Dear Boo and Bubble,
Over the last couple of days, I’ve spent some time going
through boxes of stuff that I brought up to the mountains from Aunt Bee’s
attic. When Captain and I sold our house
on Northshore Road in Columbia, SC, in 2003 and moved onto our sailboat Up Jinks in 2004, we stored all kinds of
things at her house – from fine china and crystal to albums filled with
photographs. She graciously let it all
stay put, taking up valuable space, but we finally relieved her of most of
it. What fun I’ve had digging around in
a literal treasure trove of memories, among them such gems as a Greenville News dated August 9, 1974
with the headline “NIXON RESIGNS”; a Washington
Post newspaper dated September 12, 2001 recounting the horrors of the day
before; a copy of an editorial from The
Greenville News dated April 25, 1989, endorsing Captain’s proposed
legislation to institute Zero-based budgeting in the South Carolina House of
Representatives.
There were, also, pictures galore and I’ve been scanning
them all for preservation and to relieve some space in my closet where the
boxes have been stored. Each one brought
a chuckle or a sigh or even a tear as I remembered the occasions on which they
were taken. Many were of friends that
we’ve made over our incredible lives, some of whom are no longer with us but,
in seeing their images, come alive again through the memories that the pictures
portray.
Tucked in between the sleeves of one of the albums, I found
a letter dated May 16, 1992. At the top
was a handwritten note from you Great Granddaddy Schaefer to Captain saying – “John, thought you would enjoy this. Bob sent it to me.” It was a letter written to your great, great
Uncle Bob Poerschke by a gentleman named Hayes McNeill and I want to share with
you some of its content, but will need to give you the background first.
Hayes was (physically then, spiritually now since Bryant is
no longer here) your great Uncle Bryant’s best friend. For years, the two of them organized an
annual week-long camping/trout fishing trip to a national park campground at
the foot of Mt. Mitchell. Captain and
Uncle Bob were among the cadre of eight or so men who convened each year and,
over time, the event grew to heroic proportions both in terms of preparation
for and times had. It even had an
acronym – SNAG (Sensitive New Age Guys) – and, at some point, also evolved into a
cooking competition of the highest sophistication with a musical jam session
following each gourmand meal. When
Captain would pull out of our driveway (with great glee) in the blue Jeep for
that last week of May, his seat was the only open space in the car. The rest was filled with tarps, coolers, tents,
rods, reels, tackle boxes, waders, fly-fishing vests, charcoal grills, a set of
spoons to play for the concerts around the fire at night, and the ingredients
for the recipe he had carefully selected as his epicurean contribution to the
week. The camping trip was a most
anticipated week away for all the men involved.
Apparently Uncle Bob had been unable to go in 1992 and Hayes
thoughtfully took it upon himself to include Bob in the happenings he had
missed. The year before, a bear had
invaded the campsite while everybody was asleep and rent asunder anything not
hung out of reach or locked in a car – including Bob’s blue cooler, leaving
teeth punctures in the top that gave some indication as to the bear’s
size.
He or she made a return appearance in 1992 and the letter
captures the description of what happened – as only Hayes McNeil can.
Dear Bob:
This is to report that
some of us, at least, got home safely. I
cannot testify to the survival of Dr. Hebert or of Judge Tally. The rest of us (Rev. Dr. Kendrick; Fra
Richard and his ecumenical friend, Tom; Professor Thomas McKnight Steele; and
little me) took out on Thursday, weary from the accumulated grime and from
contending with the elements – it rained a lot – and the wild animals. We let the skunk, “Priscilla,” go wherever
and whenever she so pleased on her nightly visits: she was no problem. It was the bear that caused the most
commotion. Whether this was the same who
mauled your blue cooler last year or her heirs or assigns, I cannot say. She
didn’t damage my cooler as she extracted my three pounds of exquisitely
prepared spaghetti sauce, my canned Coke, and the squeezebottle of I Can’t
Believe It’s Not Butter. She consumed
everything except the blue freezer coolant packages and two cans of V-8. Bryant and I, driven more by a need to
urinate than to protect the cooler, assumed she would leave as readily as last
year. After all, the two irises
reflected in my flashlight, while alarmingly far apart, were low and unto the
ground. Then she stood up, showing
herself to be a little taller than I and better –muscled than even Bryant. When she came back, nobody stirred.
The next day, several
of those who had cowered in their tents questioned the accuracy of our
description, perhaps being accustomed to fisherman’s estimates of size. When the behemoth returned at 11:00 that
night, popped the hatches on the bank of trashcans just across from us, and
began dipping out the remains of Dr. Hebert’s Chicken Country Captain, all
(except Steele, snugly oblivious on his air mattress in his new van) agreed
that it was about six and a half feet tall and weighed in excess of three
hundred pounds. We agreed also that she
was not the least intimidated by our squad of waggling flashlights or by our
uncertain bravado. Headlights didn’t
bother her, nor did Tally’s horn. After
she had turned over the shoal of trashcans in a single motion and had exhausted
our meager leavings, she did depart at the sound of Tally’s Jeep ignition. She returned several hours later but did not
eat any of us! The Sensitive New Age
Guys lived to fish another day…….
…….Tally also won the
laurels of the Coleman stove. His
venison en brochette on Monday night set a new camp standard. Alas, only the bear will know how m Bolognese
sauce would have fared against it. I
have challenged Tally to try quail with white grapes over wild rice for next
year.
We missed you and took
your name in vain many times. Start
tying them flies for next year. Richard says nymphs are the ticket.
Hayes
Captain added one additional detail to the story. It was the starting of the Jeep’s engine that
spooked her when everything else had failed.
She ran off into the woods and your great Uncle Bryant carefully
approached the garbage cans to make sure that she was gone. Captain decided to honk his horn just for
fun. Bryant jumped five feet of the
ground!!
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