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After months of scouring the internet for ways to express my passions, I’m proud to announce here that The Voodoo Hill Explorer Club is up and running here on Substack!
Is there a password, a knock, a handshake, or a phrase to say to get into the club?
We certainly can develop one in the days, weeks, months, and years to come.
But for now, let’s concentrate and come to an agreement on what the club is all about.
Origins of The Voodoo Hill Explorer Club
The name comes from four of my fictional mid-teen boys in my work-in-progress who have decided they’re going to build a treehouse the first days out of summer vacation on an Upper Michigan air force base in 1977.
The four reached the grassy corner of Voodoo Avenue and Explorer. Lewis set down his Pepsi can before grabbing hold of the street sign pole. Using his hands and arms, he spun around like a Maypole twice. Marc and Theo shook their heads hoping no one would recognize them as Lewis acted like a five-year-old. With Lewis’s head beginning to swim, Kirk studied the white letters wobbling atop the pole.
“What about the ‘Voodoo Avenue Explorers?’” he asked, ignoring Lewis.
Theo pointed toward the two panels on top of the street pole.
“Dude, what?” he paused and with his biting sarcasm said, “Because it’s a sign?”
“I don’t like the avenue part,” gasped Lewis while stepping backward, arms flailing, and falling to the grass. Looking off to the southwest, Lewis feigned as though the sun had blinded him. “Avenue makes it…” and there he paused. With all three boys looking at him lying on the deck he finished “…boring.”
After that, Lewis crawled to the Explorer street drain and leaned over the curb. Kirk, Marc, and Theo jogged up Explorer to the first building’s sidewalk and stopped. This while Lewis emptied his Pepsi and lunch into the storm drain. The delay gave Kirk time to decide Lewis was right. The word “avenue” was boring.
“What about ‘The Voodoo Hill Explorers’?” Kirk suggested.
“Better,” Marc said. “But there’s still something missing.”
“We’ve gotta get the ‘Voodoo Hill’ in there,” Kirk insisted. “How about ‘The Voodoo Hill Adventure Club’?”
Theo, the deep thinker in the bunch said, “Dude, I like Voodoo Hill, but we’re not kids. We need a name with pizzazz, like, ‘The Voodoo Hill Explorer Club.’”
As the three walked up the block, and Lewis ran to catch up, Marc told Lewis the name under consideration.
Lewis grossed everyone out when he took another drink from the Pepsi can. “I like that, too, but we’re not building on Voodoo Hill, correct?”
The actual Voodoo Hill is a quarter mile to the right in the photo. Anyone who ever lived on base has a story of going up or down the slope. (Photo by author, September 2015, in base housing of what once was an active B-52 Strategic Air Command bomber base, KI Sawyer AFB.)
This newsletter is written in the spirit of the excitement in these four fictional characters. Some weeks, I may post letters written to you from each of them.
For those who choose a paid subscription, we will do much more than talk about my WIP. No, I want this to morph into a place where we talk of the daring-dos many of us undertake to live life to its fullest.
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I encourage and invite you to subscribe. We’re going to have great fun here.
Future topics of discussion include:
What to do if a skunk sprays you
What natural remedy is said to relieve the smell.
How to build a cool treehouse for kids and adults
Adventure hiking
How to survive outside in a blizzard
Great trails throughout the US and world to hike
What to put in your pack, which one to buy, and how to pack it
And so much more!
Wait! There’s more!
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No content provided by Donald J. Claxton should be considered tax, investing, or financial advice. This email, and any other content provided, is for entertainment and education purposes only. We do not claim to provide tax, investment, financial, or other legal advice. Any content provided by Donald J. Claxton is the personal opinion of our owners and/or staff. You should always conduct your own research.