That Friday Night

As remembered on September 25th 1964

One weekend last April, I attended a convention for our Church Youth Group at a camp in the hills above Bass Lake. Long after I have forgotten the events of the convention, I will still remember that Friday night.

The bus lumbered along the camp access road, stopping now and then to let a logging truck pass. It finally passed altogether when further passage on the road became impossible. The last of the winter snow had melted and left its moisture in the road. I saw a sign and knew why we could not go on: “Chains Required.”

I filed silently out of the bus along with my friends. I was glad to get out of the bus: the air outside was exhilarating. As I stood next to the bus, I thought to myself that it was too bad that no one had remembered to bring tire chains. I wondered how we were expected to get to the camp, which was still five miles farther up the access road.

As I walked along, I tried to calculate how far I had walked already and how much of the five miles was still ahead of me. “Chains Required”….A bus with sturdy tires could not travel along that road, yet I was walking along it, every step making my feet colder and muddier.

It was like a dream. I was walking along an unknown road, with stately fir trees and an icy moon watching my every step. I was a stranger in an unknown land, ignorant of what was beyond each tree and around each turn in the road.

I was afraid I would become lost and never find the camp; afraid I would freeze in my cotton school dress….afraid a bear would suddenly appear from behind a tree.

Yet, I was enchanted by the beauty of nature. Never before had I been in such a situation; never before had nature seemed so lovely to me. The moon was full and cast its cold glow on the tall, silent fir trees and made them look like trees I had only seen in eerie dreams. The moonlight danced upon the water that hurried down the hillside and illuminated the icy fingers that hung from branches overhead.

As I walked farther, I began to enjoy my surroundings more and more. My excitement enveloped my fears. The trees along the road no longer closed in around me but cleared a path through the woods for me. The moon was not so cold and impartial—it picked out its friends among the trees and introduced them to me.

I walked up to the fireplace to warm my hands and I wondered if I had really walked to the camp. Or did I just have a dream? And then I looked down at my muddy, cracked patent leather shoes.