The Elkorn Creek..........

I can't even begin to explain just how much fun the Elkorn Creek was to us as children. We spent so much time in the creek no matter what time of the year it may have been. I also cannot believe how we never drowned in that creek with some of the stupid adventures that we had in that dirty brown water. These include........

1.) Many times when the creek had flooded to a very dangerous or to us "fun" level we would wade down Jason's backyard which would be flooded to the main part. Then we'd swim out to the main part into the current and let it take us away downstream. I never thought about how dangerous this was cause it was sooo much fun. Some of these times it would be so deep you could go under and be at the bottom and raise your hands up and not break the surface. This from a creek that on the average was maybe knee to waist high. We'd jump in a let it carry us down to the Midway Road bridge and climb out, then walk back down and get in again. I remember one time Jason's mom coming all the way out to the bridge and yelling at us and made him come home. I will say none of us ever came close to being injured though.

2.) Another time when the creek had flooded late in the fall we went down to this little I guess dock/hangout place. It wasn't really on anyone's property but someone had built a nice rectangle wooden dock with benches that overlooked the creek. This time it was kinda cold out and the current was moving too fast to just to just get in. So what do we do....tie a rope to an inner-tune on one end and to the dock on the other. We took turns jumping into the current on the inner-tube and letting the current shoot us down the creek until the rope let all the way out, then pull ourselves back in. It wasn't freezing but it wasn't really warm either and we ended up quitting because after Nace's second turn he was freezing and thought he was getting hypothermia.

3.) Of course there were numerous fishing trips of all kinds from canoing to wading. This is actually an activity the continues to this day as you can catch many small mouth bass, bluegill, and sunfish in the Elkorn. I can remember soooo many lazy days just floating down the creek fishin, smokin cigarettes, and having heart to heart talks with the fellas.

4.) Behind Jeff Besser's house which would turn into Nace's house there was a small area that had two dug in holes on each side of a hill. We used to have some of the best mud and water fights in this area.

5.) I remember one time when Jason and I were playing in the down by the creek in early spring. It was still fairly chilly out but we saw a tree that had washed down behind his house during one of the spring floods. We walked out on it with no real intention of swimming or getting wet that day. However, since this was a huge tree we noticed a large branch hanging off of it that extended out over the water. We found you could jump out and grab the branch and it would dip you into the water then bring you back up. This was a very enjoyable time until we decided to both jump at the same time. The branch couldn't quite handle the weight of both of us and broke and sent us both into the water. We couldn't stop laughing!

6.) Finally I guess the kicker would be the time Jason, Greg, and Nace had to be rescued by the Scott Co. Search and Rescue Team. Now the first I heard of this was when my dad told me that some of my buddies had been on the news for having to be rescued out of the creek. Greg's mom I think to this day has recorded footage of the news of the event. I was not there so I may get the story a little wrong(Greg hopefully you can fill in some) but I know it was another day the creek had flooded. It was no worse than any of the other times we had been in it but the current was pretty bad. I guess they had "borrowed" a canoe from a neighbor and were out playing in the creek. Apparently some of the neighbors saw them tip over in the canoe and called for a rescue team. Now all three of them claim they weren't in any trouble but the news footage shows them all clinging to different trees awaiting rescue. I don't know if we will ever let them live that one down.

Ghost Dog....

Another freaky thing that happened to us out at the neighborhood was the ghost dog. On this occasion I had stayed the night with Jason and we were going to meet Roy and Josh down at the shelter for a good ole pow-wow. Again I'd put the time around 2 a.m. as Jason and I were walking towards the gravel circle at the end of the back old neighborhood road. As we were passing the last house Jason and I saw an enormous, all black dog. This was one of those dogs that as a boy you think looks like it is the size of you! The dog begins backing and growling at us so we start yelling at it and throwing rocks. This dog neither flinched nor moved from its position so Jason and I yelled down towards the other guys that we weren't coming down because a dog was blocking our path. Now this doesn't seem to strange to us until the next day when we talk to Roy. He said that Josh wasn't able to come with him so he left a little earlier to wait for us at the shelter. Roy said he saw Jason and I and could hear us yelling at something, then to him. However he says he never heard nor saw any sign of a dog!

The Truth Is Out There......

So seriously what I'm about to tell is completely true and can be backed up by one Roy Cornett. I have no explanation of the events other than it had to be a crazy ass slumber party, it had to be....right Roy?

One night Roy told his mom he was going to be staying at my house which was nothing unusual being we all slept at each other's places here and there. Most the time it was all of us staying at Greg Berry's because his mom was cool, or lenient depending on your point of view. I honestly cannot remember what we did this evening other than we snuck out of the house. Again this was not abnormal as we spent numerous night sneaking out and doing any number of fun/mischievous things. Our house was a 2 story house the had a half basement and a full basement. In the half basement there was a 2nd living room and a bedroom with its own master bath, a laundry room, and a door where the stairs led down to the basement. The windows on the half basement level all were ground hence if you opened one you climbed up it to be on the ground. I was lucky in early high school to acquire the room downstairs with the bathroom. I removed the screen on the bathroom window for easy access to sneaking out the back of the house and this is how Roy and I got back that night, how we got back in I really don't know.

We had to of gone out and done something over at either Jason's or Greg's that night because we were returning home from the old section when the most fucked up thing I can ever remember happened. Myself and Roy lived in the newer section which is located closer to Lancelot neighborhood while the old section is located closer to Midway. Anyways the older section back road ended in a gravel circle and there was a path in the grass that led past the last house on that side which you could traverse between the two neighborhoods. I'm not gonna lie when you''re a young kid this was pretty creepy as you'd have to travel about a mile or two past an old junk yard and lake with pretty much no light source to get between the two neighborhoods. I can remember many nights pedaling my bicycle as fast as I could to get home, specially after watching a scary movie at someone elses house. Sometimes you'd be going home at like 3 or 4 a.m. and there'd be a fog coming off the lake, not fun!

Well this fateful evening it was a perfectly quiet, clear night around 2:30 or 3 a.m. when Roy and I were walking down the old neighborhood back road heading home. We got to the path right past the final house which was a nice little one story home that an elder couple lived in. In the backyard they had a satellite dish and a garden and the drive went down the side of the house and turned right into the garage. This couple had no children that I, nor anyone else remembers. As Roy and I took our first steps down the path we heard the garage door start to open. Now we weren't doing any bad, this time, but as was protocol when grown-ups might see us....you hide. We both ran a small ways into the field to the left, the house being on our right, and jumped into the tall grass to hide.

What happened next I have no real way to explain! The best I can say is that we heard about 20 midgets or children come out of the garage and run around the driveway. Now we were only about 40 yards away on a perfectly quiet night and could hear them perfectly except that I heard no coherent sentence uttered. I can best describe what we heard as gibberish and laughter. They were outside approximately 10-15 minutes then went back inside and the garage door closed. Roy and I looked at each other in bewilderment and the next thing I can remember is being home, in bed. As I have said before I cannot remember what we did that evening prior to said event, nor how we got back home or into the house. I have no explanation for the events that happened outside the house either.

The Truth Is Out There...........