James Laird - "Some Summer Activities at Lark Ellen Home for Boys for Boys" - Page 3

We made cages for the lizards and snakes and the rangers told us what kind they were, and what to feed them. Some of them made good pets and others would bite you pretty hard when picked up. The bark and acorns would be made into displays that looked like Mickey and Minnie Mouse, and other animals. We would sell most of these to the other camp visitors for our spending money. The money kept us in goodies and we had enough left over to go horseback riding a couple of times.

The riding stable near the camp had a lot of horses called Tony, as all of us boys wanted to ride Tom Mix's horse. He sure came in a lot of different colors. This was the first time I had ever been aboard a horse and it was just great. They took us to a lot of interesting places on the rides. The only one that disappointed us was to Twin Springs. When we arrived we found a couple of twin bed springs lying in a dry creek bed.

One place that really did get our interest was called the giant swing. There was a swing made of cable high in a pine tree with no branches on one side except high up where the swing hooked on. The tree was on the side of a hill and when you were pulled back up the hill and released you swung way out into space giving you a heart thumping thrill. This was a pretty good walk from camp but we did it a couple of times each camping trip.