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.
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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…
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