Chuck Anderson
|
(Chuck was 11 when he spent the first of two summers at camp, 1976-77.) *Running at night with Art Lohrmann three miles down an unlit country lane to find a Treasure Hunt clue. *Rowing to the Red Nun to find another Treasure Hunt clue. *Collecting lobster pot rings, and wearing them around our necks. * Bert Flower teaching sailing knots and discussing the virtues of stainable steel and wool clothes while at sea (dries from the inside out). *Getting to be first on line for Sunday dinner if your room took first prize in inspection. |  |
*Ghost stories - especially the one about the people who lived in the "dump" across the road.
*Being too scared to sleep after ghost stories, until about eight of us gathered in one room with sleeping bags.
*My first slow dancing (usually to "Stairway to Heaven").
*The charts that kept track of fish caught & miles hiked.
* Mother Monica's burnt chili.
*Burning the garbage at the base of the big rock.
*Pulling up flounder lines and praying there wouldn't be a big ugly skate on the hook.
*The way the spring water tasted that was stored on the back porch, and the named paper cups hanging on nails.
*Scooping water out of the various boats under sail, using cut-up plastic jugs.
*Endless peanut butter sandwiches after meals, in case you hadn't eaten enough.
*A couple of insane dogs from next door who would fetch anything, anywhere.
*Dick Wallace's oft-repeated promise that if you rowed across the bay every day, "you'd have ahms like a football player."
*Hanging out in the vic room listening to Fleetwood Mac and Stevie Wonder's "Songs in the Key of Life" album.
*A camping trip to Mount Katahdin, cut short by a massive forest fire.
*Diney Hamburger's headband, Baltimore Colts jacket and drumsticks.
*Evan Zemil's "buhubbah."
*Pots and pans duty on dish shift #4.
*Fourth of July 1976, and the chagrin of being too young to join the older campers in Bath for fireworks.
*Fourth of July 1976, and how Ted Vogel saved the day for me and the others under 12, by taking us for a late night ride in the jeep with no headlights.
*Waking to the sound of Richie Wallace running amok through the house ringing the wakeup bell.
* Dick Wallace's breakfast announcements, read from a clipboard as he stood in the doorway.
*Ted Vogel's fascination with the group Earth Wind and Fire.
* The day I first saw Alliquippa in 1975, when I arrived with my family to pick up my brother Marc at the end of the summer. His first words upon greeting us were: "Can I come back next summer?"
*The day my grandparents came to get me at the end of camp in 1977, and how awful it felt to drive away, in stoney silence.