Growing up in Louisa – Blaine Creek
Weekly feature . . . by Mike Coburn
My love for discovery has always been part of my life. I don’t know if it started because of experiences in exploring throughout the immediate neighborhood of the Louisa Inn, where I lived as a preschooler, or other times when I was growing up. It might be one of those innate things that is simply a result of some genetic programing in my DNA. You know, the desire to learn that we all had from the cradle and playpens of life. Regardless, it has been a constant companion, sometimes distracting me and at other times helping me understand a situation immediately while others struggle to find their way. It was fed in my youth by the stories of explorers we read about in our history books, like Magellan, Columbus, Ponce De Leon, and Kentucky’s own Daniel Boone.
Like ‘the bear that went over the mountain,’ I have a penchant to see what’s over the next hill. It is a hunger to observe the fit of nature and how environment affects life. It is about how we work together toward an end yet unseen, or why we differ. I believe that we all have a purpose, or role to fill. I have always been keen to ferret out the mystery of other generations. It is that curiosity that makes me want to analyze the topography to find answers even when I didn’t know the questions. Weird, you say? Maybe, but it is at least entertaining and has had its benefits.
As a youth there was one trip I had always wanted to take. I would have required a ‘team’ of peers because of the potential dangers that would have to be faced. The terrain would likely be rough and we would have had to cross private properties in a land where sometimes visitors are not always welcomed. No one I knew this dream so it didn’t happen. My goal was to find the very headwaters of Blaine Creek. I chose that one because in appeared to be the longest in the county. You see, I wanted to travel its full length to the Big Sandy. I assumed its start would be some magical spring, or maybe a set of springs that would bubble up from the earth’s crust and send cold water over the rocks and wash downstream. Some of you may know; I don’t.
One map that I tried to follow began near Martha, came around finally to Blaine and on to Yatesville, before going to Fallsburg and then on to the Big Sandy. Frankly, it was very long and hard to follow sometimes, so it might not have taken the path I imagined. Interestingly, certain spots along its path became a strand in the loosely knit garment of my life. Maybe Blaine had a role in yours, too.
I have told the story of fishing at Carter’s bridge when I was perhaps in the first or second grade. It was there that I caught my first fish, a brightly colored sunfish. Later, as a teen I would play baseball at a dusty field within a few feet of that same place. It was there that I was struck out by a man I was told later to be a Hall of Fame major league pitcher.
I also have told the story of another time on the Blaine. It was a cold, snowy night when I was part of a ‘bucket brigade’ lifting water from the Blaine into the filler reservoir on the back of our only modern fire truck. After hearing the loud alarm, I ran and caught up with the 1950’s apparatus on Madison, somewhere near the post office. As I climbed over the hose bed to find comfortable quarters, I had no idea of our destination. The truck sped around ‘dead man’s curve’ and I wondered if we were going to High Bottom. It turned right toward Smokey Valley and Stanley Brown told me we were going to Blaine. It turned out to be Blaine High School that was in flames.
After we had exhausted our supply of water we needed to fill the tank again. The only choice lay more than a hundred yards across a field, down an embankment, in the cold waters of Blaine Creek. Except for the light from the fire it was dark on the steep bank, but two lines of men passed buckets up from the stream as empty ones were passed down to be refilled. Even though we were a good ways from the fire we could see the creek and the truck without problem. The eerie bright orange light radiated ample illumination even as the snowflakes fell. That night we lost the battle allocating the blame on the distance from Louisa. No doubt, the creek had done its part to provide sufficient water to allow us to refill our water tank several times. Before dawn we pulled up the hose and headed back home. It was only then that I felt the cold.
Another time, also on a snowy evening, I spent the night with a friend in his father’s log cabin further downstream on the Blaine, only a mile or two above the falls. My friend and I sat in the dark on a grassy bank with a small fire giving us our only warmth. As we fished we managed to catch some bluegill and ‘water dogs.’ We threw the latter back, but kept some of the larger sunfish for breakfast the next morning. It snowed more during the night, some of it coming into the cabin through the ‘chinks.’ It blanketed our quilts that were lying heavily over us. In those days the school buses tended to run anyway, if at all possible, so later I caught the bus and left the creek, my friend, and was soon warming myself next to a stove at LHS.
Our family had a picnic once or twice while I was growing up, including the little beach at Fallsburg, only a little further downstream from our fishing spot. It was here on senior ‘skip’ day that I went to Fallsburg, again with Stanley Brown, Johnnie Justice, and maybe others. I told the story once about the ill-conceived idea of pushing a tree over the falls. Instead I was washed over, Stanley jumped in to save me and the tree came down and struck him. I had a meeting at the new grade school and went there dripping wet. It was one of a very few places that had air conditioning and I found out that being wet and being cooled was not COOL!
On May 26, 1960, I was set to graduate along with my other classmates and close friends. Johnny Bill and I had the day off since the ceremony was to be that night. Naturally, we decided to put the nearly perfect day to good use. We went to the mouth of the Blaine to catch some fish. He waded upstream a bit but I laid on a big rock and went to sleep. The resulting sun burn was rare and not welcomed. I had to wear a starched shirt, heavy suit and a graduation robe that night. It was pure torture as I felt the pain and a heat radiating from the burned tissue. A Maine lobster in a pot never was as red, nor more in discomfort.
So I had seen a little of what I think was the Blaine and in nearly every case it was something to remember. I’m left wondering what it would be like to get up in the morning and face that little creek every day. Alas, there are more things to investigate and discover. I enjoyed my recent tour of Kentucky, and have already worn down the roads of Virginia and much the east coast until they have become old friends. I am left now with so many places to see but little time left for exploring. While I still have the energy, I will continue to look forward to discovering new places and having a better understanding of who we are as a people, and how each has contributed.
Drop me a note about your memories. I’d love to hear from you.
