Traditions must be nurtured and this is one that we have nurtured now for at least three years. It seems like more, but I can’t really document but three. Andy’s buddy, Jake House, always goes with us. Jake is now finishing his freshman year at Henderson where he is studying to be an airline pilot (says they advise against going the Air Force route which I thought was interesting). Jake remembers the first annual Tick Pick Weekend in vivid detail and all weekend long he rehearsed scenes from the former event. His favorite sayings are, “Tick check! Tick check!” (On the first Tick Pick Weekend, we were camping at a sight with ticks and periodically, while sitting around the campfire, we would remind each other to check on our legs for crawling ticks.) He also remembers fondly that Sarah read out loud from one of Clive Cussler’s action adventure novels about Dirk Pitt. Jake always adds, “And his best friend, Mud Hole.” He jokes about sitting around the campfire brushing our teeth and cutting toenails (Hey, it was an exciting weekend.). He still teases me about cutting my toenails with a hacksaw and putty knife. (I have really hard toenails, but I don’t remember the hacksaw. The putty knife, maybe.)
This year we invited the AmeriCorps Team to join us. They came in spite of the off-putting title, Tick Pick Weekend. Actually, only five of the team members (out of eight) were still in town to go. The others went to see family or had girlfriends coming to see them. So we were a motley and unusual group.
Jake, I have described earlier -- Val Kilmer look-alike who is in a perpetual girl-crazy state.
Steve, from New York, is Andy’s age (20), and is in AmeriCorps “to find himself.” He went to college one year, but partied so much that he basically flunked out. He is a very musical guy who plays our electric piano-keyboard really well when they come over. When considering the options for the weekend (which included lots of musical groups appearing at Riverfest, Little Rock’s weekend festival), Steve kept repeating, “But, Mickey, I want to go camping.” I would tell him about another group appearing that he might like to hear, and he repeated, “But, Mickey, I WANT to go camping.” So all weekend, I kept asking him if he was having a good time, and he always was.
Joe, also from New York, must be 21. He has not gone to college yet. Instead, he worked at a pizza place and became the manager and made lots of money at it, but was working too many hours. Decided he needed to do college if he was really going to get ahead, so he signed up for AmeriCorps to get the college money. Joe has a hereditary hearing problem and picks up only about half of what is being said.
Both Steve and Joe have identical twins back home. They look a lot alike at 5’ 7” and long black hair, and have become very close friends.
Danielle, from Massachusetts, is fresh out of high school (a year ago) and isn’t sure what she wants to study in college. Her family is very outdoorsy - camps and sails(!). In spite of being one of the youngest on the team she is one of the most responsible and level-headed. She is a water-animal. Loves to swim. I kept complaining about how cold the water was (it wasn’t really THAT cold), which amazed her because their water never gets this warm. She slept outside each night.
Brian from Kentucky (Berea), is a very, very quiet black guy in his second year of AmeriCorps, and the least likely person you would expect to repeat. You can usually pry three words out of him with a crowbar, but other than that he says nothing and floats around on the edge of the group. Loves to play Gameboy and other video games when he is at our house. I suspect he did the second year because he had no real home to go home to. The team leader, Nick, hinted as much.
Yolanda from New York City - Yolanda! Now she is a CASE. Appears to be of Puerto Rican descent, weighs in at about 200 pounds and sucks her thumb in public A LOT, usually while also rubbing her earlobe. I don’t believe I ever saw anybody over 5 years old suck their thumb, but there she was in living color with never an embarrassed moment. I’m pretty sure Yolanda is virtually homeless as well. One of the other team members, Sarah, says she didn’t like Yolanda at first, but has concluded that she is just a big baby. And she is a pretty uncomplicated person, out for immediate gratification. If you can work with five year olds, Yolanda is no problem.
Steve, Joe, and Yolanda are the smokers on the team. It always strikes me to have these idealistic young people concerned about saving the world and recycling every stray tin can, all the while poisoning their bodies.
So Will and I went to Lake Ouachita on Thursday afternoon to try to get a campsite. Of course, they were all taken by the time we got there, so we piled tents in the ski boat and headed out into the lake to find an island campsite. Fortunately, we found one of our favorite spots unoccupied on Island 39 (has a big red sign on it for navigation purposes). The campsite is on a high peninsula on an island about a quarter-mile in diameter. It has a natural bay which is great for parking the boat and unbelievable shale rock formations leading into the water’s edge.
Will and I prepared the campsite by cutting the tallest weeds, set up the tents and tarpaulins, and on Friday we hiked into the woods to find broken limbs for a homemade table. We salvaged three pieces of quarter-inch plywood from the beach to cover our table with and tied the limbs in a triangle from three conveniently placed trees. It was a handsome table and highly functional.
Sarah, Jake and Will came on Friday night after Andy got off work. They brought the sailboat and my little 1966 three-horsepower Johnson motor which runs like a sewing machine. (I’m not sure the connection between an outboard motor and a sewing machine, but that’s the phrase I always hear when bragging on your outboard.)
The AmeriCorps Team arrived at 2:00 on Saturday afternoon, so finally all ten of us were present on Island 39, and the fun began in earnest. Everyone had their chance at learning to kneeboard. Steve, Joe, and Danielle mastered it, but Brian and Yolanda never did. Brian liked another plastic board that is designed to sit on. Yolanda (can you imagine this) tried and tried on the kneeboard, body-surfing like a huge sea lion smashing the waves. Afterward she would describe her adventure with great enthusiasm to Danielle saying she was just “this close” to making it up on the board. She had great difficulty getting back into the boat. Instead of getting her feet into the bottom rung of the ladder, she pushed her whole body onto the top level of the boarding ladder like a beached whale, and wriggled and shoved until we finally pulled her on board. It appeared to me to be a wholly miserable business, but next time out, there she was trying to kneeboard again.
On Sunday afternoon, I showed her how to use the 3 horsepower motor and the sailboat like a fishing boat. She plumped down on a life-jacket in the bottom of the boat, pulled the crank cord and headed off for fishing. I don’t think she has ever caught a real fish before, but she has talked about nothing but fishing ever since she got her. So out into the deep water she went and cast one of Andy’s fishing lures endlessly. Five minutes here, then she would crank up the little motor and move 50 yards and fish some more. She didn’t catch a fish, but she tried for hours on end. Danielle said Yolanda had never been in a boat before AmeriCorps, and only in one since joining up.
All of the AmeriCorps Team were amazed at the beauty of Lake Ouachita and the clarity of the water. It IS an incredibly beautiful place.
Sunday night, Jake insisted that Sarah read more about Dirk Pitt. So while the ten of us sat around the campfire, Sarah read from Dragon by Clive Cussler.
The nights were taken with night swimming (they did a lot of that), poking the fire, and listening to the neighbors on an island a half-mile away play their rock music very, very loud. One of their guys had a boat rigged with a stereo and speakers that could rock the whole lake. Then they would start whooping and hollering. They advertised their site with a big bed sheet hung from the trees and the words, “Naked Land” painted on it. We checked often with binoculars and never saw anybody naked, but I think they consumed more than their share of beer.
Each morning I rose early to enjoy the solitude of the rising sun and the quiet morning waters. When the wind did not blow I paddled the sailboat like a canoe around the island. When the wind picked up, I sailed alone across the lake for a couple of hours. I was reminded just how much I love sailing. In the past six years, I have hardly sailed at all. Maybe it is a sign that I am back to myself since I am sailing again.
Sailing solo in my little 13 foot boat is mostly a matter of balance. Once I set the sails, I move to the middle of the boat to coax the most out of every puff of wind. When the boat is balanced so that the back of the boat clears the water, there is very little resistance and the boat scoots along in the lightest of airs. Airborne, I am hypnotized by the disturbed water receding from the back of the boat.
By 9:30 or 10, the rest of the gang would start to stir, and it was time for skiing. Around and around we would go, taking turns on the kneeboard or water skis. A couple of times I turned the powerboat over to Andy who pulled the AmeriCorps members. He is learning to be a very responsible boat driver.
Sarah usually lounged at the camp and read her book. Will spent a lot of time swimming and for the first time ever, kept enough sun block on to keep from getting a terrible sunburn.
Skipping rocks is another popular past-time. The shale in the rock formations makes for millions of perfectly flat rocks which can skim forever.
By Monday noon, everyone was tired and ready for real showers. We packed everything up and ferried it back across the lake. Andy made two trips in the ski boat while I puttered across with my loaded sailboat and the 3 horsepower motor.
Everyone had a great time. All in all, it was a perfect Tick Pick
Weekend. Only a couple of tick bites. Couldn’t have been better.