The only lights we had in the cabin were Coleman gasoline lanterns and we would read by it at night. We had an outside "john" about 30 feet up the hill in back of the cabin with stone steps cut in the bank. It was a one holer surrounded by blinds we took off an old house somewhere. You could sit inside and run the slats up and down to see out. Sometimes we would take a gun with us and watch for partridge while we sat.
One weekend we arrived at camp to find a dead partridge on one of the beds. It had flown through a window and couldn't get out again. Another time a red squirrel got down the fireplace and really made a mess of the cabin. He even chewed off the wood around the glass in the windows. He didn't get out and we found him in there dead.
We built a dam in the creek to make a place for our Saturday night bath and it was about two feet deep with a nice smooth rock bottom. We had an overflow in the dam to raise or lower the level by inserting or removing planks. We took the planks out during the spring floods. The level area between the creek and the road was large enough so we could have softball games and park cars there.
In those days we often hunted squirrels as I have mentioned. There were many pure black squirrels then and we would hunt for them just because they were different. One place up on top of the hill there were fox squirrels but we never killed one of them. Fox squirrels are much larger than gray squirrels and they have a long bushy tail like a fox. We could see them in the woods but were never able to get close to one. Most of them were up on top of the hill on posted property belonging to the Sanetarium in Clifton Springs. It was called the Sanetarium Farm and they raised farm and dairy products for use at Clifton. It seemed strange that they would have a farm so far away.
You can check the map for the location of some of the places I write about. We were told about a spring on the Lower Egypt Valley Road where we could get water that was really pure. Just down the bank at the side of the road there was a pool of clear water about three feet across with the water bubbling out of the rocks at the bottom of it. This water was so cold that it didn't even freeze in the winter time and on the hottest summer day it was so cold that you couldn't hold your hand under it. Eventually, Stuart Caves of Caves Lumber Company in Holcomb, built a lovely summer home on the lot including the spring, but they always allowed people to get water there.
There was an intersection in the road just down from the cabin with a telephone pole. We made arrow signs with cities and mileage painted on them and nailed them to the pole. They pointed towards Honeoye, Naples, Rochester and Canandaigua. They were still there for years after the camp was sold. Several times Clarence and I walked home to Canandaigua just to see how long it would take us. It was about 15 miles distance and we always made it in about four hours and fifteen minutes. One time when it was snowing I was wearing a heavy pair of overshoes and about halfway home they got too heavy for me, so I took them off and hid them under a large rock beside the road. The next time we went to camp I picked them up.
We had a black and white cow hide for a rug in the cabin. Across the road and up on the hill was a berry patch and in the spring there would be berry pickers up there, when they looked our way, I would put the cow hide over me and chase Clarence around the yard. They were just far enough away that it may have looked real to them. At least they used to stand there watching us.
One of Clarence's friends had a fox hound that we would keep with us for fox hunting. His name was "Shimmer-boo" and he was large. One Christmas vacation we got snowed in and the fellow who owned the dog came after us in a truck. I lost three days of school which was a treat. We slipped and slid around in the snow on the hill, but finally made it up the hill, on to home and back to school. We all rode in the front seat of the truck with that big smelly dog on my lap all the way home. You know how big and gangly those fox hounds are. I'll never forget that ride home.
We had a trapdoor in the floor of the cabin with a four foot square pit dug out beneath. We would store foodstuffs down there where it was cooler. There were all kinds of nut trees around and at one time we had two bushels of butternuts, one of walnuts and two of hickory nuts (all shucked) down under the floor. After they were there a couple of years we took them out and burned them in the fireplace. Two bushels of hickory nuts would be worth a fortune now. Halfway up the hill on our property there was a pine tree about three feet through the trunk and very tall. The limbs came straight out of the trunk so you could climb up it just like you were climbing a ladder. About forty feet up I built a platform and used it for my secret hideaway. I could see down to the road and when we were expecting company, I would go up there and watch for them.
We used to do a lot of partridge hunting and there was an older man by the name of Bill Brooks who went along with us, without a gun, just for the joy of walking in the woods. He carried a flask of whiskey and every so often would stop to sit on a tree stump and have another nip. He never bothered our hunting and was nice to have along. He was the father of one of the girls Gordon used to go out with.