I’m Next! And Other Snowbird Stories

I’m Next!

Johnny Belyeu
Johnny Belyeu

On this trip to Snowbird, our hideaway in the mountains of North Carolina, there were 20-some people there, family mostly. People were just starting to get up but, already, there was a line waiting to get in the bathroom.

It would have been a long wait for Johnny Belyeu, Brother Pop’s son-in-law, if he had not gone back to his tent and got his pistol.

He pointed his gun at the sky and fired several rounds  and shouted “Bear! Bear!”

When everyone rushed out of the cabin to see what was going on, Johnny walked inside, into the restroom, and closed the door.

Twice Was Enough

Captain Dave
Captain Dave

There’s a bridge over Little Snowbird Creek at the Denton Place, the end of the state-maintained road to Snowbird, that no one has ever had trouble with but Dave.

My brother dropped a tire off the right side a few years back. He had to chew up the ends of the bridge planks a little but he eventually got it back up on the bridge and we went on.

John Sullivan was riding with him.

The very next time we went to the mountain I’ll be darn if he didn’t do it again, dropped a tire off the right side of the same bridge, only this time he had to call a wrecker.

John Sullivan
John Sullivan

John Sullivan was riding with him.

The next time Sullivan rode with Dave he told him to stop when they got to that bridge, and then he got out and walked across.

I guess he figured: 

“Fool me once, that’s your fault.”

“Fool me twice, a, that’s still your fault.”

“Fool me three times, No, wait! Wait! I’m getting out.”

Wasn’t Me

We were up at Snowbird, sitting around the fire chewing the fat, when Pop said, “The Highway Patrol stopped me on the way up here.”

Charles T. "Pop" Stith
Charles T. “Pop” Stith

“Were you speeding?” I asked.  “Did you get a ticket?”

“No, I wasn’t speeding. I didn’t get a ticket.”

“Then why did the trooper stop you?”

“He said somebody had called in a complaint about a red pickup truck with Alabama tags, pulling a four-wheeler, weaving all over the road.”

“What did you say?”

“I said it must have been some other red pickup with Alabama tags, pulling a four-wheeler.”

Coming Monday: Hexed

How Come It’s Still Dark?

It took two of my brothers and me seven years, working a week or two a year, to dam the middle fork of the Juanite and create a pond just below the cabin at Snowbird, in the mountains of North Carolina.  

Pop, Dave and I had distinct jobs.

Dave, Pop and Pat
Dave, Pop and Pat

Pop, the oldest, cooked and cleaned up.  Dave drove the equipment, a cat on some trips, a front end loader on others.  I was the youngest, still in my early and mid-40’s, so I did the unskilled labor, dragging chain and hauling rock, mostly.

Trees that had fallen in what would become the pond had to be chained to the cat and pulled out.  I didn’t mind dragging chain, that had to be done. But hauling five-gallon buckets of rock out of the creek, up the steep upstream side of the dam, was another matter.

Dave would drive the cat or loader anywhere, including quagmires where he got stuck.  When that happened, and it happened a lot, he’d sit there, like a king on his throne, and yell for me, “Pat! Bring some rock!”

After I had carried five or six buckets of rock to the cat or loader and thrown the rocks under the tracks Dave would say something like, “Good, good!  Five or six more buckets ought to do it.”

"Brothers' Pond at Snowbird
Brothers’ Pond at Snowbird

We finished the dam in 1990, almost 30 years ago.  We were younger then and we could, and did, worked from first light until it got too dark to see, trying to get as much done while we could, before it rained.   When it rained, even a little bit, the work site was slick on slick and we couldn’t move dirt.

To give us more time to work Pop would cook breakfast well before dawn. He timed it so there would be gray streaks in the sky when we finished eating, just enough light for Dave and me to get at it. 

One morning, just like always, Dave and I rolled out, dressed, went to the table, and started eating. We finished before it started getting light outside so we sat there, enjoying a few minutes more of rest.  We sat there and sat there and it still wasn’t light, it wasn’t even starting to get light.

And then someone look at their watch. It was 3 a.m.

Coming Monday: Flacks