Old City Falls.  Now THERE was a camp overnight trip to remember, approaching nearly sixty years ago.  The fun started immediately:  we youngsters from Camp Norway in Vermont were driven to Old City Falls in an ancient WWII army truck.  Counselors usually rolled back the canvas cover, thus giving us an open-air ride.  Next, there was the thrill of actually getting to Old City Falls.  No doubt an ordeal to the driver, but to us boys – I being the youngest of the young – Old City Falls was the trek of a lifetime.

It took forever to get there.  With numerous twists and turns along increasingly narrower dirt roads, as well as brush from overgrown thickets to scratch both vehicle and occupants, we indeed had begun to feel like real soldiers by the time the truck came to a dusty stop in a small clearing just below the falls.  We had arrived at old Jesse’s place.  Before us stood a shack: a hovel, a decrepit arrangement of boards defying accurate description.  Just picture some child’s plywood fort in his back yard, and you are getting close to a decent image of this abode.

Ah, but Jesse was the caretaker for Old City Falls and we had to “register” to be able to camp there.  I believe a nod of the head constituted proper procedure in those days and right away it was ascertained that we had the place all to ourselves.  Soon we were moving briskly up the slight knoll to the object of our real reason for being at Old City.  It was not the falls.

With pulses roaring, we now approached Jesse’s authentic (ahem!) Indian village.  Four or five enormous conical structures beckoned.  I’ll hazard a guess that each tipi was twelve to fifteen feet tall and wide enough at the base for several kids to crawl through the narrow opening into the straw-filled floor inside.  “Tipi’s made of what material,” you ask?  Severely rusted metal slabs stacked side by side with an occasional bolt to support the apparatus – that’s the completely accurate description of our accommodations. “Holes or gaps, here and there?” Yes, of course, and especially at the top of the cone.  Indians cooked in these digs, remember, and a bit of ventilation was required.  But, no matter how bright the day, inside those wigwams it was dark and spooky.

To be honest, I do not remember that much about the falls themselves.  A Google search reveals them to be stunning.  I do not remember it that way.  We did skid down slippery rocks and likely wallowed in the shallow pool at the bottom of the falls.  Summers, usually being hot and dry, likely reduced the water flow to the point where a short swim was plenty for us. Soon it was back to the tipi village and all of the action to follow. I vividly remember the toasting of hot dogs and marshmallows around the campfire.  Jesse was always present at grub time, and he got the ball rolling with a few tame stories about the hallowed grounds of the ancient Indian village at Old City Falls.  Jesse never overstayed his welcome and by twilight, he had invariably begged off, house chores needing completion by day’s end.

Soon thereafter, darkness descended on our campsite, and we all knew it was time for the bad stuff to commence.  Inevitably, the counselors would seize on Jesse’s innocent tales, embellishing them into horror stories of spiteful Indians, having had their sacred village stolen from them, now planning to fulfill their revenge this very night.  We were as good as scalped! (Note to moms:  Most boys love this stuff.)  Thus, terror, coupled with inevitable hordes of mosquitoes, which found their way inside these holey (holy?) tipis, made for impossible sleep –ever—at Old City Falls.

Eventually, I outgrew Old City Falls, naturally.  But, I remained at Camp Norway every summer through the end of my college years, ultimately being named Head Counselor.  Thus, it came to pass, a dozen or so years later, on a pleasant summer afternoon, that Bob Hatch – forty years my elder, school teacher, and head of Norway trips – came up to me in his car and said, “Hop in.  We have to go see Jesse.”  “Jesse Melendee from Old City Falls?  Hasn’t he been dead for years?”  I remarked incredulously.  Not quite, assured Hatch, as we followed those mostly forgotten serpentine roads through the woods.  Seems that the state of Vermont had long ago put an end to Jesse’s tipi village gig – bulldozed the place.  His aforementioned caretaker role had been reversed and Jesse’s new chore was to keep the area clear of trespassers.  We had to do something about that!

As we pulled into the familiar clearing, Hatch handed me a ten dollar bill. An even more dilapidated structure came into view. Even if we cannot camp here, we calculated, Jesse at least will appreciate both our checking in on him and our contributing to his well-being.  A very old and frail man greeted us.  He was wearing overalls, an oversized flannel shirt and a wide tie –the tie not quite, but nearly, properly positioned about his neck.

We were invited to come inside.  Oh my gosh!  I had never witnessed such a squalor and filth of this scope.  Clutter, junk and trash abounded in every nook and cranny.  I peered into Jesse’s makeshift kitchen sink to a large stack of unwashed, grimy tin platters.  “How do you clean those dishes, Jesse?”  I innocently asked.   “Oh, I just grab the one on the bottom,” he replied. Pulling out his pocketknife, he scraped the crust off that plate, rubbed it on his sleeve and pronounced the tin “good as new.”  All of this with a wide grin on his face, revealing not a single tooth in his entire head!

This small episode behind us, our business meeting was brisk, cordial and most successful.  The bribe, if that’s what it was, was happily accepted and Camp Norway boys were graciously invited to camp at Old City Falls the very next day.   Making my way back to the car, I could not help but thinking one more time about that unusual tie.  I am so glad I turned to wave a final good-bye.  As Jesse stretched his arm aloft to return my farewell, that loose flannel shirt became just tight enough on his thin frame to reveal a giant pin –maybe six inches long – which attached the bottom of his tie to the top of his britches, holding them up.