D.. The Old Sawmill Camp

[Withheld from this edition pending review. The page keeps its printed number and its permanent link, so a citation to it still lands here.]

Bob Zybach: Oh. I see. Okay. So. . .

Charles Hindes: [CHUCK] In fact, we're just about where the store was.

Norman Hindes: [NORMAN] In fact, I think you were right, Chuck.

Bob Zybach: Well theres the Thurston home first, which would be. . .

Norman Hindes: Down there.

Bob Zybach: . . . Close to the school?

Charles Hindes: [CHUCK] Well, no. Its down right straight almost due west from this point down where that clump of trees is. Its probably well two-thirds of the distance between here and Soap Creek Road. That would be the Thurston home.

Bob Zybach: And then the school would be near where the [Charles] King place is now?

Charles Hindes: No. We decided on the way up that the Modrell home - school house was half way between the Elmer Govier and Griffin place on the opposite side of the road.

Norman Hindes: [NORMAN] That school, we never had nothing to do with it, speaking of the present school house.

Bob Zybach: No. The store here.

Norman Hindes: Oh, the store. It should be right in closer to where we are standing.

Charles Hindes: [CHUCK] The store was right along side the plank road and probably just right in close to this vicinity here and then we'd go on up the plank road and notice most of the homes are on the left side, as we go up toward the mill. East.

Norman Hindes: [NORMAN] That'd be right out through there.

Bob Zybach: So there'd be up against that little hill through there and right out up through that flat there.

Charles Hindes: [CHUCK] Fairly close to the road there because now once you get off the road in the winter time you were in trouble, so the homes were, well you know, certainly within walking distance, and for those few people who had cars, they probably planked off a little driveway that they could drive into.

Bob Zybach: What was this country's side like through here at that time?

Norman Hindes: [NORMAN] Just a good deal like it is here at present.

Charles Hindes: [CHUCK] Pretty much the same as it is now. Maybe some of the oak trees in the bottom were larger than the current trees that we are looking at and they, as I recall, were a foot and a half to two feet in diameter and forty, fifty [feet] high.

Norman Hindes: [NORMAN] Chuck, this isn't too damn far from the horse barn.

Charles Hindes: [CHUCK] Not too far, I think they're up around the bend here a little bit further to the south.

Bob Zybach: An old brick here. No, that's not an old brick. That's a rock with sharp breaks.

Norman Hindes: [NORMAN] [UNINTELLIGIBLE].

Bob Zybach: Was there any building there where the schoolhouse is now, that you can recall?

Charles Hindes: [CHUCK] No. Nothing was there.

Norman Hindes: [NORMAN] That's where I shot my brother, Chuck, in the ass with my beebee gun. My beebee gun wasn't working, I thought. So I told him to go down and bend over and he did and I shot him. It was working, Jesus Christ, I passed him on... He was right after me. Unhappy as hell.

Charles Hindes: [CHUCK] Some water flowed down through here, Bob.

Bob Zybach: Yeah. Okay, now we're looking at the Spring Creek bed [flood plane] so at least on a. . . this past winter. That's all fresh. Is that maybe machined out there though?

Charles Hindes: I don't think so.

Charles Hindes: No. I think that's just washed, Bob. Theres been a pretty good flow of water down through here and I'm looking at these cattails down further down. It makes me think that maybe this creek is still, has a certain amount of water going underground. You see the fescue is still fairly green there yet, so it would indicate the water is not too far away even though the creek is dry.

Norman Hindes: [NORMAN] One of you guys want some breakfast [Disputes a cooking artifact he discovers along the creek].

Bob Zybach: Now, heres an old creek bed right through here.

Charles Hindes: [CHUCK] No. I think we'll find that this creek probably divides up there someplace close to where the mill was located.

Bob Zybach: Now there's . . . where those blackberries are. Sometimes those blackberries are pretty good predictors of old buildings sites.

Charles Hindes: Yes. Could very well have been the horse barn there.

Bob Zybach: Right where those blackberries are?

Norman Hindes: [NORMAN] [UNINTELLIGIBLE] roses over there.

Charles Hindes: [CHUCK] Well, it could be, Norman. I know there was quite a bit of room next to the Thompson house here that was relatively flat before you got into the hill.

Norman Hindes: [NORMAN] Yeah. It was.

Charles Hindes: [CHUCK] And the thing that I don't see is any ash trees. They, too, like water and more so than the oak. I didn't think they cut all the ash out. Now theres a few ash trees right there. I kind of think the creek may have been at the side of the Plank road. The Thompson home was right here.