by Richard Seifried
Signal Hill Musings
February, 2007
Several days have passed since I wrote the first half of this winter issue, days of brilliant sunshine, intense blue skies, and cold that is unusual here in our Ozarks. The temperatures have been in the single digits at night. Thick, dangerous ice covers the earth. A skiff of snow on top makes walking possible but precarious. Just ten miles east of here, Berryville is almost clear of frozen precipitation. We were on the very edge of the powerful storm that created such havoc just to the north of us.
Thinking of cold, as I gingerly make my way to the mailbox, my memory goes back to the coldest weather I have ever experienced.
Not in Ohio. Not in Michigan, nor Idaho, nor even Montana. Back in 1951, the temperature fell to an official 23° below zero. My friends and I were taking basic training at Camp Breckinridge, Kentucky, a mere thirty miles southwest of Evansville, Indiana, and twenty miles south of the Ohio River.
One day, the beginning of the coldest spell, our Company F was marched down the old WWII vintage street to a large vacant lot. There we were divided up into groups of three. Each threesome had a .30 cal. machine gun, and our purpose was to practice setting up the weapon and assimilating the firing of it.
Because of the cold (which was hovering around zero), our officers had two of us stand while the third member lay on the frozen ground and pretended to shoot. We took turns, the standing men jumping up and down, slapping our arms around our bodies, trying to keep our blood circulating, the prostrate men trying to survive the frigidly cold earth.
Our lieutenants had attempted to cancel the exercise, but somewhere in a heated office, our idiotic major said no. Suffering was a good experience. Toughens up the boys. Makes men of them.
Soldiers, especially those on the ground, began freezing to death. My good friend, Dave Birk, ceased responding to my words. Frustrated, our officers countermanded the major’s orders and told us to go back to our barracks.
“Dave! Dave!” I yelled. No response. I kicked him hard. No response. A sergeant, seeing him still lying there, realized what was happening. Four men grabbed Dave, one on each arm or leg, and began running for the barracks. Altogether, there were three or four sleeping, dying men who were carried away.
I wound up with the machine gun barrel over my right shoulder, and Dave and our rifles slung over my left one. We ran, all two hundred of us, a mass of desperate, gasping men, running to safety, running toward life-sustaining warmth.
When I reached my barracks and climbed up to the second floor that I called home, I couldn’t get my arms uncrossed, couldn’t get them to move. A couple of my companions uncrossed my appendages and removed the heavy metal machine gun. When the furnace heat finally warmed me, I, like all the others, experienced the intense pain that came with thawing out.
Just a night or two later, the temperature there fell to 23° below zero.
Since that terrible day, I have camped out in Kentucky several times. Never in weather like that Breckinridge experience.
Years later, in the 1970s, two Air Force lieutenants and I, all of us Sierra Club members, drove down to Daniel Boone National Forest, to an area about fifty miles east of Lexington. It wasn’t cold that wintry day, the temperature fluctuating between forty and fifty degrees.
We hiked several miles, following a wilderness trail that paralleled a roaring, flooded river. The heavy rain didn’t bother us because our outer garments were weatherproof.
Eventually, we crossed a very high footbridge and gradually worked our way up a treacherous path that led along an almost perpendicular cliffside. Finally, far above the roaring stream, we reached our destination, a huge overhanging cliff. Beneath its top, a wide cave ran far back into near-total darkness.
My campsite
Other people were there before us, perhaps five in all. A young couple, obviously lovers, had erected their nylon tent just inside the cave entrance. A wonderful campfire was burning and an ample supply of wood was drying out. All of us ate together. Drank luxurious hot tea. Settled down for the night.
Darkness came early, long before five p.m.
Opting not to erect my tent, I spread my ground cloth and sleeping bag near the cave entrance. Almost within arm’s reach, water fell vertically from the high, stone overhang, but my sanctuary was dry.
There I lay. The waterfall, created by the rainfall, drowned out distant conversations and the crackling of the campfire. Reflecting light rose up from the fire and illuminated the top of our stone shelter with radiating red waves of light.
I lay there, protected by the cave, my sleeping bag resting on fine, soft, sandy earth. I began fantasizing.
Who had been there before us? Surely, hunters, for generations, had used the shelter. Years before them, explorers, perhaps even Daniel Boone, had slept where I lay. Boone had wintered nearby, back in the 1700s. The Shawnee must have slept in our shelter, perhaps even lived in the cave for a time.
Known Daniel Boone winter campsite in Red River Gorge area
Who before them? How far back in time did mankind take advantage of this shelter? Five hundred years? A thousand? Perhaps even five thousand years — or more?
So, I lay there for a long, long time, listening, thinking, wondering.
That Kentucky night was one of the happiest moments of my entire long life. I was sharing my experience with the spirits of men, women, and children who had lived so very long ago, perhaps across a millennia.
Nearby Natural Bridge
