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as told by Stella Gerba Gore
The Process and People Involved
I must say, Robbie was the vital link in pulling it off. He was the lumberjack, the tractor driver, the artist,
the carver, the painter, the transportation, and the installer.
Once Dina Cook secured the permission for us to go ahead with our project, she called Dave Ballard and asked him to go to camp and measure the existing pole. He gladly did this for us. Dina sent me the "rough" measurements and I immediately started contacted all the lumber resources I could find, looking for the size "pole" we would need, each time having to explain what I was needing it for. After exhausting all of my resources and those of people who have been in the lumber industry for years, I called my little brother Robert. I told him what I wanted to do. I didn't have to explain why I wanted to do it, because he was a camper at Lightfoot like the rest of my family. His suggestion was that we would just cut our own tree down, strip it, and make it. I called Tammy Bukowski, my sister-n-law, who (it just so happens) conveniently works at our local wood treatment plant in Conway, and had her start asking questions as to how we would go about the whole process.
The man that runs the treatment plant, Larry Harrington, told us to cut it down and put it inside for two to three months and let it dry out. Then we would have to strip it, then carve it, then take it to him to be treated. We cut the tree down on Saturday, February the 8th, from property that belonged to family friends, Larry and Corrine Johnson of Socastee, SC. They were more than glad to help out. Robert cut it down with a chain saw and drug it out of the woods with his tractor. Then we just parked the pole in their field and went about our business. Dina had got a black and white photo from Suzy "Cooksie." It was of her standing beside Wakonda. It was a good, clear picture and we used it for our model.
Some time later, Dave Ballard asked Mike Miller to go out to camp with him and get us some more measurements. Mike sent us very good descriptive measurements and a detailed picture with markings on it to accompany the measurement. This was a super tool. Dina cook came to Myrtle Beach some time in May, and we went to the farm with Robert. We stripped the bark off the tree and then left it to sit once again. The weekend Dina came down was "Biker's Weekend" and she really enjoyed seeing all the bikes and the people; however, that's another story altogether.
(photos of the carving - click to enlarge)
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Soon after that, the pole went into a warehouse that belonged to a family friend, Rusty Jones. Rusty worked around this pole for months. The warehouse was a blessing, because the pole was big. At the beginning of August, Robert and I with chisels in hand and power tools at our side started the carving. A close friend of Robert and the family, Pauline Palmer, stood by our side every step of the way ... most of the time equipped with a sander in hand. She always brought drinks and snacks to, a must when you are doing a project. We would go to the warehouse for a couple hours a night here and there, and work until we got tired, silly, or Rob had to leave to watch a favorite TV show. [See photos above]
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