BITING BUGS & POISON IVY: “Why God?” — Jim Stiles (ZX#100)

BITING, STINGING, CHEWING, BURROWING BUGS…& the MOST INSIDIOUS SCRATCH CREATOR of THEM ALL: POISON IVY

NOTE: For the last two years, I’ve avoided politics and concentrated mostly on history, and topics less likely to stir dissension in the ranks. And last week’s post on Arches’ old routed signs is an example. But over the last few weeks I’ve dabbled a bit in subjects bound to create debate. The Zephyr post in January, about the eventual demise of Glen Canyon Dam, generated over 1000 likes and almost 100 comments. Most of them were thoughtful and constructive, even if they disagreed with me. But I had forgotten about the Trolls. They’re still out there but I had managed to avoid them for longer than I deserved.

I remember that line from “Lonesome Dove,” from Captain Call to his pal, McCrae: “I swear Gus, you’d argue with a possum.”

Last week, I reposted on Facebook, Tonya Morton’s essay on Edward Abbey, and the state of his reputation in the World of Now. It was swamped with over 130 comments on the Zephyr facebook page. Again, mostly excellent observations, but also once again…there were those damn Trolls.

So this week, I’ve gone totally benign. A Zephyr post dedicated to the topic of itching and its causes. I want to see if the Trolls from last week are still out there waiting to pounce again. I look forward to a full-throated discussion on itching and scratching… JS

Just two weeks ago, it was bitterly cold here. The temperatures fell below zero. A bitter north wind found its way through every crack and crevice in my 120 year old home. I thought of my winter camping story and remembered driving across Wyoming in an MGB convertible where the heater managed to keep it at five below (it was 37 below zero on the other side of the windshield. Days later, we camped out at the Grand Canyon in ancient kapok sleeping bags and wondered if we’d be dead of frostbite by morning.

And yet. And yet….

Even then, I hesitated to complain about the frigid air. Now, just a few short weeks later, we are experiencing “unseasonably warm weather,” on the High Plains. It was 70 degrees today. A lovely ‘false spring’ moment. But I’m not ready for what’s coming. In fact,I’m pleading with those in charge to keep winter around a bit longer, because I know what comes next…a form of “madness. Madness!”

It’s the biting bugs. The stinging insects. The crawling or flying or hopping six-legged (or however damn many appendages they have) little crusty monsters that have made a meal of me for most of my life. And the blooming of the most insidious plant on Earth…

“I don’t mind the scratching. But I don’t like the itching.”
—- David Letterman

I had only just recovered from last summer’s onslaught. Old bites are still only almost healed bug scars and I’m beginning to think that by the end of this journey, I’ll be as pockmarked as a smallpox victim. As I look to the future (such as it is), I flash back to when it all started, so many years and decades ago…

“DON’T SCRATCH THAT…YOU’LL MAKE IT WORSE.”

My late brother once told me I was either cursed, or blessed by my memory for ancient details. And he’s right. Or maybe it’s a bit of both. Keep in mind my excellent memory only goes so far. In fact, that’s exactly where it goes — very far back. Last night I decided to cook up the rest of a pound of bacon, before it went rancid. I put the remaining slices on the stove and went back to my office. A few minutes later I heard an odd sound. I thought it was rain hitting the windows. Then I remembered the bacon. I didn’t burn the place down, but it was very crispy.

And now I’m drifting from the subject. Back to the bugs…

Being a small child and encountering mosquitoes and wasps and bees and other unpleasantries, is like a rite of passage. You may not remember the first bug bite, but you’ll probably remember the admonition from your mother, “Don’t scratch it…You’ll make it worse. I remember thinking, “what the heck am I supposed to do? Just suffer?’ (More potent expressions would follow with age).

Still, it had not become yet another traumatic chapter in my childhood…the first of many, until I was past ten. I was a newly initiated Boy Scout, officially a Tenderfoot, and had traveled with Troop 246 to a summer Boy Scout camp at Rough River, Kentucky. We had planned a canoe trip for the next day, but early that afternoon, we set up camp in an open field. As I sat in the tall grass chatting with my pals, I suddenly felt an uncomfortable itch emanating from the most sensitive part of the male anatomy. I said nothing at first, and was not about to share my problem with my buddies. Besides, I was a Boy Scout. It was still okay to be stoic, to admire stoicism, and endure discomfort bravely, and quietly, like Gary Cooper or Jimmy Stewart might do. I said nothing.

Finally though, I knew I needed to look. I wandered away from the guys and behind a tree and I sneaked a peak at the Little Fireman. It looked uncharacteristically red. Not just a little red. Not like other wounds I had sustained elsewhere on my body. This was different. It almost appeared to be on fire. But still, I said nothing, and chose not to peek again. The next morning, after a hellish night, I boarded my canoe for the five hour trip. By the time we reached our next stop, I was in agony.

I wandered away from my fellow Scouts again, and had a look.

It was horrible. It was grotesque. I was terrified.

There had been significant swelling. The poor little feller looked like a fireapple-red baseball, perched atop half a roll of pennies. If it is really true that “size matters,” then it is also true that I peaked when I was 11 years old.

Mortified, but needing to share my predicament with someone, I sought out my friend Rusty, and when nobody else was looking our way, I showed him my injured part.

“OH MY GOD!” he exclaimed. “That’s CHIGGERS. That’s horrible! Mr. Morey has got to see this.”

Chiggers? I thought. Never heard of them. Rusty dragged me to my scoutmaster, a wonderfully calm and reasonable man who could always soothe us when the fear of camping and being away from our mothers became too much. Mr.Morey would know what to do.

Mr. Morey pulled me aside and I explained the situation. Clearly he didn’t want me to drop my pants in front of an audience, so we moved away from the guys and I unzipped. At first, he couldn’t believe what he was seeing. He was a tall man, maybe six foot two, and I was still hoping to pass four feet in those days, so he put on his reading glasses and bent down for a closer look.

“OH MY GOD!” he cried. “Jack! Jack!” Mr. Morey called to Mr. Steiner, the assistant scoutmaster. “You’ve got to see this!”
Mr. Steiner yelled, “Oh my God!”

Keep in mind, both Mr. Morey and Mr. Steiner had served and seen action in the Second World War. This may have been the most traumatic moment for them since coming home from the war. Soon a crowd began to form.

It was decided that I needed medical treatment. Mr. Steiner loaded me into his station wagon and we made a mad dash for the Leitchfield, Kentucky community hospital. We were met at the ER entrance by a stern looking nurse who wanted to know the precise nature of my ailment. I showed her.

“OH MY GOD!!!!” She summoned the doctors.
“OH MY GOD!!!” By now it had become something of a theme.

Once the commotion died down, the issue of treatment was finally raised. No one knew what to do, because none of them had ever seen anything quite like the spectacle I presented. Now, years later, I wish to hell I’d had a camera.

Finally one of the doctors suggested an anti-itch spray called Multi-Derm. It was supposed to be effective, but had never been applied to this part of the body. What were the side effects? Could it make matters worse? I didn’t see how that was possible, and pleaded with them to spray me. The doctors agreed.

(Here, as before, a crowd had gathered. Nurses, doctors, technicians, other ER patients. passersby. Hobos.)

But the plastic spray nozzle jammed. Nothing would come out of the can. Finally one of the doctors pulled the nozzle from the can, jammed a screwdriver into the tube and leveraged it back like one might raise a carjack.
An explosion of Multi-Derm spewed from the can onto my affected area, and knocked me against the wall. I remember it was also very cold and for the first time in 16 hours, it didn’t itch.

“Do it again!” I pleaded and they did.
“Again!” I cried.

Now the doctors thought I was beginning to enjoy the Multi-Derm more than was deemed appropriate, and advised me I could only be sprayed every eight hours.

Finally, Mr. Steiner drove me back to our main camp, which was chigger-free. “I don’t think you need to camp in any more fields for a while,” he assured me. I spent the next two days alone, except for Mr. Steiner and my can of Multi-Derm. By the end of the week I was healed. My parents had told me that a week away at summer camp might help me learn some lessons about responsibility and manhood. And learning, as well, about the wonders of Nature.

Twenty years later I might have said, “Nature THIS.”

Still, I recovered and the incident didn’t deter me from a love of the outdoors and the natural world. But why couldn’t Mother Nature appreciate me as much as I did her? Or if she didn’t appreciate me, couldn’t she at least tell the bugs to leave me alone? I felt betrayed. Maybe Mama N felt my scorn and doomed me to the life I have led since. Things got worse. Sometimes it was of my own stupidity…

THOSE HATEFUL VENGEFUL WASPS –– SPEAKING OF ‘SIGNIFICANT SWELLING’

The next summer, we Kids of Glen Meade Road were playing outside, doing what kids did then, whatever that was. Joey Fowler noticed a big wasp nest under the eave of their house, just above the back door. I was a few years older than Joey and grabbed a long hollow but very heavy pole that my dad had left leaning against the back wall of our little home. I could barely lift it but was determined to knock that wasp nest down. Why I was so determined…well, I was 12.

I raised the pole to the nest and whacked it. The nest came down, but the wasps followed the pole like it was a road map and found the left side of my face. I don’t know how many times I was stung. Several for sure. Like the chiggers before, I turned red; the swelling came soon after. You’ll note the photos here of me and my brother and mother. Note my mother is trying to add a touch of levity to the moment. Notice I am trying to smile.

The images are from the day AFTER the swelling started to go down. In the hours and first day after the stings, my face was every bit as grotesque as my lower half had been just eleven months earlier. I looked like I could make a living in a circus side-show. A trip to the doctor followed. I went into the office wearing a paper sack over my head. I hate shots and still do, but for once I was grateful.

Dr. Podoll, the family pediatrician, said, “Well Jimbo, have you learned your lesson?” I told him I had. And it was true. But forty years later, while cleaning out a gutter at my old Moab home on Locust Lane, I turned to my left where the big trumpet vine once lived. I saw the wasp nest first and had not even touched it. But maybe these wasps were descendants of the horde on Glen Meade Road so many years ago. A squadron of them viciously attacked me, and this time, they took me out on both sides.

A man as tough as my neighbor Gene Schafer took one look at me and left the building. ‘Damn Stiles,” he said, “you look like that Joker fellow in the Batman movie!”

Gene advised me to stay inside or I might scare the tourists away. He picked up my Prednazone prescription and asked if I wanted something to eat, But I could barely open my mouth wide enough to consume anything….

Back to my blessed childhood.

POISON IVY–LEGS LIKE RAW HAMBURGER

Even before the rest of the summer could fade into history, I was struck down again. The itching was as intense, but at least it wasn’t an insect. Instead it came from the most insidious source of all…

In all fairness, my dad had warned me about poison ivy and had even given me a poison ivy tutorial…the distinctive three leaves and their configuration, where they are most likely to be found, the clothes I should wear to protect myself, like long pants and long sleeved shirts. Good information that I mostly ignored. The long sleeves and pants were especially easy for a 12 year old to ignore. But I surely paid the price.

And, in fact, even before the chigger bites and wasp stings, I had already gone a few rounds with poison ivy, and had even needed injections to make the rash go away. But this time, I really ruined myself. No one had mentioned the poison ivy vines. One day after a scout meeting, I went to explore a small copse of trees near the main sanctuary, on the far side of the Buechel Methodist Church property. I was quite the tree climber in those days and I shinnied up a nearby tree trunk like a little monkey. I saw the vine but didn’t recognize it; twelve hours later, both my thighs were seriously engaged. I ignored my mother’s mantra and I scratched it furiously. But she was right — I made it worse. Way worse.

I lathered on the Calamine lotions and suffered for days. Finally my condition got so bad, she called the doctor. She could not begin to describe how bad it was, but I remember her asking Dr. Podoll if the poison could enter my bloodstream. An hour later, we were at his office.

“You again?” he said. He asked me to wash off the lotion. It was excruciating, but when I finally came back to the examination room, for a moment, it felt like deja vu. Dr. Podoll exclaimed, “OH MY GOD!” I wondered where my scoutmaster Mr Morey was.

“It looks like raw hamburger!” The Doc put me on a regimen of injections and eventually it worked. I was sure I’d be left with hideous scars. In fact, I’d previously sustained a bad cut and subsequent scar near the poison ivy spot when I tried to take the turn out of my driveway on my Sears bicycle and spun out. I hit the asphalt and opened up my leg. The poison ivy rash obliterated the scar completely, except the last half inch. It was like having my own special skin dermabrasion at age 12.

Years passed. Once, when I was 16, I came in contact with the Evil Weed yet again, while canoeing on the Kentucky Salt River inside the Fort Knox Military Reservation. We were leaving on our first Great Western Trip the next day and the rash was just appearing as we left town. Eventually we stopped at a GP’s office in Kingman, Arizona, where the doc gave me a shot and insisted I’d contracted it in the Grand Canyon. I laughed. I hadn’t been to the bottom of the Canyon. Besides, I thought, ‘there’s no poison ivy out west.’

I was wrong, yet again.

Almost a decade later, I was loving my first year as a GS-3 seasonal ranger at Arches. On the same day I re-discovered Ed Abbey’s arch, I walked through some green leafy plants in a nearby alcove. Later, my boss, chief ranger Jerry Epperson informed me that I was the first ranger in Arches history who required medical attention due to exposure to poison ivy.

I knew even then that my Arches National Park legacy was ensured.

*****

EPILOGUE:

This story could have been twice as long, but I decided it might be better to at least pause. Zephyr readers, or anyone for that matter, can hear just so many tales about itching and scratching. Just the thought of that much discomfort can make a person start to scratch as well. Consequently, I decided to spare all of you “Part 2,” for now. And there is so much more to tell —vicious Kansas fleas, biting midges at Arches. even strange tick-like monsters in Western Australia. Do you really want to hear more? But if I find enough empathetic, similarly inflicted victims, I may tell the Rest of the Story.”

It’s not pretty. JS

Jim Stiles is the publisher and editor of The Zephyr. Still “hopelessly clinging to the past since 1989.” Though he spent 40 years living in the canyon country of southeast Utah, Stiles now resides with two cats, Rambo & Rascal, on the Great Plains. Coldwater, Kansas is a tiny farm and ranch community, where there are no tourists.

He can be reached via facebook. Messenger, or by email: cczephyr@gmail.com

TO COMMENT ON THIS STORY OR TO EXPRESS AN OPINION, PLEASE SCROLL TO THE BOTTOM OF THIS PAGE. THANKS…Jim Stiles

TO COMMENT ON THIS STORY OR TO EXPRESS AN OPINION, PLEASE SCROLL TO THE BOTTOM OF THIS PAGE. THANKS…Jim Stiles