Be careful whom you take on a walk

…when I visited Beaver Hollow I had become accustom to taking a short jaunt to a cliff that over looks the camp in the late afternoon. I enjoyed sitting there on the rocky ledge reflecting upon all the work we had accomplished during the day. Mowing the huge lawn, weed eating the surrounding forest back, seeing the progress we had made on what ever project we had going at the present time. It was fun to hear and watch the little kids running around in the field below laughing and playing. Our American and Oregon flags seemed to constantly wave on their gleaming white flag pole in the cool afternoon breezes. Most people who visited camp did not realize the gleaming object on top of our flag pole was actually two aluminum hub caps that my Grandpa Buster had welded together many, many years earlier for another flag pole he had built somewhere. I think for the Wolf Creek Community Center. I don’t remember how I ended up with them but they are proudly mounted on Beaver Hollows flag pole now.

I had been watching this one guy who had traveled to camp with our beat up American heroes. A younger fellow, no visible parts missing, not limping, seemed well spoken, he actually appeared quite normal. I invited him on my walk with me this particular afternoon. We set there together on the cliff edge marveling over natures splendor as the sun slowly sank over the distant mountain tops. That was always the sign for me to get the evening bonfire going so we headed back towards camp. I couldn’t stand it any more. I finally asked him. What’s the deal, why are you hanging out with these guys? He sort of looks downward and scuffs his feet along. Meekly he tells me “I hear voices sometimes”. Naive me, I ask what do these voices say? Glancing over to me he confesses, “some times they tell me to do not very nice things”. I went and picked the pace up a bit so we could get back to camp sooner and start that bonfire.

This Memorial Day I Honor our Veterans

I was fortunate enough when I graduated from high school that there wasn’t a war going on some place in the world. If there had been I would have complied and gone to serve my country like the hundreds of thousands of vets have done before me. I think to some extent I have always felt uncomfortable that I did not serve in the military helping to protect these United States I so proudly live in.   I instead chose to serve in the fire service helping protect our local communities and citizens from harm.
On this hallowed day of remembrance I think the most important thing we can do this Memorial Day is in fact remember those that have fallen, honor those that served, especially those that got banged up like the guys visiting Beaver Hollow and support those who are still serving our country today. Keep their families in our thoughts too because they are also at war missing their loved ones.

When 2nd Lt. James Cathey's body arrived at the Reno Airport , Marines climbed into the cargo hold of the plane and draped the flag over his casket as passengers watched the family gather on the tarmac.

During the arrival of another Marines casket last year at Denver International Airport , Major Steve Beck described the scene as so powerful: 'See the people in the windows? They sat right there in the plane, watching those Marines. You gotta wonder what's going through their minds, knowing that they're on the plane that brought him home,' he said 'They will remember being on that plane for the rest of their lives. They're going to remember bringing that Marine home. And they should.'

The night before the burial of her husband's body, Katherine Cathey refused to leave the casket, asking to sleep next to his body for the last time The Marines made a bed for her, tucking in the sheets below the flag. Before she fell asleep, she opened her laptop computer and played songs that reminded her of 'Cat,' and one of the Marines asked if she wanted them to continue standing watch as she slept. 'I think it would be kind of nice if you kept doing it,' she said. 'I think that's what he would have wanted'

 
I am proud to say I have surrounded myself during my life with people who believe these images are the most powerful they have ever seen next to child birth.

Blackberry pie

…how far can a guy with one leg using crutches to get around, stray? I was reminded by the staff at the Dom before they could come to my camp that rule #1 was not to loose one of the vets over the weekend. Here in only a couple hours I had already lost one. I looked everywhere around the camp grounds for John. I must have been destined to join search and rescue someday as I widened my search pattern. Even being the trained firemen I was, trained to stay calm under pressure, I did become a bit concerned that I could not find the old fart. There’s no way he could have gotten down the narrow pathway leading to the creek, then wade in thigh high water to the other side, could he? After several minutes of almost frantic searching I wade into the water to see if I could find him on the other side of the creek bank. I scramble out through the loose gravel bed and up the opposite bank. Is that moisture on those rocks? Bent over grass leading towards an old mining road? A whacked off bramble brush vine, I yell JOHN. Still quite a distance ahead of me I hear “yeah”. I yell back across the creek to the gold miners and let them know I found John, whew. Working my way up the over grown mining road that was no more then a narrow deer trail now, with blackberry vines growing across it I finally reach my Marine. He was of course dressed in full green camo. Wearing those pants that have all the storage pockets in the legs with one of the pants legs neatly pinned up, because he didn't need it any more. Reaching him I asked, John where you going? Knocking a prickly blackberry vine out of his way with one of his crutches he informs me he’s picking blackberries for a blackberry pie. I now calmly ask him what was he planning on using for a crust and I’ll be damn if he didn’t pull out a small biscuit mix box from one of his storage compartments on his good leg. Using his old army hat as a bowl he had picked the ripest blackberries, stopping periodically to test one for himself. After his hat was nearly full of plump juicy berries we made our way back to camp and back up to the rest of the gang that was still panning for gold. They hadn’t missed John much because it meant more gold for themselves.

<  Me stringing the new lanyard on Lauren's new flag pole so the veterans would feel welcome when they came to Beaver Hollow Camp.

I go on about doing some camp business but I got my eye on John now. I’m not going through that again. As he slowly builds a small fire in the fire pit. Out of another pocket he pulls of all things, a small bent up aluminum pan about the size used for a pot pie and begins to mix his ingredients together. With someone else left watching over John I needed to go get the firewood for the upcoming night’s bond fire. Coming back an hour or so later with a load of firewood on the trailer, John walks over to me and asks if I would like to have a bite of his pie. I try to ward him off but he insists, I needed to try some pie since I helped pick the berries. Reluctantly I take a small bite. It didn’t taste as good as my Grandma Mary’s blackberry pies but for a one legged guy who had forded a stream, hiked up an old mining road blazing a trail with his crutches, using his sweaty hat for a bowl and a biscuit mix for crust. It was the most memorable taste of pie I have ever enjoyed…

There's Gold in them there mountains

…As with so many things in my life many of my best memories stem from me being involved in the fire department. My favorite Beaver Hollow camping adventure is no exception. Months earlier a group of us fire guys were playing a make-up basketball game against some of Josephine Counties local wheelchair bound athletics (The Rolling Rogues). Now don’t let the idea that these supposedly crippled guys being in wheelchairs gave them any disadvantage over us macho fire guys. I should have known we were in trouble when the fire boys were helping unload the wheelchairs the Rogues had brought for us to use in the game. As we were rolling them into the gym they all sort of creaked and it seemed like some of the round wheels were a bit square. Now on the other hand as the Rolling Rogues came whipping in the gym in their chairs they all sounded smooth. Their wheels slightly tipped in, so corners could be taken quite a bit faster then the artifact chairs that ended up being for us. The moral of the story is they kicked the fire guy’s butts, bad. After the game we all headed down to the local pizza parlor for some eats and refreshment. I got to talking with some of the wheelchair guys and found out they liked camping but not many campsites are very wheelchair friendly, which got me to thinking…

Hey Lauren, lets tear down the restrooms at camp (they weren’t very nice back then) and build some new ones that dudes and dudets in wheelchairs can get into. He just looks at me and says, ok, so we did. As normal I conned Jimmy O into helping too, since he was the real builder dude in my clan of big project helpers. I got a hold of some of the guys on the wheelchair team after we had finished building the new restrooms at camp and explained what we had done and that we could handle people in wheelchairs at Beaver Hollow.

They got a hold of some of their buddies, many being from the White City Domiciliary (housing for beat-up military guys) and before I knew it a big white bus was pulling onto the Beaver Hollow  lawn, as the shhhhh from the air brakes on the bus were set. The bus door slowly opened and off came mostly older guys that had felt the ravages of war. A couple guys were missing a leg, one was missing both, an arm gone there. Some were just older gentlemen that needed assisted care. A couple of the guys was supposed to be crazy (meaning mentally unstable) which sort of sends a creep up your spine. There was even one guy that was blind.  In fact right after this camping trip he was headed to San Rafel (place where they train the Seeing Eye dogs) to get presented a Seeing Eye dog. We ended up with about twenty guys and a couple of their helper personnel (nurses really). They all went to setting up their camp as a big white tent was laid out on the ground, staked down and pulled erect by the small army jeep they had brought for support. They began loading all their gear into their new home for the weekend. Slowly they began to gimp towards the covered camp pavilion where it was cooler, protected from the warm summer sun. The chess boards, checker boards and card games began to unfold at the wooden picnic tables, they swatted at the occasional bug flying by…

…I knew long in advance of them coming to my campground that I would need to come up with some special activities for them because they would not be able to do some of the customary activities, like use the aforementioned rope swing. I wanted them to be able to pan for gold but getting these guys down next to the rocky, slick creek bank would have been next to impossible, so I decided we would bring Graves Creek to them. I had enlisted my moms help in the weekend’s adventure for the guys and boy did she come through. She had an old bath tub set up with water running through it so they could pan for gold while still setting in their wheelchairs or on a big round of firewood. My mom had conjured up several small gold pans, some tweezers and small glass bottles to put their gold in, if they found any. I yelled towards the motley crew “who wants to pan for gold?” “I’ll run down there to the creek and load up this washtub with some fresh gravel and bring it up to you so you can pan for gold”. Some of the older guys just looked up from their card games and scoffed at me “there’s no gold in that creek sonny”. I said “well let me try and find a good spot then” as I climbed on my tractor pulling the trailer with the washtub on it. I went right down where they could all see me next to the creek bank and began to overly exaggerate digging the gravel into the washtub. Periodically making a grunting sound to make it sound harder digging then it really was. All the time my guests were yelling down to the creek side at me “sonny you’re wasting your time”. Washtub full of creek gravel, back on the tractor, out round the big blackberry bush where I can’t be seen from camp, I leap off the tractor seat, run to the washtub and dump the big vile of GOLD mixed with some black sand my mom had gleaned from someone, stirred briskly, jumped back on the tractor and acted like nothing happened as I drive back into camp. By now the war veterans were beginning to mock me about why no gold would be found where I had dug into the creek bank, hee, hee. Curve of the creek was wrong, current wouldn't throw it there, techinical stuff. Grabbing up a gold pan I scooped some of the raw material into my pan and said "ahh, let’s just take a look for sport”. I’m not real good at panning for gold so it took me a few minutes to work the heavy material away from the fines. Edging slowly over towards the disgruntled game players, swirling my pan around so they could all see nestled in the black sand, yep, gleaming GOLD. I was almost limped over by the pursuing horde as they began grabbing gold pans and heading to our make shift stream bed.  I never did tell them I spiked the stew.

Ahh, everybody was happy now, so off I go to do some chores around camp. A couple hours later I come back and they are still over panning for gold. By now several of them were complaining about how bad their backs were hurting from bending over panning. I tell them “well come back over and play cards for a little while and let your backs rest”. They all yell at me at the same time, “are you kidding, there’s GOLD in this gravel you brought us”.

At this time in my life I was dating a young lady (Kaye). I never will forget the sight of her helping the blind guy pan for gold. Like the image of the old golfer man with both his arms wrapped around her body, helping the pretty young gal improve her golf swing. But in this case opposite. Kaye nestled behind him, she was pretty well endowed and his head fit perfectly between her breasts. His face just a grinning from ear to ear as she patiently reached around him and helped him swirl his gold pan. Slowly they would work the material down and then she would help him pick the pieces of gold out and put in his small bottle. While he could not see the actual gold he could hear and feel the weight of the gold in the bottle when he shook it back and forth. I’m not convinced he was too engrossed in the gold in his bottle either. To this day I have no idea where mom came up with all that gold.

About then is when I noticed one of the guys was missing, the one  whom was missing one of his legs, was missing from camp…

Beaver Hollow unfolds

As I mentioned previously many people have suggested that I need to start writing down the stories I would tell around the campfires at Beaver Hollow. Jimmy O wanted me to write them down so he could prove to me later that I was making crap up along the way.


For the most part this blog right now is geared for my family, friends (O claims I don’t have any friends) and acquaintances. Most of you that know me have been to Beaver Hollow once or twice or dozens of times through the years with my families. Please keep in mind for the first week or so the new billy blaze blog may experience some glitches but I will work hard to figure out how to resolve them so we can eventually have some fun with this new to me technology.

I’d like to start with a subject that is near and dear to my heart, (I know O, I don’t have a heart) Beaver Hollow Campground. I’d sure like to hear back from those of you who wish to join in. What is your favorite memory at Beaver Hollow? Those of you who haven’t been to Beaver Hollow before give me comments about what your favorite camping experience has been.

Some of you, but probably not all of you know why and how Beaver Hollow was built…

… we were pretty poor when we first started a family of our own. Our first family camping trip when Erica and Michael were older took us to Harris Beach Campground just north of Brookings. Our adjoining camping neighbors were drunks. They threw their beer bottles into our campsite. They were loud and fowl mouthed too. It ended up raining most the time we were there also, it was miserable.

My grandma and grandpa moved to Oregon (back in 1930 something); grandpa logged, worked in the local mills, mined for gold, and poached a deer now and then to help put food on the table. Together grandpa and grandma whittled out a meager living eventually owning quite a sizeable chunk of property down Lower Graves Creek Road nestled along Graves Creek. (I’ll let mom chime in here because she knows more of the facts then I do) My grandpa passed away when I was about ten (1968 ish) but my grandma stayed on the "home place". My Uncle Jack stayed on the home place to watch after grandma.

After the horrible camping trip to the coast I went to my grandma and asked, "Grandma, can I build a campground down in the bottom of the field?" Now my grandma was "Rebecca Boone" tough. She tells me "I don't give a God Damn what you do down in the bottom of the field" The good timber had been logged from the lower field years earlier, slash, brush, blackberry bushes and tall grass and rattle snakes were the norm as I began to chain saw, burn and clear the land. Beaver Hollow was slowly hacked into the lower field on the home place. When I was clearing the up and coming campsites I found where a beaver had gnawed down a small fir tree, normally they don’t chew on fir trees, but that is how Beaver Hollow got its name. I don’t remember how or where I first met Lauren but he became one of Beaver Hollows biggest advocates. I have so many fond memories of developing, building, and maintaining and the campfire chats that there are too many to recall all of them. For me to pick out my favorite Beaver Hollow camping event is nearly impossible. Was it the time that Lauren had rented a Ditch Witch to dig some irrigation lines around his house and he called me late in the afternoon. “Hey I’ve got this Ditch Witch for 24 hours you want to go to camp and dig some trenches down there also?” That’s how the electrical power and pipes trenches got from the restrooms to the well so we could have running water. We finished about 1:00 o’clock the next morning by working by flashlight. Was it the time that Lauren and his son Randy were helping me build the new pavilion? Lauren is real religious, I’m not. Lauren was holding a big metal spike while Randy was hammering it into one of the big logs with a pretty good sized sledge hammer. Randy slipped and hit Lauren right on the thumb. Lauren blurted out “why in the HELL did you do that”. Both Randy and I stumbled backwards hardily able to believe our ears. I think that was the first time Randy had ever heard his dad cuss and I know it was the last time I ever heard Lauren say a fowl word to this day.

I’ll let Jimmy O tell you about the time he fell in the blackberry bush and I was laughing so hard at him I couldn’t help pull him out. Or the time he brought Corey P. down from up north and we went rattle snake hunting one warm dusk evening. I think I can correct all of Jimmy’s inaccuracies before his comments show up on the blog.

It was fun giving all the kids their first tractor rides down at camp. I think that is where Rachel (Lauren’s daughter) learned how to drive tractor. The early evening hay rides were always a big hit with the kids, and grown-ups too.

I was sitting up on the tall cliff on the County road over looking camp one evening just as the sun was beginning to set over the distant ridge. All the lawns at camp were mowed, all the weed eating had been done, the sprinklers were chirping out water and the American Flag was flapping on white flag pole (Lauren welded together) in the afternoon breeze. From my lofty perch I watched as Lauren drags over a folding lawn chair and pulls it up next to the fire pit. He slowly sets down in his chair for a well deserved rest after a long day working around Beaver Hollow. He sits there and reflects for a few minutes when I notice both his arms shoot in the air and begins to look like he is doing an exaggerated back stroke, just as the woven lawn chair he is sitting in collapses under him. Boy from a distance it sure looked funny. He my have blurted out another cuss word then too but I was way to far away to hear.

It was pretty funny the time Larrieann’s sister was swinging on the rope swing out over the perfect swimming hole at camp when her bikini top got twisted up on the rope somehow. If she had let go of the rope when she dropped into the water her small top would have been jerked from her body. With an interested crowd watching, we were yelling drop, drop, then as she would swing back over land we’d yell don’t drop, don’t drop. Finally the rope ran out of swing out over the water and she was able to get her top unhooked from the rope and flailing she just fell in, dang.

With all the campouts that went on at Beaver Hollow I do know hands down what my favorite camping adventure there was though…

...and so the adventure begins

... people have been telling me for years I needed to start writting down my adventures. So here I go. Lets start with something simple. Tell me about your best memories from Beaver Hollow.