Blue Ridge Folklife

6. The Blue Ridge Today

C H A P T E R The BlueRidge Today Growing up in Washington, D. C.,1had visited the Blue Ridge many times during my youth, but my first opportunity to stay there for an extended period came when I worked as a counselor at a summer camp located just over the Virginia border in Hampshire County, West Virginia. That was when I met Jack Schaffenaker, "the earthworm man." As the following first-person account conveys, that summer Jack taught urban and suburban campers and counselors much about rural life in the Blue Ridge region— and much about living, period. Jack Schaffenaker, "The Earthworm Man" I sat there on the lodge's back porch, pondering my predicament: the camp's director had just handed me a form which listed my teaching assignment for the summer, and I knew nothing about the subject. He wanted me to teach the kids something about "environmental ethics," and I had no idea what that term meant. Hoping I had misread my instructions, I jumped off the porch to retrieve the form—I had torn it up and scattered the pieces in the thick brush under the porch. Careful not to arouse the poisonous spiders I had been told hid out in that brush, I recovered all the pieces and reconstructed the form; sure enough, it said what I feared it said. I returned to my perch to brood. It was my first day at my first real job, and already I regretted signing up. The camp's director had claimed he wanted high school graduates interested in the environment, but he had mentioned nothing about "environmental ethics." I assumed that at most I would be required to work in the darkroom, lead a bird walk or two, and perform some of the banjo tunes 6 ^74 The Blue Ridge Today 175 Jack Schaffenaker teaching the author a new tune. I had learned from records; instead, I had been assigned a great responsibility —I had to tell some children about something so complex and important that I myself didn't understand it. Then I realized that if the camp's director found me pouting on the back porch, he might put me on the next Greyhound headed back to Washington ("the city built on a swamp" was my name for that place). Recalling that I had accepted this job mainly to escape the hot air of another Washington summer, I decided I would be better off staying at camp, despite the burden of responsibility I now faced—who knows, I thought, I might even learn something. Since I didn't want to spend another long sultry summer mowing down weeds and mopping up swimming pools, I jumped off the porch again—this time to join the other counselors for the afternoon picnic. So that the counselors could get to know one another, the camp's director had organized a picnic to be held on top of the ridge which loomed over the camp's lodge. The path up the ridge was actually an old rutted logging road overgrown with nettles. Apparently oblivious to the stinging in their legs, the other counselors raced up the path. They were talking so ij6 Blue Ridge Folklife loudly that they scared away the wildlife—angry, I let them get far ahead of me. I had come to these mountains to get away from such people. Walking alone, I took my time, enjoying the early summer wildflowers. When I finally got to the top, I sawthat the other counselors were already playing capture the flag on the grassy crest of the ridge. I sat on a rotting stump and began to eat my lunch. At first I watched the two teams run around wildly, shouting their battle cries at each other, but I soon grew tired of peering at them, and closed my eyes. Mountains—the Blue Ridge Mountains—were blocking my vision, reminding me of my school's concrete walls. Opening my eyes, I turned around, looked the other way. In that direction, off at the edge of the crest, I noticed a lichen-scarred oak—it was quite gnarled, and seemed to spread further horizontally than vertically . That tree had not only endured blizzards, thaws, droughts, and pesky insects, it had somehow escaped the teeth of the saw. I walked over to climb it. From thirty feet up, I looked westward, into the hollow where the...