Ernie, (Rostel) who worked on the Medford paper. Came up to the park in the summer as a temporary ranger. He was responsible for press releases and public relations. I might add, he was a humorous individual. There were some real big characters. There was a football coach from Klamath Falls by the name of Al Sinclair and there was old Bill Montgomery, and Bernie Hughes, a football player for the state of Oregon and in the early days a pro ballplayer (5). They were great big bruisers and they played rough when they played. This little Ernie Rostull would come around and shake every one of us and ask if we wanted to get the bathroom. They got a little tired of that and Al Sinclair and Bernie Hughes and Bill Montgomery got their heads together and they were going to cure him of doing this. One particular night they laid awake and waited for him, and sure enough, he came and started through his routine. This great big Al Sinclair hopped out of bed and grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and the seat of the pants and proceeded to run him into the showers, which were in here, I think on this side, and turned cold water on him. They got him in there, but Ernie wouldn’t let go of Al. He was in there in his pajamas and Ernie was in there in his Park Service uniform. You could hear the caterwauling all over the camp. He was yelling, “I like it, I like it! Give me some more! And he kept Al Sinclair in there, so it was a question of who got the worst of which. Ernie came out, sat down on a chair in the middle of the floor, took his boots off, and poured the water out. They were full of water. And this nice, moth-colored cavalry pant that they used to wear in those days was soaked (6). And the other favorite trick that they would pull on one another, besides the innocent short sheeting was they would take a number four rat trap and set it as the base of somebody’s bed. So there was never an idle moment up there in this bull camp.
We had a good summer. Some things of historical interest. Are you aware of the incident where two teachers lost their lives up here in the early thirties? It had to be in the fall of 1933. Two teachers were en route between somewhere north and south and they simply disappeared. The best that they could pinpoint was they ended up somewhere here on the east side of the park. What had happened they put a search party out but they never found them. Come summer, the snow was melting and one of the rangers making a patrol around the lake got down by the Pinnacles and saw the car tracks. This car had skidded. These girls had come up here, they figured, in the snow and coming out in snowstorm they lost control of the car and went over the bank at the Pinnacles. At the time, word got around. They were obliterated. Nobody could believe it. Anyhow, they saw this snow still resting in a set of car tracks. Somebody was pretty sharp. Sure enough, they recovered the bodies and they brought the car out. They had what they called the old cherry picker. They took it over and brought the car out and it sat there in the lot in the utility area.
