by Donna Swagerty Shreve
As the oldest of four children, I experienced many things before the others. I became a Camp Fire girl in fourth grade and there were a set of experiences each group was to try to have for the young girls. We earned beads and other honors to show off our achievements. One the big experiences, that provided an opportunity for many activities, was camping. My family went camping in the summer for our vacations. I had gone to Camp Minkalo by Silver Lake in the Sierra Mountain as part of the Camp Fire experiences.
Mom had decided to be the leader of Jane’s Camp Fire group so she could also have similar experiences to what I had had. Brian had been part of Boy Scouts and gone to Boy Scout camp in the summer. Brian and I were veterans of group camping. One summer Mom decided her group of young girls would take a camping trip. Much planning went into the menus, transportation, tent assignments and activities once we arrived. Every one had a job to help the group effort. Location of a camp site was now needed. Brian had had a great experience as a Boy Scout camping with his group up in Camache before the Dam was built and the town was flooded. The flooding had not occurred yet but it was a last chance to experience camping at this area before it was under water.
To this day Brian and I can not imagine why our father did not check into this great location before the cars actually departed. Brian rode in the car with Dad and Mom and several Camp Fire girls were in the back of the station wagon where the seats had been folded down. The top of the wagon was piled high with gear. Camache was not a great distance away so the caravan arrived quickly in a bit over an hour and now the difficult part happened. Where was this site? Brian could not seem to remember enough details to recognized exactly where it was. So after endless searching, it was decided to find anything that could work.
Dad found a level section off the road a bit and it was decided to set up camp. The location was near a body of water but to use the water for human consumption required boiling it. Realize there were almost 2 dozen people when you added up the girls plus two couples of volunteer parents and their kids plus helpers such as the rest of the Swagerty family. To make the campsite all the more primitive, there were no facilities. One work group was assigned the chore of digging a latrine. First a private location had to be found behind trees and bushes. Next a deep enough hole had to be dug. Then a sturdy board had to be found that could endure multiple use.
There were three tents set up to house four girls each. Many of the tents had been borrowed so everyone would have shelter. Setting up the tents was a group effort also. Food for dinner had to be prepared. All of these chores were well organized and everyone kept busy with their assigned job. After dinner and cleanup, campfire activities ensued. There were songs to sing and stories to tell.
During this time, a group of hunters moved into a site near us to camp. It was obvious they were planning on hunting the next morning. Why they decided it would be a good idea to camp near a bunch of kids was a mystery. They spent their night time drinking and making sure their guns were in good order.
The next morning our group woke up and went about our meal preparations and cleanup. When those activities were done, it was time for a hike. As frequent intervals our group of girls would stop and yell “Wo-he-lo” which is a good Camp Fire saying meaning work, health and love. We were practicing to make sure we could use this yell if we were in trouble. But more importantly we were letting the hunters know where we were. Of course, we were also letting any wild life where we were also. The hunters did not stay long. They became a bit disgruntled and packed up and left. Our chant had worked.
We had an unfortunate incident in one of the girls’ tents as they had done some exploring and spread poison oak amongst them. I guess the lesson of what plants to avoid had to be learned the hard way with this particular group.
Some how we survived our camping weekend and basically had a good time. We made do with our primitive camp site and lived to add it to our family lore.
801 words
11/18/2020
Swagerty-Aldrich Family Web Site 