Hankins Tales: “1963 – The year I became a Boy Scout”

(Originally posted on social media March 27, 2015)

I officially became a Boy Scout in November of 1963. In Troop 50, there was a rule that if you wanted to go to summer camp you needed to pass your Tenderfoot Rank first. Most of it was memorization of the oath and law, and you had to learn about the American flag. You also had to know a few basic knots. I had been tying knots around my brothers for years but the “300 loops around the neck and tie it to a car bumper” was not in the book.

My parents got me my first scout book which showed a fine looking individual who was obviously going camping. He was just a little bit too happy for my taste. I also had to learn everything that I needed to take on a camping trip. I did not own any of that stuff but I knew what it was. In either case, by the time June rolled around I was an official tenderfoot. They even gave me a pin to wear on my snazzy uniform. My mother had found an old scout uniform at the goodwill store that almost fit me. My scoutmaster called me “High-Water Hankins” because he liked to point out that – if it flooded – my pants would not get wet. There were a few bullet holes in the uniform from some unknown tragedy that had taken place in the early 1780s when the uniform was made.

We had been talking about camp for weeks, and my parents decided it would be fun to ride up early and check out the facility. We were supposed to meet the rest of the troop at Cherokee Campsite at 2:00 pm. I remember we loaded up the whole horde early in the morning and we headed out on Route 11, headed West out of Roanoke. This is back before the interstates, so we were on the main roads. It took forever for that old Volkswagen bus to climb the steep grade of Christiansburg mountain. This trip was rapidly becoming an adventure. We got on Route 100 at some point and took a hard left up near Pulaski. We crossed an old, old, metal bridge whose lane was so tight that it was “first come, first served.” We crossed Claytor Lake and started climbing even higher into the mountains. We took a left at the little community of Hiwassee, and my father pointed out that the camp was looming dead ahead.

My first strong image of Camp Powhatan came when we crossed the first wooden bridge into the property. We stopped on the bridge and looked at a beautiful stream that vanished far in the distance. There was a giant furnace from the civil war period right at the main entrance, and I was already excited beyond belief. The road into the camp seemed endless, and there were bridges every few hundred feet that crossed and recrossed Big Max creek. We slowed down at each crossing and I could see schools of fish swirling in the clear cold water. The last bridge into camp was a low water concrete bridge that was so narrow that I was sure we were going off. There were totem poles, and we could see tents scattered off in the woods on both sides of the road.

My father had been told that our site was up near the main parking lot. We were all stiff from the long ride and there was not another person in sight so he parked and we began to explore. In those early days there was a playground -obstacle course built in the middle of the parking lot. We ran and jumped and nearly broke our little legs trying to figure out how the elements worked.

We found our campsite over in the far corner of the lot and I quickly ran out and claimed a tent. I threw my gear (which was very minimal) into one of the bunks, and felt very smart about showing up so early. I looked around very quickly and saw that there was a single small outhouse down in the lower portion of the site. I ran over and opened the wooden door with the standard half moon shape in the frame and I looked down the hole. A groundhog had died down inside that pit and he was facing with his head straight up and it looked like he was praying with his huge teeth sticking straight out. I realized right then that, no matter what, I was not going to sit on that toilet for the entire week.

My father suggested that we explore a little bit and we walked over toward the lake. We could look down on a very pristine view and the water seemed so clear that you could see the bottom in a lot of places. I did not have to feel it to know that it was going to be cold. There was a dock shaped like an “F” that was supported by what looked like metal legs every few feet. There was also a big 12×12 platform with a diving board. I was already planning all of the cool dives I would do from that board. We wandered past the boating area to a place where we found a swinging bridge. One person walking on this bridge sounded like an army, and the whole structure would sway. My mother was very nervous.

The water under the bridge was very deep in those days. (That channel would eventually get filled in after hurricane Hugo.) We could look down through that liquid ice and see large trout swimming back and forth in an endless cycle. We saw the rifle range, and we headed back up the hill to the dining hall. There was a large bell mounted to the outside of the porch and I could imagine that bell being heard a long way off. We saw the trading post and there was a softball field with a huge backstop at the far end of a big field. There were tents and other sites as far as we could see.

Time was moving right along and I tried to appear sad that my parents and brothers and my evil sister had to leave. For the first time in my short life I felt fully alive. I went into the campsite and somebody had moved my gear into a tent over next to the latrine, but it did not matter. This was the best time of my life.

We had to get ready for a medical re-check and a swim test. I had been swimming for many years but I had never been in water more than three feet deep. We were marched all over camp and given the basic tour and then we were lined up at the docks. Ten kids at a time were told to jump in and swim out to the platform and come back and do it again. The last leg had to be on your back. Then you had to float for 30 seconds.

“Can everybody here swim?”

“Yes, sir, you are damn right I can swim!” Ten of us hit the water, and I sank like a rock and stood there on the bottom. I had the cumulative body fat of a sixteen-penny nail, and I could not swim a lick. I did not know that until it was too late. I could see the bubbles and kicking legs of the kids above me. I was standing in 12 feet of the coldest water known to man. At last, somebody started taking inventory and they noticed me down there waving my arms like an idiot. They stuck a bamboo pole down to me and yanked me up. I had to do the walk of shame back to the buddy board. Swimming is way over-rated, I had better things to do.

Eventually I could feel my extremities again and we got ready for supper. Some kind of bugle music began to play out of one of the many giant speakers that were scattered throughout the camp. It was very scratchy. We went to a very impressive flag ceremony and then we trotted off to supper in the huge dining hall. As far as the eye could see, there were hundreds of plaques from troops that had been coming here since the time of the Romans. The food was very strange. It looked familiar, but it was hard to identify what it was. There was some kind of a meat patty covered with a tomato and a slice of cheese, and then covered with red gravy. I ate it – but it was a mystery.

There was also a big bowl of prunes on each table, and every scout was told that he would have to eat at least one prune in order to leave the dining hall. You had to show your pit at the door. I hated prunes, but there was a kid at our table who loved them. He ate them all and gave us each a pit.

That night I fell asleep to the sound of 10,000 whippoorwills trying to out-do each other. The scratchy record came on at 7:00 am to announce that it was time to get up.. There was a water pump in the site but the water tasted like blood. It was full of sulfur and iron and only a crazy man could drink it. After breakfast my scoutmaster, old Bill Mason, told me to get to my second class scout instruction. I stuffed my fishing rod down my pants and I walked out of there and headed to the upper creeks to fish all day. I was using a Colorado spinner and I caught two 18-inch rainbow trout. I ran by the kitchen and begged the cooks for some aluminum foil. I wanted to save those fish for my momma. I hid the fish in the bottom of my sleeping bag so nobody would steal them. Every night giant skunks would come into my tent and move my bunk around trying to figure out what that smell was.

On Wednesday night they announced that they were having a prune eating contest at the dining hall. The prize was a watermelon. Evidently they had a massive surplus of government prunes and this was the best way to dispose of them. Each troop entered one kid. There was no question that the kid at our table was the likely winner. He was tall but I think he may have been hollow because he could eat forever and never get fat. We all hiked up to the dining hall at 7:00 pm and watched something that we will never be able to forget.

The rules were very simple. You had one hour to eat all of the prunes you could and then the pits would be counted. Most kids ate seven or eight and then they just quit, but Tim Ward started eating and he would not stop or slow down. By the end of the hour it was Ward against these two farm kids that looked like they had eaten their family before they came to camp. They ate and they ate and they ate. At last, the hour bell was rung and they started counting the pits. The farm giants had each eaten more than 98 prunes each but Tim Ward had eaten 137 prunes to become the world record holder and the winner of a troop watermelon.

For a short while Tim Ward was the camp hero. People were glad to know his name. At about midnight, I was looking out of my tent and I saw Tim come walking by and he got into the latrine. Then he nailed the door of the latrine shut. He lashed himself to the seat and he began the longest night of his life. The next morning, he was still in there and it was not until about 4 o’clock that he emerged. He could barely walk and he had lost about 50 percent of his body mass. He looked like one of those African Refugees you see on late-night TV. He was no longer the camp hero and, in fact, people gave him a wide berth.

Every day I would fish and catch snakes and accomplish exactly nothing. It was great. On Friday night there was an Order of the Arrow ceremony down near the waterfront, and a huge pile of slab lumber was burned. Flaming arrows went swishing out over the lake and Indians who scared me to death told us to get in a big circle down by the buddy board. Then the Indians walked around behind us and every once in a while they would grab some unsuspecting soul and beat the daylights out of him. They brushed up against me at one point and I almost died.

That night the moon was full so I walked out of my tent and walked over toward Rock Ridge campsite. I could peer out over the lake, up toward Dead Pine Mountain. Over to the left was Locust Thicket Mountain. I had no idea how important these places were to become to me, but there was a sense of destiny. I knew I would have to go home, but I also knew I would be back. I knew that as surely as I knew my own name.

The next morning my parents came to pick me up and, while I was glad to see them, I did not want to leave this place. I gave my mother the two trout that I had caught on Monday and, as they fell apart into the front seat, I felt my eyes filling with tears. I would be back, this place would become a part of who I am today. There was no turning back.

(Copyright by John Hankins; all rights reserved. Published here by permission of the author.)