Pa felt real sore for him. They worked together in the family grocery store, and Bobby would sometimes sit on top of the pickle barrel and tell his Pa all his woes. And his Pa told him to hang in there, because a nice lady was on her way. Neither of them believed it, but it made both of them feel better to hear it said. Well, the day after their latest talk, the old woman who poled her barge through the swamp to deliver milk and eggs to the grocery store had a long talk with Bobby’s Pa. Seems she had this daughter who was hankering after a husband with a good steady job, and the old woman thought Bobby would do the job nicely. She suggested they introduce the pair at the next dance, and Bobby’s Pa agreed.

The night of the dance, Bobby’s Pa insisted that his son dress in his best. Bobby was dragging his feet a little, remembering all those women who played him false and not wanting to go, but his Pa dragged him out anyway. Well, the moment Bobby clapped eyes on the dark-eyed, red-lipped girl from the swamp, he was head over heels in love. Her eyes sparkled like the sunlight on the bay. Her skin was as creamy as new milk. Her voice was low and sweet.

The pair cuddled and cooed and waltzed the whole night long, and come sunrise Bobby was all for bringing his new love before the visiting priest who delivered his sermons in the grocery store (since there weren’t no church in that vicinity) and getting married right away. Well the girl was willing to get married, but not by a priest.

“Let’s just go to Beaumont and have the judge marry us,” she said to Bobby, and he was so smitten he agreed, though it would have been quicker and easier to just walk a mile down the road to see the priest.

By the next evening they were wed, and Bobby brought his pretty bride to the nice little cottage he rented just down the road from the family grocery. It had a nice front porch with a swing, a big bedroom on the second floor and a big attic with a window that could be made up into a second guestroom should his new mother-in-law care to visit from her home in the swamp.

After fixing him a nice dinner, Bobby’s new bride sat awhile in the rocking chair near their bed while Bobby yawned and watched her fondly. She cuddled under the blanket and knitted and hummed, and Bobby’s eyes grew heavy. He didn’t wake up until early morning, when his new bride crept into bed all hot and sweaty and fell asleep at once. When he asked her where she’d been, she wouldn’t answer him. Bobby was mighty sore that his bride had snuck out on him on their wedding night, but when she got snappish and her eyes blazed like they did when he questioned her, he grew frightened and backed down.

Life took on an odd pattern for Bobby. During the day, everything was perfect. His wife was sweet and pretty and loving. She kept the house sparkling clean and cooked him wonderful meals. But each night she refused to come to bed after supper. Like their wedding night, she sat up singing and rocking and knitting until he was asleep and did not come to bed til just afore dawn. She was always sweaty and cranky when she came to bed, and went to sleep before Bobby could question her.

Bobby was very confused and upset by this behavior, and finally confided in his Pa one morning after opening up the grocery store. Bobby’s Pa was awful worried. The visiting priest had gone on to his next parish, and there was no one they could consult but the local conjure woman. So he sent Bobby to her with a couple of chickens as a gift.

The conjure woman knew all about hoodoo magic and was an excellent herbalist. Local folks went to her when they were sick, on account of the doctor lived nigh on twenty miles away. When she heard Bobby’s story, she told him to pretend to go to sleep that night and watch what his new bride did. Then he was to come back and tell her everything. Bobby agreed.

The next evening, he pretended to fall asleep while his bride rocked and sang in her chair. Then he followed her up to the attic and watched through the crack in the open door as she sat down at the spinning wheel and spun off her skin, leaving only pulsing red muscles and blue veins. She was a terrifying sight and she sprang through the window and flew away into the night. Bobby ran out to the privy and was sick after he saw her. Who, what was this monster he had married? He was still trembling and in shock when his bride, looking like a normal person again, crept into bed at dawn, and he had trouble behaving normally at breakfast.


Part 2: Video created by a Reader
As soon as he could get away, Bobby ran to the home of the conjure woman and told her about the spinning wheel and the terrible skinless creature who flew away from his attic. “A boo-hag,” the conjure woman said at once. “You’ve married a boo-hag.”

“What’s a boo-hag?” asked Bobby. “A Boo Hag is a witch and a shape-shifter,” said the conjure woman. “She lures men into her trap and then delivers them to her Boo-Daddy, who eats their flesh and gnaws their bones. And that’s what she’ll do to you if you don’t get rid of her first.”

The conjure woman told Bobby to get himself some blue paint. As soon as the boo-hag left the house that night, he was to spread blue paint on every window frame and every door frame and make sure it was two coats thick. A boo-hag couldn’t fly through a window or door that was painted blue. And if she didn’t get back into her skin before dawn, she would be trapped without it, and be revealed for the monster she was. So he was to leave one tiny window unpainted, and keep it open a sliver so the boo-hag could squeeze through. Then he was to fill up her skin with salt and pepper, which would burn her up from the inside out. And Bobby promised to do exactly as the conjure woman said.

That night, Bobby lingered over his dinner, looking with sad eyes at the pretty woman sitting opposite him. He knew she was really a monster inside, but it was so nice to have a little wife in his home. He hated like anything to see her go. But he didn’t want to get eaten by a Boo-Daddy, and that was his fate if she stayed. So he went up to their bedroom and pretended to fall asleep while she rocked and sang and knitted. Then he followed her quietly upstairs and put salt and pepper into her skin after her ugly red-muscled blue-veined figure had flown out the window to her Boo-Daddy. He spent the rest of the night painting over every door and window frame with blue paint, leaving only one small unpainted window open in the cellar. He nailed it up so that it would open no further than a crack, just as the conjure woman instructed him. Then he hid himself behind a large chest of drawers up in the attic to wait for the boo-hag.

Just before dawn, the boo-hag came flying up to the attic window. As soon as she touched the blue frame, she gave a shriek of pain and rage. Bobby listened as she flew around the house, testing each window and door and howling like a banshee when it burned her skinless hands. Then she found the little window in the cellar, and he heard the thump as she landed beside it, followed by a painful whimpering sound as she squeezed and squeezed herself through the narrow opening, her skinless red muscles and blue veins tearing painfully against the rough wood.

The boo-hag ran up three flights of stairs into the attic and squeezed and squeezed into her skin as fast as she could. She just barely got it on when the first light of dawn shone over the horizon. And that was when the salt and pepper did their work, burning the boo-hags body from the inside out. With a scream of agony, she flung herself out the attic window. The glass shattered everywhere as she tried to fly away, tearing at the skin to get it off. But it was too late. She exploded into tiny pieces right over the swamp, and the alligators had them a mighty feast of cooked boo-hag for breakfast that morning.

So Bobby was once again without a wife. But bachelorhood looked much better to him after that, and he never went looking for a wife again. ‘Course, after he made a pile of money in oil, the girls started chasing him. But that’s another story!

Gold Fever!

Gold Fever struck on Saturday, February 20th of 2010. Suddenly we were thrust back to 1849 and the Gold Rush of the early California Settlers. The dog with us was no longer a companion, but a guard and a hunter, there to watch over us. The intricate Native American scroll work on the rocks we scrambled over were no longer hundreds of years old, but made just yesterday. My jeans and sneakers became a calico dress and work boots as I traversed through the woods just off the trail. The rock formations that had fallen long ago and retained their original squared shape were no longer ruins, but a standing cabin, waiting to be explored. I had stepped slowly off the path and back in time.


When I was only a child, my Uncle Mike taught me how to go Gold Panning. I will never forget that day. We went into the mountains of Toole (pronounced Tu-ill-a) in Utah, about an hour or so from where my Mom and Dad lived. It was near a copper mine, and a small stream ran down the mountainside by the road way. We found a good spot to pull off and my Uncle pulled out his gold panning supplies. I remember the smell of mud under my feet, the gravel crunching as I made my way down the path to the stream. We found a good spot to dig into the water and started putting small amounts of the silt into the gold panning bowl. He taught me how to swirl it around, looking for the tiny flecks. Nothing turned up for the longest time. Just about the moment we had decided to pick up and move to another spot, something caught my eye. There in the aluminum bowl, among the ridges and dirt, sat a shiny flake. It sat atop the dirt in the bottom, just below the surface of the water. I called to my Uncle, who came over expecting it to be a false alarm, like we had been coming across that day.


Much to my surprise, my Uncle practically jumped for joy. I had found gold, the real deal. He picked up the tiny flake with a pair of tweezers, filled a small glass vile with some of the creek water, and carefully let the gold piece go into the water. I watched as it swirled around in front of my eyes.


We took a break for lunch, which was my first experience with M.R.E.'s. They weren't as bad as I had been lead to believe, but they weren't that great either. My favorite was the crunchy freeze dried ice cream. Uncle Mike explained that it was Astronaut Food. My cousin Michael seemed to be used to the "astronaut food" since they often went camping and gold panning together.


After our meager meal, we went back to panning. Strangers walked past, curious as to what it was we were hunting for, none willing to ask. After a while, it was obvious that we weren't going to find anymore in that spot, so we cleaned up the gear and put it all away. Uncle Mike locked up the car and we decided to see if we could find the location the gold might have washed down from. That was when I learned about Sluice Trails.


As we hiked our way up a winding road that went towards the top of the nearest mountain, Uncle Mike pointed out the trails of rocks and debris that looked very much like a land slide that had nowhere to fall from. He explained to me that they were sluice trails, the rubble dug out of the mines and dumped down the hill when it was proclaimed that they had no value as a raw ore. They left pyramid shapes down the face of the mountain, looking like loose piles that rolled as far as the terrain would allow. At the top, almost always, was a mine that had been closed up long ago due to safety concerns.


The fence we came to didn't even slow us down. My uncle had been a smoker for many, many years. He huffed and puffed his way up behind Michael and myself, feeling the full weight of the altitude and humidity in his lungs. Finally we reached a clearing at the top of the mountain, where it opened out to the crest of the mountain. All around we could see wilderness, and off between two of the mountains on our west, Salt Lake City loomed in the distance. What brought us all to our full height and made the blood start pumping through our veins with the force of adrenaline was the timber lined entrance to an old Gold Mine.


Uncle Mike instantly forgot about the elevation and started to breath heavily, this time from excitement. He stood tall at six feet and almost 4 inches, and the mine was considerably smaller than that. He pulled a Mini-Mag from his back pocket and instructed us kids to wait where we were. This mine had not been closed like 90% of all others he had seen. Michael and I sat on the grass and waited. When Uncle Mike ducked his head and started to walk with bended knees with that tiny flash light in front of him, I asked Michael why we couldn't go in.


"Dad said that we should never go into something like that because there could be bears or wild cats inside. He said it could be easy to get lost in there too," he explained. My uncle was always a dare devil, but that didn't stop me from worrying about him. Those were possibilities I hadn't even thought of before that moment. On pins and needles I watched as the light in the back of the cave faded in the darkness, finally disappearing around a turn to the right. Uncle Mike was nowhere to be seen.


A good ten minutes passed and I started to get nervous. Finally that familiar weak beam of light from the Mini Mag became visible again and Uncle Mike emerged from the man made cave. He stood to his full height for a moment, stretching his back, leaning to and fro, getting things back where they needed to be. He didn't say anything for a long time. Finally, he turned off the flash light and put it back into his pocket.


"It was an old mine, but there's nothing left. Looks like nobodys been in there for years." He almost looked relieved. "I didn't go too far in. There were too many branches going off. Didn't want to get lost." Something inside told me that he had, indeed, gotten lost and that the relieved look on his face was due to the fact he was back in the sunlight once more. "Pitch black in there," he mumbled to himself. "Pitch, tar black."






As I stood just off of the trail looking at the base of what had once been a cabin in the woods while patting Muggsy the dog on the head, I talked with Sarah about which way we should go next. For some reason the image of my Uncle stretching out his back came to me. Like he did that day, I put one hand on my hip and leaned way over, cracking the bones on the right of my back in place before repeating that on the other side.

Sarah and I decided that we would follow Lou back towards the established trail. We walked past a tree with the exposed roots, I snapped a picture of the green glade with bare trees while Muggsy paused to sniff the air, and we stumbled upon a small section of the dry river bed where rocks sat under a felled tree at a cliff. We would have to walk the length of the tree to make it up the cliff, or walk the long way around. Always up for an adventure, we decided to try the climb. Muggsy ran ahead of us, bounded up the tree and leaped onto the grassy edge just beyond. He sat there panting, looking at us and wondering what was taking us so long.

I climbed down the edge towards the rocks in order to begin my climb and lost my footing. I feel on my hands and knees into the mud and silt at the base of one of the rocks on the down stream side. When I picked myself up to wipe the mud off of my hands, I froze. My hands glistened and shined like I had thrust them into a pile of glitter.

I gasped. Sarah thought I had hurt myself and rushed over to help. Muggsy ran down the tree and bounded towards me. Instantly I shot my hands up into the air to stop them both from treading on what I had found. There in the dirt before me, bright as the sun, tiny flecks of yellow stared up at my face.

I yelled loud enough for Lou to hear, and his head appeared over the cliff. As he looked down from the top, the disbelief was apparent on his face. Sarah, however, squealed with delight. We looked for a long time for a piece big enough to carry out with us, but I knew that there was no way we were going to find an actual nugget. It didn't stop me from looking though. Long moments passed where I rubbed the gold flakes into my hand, watching the soft metal blend with my skin.

"Come on, it's just Fools Gold" Lou said from above.

"Iron Pyrite is a hard stone, Lou. This is soft, malleable. There's no way this is fake. This is the real deal!" Excited, I continued to stare at the surface of the ground near my hand print for a long time. Finally, after a failed attempt to find something in which to store the precious substance, we gave up. We mentally marked the spot and reluctantly climbed to the tree. As we reached the end of the tree and started to scramble up the cliff side, Sarah turned to me.

"Look at this," she almost whispered, her eyes glowing as brightly as the gold we had discovered. She had set her hand into the dirt on the short cliff in order to find purchase and saw the entire hillside sparkling in among the dirt. She held up her hand to me to show that her hand now resembled mine, shining in the sun light with tiny golden flecks.

Sarah gouged out a hand hold in the hillside and balled up what she had removed into a large, smooth, round lump of earth. She tossed this up to Lou, who reluctantly caught it as gingerly as a little girl would grab a hold of a worm she had been asked to hold. The mud kept it's shape and we climbed the rest of the way up the hill.

Sarah was a trooper that day. She carried her mud ball prize all the way out of the mountain, a good two miles from where we had found it. Right now that mud ball rests inside a sandwich bag at my home, just waiting for me to "pan" the gold out of the earth and take it to a jeweler. I have no doubt in my mind that what we found that day was indeed gold. Separated and saved properly, that small lump of earth might be just enough to make a very nice necklace pendant in the shape of an "S" just for her, and that's just what I plan to do with it.

Yes, there is still gold in the California Mountains, if you're lucky enough to stumble across it.

The Guard's Daydream

Originally Written : Feb 5, 2009 8:57 PM

Work that day was slow. There wasn’t much going on around the Guard shack, so I ended up just watching the video monitors. Things were always slow when it rained. I liked it that way.

My mind drifted to the way the sky looked the night before, with a big ring of clouds around the moon. Someone special told me that it was a Fairy Ring, the moon and the Fairies were battling for the sky. The moon would surely spill its rain if it won, but might be delayed a few days if it didn’t. It looked as though the Moon won.

Quiet days were the best for calm meditation. Normally I could think just a little clearer on the days when it would rain, like the water would wash my thoughts. For some reason, the same feelings kept permeating my thoughts. Thinking clearer was a bit harder on this unusual day.

I sighed, stood up and paced across the floor in the Guard shack. I walked out into the rain for a moment, not caring if my uniform got completely soaked. I loved the rain; it was beautiful. The fog was rolling in, making things seem even more mystical and mysterious. I couldn’t see the million dollar mansions on the hill before me anymore. The top of the trees protruded, creating a cloudy, wooden paradise with everything from palm tree to pine.

The heater blasted inside the guard shack, humming its merry little tune, warming the retreat from the elements. I didn’t want to be warm, though. I wanted to let the rain wash away my worries and concerns. I faced the sky, feeling the drops splash onto my cheeks. Slowly the drips started to pool on my face and run down my neck. It was cold outside, so the rain sliding down the outside of my throat was like ice water. I rubbed my neck and closed my eyes. What a glorious, beautiful day!

His face stuck in my mind. I couldn’t shake it. I looked at my cell phone only about fifty times a day, as I had his photograph on the wallpaper. It was a close enough image to see my most favorite feature, his long, curly hair. He had beautiful chestnut hair that wound into soft coffee colored waves that extended just below the base of his skull. His masculine jaw line was outlined by perfectly sculpted facial hair that would tickle anyone who got close enough to it. It was a good tickle. His piercing blue eyes held worlds of wonder and amazement and were themselves magical in the most sincere of ways. He saw the world as I saw it, finally proving I was not alone in my mysticism and fantasies. Magic did exist, and he was the living, breathing proof. He was born of the Fairy kingdom and raised by Pirates and Rogues. It showed in everything he ever touched.

Suddenly I was inspired to write. I didn’t know what I was going to write, just that I was going to spend a few minutes telling a story about this wonderful person. I stepped back into the guard shack and started tapping away at my laptop computer. The rain continued to pour outside, the wind picking up a little with each passing minute. My eyes grew heavy as I sat in the white plastic seat in front of the warm heater.

Sheets of rain started to sweep across the parking lot, showing how uneven the water fell from the sky. The sheets would zigzag across the black pavement, leaving odd snakelike patterns that would disappear in seconds. Pools started to form and rivers began cascading through this blacktop jungle. Bubbles formed where the large drops merged and fell into the puddles from the pine needles of the tree near by.

The water grew deeper all around me, forcing its way into the elevated guard shack. I knew I would have to get out of the guard shack if I was going to make it to shelter. I couldn’t believe it was starting to fill with water. I would have to swim to safety.

I swam to the nearest tree and looked back. The guard shack wasn’t a guard shack at all! I had been hiding under a huge mushroom! I turned to climb higher in the tree and that’s when I realized it hadn’t been a tree I swam to at all. It was a gigantic reed, like the kind at the edge of a river, but multiplied in size ten fold. Where had the tree gone that I knew was by the guard shack? I looked around and didn’t see it anywhere. I climbed higher to get a better view.

Dry land wasn’t far away. I would have to swim a while to get there, but it looked close enough for me to make it. A proud, twisted old tree stood on the banks of the dry land, also of an unnatural size. I jumped from the reed and dove into the surging water below. The mushroom was completely under water now. I swam hard towards the land I had seen. It seemed like the rain was starting to let up.

A huge piece of driftwood was partially buried on the shore when I reached land. I looked around bud couldn’t see the other end. Then I saw it. This wasn’t some piece of driftwood I was climbing over, it was the root to a colossal tree! The bark on the tree was thick and coarse, but not stable enough to climb. I needed to get a better view of my surroundings. Just moments ago, all of this had been a big parking lot!

The clouds finally parted and the sky cleared enough for me to look around. I climbed as high as I could on the tree roots and held my hand over my eyes to shade myself from the glaring sun.

A whole new world lay before me. A river off in the distance coursed its way through a wide valley. Everything was ten times bigger than it should be. Mushrooms provided shelter for potato bugs and silverfish; birds were beginning to take fight from the trees again since the rain had stopped. A couple of earthworms surfaced and worked to dry themselves on a slab of granite. From under flowers came the most beautiful creatures I had ever seen. They looked almost human, but their fingers were longer and very thin, their faces drawn taught and almost squinting. The hair on their heads was trimmed short and was in an unkempt, unruly manner. The strangest part of these creatures was the odd pair of sticks that sprouted from their backs. At first they looked like sticks, but upon closer inspection I began to realize that those sticks were just the frameworks for their beautiful iridescent wings. They bent their knees slightly, jumped into the air, and flew with the speed of hummingbirds.

One came rather close and looked at me. She was as big as I was! Or, it started to sink in, I was as small as she was. Her hair was a light blondish pink, and her eyes, what I could see of them through her narrow almond slits were an unnatural brilliant green. She had seen something on me and reached out her spindling fingers to grab it. As I watched her, I realized what it was she wanted. She was reaching for a bright golden key around my neck. Just about the time I thought it might be wise to stop her, she wrapped her fingers around it and was taking off. I grabbed her arm and held on. Her wings were so powerful they lifted me right off of the ground, high into the air, and never once did she let go of the key. If I had let go of her, she likely would have choked me to death with the string holding the key on my neckline!

Finally she landed in the center of a large pink rose. It appeared she was bored with the game and let go of my key. I had no idea what the key went to, but I knew it was important for some reason. She flew off, buzzing happily like a humming bird. Seeing that I wasn’t entirely sure what to do from here, she circled back. Her long finger pointed back towards the tree where I had been when she flew up to me moments before. She wanted me to go back to the tree?

My gaze followed to where she was pointing, and near the base of the tree was a small wooden door with a handle in the middle. Just below the handle was a lock. It looked as though this key would fit into that lock perfectly. I guessed there was only one way to figure that out. I jumped out of the rose, slid down a tall blade of grass and made my way back to the tree. It was the opposite side from where I had been, so when I reached the door into the tree I couldn’t see the river anymore. The girth of the tree completely blocked it from sight. Several more flying creatures flitted up on speedy wings, all of them urging me to go through the door. One of them opened her mouth as if to say something, but instead emitted a horrible squeal, steady and shrieking. The only thing I wanted in the entire world was to get away from that sound.

I put the key into the door and turned it with a clanking sound. It slowly opened to reveal…

I was back in the guard shack. My eyes were heavy. The horrible squealing shriek continued! I jumped to my feet and looked around just as the noise subsided. A car sat outside the guard booth, the driver occasionally honking the horn to get my attention. Her strawberry blonde hair and nearly unrealistic green contacts were a stark contrast to the blue gray world of the subsided magical rain.

“Hi there, I was just wondering if you know how to get to the Three Martini’s restaurant.” She paused, shaking the water out of her hair through the open window with her long, spindly fingers. “Damn this blasted rain – I hate this stuff!”