Tales of the Pit (1997)

thank you okay in Southern Illinois we refer to Lakes like this as strip pits when they came in with the shovels to dig coal they would dig straight down since this is an old pit and they stopped mining it back in the late 40s or 50s you'll find that we still have the high hills in the very very deep lake and it's about 45 to 50 feet deep the pit is a recreational area for gays and lesbians that are 18 years of age or older we have had as many as 200 campers on a holiday weekend but normally we'll have a 100 to 150 it's Memorial Day weekend we're here with family and friends and uh see a lot of people that we don't get to see throughout the year and come out and have a good time and it's a great place to be and it is a great place to celebrate a seven month anniversary if you choose to do so we love it out here a couple years ago we came for the first time and we've been here every major holiday ever since probably will continue to as long as they have it oh yes yes you just get to be who you want to be it's like a lifesaver for us because where we're at we're real isolated and we do go to Champaign there's stuff going on there that we can get involved in but it's still an hour and a half drive from us and so we come down here like for three or four days when we can and just unable to be ourselves well what we're cooking right now is shish kebabs we've been coming to the pit for 15 years I've been out here for many of benefits to help build the Pavilion pour the concrete and everything else but we're all out here just to enjoy ourselves and have a good time because this is our meeting place in Southern Illinois and for the tri-state area including Cape Girardeau Kentucky St Louis Missouri and everything like that and we're all out here just as the big family as we are having a wonderful time the pit has a lot of history as far as the gay and lesbian Community for Southern Illinois and Saint we're about 80 or 90 miles south of St Louis but we do have a lot of people that come down from the St Louis area to either camp or or hang out okay I'm from Saint Charles Missouri it's like right outside of St Louis and um I heard about the pit from a couple different girlfriends I had and I think that it's a really great place I think it's like to me it's like paradise where uh you can come and be naked if you want and wear clothes if you want either way it doesn't matter nobody cares and if you're straight or if you're gay still doesn't matter everybody accepts everybody else here and it's there's not really any place like this around where I live so this is kind of our Oasis and we all flock from all over to this one place and get together we have had people that have come through on trips from different places in the United States and they've heard about the pit and they've stopped in well I am came to St Louis on a Hiatus I'm a performer from Las Vegas I used to work in Boyles I'm a puppeteer and my friend said they would come to the pits for Memorial weekend and I never heard anything about it so I came with them and ended up performing for him and I've had a blast this weekend it's the first time I've been around this many women in ages [Laughter] I've had a blast okay the only time we charge is on the three holidays Memorial Weekend Fourth of July and Labor Day and then we charge five dollars per person for the entire weekend to come in Camp it is primitive we don't have running water or anything like that the rest of the year anyone from the gay community is welcome to come down either crawl over the gate and come in or see Billy or see me and we'll let them use our key and come in back in 78 a friend of mine she kept telling me about this swimming hole that I needed to come down here and so I started coming out here and I became one of the pit lesbians an honorary member and I just I finally got my key and came back and came back and then I my life changed after I'd say in the mid 80s and I got into a family business and that's what I refer to as the Lost Years and then it evolved to when I met Hal and I told him I said let's go out to the pit and I fell madly in love with the man and I was so lucky because I literally lived a fairy tale romance for the first what two or three years how we were just dating so to speak but we were both madly in love the most wonderful man I've ever known in my life and he's treated me just like that I don't know how he's put up with me all these years because I'm pretty ornery the next thing we know we really didn't have a place to meet since Hal was still married and then Hal and I literally met out here every weekend for what two years but then the opportunity came to where we were able to buy the pit and I don't know I guess after we bought the pit we went through some transitions we changed a few things we tried to clean it up and make it a safe warm and wonderful place for gays and lesbians and straights without attitudes my man here I have to say this too works very hard he's retired and I still work I'm a massage therapist and I go to work every day and come back out here and we live out here for basically the entire summer two years ago we added some camp area up to the north the property is 41 acres and it's about a quarter mile up this way and we put in a road and we opened up some new camp Campground up that way this is our shower and it works believe me it gets a lot of use you just fill this fill the bucket and get underneath here and the water comes out and the water goes a quarter mile to the west and then it tees around to the north another quarter mile again the depth is supposedly between 48 and 52 feet and it is a an old strip pit so it is spring fed we do have some runoff normally it's Crystal Clear probably one of the biggest industries or the I think the what am I saying the the biggest company around a Southern Illinois University located in Carbondale which is probably about I don't know 18 miles away from here and that's where Hal and I lives in Carbondale we seriously thought about building a house out here our Dream Home but we both really like Carbondale the diversity there is really neat we've recently gotten Lira a little Egypt human rights Alliance started Hal and I worked real hard for that and we're doing some things and Hal wants to run for city council we both realized that we didn't want to be stuck out here at the pit all year long we stay out here for the summer but you know in the winter he would like we'd like to stay active in Hell especially with Community Affairs yeah is that a beerbong okay because we don't do beer bongs all right I didn't apologize to you first thing that's okay I didn't really I didn't expect you I did not expect an apology I just wanted to talk to him and let him know that you know he embarrassed you guys more than anybody else and uh you know he should have he should have more respect for you guys exactly I'd say a close assumption is still about 80 percent women and of course there's going to be gay more gay men down here because Hal and I are gay men and even though we don't really hang in a well we do have some gay male friends but for the most part we do really hang out with a lot of lesbians still but more and more gay men come down but I think there's a cohesion is that a good word amen don't don't care that's true Hal had to remind me gay men as a rule of thumb generally don't Camp I think statistically the lesbians are known to camp so I guess that answers one question first of all I was married for 25 years and I have three children I have twin daughters Barb and Beth and Jack my son is sitting here with me but I did finally tell Jack that I was gay and I had thought for many years that Jack might be gay Jack said he was not gay we invited Jack to come out to the pit several times and he wouldn't come out to the pit well finally he did come out and he uh well he made the comment that he didn't think that the gays would like a straight person out there you know so as far as Jack has I think come to enjoy the pit I don't know whether he knows this because we've really never discussed it but the way Billy and I have our Wills set up is that if I die first then I probably will because I'm old he goes to Billy and after Billy it goes to Jack if both of us are killed at the same time Jack gets the pit but we're going to leave him a set of instructions of how to take care of him and by God he better including the mowing well as I said I knew that I was different from about the age of 15 or 69 and had no idea until Dad told me that he was gay that he was gay but it's it made the whole process a lot easier and it's I just can't tell you how comforting it is to to be able to be this close as we become over the past couple of years but that summer when I met Randy and when I came out to the pit I really discovered a whole family out here I think you know three years of term family around here because we all are a family I mean there's everybody here from all different walks of life and they'll do anything for you to anything to help you and they're just here to to be your friends and to listen to you and to talk to you it's just thrilling I'm just so happy that this place exists and it's it's an it's an honor to know that and kind of scary to know that I'm going to be responsible for for carrying on this tradition after Dad and Billy are gone it's just it's an awesome responsibility Randy who Jack is now with the first one to come up with that idea and then a few others have since then gotten plates with their key number of course the key that was the most sought after key was key number 69. okay where do we go are we to the flamingos now okay we we have a tradition people bring flamingos down put their name and the date and then at our Halloween party uh when we can get up the hill over here we call that Flamingo Hill and we move them up there and we were we're hoping that eventually we can cover that whole hill with the flamingos so it'll look like it's something out of Florida this area down here is uh we've got a lot of high water that's a fire pit that we haven't been able to use this weekend normally this whole area is a grass area and we're able to uh use that to lay out and play washers frisbees whatever the people want to do so over the years we've had a variety of entertainment several different things we started out with the drag queens from the local gay bar would perform I think one of the funniest things has happened though one particular year they got in a fight and decided not to perform so Billy and a couple of other people out here put together an amateur show just uh among the people that were camping and it was one of the best shows we've ever had but we have had male strippers we've had female strippers we've had drag queens we've had puppeteers Greg Kings um we've had just a real variety karaoke people that are talented and get up and sing a number it's just just most anything you can think of we have had several people get married out here really like to okay okay sure there's something for us sure we'll be glad too great all right okay Saturday the 6th is when we're kind of playing okay well I'll be around when you get here okay uh just Melissa by the way will you marry me right usually they ask uh me to kind of perform some type of a ceremony however we tell people if they want to come out and bring a minister or whatever they'd like to do we've had wedding cakes we even had a bride last year in a wedding gown and her spouse to be was in a tux so just a variety oh it's raining again and I really haven't seen a memorial day yet that it didn't rain at least once during the entire weekend a nice good storm at least this year waited till actually Monday which is the end of the camp you know basically everybody packs up and leaves but you know everybody always comes back they don't you know the rain doesn't stop anybody here we've even been known to mud wrestle and have a good time with us so it's just nice to know that people don't let this stop them from camping and they always come back every year and it's always a wonderful time kind of funny Hal and I both have a our personal war against nature and it seems we've had so much rain this year as we did last year the the mosquitoes they want to bite you and it doesn't matter if it's 8 A.M 12 noon or at 8 o'clock at night they do not care they come in droves I personally really hate the mosquito repellent and the deet and all that but I have no choice in it we have to put it on but once again that doesn't stop people from coming they just get used to it and I have a personal thing though with the snakes around here I remember how I last summer we had one that terrorized me for our entire week every time I would get out of bed in the morning which this basically is my bedroom folks and you know the last thing I want to do is get up in the morning to go take my morning whiz and there's a snake crawling in between my feet but for the most part all the critters and stuff it doesn't stop anybody from camping we haven't had a lot of problems with vandals but we have had some a couple of gals one year asked us if they could leave their boat right over here behind the Pavilion and they chained it up however someone came down here they had to climb the fence to do it and they I guess use bolt cutters cut the chain and off and you can see where they drug the boat out of here and they stole some real strange things while they were at it like brooms ashtrays and it was really kind of weird the things that would involve to me work why would they steal something that involves work like a broom but as Hal was looking around he went into a Medicine Chest we had up over here and he goes Billy they they stole my bag of roofing nails and I immediately knew what they had done I immediately I said how the [ __ ] have put them on our road he said what do you mean I said they have put them on the road go look and we did and some idiot I guess I don't know if they knew we were gays down here or whatever I don't know what the point was but they had put them on our road here right where the tire tracks were but we picked up probably 60 Nails out of the road and I really think there was only one girl that got a flat tire out of it so it's really not too bad but at the same point you know we hate it when these people come down here and do this to our place because we're really not bothering anybody uh back to the harassment uh we had the barbed wire cut about five places on the road here and they literally would crawl through the bushes and stuff and call us queer and [ __ ] and we only have barbed wire there basically to keep the idiots out we call them gawkers they like to come out here and see us because some you know clothing is optional at the pit and I know there's probably a lot of people out there that don't navigate guns so we keep a 12 gauge underneath our sleeping bag at all times and we've shot over their heads a few times we're known down here that we don't mess around with those straights that want to harass us we don't shoot to kill we just shoot over the heads I have to tell you it's pretty funny when they run I've never seen some people move quite so fast as a 12 gauge being shot over their head so I guess the locals around here for the most part leave us alone [Music] and I guess for the past year really we have not been harassed whatsoever and we're really think two years really no one's really bothered us and we're really glad because we're not here to hurt anybody you know we really are not uh we're not harassed that much we do get good very good cooperation from the Perry County Sheriff's Department if we've ever had a problem and when I've called them they've been right out and been very helpful so I think everyone that comes out here can feel you know safe that it is a safe place for gays in lesbian and I think one of the goals that Hal and I had probably I think I was more obsessed with it than how but my goal our goal was to get the original pit women back and we did achieve our goal last summer was probably one of the finest Summers we've ever had down here and Paulette and Deb and Diane and all the women that used to come here are now they come down here all the time now they bring their little lunches and lay in the sun take a swim and you know things just evolved to what it is today when I came back there was a road and there was uh there was gravel and and it was quite quite the spot people were getting signing out keys and gaining access and it was it was just a very different place and it was it was like you know like a resort area it was very different than the Wilderness that we had first come to in 1975. I first started coming out here I can't remember exactly it was either my senior year in high school or the year after I graduated and um there were a bunch of us in high school that like to hang out and party together and so that's who I first started coming out here with and uh then you know a few years after that a number of us came out I think I think it's the reputation of the place kind of spread people came out out here out of curiosity and other people came out here just to you know to party and and when all these different agendas kind of collided it created chaos it got loud people had loud music going I think a lot of straight people came out here thinking they could find an easy third you know you know was certainly not the case and uh it just it just kind of started sliding down the tubes and it became a real unpleasant place to be the energy was just really negative and I quit coming out here for quite a few years and now since Billy and Hal have the place the last two or three years I've started coming back I think Paulette called me as a matter of fact and said hey you know let's go out to the pit and I was like oh man I don't know it's it's kind of a drag and she's like no bill and Hal have it now and it's a pretty good place to go again and so uh We've started coming back out here and I think I I don't know it was either last year or the year before I've been coming back and it is it's really nice it's a great place to hang out and a nice place to spend the summer and the the problem for me was that I didn't know how to swim and I was afraid to swim when I was afraid of the water my mom really scared me of the water when I was little and I had tried again to start swimming when I was married to my husband and he kind of liked to dunk me and stuff so by this time I was really totally terrified of the water and so Deb said well come up here and and check out this water which I thought was kind of peculiar when I found out that it was 60 feet straight down right off the edge and I thought well is that where you learn how to swim um but the thing that was really nice was that I felt real safe with her and the energy of the place felt real safe and soothing and for some reason or other I just wasn't as afraid when I got in the water so as a result of a summer of swimming in the pit I left my husband and went with Deb and that was about 19 years ago and so the deep water is safer than one might think I guess is what I would want to say the water does have a high sulfur content and we talk about it as being The Healing Waters of the pit because you can actually if you've got a scrape or a cut and you swim in this for a couple days it'll heal up just nothing you know it really it really has some therapeutic value so it's an old pit and that's why we have I think the beautiful scenery that we have the other day [Music] oh everything's set [Music] all right [Music] oh go home it's fourth time we got off work and then we were we went out in the parking lot you know it's like two o'clock in the morning something like that and all of a sudden we heard this what'd you say boys you know it's nice they're killing me they're killing me he was running across the parking lot as fast as he could go after him yeah no not a night we took office to run toward him it was these guys after him they were trying to pull him in a car and they were gonna beat the [ __ ] out of him he said I knew the dykes would save me it was a dyke that saved me they came to my rescue the men didn't