When we rode back from Texas A and M, none of us had any idea of how the world was about to change for all of us. Ironically my personal world changed about the same time although I didn’t see it coming. It’s takes the perspective of time to know just how much it changed.
After we returned home, the next big 4-H event was a six-county 4-H club camp. By today’s standards, it wasn’t much, but on the other hand it didn’t cost much either. There was no registration fee, but before the camp started, we were told to bring so many eggs, so much bread, so many pounds of pinto beans (I especially remember that one. We could have all the beans we wanted), so many potatoes, etc. We turned it all over to the county agent. He pooled his collection with the other county agents. I don’t remember exactly how they went about meal preparation, except that I do remember the pinto beans being cooked in a big washpot.
I used to think that I wanted to be a county agent, but they really went through a lot of stuff in attempting to help rural kids grow up. I now know they weren’t paid very much. They certainly didn’t do it for the money.
We went to Lake Cisco, which was about 30 miles or so east of Clyde. Daddy had trouble with that one too. He said, “Why don’t you just ask to go to Fort Worth?” It’s a wonder he didn’t say, “Why don’t you ask to go to New York?” It couldn’t have been any farther as far as he was concerned. But he caved in again
There were a big park area at Lake Cisco, but there were no cabins. We brought quilts and pillows and slept on the ground. There were some buildings in the park, but none of them were air conditioned. We never gave it a second thought. The only place that had air conditioning was the movie theater.
I had never heard of a sleeping bag. It made perfect sense to me to pull the covers off my bed at home. I found a big flat rock and threw my quilts down on that. It was better than sleeping on gravel. I don’t think I slept too much, but the camp was a magnificent experience.
We had all kinds of sports competition, and the park had some pretty decent recreational facilities. I think I still have my red ribbon, which I got for playing on the softball team that ended up in second place in the tournament.
There was a huge swimming pool, much larger than an Olympic pool. I’ve never figured out how they ended up with a swimming pool like that. I think it was probably a WPA project from the 1930’s. I could barely swim when I got there, but I was swimming pretty well when I left. Nobody gave me lessons. I just did it. I watch people swim and finally figured out how to move along in the water without my feet touching the ground. One end of the pool was shallow. I stayed there the first day. The other end was deep, and I moved to that one the second day. They had a tall tower, and the braver boys seemed to enjoy diving from it. The tower had three levels, and you could dive from any one of them. The first one was about ten feet high. I managed to work up enough courage to go off the lower level, but I never had the courage to even climb to the top level.
They also had a roller skating rink. I didn’t know how to skate, but I had to try. I eventually turned loose of the rails on the side. While my attempts at skating weren’t graceful, I eventually learned to circle the rink without falling. I felt a great sense of accomplishment at learning to swim and skate.
The whole thing was magnificent, but it was the end of an era. When we got home we learned that the United States had begun fighting in what became known as the Korean Conflict. I was 15. It occurred to me that I would be draft age in three years, and I began to contemplate a future that might be quite different from anything that I had expected. Suddenly the fun and games didn’t look like that much fun anymore.
Some lesser changes were also talking place. I had to choose between the FFA and the 4-H. It was a hard choice, but I think I was swayed mostly by the fact that all my peers were in the FFA. It was kind of ludicrous, because I was one of the few farm boys in the organization. You were supposed to have some kind of project and keep records on that project. I don’t think most of them had projects. I said “good bye” to the 4-H experience, and that was a sad thing.
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