A Snowy Walk In The Woods

Over the last several weeks, I have been involved in a daily exercise program of walking and some jogging.  Yesterday, March 24, 2018, since it was snowing heavily I took a 30 minute walk in the neighbors' pasture but turned around fairly fast due to the wet, deep snow.  Today, March 25, 2018, the snow is melting rapidly and the walking was much easier so I hit the woods and made it all the way to the ridge behind my house using old logging roads which were generally open enough to walk on.  The snow is already considerably more shallow than it was yesterday. The sun is shining, and it was a much nicer walk.  I actually got into an area I had never been in before and found someones deer stand which they either forgot to remove at the end of the season, were too lazy to remove, or intend to leave until the attachments are overgrown by the tree. I passed up the idea of climbing into it to see the increased view but a part of me still wishes I had.  I also got to the place where in the past several of my neighbors had placed television antennas in the days before satellite dishes and cable television.  

Finding the antennas, four of them, brought back some wonderful memories from my childhood on Beaver Creek in Knott County Kentucky about 55 miles from where I now live.  When my parents finally got television I was about 8 or 10 years old and in those days the only option was to place an antenna on one of highest points near your home, string a dual wire line from the house to the antenna, and to "walk the television line" nearly every time a wind storm passed through.  The highest point near our house was a spot we all called The Big Rocks, a large outcropping on the top of the mountain behind the house which required a hike of close to a mile through standing timber and across the land of a couple of other owners.  But there was a standing arrangement nearly everywhere in Appalachia that property owners who held the deeds to these high points almost never had any objections to neighbors placing antennas on their property and stringing a line across the land.  But after the arrival of less strenuous options such as satellite dishes and cable television, most of these sites were left with the antennas and the large pipes on which most of them stood untended to eventually fall down and litter the woods just as they do at the site on the mountain above my house.

Ballard Hicks, Photo By Roger D. Hicks

  

But I really wanted to write more about the memories this evoked when I found the site than about the abandoned antennas.  My father, Ballard Hicks, had been 64 when I was born so he was about 73 or 74 by the time we installed the television line.  But he could still traipse the woods with relative ease and when the television line needed work we would set out early, usually on a Saturday or Sunday, take a few sandwiches and something to drink, and hit the hill to find out what the current problem with the line was.  High winds nearly always brought enough tree branches down to break the line or simply blew hard enough to twist the line and create a short in the two wires which were separated by simple plastic insulators every foot or so. At that time, coaxial cable, which would have eliminated much of these problems, was not commonly found in the area. The line was attached to trees every fifty feet or so with two piece ceramic insulators which had a large nail through the center by which they were attached to trees.  Each insulator kept the two wires apart so long as there was no high wind, animal damage, etc.  But squirrels, raccoons, opossums, crows, and other large birds would often land or climb on the line and cause problems even when there was no wind. Basically, when your television went out, you had to take a small roll of wire, some insulators, a pair of pliers, a hammer, and a hand saw and "walk the television line" repairing whatever damage you found. In the end, you would have restored service to three channels out of Charleston and Huntington, West Virginia, which provided limited television service to the greater Big Sandy and Tug River watersheds in Eastern Kentucky.   

The work was usually fairly easy unless a heavy limb had fallen in a way that required it to be removed.  Often when heavy limbs fell, you could just cut the line on each side of the limb, splice it back, and raise it back up high enough to let most wild game or cattle get under it, and the job was done.  The real fun came in seeing and learning about the flora and fauna you could see on the way up and down the mountain.  My father was well versed in the common names of most plants and trees and knew every animal species from one end of their life cycle to the other.  It was always an educational trip.  Also, when we got to The Big Rocks and the job was done, we would sit down, eat our lunch, listen for the C & O Coal train to go up or down Beaver Creek, watch wild game and birds, and talk about whatever popped into our heads.

At times also, the boys in the neighborhood would go camping at The Big Rocks in spring, summer, and early fall.  We would sleep, without a tent and often with only worn out quilts, under an overhang of the rocks which kept us dry even in a mild rain. We would build up a fire, cook whatever we had to eat, listen to the woods at night, play a few games in the surrounding area, and fall asleep to the night sounds of the Appalachian forest.  We never worried about danger or rock falls due to building a fire under the overhang until a boy was killed by a rock fall in Floyd County Kentucky at a similar place called The Turkey Creek High Rocks.  The boys involved were roughly the same age as us and the situation was very similar with a large fire built under a rock overhang.  The dead boy had gone to sleep early wrapped in his bedding at the back of the overhang when a huge chunk of rock fell and killed him.  The other boys who were still up at the time managed to escape.  The story was widely disseminated all over Eastern Kentucky and for quite some time our parents would not allow us to camp at The Big Rocks. 

Antique Carbide Light

We also used to go into the woods at Christmas and New Years to shoot off fireworks where they elevation would allow the noise to be heard for quite a distance in all directions.  At times, we would even get our hands on a stick or two of dynamite and some blasting caps and shoot up to a quarter stick of dynamite at a time placed under large rocks or in the forks of trees to celebrate the holiday season.  In today's world, that obviously sounds like a highly dangerous past time and it was.  But in those days, you could buy dynamite and blasting caps at nearly every hardware store in the country if you were somewhere close to adulthood and appeared to have good sense and no malicious intent.  There were virtually no federal or state regulations on blasting materials at that time.  We also frequently shot carbide.  What I mean by that is that we would get a small amount of calcium carbide which was used in old fashioned mining lights.  You placed a small amount of carbide in the canister portion of the light, moistened it slightly, and the resultant gas would ooze out of the middle of the light reflector on top of the light where you lit it to produce a flame.  Coal miners used these to work underground for many years until the explosions they caused in gaseous mines caused them to be outlawed.  But, getting back to our game, you could also place a few grains of calcium carbide in a tin can with an airtight lid, moisten it, punch a nail hole in the bottom of the can, and when you lit the gas at the bottom of the can it would produce a small explosion which would blow the lid off the can and could also be heard for quite a distance.  It was fun but dangerous.  You had to stand with a foot on the can when you lit it to keep it from blowing randomly around and hurting anyone.  It was a lot of fun and to my knowledge no one ever got hurt in my area doing it. It was not smart and I must insert a disclaimer and warning here.  DO NOT ATTEMPT THIS AT HOME!  IT IS DANGEROUS AND CAN RESULT IN SERIOUS INJURY OR EVEN DEATH!
 

We also would infrequently play another game at these camp outs which was even more dangerous and also requires a warning and disclaimer.  DO NOT ATTEMPT THIS AT HOME!  IT IS DANGEROUS AND CAN RESULT IN SERIOUS INJURY OR EVEN DEATH!  When we were feeling extremely lucky, we would sometimes build up the campfire as large and hot as we could stand and play chicken with 22 caliber rifle shells.  We would stand in a circle with our backs to the campfire and throw in a handful of 22 caliber rifle shells.  The last person to run and hide won the game of chicken which was obviously highly dangerous and inadvisable.  When the game started, each person playing would choose their own tree or large rock to hide behind and run to it at what they hoped looked like the last second but was also well in advance of the first exploding rifle shell with it resultant blast of hot cinders. It got really interesting when two players had chosen the same tree or rock to hide behind.  Frequently, one or more boys in the group would just decide they were chicken, admit it, and go to hide before the game started which was actually the smartest approach to this game.  I also never knew of anyone in my area being injured by this game but it was played infrequently.  

Those are a few memories I had evoked by my snowy walk in the woods to the ridge top where my neighbors used to set up their television antennas.  I hope you have enjoyed this little walk down memory lane.