Life in a Pickle Barrel

How would you like to have your life in a pickle barrel? No this isn’t a prison but a home. And a family actually lived here for a Time. Presently it’s a museum. I would say that this family was the Talk of the Town while they lived there. They were probably the butt of a few jokes as well. I wonder if their last name was Dill? How would your family manage In A Pickle Barrel? I will say something about Michigan. They have something for just about everyone in this state.

Hoffman Estates Boys Club Scoreboard

8 months before I went to the Joplin Boys Club my board of directors finally gave me a scoreboard for the gymnasium. We used it often especially for basketball and kickball. The timer was used for the obstacle course quiz and Wiz program. And floor hockey also used the scoreboard. I don’t know if the new director used it at all. I had wanted a scoreboard from almost day one. It gave our gymnasium an extra sense of class.

How The ULBC Bus Saved The Day

I once worked for the Hoffman Estates Boys Club in Illinois that almost relied solely on their tackle football program over all else at that particular facility. I had made contact with the Executive Director of the Union League Boys Club of Chicago who had then put me in touch with his Camping Director, Al Mackin. We hit it off right from the start and he arranged to have his big white bus pick us up the following Friday evening to take our kids to the same camp I once worked at many years before.

It was starting to get dark that Friday evening and football practice was about to break up. Just then around the corner about a block away appeared the big white bus which immediately caught the eye of all the football teams in practice. Up until that time the footbal kids thought theirs was the only real program at that boys club but they were about to find out otherwise.

As the bus pulled up to the boys club and the regular club kids began boarding it the football players began mulling around that area asking what was going on. I explained that we were heading for the Wisconsin camp for a weekned outing. Immediately they seemed impressed with that kind of program to which I responded saying that there was now a lot more to do than just football and the next month several football kids had also signed up for a camp weekend.

Yes, Al Mackin and his big white bus had seemed to revive my club program in far more ways than one. Sadly, Al passed away a few years ago and I miss him as my friend as we had kept in touch with each other since the days each of us left our respective clubs.

Kenny and The Haunted House

Kenny was one of the older boys that camped with our boys club trips on our property. He was also the young man that had mistaken bear tracks for deer tracks as another article states elsewhere on “BBL & Beyond“. Now it was the time for us to travel out to the Haunted Island and House. He was a little more than apprehensive after his “bear tracks” encounter.

Kenny was a little afraid of the supernatural world and especially at midnight as our boats docked at the rickety pier on the Haunted Island. He volunteered to stay with the boats as I could tell he had no desire to visit the actual Haunted House itself. But Kenny wasn’t a real good swimmer so he had to go with the rest of the boys. Knowing his more than fertile imagination if he had gotten scared by even the noise of a loon he might have tried swimming back.

As we approached the clearing to the haunted house he was holding onto the hands of another younger boy. On this trip out to the house there was nothing planned but that sure didn’t settle Kenny. Some of the boys stuck their heads through the doorway and windows but Kenny stayed back at the tree line. A sudden wind broke through the trees and Kenny hit the ground as the other kids began laughing since he was the oldest and the most scared.

Kenny then brushed himself off and had to pretend to be brave so he walked toward the house in almost a stagger saying that he was only joking about being scared. One of the younger boys suggested that we spend the night by the haunted house to which he said, “Forget you!” faster than a speeding bullet.

After a few minutes we returned back to the boats and then on back to our wooded beachfront. Kenny got his stagger back said he was just putting on to get the kids going but no one brought that line whatsoever. First the bear tracks and now his fear of the haunted house. This just wasn’t his week. But the rest of his trip went just fine.

Meeting Sonny and Mildred

On one of our summers at Big Bass Lake, I met Sonny and Mildred.  Sonny was right out of the mold of Huck Finn.  I don’t ever think I saw him with a pair of shoes on his feet as he was always barefoot.  He even held a piece of straw between his teeth.  Mildred was also barefoot all the time.  The three of us went swimming at our beach often.

Sonny and Mildred lived just east of the Benish farm down a dirt road that made our long driveway appear as nothing.  They lived in a well worn house with their mother.  I never saw his father.  I sometimes think they were tenets of the Benish’s.  When I went back to Michigan the following summer, Sonny and Mildred were no longer living at that old house and no one seemed to know what happened to them. 

I had  good time with Sonny even though his sister always happened to come along as they seemed inseparable.  That was a good summer and I’ve often wondered what became of Sonny?  I can’t remember their last name.  This was back in the early 1960’s.

Stivale Report on Camp Martin Johnson

This is a report compiled in 2001 about Camp Martin Johnson that you might find interesting. It connects it to today’s Heritage Bay Association.

. This is the report. I hope you find it interesting. Heritage Bay now owns the property that once belonged to Camp Martin Johnson.

Legend of The White Loon

The boys of the Hoffman Estates Boys Club witnessed a marvelous wonder on a night where the Northern Lights shimmered over Big Bass Lake for they saw the image of The White Loon. This mystical bird makes its appearance only every decade or so over his ancestral home. I remember an old man by the name of Mose who told me about this loon and how the legend of it began way back in the 1800’s. Some say it is the reincarnated spirit of an old Indian who frequented the area at that time. Think about it. Manistee means “spirit of the woods” so is it so inconceivable to think of The White Loon as a disembodied Indian?

So on the night after the 4th of July the boys were feasted to a light display of the Northern Lights and all sorts of images appeared in that night sky. However that White Loon appeared at least three times which caught the boy’s attention. And at campfire that night they wanted to know more about that White Loon and so I gave them the legend. Of course the boys knew of the Indian burial grounds on Haunted Island so that is where the story began.

Long ago there was an Indian by the name of Salinetro. Many in his tribe thought he was a little over the edge as he always did strange things. While others hunted for game, he searched for his squaw who was always walking out on him. After a time his tribe sent Salinetro away on a spirit quest to determine just who he might be. He spent his time deep in the Manistee National Forest and had visions but all of them were of rather silly things.

Upon returning from his spirit quest and speaking of all his unusual visions, his tribe banished him to the wilderness. There he continued a relentless search for his squaw who all the time was safely back at the Indian village. Salinetro could not seen to distinguish fantasy from reality and went half crazy. He was dubbed The White Loon by his tribe and never again saw his people.

Legend has that he stumbled upon Big Bass Lake in the late 1800’s. He found out that Lake Natahki (the original name of BBL) was not named after him. Why it should have been is another mystery but since all this was in his crazed head, Salinetro could have named that lake anything. With his dying breath he swore that he would never abandon that lake and appear from time to time in the night sky.

Our kids witnessed one of those appearances as the White Loon distinctly was found in those Northern Lights. Some of the boys even imagined a cry from that loon as if in agony. In truth Salinetro’s whole life was one devoted to agony and disgrace. Yet there he was in the heavens as clear as a bell. What the boys couldn’t figure out is why Salinetro was so bent on presiding over Big Bass Lake when Loon Lake was just down the hill? Then again, perhaps he never had searched for his squaw at Loon Lake?