Hike Day at Camp

   Fr. Early quieted the Mess Hall so that he could take a poll on how many campers would go on which hike.  There were four hikes: Blue Hole, Mosby's Cave, Devil's Backbone, and the Nature Center.  Scott had already established Mosby’s Cave as the most popular hike and, since the cave could be dangerous, Padre always went on this one.  Polk liked to lead the hike to the Blue Hole.  The big attraction to this hike was to have a mud ball fight in the creek but, when a camper got hit in the eye the summer before, and had to leave camp to have surgery, Fr. Jubal Early  outlawed the mud ball fight and few campers wanted to go with Polk.  The hike to the Blue Hole was frequently cancelled.  George liked taking the oldest kids with him and he spent the first part of the week recruiting them to go on his hike.  It was call the Devil’s Backbone and, by mileage, it was the longest hike.  The highlight of the hike was grabbing onto a thick metal wire which helped to guide the campers down a steep, rock infested, hill.  The final hike was with Franklin.  He liked to take the youngest campers to the Nature Center.  It was a short hike and they were always the first back to camp and were fed peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and bug (grape) juice.

   After breakfast the campers were allowed time for a cabin clean up and to use the bathroom.  They were given an hour to get ready and then everyone met up at the camp fire ring where each hike was dismissed to go on their adventure.  The Mosby’s Cave hike always left first because it was the largest and was unpredictable in terms of how long it would take the campers to get through the cave.  Scott made a final count of how many kids were going with him, gave the number to Fr. Jubal Early and was on his way.  George was next and he followed the same routine.  Finally, Franklin gave his number to Padre and the little ones, most of whom were only nine or ten years old, made the short hike to the Nature Center.  Once everyone had left Fr. Jubal Early hustled down the trail to catch up with Scott.  Some of the older campers noticed that he was running late and that is why they thought that padre was the Lone Eagle.

   The administration of Forrest State Park had fenced off the entrance to Mosby’s Cave for safety reasons and only Fr. Jubal Early had a key to the gate.  Before Scott allowed any of the campers in he had them place their towels outside of the entrance so that they had a way of drying off once the cave tour was over.  The campers had been told several times to bring a towel and a flashlight but, because they were so young, inevitably only a few of the campers remembered to bring these basic supplies.  After just a few yards of standing up straight, the cave narrowed and the ceiling lowered so that the campers had to bend down to avoid stalactites encroaching from above, or shimmy through a small opening to progress to the back of the cave.  At “Fat Man’s Misery,” at about half way through the tour, the campers had to wade through a pool of waist deep water.  Scott was prepared for this and he told the campers that at this point of the cave tour they were allowed to yell one cuss word once.  The boys loved this part of the hike and would yell their curse word more than once.  Twelve year old boys had a surprising large vocabulary of curse words for their age and they used a variety of curse words to express their displeasure at having to sink their butts into the water.  Meanwhile, Scott shouted “Numb Nuts” loudly and often because those two words aptly described his predicament.

   The campers made their way to the back of the cave and waited for the stragglers to catch up.  Once they were all together Scott told a quick story of how Mosby’s Cave was named after the Confederate general who used the cave as a hiding place during the Civil War.  Then the whole group of thirty kids turned around and made their way back to the entrance of the cave.  It was remarkable how hot it felt outside of the cave, especially since the campers had been wading through the cold water for a good part of the tour.  They laughed as they made their way up the trail, having been through the crucible, and were proud that they had notched one more anecdote on the stick of experience that would ultimately lead to manhood.  Slowly they made their way to the river for lunch.

   Meanwhile, George led the Devil’s Backbone hike; or, as the other counselor’s liked to call it, The Death March of Bataan.  It had earned that nickname because George liked to hike as far and as fast as the time would permit.  The Backbone hardly had a trail.  It was only two to three feet wide and was in constant danger of being overgrown with weeds.  The first major obstacle was the steep hill, punctuated with several small cliffs, where the campers had to hold onto a thick steel wire to make it down safely.  The wire had small, sharp prongs protruding from it so George encouraged the campers to hold onto tree roots and thick vines on the way down.  Once at the bottom of the Backbone, the campers liked to look back up at how far they descended.  This done, George hiked the campers so far back in the woods that they were on the edge of the boundary of Forrest State Park. 

   After wading through the waist deep water, the fun of the hike seemed to be drained from the campers.  They still had a long way to go but now their clothes were damp and their shoes were wet.  To make better time to the meeting place on the river, George took a shortcut by hiking on the railroad tracks.  He knew that Fr. Jubal Early would be looking at his watch and scanning the horizon, waiting to see George hiking down the trail towards the lunch at the campground.  George was always the last hike leader to make it to lunch so Padre wouldn’t be too concerned if he was a little late.  Besides, George loved to hear the campers complain about how hard the hike was; he remembered that it was those same campers who, just three days before, had kept him up half of Sunday night when they were challenging each other not to fall asleep.  They would sleep well at the end of hike day.

   When George finally arrived at the campground, and everyone had their drinks and hotdogs, there was an expression of relief that the ordeal was over, almost as if they had just completed some sort of campaign in a long forgotten war. 

        Polk and Josh led the hike to the “Blue Hole.”  It was a short hike and the only pay off was to play in the creek for awhile.  However, Polk was in his element.  He liked to pretend that he was in the Marines and his favorite nickname for the campers was “maggots.”  After the summer was over, Polk was going to enlist.  Meanwhile, he liked to call cadence and the campers loved to get in on the act with their response.  Polk started out with…

       He was just a rookie trooper and he surely shook with fright.
       He checked off his equipment and made sure his pack was tight
       He had to sit and listen to those awful engines roar
       He ain’t gonna jump no more.”

   And then the campers joined in on the refrain.  
       Gory! Gory! What a hell of a way to die 
       Gory! Gory! What a hell of a way to die 
       Gory! Gory! What a hell of a way to die
       He ain’t gonna jump no more.”  
.
   After a few more verses, Polk switched to another old favorite.
       Hey, Hey Captain Jack
       Meet me down by the railroad track
       With a rifle in my hand 
       Lord I’m going to be a fighting man
       Sound Off! One! Two!
       Sound Off! Three! Four! 
       Bring it on down! One! Two! Three! Four! One! Two! Three! Four

   The campers loved the call and response and begged Polk to do another cadence.  For some reason it made the boys feel more grown up and manly.  So Polk went on…
       My pants are loose, my shoes too tight. 
       My balls are swinging from left to right.
       Say “Um. Oogawah.”  We’ve got Van Dorn Power

   It was all in good fun and the campers would take these chants back home with them and sing the songs to their parents.  This was just a few years into the post Vietnam War and a lot of the parents didn’t like some of the militaristic aspects of Camp Van Dorn.

   The Nature Center hike didn’t go down to the river for lunch, so “The Blue Hole,” always arrived first for lunch.  Aside from leading the cadence, the next best thing about his hike was tricking the campers into believing that he had McDonald’s take out waiting for them at the river.  All that they had to do was to pick up garbage on the way to lunch.  There was a lot of debate among the campers as to if there really was going to be McDonalds waiting for them.  Polk had already prepped the Flatheads for his little trick and when the campers approached the picnic area Lo and Skirrel began to sing the McDonalds jingle.  It was a small thing but any time the counselors could play mind games with the campers then they never failed to let and opportunity go by.  

        The hike to the nature center was for the campers who were too young to go on the other hikes or for the kids who didn’t want to get wet.  Franklin brought a book with him and let the campers walk around while he read.  There wasn’t a lot to the nature center, just some boring displays and a few animals that had been captured but were too sick or hurt to be sent back into the wild.  Since these were the younger campers, they had short attention spans and finished their tour quickly.  This was the only hike that didn’t go to the river so Richard made them sandwiches for lunch and sat with them while they ate.  After they had their sandwiches, the youngest kids had the complete run of the camp until the other hikers came back and they really liked that they were in charge for awhile.

   The three main hikes met down at the river for hotdogs, chips, and Bug Juice.  The kids weren’t used to eating outside so having their lunch by the river seemed like an adventure.  Fr. Early allowed them to take their time and they sat and watched as the boats and barges sailed on by on the Holston River.  Both campers and counselors were tired so it was a long slog to get back to Camp Van Dorn.  Their shoulders were stooped, their heads were bent down, and their shoes made a sloshing sound because they were filled with water after wading through the creek or Mosby’s Cave.  

   There was an open field on the way back to camp that was never used by anyone because there was no drainage system for it and fetid water was everywhere.  For some reason, Polk made it a practice to run and dive, face first, into the slimy water.  He skidded off the surface, slid a few feet, and then got up and did it again.  His excuse was that he was already wet and dirty from his time in “The Blue Hole” so a little more water and mud weren’t going to make a difference, and he even chided the other counselors for not joining in on the “fun.”  It was disgusting because the water stank and was filled with mosquitos.  The campers, and not a few of the counselors, thought that Polk had gone too far with this exercise in foolishness, which is probably why he did it.

   When they finally made it back to camp both campers and counselors immediately went to their cabins to lie down and take a nap.  Usually it was a chore to get the campers to settle down during rest period but after a long hike, that wasn’t a problem.  The general feeling was that everyone had earned a little down time after expending a weeks’ worth of youthful energy in one day.

   Hike Day was rounded out with time at the pool, ball field after dinner, and finally a movie at the lodge.  It was very relaxing because everyone felt like they had earned the down time after expending so much youthful energy.  The week was half over, the campers had finally settled in, and now Van Dorn was beginning to feel like a second home.

   When George was a camper the movies were shown on an old bedsheet and Fr. Early used a reel to reel projector.  The problem was that he would have to rent the movies, which was extremely expensive to do, and there wasn’t much of a selection.  The Disney movies were boringly wholesome and the titles were limited to features such at “Davy Crockett” and “Pollyanna.”  All of that changed when Padre bought a VCR and a large television.  During the off season, he recorded a lot of movies so there was quite a selection, but even with a lot of titles it was difficult to find a movie that the campers had not seen.  The campers spent an awful amount of time in front of the tube when they were home, especially during the summer, which was one of the reasons why their parents sent them to camp.  There was no way to solve this problem so the campers had to satisfy themselves by rewatching a movie that they had probably seen several times before.

   The main problems with being a counselor at Camp Van Dorn was that there was a lack of privacy; you were always on duty.  George liked to cheat the system a little by slipping out of the back of the lodge during the movie to go to his cabin to read for an hour and a half.  The problem with that was when George turned on his light, it lit up the whole upper unit and telegraphed to the other counselors that he was shirking his duties.  At the next counselor meeting, Danny, the Uber-counselor, chastised George by stating that all counselors should attend all activities.  That was fair and George knew it, especially since it came from Danny.  He stopped skipping out on movie night but he was more than a little upset that everyone knew what everyone else was doing and, of course, felt free to share their opinion.  Everyone knew everyone else’s every move at Van Dorn