Before I started writing this, I had to look at Guam again. I used Google Earth, and I think I found Camp 2, but boy has it changed. I have a pretty solid memory of the layout on our side of the main road. It may be totally erroneous, but I’m pretty sure it’s close. I remember two landmarks that I think are still there.
The south end of the camp almost abutted on a navy tank farm (oil storage tanks), and I found tanks between the navy housing area (Apra Heights) and what I believe was Camp 2. Joe 5 Lee(, Jr.) and I poured a miniature concrete dam on a run-off creek between his house and the nearest tank. And, yes, his name really included the number 5.
What appears to be the other landmark, a swimming hole east of the camp, stands out even from satellite altitude. I remember the spot for a two main reasons. The high school boys challenged each other by jumping into the stream from the cliff that overlooked it, and I was awed by the cliff. Of course, I was ten at the time. Also the mushrooms that grew there glowed in the dark, and I was fascinated by them.
I don’t recall much about arriving in Apra Harbor. Dad picked us up at the ship and drove us to our new home, a Butler building. Butler buildings had sheet metal sides and roofs. I believe we shared ours with another family, we on the south end and they on the north. I don’t recall a thing about them. I just don’t recollect having a back door. How’s that for deduction?
In fact, I only remember two of our neighboring families, or parts of them. To our east lived Dennis and his dog Tippy. We became friends, but I don’t remember anything about them except that Dennis and Tippy were the same age. Across the street to our west were the Cooks. Russ and Laura became close friends with mom and dad. Their daughter, Patty, was closer to Richard’s age.
One of the neighborhood artifacts was a typhoon shelter, basically a white painted building made of steel plates. It had ventilator pipes instead of windows and a solid steel door. I don’t think we ever went in it. As a matter of fact, about a year after we arrived, Typhoon Allyn hit the island with devastating force. Dad’s company, Brown-Pacific-Maxon, evacuated the entire camp. We spent at least one night and one day at the company offices. But Typhoon Allyn comes later in my tale.
Let me see if I can describe the camp. I’m not sure why it was called a camp. Perhaps it had been a camp for the navy. We got there by driving up a road paved with crushed coral and used motor oil. It climbed up a hill that was part of Mt. Tenjo to get to the camp. It wandered through what we Statesiders called boondocks. These days boondocks equates to backwoods, but for us it meant a woods or forest of small trees and bamboo groves.
When the road reached the top of the hill, the boondocks gave way to the camp. I don’t remember what was on the left side of the road when it reached the camp. I think there might have been a motor pool. Farther up the road on the left someone – perhaps the navy or perhaps the company – had scraped out an amphitheater and installed wooden benches and a movie screen. We saw movies for free, and we could bring our own popcorn. One feature I remember was that next to the theater was a shaved ice machine. We could fill our glasses or whatever with shaved ice before we took our seats.
The housing area consisted of Butler buildings and Quonset huts south of the main road. Three roads lead away from the main road in pretty much straight lines. Boondocks abutted the first road on its west side. The Rec Hall and playground occupied the top of the hill between the first road and the second. The Rec Hall also housed the washing machines, and clothes lines filled the large open space that was the recreation area. About the only thing you could do in it was roller skate and jump rope. The chapel stood near the Rec Hall, I think between it and the first road. Once you got past the playground/Rec Hall the houses started.
The third road served as a perimeter. It ran to the south end of the camp, made a sharp right and crossed the other two roads. Then it crossed a dry wash, made a sweeping turn to the right, crossed the wash again plus the other roads, and teed into itself about halfway down the hill from where it started. Understand, this housing area wasn’t huge. I believe I’ve completely described the roads. I can only guess how many families lived there, and it wouldn’t be accurate.
Getting back to the main road: after you passed the third road, you came to the grocery store on the south side. We’d call it a convenience store nowadays. Next to it was the barbershop. A little farther on a dirt road turned off and led back to the swimming hole. After that the main road came to the houses designated for Pacific Island Engineers. There were only a few of them.
I became friends with a boy who lived there. We frequently played in the boondocks by his house. One of our favorite places was a flat faced waterfall that we climbed up and down. It was covered by a thin sheet of water, but I don’t recall ever being concerned that I might slip and hurt myself.
I could babble on about the camp, and I will later, but for now it’s time to wrap up. According to psychologists your experiences when you are ten have major impact on your development. I was ten when we moved to Guam so you can see why it important to me. You’ll be reading more about it in the next issues.
– This is Richard.
– I remember most of this. I was six when we arrived.
– I think of the waterfall mentioned being about 50 feet high, made of black rock — and not straight down, but slanted (at about 75 degrees?). A friend of mine, Randy, did fall down the whole thing, but received hardly a scratch. I was in love with his older sister, Ann.
– Back up the creek was a perfectly round hole in the creek, maybe 20 feet across, to which we never found the bottom (or at least, that’s how I think of it). I saw a snake, or an eel, in it — and there wasn’t supposed to be either on Guam.
I remember the hole, and the waterfall was definitely a roughly flat, slanted surface. My recollection of the height was more like fifteen feet, at least three times my height and maybe a little more. I don’t recall seeing snakes or eels there, but we definitely saw an eel in the swimming hole north of the Cross Island Road. Ah, the memories.
Seems like I got the number from you, but thought you said 50 ft. And did seem like 50 feet to me.