Joel Coke

The Ghost of Stumphouse Mountain Joel Coke

THE TESTIMONY A little over a year ago, when I was at Stumphouse Tunnel, I went to the viewing platform to look at Issaqueena falls. As I was standing there, looking at the falls, I saw a leather valise. It was one of those old carrying things like your high school English teacher used. It was just a long flat piece of leather with straps on one side and buckles on the other. You put your papers in the middle, folded the leather over, buckled it up and hoped that your papers didn't fall out at either end. No one else was around and I assumed that some one had left it there and would come back for it. I went for a hike over the old railroad grade to Saddle Tunnel and came back in a couple of hours. Before I went home, I decided to go and look at Issaqueena falls one last time. When I got to the platform, I noticed that the valise was still there. It was getting late and beginning to rain. There was no one around so I decided to take the valise so that it wouldn't get wet. When I got home I put it aside. The following night I opened it up and took a look at what was inside. It was full of papers which were yellow with age and the words on the papers looked as if they had been typed with an old typewriter. Within the papers were several versions of what looked like a poem. I took notice because there was a reference to an old Clemson Collage hazing incident. The same poem was written over and over in many different versions and there were many misspellings and changes. After a while, I finally found what seemed to be the final version of the poem. I looked hard but there was nothing in the valise that gave any indication where the valise came from or who owned it. I took the poem and reconstructed it to the best of my ability. This is the poem. Joel Coke