Poison Ivy and I have had a contentious relationship for as long as I can remember. In fact, my first bout with the ornery herb came sometime towards the end of Ronald Reagan’s first term in the White House.
It was the summer of 1984 and while Carl Lewis and Edwin Moses were running circles around the rest of the world at the Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, my Boy Scout troop took a hiking trip to the 2,600-acre Pea Ridge National Military Park in northwest Arkansas.
Growing up in northeast Oklahoma, a hiking trip to nearby Pea Ridge was a rite of passage. My Scout troop left early and spent the day walking the trails that zigzagged across the Civil War battleground and learning about the battles that were fought there.
As young Scouts, we also spent a fair amount of time off the trail – doing our own version of trailblazing across the Arkansas wilderness.
We stopped for lunch, tossed an irreverent Frisbee across the hallowed grounds, and went back to the van before heading to another staple of Boy Scout field trips – the nearby Roaring River State Park in southwest Missouri.
Somewhere, video evidence exists thanks to a giant, over-the-shoulder VHS video camera recording all of the action.
About midway through the trip to the state park, I pulled down my dark green knee-high wool socks and discovered hundreds, if not thousands, of tiny seed ticks swirling around my hairless legs.
It was like that scene with the snakes in the Indiana Jones movie that had just been released a couple of years earlier.
One by one, the other boys on the van pulled down their socks and one by one, pre-pubescent screams filled the air.
Socks were flung out the window in breakneck speed and I, and the others, began scratching the ticks from our legs as quickly as possible.
What we didn’t know is that while we were slowly, but surely successfully shucking the blood-sucking ticks from our legs, we were also giving ourselves a literal Urushiol massage courtesy of the Poison Ivy, Poison Oak, and Poison Sumac plants in which we were trouncing earlier in the day.
We were spreading the dreaded oil from the tips of our toes to all parts north, which included some not-so-friendly places – if you know what I mean.
By the time we made it to Roaring River, the only thing roaring was the open wounds we had scratched into our legs.
And it went downhill from there.
Our family doctor described the carnage on my body as the worst reaction to Poison Ivy that he had ever seen.
I could barely walk, much less wear pants.
His treatment plan was like something out of the dark ages.
My parents bought a tarp, placed it in the living room floor, and had me lay spread eagle on the ground while my mother wrapped my legs in gauze and soaked them with a baking soda concoction the local pharmacist mixed up.
Once the medicine dried, the dressings were removed and that nasty pink Calamine lotion was caked on by the quart.
It was awful.
I remember watching Carl Lewis run for Olympic Gold and thinking to myself how nice it would be to walk without pain, much less run – and jump – like he could.
In 10 days or so, the Olympics were over and the blisters eventually dried up.
In the end, I only managed to lose a layer or two of skin and a heaping helping of my 11-year-old dignity.
Over the years, I have had smaller, less severe run-ins with Ivy and her friends and I had nearly forgotten about that ill-fated trip to Pea Ridge until she reared her ugly head again recently.
While innocently knocking back some innocent-looking “weeds” out of the front hedges, I apparently came into contact with it again and she attacked me with her usual vengeance.
Although long pants spared my legs from being exposed to the plant, my arms – and hands – apparently did not.
For a guy who has seasonal allergies and likes to rub the sweat out of his eyes while working in the back yard, this was not a good thing.
By the time the weekend rolled around, my right eye was nearly swollen shut and I looked like I had lost a prizefight – to a woman named Ivy.
Flashbacks from Pea Ridge began swirling in my head and I broke out into a cold sweat thinking about the misery I had endured several years earlier.
Fortunately, I was able to get into see the doctor relatively quickly and following a nice steroid shot in the derrière and a regiment of methylprednisolone, I escaped much of the torture I endured back in ’84.
Unfortunately, I think the damn venomous vegetation known as Ivy is still lurking in the bushes out front.
I might eventually try to tackle them again, but don’t expect me to ever return to Pea Ridge, Arkansas. There aren’t enough merit badges in the world to make that happen.
Gustafson is the not-so-mild-mannered publisher of The PineBelt NEWS. He’s also the father of four sons – none of which joined the Boy Scouts.
