NEWS
A8 • HERMISTONHERALD.COM
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 11, 2021
Special moments only happen once
remember Camp Pine Valley
because it was the site of my first
kiss, delivered by a sweet nerdy
guy named Frank.
He was 12. I was 11 but working
hard to look older.
Frank was a skinny guy who
wore thick glasses. His real name
was Franklin, but at that time in his
life he preferred Frank. We both
longed to be reading books instead
of choosing up ball game teams, but
books were in short supply at Camp
Pine Valley. He was not interested in
sports, which endeared him to me.
I could swim and paddle a canoe,
but I couldn’t catch or throw a ball
or run fast, which guaranteed that I
would be chosen last in the frequent
team selections endemic to summer
camp.
Most of summer camp for me
was about these daily rejections and
other athletic failures, like my first
horseback riding experience when
the horse lay down and tried to wipe
me off its back. But amidst these
juvenile humiliations, Frank picked
me to experience a first kiss, his as
well as mine.
I recall that he held my hand at
campfire sing-a-longs. I felt loved.
Suddenly I was not all alone any-
more. That was special. That was
very special indeed.
After the eight-week summer
camp session ended, we campers
left the woods and hills of the Lau-
rentian Mountains and returned to
Montreal where most of us lived.
Frank and I “dated” a bit after camp,
although “dating” is a big word for
what we did. We had absolutely no
private time together.
A date with Frank meant his
father drove him to my house. Frank
and I would climb into the back
seat of his dad’s big sedan and hold
hands, while both his parents sat in
the front. Then we would all drive to
see a movie.
This in itself was exciting: not
because Frank was holding my damp
hand in his, but because it was ille-
gal for anyone under 16 years of age
to attend most movies in the puritan-
ical Quebec Province of 1957. His
nice parents would attend the movie
with us to bolster the lie about our
ages as we bought our entry tickets.
I have no recollection of what
movies we saw, but I recall sev-
eral of these dates. Best of all, I
could now brag that I had a boy-
friend, which vastly improved my
social status. Frank was definitely a
good thing in my life in the autumn
of 1957.
I
A few months later, our lit-
tle romance came to an abrupt end
when my father took a new job —
in Iowa. In 1958 our nuclear fam-
ily did what no one in Montreal’s
close-knit community ever did back
then: We moved more than 1,000
miles away from Montreal and all
our relatives.
I recall a few letters back and
forth between Frank and me, but
soon the intervals between them
lengthened until the correspon-
dence stopped. Kids our age had
no access to expensive long-dis-
tance phone calls. Letters written
on paper and ink took a long time
to arrive. I got busy adjusting to my
American high school and I never
saw Frank again.
Or did I?
Flash forward to April 2021. I
am living in Portland, Oregon. This
is my 11th city since leaving Mon-
treal in 1958, but I have been here
40 years. I moved here in 1980
from city number 10, which was
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. I have a
career and a life. Camp Pine Valley
is a distant memory; I have to do
research to even recall its name.
I’m still in touch with a couple
of people who live in Pittsburgh.
One is a professor at Carnegie-Mel-
lon University. My friend con-
tacts me when there’s news about
someone we both knew back in the
1970s. Last April, my professor
friend sent me an obituary from a
Pittsburgh newspaper. On the same
day, I received a second copy of the
same obituary, from someone else
in Pittsburgh whom I had not seen
in decades.
The subject of the obituary was
a well-known professor of the his-
tory of art and architecture in
Pittsburgh. He had degrees from
McGill, Oberlin and Harvard. He
had published nine books in his
field, many of which recorded
his findings from excavations of
famous cathedral sites in Italy. He
had won a Guggenheim Fellowship
among other prestigious prizes.
He was internationally famous for
his writings on architectural and
cultural history. His name was
Franklin.
There was nothing in the obitu-
aries about his attendance at Camp
Pine Valley, but this was definitely
Franklin of the first-ever kiss.
By some trick of memory, I do
not recall meeting Frank when
we both lived in Pittsburgh in the
1970s. Frank was then a young pro-
fessor at Carnegie-Mellon Univer-
sity. He was married; I was newly
single after a painful divorce.
Somehow, 40 years after I left
Pittsburgh permanently, both of my
friends from the ‘70s who sent me
his obituary retained the memory
that I knew Franklin.
Maybe Franklin’s name came up
when I lived there. Maybe we met,
disliked each other and I deleted
the meeting from memory. Maybe I
met him and told other friends who
taught at Carnegie-Mellon about
him. Maybe he never forgave me
for dropping our teenage corre-
spondence. Any of these scenarios
is plausible; I just don’t recall.
Thinking about Camp Pine Val-
ley after all these years reminds
me that the camp put on a produc-
tion of “The Wizard of Oz.” I was
cast as the Tin Man. My solo song
was “If I only had a heart.” I hold
Franklin’s memory dear because
his kiss awakened my young heart.
That only happens once.
ANYONE CAN WRITE
Nearly 40 years in the business have taught me that readers long for mean-
ing and a connection at a deeper and more universal level.
And that’s why the Hermiston Herald will be running, from time to time,
stories from students who are in my writing class, which I’ve been teaching for
the past 10 years in Portland.
I take great satisfaction in helping so-called nonwriters find and write
stories from their lives and experiences. They walk into my room believing they
don’t have what it takes to be a writer. I remind them if they follow their hearts,
they will discover they are storytellers.
As we all are at our core.
Some of these stories have nothing to do with Hermiston or Umatilla Coun-
ty. They do, however, have everything to do with life.
If you are interested in contacting me to tell me your story, I’d like to hear
from you.
Tom Hallman Jr., tbhbook@aol.com
Tom Hallman Jr. is a Pulitzer Prize-winning feature writer for the Oregonian news-
paper. He’s also a writing coach and has an affinity for Umatilla County.
Work begins on Blue
Mountain Scenic Byway
HERMISTON HERALD
Contractors have begun
prep work to chip seal 33.6
miles of the Blue Mountain
Scenic Byway on the North
Fork John Day Ranger Dis-
trict. This project is one of
two projects on the Uma-
tilla National Forest that was
funded this year through the
Great American Outdoors
Act.
Work will be ongoing for
approximately four weeks and
includes cleaning the road
surface, sealing cracks in the
road and patching potholes,
according to a press release
from the Umatilla National
Forest. Contractors then will
chip seal the entire road. Con-
struction crews are moving
equipment on-site this week
and stockpiling gravel. The
chip seal is anticipated to
begin Monday, Aug. 16.
The construction work
will require periodic delays
along the full length of the
Blue Mountain Scenic Byway
with flaggers and pilot cars
managing traffic from Aug.
16 until approximately Aug.
30. The road will reopen once
work is complete. Construc-
tion signs will be posted at
each end of the project and as
needed in work zones.
The Blue Mountain Sce-
nic Byway is a popular 145-
mile route that travels from
near Arlington to Granite.
This road also is a major por-
tal to the Umatilla and Wal-
lowa-Whitman national for-
ests, offering opportunities for
scenic views and recreation.
“The deferred mainte-
nance on this portion of the
road will reduce risk to pub-
lic safety and extend the life
of this scenic route for 10-20
years,” according to the Uma-
tilla National Forest.
This project is part of the
investment of up to $40 mil-
lion in 2021 for 29 projects
on national forests in Ore-
gon and Washington through
the Great American Outdoors
Act, intended to address criti-
cal deferred maintenance and
improve transportation and rec-
reation infrastructure. Nation-
ally, the funds will allow the
U.S. Forest Service/Contributed
Photo
U.S. Forest Service staff in
2013 discovered the Burnt
Cabin Creek Trail Bridge was
deteriorating in the Umatilla
National Forest’s Walla Walla
Ranger District. The forest
is receiving funds to replace
the bridge.
Forest Service to implement
more than 500 infrastructure
improvement projects essen-
tial to the continued use and
enjoyment of national forests
lands this year.
In addition to the Blue
Mountain Scenic Byway chip
seal project, the Umatilla
National Forest received fund-
ing to replace the Burnt Cabin
Trail Bridge on the Walla Walla
Ranger District. Implementing
both projects this year will pro-
vide safe and enhanced visi-
tor access through these areas
of the Umatilla National For-
est. The projects also will sup-
port local employment oppor-
tunities and strengthen shared
stewardship of national forests
and grasslands by expanding
the Forest Service work with
public and private partners.
Additional projects may be
implemented on the Umatilla
National Forest and will be
announced as funding is allo-
cated. The forest also will con-
tinue to share updates on these
GAOA projects as construction
begins.
For more information on
these projects in the Pacific
Northwest Region, visit the
regional GAOA website.
Additional information
about the Umatilla National
Forest is available at https://
www.fs.usda.gov/umatilla.
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