Published: June 24, 2009 09:46 am      

Lee Ward: 06/28/09 — Time in the country calms the soul

I thought my friend had lost his mind when he told me he and another friend of ours went together to buy a house on the Elk River in Clay County, W.Va. They call it their “camp.”

He described long, quiet evenings along the river after a day of rafting or swimming or just playing in the water. Friends would join them and they’d cook hamburgers on the grill, they’d build a fire to sit around and talk, even sing. More than anything, though, my friends wanted to have a camp to share with their friends. They wanted to create a peaceful retreat for themselves and others to get away from the daily grind and all its problems.

As a person from Mingo County, W.Va., the last thing I want to do is go to some po-dunk town for the weekend. Maybe if he’d bought a penthouse apartment in New York I would be impressed, but I couldn’t see spending time at a camp on the river in a place called Duck, W.Va.

But I wasn’t unwilling to visit and see what all the fuss was about, so during the last chunk of time off I had, the three of us “went to camp.”

I have to admit, the house, although not a showplace, was nicer than I had imagined. Sure, I had imagined a shack with no indoor plumbing, but still, it wasn’t bad at all, with a nice complete kitchen and a screened-in porch to protect from mosquitoes.

The Elk River isn’t like the river I grew up around.

It is clean and clear and deep enough to swim, but not dangerously deep, depending on the time of year.

There are some rapids right in front of camp, but if you walk upriver just a short distance, the water is calm, perfect for floating carefree in an inner tube.

If you somehow do get caught in the rapids, don’t panic: there’s a still area just below camp you can drift into and get out. A couple of friends visited with their golden retriever, Bear. Within a few minutes of chasing a ball into the water, Bear got caught in the rapids, but saved himself by steering himself into that still patch. In no time, he was galloping toward us with the tennis ball he so carefully protected from the current.

Camp isn’t that far from a two-lane highway, but you never hear cars. When it’s quiet, you can hear the rushing water, singing birds, a stone skipping across the river. Sometimes you can hear people laughing and having a good time upriver. As my friend said, “That’s what camp is supposed to sound like.”

LEE WARD can be reached at lward@dailyindependent.com or (606) 326-2661.