Bill Studenc: Pernicious poison ivy proves to be persistently pesky plant

Jul. 2—Poison ivy, ya come creepin' up right behind me.

You make me itch, baby you're so unkind (so unkind).

Poison...you're like poison ivy.

You make me itch and I'm out of calamine.

Lyrics to a certain song by Faster Pussycat, a lesser-known-to-most-but-well-known-by-me band from the hair-metal 1980s, came creepin' into my brain during a recent outing to Lake Junaluska Golf Course.

I had just smacked a drive from the top of the 16th hole, featuring a narrow window with no room for error to the left or right, but featuring a steeply declining fairway upon which gravity could be your friend, allowing your ball to roll downhill toward the green below.

My tee shot kissed the tree-line to left. My golf-mates concurred that the ball should be in play or, at worst, could be punched out of the rough and, with a little luck, the trickle-down golf-enomics of No. 16 would funnel my second shot to the edge of the green.

I grabbed my pitching wedge and started scouring the fringe of the sloping fairway, searching for my wayward Pro V1, determined to not sacrifice another over-priced dimpled sphere to the golf gods. I found the errant orb nestled in a patch of poison ivy. Looks like another bumper crop of the loathsome vine this year.

We pause for an old-school SAT analogy: Poison ivy is to Bill as kryptonite is to Superman. I am extremely allergic to whatever noxious toxin Mother Nature decided to pump through the circulatory system of this wicked weed.

If I think about poison ivy, my brain itches. My eyes turn red and start to water if see a vine with leaves of three (leave it be). I am both jealous and frightened by my wife's cousin who can rub poison ivy on his body and suffer none of the side effects that would reduce me to an itching, oozing, whimpering heap of red rash.

My first experience with the plant's unctuous oil (it's called "urushiol") came shortly after moving to Waynesville for a job at The Mountaineer. I was pulling weeds off an overgrown fence in the yard of our rental, unaware that a copious amount of poison ivy was lurking there. A couple days later, my forearms were covered with itching, bulbous blisters.

This came during a phase when I felt comfortable jogging without a shirt on and, later that week, the rash was on my abdomen as my arms had rubbed my belly while jogging. I've read poison ivy doesn't spread from one body part to another; I call that myth busted!

Once during my Mountaineer days, I accompanied now-publisher Jonathan Key for a rappelling excursion in Macon County's Cullasaja Gorge. We tied off our ropes on a U.S. Highway 64 guardrail and slowly descended the rocky outcropping to the riverbank below. The arrival of the tell-tale itching and rash days later revealed we had rappelled through a forest of poison ivy.

My family's favorite poison ivy story came one December. We had visited a local Christmas tree farm to procure a freshly cut evergreen and, while wrestling the beast into the stand, I discovered a strange leafless vine snaking through the limbs. Without thinking, I yanked it from the tree.

This being a morning-time activity, I was slamming cups of coffee. Shortly after removing the vine, I visited the restroom because, well, coffee goes in, coffee comes out. The next day, I began to experience an itchy sensation in my...um...South Pole region. Yep. That leafless vine was poison ivy, with the oil remaining in the otherwise dead plant powerful enough to cause a rash.

Poison ivy even creeps into my dreams. I have a recurring nightmare in which I am unable to move as tendrils of the demonic weed slither toward me. I also have had a dream in which I am able to pee weedkiller, and I use my superpower to help eradicate the pernicious plant.

Those thoughts of my archrivalry with poison ivy are creepin' up in my head as I spot my golf ball buried in an expanse of three-leafed evil on hole No. 16. Despite my better instincts, I use my pitching wedge to extract the Pro V1.

Of course, a couple days afterward, I find a few itchy bumps because poison ivy has to do what poison ivy does. Hey, I'm cheap. At least I salvaged that expensive ball. Please pass the calamine.

Bill Studenc, who began his career in journalism and communications at The Mountaineer in 1983, retired in January 2021 as chief communications officer at Western Carolina University. He now writes about life in the mountains of Western North Carolina.