MY AMAZING SUMMERS-Blog Post#7 PART 2-VACATIONS WITH THE FAMILY-Kathryn Lehotsky Wildlife Artist

I was about four years old, and my brother Rob was a toddler when our parents, Bob and Nancy, took us on our first vacation outide of West Virginia. They drove us in their new car to upstate New York and Canada. My mother told me about the trip, but there is also a photo of me as a child next to a Royal Mounted Policeman and another picture of me standing in the snow, wearing feathers on a band around my head. I was staring at a man who looked like an American Indian. This first foray into a new world outside my protective environment would be the beginning of many summers traveling the country.

My father, Bob, was determined that his children see this grand country of ours, state by state. Although he was a chemical engineer, money was tight when I was growing up, and vacationing in motels with five children was mostly out of the question. As luck would have it, my mother found an almost new pop-up camper called a Nimrod for sale, and they bought it.

Until after I left for college, my family had station wagons that could hold at least five children, one dog, and two adults. The one I remember most was a blue wagon with a rear-facing seat that I’d claim because I was the oldest. So, Dad hooked up the Nimrod to the blue station wagon, and we began more than a decade of driving across the county in the summers. We stayed the night in state parks, campgrounds, or in a pinch, out of sight on a secondary road.

Bob was a list maker, and I became one, too, once I was old enough to know that lists would help me remember important tasks or goals. After much thought and input from my mother, he designed a master plan for our summers. I loved to study it, for the plan was written in his block-style handwriting and kept in a special Union Carbide notebook. He mapped out several vacation trips to places like Kansas, Utah, the Black Hills, the Smoky Mountains, the N.W. and S.W. Coasts, Texas, the Carolinas where he was born, Florida, New Orleans, New England, the Rockies, and places that were new to his children and some new to him. He and my mother sent away for literature on national monuments, famous natural and historical sites of interest, campgrounds, and parks that would all eventually determine his routes.

One evening at the dinner table, Dad finally explained his plan to the family. Every summer, we’ll go somewhere different, he promised, either a West Virginia State Park or a trip to destinations that would allow us to see natural attractions like Pike’s Peak, the Painted Desert, Mesa Verde, the Great Salt Lake, and most exciting to me, Disneyland in California. I can speak for all of us born then; we were excited.

So, with a trial trip to a state park to learn how to navigate the Nimrod, we hit the road every other summer and visited places beyond our experience. Then the following summer, we’d stay at one of the many breathtaking state parks in West Virginia.

I will never forget the first trip in the blue station wagon; the Nimrod hooked up to a toe-hitch on the back. Dad decided we should take her (the pop-up) out on a maiden voyage to Watoga State Park. Today, one can get to Watoga in 2.5 hours from Charleston, about an hour north of Lewisburg, West Virginia, which is close to White Sulphur Springs. I believe the trip included everyone except my youngest sister and brother since both had not been born yet. However, counting the nine months until late October, when my baby sister Angela was born, I wonder if the Watoga vacation later brought a twinkle to my parent’s eyes.

My parents had four dogs during their lives together, all Cocker Spaniels. The first was Sissy, a reddish-brown Cocker that Dad bought my mother. Bob had completed two years of his engineering degree at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York. After returning from the war and marrying my mother, he re-enrolled at Rensselaer to finish his degree. That’s where he found Sissy. When Sissy died, they got Cindy, a red Cocker they bought for me, the firstborn, and Ben, number two. Cindy was my baby and went everywhere with me in the early days, but Rob loved her too. Then came Penny, a blond Cocker, and Annie, also a blond dog. Annie died before my parents did, which was fitting, but that’s another story.

On the first trip in the station wagon, Penny was the dog we loved and accepted as a family member. She sat on the second bench seat or on the floor, stretching out on an old towel. It was quite the entourage, three children, a dog, and Mom and Dad, along with food for the vacation, some of which was stored in the Nimrod. The meat, eggs, and milk were packed in an old cooler on the car's back seat, along with blankets, pots, pans, and whatever my mother or father felt they needed to take care of us for seven days.

We left Teays Valley on a dreary day, ready for an adventure we could only guess was about to happen. I recall that it was late winter or early spring since we wore cold-weather clothes, including jackets and long pants. Later that upcoming summer, I would attend my first session at the Carbide camp: Cliffside. As I remember, all three children were in the middle seat, with Penny moving back and forth between us. The youngest was with us or upfront on Mom's lap (yes, we didn’t have seat belts in those days), with Dad at the wheel.

From Charleston, the trip was on a narrow winding road that I still enjoy: U.S. 60. Now, some freeways would make the journey a tad faster and less hard on the occupants of a crowded station wagon. However, U.S. 60 is still a treasure trove of sights, with small towns like Rainelle, Rupert, Boomer, Look Out, and attractions like Sam Black Church, the Mystery Hole, Hawks Nest State Park, Gauley Bridge, and New River Gorge. The Kanawha River, which flows through Charleston, is formed at Gauley Bridge by the confluence of the New and Gauley Rivers. Today there are river adventures and daredevil hikes alongside a river that seems to surge underneath the bridge. Not too far along US 60 are the New River Gorge and a phenomenal bridge built in the late ‘70s, a dramatic metal structure high above the New River, where scores of people have used bungees to dive off its edge toward the waters far below. Today, there are festivals and adventures to try at New River Gorge. But on this maiden trip, U.S. 60 was an ordeal for a wagon filled with anxious children, a dog that had yet to learn to settle down on long trips, and parents who had worked hard to make this first outing a success. We often used this road to travel to Roanoke, Virginia, where Nancy's mother and my grandmother lived. Eventually, it would take us to other amazing West Virginia state parks.

From the early days of transportation through West Virginia until l956, the only road one could take in that direction was U.S. 60. It took us four hours to reach Watoga State Park. Then, in 1956, the awe-inspiring civil engineering marvel called the West Virginia Turnpike was built to bring travelers from Charleston to Princeton. That same trip to Watoga would take about two hours. However, there were many accidents on that impressive new road, and folks were wary of using it initially. Nevertheless, it was often the case that on those long winding trips along U.S. 60, one of the kids would throw up, including me.

I don’t remember when it started to rain, but by the time we reached the sign for Watoga State Park, it was pouring. The rain was so heavy my Dad had a hard time seeing the road in front of him. Nancy was already nervous since the road to Watoga in that era was dirt with no markings, remote, and in a dense county surrounded by wilderness. Slowly, Dad drove the wagon and Nimrod down a narrow, pot-filled road toward what he wrongly assumed was the park entrance. Penny was on my lap at this point, I believe. Finally, the wagon abruptly stopped, with all of us thrown a bit forward. Before us was a gut-wrenching sight that I can still visualize, a low water bridge over a raging creek that I later learned was Island Lick Run.

A low-water bridge is like a ground-level bridge over water. The bridges can be constructed with flat boulders, cement blocks, and/or culverts to divert the water from the creek or river underneath a built-up bridge. During most of the year, the low-water bridge stays relatively dry until flooding or high-water times force the water to flow over the top of the rustic man-made bridge.

As the rain seemed to subside, we all stared through the car’s window at the now unrecognizable structure. The creek was rushing over the bridge’s surface at a rate that made my heart beat wildly. I could see my father’s face, and he looked worried, but it was obvious my mother was scared. No one said a word, then Bob put the wagon into drive and slowly pulled ahead. As the wagon began to inch forward, it suddenly halted at the edge, and then he gave it some gas. The wagon slowly lurched onto the bridge with the Nimrod behind it. We could hear the flooding creek rushing around us, and the vehicle rocked as the water pushed against the wheels. I turned to look back at the Nimrod. It had small wheels compared to the wagon, and it seemed to me that water was causing it to move from side to side. Dad stared ahead, then carefully put his foot on the brake and turned to look at the three children in the car, staring back at him.

He glanced at Nancy and said, “Honey, I do not think we should keep going. I cannot see the road over the bridge anymore. The water could push us over the edge, or I could run off the edge by accident. It’s going to be very hard to back this wagon and the Nimrod off the bridge, but we’re gonna have to try it.” He looked at us again. “You guys stay still; try not to move. I won’t let anything happen to you.” At that, I pulled Penny closer and looked over at the strained faces of my brother and sister.

My father was a soldier during WWII, serving in the 84th Infantry called the Railsplitters, an engineering division in the Army. In the battle of the Bulge, he was hit by shrapnel from incoming German artillery and eventually sent home. I do not ever remember seeing him scared, except when he decided to back the wagon and pop-up over the bridge.

I held my breath for a few seconds while the car slowly moved in reverse. The water looked even deeper on the bridge, and the job that Dad had to do appeared impossible. The effort seemed to take forever, but he did it, and once everything was on firm ground, we all cheered. I heard someone cry softly but didn’t look to see who it was.

My mother didn’t say anything, but after a moment, she pointed through the car to the pop-up and said, “Look at the Nimrod; there’s something wrong.”

We all turned and looked through the rear window of the wagon again. The Nimrod had twisted back on itself, with the axel now turned at an unnatural angle.

“Damn,” Bob said. He zipped up his jacket, took a flashlight out of the glove compartment, and opened the door. We all watched as he made his way to the back of the wagon and bent down to check the ball hitch. It was still raining but not as hard. When he returned to the car, his jacket was wet, and raindrops dripped off his coal-black hair.

“Don’t worry,” he said, “it has jack-knifed. I think I can fix that pretty easily. Sure wish I’d practiced backing the Nimrod in the driveway at home.” Mom nodded but said nothing.

And so began a torturous attempt to back the Nimrod up so that the axel was straight again. Finally, he put the car into reverse, tapped the gas, saw it hadn’t worked, and then put the car into forward again. Back and forth, he repeatedly attempted to get the Nimrod in the correct position. Unfortunately, he could not go ahead very far, or we’d be on the low-water bridge again, so his progress improved only incrementally. Nevertheless, some time went by with his attempt to straighten both the wagon and the pop-up.

All the while this was going on, we heard him curse. We were never permitted to say such words aloud, but Dad claimed he’d learned them in the war and said all of them that afternoon as he valiantly tried to right our caravan. Thankfully, the rain had ended, and the sun broke through the trees like an omen of the sunny weather we’d have for the rest of our vacation. Once he got it straight, he backed us down that long pot-filled road toward the entrance. I heard a kid whimper, but one stern look from our father shut them up quickly. He had a way about him that made big and little people sit up straight.

By the time we’d checked into the Watoga State Park Campground, it was late afternoon. The one thing we had all practiced back home in our driveway was setting up the Nimrod. Dad found our campground site, pulled ahead, and backed that pop-up onto the cement pad like a pro.

I believe my brother Rob was in the second grade at this point. Dad had made him his sidekick on almost all physical endeavors, and setting up the Nimrod was no exception. First, they put a block of cement they’d brought from home underneath the axle to keep it at a level position so the Nimrod would be parallel to the ground and not tip over. Finally, they placed bricks behind the two wheels and disconnected the Nimrod from the wagon’s ball joint.

While they pulled down the four stabilizing legs, popped the top on the Nimrod, and ensured the inside was ready for the night, Mom and I picked up sticks and logs for the campfire. Unfortunately, most of the wood was wet, but Nancy found a large pile of cut logs underneath a tarp at one of the bathrooms, and we hauled our share to the campsite.

Finally, Mom began her preparations for dinner. We were all hungry but cautiously anxious about what she might prepare. Nancy had many talents, but being a good cook was not one of them. It wasn’t entirely her fault. During the Great Depression, she and her mother ate sparingly, and neither of them liked to cook. So Nancy grew up without a role model in the kitchen, and so did the three girls and two boys in our family. Dad was a better basic cook, but he mostly stayed out of the kitchen for a good reason.

Dad was checking the zippers on the Nimrod’s canvas windows while the three kids sat around a fire that Nancy had started (don’t forget, she was a Girl Scout). We’d slumped over on metal folding seats that Dad bought somewhere, chins resting in the palms of our hands. The three of us kids watched Mom light the Coleman stove, retrieve a skillet from the Nimrod, then get the ground beef out of the cooler along with an onion. Finally, she returned to the pop-up, dug around in some brown paper bags, and retrieved 4 cans of soup and 4 cans of something else. I could feel all of us tensing, fearing what sort of awful concoction she was putting together for our supper.

I must admit something here. At about nine years old and the oldest child, I tended to be a little snot when it came to my mother’s cooking. I’d judge some meals that Mom made by making a face or sticking my tongue out if it was terrible. When I did, the rest of the gang chimed in with a similar reaction and sometimes refused to eat, thus causing a small rebellion. But, of course, not all her meals were awful; most were just bland without much taste.

I remember bringing my future husband, Al, to meet the family for the first time. We sat around the dining table staring at a steaming casserole dish on a hot pad in the center, emanating the most wretched smell imaginable. It was some sort of chicken casserole with mushrooms, nuts, and overcooked cauliflower. It looked and tasted horrible to me. I was afraid to look at Al’s face, knowing he was a very picky eater and probably didn’t like it. He told me later he felt like throwing up; it tasted so bad. I kept a straight face, not wanting to upset my mother or ruin my fiancé’s first meal in the house.

Mom browned the meat and onions in the skillet. Then, she added the four cans of Campbell’s Vegetable Soup and four cans of what I later realized were peeled canned potatoes to the pot. At that moment, the scent of this brew drifted our way. I refused to make a face or say a word. Instead, turning toward my siblings, I could see they were watching me, waiting for my dinner critique. I was, at times, a nasty piece of work, as you may have already figured out.

Standing, I went to the Nimrod and scrounged for paper plates and silverware, enough for the five of us. At almost three, my sister Jill toddled over and helped me find some plastic cups and napkins. After Dad joined us, we put it all on the picnic table, and soon we looked down into a pile of steaming stew, as Nancy called it. My brother took the first bite, and an immediate smile crossed his face. The rest of us followed suit, including my father. Mom had yet to scoop out a portion for herself as she was fixated on my reaction. It wasn’t necessary to pass judgment on the dish since everyone ate it as fast as possible. The only thing I remember saying to my mother was:

“This tastes great, Mom. Where did you learn how to make this... stew?”

“I saw a recipe in Good Housekeeping while I waited for my doctor’s appointment. Don’t tell, but I tore it out of a magazine and hid it in my purse to take home.”

“Good job, honey,” Dad said softly without looking up from his meal.

The one other thing I will tell you about my mother’s cooking: she never made enough food for everyone. It wasn’t because we didn’t have the money. It was hard for her to figure out portions, so there was enough food to go around. I believe her experiences during the Great Depression also came into play. But there were never any seconds, and the youngest children in the family sometimes had to share a pork chop, a fish stick, or a piece of steak. Over the years, it didn’t get better. Maybe that’s why none of us were overweight while living at home.

Our week at Watoga State Park went by fast. I do not remember all of it, but I know we played with the other children at the campgrounds. No one knew me at the park, so I was just another kid who wanted to play, which was a relief. However, the one other significant experience I do remember in detail was when Dad took us fishing.

I’d never been fishing before, and I’d never been on a boat, so I was eager to go. Bob arranged to borrow a rowboat and offered to take my brother and me out on the lake. Before we left, Nancy rubbed bug repellent on our legs, arms, and necks and handed us peanut butter and jelly sandwiches wrapped in wax paper for lunch. Then, Dad drove us down to the small marina on Watoga Lake. It was early in the morning, and the mist was still hugging the mountains and had settled in over the water.

The boat he’d rented was an old wooden craft with one seat in the middle and another at the rear. I watched as he stowed two fishing rods on the floor, a can of what I could see were worms sitting next to them, and an empty bucket for any fish we’d catch. He showed us the proper way to board a rowboat from the rear, then helped us get in and situated on the smaller seat. Once Dad was aboard, he untied the rope from its mooring, sat on the middle seat facing the rear, across from my brother and me, and picked up the two oars. We learned that there were two metal oarlocks, and he slipped the oar bolts into them. Then he pushed off the dock, and we were on our way.

As he rowed the boat, Dad told us that as a boy, he went fishing in North Carolina, where he was born and lived for several years. A handyman on their farm named Sam taught him to fish, and the two of them would go out in an old rowboat, much like ours, and fish for hours. Sam loved fishing above all else and taught Bob how important it was to be patient while trying to catch what he called…suppa’. Dad didn’t have any children his own age to play with then, so Sam became his best friend and taught him to ride a horse and tend cows and chickens. I had never heard my father talk about his life as a child and was mesmerized by the idea of Sam, a young black man who’d become my father’s only friend. Later in life, I found a picture of my father and Sam standing beside an old rowboat.

Rowing made him breathless from the effort, so he didn’t say much at times, but Bob seemed in his element on the water and comfortable with us. Then, finally, I glanced over at my brother. Rob was and is a handsome person with a shock of blond hair, beautiful blue eyes, and a kind and gentle spirit. To this day, he is a hero to me, and I am honored to be his sister. Rob is the definition of a true and honest man.

I remember looking around, then, and noting how far we’d gotten from the shore. The lake was lovely, with tall evergreens growing close to the water’s edge, framing the lake like a painting. Then, glancing up, the mountains in all their glory suddenly made me tremble. The scent of fish was in the air, along with the smell of the evergreens, mountain laurel, and the thick honeysuckle that grew along the banks. What I love and loved best about West Virginia are its mountains. Those of us who have had to leave the state feel a constant draw from those beautiful blue-green hills to come home again. I would not realize this fact until much later in my life. But the day on the lake with my father and brother will forever be imprinted on my sense of self.

Dad slowed and let the boat drift on the water while he lifted the oars into the boat and rested them inside. He took a deep breath, let his eyes scan the landscape in front of us, and sighed. I could tell he was enjoying himself from his relaxed expression.

He explained that the West Virginia Department of Fish and Wildlife stocked Watoga State Park’s lake with Bluegill and Sunfish. Still, there were also Carp, and even the coveted Walleye one could catch. He talked about the different bait for a while and said that worms would work fine for beginners like us. Dad picked up one of the fishing rods, a spin casting outfit he called it, and showed us how to string the line, about the sinker that carried the bait below the surface, the purpose of the bobber, and finally, about how to bait the hook with a worm. Rob and I were country kids, and handling squirming worms was a common experience, so feeding a worm onto a hook seemed natural. Dad said we could practice out in the lake's open waters to get the hang of casting, reeling it back in using the spin reel and tossing the line away from the boat, allowing the sinker to take the hook into deeper water.

After we practiced under his critical eye, Bob rowed the boat to the opposite side of the lake and found a cove with trees hanging over the water. He explained that fish sometimes liked to hide in cool dark places and that he’d chosen this one for that reason. We cast our lines out, me standing in front of the rear seat and Rob next to Dad, ensuring that the lines would not cross and get tangled. It did not take long for the first strike. Rob whooped and hollered that he’d caught a fish, and Dad talked him through reeling it in. The fish, Dad said after examining it, was a Blue Gill and, although handsome, was not large enough to keep. He showed us how to extract the hook carefully, then to lean over, holding the fish in one hand and moving it through the water to encourage it to breathe through its gills. He finally told Rob to let it go.

We both caught fish that morning, but none of them went home with us for ‘suppa,’ as Sam would’ve said. Thinking about that first fishing trip, I realized I had discovered something that would frame much of my life. I learned that I truly love the mountains, bodies of water, and fish. And that I needed to be close to them to be happy and feel one with the earth. As you will read in future blogs, this fishing trip had a major impact on the rest of my life.

*

A TRIP THROUGH KANSAS

In preparation for the first summer vacation driving across the country, Bob became a man obsessed with a mission. To his credit, he was an engineer with an orderly mind and a compulsive nature. At home in the evenings, he’d sit at the kitchen table with a calculator and a map determining how far we could travel each day to visit the sites on his itinerary. Unfortunately, there was no Google to help him, no GPS, and no MapQuest. He had ten vacation days each year from his job, so on half of those days, he’d need to average 500 miles. I called them Drive Days. The other half were days spent at an attraction, where we’d stay at a campground and see the sights. But soon enough, we were back on the road, so Dad could make it home from vacation in time for work.

That meant, by 1961, when my youngest brother Rex was born, four kids had to sit close on the middle bench, Mom was in the front passenger seat, me on the third-row seat with the cooler, Penny on the floor, and Dad was doing all the driving for about ten hours a day. If that sounds tiring, it was, and for all of us. Most annoying was that our station wagon did not have air conditioning, so it was often hot and sticky in the car.

On Drive Days, we had to wake early, eat a quick breakfast, and get on the road as soon as we stowed the gear, took down the Nimrod, and helped Dad hook it up to the wagon. Nancy made peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for every lunch with no variations. They were long days on the road and some of us got testy (especially my father) sitting in a hot car with a smelly dog that often had to potty, not to mention five children that wanted the trip to be over before it started. I hate to say this, but riding in that car for all those hours was not a picnic in the park for me, and I don’t believe the Drive Days were much fun for my siblings, either.

This is not to say that I hated summers on the road. On the contrary, the advantage of sitting on the rear-facing seat had to do with my passion for reading. In the back, I could stretch out and read the entire time we were on the road without supervision or too much interruption from my siblings or my parents. Nancy was an avid reader too, only she speed-read books, sometimes finishing a novel in a day. We had a cardboard box in one of the Nimrod’s drawers, where we all stored books to read. Some were kid’s books; the rest were adult books. When one finished a book, it went back into the box for others to read.

The first couple of summers, I read typical books that were age-appropriate, like Little House on the Prairie, books on animals, Nancy Drew Mysteries, Alice in Wonderland, the Secret Garden, and similar fare. Living in the country and far away from a library, we all depended on the Book Mobile for our reading material. An ancient man drove the Book Mobile. Even though he was friendly, he became a kind of book censor if I selected anything he deemed inappropriate. I learned how to fool him, though, by saying that such and such book was for my father or my mother. He looked at me sternly but let me select books featuring animal and bird behavior, Native American history and American history, and anything else that tweaked my fancy. Soon, I began to check out novels like Flicka, Black Beauty, the Call of the Wild, Watership Down, and stories featuring horses, which I love and covet to this day.

However, when the more typical books bored me, I snuck my mother’s novels from the book box after she’d read them. I hid them under a pillow on the rear-facing seat, and no one could see what I was reading that far away. And boy, were her novels an eye-opener for a teenage girl in the late ‘50s and early ‘60s. What my mother never ever discussed with me, like menstruation and sex, I ended up learning (to some extent) in her speed-reading novels. I also read some of the best of her ‘good books’ like Hawaii, The Agony and the Ecstasy, and one of my all-time favorites, To Kill a Mockingbird. However, most of my mother’s books were trashy. When I didn’t understand something, I’d rush to read past it because that sort of thing bothered me for reasons I could not describe at the time. But I discovered that reading was like an open window that allowed me to observe flawed characters with more personality faults than I thought I had...and that sometimes those flawed characters went on to do good deeds. Realizing this helped me to understand there was hope for me.

I cannot recall which of her books she caught me reading (it might have been Peyton Place), but the uproar that occurred was something else. After the first year of touring the country, my parents slept in the station wagon for reasons I didn’t understand for years. They always parked the car as far away from the Nimrod as possible. I thought they had gone to bed one evening, so I was reading one of her trashy novels by the light of a Coleman Lantern while sitting on the picnic bench at our campsite. Mom snatched the book from my hands like I had stolen the Holy Grail and hollered for my father to come over and see what HIS sneaky daughter had been doing on the sly. Needless to say, I didn’t get to finish that book until years later. I figured it must’ve had good stuff in it by how they both reacted, but most of the sexy parts would have been way over my head at the time. My motto soon became.... when confused about reading something shocking or risque’, don’t ask Bob or Nancy; skip over it.

You may wonder what these experiences have to do with being a Guardian of the Road. Becoming familiar with the mind of a Guardian of the Road like me helps you to understand my background and the evolution of my idiosyncratic principles. So please stick with me here. You’ll get to know the real me by reading related experiences that formed my philosophies about man’s role in protecting the creatures on this earth of ours.

*

One of our first long road trips took us through Kansas. I had rarely been outside West Virginia, so I enjoyed seeing these new states we visited or traveled through. Bob kept track of them on a map with colored push pins, which we all loved to study. Most kids in the car spent some time sleeping, as long trips did that to young children. Along with reading, I liked to analyze the landscapes of new places, like Kansas.

Back in the ‘50s, interstate highways were uncommon. Then, under President Dwight Eisenhower, Congress passed a massive interstate roads program to help soldiers returning from the war find employment and improve the country's infrastructure. But the new roads took years to complete, so my father had to use what we’d now call secondary roads. Those roads, like US 60 in West Virginia, were a picture postcard sampling of each state’s offerings, with mom-and-pop stores, old-fashioned gas stations, quaint downtowns from another era, country restaurants, and small-time attractions littering the landscape that I’d watch fly by from the rear window of our car.

It was necessary to stop for gas a few times each day, so we used that stop to tinkle the dog and go to the bathroom in often shabby facilities that were off-putting to kids accustomed to a clean place to do their business. I loved stopping anywhere because, like my siblings, I hoped Dad might buy us a soda or ice cream if we were quick and behaved admirably, which we did most of the time. Even the little ones knew this could be an opportunity for at least a penny candy from a Woolworths or grocery store.

After driving through Kansas for quite some time, the land and terrain looked bleak, with few towns and no attractions I could identify. We were on our way to Pike’s Peak and the Gardens of the Gods in Colorado Springs, so we still had a couple of days driving ahead of us. As the late morning turned into late afternoon, the sky had changed to a soft inky gray, and fast clouds were moving in from the west. My mother pulled out the maps and tried to determine where we were in relation to where Dad had projected we’d stop for the night. She tried her best, but map reading was not her thing. My brother Rob was great at map reading, so he took it from her hands and studied the red line our father had drawn through the state, signifying our route. They discussed our predicament, then concluded that we still had a hundred more miles to go until reaching the small campground he’d booked for the night.

Dad chewed on this for a while but kept looking up through the windshield at the ever-darkening sky. Finally, he grunted, then said we’d better find a nearby place to set up off the main road since it looked like it might rain. He turned onto what appeared to be a county road and went about a mile until we all saw a sign saying City Reservoir. Beyond the sign was a fairly large body of water with no houses and only a few trees around the perimeter. It wasn’t picturesque, just a bare landscape with no people, no other cars in sight, and nothing much to say about it. Although unremarkable, I still remember that image today.

Dad pulled perpendicular to the reservoir and stopped short of the edge that overlooked the reservoir below us. We all piled out to judge our surroundings for the upcoming night. It was uninspiring but more important to me…I could not see a bathroom anywhere. That was the worst part of staying the night along some lonesome road in the middle of nowheresville America. No bathrooms meant that at some point... we’d all have to grab a roll of toilet paper and head off to a distant tree and do our business in Plein-air, as we artists would say, or in our case, out in the open where someone might see us take a poop. Great.

Once we’d disconnected the Nimrod from the car, Dad, Rob, and I jockeyed the pop-up into position so the rear windows faced the lake and the axle pointed away from it. The Nimrod was now parked beside the station wagon, about twenty feet between them. Dad announced that it would do for a night and wiped his hands on his pants. Then we set up the Nimrod, which included popping up the two side ‘wings’ of the structure, unzipping the flaps over the windows, and getting the weird-looking thing ready for the night.

Nancy was scrounging around in the cooler when we heard a car approaching. I had not even noticed that the sky had become darker in the short time we’d been working. Then, finally, we could see that the car wasn’t just ordinary; it had the words SHERIFF on the side, and blue lights were flashing on the dome. Dad asked us to come closer to him just as the car pulled behind the station wagon. A tall man in an officer’s uniform unfolded himself out of the vehicle and walked over to where we were all standing.

“Hello,” Bob said to him in a pleasant yet cautious tone.

“Hey, there,” said the man with a badge on his shirt that read Deputy Sheriff. “You people plan on staying the night here?” And he gestured toward the Nimrod and the lake.

“Yes, if that’s okay,” Dad replied.

“Well, sir, I am sorry to tell you this, but a major tornado is heading this way. I am out trying to identify anyone that could be in its path.”

“A tornado?” Bob asked, sounding like he hadn’t quite heard the man right.

“Yep, but it’s too late for you to move along; not enough time to get out of its way.”

“What should we do? We’re on vacation and live in West Virginia. We have children with us and a... dog.”

The man pointed to the Nimrod. “Tie that thing down as best you can. I think the strong winds could blow it away if you don’t. Use whatever rope you have, and string yourself a line in case you have to walk around in the high winds. I’d say you’ll absolutely need to stay in the car. That’s your best bet to get through this....”. He looked over at Angela, the youngest of this bunch. She was holding onto our mother’s shirttails.

“Goodness,” Dad said, shock on his face, hands jammed into his pockets.

“Don’t stand here talking to me, sir; there’s not much time. Get the little ones in the car, and once the big winds blow in, start saying your prayers.” He turned toward his vehicle. “Sorry I can’t stay and help you folks... I still have people to check on before the tornado hits.” He tipped his hat to my mother, then said to Dad, “God be with you.”

I reasoned that this was much scarier than the low-water bridge. Everyone quickly went into action. Mom and I took charge of getting the younger kids and the dog back in the car, then we went to the Nimrod, jammed stuff into a paper bag, and found some food that would be easy and quick for us to eat. Dad was at the back of the Nimrod. I watched as he untied a large loop of rope wrapped around a brace supporting the spare tire. Soon, Dad and Rob had a line strung from the car to the pop-up, which was what the deputy had suggested to safely move around our campsite when high winds hit us.

I vividly recall the entire family sitting in the car once the rain began and the winds started howling. We could see the water before us for a while, but soon almost everything turned black. I almost think it was a mercy because we had no way to judge what was going on, except that the car rocked on its wheels, and the sounds were frightening with each passing hour.

The worst part, I think, was the sounds. Mom tried to roll her window down, but the force of the wind against the glass was so powerful that she did not have the strength. We heard a terrible crash, then a splash. Even though Nancy objected strenuously, Bob decided to go outside and check on the Nimrod. I was scared, and I knew my siblings were as well. When he forced the door open, the scream of the wind made some of the kids cry. I felt like crying, too, but I held back the tears. I was too concerned about my father to worry about myself at that point.

It seemed ages, but the door opened with a thud in a few minutes, and Dad climbed into the driver’s seat. It looked like it took all his strength to shut the car door behind him. While he was doing that, the sounds of the wind outside the car and the force of the rain against the car’s windows were almost more than I could bear. First, I heard Penny whine, then cry, and I could smell she’d tinkled on her towel. I would’ve done the same if I could, but somehow, I resisted. There was no way I’d go out in that terrible storm to do my business with those awful sounds.

Dad explained that he’d gone outside to check that the ropes he’d used to tie down the Nimrod were holding fast. We could hear the Nimrod’s window coverings flapping, and it sounded like the pop-up was shifting from side to side. He said that, so far, the Nimrod was hanging on, but we’d have to see how things turned out in the morning. His shirt was soaked, his hair was plastered to his scalp, and his face looked drawn to me. I was glad he was in charge. At that moment, some of my fears disappeared, knowing he’d not let anything happen to us.

Penny whined again. I looked down and remembered she’d been sitting on a wet towel. Mom found a paper bag and two extra towels from under her seat. One she handed to me along with the bag for the dirty towel; the other she gave to Dad so he could dry his hair and shirt. I tucked the bag with Penny’s wet towel behind the second bench seat, intending to take care of it in the morning. I slipped the clean towel under Penny, and she licked my face when I urged her to settle down. We ate peanut butter and jelly sandwiches that my mother made, then most of us tried to find a comfortable way to sleep on the bench seat. Without warning, I heard my mother’s soft, southern voice. She was singing a song, a prayer we all knew from church.

Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound

that saves a wretch like me. I once was lost,

but now I’m found, was blind, but now I see.

I fell into a fitful sleep not long after that. The scene before me was frightening when I opened my eyes the next morning. It is still etched in my memory.

“Oh, my God!” Nancy said and pointed outside. “Y’all, look at that!”

The reservoir was no longer a small body of water. Now it looked like a large lake. Since the area where we’d parked was on higher ground, we had escaped the flooding. In the reservoir were logs, boards, tons of trash, downed trees, and a couple of houses and other structures floating like boats on the water. I spotted a dog, a border collie, I think, perched on the roof of one of the houses, and I cried out. We could see him clearly, shaking and whining and then barking. Finally, out of nowhere, a man appeared in a rowboat, heading toward the shivering dog. The only part of the house we could see was the black roof; the rest of the structure was underwater.

Dad interrupted our thoughts, “Hey, look over there.” He pointed to the right.

Next to us stood the Nimrod, and it seemed like it had taken the force of a major tornado with nothing more damaging than a very wet canvas cover. We looked to our father to make sure it was alright to get out of the wagon, and he nodded.

The first out of the car was Penny, the good girl that she was, and she raced off to a middle-distant spot and did what she’d needed to do for hours. Soon, we’d all gone to the bathroom, which was a relief. Dad was busy checking the inside of the Nimrod, and Mom was trying to find something we could all eat for breakfast. The only thing she came up with was cereal with warm milk. I didn’t care about food at that point since I was focused on the man in the rowboat, trying his best to urge the dog to jump into the water. Once in the water, he must’ve figured he’d be able to get the Border Collie into the boat. I was about to go closer when the dog took off like a bird, seemed to sail through the air, then landed gracefully on the water’s surface with a loud splash.

We could all hear the man yell, “There ya go, Laddie. Now come to papa, sweet dog, come to papa...” And the Border Collie quickly swam the distance between them until he was close enough for the man to put his arm around the dog and pull him into the boat. Of course, I cheered at that, and so did my family. It was great to see the dog sitting happily next to his master while the man was rowing toward shore.

The sheriff’s deputy from the night before stopped by after we'd packed everything and were about to head west. He was pleased to see that we’d made it through the storm and wished us luck on the rest of our journey.

Dad drove past the Kansas border and then into Colorado before he pulled off the road in a town that looked large enough to have a laundromat. Our sleeping bags were soaked from the rain, and so were some clothes and other things near Nimrod’s windows. It took time to dry them all before we hit the road again. Until his last day on earth, I would bet that my father cursed Kansas. During our many summer vacations on the road, we often passed through this state and had strange things happen there, putting us behind on his beloved schedule.

*

INSIGHTS IN A HAYFIELD

Several other times, the family had to stay the night in a place that did not have campsites or bathrooms. One such time comes to mind.

I believe I was about 15 years old that summer. Dad had driven hard all day, but there were no campgrounds within a hundred and fifty miles. We were on our way west to California, using a more northern route this time. I am unsure which state we were in when we stopped for the night, but I believe it was Missouri. We set up the Nimrod in a field of freshly mowed hay. It was a beautiful evening, so Bob built a fire under the most brilliant spectacle of stars in a clear night sky. We sat on the camping stools, and my sister Jill and I sang camp songs. They were songs no one else knew, but we didn’t care.

A movement caught my eye, and I glanced over at my parents. They looked at each other with so much love that I smiled. Bob and Nancy's love story was not uncommon during the war years, but lovely just the same. My father wrote about it in a short memoir he finished a few years before he passed away.

            In 1943, Bob was a student in chemical engineering, awaiting deployment to the European front in the war. While stationed at a local military base, he took coursework at Virginia Polytechnic Institute, VPI, near Blacksburg, Virginia. It was there that he met Nancy, the future love of his life. She lived in Roanoke with her widowed mother and worked for the Draft Board. There were many soldiers in town on the weekends, and girls from Roanoke would attend dances with them at the Hotel Patrick Henry. Bob and his friends, Mike and Bull, stopped at the hotel one evening. Mike was the tall, handsome one of the men and asked Nancy for a dance. Later the three soldiers ran into her at a bus stop with two of her girlfriends. Nancy admired Mike’s uniform, saying she wondered ‘how he could walk straight with all those medals on his chest.’ She had a soft southern accent, reddish-blond hair that touched her thin shoulders, slender legs, and a sweet smile. Bob was hooked.

Nancy and her girlfriends would go on group dates with the three soldiers. Even though Nancy seemed to favor Mike, although he felt rejected, Bob was driven to win her heart. He did anything he could to catch her attention and, if possible, did his best to impress her. One weekend, while Mike was visiting an old girlfriend, Bob went to Roanoke, hoping to call on Nancy, but couldn’t find the right phone number. Then he took a bus to her house but decided he could not two-time his best friend and left without seeing her. Bob's hope soared when the girls invited the three men to Nancy’s house for their first home-cooked dinner in six months. For dessert, they served the most delicious lemon pie Bob had ever eaten. Nancy took credit for the pie, but years later Bob learned she could not bake and that the real chef was Nancy's siter Margaret.

The three men were shipped out by train to Camp Claiborne, Louisiana. While awaiting deployment to Europe, Bob sent a heartfelt letter to Nancy, asking for permission to write to her while he was overseas, and she agreed. After that, almost every day from bunker to foxhole, he wrote her V-Mails (Victory Mail operated during WWII to expedite mail service for American forces abroad), and she replied in kind. It was the ultimate of long-distance relationships. Over time, they became friends through their letters and eventually more than friends.

In February of 1946, Bob was shipped home. He went to Kenmore, New York, to visit his mother, put new tires on his 1940 Chevy convertible, and took off south for Roanoke, Virginia, with no idea whether the dream he’d worked on for almost two years during the war would become a reality, or whether he’d be rejected once again.

He was so excited he drove straight through, arriving in the early evening. Nancy was home, but her mother was out of town. So that there would be a proper chaperone, she asked a friend to come over. They sat in the living room of her mother’s house and talked for a long time, then went out to dinner, where they discovered that what they’d thought was a romantic dream during war times really had come true. After dinner, they returned to her house, where Bob professed his undying love. It was their first date; they had never kissed or even held hands, but both felt that they had come to love each other through their letters. Bob asked her to marry him, and Nancy agreed.

I did not know all the details of their love story until I read my father’s memoir decades later. Over the years, they would mention how they’d met and tell various funny antidotes. It was easy to see they were passionate about each other. Nevertheless, both had hot tempers, and I hated it when they would argue. It ruined my idealized version of how two happily married people acted together. You know, like the perfect mother in the Lassie series, where she never complained, never raised her voice, and wore a dress and gloves to pull weeds. And her ever-smiling husband was so even-keeled and always agreed with her. But even though they raised their voices and sometimes fought like two kids on a playground, in my heart, I knew Bob and Nancy were fiercely devoted to each other. The love on their faces that night by the campfire stays with me still. I did not realize it at the time, but that evening gave me an insight into my parent’s complicated yet loving life together.

We all drifted off to our beds for the night; Rob, Jill, Angel, and young Rex and I crawled into our sleeping bags in the Nimrod. Mom and Dad disappeared into the blue station wagon and their well-used blow-up mattress.

At the crack of dawn, something made me open my eyes. I turned to see that Angela was asleep. I remained completely still, for something had awakened me, a sound, maybe? Then I heard a rustling and a soft keening like that of a newborn baby. It was not my imagination. Outside the Nimrod, a strange thing was happening; I was sure of it. There were four canvas windows, one on each side and two in the back. Since my sleeping bag was close to one of the side windows, I scooted closer and tried to peek outside between a crack in the cover and the screen. It was almost dawn, but I couldn’t see much of anything. I climbed over my sleeping sisters and managed to get down from the raised platform where we slept. I stood on the floor between the two platforms and waited to see if I’d awakened my siblings. No one moved. Underneath that platform were metal drawers, where we stored canned goods, books, clothes, towels, and flashlights. As quietly as possible, I slid the drawer open, took out a flashlight, and smiled. Yes!

There was only one door in the Nimrod. It faced the front. The top of the door was canvas, and the bottom was metal. Slowly I turned the knob on the metal door, pushed it out without letting go of the knob, bent down under the canvas, turned on my flashlight, and finally felt safe enough to shine it out into the hayfield.

“Come on out,” my father said softly, and I jumped but quickly breathed a sigh of relief. Then he added mysteriously, “See who’s come to greet us.” He reached in, helped me down, and then held my hand. Dad was also holding a flashlight and turned the light away from him.

He nodded his head toward the pasture. “Look there, Kathy, what do you think of that?”

When he stopped speaking, the sounds I had heard while in the Nimrod suddenly got louder. I leaned forward, trying hard to figure out what was making those strange noises.

“It’s a large herd of sheep...hundreds of them,” he said. “They’ve circled the car and the Nimrod. I think they are curious about us. They’ve probably never seen a Nimrod before. Look over there; you can see them now.”

A flicker of light broke through the horizon, and a dull glow flowed over the land before me. That’s when I smiled. Scores of sheep were now visible, mewing, chomping, and stomping to beat the band. They were white and tan and brown and black, and I was thrilled by their delightful surprise. Dad was right; they had surrounded us.

“Don’t be afraid; they won’t hurt us. Sheep are pretty friendly critters,” Dad said. “Let’s wake your mother and get the others up. They need to see this, too.” And so we did.

I remember that moment with my father like it was yesterday. My brothers and sisters, Mom and Dad, were all standing in front of the Nimrod and smiling at the amazing sight around us. Hundreds of sheep filled our vision, and if I had to use one word to describe it, that word would be... enchanting.

We all remember the events of our past a bit differently from those who shared them with us. But that morning in the hayfield with sheep coming close enough for us to pet them, my brothers, sisters, and I all agree. It was a thrilling experience we’ll never forget.

*

HOLLY RIVER STATE PARK

There are now 37 State Parks in West Virginia. I don’t know if they were all in operation when my family spent summers in the beautiful parks of my home state. My parents decided that camping in places like Holly River State Park would be a good way to foster healthy outdoor experiences for their children, not to mention it was relatively close to home. We went there often through the years; that’s how much we liked it. And that’s why the Nimrod camper was crucial. We hauled it there, parked it, and only left the grounds to buy food or go sightseeing.

During the ‘50s and ‘60s, it took 4 hours to drive from Charleston to Holly River on roads as bad as U.S Rt. 60. Now, one can take the Interstate part of the way, but it is still necessary to drive on secondary roads for a good while. I’d venture to say that Holly River is one of the top ten out-of-the-way parks in the state, which is a bragging point if you ask me.

Analyzing that experience now, I think camping in West Virginia was so special to me because we always gravitated to the remote, mountainous areas, both in-state and on vacations out of state. Yes, we went across the country to Salt Lake City and thought it amazing, or Los Angeles, where we hoped to spot a movie star, or New York City, where my father was always nervous about our safety (remember that was in the 60s). But the places we all remember most now were out-of-the-way parks like Holly River. Not only did we have to take convoluted roads through small mountain towns to get there. But, once we entered the park, it was as if we’d traveled back to another era when brave pioneers had to chop down trees and cut back tangled vines to forge through to a new frontier. That was how I felt then, like a pioneer, searching in the wilderness for the best place to build my cabin. You know, like Daniel Boone. During the 1780s, Boone settled for a while near the mouth of the Kanawha River in what was then known as western Virginia.

Holly River State Park is the second-largest park in West Virginia. It is in Webster County, near the tiny town of Hacker Valley, and about two hours from our home. The other town names in that area speak for themselves: Guardian, Replete, Fishers Crossing, Birch River, Ireland, Caress, and French Creek, to name a few. The closest larger city is Morgantown, less than two hours away today. Can’t you imagine surveyors in the mid-1700s setting up camp on a creek that the French trappers used as a trading post? I can!

Surprisingly, campgrounds had and have a competitive edge to them. Families like ours would drive slowly through the grounds looking for the perfect campsite. My sister Jill reminded me that if we spotted a good site, Dad would drop one of the kids off to unofficially claim it while we drove around to see if there was a better one. Once the final site was found, someone would go back and pick up the kids. We did not want a campsite too near the bathrooms, but we also didn’t want to have to walk far if we had to go to the bathroom, especially at night. It was a strategic decision that my mother was especially good at.

If the park was full, which it often was in the summer and weekends, choosing the best neighbor, if possible, was crucial. If we camped next to hippies (I was one, later on, so don’t judge me) who stayed up all night playing folk songs on out-of-tune guitars, no one, including my parents, would get any sleep. The very best neighbors to camp next to were, forgive me, old folks. They couldn’t hear music or loud children anymore; they went to bed early and loved to talk. That was a positive attribute since my mother never met a stranger, and she’d sit and talk to them for hours, thus losing track of her kids, who’d slipped off to go swimming.

There was so much to do at Holly River. They had a great swimming pool that was close to the campgrounds. All of us were good swimmers; some, like my brothers Rob and Rex and father, Bob, were almost champions on the diving board, so we could often be found at the pretty pool nestled in the forest. Since Holly River was safe, our parents allowed us much more freedom there. The park had an enticing (for us kids) commissary where we could not only get the necessities, like ice, food, canned goods, toilet paper, and soap, but there were also jars of penny candy on the counter that were as tempting to us, as a casino is to a gambler. We all had sweet tooths and loved candy, so ahead of our vacation, we’d scrounge for change in anticipation of our sweet addictions. The critical point was that our parents let us roam the park unsupervised at Holly River. That didn’t usually happen at campgrounds we visited out of state.

At a campground in the Smokies, one of my siblings hid chocolate under their pillow in the Nimrod. During the night, a black bear made his way inside...while we were asleep...and stole the candy. We all woke as it crashed back through the camper, trying to leave... with the chocolate in its hands. None of the kids ever did that again. Dad made sure. At night, for a while, he’d check under the pillows for the tell-tale signs of chocolate.

Along with swimming and eating candy, you could hike at Holly River for days and still not see everything. Some trails had stunning waterfalls, and others had steep, narrow waterfalls that meandered down the mountainside. Holly River is located in a narrow valley between two mountain ranges, so some hiking trails were more than strenuous. Nevertheless, we hiked them, sometimes as a family, sometimes with other camp kids.

I learned late in my father’s life that some of his best childhood memories were when his much-loved grandfather took him camping at a lake in upstate New York or when his friend and mentor Sam in North Carolina taught him how to light a fire without matches and the best way to catch fish. My mother camped as a Girl Scout in Roanoke and blew the bugle to wake her Scout camp. So my parents had experience camping and enjoyed it. They had been wise and insightful about their shared goals of teaching us to love camping. It allowed us the freedom to be children in safe places, where the focus was on being outside in Nature and learning that exercise was actually fun. It was an incredibly ambitious goal, and I will be forever grateful for their gift.

Until this particular summer vacation at Holly River, I had not paid much attention to boys my age or any age. They were just not on my radar. I had other interests that drew my attention, and besides, the years of being bullied had taken a toll. As a result, I did not allow many children outside of those in my family or at church to get close to me. For the most part, I still follow that approach to this day. I’d rather spend my time with animals, close friends, and family than with most other people.

The fact that we had the run of the park made it possible for me to meet new kids my own age with no predetermined ideas about me. I was just another kid eager for a good time. Some of my siblings and I hung out with what I’ll call camp kids at the pool or around the commissary. We’d go on hikes together, have swimming competitions at the pool, participate in sing-a-longs at an open-air pavilion, build fires in one of the many bonfire pits available for such things, or go on organized group hikes with naturalists who worked for the park. We’d spend hours listening to them, learning how to identify poisonous plants and reptiles and what to do if we came upon a rattlesnake, copperhead, or water moccasin. How to react if we stumbled upon a black bear, which was numerous in the wilderness areas of the park, and who sometimes sought out food where people camped.

On such a Nature hike, I suddenly noticed two boys my age hanging around me. I initially didn’t make much of it, thinking they were trying to stay close to the park ranger to hear what he had to say. But no, they seemed more interested in what I had to say or did, for that matter. Then I’d notice them at the pool; they’d try to splash me to get my attention. One of the boys was short, had reddish-brown hair, and talked a lot and loudly. He seemed nice, and I got the impression he was funny. Someone told me his name was Marty. The other boy was taller than most of the kids in his group, with longish black hair and wide-set brown eyes. I heard someone call him Harry. I noticed that he didn’t talk much and seemed to be on the shy side. Harry, I thought, cute name, nice eyes.

I was unaware that I had also started to be interested in them. Now, I imagine it was a natural thing to do, but then, not so much. Later, as we were driving home from our vacation, I realized I must’ve turned a corner, and maybe, just maybe, I was becoming a real teenager.

After dinner one evening, I was reading a book at the picnic table when Harry strolled into our campsite. I looked up, and he smiled at me. I felt my heart flutter, and I still remember the funny feeling I had in my stomach when he approached. Everyone was out and about, so I was there alone. He sat down at the picnic table and asked for my name. I told him, and he smiled again. Harry wondered if I wanted to take a walk up to the pavilion so we could watch a movie. I was so tongue-tied that I could only nod. We walked side by side up to the pavilion, and on the way there, he asked me questions: how old was I, where did I live, what grade was I going into at school, and on and on. I answered but was so flabbergasted that I didn’t ask him any questions about himself. I loved his voice; it was different than the high-pitched voices of the boys in my class. Harry’s tone was what I’d now call throaty. I was hypnotized by Harry.... who knows what his last name was....and at that point, I didn’t care.

I cannot tell you what movie we watched because Harry sat so close to me that our arms touched. Never in my life until that time did I have such a strange feeling inside. We were hiking back toward the campground when Marty stepped out from a nearby path. He tried to be funny, but it fell flat. He walked behind us for a while, but when we ignored him, he faded into the night. We were almost back to my campsite when Harry stopped. What he said to me still makes me smile.

“Kathy, I like you. I am glad you are going to be here for a while longer. Would you mind if I asked you for a big favor?”

I shook my head, wordless again.

“I have never kissed a girl before, and I decided I like you so much that I want my first kiss to be with you.” He stepped closer to me and looked down into my eyes.

“Sure,” I said, closed my eyes, and waited. It seemed like forever, and then I felt his soft lips on mine. Wow!

I opened my eyes and saw that he was smiling at me again. So, finally, I smiled back.

“You want to go hiking with my sister and me tomorrow?” he asked. “We are meeting a park ranger at ten in front of the commissary.”

“Sure,” I said again. “I’d like that.”

“Good; see you tomorrow, then.” Harry smiled, turned, and disappeared down the path.

Heavens, I thought, that was something! Before I could think about the kiss, the family returned to camp, and I let my thoughts simmer until I had quiet time to chew on them. Harry and I spent most of our vacation at Holly River together. We did a lot of group activities like hiking, swimming, going to movies at the pavilion, and, my favorite, horseback riding. At his farm near Morgantown, Harry explained that his family raised horses which he often rode, loved to groom, and received awards when he showed them at the county fair. Sometimes we held hands, but not always. I truly believe we were content to be together with no expectations.

We were comfortable with each other enough that I told him about the bullying I had experienced. Since I’d be going to junior high school in the fall, I was hoping that ninth grade would be better, but I feared a repeat of my previous experience. The sympathy I saw in his eyes brought tears to mine. He told me a practice he used to deal with bullies, said it worked, and suggested I try it. I utilized that advice many times as a teenager and an adult. Harry was right; it worked. He was one of the best listeners I’ve ever known, and his quiet manner belied an inner strength that I admired and envied. I did not realize it then, but it would be long before I found someone else of his character. When I did, I married him.

We took a long walk to the pool the last evening at Holly River. We kissed again, and it was nice but not earth-shattering. Nevertheless, Harry will be forever in my heart and was most assuredly my first boyfriend. We did not write, and we did not speak to each other again,

but I feel sure he’d agree we didn’t need to. We literally and figuratively brought each other across the line between childhood and young adulthood. Nonetheless, my time with him would be invaluable in shortening my learning curve... when it came to understanding boys.

There are so many other stories I could tell you about vacationing with my family. Still, I’ll have to save them for another time. So instead, I have a couple of final stories about my teenage summers: Camp Carlisle and Backstory. You’ll see some of what influenced my progression from a child who loved animals to an adult who advocates for them as a Guardian of the Road. Look for Blog Post #8 Coming Soon!