This is Chapter 24 from my soon-coming book, “Parkinson’s & Recreation 3 - The No Parkinson’s Zone”
“If my ship sails from sight, it doesn't mean my journey ends, it simply means the river bends.”—Enoch Powell
“For life and death are one, even as the river and the sea are one.”—Khalil Gibran
As I look back upon my life, the more the journey through the living of my life seems like a river. At times, that river rages through overwhelming moments of flooding and raging uncontrolled chaos; while, at other times, it seems more like a shallow, drying stream with a trickle for its flow. Always running and never running dry, the river of my journey through life is anything but boring. Even though I have experienced those long stretches of life where monotony rules the day, I have always been able to count on the river eventually bending and twisting and turning its way as it courses along, carrying me on an endless flow headed straight for eternity.
Long ago, I learned to see the journey as more of an adventure to be enjoyed than a drudge-filled trek to be dreaded. It was the onset of adulthood and its varied responsibilities that sent me through seasons of forgetting to enjoy the journey as I once had. To be sure, in my youthful days before the full forces of life as an adult hit me squarely in the face, the days of childhood and eventual high school were quite the adventure I look back upon with fondness now. I appreciate those bygone days much more now that the process of aging has taken me once again to the place of joy, the place of enjoying the ride on this grand river called life. Though I am approaching sixty-seven years of age and my body constantly reminds me I am every bit this age, I find myself thinking less like an old man and more like a carefree boy. What is so crazy about all of this is the realization that my dad is gone now, and I wonder if he ever thought this way. Something tells me he did.
When I think like a child now, I have the advantage of coupling that wonder with the wisdom of having lived all these many years. The reality is that I approach the end of this river with each and every passing year, and the greater reality that God is in control and I am His for eternity brings me to the wisdom of wonder as an older man that says, “Yes, I am older now, and this river I call life is endlessly flowing toward eternity. And, all I do at that moment of stepping into eternity is the realize that the flow of my life journey just leaves one dimension, the physical, and exchanges it for the other, the spiritual.” As I ponder such things, my mind cannot help but be drawn back to my childhood days spent on the Illinois River.
The Illinois River rises from the springs in the Ozark Mountains of northwest Arkansas. Running from its source, it cuts a path through Arkansas one hundred forty-five miles long, making its way through northeastern Oklahoma, eventually emptying into the Arkansas River in eastern Oklahoma. The Osage Indians of the region named it Ne-eng-wah-kon-dah, which translates to "Medicine Stone River.” It was inadvertently called “River Des Illinois” by an unknown French explorer after wrongly assuming it was frequented by the Illinois Indians who were rarely in this region at all. Even as I write about the history of this most amazing little tributary, I am filled with a sense of wonder. Did the early Native Americans live along its banks? Did they fish in its waters? Did they play in its cool, clear flow on hot sunny days as me and my family did when I was a boy?
By the time I was about four4 years of age, I already had a basic understanding of how to get to ‘our spot’ on the river. It seems we were there almost every weekend during the summer months, though it was probably something less. The impressions of adventure were so great in my young mind that I relish such memories to this day as if they had just occurred. Such is the power of memory. I can still smell the smells of the trees in blossom, still see the brightness of green overwhelming me as the endless forests of oak, elm, willow and sycamore met my eyes on their endless cascade up one hillside and down the other. Even the smell of damp fishing gear transports me to those days spent fishing up and down that river. And, the smell of breakfast: bacon sizzling on the Coleman Stove, eggs being scrambled in the excess grease, and as many white Wonder Bread slices slathered with butter and grape jelly as our hungry bellies desired!
“Our Spot” was a bend in the river called Horseshoe Bend. Even though much work went into preparations for our trips to Horseshoe Bend, the work was always made bearable by the anticipation and expectation of adventure. I relished any amount of time spent with my family on the Illinois River. Just getting to the river from our farm was exciting. Long before the new highway between Muskogee and Talequah were constructed, the road was a simple, two-lane paved thoroughfare with no shoulders on either side to speak of. Piling into the back of our pickup camper and vying for position on the upper sleeping berth, my brothers and I would giggle and dream all the way to the river, boasting of adventures yet to be had.
Once we neared Talequah, I knew the road well enough to realize that we would soon turn off the main highway and drive a few more miles before turning off that road onto a dirt road that led another fourteen miles to our place on the river. By “our place”, I mean the campground at the boat ramp that was Horseshoe Bend. By campground, I mean the crude, seldom-mown five acre area where, if one was lucky, had a concrete picnic table or a crude fire pit fashioned long ago by previous campers. There was nothing modern about the campground, especially the outhouses—those smelly, stinky, disgusting outhouses that one only used when absolutely necessary. And, another reason to be glad to be born a boy!
Once we hit the dirt road, anticipation increasinglybuilt for me and my brothers! Even though the road was bumpy, dusty, twisty and turny, it meant anything was possible. My mind would go crazy with expectation at how this adventure would unfold. Peeking outside the little openings of the camper windows, I would strain to see if I might spy a deer, a possum, a raccoon…or Bigfoot! Can you see “The Legend of Boggy Creek”? After only a few miles down this gravel path, my fantasy became reality when we came to the place on the road where it became two rows for a few wonderful feet. Rounding the next bend, I knew we would come to the place where that huge and wonderful grand old oak tree rose squarely from the center of the road, forcing the road to split in two! For some reason, that was simply wonderful to me! The power of a tree refusing to bow down to the efforts of man infused this boy’s mind with awe and wonder miles before we ever set foot in Horseshoe Bend!
After we were past the mighty, defiant, road-splitting oak, my senses were sent into full overload. Curve after curve gave way to yet more curves. Up one hill and down the next gave way to yet more hills to fly up and over. Seeming more like our own private roller coaster, my heart felt as if it would leap out of my chest, such was the exhilaration it produced as my dad intentionally sped up as he drove downhill only to have our stomachs “taken away” by the G-forces put upon us as we careened upward again! We giggled and jostled our way for miles as dad and mom giggled and laughed in the truck’s cab. Ah, the days before car seats and child restraints…
After several more mile’s worth of ups and downs and twists and turns, we knew we were almost there whenever my dad would come to the top of the final and biggest of all the hills just outside the campground and yell back to us, “Hang on, boys! We’re at the Big Hill!” The sheer fear and terror this produced in my heart was always outweighed by the sense of conquest I felt as we slowly, methodically inched down that steep grade. At one point, I could look outside the camper window and see several hundred feet below me, which seemed like miles in my little-boy mind, over the treetops down to where the river curved around its horseshoe shape!
It was often as we went down this mountain-of-a-hill that my young mind was filled with awe and wonder as the tune of the Claude King hit of 1962, "Wolverton Mountain”, wafted through my mind. “Wolverton Mountain” is the story-song of a young man in quest of true love who is kept away from young beauty in the safety of Wolverton Mountain by the girl’s father. Based on a real person and written by Merle Kilgore, the song was a number one hit on the country charts for nine weeks in 1962, and lingering in airplay for years to follow. Needless to say, I heard the song and imagined living out that song as a boy. As we made our way down that final hill, without fail I imagined myself the singer of the song…
They say don’t go on Wolverton Mountain
if You’re lookin’ for a wife!
‘Cause Clifton Clowers has a pretty young daughter
and he’s mighty handy with a gun and knife!
Her tender lips are sweeter than honey
and Wolverton Mountain protects her there!
The bears and birds tell Clifton Clowers
if a stranger should wander there.
Well, I don’t care about Clifton Clowers!
I’m gonna climb up on that mountain.
I’m gonna take the girl I love!
I don’t care about Clifton Clowers!
Songwriters: C. KING, M. KILGORE © SHAPIRO BERNSTEIN & CO. INC.
For all I knew, the very mountain we were traveling on might be Wolverton Mountain! In my mind, I WAS there! And if I were on Wolverton Mountain, could it be that lurking somewhere in wait for me was Clifton Clowers with a gun and a knife?! In such moments, part of me wanted dad to hurry down that big hill, while another part of me felt exhilaration at the possibility of the words of that song coming true, even though my little-boy thoughts of love were less romantic and more focused on the maternal!
Once we had made our way to the bottom of the big hill, we were still not quite at the final destination. One last foreboding place was yet to be traveled through—THE TUNNEL! Though not really a tunnel, the long quarter-mile stretch of road before entering the campground was completely tree covered from both sides. Looking down that last bit of roadway reminded me of a group of giant dancers in the form of trees. Each tree from either side bending its branches over the road like arms stretching out to bow down. I could never decide if the bowing down was in our honor or in an attempt to capture us to keep us from entering!
Once through the tunnel of trees, we crossed a cattle guard and entered the campground. Passing by the only source of fresh drinking water, an old hand pumped well, we made our way to the prime campground, usually the furthest campground to the left of the boat ramp. The boat ramp was the place where the most noise occurred so we avoided the closest campgrounds, opting for the most secluded spot available. Near the well stood the two outhouses. One never went to the outhouse without grabbing a roll of toilet tissue from the camp supplies, due to the reality that it was non-existent in the outhouse!
As soon as we settled into a campsite, and even during the setting up, I was enthralled by the natural beauty of the river. On the far side of the river sheer rock cliffs rose for a couple of hundred feet. One of my earliest memories of one of these legendary river trips was my dad pointing to those cliffs and showing me the domesticated goats climbing among them, some farmer surely missing them from his flock. In those days, it was not lost on me at how the river seemed the same, yet always different. Depending upon the amount of erosion or the strength of the flow, one never knew if the gravel bars from the year before would be in the same place or at the same depth, making short work of the sheer pins in the outboard motor on more than one occasion! There were even times when I know for a fact the river had not forked into two channels the year before, yet this year it did! The changing nature coupled with the sameness, year after year, filled my soul with wonder and adventure at just what might lay in store for us.
Camp meals were always the best, as I have already mentioned. From breakfast to lunch to dinner, the aromas always seemed to lure us back into camp from one of our boyhood excursions. Cookies all day long and marshmallows roasting in the evenings after dinner were always part of the river experience, but so was popcorn. If you know me, you know I consider popcorn one of the staples of life! My mom knew this and gave me the job, whether at the river or not, of popping all the popcorn the family could eat, and we could eat a ton! Somewhere, she found a campfire corn popper for me to use. It was a small wire basket made of something like porch screen material attached to a long handle. I still laugh at my first attempts to use it, though, as I recall more than once the entire batch going up in flames as I lingered too near the fire for too long! I’ll be honest, I loved the popping of the corn almost as much as I enjoyed the eating of it!
Just as the smells of camp food, wonderful and lip-smack-inducing to hungry Jernigan boys, they also attracted the local wildlife. On one of those many trips, we found this out the hard way. After we had eaten our evening meal and after we had gorged on popcorn and cookies, we all settled into our sleeping bags. Even though we had placed all the food in what we thought were raccoon-proof andpossum-proof containers, we had not counted on attracting the “others”. Sound asleep from full, content bellies, my brothers and I were awakened by the most unexpected sounds that night.
My memory is of the sound emanating from the area of the pots and pans we had washed up from dinner clanking together and falling to the ground from the picnic table where we had placed them. Then, the sound of breaking glass and shuffling “feet” caused my mind to run wild! Who was out there? Who was marauding around and rummaging through our supplies? The next sound I heard terrified me. Shredding sounds as paper and cardboard were being ripped into what must be a million pieces. Who could it be? What could they possibly want? Would I survive?!
Dennis Jernigan