What was your experience?

I have learned that everyone has very distinct memories of their time at Rock Creek. We each remember different things, or the same things in different ways. But there are always pieces of our experiences that overlap. Here’s a list of some things that rattle around in my memory:

making mud pies in the sandbox
sliding on waxed paper down the red slide
making paper dolls in Hansi’s trailer
kittens at the lower corral
Foss Neilsen making cricket noises in my ear
having cocktails at Cabin 14 with Vic & Lydia Coppard & their cat Mai Tai
visiting Wally & Edie Hunsicker at Cabin 4
learning to fish with Grandpa Rouse
going to Tom’s Place to make a phone call (before service extended up the canyon)
the sound & smell of the generators (pre-electricity)
Delaware Punch
having to carefully choose 1 candy bar or ice cream per day
Daisy the horse (“my” horse)
special horseback rides with Marge London
rainy, cold horseback rides with Annie Christie
melting plastic Army men on the pot-belly stove in the lobby
rock-hopping up and down the creek
building forts
“camping out” in the big green tent
games, cards, and conversation in the lobby
Cameron Aanerud’s slideshows (and Wally Hunsicker snoring through one of them)
going to see the fireworks in Bishop, riding on a mattress in the back of the truck
Michener, the sporting goods salesman
Banta, the Chevron gas deliveryman
hand-pumping gasoline
playing Frisbee golf
swimming at Big Tire and Serene
the clank of someone playing horseshoes
my dad’s constant whistling
snow in July
watching lightning & hailstorms from the lobby porch
kerosene lanterns
the “chug” of pot-belly stoves
chopping wood
pulling down trees with the winch on the old blue truck
bonfires & s’mores
the signatures and drawings on the walls & ceiling of the room above the showers
the raft at the pond
the yellow mini-bike
the yellow mountain bike (we seemed to like yellow)
mail runs to Tom’s Place with kids piled in the back of the truck
hanging out in front of the store
the bubbling drinking fountain
Bill Beckett teaching me to drive on the road to Tom’s Place
after-dinner walks to the lake
The Big Tree
the fish truck & running buckets
the sound of the wringer washer
cleaning cabins & trash runs to the sounds of Reggae, The Police, etc.
the double bunk bed in Cabin 5 (wonder if it’s still there?)
Sani-Pine-drenched toilet buildings
Servel refrigerators
the buzz phones (1 for the store, 2 for the kitchen, 3 for the Roby cabin)
the hand-crank siren on the kitchen porch
4th of July barbecues (especially when Leonard Hunsicker slapped me for playing with the keg)
going to movies in Bishop
campfires at Cabin 1
the awesomely quiet chill of the morning when I was the first one up
stars, stars, stars, and more stars in a black, black sky...

Cameron Leigh Aanerud

Santa Barbara News-Press

AANERUD, Cameron Leigh, of Santa Barbara and Bishop, departed this life on December 12, 2002. He was known to some as Lee, to others as Kim and to Cachuma Outdoor School students of the 1970's he was "Kimosabi."

He was born in Albert Lea, Minnesota, on July 21, 1950. Cameron came to Santa Barbara with his parental family in 1954. He attended McKinley Elementary and Santa Barbara Junior and Senior High Schools, graduating with the class of 1968. He attended Santa Barbara Junior College.

Cameron loved photography, the out-of-doors, Cachuma Lake and the High Sierras. In 1975 he hired a bush-pilot to fly him into the rugged grandeur of the Brooks Range in Alaska. Alone, he back-packed out through 400 miles of unmarked mountain wilderness. Soon after, he was diagnosed as having Hodgkin's Disease. After a courageous battle of five years, he recovered.

Thereafter, Cameron could not work due to continuing disabling effects of the disease and later occurring mental problems. He eventually found a way to live independently in the small quiet town of Bishop. Short forays to the mountains there were his best medicine. He had a deep affection for the natural world and all its creatures.

Cameron is survived by his parents James and Shirley Aanerud, by his brother Kevin and family (Becky and Sophie) of Seattle, by his brother Dana (and daughter Aija) of Santa Barbara and by his sister Virginia Earnshaw who lives with her husband James in Indianapolis. No funeral services are planned.