Poisoned Secrets, Part 1

     This past week I was one of six storytellers at The Hearth, a periodic storytelling event in Grants Pass, Oregon. The theme was family secrets. My story was titled "Poisoned Secrets" and contained two tales from my childhood about secrets born of shame and fear.

Part 1: Camp Highland

    When I was eight years old, I spent two weeks at Camp Highland, a YWCA camp for girls in north Georgia. It was my first time away from home.

    Everything should have been fine. I was a happy, well-adjusted child; the camp wasn't far from my home in Sandy Springs, Georgia, and my older sister was also at the camp, although she lived in another cabin and had her own set of friends and camp activities.

    But I liked the crafts classes, swimming in the lake, the campfire sing-alongs. I liked learning how to canoe, how to climb back into the canoe if I fell out, and especially how to stand on the gunwales in the stern and, by bending my knees and swinging my arms, propel myself across the water. It was called gunwaling, and it was a lot of fun.

    But I was so unhappy! I know now that I was just homesick. I missed my parents, of course, but mostly, I think, I just missed home, the familiarity of home—my dolls, my cat, the woods I played in, the room I shared with my sister. I missed reading a book in the Red Chair, swinging in the Big Swing over the tops of the dogwood trees, climbing the mimosa tree, riding my bicycle on the circular driveway around the well. I missed all these things with a deep, acute longing, an ache that couldn't be eased by new friends and fun activities. And because I was afraid of being called a baby by the other girls or of being sent home as a failure by the camp counselors, I didn't tell anyone how unhappy I was. Loneliness compounded homesickness.

    I was taking tennis lessons, too. I liked tennis. I had never played before, and neither had the other girls in the class, so, of course, our balls frequently went out of bounds, often landing in the poison ivy that grew lushly around the edges of the court. I was highly allergic to poison ivy, so, of course, I was always very careful when I had to retrieve a stray ball, reaching for it with my tennis racket to urge it back into the clear.

    Usually I was careful.

    One day I wasn't.

    It was a day of particularly bad homesickness, of loneliness and ache and misery, and—here's the secret I've never told anyone before tonight—I waded deliberately into the poison ivy to retrieve a tennis ball, making sure the poisonous leaves made good contact with my skin.

    Well—I came down with the worst case of poison ivy you can imagine. I had good reason to be miserable now! 

    There was talk of sending me home or even to the hospital, but in the end the camp nurse did a good enough job of keeping the reaction at bay, with calamine lotion and gloves on my hands at night, that I could finish my two weeks at camp.

    When camp was over and my parents came to pick me up, I was badly affected by the poison ivy. My arms, legs, and ankles were covered with oozing blisters, an angry red rash, and spots of pink calamine lotion. I was a mess! My parents were shocked. 

    When I saw my parents, I started crying. I cried for how unhappy I had been, for the shame of my disfigured body, and, especially, for the shame of knowing, deep down where I couldn't admit it, that I had brought this on myself.

    I know now that it was a way of evoking sympathy for my unhappiness, of saying, "I am so unhappy! I miss my home so much!" Not that I expected to be sent home or even that that's what I wanted, but that I desperately needed to make visible my misery. I was too ashamed to admit this to my parents, and I have kept it a secret all these years.

A Day at Crater Lake

     The Cleetwood Cove trail at Crater Lake National Park, the only access to the lake itself, will be closed after this summer for construction of a new trail, so it's imperative that I get in a swim before I can't. So last week I drove to the park for a hike up Garfield Peak, followed by that cherished swim in the bluest water on the planet.

   I arrived at the park entrance before 10:00 and drove in light traffic to the Rim Village, parked close to the trailhead, and started up Garfield Peak. It was a good hike, uphill but not too strenuous, with stunning views of the lake.

I had one difficulty when I missed the path for avoiding a big snowfield over the trail and tried to walk on the steep hillside below the snow. But this was surely wrong! I did slip, but just onto my knee, not down the mountain. At the top I marveled at the view of the gorgeous royal-blue lake with snow still packed into each gully lakeside. Swimming would be fantastic!

    I was back at my car by noon. I pulled out of my parking place and headed around the lake.

    Big mistake. 

    By now the park was crawling with cars. At Cleetwood Cove the parking lot was full, cars were parked half a mile down the road, east and west of the trailhead, on both sides of the road. Hordes of people were walking towards the trail. It was a zoo. I didn't want to join it.

    The best thing, I thought, would be to go back to the Rim Village and take the trolley around the lake. I could disembark at Cleetwood Cove, walk down the trail to the lake, ignore the masses, take my swim, and catch the next trolley back to my car. (I have learned since that this can't be done.)

    It was a bad plan, anyway. The Rim Village was even more of a circus that Cleetwood Cove. I joined a long line of drivers driving around and around, hoping someone would vacate a parking place just as they were going by. It was madness. I gave up on my swim and headed out of the park.

    Things were slightly calmer at the Visitor's Center, where I was lucky enough to find a parking place. Then I took the Castle Crest Wildflower Trail,

an easy one-mile loop through meadows of large red Lewis's monkeyflowers, purple lupine, and yellow groundsel. Water flowed over flat stones on the path. It was a beautiful little hike, with few other hikers. 

    Then I left the park.

    It was earlier than planned, so I stopped at Mill Creek Falls and took the trail to the falls, which I had never done. The water fell in thunderous long plunges and were very beautiful, as reputed.

A photographer kept me from getting to the cliff's edge.

Then I walked further down the trail to the river's edge, where I found a small eddy in the roiling river. I  took off my shoes and soaked my feet and my face in the cold water. 

    At last and at least.

   I still owe myself a swim in Crater Lake. 

Swimming in Crater Lake in 2022.         Photo by Barbara Holiday
Do you see why I have to get back?

           

Women Friends

     I spent the three days of my birthday weekend in Gasquet, at the northern California/southern Oregon coast, with four women friends: Cheryl, Janet, Sandy, and Peter. These are women I hike with weekly. We have backpacked down the Wild and Scenic Rogue together, on the Upper Rogue, and in the Red Buttes Wilderness. Our bonds are tight.

L-R: Cheryl, Peter, Sandy, me, Janet

The weather was beautiful. We walked on the beach in appropriately foggy weather

hiked through the mystical light of the redwoods

and swam in some of the most beautiful swimming holes on the Smith River, which, in my opinion, rival any swimming holes in the Pacific Northwest.

    We stayed at Peter's beautiful, 100-year-old house above the Smith River, watching out the window at the water rippling by, ducklings playing tag in the riffle, a blue heron flying downriver, hummingbirds darting in and out, and often just the oak leaves twirling in the breeze. We ate magnificently. Sandy, who, to our good fortune, is a professional cook, made mole one night and curry the next. Everyone brought something to share—garden vegetables, freshly picked blueberries, home-made chocolates and chocolate cookies. I brought four kinds of tartlets: chocolate brownie, strawberry fool, orange custard, and nectarine-plum. The morning of my birthday everyone worked in the kitchen to make a magnificent breakfast. 

    They made me the center of attention that day, letting me choose the day's activity (a long hike ending in a swimming hole), taking me out to dinner at a seafood restaurant in Brookings, and then returning to the house for the birthday cake (New York cheesecake) Sandy had made.

They gave me a flood of presents—a quart of blueberries, a delicate necklace, pomegranate syrup, lavender cheese from Rogue Creamery, and many other gifts, all of which were supplemental to the love they had showered on me all weekend and, indeed, on each other as well. They're that kind of women.

One of my birthday gifts

How Old Is 81?

     In a few days I will turn 81. How old is that? Consider:

    The family car, a '49 Plymouth, had running boards. My sister Linda and I would run down the front walk when we heard Dad coming home after work and jump on the running boards to ride the rest of the way down the driveway.

    Flour came in cloth sacks. My mother made dresses for Linda and me out of flour sacks. 

    Raggedy Ann and Raggedy Andy were the dolls of the day. Pre-Barbie, pre-Cabbage Patch.

L to R: Linda, our sister Sharon, and me
at Raggedy Ann and Raggedy Andy's wedding

   The milkman left milk in glass bottles on our doorstep. In rural Kentucky, where my grandparents lived, the bread van pulled into the driveway once a week.

    Our telephone was on a party line. There was still an operator you could talk to. 

    We wore white gloves to church.

With my sister Linda, 16 months older, in matching
dresses. (Linda ia also wearing a sweater.)

    We wore crinolines under our skirts, as in this picture taken before the 7th-grade graduation prom. (There was no middle school. We went from 7th grade at Liberty Guinn Elementary School to 8th grade at Sandy Springs High School, where we were called subfreshmen.)

My date was Gary McClosky, as noted in the margin.

   At dance lessons we learned the waltz and the fox trot. Later we learned the jitterbug.

    When I worked for my father during my teen years, his secretary advised me to learn shorthand so I could take dictation from my boss when I became a career secretary. I learned Gregg shorthand, the system invented by John Gregg in 1888. I did not become a career secretary.

    When travel by air became available, while I was in college, women dressed up to fly, just as they did a century earlier to take the train.

    In my childhood, oranges were special treats, avocados and artichokes unknown. I had my first artichoke when I lived in England in my early twenties. I had my first avocado two years later, when I moved to California with the hippy movement.

    I learned to type on a manual typewriter, aa Royal, while I was in high school. Later I used an electric Olivetti, then reverted to the Royal during those many years I didn't have electricity at my house.

Royal typewriter at left, sitting on top of my treadle
sewing machine in the house I built in the early '70s

    It all seems like such a long time ago.

    

    

July 4, 2025

     It's July 4, but I'm not celebrating our country these days. Trump's crowing over his Big Beautiful Bill just about drowned out the chorus of birdsong this morning. And what did all those birds have to sing about, anyway, given the cuts in support of alternative energy and other mitigations to global warming in the BBB? 

    And that was only one of many abominations in the bill. Good for the Democratic senators who yelled "Shame!" to the Republican colleagues voting "aye."

    Thank goodness the Senate took the sell-off of public lands out of the bill. That was a close one.

    Most abominations remained, though. I worry about the cuts in Medicare. I worry about people who identify as trans and other sexualities outside the straight-and-increasingly-narrower heterosexual-marriage one. And I especially worry about immigrants. I worry about separating children and parents; I worry about depositing people in detention centers, and isn't that just another name for concentration camps and haven't "immigrants" become today's Jews? We said, "Never again," but I'm very much afraid it is happening again.

    I have a friend from Europe who has lived in this country for decades. She isn't a citizen but has permanent status. She is worried, but I don't think she needs to be, not because of her "permanent" status but because I don't think it is European immigrants Trump wants to deport. (Look for instance, at his welcome to white South Africans to immigrate here.)

    In her July 3 column, Heather Cox Richardson, who is good at giving historical context to contemporary issues, reminded us that the Declaration of Independence formed a nation based on the idea of human equality and that the Civil War was a test whether that concept could hold. Then she says, "It did, of course. …But…we are once again facing a rebellion against our founding principle as a few people seek to reshape America into a nation in which certain people are better than others."

    It's July 4. The birds are singing as beautifully as they did yesterday. I hope they can continue to sing, day after day. I hope we can continue to honor, or learn to honor, the birds and all living beings in our country. It's not too late. 

Backpacking in the Emigrant Wilderness

     Unbelievably gorgeous landscapes, swims in cold mountain lakes, rigorous hiking, challenges met and overcome, good hiking companions—everything that makes a good backpacking trip came in spades in my recent week-long trip in the Emigrant Wilderness Area, just north of Yosemite, with my friend Scott and his cousin's daughter, Erin.

Scott and Erin, my tall, long-legged hiking partners

     Scott, a Sierra Club outings leader, was looking at the route we took as a potential Sierra Club trip. When I asked, as we were walking out, how he would rate it for difficulty, he said, "A solid 4." (The Sierra Club's "most difficult" rating is 5.)

    I whole-heartedly agree. The trail was so steep in places I thought I just couldn't haul myself—and my pack—up another two-foot-high rock step in the long, beautiful, built-in-granite, rock staircases. At one point, I thought, "Diana, you're 80 years old. What do you think you're doing?" But on I went and on I went and on I went, and I did every step of the trail and loved it all. Many times I rounded a curve to find Scott and Erin waiting for me. Seeing me, satisfied that I was coming, they turned around and kept on hiking. I followed without stopping.

    We camped in glorious places. My favorite was on the granite slabs above insuperably beautiful Lake Lertora, achieved on a "black diamond, singletrack trail with a hard overall physical rating." (Agreed!) That night we watched the sunset stripe the sky and the lake with pinks and oranges; the next morning I got up at 6:00 for a swim. Yes, it was cold (7877-foot altitude), but it was so beautiful I couldn't leave the water. I swam around a large granite-based island with trees and flowers before finally pulling myself to shore. It was, Erin estimated, a 40-minute swim.

The island I swam around in Lake Lertora

    I had a swim every morning. At one campsite, while Scott was trying to catch a trout he could see holding steady in the current, I swam across the river and back. As the trout never bit, we dubbed the campsite Camp Elusive.

    There were numerous stream crossings. Each time, I watched Erin cross first to see how deep the water was. Three or four times the water was so deep I took off my shorts to cross in my underwear and let Scott carry my pack.

Crossing Wood Lake

If the current was strong Erin carried my shoes so I could use both hands unencumbered on my hiking poles. Do you see what I mean? Great hiking companions.

Scott filling water bottles at a stream crossing

    Day after day we took to the trail, climbing over logs, up steep stone staircases, through mosquito-infested marshes, across steep snowfields, and, always, through the stunning landscape of the high Sierra. One day, on an unmaintained trail, Scott's phone with its GPS died, so we had to do some trail-hunting. We didn't get to our destination that long, difficult day till 6:00 that evening. When we got there—Gem Lake—the bugs were awful. Actually, the whole trip was marked with unending mosquitoes. We wore mosquito nets over our hats most of the time and kept any exposed limbs well lubricated with bug repellent. 

    But in the high Sierra, if you have mosquitoes in June, you also have flowers. l was in seventh heaven with the spreads of pale lavender shooting stars,

bright magenta penstemon, heather almost the same color, and spreads of pink pussy paws, yellow brodiaea, and gorgeous clumps of pink and white creeping phlox among the white granite.

    Each of us had brought dinner for all of us for one night. Erin's was best—rice with three tins of mackerel, rich and fulfilling and impressively heavy to carry. I wished I had brought more cream cheese to go with the pasta I served, but, unlike Erin, I was considering the weight of my pack. 

    One night we looked at a campsite in the trees by the river, but it had an animal hole, front door and back door, which we figured was a fox's, so we camped instead on the rocks above the river. Sure enough, that night I heard the fox bark down there where we had thought to camp. 

    At Lake Lertora we were entertained for hours by nuthatches and woodpeckers flying in and out of holes in a tree facing our campsite.

We saw an occasional marmot. Lots of trout, a pileated woodpecker. No bears or deer.

    Have I talked you into hiking into the Emigrant Wilderness from Crabtree Trailhead? It ain't easy! But it's OMG gorgeous.

Mountains, Flowers, Friends, Taxis, and Bears

     I spent a few days last week camping with my son, Ela, and a group of friends at a tiny log cabin 

                                                                photo by Ela Lamblin

deep in the north Cascades, overlooking dense forests and distant snowy peaks.

    What a great group of people! We spent hours in intelligent, probing, delightful conversation, morning and evening.

Breakfast long over, we are still enjoying each other's company.   
                                                                                    Photo by Diana Coogle

We went on hikes, drank sweet water from hidden springs, looked for the lady slipper orchids, which were disappointingly not quite in bloom. The first night I lay in the hot tub, on a platform overlooking the densely forested hills, watching the stars twinkle into view one by one.  We cooked over a campfire every night,

                                                            photo by Ela Lamblin

sharing whatever each of us had brought. Ela grilled some delicious lamb chops one night; another night he and I passed around caprese hors d'oeuvres while a salmon filet cooked on the fire.
    The second day, while some guests took long mountain-bike rides, Lisa took me on a strenuous hike up and over the mountain, 

                                                            Photo by Lisa Brody

where yellow balsam root, red Indian paintbrush, and purple lupine decorated the woods, with great views of Cascade peaks. The trail was mostly a motorcycle trail; Lisa, who hadn't been on it for several years, called it "70% unhikable" because it was so steep and dust-slippery, but I thoroughly enjoyed it.   

    The last day of our visit we went back to the orchids and this time were treated to their astonishing blooms. 

Lady slipper orchids in the north Cascades. Photo by Diana Coogle

    I had a wonderful time, but I did not have a smooth trip home. The taxi I booked to get me to the train station in Tacoma never showed up. I finally took a bus, but I missed my train, had to buy another train ticket, and arrived in Eugene too late to drive home so I also missed a meeting and a booked massage on the next day. On the other hand, I found a really good little restaurant for dinner in Eugene, and the train ride from Tacoma to Eugene had been beautiful. 

Mt. Rainier through the train window. Photo by Diana Coogle

    When I got home, I discovered mysterious smears on several windows.

In spite of the reflections, you can clearly see
the bear paw prints on a downstairs window.

They had to have come from a bear, investigating the house while I was gone. One of the windows on which he left a paw print was, disconcertingly, in my upstairs bedroom. The bear had climbed a tree to get on the roof to peer in. I used to leave that window wide open every night. Not any more.