CATEGORY: CENTRAL OREGON

I was told about the ruins of on old house in a canyon northwest of Milikin, east of Bend.  My informant said it was a “mansion”–that it had a concrete bath tub and a lava rock fireplace, and used to have a second floor but had been used as a strafing target by the air force stationed at Camp Abbot during the war, so there wasn’t much left of it.  I was told how to get there.

Driving on dirt roads that led over cattle guards and through barbwire gates, I was able to find it.  It was not really a mansion (only about 25 ft. Square), but it was a far cry from the usual desert derelict.  It was indeed a ruin, and indeed it had originally had two stories.  The first floor walls were all of lava rock.  The second floor had been made of logs and was collapsed onto the first floor, but much of the wood, including all the interior walls had been burned away.  The whole floor was deep in rubble, some of it as deep as four feet.  The bathtub and most of the fireplace were still there as well as concrete stairs leading to the second floor.  I was immediately impressed with the concrete work.  Whoever had done it was a master craftsman.  The interior of the fireplace and the window sills were of carefully formed cement.  The wide veranda-like stairs leading up to the front door were made of city-quality finished concrete with coved and crowned side rails.

Eric and Jari and I started going there for picnics.  One day, while clearing a place to build a fire, we uncovered a small patch of perfectly glass-smooth concrete floor.  WOW!!!  My gaze took in the whole of what would be the floor if it were cleared.  It was big enough for a ball room dance!  It was big enough for four squares of square dancers!

I had been taking a ballroom and square dance class as part of the Physical Education requirements at Central Oregon College in which the instructor had asked me to be his assistant.  I organized a work crew of dance students.  We shoveled out the entire floor, and cleaned out the tub and the fireplace.  Then we set a date for a dance.

Those of us who arrived early built a fire in the fireplace and arranged lanterns on the war-torn walls.  We filled the bathtub full of ice into which people would put their drinks.  We brought a battery operated record player.  There were more than enough people for four squares.  We roasted food over the fire.  No one cared about the noise.  Except maybe the owls.

I had told everyone that I would get there early and tie yellow plastic ribbons to the trees to mark the way.  I was a little late.  However I thought I was there before anybody else.  I was mistaken.  About midnight, four bedraggled people arrived.  They were angry.  They said they had been half way to Pendleton.  It turned out that the Forest Service had marked trees for removal all along the same road, but veering to the north on another route.  Even though their ribbons were red, it was the same kind of ribbon.  These poor people actually had driven half way to Pendleton.  Fortunately they didn’t stay angry long, but joined in the dancing, eating and drinking that lasted until dawn’s early light.