SUMMER CAMP - 1956
SUMMER CAMP - 1956
From Akron, Ohio, to Ash Cave, Ohio, June 18, 1956, 188 miles (Monday)
From Ash Cave to Mammoth Cave, Kentucky, June 10, 1956, 395 miles (Tuesday)
From Mammoth Cave to Cumberland State Forest, June 20, 1956, 178 miles (Wed)
From Cumberland to Smoky Mountains National Park, June 21,1956, 230 miles(Thu)
From Park to Roadside Park, North Carolina, June 22, 1956, 180 miles (Friday)
From Roadside to Fort Bragg, North Carolina, June 23, 1956, 130 miles (Sat)
MONDAY, 6/18/56: Old Man's Cave and Cedar Falls: Arrived here 4PM after leaving Akron at 11AM. Quite an impressive place, with smooth hewn cemented steps alternating with causeways roughhewn from a rock face. The cave wasn't actually a cave, but more on the line of Old Maid's Kitchen in the Gorge, simply a huge crescent blasted out of a sheer cliff face. We walked four miles to Cedar Falls (anything would be disappointing after that) and ran back while rainstorms like mad threatened. Very tired from running, but the 300-foot cliffs make me think Ohio has SOMETHING to be proud of. Almost any stream has some sort of falls or cliffs, or ledges or caves.
TUESDAY, 6/19/56: Ash Cave, Rock House and Cantwell Cliffs: Rocks, rocks and more rocks, above, below and all around. Ash Cave, the largest hollow of them all, a rock taking about 6 seconds to hit bottom. Rock house, a group of interconnecting "rooms" of strangely lit and beautifully colored caves. All three well worth seeing. Then started long trip to Mammoth Cave, with assorted stop-offs. Roads rather good, where construction finished. Very nice camping grounds, and got first good night's sleep in sleeping bag and awoke refreshed. Went to see Lincoln's birthplace---broke in after it was closed---impressive monument, but house and family spring not much to see. Traveled in a very happy mood because of many varied sights were seen going between Akron and Fort Bragg. My Old Kentucky Home and Great Onyx Cave: Stephen Foster's visiting place, where he wrote "My Old Kentucky Home," very interesting. Old lady guides dressed in quaint Civil War costumes showed us through large home. All original furniture and quaint surroundings plucked you into the past. Very good old kitchen, smokehouse, nursery, carriage house, slave-quarters and living quarters made it a very worthwhile trip. Got to Cave City at 9PM and immediately tromped through Great Onyx Cave. Guide was bored stiff, and it rubbed off on us. Very disappointing trip, damp wires dangling all over and paths not too interesting. Hoping Mammoth Cave, all day trip tomorrow, is better.
WEDNESDAY, 6/20/56: Mammoth Cave: Entered 9AM and spent all day. Was surprised at the HUGENESS of the cave. It was a 7-mile 7-hour trip and right in the middle it had a dining room where for $1 you could buy a fairly nice hot box lunch. About 85 people in our group, and ascending and descending the huge rock ramps, one tier above another, either under very effective indirect lighting or impressive lanterns, it looked like scenes from Cecil B. DeMille, or paintings of Doré. The COLOR of the stalagmites and -tites were fantastic, and the Drapery Room, with colors from red to blue, was the highlight of the trip. After leaving the 54 cave, the heat was horrible, but VERY worth it.
THURSDAY, 6/21/56: Cumberland State Forest: Left Mammoth Cave, ate, and decided to travel onward. Before leaving we listened to a very good Ranger lecture on Smoky Mountains, our big goal. Smoky Mountain National Park: Got here Thursday afternoon and found Gatlinburg (outskirts of town) to be nothing but a tourist attraction (Weane Fort cost $1 and showed nothing). (Saw interesting painter named Ted Brawly.) Immediately took ride on Skylift, a ski-lift to the top of a mountain from a hotel, for $1. Trip was breathtaking and well-worth it, as we saw practically all of the National Park from the top. We made an unsuccessful try on Clingman's Dome, got as far as Newfound Gap and the closing fog forced us down to the camp area, where we slept eight hours, disturbed only by bears, 10 to the 10th flies, 10 to the 1000th fellow campers and hard ground. I goofed badly and missed route signs in the dark, getting everyone quite mad and taking us hours and miles late into the night. Had a rather hectic ride into Cumberland and ended up falling in utter fatigue on the tabletop shelter at 3AM.
FRIDAY, 6/22/56: Friday we looked and saw more of the park. Woke vaguely refreshed, saw the big Cumberland Falls, and took off for the Smokies. The weather had been very good, not too hot for riding and not sunny so not blinded, yet it didn't actually rain. Visibility could have been better, though. Laurel Falls and Chimney Tops: Took an easy three-mile hike to and from Laurel Falls over easy terrain and shady glens. Interesting falls, but memory of them is dwarfed by the mile-high trip up Chimney Tops. A sign summed up the trip: This is NOT a hike, but a MOUNTAIN CLIMB. And climb we did, using hands and toes and knees and chins, scraping our way up rock ledges overlooking thousand-foot chasms, clambering up root systems on a sheer rock face, reaching the lower Chimney and deciding to climb the ridge to another, only to meet failure in a sheer rock cliff that my knees were simply too shaky to climb. If photos taken here ever come out, they will be very SPECTACULAR. Clingman's Point and Cherokee: Horribly tired, utterly stiff, terribly thirsty, ravenously hungry, we ascended to the top of Clingman's Dome, where the valleys rolling below showed only dimly through the purplish haze. Not believing signs, we climbed many more feet only to find there were REALLY NO views from the peak on that day, or any day. We ate lunch lower down, overlooking a spectacular valley, and watched the shadows of the clouds come and go off the Great Smokies. We descended in jig-time, ears popping 10 times each, and reached Cherokee, where I was taken in by the sellers' charms and bought a probably never worn pair of moccasins. Stopped hastily at the sign "You saw it in LIFE." Mystery House: It was the most mysterious house I've ever seen. You step on a tabletop as easy as stepping up a stair. You ascend a flight of stairs with effortless ease and are left with a horrible dizziness and a great psychological shock, because you KNOW you went up, but you FEEL you didn't. The most puzzling effect was a pendulum, which it took more effort to swing toward the perpendicular of the tilted room than it took to turn it away. Very mystifying and strangely turning hall, walking up the side of a wall and sitting in a chair on a normal wall has produced strange effects. A very worthwhile exhibit for a very nominal fee, fifty cents. I wouldn't have missed it for anything.
SATURDAY, 6/23/56: Fort Bragg, North Carolina (home): Awoke surprisingly refreshed from sleeping on the ground with no bug-bomb. Rode into Fort Bragg, under the tutelage of a very courteous colonel, ate a typical Army meal, and hurried up and waited. Sun EXCEEDINGLY hot. 92 in shade at 10:30AM I know it climbed to 100 and above as I sweated out carrying my luggage from Larry's locked car to 4th Platoon, 4th Squad, Company G. As tentative Distinguished Military Student (DMS), I was chosen squad leader and have already ordered 10 men officially and 16 men unofficially around. I SO wish they would stop asking me questions I don't know the answers to. To sleep rather worried about what future will bring. P.S. Passed physical with FLYING colors.
FRIDAY, 6/29/56: Fort Bragg, 1st week: After a week, I am completely pooped, and tired, ready for a relaxing weekend. The week included Processing and Opening Ceremonies (Monday); Map and Aerial Photography Lessons and the night compass course (Tuesday) (I even went to a movie the next night); CBR Warfare (experienced phosgene, cyanide 2 chlorine to the hilt) and an excellent field demonstration of Medical Field Services (Wednesday); Individual Tactics and a Surprise Inspection (Thursday); and today many, many M-1 courses and firing for the first time---not too bad either---of the M-1. The weather has been hot (even while marching through the hurricane) and the food has been plentiful and my first days as Platoon Sergeant really rough. No time for ANYTHING. (Just no time for sergeants.)
SATURDAY, 6/30/56: Myrtle Beach, South Carolina: Left Fort Bragg with sleepy eyes and drove through driving rain to the Atlantic, a beautiful sight. A quick ride to Myrtle Beach State Park and a 2-hour dip in the ocean, waves really terrific and water warmer than outside air, though ALL VERY salty. Slept outside again, anguished by moon, bugs, sand, salt and surf.
SUNDAY, 7/1/56: Morning found us swimming, surfing, and floating on our air mattresses, sweeping along with the cresting waves. A shower got us desalted, and we were ready to leave the ocean, resolving that it was very much fun and that during the next weekends, the Coast is the place. Complicatingly, I am probably on the editorial board of the ROTC yearbook, and working on Saturday afternoons. Oh, well. Brookgreen Gardens, S.C.: 17 miles south of Myrtle Beach lies a beautiful formal gardens, with metal plaques identifying each plant and tree, poems engraved in the rock walls, fountains and pools galore, live oaks dripping moss and growing green, green finery, with statues, statues, statues! Of marble and metal, of man and animals, clothed and unclothed, from small silver trinkets to huge stone monoliths, this garden represents the greatest outdoor exhibit of American sculpture, and some of the pieces shown (Paul Manship in particular) are bound to go down in history. The park was exceedingly beautiful, and worth the horrible fatigue that was felt at Fort Bragg's Monday morning classes, from lack of sleep over the watery weekend.
WEDNESDAY, 7/4/56: Moorehead Planetarium: In the middle of a week of Field Fortifications and Recoilless Rifles (Mon), called-off Night Patrols and free time (Tue), M-1 firing for practice (Thu) and record (Fri) and of inspection and guidon-bearing (Sat) came a day off (after policing) the 4th of July. We left camp at 3PM and rode up to Raleigh, where we "did the town" in the Capitol and the Museum of Natural History. We then went to Chapel Hill and the University of North Carolina and Moorhead Planetarium, a very beautiful place, all of it (a movie-picture scenario school) and heard an interesting lecture on the Mysteries of the Planet Mars. After a filling supper of watermelon we came back to camp, in time for the inevitable evening GI Party, where everyone works like mad getting things clean for the next morning's inspection.
FRIDAY, 7/13/56: Fort Bragg (third week): Getting almost used to Army life---even to the point of finding time for an occasional movie or trip to the beautiful, air-conditioned library. (Went to six movies in seven days.) Even with four offices in six days (Company Guidon, Company Commander, Platoon Guide and Platoon Leader). Week composed of Carbine firing and squad drill and PT (Mon CO), Artillery demonstration and Transition M-1 firing (Tue), Grenades and Bazookas and Bayonet training (Guide, Wed), Armor demonstration and Engineering demonstration (Platoon Leader, Thu), and Techniques of Fire and Parade (Fri) and Field day and working on the Yearbook (I'm the only one who's doing anything on it---good and bad) (Sat). Disappointed about lazy weekend. I at least swam in the Officer's Club pool.
SATURDAY, 7/21/56: Fort Bragg (fourth week): Roughest week so far, what with no sleep for about 4 days (16 hours anyway), Mine warfare and Signal Communications (Mon), Machine guns, Automatic rifles and 4 hours of guard duty (no sleep Tue), PT test (rough), Signal Communications and Night firing (8 to 10, very little sleep) (Wed), Field Meals with KP (got out of rough midnight problem, though) (Thu), Mortar firing and another cussed parade (Fri), and today another Inspection and Character Guidance talk, and the Company picnic. A rough week, but looking forward with dread to the bivouac ahead, because Larry, although SAYING it was easy, gave me the impression that next week will be no silly snap.
SATURDAY, 7/28/56: Fort Bragg (fifth week): Bivouac and boy, was it rough. Started Monday---the march out and setting up tents, out good by being CQ, a very kicky job. Tuesday it rained right between Combat Outpost and Platoon in Defense, and we had to return and fix up horrid damage from the drain-off. Wednesday was Platoon at Advance party and Platoon in Attack (all being done by lecturing, demonstration, actual practice and critique)---all good lessons but very, very tiring. 24-hour problem (7AM-7AM) was Thursday along with squad leader. Attacked with 57's and was TOO hot and TOO thirsty to hear. Night Defense got me NO sleep, and Friday we packed and filled foxholes and Saturday's inspection found me just about DEAD.
FRIDAY, 8/3/56: Leaving Fort Bragg (sixth week): I'm leaving Fort Bragg, Alleluia, after a week of practically all demonstrations: Signal, Ordnance, Quartermaster and Regular Army billets (Mon), MP Corps, Transportation Circus and Army Air (ride in H-19 Sikorsky Helicopter) (Tue), Wednesday a day of HARD work Leadership Reaction Test; combined arms demonstration, Safety and Airborne (Thu). And then came KP, getting to bed rather early Thursday night and then up at the horrible hour of 2:30 in the morning. The work wasn't too bad, but the day dragged horribly, because it was the last day of ROTC Camp. I was counting the hours until I could leave Fort Bragg, North Carolina, after the roughest, toughest, hottest, tiredest, most humiliating 6 weeks of my life. One good item, neither Sergeant Hogg or Captain Marshall recommended removing my DMS. Virginia Beach, Virginia: Left Fort Bragg at 7:30AM and in ecstasies in getting out. Traveled east and waited one and one-half hours for ferry and just caught another free auto ferry and saw Fort Raleigh, site of the famous Lost Colony (with Virginia Dare) and State Museum, saw Kitty Hawk and Wright Brothers Memorial and flight site. Ocean was very wavy because of high winds and after four or five uncontrolled somersaults off the air mattress, we dried up and took off toward Norfolk. This was a plush, very expensive resort town, and we couldn't afford the poorest lodgings, so we went west to a closed state park and spread our bed-rolls on a convenient side road. Got to bed late and got up early, but had a good night's sleep. Fort Bragg already seems far, far in the dark past of memories.
SATURDAY, 8/4/56: Williamsburg, Virginia: Saw Newport News and the hundreds of ships of the Mothball Fleet in the tremendous harbor. Visited Mariners Museum (ship models, equipment, figureheads and small real boats---very interesting: bought the USS US); Virginia War Memorial Museum (propaganda posters from W.W.I and II, and equipment and uniforms and medals and souvenirs of the two great wars---quite good). Traveled Historyland Highway to Yorktown and saw an old tavern and the ancient breastworks and scrimmage lines and Moore House (end of Civil War). Northwest to ancient Williamsburg, touring the shops, streets, houses, governor's palace, gardens, maze of the old town (fabulous). Then took off early evening for Richmond, saw Moby Dick (Ocean, ocean) and slept in the YMCA---never spent a more attentive night in the barracks.
SUNDAY, 8/5/56: Luray, Virginia: Woke up not quite refreshed at the Y. Rode to Charlottesville, Ash Lawn (adequate) home of President Monroe, and Monticello (history living today), Jefferson's palatial mountaintop home. Monticello observation tower served to pass an hour before church in the town. These two homes are remarkably complete, and the furnishings and surroundings are still magnificent after all these years. Took off for the Skyline Highway of the Shenandoah Valley. Got right to the top of the mountains and STAYED at the top. Many overlooks afforded a breathtaking view of the valleys on either side, even though it rained or was very cloudy for most of the day. Rented a motel room for $4 and set off for the Luray Caverns, the supposed high point in the tour of the Skyline. Luray Caverns, Luray, Virginia: The Carillon didn't play, but the sumptuous entrance building of Luray gave a foretaste of the wonders below the ground. Mammoth Cave is the undoubted King of Quantity, but I wager Luray Caverns is the Queen of Quality. The first room was magnificent in shape and color, and the other chambers left the viewer with a feeling of "this can't be real." The masses of foot-long living ferns, the 50-foot cascades (Rock of Ages), the beautiful indirect lighting, the brick floors and iron railings, the haunting music of the stalactites and stalagmites in the Grand Ballroom, the stateliness of the towering totems, the impossible clarity of Dream Lake, seeming to BE below what it only REFLECTS from above, sent us back to the motel effervescing with sheer wonder and delight.
MONDAY, 8/6/56: Home at last: Left the motel room feeling very refreshed; took off on the White Oak Falls Trail to the very spectacular falls, which were in full flood because of the very wet, cloudy weather which the park had been having all weekend. Left the Park, observing through the clouds and fog what we could see of the Shenandoah Valley from the many overlooks, and bee-lined via Cumberland, Maryland, to the Pennsylvania Turnpike at Somerset. Crossed the Ohio line at 10:30PM and whizzed home. Got in at 12:10AM, rather excited and surprised at the NEWNESS the house had. Dumped everything where it was and plunked into bed---very nice to be back home.
TUESDAY, 8/7/56: Spent ALL day cleaning up the junk accumulated over seven weeks.