With spring turkey season going at full speed right now and fishing and camping starting to get on the minds of many people it reminds me of a couple of camping trips that I went on several years ago.
One of them was during the opening of Lake Stone, even though most of us lived just a few minutes walk away from the lake we decided we would camp in the campground at the lake for the opening day. The lake opened in the late 1960's so we were teenagers at the time. With the opening of the lake a couple of days away we pretty much had the campground to ourselves at the time. By the time the day came for the lake to open we had plenty of company, the campground was pretty much full and by the opening morning the trucks and cars were lined up on both sides of Highway 4 for what looked like a mile. At daylight there were so many boats in the lake that you could probably walk from one end of the lake to the other and never get your feet wet by stepping from boat to boat.
The day before the lake open you could see fish in the lake everywhere, we were sure the next day we would catch so many fish within the first hour of fishing that we would have to stop because of going over the limit, boy were we wrong. With all the boats in the water the next day I don't think we even got a bite at all, and not many of the other people fishing did. I guess when the fish saw all those boats in the lake they went to the bottom and found a good hiding place.
I guess the high point of this fishing trip happened when one of the boys with us who believed that even in still water you needed at least five pounds of lead sinkers on your line in order to make a cast made his first cast. He made a big long cast and just as the sinker passed us, we heard a crack like a .22 rifle shot. We knew the line had broke with that five pounds of lead on it and we stood there wondering if we would see it hit the water. It hit a aluminum boat about thirty yards out and sounded like someone shot a shotgun, but the men in the boat that was hit almost jumped out of it.
The other camping trip was during November 1973, about a month or so after most major news outlets had a story about a UFO abduction in Pascagoula MS. It was the opening of squirrel season and we were camping in the Apalachicola National Forest. There was a fairly large group of us on this trip, around twenty five or so.
Most of us were in tents but one person had a motor home they were camping in. Three of us were in a tent directly behind the motor home. The latest thing in camping equipment at this time was the Coleman stoves and lanterns that would use unleaded gas as fuel. One problem with these was that you had to pump the fuel tank up with the hand pump on the tank, but after a while they would lose pressure and if it was a stove the flame would begin to get smaller, the lantern in most cases would surge, get real dim and then brighten back up real quick. We had our usual campfire meeting and then went to bed.
Sometime after midnight all of us were awaken by someone screaming “y'all look, you don't see it do you.” You could hear the desperation in this man's voice. Being in a tent behind the motor home we couldn't see anything, but when he said, “it's coming to get us” the man in the middle of the tent said, “I knew there were only three of us in the tent, but I heard four pistols being cocked.” The third man and I had a pistol in each hand, I guess someone was lucky they didn't rattle the tent door that night. Finally we heard a second man in the motor home tell the other man he had woke up the entire campground to watch a Coleman lantern go out.
Well, here it is April and this year is over a quarter over and there are two big events coming up in Century, the first is the Blackcat Reunion at Lake Stone this year on April 27, the last Saturday of the month.
I've gone to the past few and really enjoyed them, I keep hoping to see some of the people that I went to school with, but all I've seen out there are older people, I went to school with young people not old people. But if you can come make plans to, the food is always good and you will very likely see some old friends you haven't seen in years. If you can bring a covered dish and a small donation.
The next weekend will be the ASHS big day, Sawmill Day at the corner of 4th street and Jefferson avenue in Century, be sure to attend this if at all possible, there is plenty to see and do, including food, displays, items for sale and good entertainment, this will be May 4th. The Alger Sullivan Historical Society meets at 6 PM on the third Tuesday of the month at the Leach House Museum at Fourth and Jefferson, please join us
