One of the special memories that I will always keep close to my heart is the experience of relating to the natural beauty of the mountains that I learned to love while growing up. However, I think I did take a lot of this for granted. Later in life I grew to appreciate these experiences even more, when I no longer had access to them other than in my memories.
I always loved to be in the mountains. I especially loved to camp overnight. The allure of exploring unspoiled forest areas was powerful. So much of this had to be experienced not only with your five senses, but also with your imagination. I always seemed to be lost in imagination of what it was like during the time that the first settlers discovered it. But I even went farther to think about when the Native Americans roamed this area that some referred to as "The Dark and Bloody Ground." I loved to read books about what Kentucky, and especially Harlan County, was like. I carried these accounts over into my explorations of the mountains.
Some of the special things that I remember about camping are very compelling. The smell of wood smoke from a campfire and the warmth of a fire on a cold night. You had to keep turning to warm all sides of your body. There were the inevitable scary stories told around the fire. There was something magical when all these components came together. It also didn't hurt that the woods provided a very dark and secluded spot, which added a bit of tension to the setting. It always caused our imaginations to run wild.
With our imaginations prodded, we began to hear strange sounds that brought up visions of all kinds of ferocious wild animals. Most of us were aware of the stories that constantly made the rounds, of sightings of wild animals that weren't normally found in our mountains. Because I was an avid reader of adventure and other books about the early settlers, I was very impressionable with these kinds of tales. You also heard the stories about bears and wildcats. I believed the stories, as I had seen a dead bobcat that someone shot in Wallins. I had never personally seen a bear, however I believed they were out there.
Cooking over a campfire was not complicated. We are talking about hotdogs and beans. You could throw in a potato and cover it with hot embers. This would come out baked to perfection. I guessed there were Coleman stoves, but I never saw one. We did everything over the fire.
There wasn't a whole lot of sophisticated equipment. I never had a tent or a sleeping bag either. It was any old blankets that mom would let me use. I can remember how cold it would get in the middle of the night. One night that I remember in particular, was a cold and breezy night that seemed to last forever. While trying to sleep, I kept sliding down an incline. I can't remember why I had not selected flat ground for my bed. As I only had a blanket for cover, I was awake most of the night shivering. I kept hearing the leaves rustling and the trees swaying in the wind. I was never so relieved to see daybreak and a campfire.
Daytime activities included mostly exploring. It was at this time that I noticed the beauty of my surroundings. There was always the Mountain Laurel. It was especially beautiful when in bloom.
Let me digress for a moment to tell a story. After Paula and I were married I told her the story of the time that I attended the Mountain Laurel Festival. It was my one and only time there. But I was so impressed with the natural cove and rock seating at Pine Mountain State Park, that I evidently recounted the story many times. Paula on the other hand was very impressed with a trip she took with her aunt to New York City. She also recounted this story many times. It became the joke in our family that if I attempted to tell the story again, she would say, "Mountain Laurel, Mountain Laurel." I would reply, "New York, New York."
I never knew all the names of the varieties of trees that I saw. I did know the oaks, walnuts, hickories, pines and cedars. I found out much later when I was in college, the difference between deciduous and conifer trees. To me, they were just trees. I also found out later through books that much of Eastern Kentucky's vast hardwood resources had been squandered for mining timbers and other less than desirable purposes. Most of this clearly involved greed, with no thought to what it would do to our mountains.
The mountains were also a sight to behold in the spring when the red buds and dogwoods were in bloom. There were also other trees closer to home, like the chestnuts and the mimosas. I loved the chestnuts, but didn't care too much for the smell when they were in bloom. They also made a big mess with all the husks that fell.
We also had several mulberry trees that would be loaded with berries. These trees were a bird magnet. The birds would flock to the berries, while leaving their droppings behind. Many people didn't like the trees for this reason. I liked eating the large black mulberries, though.
Any fruit tree proved to be a messy proposition. It was a given that you had to tolerate this in order to get the fruit. I remember the most wonderful cherry tree in my Aunt Ruby's back yard on Back Street. I spent a lot of time eating cherries and spitting pits. The birds liked this tree also. I remember the tree secreted a thick clear sap. I loved to pull clumps of this off the tree. This probably was not good for the tree, but who knew?
I also spent many hours playing under Aunt Ruby's house. The dirt was a type of clay that was very pliable. It was very good for making car tracks to move our small make believe racecars and dump trucks on. It was also really cool under the house on a hot day. I also spent a lot of time playing on the ditch, which ran through her property. This ditch emptied into Wallins Creek, which ran behind her house.
There were a lot of things to do, which kept us occupied but not necessarily out of trouble. I remember one simple game that entailed fighting the swarms of gnats that flew around the ditch and creek. This was accomplished with a rag tied to a stick. We would whip this through the swarms of gnats as we ran up and down on the ditch. So much time and so much energy expended in this game that it almost tires me out writing about it now. I played these games with my cousin Damon Morgan and others. Damon was the leader of this rag-tag outfit, as he was 2 or 3 years older than I was.
We also explored the creek bank looking for other things to do. This might involve checking out anything that might have washed up on the bank. We might also do some prospecting for gold or other precious metals. We might also excavate the bank looking for buried treasure.
Unfortunately, the Morgan's moved to Louisville when I was about 8 or 9. I was crushed. This had been my home away from home. As it worked out, I eventually went to live with them in Louisville, when I left Wallins looking for a job. This worked out very well for me, as there was only one person who was a better cook than my mom. This was my Aunt Ruby. She took good care of me for the first couple of years until I got my own place.
Back to the flora and fauna. Not all the plants were beautiful. I remember all the fields filled with ragweed. These sprung up wherever they could. I developed an allergy or hay fever when I was about 15 years old. I had never had a problem until this time. But after my allergy developed, I was miserable with all the symptoms whenever I was outside. This slowed me down quite a bit.
Also in the fields were the burrs and stickers. These would stick to the legs of your Levi's something terrible. After walking in these, I would have to stop to pick them off. This was time consuming and cut into time that could have been spent on fun activities.
I usually managed to pick up a few chiggers too. These provided additional fun times. These felt so good when you scratched them, that you kind of hated it when they went away. I also had the uncanny knack of finding poison ivy wherever it was. It could be invisible to the naked eye, but I would manage to find it. I knew I had found it when I developed a rash. I would always get it in my eyes somehow. There were times that my eyes swelled so much that I could hardly see. After a few of these sessions, I consciously avoided any weed that vaguely resembled poison ivy. It didn't make any difference. It always managed to find me.
The other constant irritation that had to be endured was the mosquitoes. In the summer it was too hot to stay indoors. The mosquitoes took full advantage of this. They especially delighted in singling me out for attack. These mosquitoes flew in attack formation, and were so large, that if I managed to squash one of them, they would fly the missing man formation.
In the summertime you also had to be constantly on the lookout for snakes. This was simply a fact of life. They were always lurking where you least expected them. They were everywhere, be it dry ground or water. I was never really able to completely rid my mind of them. Anytime I was wading through a weed patch, I was scoping out the terrain for them. There were many times that I was saved because of this. If not from a bite, at least from fright. I come to regard that the only good snake, was a dead one. I only later was able to recognize that non-poisonous snakes were beneficial to mankind.
I felt the same way about bats. We seemed to have a lot of them. I guess I had seen too many vampire movies. I'm sorry to say that I killed a few of these in my time. These, as I later found out, ate their weight in the dreaded mosquitoes. I'm sorry to say that I didn't have the correct regard for all of God's creatures when I was a kid. A lot of it was misinformation. The rest was boyish mischief. I was always trying to find a way to kill a bird. I tried with BB guns, sling shots, and salt on the tail. Fortunately, the Good Lord is a bird lover. I was never very successful. I later became quite a bird lover, myself. I now prefer to watch them rather than hunt them.
I remember the abundance of creatures that few people are privileged to see today. A couple of examples come to mind. I remember the little screech owls. There was a tree that sat near the creek. It was literally filled to capacity with these little owls. I remember that it wasn't uncommon to see large numbers of hummingbirds getting nectar from flowers and blooming bushes, while their tiny wings beat faster than the eye could comprehend. Today I feel privileged to see one of these tiny creatures at any time. They are so delicate, yet hardy it would seem, to be able to survive.
I remember my first experience with trapping. I set a trap baited with a piece of salt pork. I set the trap in the woods near Little Creek. I remember that I had very high expectations that when I checked the trap I would discover an exotic fur-bearing animal. Actually when I checked the trap, I discovered a possum. He wasn't real happy to be in the trap. You don't normally regard a possum as a dangerous animal, but this possum growled and made every attempt to bite me. This proved to be my one and only attempt to become "The Great White Trapper." I determined to do all my trapping vicariously through the books that I read.
The only game animals that I remember seeing in the mountains were squirrels, rabbits, possums, coons, and an occasional fox. I never did see a bear or bobcat, except for the dead one.. These animals would have required a measure of stealth that I didn't possess. If there were any of these nearby, I'm sure that they gave me a wide berth when they heard me stomping though the underbrush. I also regret that I never got to see a whitetail deer. These were long gone when I was a boy. Fortunately they were reintroduced to the mountains, but were for a time very scarce.
I wrote about this before, but it is worth mentioning again. The most beautiful place that I ever saw for its natural beauty and untouched condition was Laurel Branch. This was located on Pine Mountain. To get there, we hiked down the highway toward Dixietown. At a point where the branch ran across the highway, we would enter the woods. We would then proceed to make a pretty hard climb up the mountain to reach our destination on top. The forest growth was phenomenal on this mountain. The trees were large, and the vegetation thick. The forest floor was very thick with leaves. There were a lot of crawly creatures, like centipedes and millipedes. You had to constantly keep an eye out for these to keep them from crawling into your bed.
After the campsite was established, the fun began. This was the exploration. We discovered a series of pools of clear ice cold water. There was a waterfall with a deep pool of water suitable for swimming. There also was an area we named, "The Slick Rock." This was a green mossy covered rock suitable for sliding down into a pool of water. Little did we know that years later someone would take this simple idea and market it. Today, thousands of waterslides dot the landscape.
Something that was a little closer to home, was the old water tank that sat down the railroad track near the Wallins Bridge. This had the drop down funnel that was used to fill up the water tanks on the steam locomotives that used to operate on the railway lines. This was a little before my time, but the water tank was still there. This was a prime pigeon roosting area. I remember all the pigeons that used to be there. It was a big loss to me when they tore the tank down. I don't know where the pigeons went, but it was never really the same. There were a few that hung out on the buildings and ledges in downtown, but the numbers dropped drastically after that.
For some reason I associate a friend of mine with the water tank. I think it is because we used to play around the tank occasionally. His name was Floyd Bishop. I remember that he was quite an explorer and woodsman. He told me stories of how he had found Indian artifacts in a cave in the mountains. He said one of the items that he found was a pipe. I was never really able to verify this because Floyd was tragically killed while squirrel hunting. It may only have been boyish exaggerations, but I guess I will never know.
