A Little Camper, 16,000 Trees, and a $10 Loan Repaid

 A Little Camper, 16,000 Trees, and a $10 Loan Repaid

It was May, 1977. Patti and I and little Aaron, age eight months, were camped out in our old van in the Chequamegon National Forest of northern Wisconsin. Patti and I had spent the last month tending to the needs of the little guy, while also planting 16,000 seedling spruce trees under contract with the National Forest Service. Keith, our ranger, would deliver a couple thousand seedlings to our wilderness campsite every few days. Though amazed that we had a baby along, he was happy to see that we made great progress in getting the trees in the ground over the rough terrain. 

Night time temperatures when we started in late April were quite cold for a couple nights. Anticipating this before we left home, Patti had sewn a thick, wool blanket to a heavy sleeping bag. Opened as a quilt - we called it “the 300 pound sleeping bag” - it kept the three of us toasty warm in the bed I had built in the van. We knew it was cold outside. Our thermometer was the pot of oatmeal on the camp stove soaking in water, turned to ice. The weather, though, soon changed to sunny and warm, which allowed us to set up a tent and move the bed and the “300 pounder” into it.

The planting was done by hand and foot, using a planting bar. The heavy bar, about four-and-a-half feet long,  had a chisel end on it. Positioned above the chisel end, and at a right angle to the bar, was a kick plate. The bar made a slit in the ground wide enough for planting. You would stick the bar in the ground, kick the kick plate to deepen the hole, rock forward and back, and pull the bar out of the hole. You’d, then,  take a seedling from a pouch on your belt, and place it in the hole, making sure that the root extended downward. Finally you’d thrust the bar in the ground just behind the seedling, kick it again, and rock the bar forward to close the hole around the seedling. Then you’d take three steps to plant the next one. This process was repeated 16,000 times over thirty days. As the May temperatures got into the 80’s, we got our planting done in the morning, and jumped in the Jump River in the afternoon.

As is the case with many adventures, it is the people you meet that really make the experience memorable. One was Old Victor, whom we met one day fishing by our swimming hole. He showed us pictures of the pet flying squirrel that used to reside with him in his ramshackle cabin, along with, briefly, his wife. He related a sad saga of how he and his wife stopped for gas once, and, when he went inside the station to pay, she took off in the car. He never saw her again.  Another local character we met while shopping for groceries was a seemingly sweet little old lady who swore like a trooper. Still another eccentric lady in the store told Patti to be sure to tie a rope to our baby when out in the wilds to prevent an eagle from swooping down and carrying him off.  Then there was the local bar and grill where we stopped one day for lunch. A sign on the front of the building announced that this bar was the official meeting place of the Brothers of the Brush.  Also attached to the front was a farm implement that you normally see afixed to barns to extract the manure therein. The bar owner, a local legend named Jump River Rose, had connected the device to the tavern wall to kid the Brothers for their telling stories of questionable veracity. When we entered,  Rose greeted us warmly - and with colorful language - as she searched high and low for a high chair for Aaron. Apparently the Brothers didn’t bring their wee offspring into the bar much. Rose was town constable, and she was known for keeping the peace, and keeping the Brothers in their place when not in the Brush.

Going to town to eat at a restaurant was a rarity during our tree planting sojourn. Patti was camp chef, and she came up with interesting solutions to cooking in the wild. One was to make an East Indian flatbread known as chapati. She would mix the dough, and then roll it out on a flat rock, before popping it into a cast iron frying pan. Finally she would fill the flatbreads with home-made hummus and veggies. Mmmm! Fueled me up for another go at “sprucing-up” the woods.   

In late May, as our spruce planting came to a close, we were visited by a group of folks who also contracted with the Forest Service, not only to plant trees, but also to put out forest fires. They had heard about us as the family - with baby - that plants trees while camping out. Patti and I decided to put in with them for a couple more days to help plant on another tract of land a few miles away. Making friends proved to be very helpful as we were told not to expect payment from the Forest Service for at least a month. As our funds were running out, due to emergency van repair, one of our new friends, Don Bucheger, gave us ten dollars with which to fuel up for our trip home. Many years later - in 1987 - I read an article in the Milwaukee Journal about a Don Bucheger from Glidden, Wisconsin, close to the area where we had planted trees. The article described how Don, his family and friends had produced a trivia game about the people, events, and places in the Glidden area.  

Fast forward to April, 2015. Patti and I were on a waterfall tour of northern Wisconsin, and decided to camp at Copper Falls State Park. Since the park is just down the road from Glidden, we thought it would be fun to see if we could locate Don. After all, we owed him ten bucks for 38 years. Pulling into the state park, I asked the camp check-in lady if she knew Don Bucheger. The check-in lady let out a laugh. “Boo Boo,” she exclaimed, “That’s what we called him in high school.” She immediately called his mom, Dorothy, to say that two tree planters from 38 years ago wanted to see him. After making our waterfall tour of the area, we got his address by phone, and visited him and his mother at their home the next day. We were warmly welcomed, especially when I handed him the ten bucks. When I asked if I owed him interest, he laughed and said, “No, the interest is in the smile on my face!” Dorothy and Don - mother and son - were an interesting pair. Don described himself as an “unmarriable contrarian,” a mason who made “house jewelry,” and a poet. He gave us a tour of the outbuilding he built on their property, made from brick recycled from the demolition of the old Glidden school. His winning bid he said was, “13 hundred and 13 dollars and thirteen cents, 13 being the contrarian’s lucky number.” Dorothy was a writer, family historian, and meticulous researcher for the local trivia game that the family put together in the 1980’s, as described in the Milwaukee Journal article that I had read back then. Dorothy asked that her son find for us one of the boxed games to take home. By the time we left their home, we felt that we were part of their family. When we mentioned that our little camper, Aaron, was now a high school teacher in Appleton, the discussion that ensued determined that a “shirt tail relative” of the Buchegers was an Appleton school principal. When we got home from our trip, we informed Aaron of this, and he told us that he would be meeting on school business with their relative in the upcoming week. Here was another instance of the old saw that everyone in the world is only two handshakes away from everyone else in the world.