Learn by doing

My childhood buddy, Keith Granger, and I boarded the plane in Atlanta.  It was the first plane ride for either of us.  Our plane flew to St. Louis where we had to change planes.  For some reason, I remember we had to fly Frontier Airlines from St. Louis to our destination in Salt Lake City.

We were met by a nice lady who then drove us in a station wagon 200 miles south to Koosharem, Utah.  Its population was around 100, which made our hometown of Cottonwood, Alabama seem like a metropolis.  Keith was 13 and I was 12, though I would catch him in age before the Summer was over.

Our destination was a working horse ranch just outside of town.  It was called Koos Kamp and had been in the same family for three generations.  At the camp, we would be joined by 20 or so boys our age and about a dozen girls.  Except for Keith and me every single one of them was from the Los Angeles area, about 800 miles away.  For most of those kids, we were the first southerners they had ever met.

My Aunt Cat had given me the camp tuition as a birthday gift.  Her family lived in the Los Angeles area and a couple of my cousins had previously attended Koos Kamp.  Keith’s parents allowed him to join me on what we considered to be the biggest adventure of our young lives.

Burrell and Carrol Sorenson had started Koos Kamp in 1959.  It was located in the Grass Valley, which seemed odd to me since there was no green grass like I was accustomed to seeing.  The valley was at an elevation of 7,000 feet with the mountain peaks rising around us soaring to approximately 12,000 feet.  The camp seemed like it was straight out of a western movie.

The first day or so we divided up into cabins, with the girls sleeping in a larger bunkhouse.  We had to write a letter home that first day.  We received a saddle, bridle, saddle blanket, rope and a single shot, Winchester .22 caliber rifle.  We had a class on horsemanship and weapon handling.  After sighting our own guns, we were ready to “learn by doing”, which was one of the mottos of the camp.

For three weeks we rode horses.  You could take off in any direction as long as you had a buddy with you.  There were no fences crossing the valley for as far as you could see.  You had to catch your own horse, bridle and saddle it.  If you rode horses, you had to feed and take care of them.  Learn by doing.

Keith and I, along with a few other boys, already had experience with guns.  However, I had never tried to shoot jackrabbits with a single shot rifle.  Rabbits were considered harmful pests to the area ranchers.  Other targets were ground squirrels, porcupines, wood-chucks and other rodents, all of which were considered harmful to the ranchers.

If you were not riding or hunting, you could fish, where rainbow trout were easily caught in the area streams and reservoir.  If a boy had some rabbit tails attached to his belt and a string of fish over his shoulder, it would have been a good day.

It was not all fun and games.  After all, it was a working ranch.  I was familiar with throwing hay bales on the back of a truck, but those city kids from Los Angeles had no idea what they were doing.  They thought it was fun, until they realized it was hard work.

Boys and girls ate in a big mess hall and there was always plenty of food because, well, everyone was always hungry.  We had square dances on Friday and campfires under the stars on Saturday.  It was at the edge of one of those campfires where I kissed my first girl.

We had non-denominational church services on Sunday.  It was your strictly your choice whether to attend the local Mormon Church on Sunday.  Since I had a good friend back home that Mormon, I went to church there.  Learn by doing.

Our groups advanced into more challenging adventures.  We took overnight horseback rides, camping by a creek with aspens that made the breeze sound like music.  We cooked over fires and drank from springs.  

Later, we took off to Lake Powell for several days.  I was in a car with three other boys and our counselor, who was all of 17 years old. I will forever remember us all standing in the middle of a sandy road, with no sign of civilization in sight, wondering which way we should go.  A bunch of kids, all alone in the desert.  Today most would call that irresponsible.  We thought we were learning by doing.

We canoed down the Colorado River, ate on the river’s sandy banks, marveled at towering canyon walls and camped in a cave.  The boys wore shirts only occasionally and our tans grew to a deep brown.  In a few short weeks, we all became lean, were always hungry, and played hard when we were not working hard.

We learned how to ride a bull, more like a calf, honestly.  We rode the barrels and roped calves.  We hunted jackrabbits with sticks at night, riding on the back of a flatbed truck, with a spotlight finding our target as we sped across the unfenced land.  I still have my “rabbit basher” stick in my office, carved to fit my hand, adorned with various sayings of the time and notches marking my kills.  It was a different time.  

I discovered a treasure trove of pictures of Koos Kamp this week posted by another camper.  It was amazing the way the memories of 57 years ago came flooding back.  It was indeed an adventure for two teenage boys from the deep south who dis-covered the outside world and in doing so, learned by doing.

o0o

Dan Ponder can be reached at [email protected]