Chapter 3 · America the Beautiful

Watch Out for the Critter

A night hike, a park ranger's accent, and a scream heard for miles

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It was a few years later before I had a chance to road trip to West Virginia and Cincinnati again. This time I was probably in the fourth or fifth grade, putting my sister in second or third grade. On this adventure, it was my mom, my sister, and me, and we met my grandma, who was already up there. By this time, my Paw Paw had passed away, and my youngest uncle was now in his early twenties with his own family.

It’s another vague story that plays in my head like an old movie reel. Grandma drove, pulling her trusty camper around those mountain roads like a professional. Mom followed, also driving and tending to my sister and me, who absolutely could not touch each other, cross the middle line, or even look at each other in the back seat without breaking into a fight. Entertainment on road trips back then consisted of the radio, when you had a station, staring out the window, books on tape that Grandma picked out from the library, I Spy or other random car trivia games, and, if you dared read on a mountain road, a book. Mom even had a special magic trick she taught us back then. If you closed your eyes, somehow you reached your destination faster. It was like teleporting, only you were sleeping.

The campsites we stayed in were different than what we were used to at Banning River Club, where we camped in the woods under the trees so thick you could barely see the sky. Here, the campsites resembled the trailer park we lived in back home. Only, instead of mobile homes, the little postage-stamp-sized lots were filled with various camper trucks, giant RVs, pop-up campers like ours, fifth wheels, teardrop trailers, motorhomes, and even a school bus converted into a camper at the site in Beckley.

At the site in Huntington, West Virginia, we were in a small area like a parking lot carved out of the woods near a pond. One evening, Grandma’s childhood friend and her husband visited us at the campsite for dinner, grilling our famous hamburgers and hot dogs, as was our tradition. While the ladies stayed behind to visit after dinner and clean up, Grandma’s friend’s husband, Paul, took my sister and me out for a night hike in the woods guided by one of the local park rangers. He had talked about this night hike off and on during the day, so I was really excited about this adventure.

Shortly after dinner, we met up with the park ranger and a small group of other campers and set off into the woods nearby. As we walked, our guide described different plants and wildlife that we might see, cautioning us to keep an eye out for snakes and spiders or other creatures that may cross the path or even be lurking in the trees just overhead. Well, that’s comforting. For whatever reason, my sister was being difficult and dramatic on this adventure, and Paul ended up carrying her on his shoulders while I hiked along in the group close to the park ranger, hanging on to every word he said as he pointed out various bugs or plants and told us what commonly grows or inhabits the area.

The moon cast shadows through the trees, giving the dense forest a spooky look. In the summer, it was warm enough for all the owls, frogs, crickets, cicadas, and other bugs to perform their nightly concert, hooting, croaking, chirping, and calling, adding to the spooky ambience of the woods. Who knew what watched us from those dark shadows just beyond the reach of our flashlights?

Now I forgot to mention, in West Virginia we had left the area thick with the Southern accents that I was used to. Here, in the southernmost Union state, accents were no longer rich with Southern twang, but rather blended into an Appalachian English that took on accents and dialects of people from different neighboring states. While it sounded almost the same, because my grandma, Paw Paw, my mom, and my oldest uncle were from this area, some words were unique to West Virginia just as some are in Georgia. You tend to just listen along to the story because Southerners will make up words and descriptions as they go. I suspect so do the mountain folks of WV.

As we got farther into our hike, those shadows cast by the trees in the moonlight began to resemble tall, spooky monsters towering over us, silhouetted by the light of our flashlights. Their branches turned into spindly arms with bony, arthritic-looking hands and sharp claws reaching out to grab you and pull you into the darkness of the forest, never to be returned. The melodic chanting of the forest creatures was quickly darkening into Mother Nature’s version of a film score for your typical horror movie. We saw bats randomly fly overhead hunting prey, large orb-weaver spiders building their enormous webs between the trees, and beetles crawling on trees. At the edge of the path, we would hear occasional scurrying and leaves rustling as rodents, snakes, or other unknown creatures fled to escape our flashlight beam. The mosquitoes venturing close to take a bite were no help, nor were the other creepy flying bugs swarming in to explore the light from our flashlights. They all felt like little ghosts tormenting us in the dark, nipping at our skin every now and then for taste tests or rest breaks.

Just ahead, our path crossed a small creek that you had to step over to avoid getting your feet wet. By this time, I was sticking close to Paul. The park ranger’s tour was turning into the narration of a horror movie. As we approached the creek, he cautioned each of us, pointing where to step, and saying, “Watch out for the creek.” So most everyone on our tour just stepped over the small stream crossing in front of us. Me, however, I heard, “Watch out for the critter!” and, on a blood-curdling, little girl’s scream, lifted myself off the ground to levitate across this creek.

Every bit of wildlife within a five-mile radius, I’m sure, retreated. Hell, they probably talked about it on the news the next morning in the next town over about all the dogs who started barking randomly in the middle of the night at the same time, hearing my high-pitched squeal from miles away. This was one of those lost-in-translation moments because the park ranger clearly thought he said, “Watch out for the creek.” With his different accent, though, it sounded like he said, “Watch out for the critter.” By God, I wasn’t about to be eaten by any critter in these West Virginia woods!

By the time my feet touched the ground again, the whole group was staring at me in utter horror, quizzing me on what had happened, sure I had just been bitten by a mysterious creature from the darkness. Near tears and hyperventilating from fright, I managed to squeak out, “The critter! Where is the critter!?”

Paul and the park ranger’s expressions turned from horror to confusion as everyone looked around for a critter (or creature for those who don’t speak Southern).

“What critter?” Paul asked.

“The one he said to watch out for,” I replied.

The park ranger spoke up, “No, the creek. I said watch out for the creek.”

In my defense, his “creek” still sounded like “crick” or “critter,” even with his exaggerated explanation. But as the realization washed over me of what he had said, the whole trauma all of a sudden became hilarious. The whole group laughed and giggled ourselves to new tears of hysterics, including myself. We even laughed all the way back to our campsite, where we relayed the story to the ladies of the family. My grandma still tells the story of me mistaking the “critter” for the “crick.”