Greetings family and friends, I've been itching to tell you this little story.......Bill 

Nostalgic Ramblings 

WINDY OAK 

We scrambled down deeper in our sleeping bags and covered our 

heads as the blustery wind threatened to tear our tents to shreds. 

Even the huge centuries old oak shuttered with each huge gust. Our 

leader decided to have us take down our tents and wait out the night 

huddled around a small campfire built from brush and sticks gathered 

in the darkness. 

We made it through that memorable night seventy years ago by 

telling stories and bonding with our fellow Boy Scouts, not realizing 

that all the time we had been collecting and burning poison oak vines 

mixed among the fallen branches. By morning the wind died down 

and the poison oak laced smoke that we had been breathing most of 

the night was already beginning to erupt into a rash on our skin and 

swelling our lips and eye lids. As we broke camp and headed home 

no scrubbing with Fel’s Naptha Soap or application of generous 

amounts of Calamine Lotion was going to combat the inevitable 

itching and agony that we were facing for the next couple of weeks. 

Rancher and Castro Valley business person Guy Warren’s family had 

owned property and operated a cattle ranch in Cull Canyon since the 

1850’s. Warren generously allowed our Boy Scout troop unlimited 

access to two hundred acres of woodland, a seasonal creek and a 

steep hillside grazing pasture near the end of the five mile long Cull 

Canyon road. The troops dad’s worked together to dig and built a 

functional out-house, a cement block BBQ and fencing to discourage 

cows from roaming into our camp. We were encouraged to clear sites 

for our patrols to set up “permanent” sites for monthly weekend camp 

outs and opportunities for advancement through the scouting ranks. I 

earned my Cooking Merit Badge by preparing several meals on the 

new BBQ, and completed the hiking requirement of the Second Class 

badge along with other scouts by walking the length of five mile long 

Cull Canyon Road. Salamanders and pollywogs were abundant in the 

creek but we were reminded that the water was pasture drainage and 

that the red leaved brush was poison oak. Rumors of a nudist colony 

just over the ridge was enough to spur young boys to check things 

out. 

The poison oak incident resulted in the hospitalization of several boys 

with rashes in their mouths, noses, eyes and lungs, and I was lucky in 

only missing a couple weeks of school with uncomfortable itchy rash 

and swelling. Our troop returned to the Cull Canyon on weekends for 

several years in preparation for extended summer camp experiences 

at Los Mochos in the Livermore Hills, and Diamond O near Yosemite. 

My high school biology class project “The Ecology of Cull Canyon” 

went on to the San Francisco Bay Area Science Fair at the California 

Academy of Sciences. Dad taught me to drive in his 1940 Buick on 

Cull Canyon Road. A regiment of poison oak extract successfully 

created life long immunity from the nasty vines. Guy Warren was 

primarily responsible for the establishment of California State College 

in Hayward, and the Warren family still owns a cattle ranch in Cull 

Canyon. The Sequoians Clothes-Free Club has operated at the end 

of Cull Canyon since 1947, and a private residence now stands 

where a group of scouts spent an unforgettable night seventy years 

ago...at Windy Oak. 

-Bill 9/23