A former family friend of ours owns property in the small town of Fish Camp, CA about a mile from the Highway 41 entrance to Yosemite National Park. This family friend was Bill Winterberg Sr. It is now owned or managed by his son, Bill Winterberg Jr. When I was a child growing up, we would go up every summer with our family trailer and spend a couple weeks. I looked forward to this every year. While we haven’t been there much lately, we are planning on having a family get-together there in June. We are planning on including the Webb and Weifert clans on this trip. I am hoping to share with Kellie and her family how wonderful of a place this is.
Bill Winterberg was one of the first students to attend Monterey Bay Academy, graduating in the first class, 1950. My uncle Jack Webb (not the famous actor), was a fellow classmate of his, graduating in 1951. Bill had a farm in Hanford, CA and bought a piece of property in Fish Camp. His property was separated from the rest of Fish Camp by a creek. This property was largely undeveloped and was perfect for being a private campground. He would invite many of his friends to enjoy his property. On the third weekend of July each year, Bill would host an unofficial Monterey Bay Academy Alumni Weekend. Our family would arrive a week or more before that time and work on projects around the camp. Our family helped with many projects, including providing picnic tables as well as electrical and water hook-ups for each of the camping spots.
Two of my fondest memories revolved around the creek and something we called the Suicide Ride. Each summer, we would create a make-shift dam across the creek, deepening a swimming hole. We swam and played in the creek quite a bit. The Suicide Ride was the true highlight though. On one side of the camp, there was a hill. At the top of the hill there was a tree where a steel cable was attached. The other end of the cable was attached to a tree down the hill, across the creek and up a hill on the other side. This cable was pulled tight. A chair with a pulley on it was placed on the cable. A rope was tied to the chair to pull it up the hill. When we got up the hill, we would climb an old orchard ladder, so we could get up to where the cable was attached. We’d coil up the rope and climb onto the chair. We would then let go and zip down the cable on the chair. It sounded like a siren as the chair and rider would fling down the hill. The creek was the lowest part, but momentum would take us nearly to the tree on the other end. Gravity would then bring us back to the lowest part, next to the creek. We’d drop the rope and someone would pull the chair down so we could climb off. We would do this many times a day. This ride required some maintenance that was hopefully done before our arrival. One particular summer, a tower was built to make getting on the ride easier. Getting on from the ladder was quite precarious. During construction of the tower, a former faculty member from Monterey Bay Academy spent much of the time “supervising” the project. I don’t recall anything particularly beneficial in his input (I was a kid and maybe my memory was a bit weak at the time), but someone decided to name the tower after him… The Orville Weddell Memorial Tower.
Down at the creek, one year someone had a bright idea of creating a waterslide into the swimming hole. A study wooden structure was created, over which a sheet of galvanized sheet metal was formed, making up the slide. This was supported high up between a couple trees, where a platform was made. At the bottom, a metal lip was attached to throw the rider out into the water. As we already had a Suicide Ride, this slide was referred to as the Sui-slide. I don’t recall who, but I know one person got a nasty slice from a piece of metal on this slide and it was not as successful as had previously been planned.
Being that Monterey Bay Academy is a Seventh-day Adventist school, nearly everyone was SDA at the alumni get-together. On Saturday morning, we’d have Sabbath School and church. This was followed by a hearty potluck. I always recall many people bringing potato salad. Mr. Winterberg was a jolly and loud man and would often tell people that the potato salad was poisonous, but thankfully he was immune to the poison. I’d tell him, “I must be immune too, because I eat a lot of it and I’m not dead.” He’d sometimes reply, “Well Little Webb, maybe you are immune too.” He often called me “Little Webb.” After lunch, we’d partake in Sabbath afternoon lay-activities. For those needing explanation, lay activities usually refers to religious activities performed by non-ordained church members, but used here as a euphemism for taking a nap. Later on, we’d load up for an afternoon hike. This hike usually involved bench seats bolted on to a thick piece of plywood, that slid into the bed of Mr. Winterberg’s pickup truck. He’d take us for this hike to another piece of property he owned nearby that had a lake. This was my kind of hiking. In the evening, everyone prepared for one of the highlights… the ice cream feed. People would bring their ice cream makers and make their favorite kind of homemade ice cream. We’d then eat ice cream, sitting around a large campfire as people would tell funny anecdotes.
These annual events started to fade into just memories by the mid-1980s. Mr. Winterberg’s health also started to fail. He suffered from adult-onset diabetes and peripheral vascular disease, resulting in amputated lower legs. He sadly passed on June 19, 2007. He will be well eulogized a year from his death, as we will be spending that weekend on his property.