Cornfields

Summer camp was a big part of my teen years, not childhood, as you'd expect. I grew up mostly in Northern California, but spent every summer in Ohio, visiting my extended family. My grandmother sent me to a camp in Indiana.

"The Middle of Nowhere" doesn't begin to describe the location of my camp. Bear with me; I need to give a bit of background before I continue.

Ever camp has a camp legend, probably even a few of them. Our's was the White Lady, one Lucretia Drake, the ill-fated bride- "doomed to die and wander the woods for all of eternity."

I learned that this story-apparently- had some degree of truth to it. Our counselors decided that we would spend an evening hiking to the grave of the White Lady.

Our entire age group, including my cabin and maybe four other cabins, and many members of staff made up our party; a party of maybe thirty or forty, maybe more.

We met at around seven pm, at the edge of a field. This was, as far as I knew, the camp's boundary. Our party trekked deep into the woods, and my friends and I were chatting enthusiastically. There was a bit of a problem with crossing a brook, but nothing too bad as a little mud. We'd hiked about half an hour when we came upon a clearing. There sat a rusted heap of a car. We crowded round, spewing theories on its reason for existing where it did.

We moved on. We kept walking, the ground now flat. Farther along, we came upon the shattered shell of a barn, next to several more rusted cars. I nearly jumped out of my skin when I saw- I kid you not- a picture perfect, cartoon character of a farmer standing around with two of his dogs. He was old, wearing a straw hat and overalls. He had a crazed sort of bearing. He stood, smiling blandly as our brigade marched by. Was this a joke? Did someone pay him? He couldn't have been real.

We walked farther, coming onto the first paved road I'd seen in weeks. Mind you, it was still a single lane, country road that stretched in opposite directions for miles and miles, undulating and straight. There were cornfields on either side. It was late July. The stalks were clear past six feet. Having grown up on the pacific coast, I was very enthusiastic about the cornfields. And silos. I would point them out with glee. Dusk was falling, and our excitement grew.

We continued down this road for another half hour, maybe longer. Then, we heard a car approach. It was that same farmer, driving one of his rusted pieces of crap right up to us. He got out, gesturing to follow. Our entire procession followed him- we later learned his name was Mr. Bennett- into the woods. (The cornfields had gradually turned to the beginnings of forest.)

It was nearly dark now. We hiked uphill for a short while, finally stopping in front of a clearing. Before us: dozens of graves. They were all in advanced stages of decay, the words hardly legible. The words we could make out told us the graves dated from the 1870's. The first one we looked at was that of Lucretia Drake, I'll be damned. She did die young. Around her, her family lay. One grave even belonged to a veteran of the civil war, another whose birth-day and death-day were in fact the same date, a mere seven hours difference. There were daddy-long-leg spiders, spindly little things, crawling around, all over the gravestones. It made the effect all the better.

I kept telling my friends that I was "really diggin' these gravestones." Excuse the pun. I was (and still am) quite fond of puns.

It was nearing eleven. We'd been gone several hours.

It would take ages to get back.