"Wheezer the Dog" and more...

"Clarence recounts that it was "Wheezer" that in about 1922 trotted along beside the horses of Stan and Clarence who were enroute to Camp Inception in the Graham Mountains.  They had closed up the store at 10:00 PM on a weekend night and had mounted their waiting horses for the long horseback ride into the night.  Elizabeth and the other children were already in camp and had been there for some time out of the heat of the valley.  The saddlebags were loaded with food and necessities for another week's stay.  The night was clear and the ride uneventful until Stan and Clarence were halfway up the mountain.  Then the night turned into a disaster, almost. 

Wheezer challenged a skunk directly in the path of the horses.  Everybody and everything got sprayed.  Wheezer's actions brought its own punishment to him by lacerating his face with unbearable scents.  Upon reaching camp in the dark and in the middle of the night Stan and Clarence suddenly became unwelcome guests.  Time was obscured just what took place to set things in order, but one memory still remains:  Clarence and Stan had to remove all their clothing before being allowed to bed down for the night.  The dog recovered from the ordeal days later, but just barely."

(Camp Inception was a spot at about the 8000 ft. level on Graham Mountain.  It was a ranger station that could be reached only on horseback or by wagon.  The area was a considerable distance above what are known at the "pot holes".  The area accommodated campers and their tents who wished to escape the heat in the valley.  This was prior to 1926 when the Forest Service was entertaining the project of building a road to what is now Turkey Flat.)

"A Biplane Ride"

"And then there was that airplane (biplane) ride at about age eleven.  World War I had come to a halt in November of 1918, and some of the Rickenbacher-type pilots came home from the war with their open-cockpit warplane.  One Charley Mays did that.  One day, he sat his vintage airplane down in Henry Clifford's alfalfa field and offered rides to the public at $5.00 per flight.  His was the typical open-cockpit-biplane that flew in the war.  It had two seats...one for the pilot and one for the gunner, as it were.  Both had to be strapped in to keep from being tipped out.  Goggles and headgear were necessary accoutrements. 

Clarence was one of his customers on this particular day.  Charley had contracted to haul supplies on this particular day.  Charley had contracted to haul the supplies to the hunters.  And Clarence was the lucky passenger.  Charley flew high and then came down at a pre-arranged place (a meadow).  He banked that plane sharply and came in for a bumpy landing.  Clarence's abdominal skin prevented his losing his innards for and to the birds.  The rest was history except for his closing his eyes when it looked like the plane was going to climb a pine tree when they left the area.

(Excerpts from Clarence Crandall's Personal History)