The Castaway Hotel - 6 - 33. Chapter 33 - A Few More Precious Memories

A few days after we discovered Andrew had won ribbons for his artwork, we received more good news. I was advised through one of my contacts that Sammy’s essay on history had qualified him to be one of the students chosen to participate in a very special camp. There were only sixty students selected from throughout the region and they would attend the camp in early May, instead of going to their regular classes.

Although I never did figure out whether Sammy was motivated by Trey and Dion’s success or if he had entered this contest so Andrew wouldn’t upstage him, it didn’t really matter. Sammy had qualified to go and this became his turn to shine. What impressed me even more about his success was the fact that nearly every freshman history student in the area had written an essay for this contest, but only sixty were chosen. This meant the winners represented less than 5% of those who entered, so I was extremely proud of Sammy’s accomplishment.

Thinking about all the boys’ recent accolades, it reminded me of a phrase the first President Bush had used. He referred to outstanding Americans as ‘points of light’ illuminating America’s future. I’ve learned over the past months and years that I have several points of light of my own, brightening my life and preparing to make their own unique impact in this world. I consider myself a very fortunate guy.

As May approached, not only did we have Sammy’s camp looming before us, but there were also several graduations coming up and Peter’s arrival as well. The first event would be Mark’s graduation and we’d all be going to see him get his degree. After that, Frankie would graduate next, with a degree in criminal justice from his two-year college. At nearly the same time, Dustin would be graduating from his community college with a degree in Business Administration. He was planning on looking for a job in HVAC (heating, ventilation and air conditioning) afterward and then he hoped to start his own business, once he had enough experience.

Peter had expressed a desire to arrive from Australia a few days before the high school graduation ceremony and I was looking forward to finally meeting him in person. While making arrangements for his trip, however, we ran into a hitch. There was a minor problem with Peter getting his passport, with the appropriate visas, in time to make it for the ceremony. Unfortunately, due to these problems it turned out he wouldn’t be able to be there for Ricky’s graduation.

Peter and Ricky were a little disappointed, but this was beyond our control. I told Peter I’d videotape the graduation for him, so he could see it later, but I knew it wouldn’t be quite the way he wanted to experience it. However, he took it in stride and agreed that would be fine.

Not only would Ricky be graduating from high school, but Pat and Jay would also be getting their diplomas at the same time. Even though Jay is technically not part of our family, he is included in nearly all of our activities and is like another son/brother to each of us. Therefore, we weren’t about to leave him out of this celebration, and his parents would be included too.

Before any of these events took place, the history camp would be held. The information packet Sammy had been given explained it would be an archaeological adventure, mixed with the opportunity to experience activities from the past. It sounded interesting, at least from my perspective, so I hoped Sammy would find it equally intriguing.

The winners met at a central location and were bused to the campsite. Once they arrived, they were split into smaller groups, of ten each, and would stay in these groups most of the time. There were a variety of activities planned and the students would spend half a day experiencing each one. Occasionally, the groups would join together for some larger activities, but most of the learning would be done in the smaller combinations.

Sammy told me later about the things they did, so I’ll try to relate them to you. This way you’ll be able to appreciate his experience too. The archaeological site wasn’t really a dig, but merely a chance to locate and discuss various items. A college professor and a couple of his graduate students were in charge and had ‘seeded’ the site with artifacts the students could discover. All of these artifacts were from a previous period in our history and were selected to explore various topics and stimulate further discussion and investigation.

Once the students ‘discovered’ these items, the instructor would initiate a discussion about what the objects might be, what they could have been used for, how they were handled and who might have required such an item. The groups also studied the layout of the site and made conjectures about why they had found these items where they did.

The area had been ‘seeded’ with a variety of interesting artifacts, which included square nails, a blacksmith’s tools, a worn out sickle, a pitchfork, a pickaxe, an old metal flatiron (the type you would heat on a stove), a washboard, a two-man hand saw, an axe, a hatchet and some chisels. In addition to the tools, there were pieces of old pottery, dishes, utensils and an assortment of bottles, made of various colored glass. Some of the bottles were blue, others green, a few were amber and the rest either brown or clear. They also came in a variety of sizes and shapes.

Once the students located and identified the items, they would discuss what they were used for. For example, when looking at the bottles, they would try to determine whether these items might have contained medicines, perfumes or beverages. Then, they would try to determine the reason for using colored glass, instead of clear glass. The discussion would include such ideas as whether it was done to prevent sunlight from affecting the composition of the materials contained within the bottles, merely for aesthetic purposes or if it was for some other reason.

After discussing the uses of the various items, the students were then asked to imagine how difficult even simple tasks must have been to perform during those times. Realizing everything was done by hand, the students came to understand there were many steps required to complete tasks, such as doing the laundry, making a meal or heating your home in the winter. It wasn’t quite as simple as today, where you pop the clothes into the washing machine, buy your food at a store and then prepare it using a stove or microwave, or turning up the thermostat, if the house became too chilly.

Not only were more steps required, but the tools they used to complete these tasks were also more primitive and more difficult to regulate. For example, it was nearly impossible to keep a constant temperature while cooking over an open fire, even one contained in a wood stove. Only the wealthy could afford to have others do these things for them, so most people had to figure it out for themselves or in cooperation with groups of others. I think over time, the participants slowly began to comprehend how different and difficult life was in the past.

The students were then asked to try to figure out the layout of the home, by studying the foundation and considering the items found in various locations. Once they had the house mapped out, they were asked to determine what the other, smaller foundations might have been used for. After this was settled, they would discuss the use of these smaller buildings.

It was difficult for many of the students to envision the lack of indoor plumbing and, hence, the need for an outhouse or a spring to supply clean water. They were so used to having all the water they needed and several toilets to select from when nature called, so the need for these articles was totally foreign to them. Having just a single spring, from which you would use a bucket to draw the water, before lugging it back to the house, or a single, wood outhouse, sometimes complete with splinters, seemed totally incomprehensible.

Once the students understood the use of these buildings, they were then informed about how it would be decided where they would have been located. After learning the outhouse was only roughly similar to a porta-potty, it was explained it would have been located far enough from the house so the smell wouldn’t drift back into the living quarters and placed so the rains wouldn’t carry the waste material toward their water supply.

After this had been explored, the group would talk about how often the outhouse would have been moved, since it would eventually fill up. They would also learn what would be done before the hole was filled in, to keep the material from contaminating other areas. They also learned that some of the wealthier families might have a ‘two-holer,’ with one side being for the ladies and the other for the men.

“When excavating such a site,” the grad-student began, “how could we determine which side the women used and which was for the men?”

“You mean we’ll have to dig in that crap?” one student shouted, alarmed.

“No, this is hypothetical,” he assured him. “But if we did, how would we decide which side was for whom?”

“They all crap the same, don’t they?” another student joked.

“Yes, and this doesn’t have to do with bodily functions,” the grad-student responded, mildly annoyed. “Think of something else they might have done in there, like some students might do in the lavatories at school.”

“They smoked weed in there?” another commented, without thinking first. This caused many of the others to break out laughing.

“Not weed, but they might have smoked in there,” the instructor replied, amused. “Many of the women would have refused to let the men smoke in the house, since the smell would have attached itself to nearly everything and yellowed both fabric and paint.”

“So we’d look for cigarette butts?” a girl asked.

“Not cigarettes,” the grad-student told him, “but they did smoke in the outhouse.”

“So we look for pipes?” another girl inquired.

“Not pipes either,” he replied.

“Cigars?” someone else volunteered, timidly.

“Not exactly, but close enough,” their instructor replied, encouraged they had finally gotten this far. “The cigars would have been wrapped in a protective coating and that would have been found on the men’s side of the outhouse.”

Now that this was settled, the grad-student explained what the occupants of the house might have done at night, rather than venture out to use the outhouse in the dark.

“The people who lived there would have used chamber pots for this purpose,” he told them. “The pots would have been either ceramic or enamel coated metal. The closest thing you might know to these would be the stainless steel bedpans used in hospitals. There would have been a chamber pot in every room, usually kept under the bed, and they would have had to be emptied each morning.”

“Yuck! They pee and poop in those at night and then have to clean them out the next morning,” one disgusted girl commented.

“Basically, but they would primarily be used to urinate, not defecate,” the instructor informed them.

“I guess that means they’d only pee and not crap in the chamber pot,” another student added, in an attempt to clarify the terms the college student had used.

“It’s still gross,” someone else observed, before this discussion ended.

Even though the topic didn’t go as smoothly as planned, the students still found it informative and began to better appreciate the advantages they now enjoyed.

At the teaching locations away from the main facility, there were outhouses provided for the students to use, when the need arose. Of course, toilet paper was also supplied, so no one had to resort to using newspapers, magazines or sponges, as people living in an earlier era might have done.

In another class, the students were given the opportunity to card wool, which would have been required to provide the yarn used to make clothing and other fabric. The carding was accomplished by drawing the raw wool between two small paddles, which had thistles or little metal teeth imbedded in them. The wool was pulled between these paddles to straighten and separate the fibers, thus drawing them into strands. The strands were then spun together into yarn, by using a spinning wheel.

“Didn’t Sleeping Beauty prick her finger on one of those things and then fell asleep for a hundred years?” someone observed.

“It was the spindle on a spinning wheel, but that was total fantasy,” the instructor observed. “It never really happened.”

After having a chance to try their hand at carding the wool and then an opportunity to spin it into yarn, the students were also given a chance to use an old-fashion loom, to weave the yarn into fabric. After they had done this, they were then shown several examples of the rough, homespun fabrics that might have been used to make their clothing, had they lived during that time period. Sammy was given a chance to take off his shirt and try on a homespun garment, along with a few others.

“This is scratchy,” Sammy observed. “It sure doesn’t feel as soft as my undershirt.”

“Yeah, it makes me itch,” anther boy added.

“I can’t imagine only wearing clothes made from this stuff,” Sammy stated. “I guess I would have stuck to clothes made from animal hides.”

This led to a conversation about what other things might have been used to make clothing, including various plant material. In the end, I think everyone was pleased his or her clothes weren’t as uncomfortable to wear.

At another site, the students were given the opportunity to make candles, under the supervision of a graduate assistant. After explaining how candles would be made from tallow (animal fat), beeswax or, later, paraffin (a byproduct of crude oil), he showed them how to use paraffin to make their own candles. They used a variety of molds and were shown how to attach the wicks. The candles would have been useless without the wicks, so they theorized what materials might have been used for this purpose. Later, they were given a chance to add color to the wax, if they so desired, by adding pieces of crayon. However, they then conjectured what substances might have been used to add color, prior to modern times.

The students were also given an opportunity to start a fire in an old wood stove. This would be used to heat the wax needed to make the candles. They were allowed to use wooden matches, but they had to ignite the tinder first and then later get a blaze going with the firewood.

In another area, the students got a chance to try washing clothes, by using a large washtub, a washboard and a bar of Fels-naptha laundry soap. They had to pump their own water first, using an old-fashioned hand pump, and they discovered how much more difficult this was than just turning on a faucet.

“Did the women have to pump the water or did the men do it for them?” one girl wanted to know.

“They usually did it for themselves,” they were told.

“But it made my arms hurt,” the girl replied.

“Well, the women from that era would have been pretty fit and used to doing physical labor,” he explained, but it only seemed to infuriate the girl.

“I’m pretty fit too,” she snapped back. “I’m a cheerleader and we do lots of lifts and stuff.”

“That may be true,” he agreed, “but it isn’t the same as pumping water, using a washboard, scrubbing floors by hand, carrying water, helping with farm chores and other things of that nature.” This seemed to let the steam out of her argument, so the girl allowed the matter to drop.

After washing a few items, they got a chance to iron some other fabric, using an old flatiron. After it was heated on the woodstove, they had to retrieve it carefully, so they didn’t get burned. They would wrap a folded piece of cloth around the handle to do this, sometimes wetting it first, before using the iron on the fabric.

“Man, this is heavy,” one girl commented. “Way heavier than our iron at home.”

“That’s because this one is mostly metal, not plastic, like the one you use,” he explained. “Keep moving the iron or you’ll scorch the cloth,” he advised, when he saw her let the iron rest momentarily, as she talked.

“Okay, okay. I get the point,” she responded, and then hurriedly began ironing again.

At another site they were given the chance to churn butter, using an old wooden butter churn, but they discussed the whole process of making butter before they started. They talked about milking the cow by hand and separating the cream from the milk, before they could churn the cream into butter.

“Man, they had to do this just to have some butter,” the boy doing the work asked. “I think I would have used jelly or something else.”

“Making jelly was just as much work,” he was informed, “but I guess you could have collected honey, if you didn’t mind getting stung once in a while.”

“Dang, lifting this churn up and down is harder than it looks and my arms are beginning to burn,” the boy continued. “I don’t even work this hard practicing for sports.”

“And the women and children would be mainly responsible for this getting done,” he advised them, which elicited a bunch of shocked expressions.

While at this location, the students also got an opportunity to see how a smokehouse was used to cure meat. Part of the ensuing discussion was about which types of wood worked best for this purpose and, of course, someone said hickory, because he remembered hearing about hickory-smoked ham. The group also talked about other ways to preserve food, such as using salt, before the advent of refrigeration.

Another location gave them the chance to chop wood, using just an axe or hatchet. This was done to show each group how they would get material to construct a house or build furniture.

“I did this on a camping trip once,” one boy observed, “but I wouldn’t want to have to do it to get enough wood to build a house or heat it all winter long.”

Once they chopped down a few small trees and removed some dead limbs from others, the students were shown how to split the wood they would need for cooking or heating their home during the cold winter months. Once the wood was cut, the students were then shown how they could use an axe to split it into smaller pieces, which would burn better. They were also shown how splitting wedges and sledgehammers could be used for this purpose, instead of just an axe.

“Man, you’d really have muscles if you did this for very long,” one young man observed.

“That’s why many of our forefathers were so powerful and fit,” the instructor replied.

At still another area, the students were allowed to use two-man and one-man handsaws, rasps, chisels and other handheld woodworking tools, to give them a chance to see what it would have been like to make the furniture for their home. After cutting the wood to the right length, they were given a chance to smooth and shape it, before the final assembly. The students were also shown a variety of items they might have built, if given the time, from simple tables and benches to stools and chairs. They were also shown a few bed frames and instructed as to how ropes would have been used to supply the tautness to support the mattress, instead of using bedsprings.

“Is a bed made like that really comfortable?” one of the students wanted to know.

“Maybe not as comfortable as what you’re used to,” the instructor told them, “but they were pretty good at the time.”

At the final site, each group was given a chance to prepare a meal, but to do this they had to work with adults and make everything from scratch. They made soup using raw vegetables they’d picked from the garden and cut up themselves, and they used water they had carried in from the manual pump in front of the building. Once all of this had been placed in a huge iron pot, they let it heat up on top of the woodstove.

The students also made bread dough and added yeast to make it rise. Of course, this process would take time, so the dough they worked on was switched out with another bowl of dough, which had been started in advance. The students then baked this previously prepared dough to make bread, which they would use later to make sandwiches. Of course there were no cold cuts, so they would have to use meat the staff had cooked and cut up beforehand.

When the group had finished these chores, they made a pudding for dessert. It was not from a box mix, like they might do at home, but something they had to put together from scratch. Once the pudding had been whipped together, the students would cook it on the woodstove and then let it set. When their next mealtime rolled around, the group ate the food they had just fixed and bypassed the meal prepared by the staff for the others.

“Dang, it would have taken all day just to fix dinner,” one student noted.

“Yes, meals did take a long time to prepare,” he was told.

“Wow, that must have been a pain when you were hungry,” he observed. “I guess you had to eat a lot of fruits and vegetable back then, huh?”

“Well, you could go out and pick what you’d planted or was growing nearby, so there wouldn’t be as much waiting,” the grad-assistant teased.

Sammy told me later that the camp was fun and he learned a great deal, but he was glad he didn’t live back then, because everything was too much work. He said he found out the children had to do a share of the work and many didn’t get a chance to go to school because they had to do so much work at home. If they did get an education, it only happened when there wasn’t a lot of work to be done, like during the winter months.

Sammy also informed me that with only candles and lanterns to use for light, it was hard to do much at night, so everyone went to bed early and got up early. He then went on to say doing that would certainly not be to the liking of modern teens, because they like to stay up late and then sleep late.

“Yes, I remember what it was like back then and it’s a miracle I survived growing up that way,” I joked, but Sammy didn’t catch on to the fact that I was teasing him.

“You mean you had to use candles and lanterns too?” he asked.

“Heck, yes. I was in college before Edison invented the light bulb,” I added, but I guess this bit of information gave me away.

“Oh, dad, Edison’s been dead for ages and you’re not that old,” he countered. “Close, but not QUITE that old,” he teased back.

After we finished our humorous banter, I discovered something else. No matter how much Sammy learned or how much he enjoyed being at camp, it was not the most memorable part of the trip. That happened on the way home.

Sammy was riding in the second bus and sitting in the third seat on the right, when one of the kids in the front seat screamed something was wrong with their bus driver. Sammy was sitting on the aisle, so he looked up and saw the driver slumped over the wheel, but the bus was still traveling down the highway.

Sammy and another boy reacted immediately and sprinted next to the driver. When they reached him and realized he was unconscious, they also noted his foot was still on the gas. Fortunately the bus was on a straight stretch of highway at the time, but the boys could see they were approaching a curve up ahead. Knowing he would have to act quickly, Sammy pulled the driver’s foot off the gas pedal, stretched his own leg across the bus driver’s leg and pressed on the brake. It took several seconds before the bus began to slow down, but Sammy didn’t bring it to a complete stop.

While he was stepping on the brake, Sammy told the other boy to have the kids in the seat behind the driver grab the bus driver’s clothes and pull him upright. They needed to get his weight off the steering wheel, so Sammy could use it. Once the others had accomplished this task, Sammy worked the gas and steering wheel, so he could guide the bus off the road and onto the shoulder. Once the bus was off the highway, Sammy used the brake again, to bring the bus to rest, and then he took it out of gear and turned off the ignition. Sammy and the other boy had managed to get themselves and the others safely out of harm’s way.

The other bus driver hadn’t noticed anything amiss and continued on. However, a short time later, he realized the second bus was no longer behind him, so he pulled off the highway and turned his bus around. He thought the other bus might have broken down, so he went back to see if he could help.

By the time he spotted the missing bus, Sammy had already had one of the other kids flag down a passing motorist, to call for help. Luckily the driver that stopped had a cell phone and dialed 911 for help. When the other bus arrived, the motorist and the other bus driver went to see if there was anything they could do to help the unconscious driver.

It turned out Sammy’s driver had passed out due to a low blood sugar level, but he wasn’t even aware he was diabetic. When the ambulance got there, they revived him and took him to the hospital for observation, before he was released. However, before that happened, another driver arrived to take the bus the rest of the way home and the person who brought him waited at the hospital, so he could take the other driver back too.

After seeing how Sammy had handled himself in this situation, I guess it was fortuitous some of my older boys had been giving their younger brothers driving lessons, but without my knowledge. Even though it had helped to save the day, it was something I thought I should address, once the hoopla from this event died down. I certainly didn’t think encouraging underage driving was such a good idea and I certainly didn’t want my other drivers teaching the rest. I wanted to handle those chores, to make certain nothing was omitted and the proper skills and rules were emphasized.

All in all, I was grateful things had worked out the way they did. Sammy not only had a good time at the camp and learned a lot in the process, but he and the other boy were now hailed as heroes. The two boys received quite a bit of attention, because of what they had done, and not only did the local newspapers write it up, but the story also appeared as a footnote on some of the national newscasts.

Both boys were given special recognition at their schools too and several parents sent letters or cards expressing their gratitude for the pair’s quick thinking. It was highly probable they had saved many lives, due to their actions. I guess it was just another shining moment, in the midst of my many glimmering stars.