| C.I.T (Councilor In Training) - 1973 |
| Blackhawk Go! - 1974 |
| Heritage Trail - 1976 |
| Super Camp Stuart Hey! - 1977 |
I started working at Owasippe Scout Reservation in 1973 at the tender age of 15. The previous year at Camp Stuart, I was enamored by one of the camp staff, Mike Hurl. That winter, Jeff Weikart announced that he was applying for camp staff. That sounded like a cool idea so I decide I would too.
Jeff and Mr. Weikart tried to dissuade me and to advise my parents against it. They thought I was too young. I also think Jeff was a bit jealous. He may have felt I was stealing his thunder. But my parents decided to let me go ahead. It was the right decision. Working at Owasippe during my teenage years helped form me into the man I am. It taught me how to be responsible, independent and gave me a lifetime of memories.
At fifteen years old, you can be hired on staff as a Councilor in Training, or CIT (pronounced See I Tee). CITs spend the first week in training to help be prepare to be a councilor. Then every two weeks you get assigned to a different section camp, Owasippe had six at the time, under a different program area (nature, scout craft, aquatics, etc.).
Larry Putz was the CIT. director that year and the training was held at old Camp West, across the lake from Camp Stuart. Camp West was shut down many years earlier, but there was still an office building that was big enough to serve as our meeting hall. It was special to me because Stuart was my old camp and Beard was my Dad’s. So now our family had camped on all three camps on Owasippe Lake.
There were about twenty of us and we were divided into patrols. We slept in wall tents, just like the campers did and we cooked our own meals. The camp had issued each patrol a dining fly and these portable stoves that burned a compressed wood disk for fuel. They sort of looked like orange hockey pucks.
Larry would bring in different experienced staff to instruct us on various aspects of staff life and work. For example, Gordie Steifle (stee full) came to talk about dining hall programs. One person, Joe "Duke" Olechno, had a profound affect on my life. Duke was there to teach us about teaching nature.
I already had a strong interest in science and nature, but Duke’s personality and the way in which he simplified teaching it left an indelible mark on my future. Nature staff is where I wanted to be.
The week had passed quickly with only several notable incidents.
One night, several of the CITs went out on a raiding party and came back with one of the camp’s Army surplus Jeeps. Larry was not amused when he arrived in the morning to find the Jeep parked in front of the hall.
The second incident was the dismissal of one of the scouts for sniffing Pam. Pam is a n aerosol non-stick spray that’s used in cooking. He was spraying it into a Baggies and inhaling it to get high. Pretty stupid way to get high, coating your lungs with non-stick spray. Anyway, someone narc’ed on him and he was sent packing.
The third, and most important, incident was the chance meeting of fellow CIT, Dave Tala. Dave and I never really talked much that week, nor did we work together at any of the section camps that summer. But Dave remembered my name later in 1977 and called me to see if I’d like a ride to National Camping School. We then worked together and shared a cabin that summer at Camp Stuart and became friends. We have drifted in and out of touch over the years, but I consider Dave a friend for life, and you don’t find many of those if any.
At the end of the week, our completion of the program was marked by three events. One, we marched into the lodge one by one and were handed a $10.00 bill. That was our salary for the entire year! Two, we were given our official Staff Employee patch signifying we were staff men. Three, we all rode the Town Run van into Whitehall where we could spend our entire year’s salary! (Town Run was the name given to the reservation van that went to all the section camps to pick up the staff without cars to take them to town.)
My first assignment was to Blackhawk "Go!" The "go" is the camp cheer for Blackhawk. I was assigned to work in the trading post with Peter ???. It’s not very "scout" like but Peter displayed a high level of intensity and dedication that was contagious. He took his job very seriously.
Blackhawk was the reservations only other dining hall camp and it was located on Big Blue Lake on the northeastern edge of the reservation. Big Blue is a big lake and the council only owned land on the southern shore. There were several other camps, including a YMCA camp and county camp, on the opposite shore, as well as private homes and summer cottages. The lake is over a half a mile wide across from the camp and scouts would swim across and back for their mile swim award.
I really enjoyed my stay here. The two weeks went by quickly. Working in the trading post let me meet probably all of the scouts as everyone buys candy and Frosty Malts! I also got my first task of leading songs, cheer and skits here and I really enjoyed doing that. I really pressed Larry Putz to return here at the end of the year and he reluctantly relented.
I really didn’t care for Sauger Lake. It’s a cold pack camp, which means the truck drives around the camp for each meal dropping of the ingredients for the scouts to cook their own meals. I suppose that’s a good skill to promote but it comes at the expense to other benefits that are lost. The staff eats together in their office building while the scouts eat in their sites. I don’t think the staff comes into as much contact with the scouts and therefore there is not as much camaraderie. And the opportunity for staff to be role models is significantly reduced. But that’s only my biased opinion!
These two weeks also marked several notable firsts in my life. My first introduction to Chicago street gangs and my first experience with integration.
In 1973, the city of Chicago and Mayor Daley created a program with the Chicago Area Council to introduce inner-city boys to camping and scouting. My understanding, which may be mistaken, was that the council received a certain dollar amount from the city for each boy that participated in the program and went to camp. The program fit in nicely with the BSA’s revised scouting program that favored inner-city scouts (see The "New" Scouting Program, page, for my opinion on that ill-fated program)
We had problems at Blackhawk the previous two weeks, large troops with no leaders or leaders who just dropped of their "troops," ill-equipped scouts with no sleeping bags or extra clothes, and under age provisional scouts as young as eight years old. But he events at Sauger Lake surpassed those difficulties.
It seems that two provisional troops that were assigned adjoining camp sites, happened to be rival gangs back home. You see, not much care was given in forming these troops. The almost literally grabbed kids of the street, gave them a uniform, handbook and a hatchet (Yes, a hatchet), and loaded them on the bus.
So here we are early Sunday evening at dusk with two gangs yelling and beating their chest at each other in a stand off. The space between their campsites, maybe fifty yards or so, was turned into a no-mans land.
A group of us were in the staff lodge when one of the staff members came running in with the news. We quickly took off to diffuse the situation. I don’t remember who was in charge of our "mission." And a lot of the details are fuzzy, mainly because it was so chaotic and it was getting dark so it was tough to see.
We actually used the coming darkness to our advantage. It was decided that we would approach them from the woods. These guys were not used to being in the outdoors. So they were slightly scared already being out of their normal environment, plus it was getting dark, which added to their uncertainty.
So we simply strode up to them from the middle of the woods, out of the dark, and demanded them to hand over their axes. And they did. A few staff babysat each site until a bus came to take one of them to a different camp.
The whole affair seems extraordinary in retrospect, even downright risky. But at the time, it was just a quick reaction to a camp emergency. The staff responded with the same level of intensity and dedication that I would see again and again, including when I was at Camp Tesomas as a scouter watching their staff respond to an emergency storm situation (See Storm, page *)
This period was also the first time when I had to intimately interacting with people of a different race. Actually, from the beginning of my summer I had started to interact with Afro-Americans for the very first time. Now I was bunking in a cabin with an American Indian and Afro-American as roommates. I’m proud to say that there is now dramatic conflict or event to recall about the experience. Both guys were nice and we got along. I think I the experience help contribute to my overall lack of prejudice. Another benefit and learning experience gained from the scouting program.
The remainder of the time I spent here was uneventful until my last day. Except for an interesting sidebar event that involved a rattlesnake. A camper caught one and the Nature Director had it in an aquarium in the staff lodge. One day, it was missing, we all searched the lodge thoroughly but could not find it. That evening, as I was walking down into the small dell that was between the staff cabins and the lodge, I heard a rattling sound. Now it could have been a Hog Nose snake (also known as a Puff Adder). Hog Noses are known for shaking their tails in the leaves to emulate rattlers in an attempt to scare away predators. But it was too dark to see anything so I decided to not take the chance. I turned around and took the long way around to the lodge. Someone caught the snake the next day, in the dell.
The third major event at Suager Lake was my first Christmas in July party as a councilor. I had celebrated this wonderful event as a scout at Camp Stuart. But that was literally childs play compared to the way staff celebrate. Food Prep, the building and organization (always referred to as being one and the same), prepared fantastic turkey dinners for each of the camps. Everything was included, mashed potatoes, dressing and cranberry sauce. It was quite an impressive spread. And very welcomed after five weeks of standard camp food fare.
I was still feeling pretty rank when the buses pulled into South with the next batch of scouts. I met my troop and marched them up Cardiac Hill (I think almost every camp has a Cardiac Hill) to their site. This troop had a couple of older scouts with them and these guys, who were my age and older, and they gave me a REAL hard time. It would later turn out that one of these scouts, Ed Bosak, and I would end up working with each other in a few years at Ad Center.
The Wolverine camps, North and South, were hot pack camps. The Food Prep truck drove around and dropped off vacuum containers with precooked meals at each site. This is a step up from a cold pack camp, but it still lacks the dining hall spirit I love so much. All the hot pack and cold pack camps also have swimming pools because their lakes don’t have suitable beachfront shoreline for aquatics. I also have a biased opinion that summer camp should have a waterfront for swimming on a lake. I guess I’m just a traditionalist.
Wolverine South did have a lakefront for boating. One afternoon, when I had some free time, I went snorkeling in Lake Wolverine with another staff member (I can’t recall who). Lake Wolverine is a man made lake formed before the Chicago Area Council bought the land. A man who was developing the area as a resort hunt club made the lake. He envisioned the lake with cabins around its perimeter. So all of the trees were cut down in the small valley along Cleveland Creek. Then Gus Kopp Damn was built to fill the valley with water. It’s a nice, meandering type of lake. It’s a long lake but not very wide. In fact, at one point the shores are close enough that scouts often build a monkey bridge (a rope bridge) across it. It’s also not very deep in most places.
This was the first time I had even been to Lake Wolverine. As a scout, I swam and boated on Lake Owasippe, known as Crystal Lake on the maps. And my first two weeks at Blackhawk were on Big Blue.
It was fun as we snorkeled across the surface to navigate through channels of tall aquatic plants that formed forests in the lake. The plants would grow five or six feet tall and leave only a few feet from their tops o the surface of the water. Scattered throughout the lake bottom were the well-preserved stumps of the trees that had been cut down decades earlier.
We would swim across the surface for a while and then dive down to swim between the ‘groves’ of the plants. At one point, I turned a corner and surprised a large Bass. Or should I say, he surprised me! A couple of gulps with his huge, gaping mouth, then he was off into the weeds with a quick flip of his tail.
Then I noticed something odd about one of the stumps below me. I dove down and found a small pocketknife, about one and a half inches long, lying atop of the stump. It was dirty and a little rusty, but it cleaned up well.
We were not that far out from the boat dock, no more than a few hundred yards. So I imagine that a scout accidentally dropped the knife one-day while boating or canoeing on the lake. It’s incredible to think that something that was randomly dropped in a lake would have been found like this. Had it missed the stump, it would have settled in the mud and have been lost forever.
I still have the knife today. In fact, I used it to put the final touches on my hiking staff carving.
I don’t remember anything remarkable about my stay at South. They were a bunch of good guys, just like at Sauger Lake, but my heart was in a dining hall camp. When Larry Putz came visiting, which he always did to see how things were going, I pleaded with him to send me to Stuart or to Blackhawk. I also really wanted to be on a nature staff. The only CIT spot that he had for nature was back at Blackhawk. He was reluctant to send me back to a camp that I had already worked. He’d have rather sent me to Robert Crown or Wolverine North. But he relented and sent me back to Blackhawk as a nature staff aide.
This was like a home coming to me. I had already known the staff so I fit in right away. Pat Monahan was the camp director. He would end up hiring me of having input on my hiring each of the years I worked on staff. I have also just found out that Pat is now the Reservation Director for Owasippe in 2000!
I was assigned to work for Bruce "The Mouse" Dreschler. The finals two periods of the year are slower because there tends to be fewer scouts in camp. This gave me the opportunity to work on my own merit badge advancement with Bruce. So Bruce gave me a real good head start in nature as I started on my way to earn most of the nature related merit badges. I already had Nature, a required merit badge, and I earned a few more.
In the next two years on staff I almost earned every nature badge offered. I never earned Weather or Oceanography. But I did get two that are no longer offered; Zoology and Conservation of Natural Resources. In fact I was one of the last scouts to earn Zoology. I never received the patch at the next troop Court of Honor because they were all out and it was discontinued. I later found he patch from a patch trader so I have a complete collection of all my badges.
Near the end of the last week, I started to fill ill. I started to get chills and ran a fever. The first day I just felt bad. But the next day I was miserable. So I spent a day in the camp office in the dining hall. By dinnertime I could stay up so I moved to my cabin to sleep in my cot. I felt miserable.
My cabin mates joined my after dinner to see how I felt, but we were interrupted by the camp bell ringing non-stop. That’s the signal for an emergency. My tent mates told me to stay put and that they would come get me if I necessary. They returned in a few minutes to explain what happened. During the meal, some scouts from one provisional troop went around from site to site slashing tends with knives and ransacking gear. One of the sites they hit was another provisional troop. So the potential for another gangland fight was on the verge of erupting again.
The staff was going to baby sit the sites until things settled down. They wanted to know if I felt good enough to sit in the office and man the phones in case a call came in. "Sure, I replied. So I grabbed a blanket and went to the Dinning hall.
It wasn’t ten minutes before the bell started ringing again. One of the staff, I think it was Rich Grout, came running into the office with bad news. While everyone was out in the camp sites, someone walked into staff row, tossed a pail of kerosene on the floor of one of the cabins and set it on fire. The real bad news was it was my cabin!
Fortunately, it didn’t do much damage. The fire chared the floorboards in the center of the cabin real bad and melted a plastic milk crate to the floor, with one of my gym shoes in it. Some of the kerosene dripped through the boards and started the brush under the cabin on fire. They quickly put out the flames before any real damage occurred.
But the cabin was uninhabitable because of the terrible smell from the fire and the kerosene, which had soaked into some of the boards. Se we had to relocate to another cabin for a few days before we left at the end of summer.
| Hired |
| Demoted |
| Blue Lake Zip Line Ride |
| War Canoes - Part II |
The camp staff interviews are held during the winter for the coming season. The interviews were held at the council office at 300 West Adams Street in downtown Chicago. I interviewed with Pat Monahan, the camp director at Blackhawk and he hired me for field sports to run the archery range. My dad was a member of an archery club, BoArrow in Crystal Lake, Illinois, for a number of few years so I had plenty of experience and was qualified.
The camp was inspected at the end of staff week. Unfortunately for me, the inspector pointed out that a field sports aide running an archery range must be eighteen. I was only sixteen at the time. So I was demoted to Dining Hall Steward. I was very disappointed. But I wanted to stay on staff and work the summer at camp, so I took the job.
My first task was to paint the inside of the walk in cooler. I was beginning to doubt my decision already. I can still remember sitting in that cooler painting away while Rollover Beethoven by ELO (Electric Light Orchestra) played on my portable radio. But painting the cooler did get me a pass on Indoor Rowing merit badge. That’s a code phrase for the unpleasant staff week task of taking an oar into the KYBO, breaking the crust in the pit and stirring it up. It’s a lot worse than Indoor Surfing, which is cleaning the showers, and I didn’t have to do it.
The job switch really wasn’t too bad but I missed the opportunity to work directly with the scouts. One of the benefits of the switch was that once the hall was cleaned up, I had some free time right in the middle of program time. This gave me the chance to work on merit badges. And I did. I finished up the rest of the nature oriented merit badges as well as some others, like Small Boat Sailing. So I was able to take a bad situation and make some good out of it. Plus I had a great time that year.
I also ended up meeting Jim Gregory, who I would run into again later when we both were inducted into the OA. So you can never tell how things will turn out in the end, even when they look bad.
One of the cool things
the commissioners’ staff did that year was a pioneering project on the banks of Big
Blue Lake. They built a double A-Frame tower and set it out in the lake about thirty feet
from shore. From there they attached a large rope of at least one inch diameter and ran it
up the bank to the top, about a thirty of forty foot rise with a run of about seventy feet
or more from top to bottom.
They attached a block, as in block-and-tackle, to serve as a pulley. A short two-foot section of one-inch rope dangled from the block that served as a handle. The scouts would hold onto the handle and jump off of the platform at the top and race down the rope to the lake. The would let go of the rope short of the tower and splash down in about 3-4 feet of water. The A-Frames were set up in parallel to the rope so any scout that forgot to let go would end up splashing down in between the two frame.
They also attached a long
coil of quarter-inch rope to the block. It would unwind as the scout traversed down the
run. Then the folks on top would pull back on this rope to haul the block back up to the
top so you didn’t have to wait for someone to make the long journey back up the bank.
But it was this cord that almost caused a disaster. Also, the main rope was a good ten to
twelve feet of the ground at it’s highest point, which would have made it impossible
for anyone, let alone a small scout, to pull it back to the top. Even Mike Hurl
wasn’t that tall.
I was there that one afternoon, because I was done with the dining hall clean up, along with Jim Gregory when a scout almost got seriously hurt on the contraption. The staff had cleared some brush and small shrubs from the path down so the rider’s feet wouldn’t drag through the branches. The trailer rope got caught on the small stub of one of the cut down shrubs when the rider was about half way down the ride. The block stopped with a jerk! And the handle rope tore from the scout’s hands as his momentum carried him onward.
Jim and I froze in horror as
we watched him do one-and-a-half full lay out back flips as he flew down the bank. He
landed flat on his back about three feet from the shoreline in water that was only six
inches deep. We both dove from the edge of the platform and raced down to the water. I was
sure he was seriously hurt.
Luckily, he only had the wind knocked out of him and his back was bright red and a little sore from the impact. We had dodged a bullet. The staff modified the ride by cutting the trailer rope short enough so that it wouldn’t drag on the ground but long enough that the returning scouts could pull the block back up.
Another extraordinary pioneering project the staff built was a log Ferris wheel. Fortunately, it wasn’t nearly as dangerous as the zip line!
This is my second war canoe story, and it’s my favorite. As I had mentioned earlier, the old war canoes were a favorite target for camp staff pranks. So the aquatics director at Camp Stuart has taken all sorts of precautions with the one remaining canoe to prevent its disappearance. (Beard’s war canoe was in storage at the Ad Center maintenance garage). Of course, that only made the challenge that much seductive.
Chris Leary (Name??) was an adult volunteer who joined the Blackhawk staff that summer. Chris was an interesting man. He was the kind of person you either took to and liked, or didn’t at all. He had a bit of bravado that could offend folks at times. He also had been through several difficult trials. He had survived a bad car crash, the death of his fiancée, a debilitating neurological disease that should have left him crippled. But he fought back from all of that and had a sense of playfulness that I found amazing. He still showed the physical effects from the disease as he struggled to walk with cane. But for him, that was a victory.
Chris had been to Blackhawk and Stuart several times before as an adult leader. So his reputation preceded him. The aquatic director art Stuart often took extraordinary precautions in order to deter Chris from absconding with the war canoe.
Chris told the story where one time where the director locked up all of the oars and paddles every night so he wouldn’t have the means to paddle away. The only other way out from the water front would be carry the canoe up the steep bank that leads up to the main camp, a trek that would be impossible for Chris with his physical disability.
So Chris and a co-conspirator went out canoeing after diner one evening and took a couple of extra paddles with them. No one notice as they paddled off towards the shore of where Camp Dan Beard’s waterfront used to sit. They quickly put to shore and buried the paddles under a few inches of sand. After everyone had gone to sleep, they walked back to Beard, dug up the paddles, walked back to Stuart along the beach, and "borrowed" the war canoe.
After that, the aquatics director took to padlocking the war canoe to its stand with a heavy chain. Still, Chris would not be denied. This year he hatched a sophisticated plan and included myself and a few other CITs.
He called Stuart and left a message for the assistant aquatics director (the aquatic director was off or away from camp that day) with one of the other staff members. The message said that the fiberglass repair kit for the war canoe had arrived at Ad Center and that maintenance was sending some OA candidates to pick up the canoe to bring it back to the maintenance center for repair. The other CITs and myself were to play the role of the ordeal candidates.
The real beauty of this plan is the ordeal candidate part. Ordeal candidates must work on service projects during the day of the ordeal, so helping out the maintenance rangers makes perfect sense. Also, candidates must remain silent during the ordeal so none of us could talk, nor were we expected to talk. This meant that only one person, Chris would do any explaining.
Chris also enlisted the help of one of the Ad Center truck drivers, the one who drove the garbage truck. So off we went all of us crammed into the cab of the garbage truck. We parked it at a point in the service road that was nearest the waterfront and headed down to the shore.
The water front staff greeted us as we arrived. They were expecting us! They even went as far as to have a few scouts and staff help us up the hill with the canoe and lash it own to the top of the garbage truck. And off we rode with the war canoe. It was too easy!
Our camp director, Pat Monahan, saw us as we arrived back at Blackhawk. He just smiled and didn’t ask any questions and said he didn’t want to know how we ended up with the canoe. But it was either him or our aquatic director, Mike Hurl, who came up with a wonderful idea on what we should do with it.
That evening, the aquatics staff took non-swimmer scouts for a ride in the war canoe on Big Blue. This was neat because non-swimmers are not allowed in canoes, even with a swimmer. This was the first time for these scouts to actually be in a canoe in the water. And it was a war canoe! I’m sure each of them still remembers that evening to this day.
Oh, the Stuart aquatics director called maintenance a few days later to see when the canoe would be ready. They had no idea what he was talking about of course. They tracked it down and took it back eventually. And nobody could explain how it "magically" appeared at Blackhawk that week. ;-)
| Getting the Job |
| French Voyager |
| Reunion |
| The Boys are Back |
| Pizza Run |
| My First Concert |
| Summary |
I decided to not work at camp in 1975. In part because of the demotion but more so because I wanted to work a real job to earn money to buy new guitar equipment and to drive with my newly acquired drivers license. I think it’s a typical teenager stage of life. Whatever the reason, it was a poor decision. Spending the summer as a busboy/dishwasher/cook was the worse decision in my life. Not only was it a miserable way to spend a summer, but it also made it difficult for me to get a job back on staff.
Camp directors pretty much have their staff lined up way before the actually hiring process begins. They still will have positions to fill from turn over, but folks they know usually fill those positions or by referrals from folks they know. So walking in cold in the middle of winter to interview is a tough challenge with the odds against you.
I walked in and ran into Pat Monahan. Ideally, I wanted to work at a dining hall camp, either at Stuart or Blackhawk. Pat said that all of his positions were filled. Stuart’s were filled too. It looked pretty glum until I sat down and interviewed with Bill Dopke. He was looking for staff to fill positions for the Heritage Trail, a day hike trail in honor of our nation’s 200 anniversary. Pat saw me at the table and came over to give Dobke a glowing referral of my abilities. I think it was his way of making up for the demotion in 1974. Plus I did perform well and earned good ratings. Whatever the reason, Dobke hired me as the French Voyager.
The Heritage Trail started out at the Blacksmith Shop across
from the Goodman museum. Jerry Brown was the blacksmith in charge. He would amaze the
scouts with his abilities. For even though Jerry was slight in build, he would wield his
hammer deftly as he pounded sparks from the wrought iron. Then he would quench the glowing
metal into a bucket of water, raising a pungent cloud of steam. Jerry's most popular item
to make were iron nails, much like the cut nails one finds in the hardware store. But
these were made by hand from raw stock. They were also small enough to give away to the
awed scouts.
The trail actually started across from the Blacksmith Shop at the Goodman Museum. The museum was a fairly recent addition at the reservation, housed in the former Goodrich Township Hall, just around the bend from Ad Center. The museum is a collection of memorabilia from Owasippe’s history. The museum is named in honor of the co-founder of the Order of the Arrow. Mr. Goodman also served as reservation director at Owasippe in 1925 and penned the words to the Owasippe Hymn.
Mr. Whit Lloyd was instrumental in assembling and maintaining the collection. I remember him visiting the Blackhawk dining hall on occasion with a tape-recorded to capture live dining hall programs. The skits, songs and cheers were added to the collection.
There were six outposts along the trail as it circled back to AD Center. The museum was the first stop. From there the troops would go across the street to the Blacksmith where Jerry Brown had them make iron nails. From there they hike north parallel to Cleveland Creek to the Indian outpost (Tom Horvath); then along the White River to the French Voyager (me), then back south along a new trail to the Logger (Jim Hoiden) and then picked up the Red Trail to the Frontiersman at old Camp West. From there the boys would continue along the red train to Ad Center where their cars were parked. Each outpost represented a different point in our nation’s history, or heritage. Each of us was to create a custom for our role and prepare a presentation about the role of our character as it related to the development of our nation.
So I read a bunch of books about the French Voyagers and how they used the wilderness waterways as their highways to trap and trade. From this information, I developed a fifteen-minute speech on their lifestyle and importance to the development of wilderness lands in the Midwest. I also created a costume reminiscent of the type of dress they would have worn.
The others did likewise. Tom dressed as an Indian and had a teepee at his site. Jim Hoiden wore overalls and set out to build a real log cabin, which was never completed. The frontiersman had very little preparation. He was a native of Muskegon, MI. and was hired because of his skill with black powder muskets. He would put on a demonstration and then allow the scouts a chance to shoot. Needless to say, it was a very popular outpost. The cool part to me was that it was located at Camp West. It was nice to see the old camp, and site of my CIT training, in use.
I wrote and rehearsed my presentation in the weeks prior to the start of camp. I especially worked hard on using a French accent, as the true voyagers were Frenchmen.
During staff week we were to set up our sites. But I had very little to set up. I had no bark canoe or anything like that. Real artifacts would have been difficult and expensive to get. So lashed a couple of large branches to some trees to form a lean to.
I had a great site. It was called Cedar Landing and was on a section of the White River. One of the guys from Canoe Central, usually Curt Andrich, would drive us to our sites after breakfast. We’d go down Silver Creek Road to a two-track dirt road a couple of miles away from Ad Center. Then we’d turn in and head north to the river.
I’d scurry down the steep bank to the shore where it leveled out. The site wasn’t on the main course of the river but rather a channel. The sand dumped into the river from the mouth of Cleveland Creek upstream creates sifting sandbars in the river. These sandbars force the river to create new channels over the ages. Cedar Landing was on one of these channels with a large island separated me from the main course, which I could not see. So the river on my side of the island was about fifteen feet wide and not very deep. I could hear the scout taking White River canoe trips once in a while, mostly the banging of paddles against the aluminum gunnels. But I never saw them.
Dobke gave me a couple of small traps. He suggested I catch a muskrat or two and skin their hides to put on display. So I set the traps along the banks. The next day I came to find that I caught two chipmunks. I decided I wasn’t going to trap anymore. It seemed too ridiculous to catch chipmunks when there isn’t any reason to kill them. But I went ahead and skinned the two I caught. I stretched their ides on a board and cure them with salt. I still have those two tiny pelts.
It turned out that this was a cushy job and a perfect site. There was an old cedar tree on the bank that had fallen over into the water when the river eroded the soil along the shoreline. But the tree continued to live and grew up straight from then on. So part of the trunk was horizontal, then it gently curved up vertical. The shape of the curve and the flatness of the trunk turned it into a perfect recliner.
Curt Andrich would drive my CIT and I to the site after breakfast. I would spread out my poncho on the cedar tree. And lie down. The CIT would sit or lay down under the lean to. We’d either nap or chat a bit. Once in a while, we’d hike on over to the Logger and visit with Jim.
Our outpost was the second on the trail so we didn’t get any visitors until min or late morning. The trail followed the river from the Indian outpost and we’d end up hearing the scouts coming a good fifteen minutes before we saw them tumbling down the steep bank in front of us.
We ate a bag lunch that we brought with us between troops or when things started to peter out. In the afternoon, there would be the occasional troops that got a late start or decided to do only a few outposts as an afternoon hike. Then Curt would return in the late afternoon to take us back for Dinner.
It was very different from being a dining hall staff man. But I would visit Stuart and Blackhawk when I could for campfires or sing alongs. Otherwise, I had every night off.
I had a great presentation prepared. I spent a good deal of time researching the roll during the winter. I played the role of a voyager and describe my daily life in the wilderness. They were pretty tough folks. For my first presentation, on my very first day, I did the whole routine with a French accent that I had rehearsed during the winter. Afterwards, while I was chatting with troop and leaders, the Scoutmaster asked me what part of Canada I was from. "Um, Park Ridge?" I didn’t realize that I was that convincing. So I modified the presentation so that I only used the accent during small sections as emphasis. Otherwise I felt like I was misleading them, although I really wasn’t.
One of the new staff members at Ad Center was Ed Bosak. He looked familiar to me and it took me a few moments to figure it out. He was one of the older scouts at Wolverine South that had given me a hard time the morning after my Christmas in July party when I was a CIT. Now he ends up being one of my buddies that summer, along with Jim Hoiden.
On our first night off, Ed, Jim and I headed into town. I don’t remember who was driving, but it wasn’t one of us because none of us had a car! As we pulled into Whitehall, right at the city limits, "The Boys are Back in Town" by Thin Lizzy came on the radio. That instantly became our anthem that summer. I still think of that whenever it comes on the radio.
One night we were sitting around Tent City, the collection of staff cabins behind Ad Center where we lived, with nothing to do. That’s one of the downsides of working at Ad Center. At a section camp, you went to troop campfires or had contests or programs in the evening with the scouts. At Tent City you listened to music, read or just got bored. It was this last activity one night when it was decided we need pizza.
Now this is a pretty difficult task considering the nearest pizza parlor, Papa Johns, was in Whitehall. Town Run had already been long gone. Luckily, some one else was heading into town for the night. The only problem was that there was only room for one person.
So it was decided that I would go into town, buy the pizza and then bring it back for everyone. The plan was to find someone in town from Ad Center or one of the camps that would give me a lift back to Tent City. There were usually lots of staff in town on a Saturday night so this seemed reasonable.
My ride dropped me off at Papa Johns and I ordered my pizza. I waited the twenty or so minutes it took for them to cook it in their lobby. I expected to see someone from Owasippe show up. But no one did. So I paid for the pizzas and started to walk through town back towards camp. I figured I’d run into somebody on the way or at one of the congregation points in town, such as the Dog and Suds, affectionately known as the Arf n’ Barf, the Rexall drug store or at the Laundromat.
But I had no such luck on this night. Whitehall is not a big town so it didn’t take me too long to cross. Papa Johns is actually in Montigue, Whitehall’s sister city on the other side of the White River. So I walked about two miles from one end to the other. At the edge of town, I decide to hitch hike the rest of the way. Hopefully a staff man returning to camp would see me and pull over.
It didn’t take long for a car to pull over. It was a couple of "townies." These guys were in their early twenties and were heading back home to Fruitvale from a night on the town. Ad Center wasn’t really that far out of their way so I had my ride.
I offered them a couple pieces of pizza, which they quickly ate. They had the munchies from a night of drinking. And it didn’t take me too long to realize that they had really been drinking ALL night long. They were sloshed.
So there I sat with two pizzas in my lap as the car careened own the two-lane road through the woods. Soon there was a pair of headlights ahead of us from another car coming towards us. I just sat there and prayed that my driver just happened to swerve back to our side of the road by the time we passed each other. It was a very hairy situation.
Obviously, I’m writing this account so the two cars successfully passed each other that night. And I made it back to Tent City, shaking like a leaf, but alive, and perhaps a bit wiser. I will never, ever get in a car with a drunk again and put my life in jeopardy again.
The Bicentennial year at camp was also when I attended my first rock concert. Ed and I were listening to the local radio station when we heard an ad for a concert in Grand Rapids in two weeks. Ed decided we should go and I agreed since I had never been to one before. So on our next day off, Ed and I hitch hiked to Grand Rapids. We had to go to "the" record store where they were selling the tickets. These were the days before Ticket-Tron and buying tickets over the phone or internet with a credit card. It turned out to be a fun trip. We got some rides right away and we made to the store and got back to camp by dinner.
The next Saturday was the date of the concert. As luck would have it, this was also the Christmas in July weekend. There was a big party planned at Canoe Central that night, which we were going to miss. But that’s a small price to pay to se my fist concert. We bummed a ride from Tent City to the edge of town by highway 31 and started our trek back to Grand Rapids.
This trip proved more problematic. The rides didn’t come so easy. Eventually, we got a ride to Muskegon. From there we had to head east to Grand Rapids. We were thumbing on the cloverleaf as we walked down to the main east-west highway when a state trooper pulls up. He gave us a stern lecture and threatened to take us in. I think the fact that we were Boy Scouts is what saved us. We actually had to pull out our ID’s to prove it. I’m not surprised because "Boy Scout" is not the first thing that pops into your head when you see Ed. He’s a big burly guy with this wild mange of frizzy, shoulder length hair. "Mass murderer" would seem to be a more appropriate image. So the cop made us get off the highway. We ran back down and got a ride all the way to Grand Rapids as soon as he was out of sight.
The concert was at a place called The Electric Rodeo in the suburb of Wyoming on the southern edge of Grand Rapids. As the name suggests, it was used primarily for rodeos. It was only a set of tall metal bleachers in an oval where they set the stage up at one end. We were milling around in a huge crowd outside waiting to get in. There was a lot of bumping and shoving going on as everyone jostled for position.
It was a hot summer day and the organizer had a big dumpster loaded with ice and beer. A couple of the stage crew or security crew jumped in and started tossing out cans of beer to the waiting crowd. I wasn’t close enough to nab one. At on point, I accidentally stepped on one guy’s bare toes. It must of hurt like heck since he was bare foot on rocky gravel. I apologized but he just replied, "It’s okay man. I didn’t feel it." He was obviously feeling no pain.
We got in and climbed up the bleachers to get a clear view across from the stage. We weren’t real close but we had a clear shot of the stage and it wasn’t that big of an arena so we were not that far away. The first act was a local Detroit rock band. They came out and did a decent job of warming the crowd up.
Then came and act called "Nils Loftgren." It sounded like a folk act or something. But Nils was anything but folky. He rocked. Nils would later go on to play guitar for Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band when Little Miami Steve left the band. The place was hoping’ The hihlight was Nils doing a guitar solo while doing flips on a trampoline!
Following Nils was a band called Renaissance. They played a style of music that was popular in medieval England. They played it well but put everyone to sleep. Fortunately, the next act, Heart, changed that in a hurry.
Heart had just broken nationally that spring with their first two hit singles, Crazy on You and Magic Man. They were awesome. They were hot and they were good. The crowd was hot and bothered for the next act (notice that we haven’t even gotten to the headliner yet).
REO Speedwagon, a collage band from University of Illinois in Champaign/Urbana, came out and picked up where Heart left off. They weren’t as polished or commercial as heart, but the rocked! They would record several of their performances from this tour and release a double-live album the next winter. That album catapulted them into the national limelight. They didn’t use this concert for taping but the sets and songs they played were the same as what was on the album. They were called back out for an encore set.
Finally, the headline act came on as the sun started to sink low in the west. Johnny and Edgar Winter performing together for the first time in years. I was not familiar with them except for the Edgar Winter Group’s hit "Frankenstein" a few years earlier. But Ed knew them, especially Johnny Winter. He was really pumped to see them. And it didn’t take long to find out way. It was an incredible performance. Johnny with his screaming blues guitar and Edgar on keys were a perfect combination. They played a great set and two outstanding encores.
The sun was setting when they finished the second encore. We stood there clapping and stomping, holding a lighter in the air. Eventually the crowd gave up and we started to climb down the back of the bleachers to make our way out. We were half way down when we heard the remaining crowd start to yell. They were coming back for a third encore! We quickly scrambled back up screaming and yelling the whole way to the top. The third encore proved to be the last. So we headed on out as night settled on the Electric Rodeo.
We walked to the parking lot exit to catch a ride home. Car after car of concert goers passed us by without stopping. I still find it hard to believe that out f hundreds of cars leaving that lot that night, not one stopped to pick up two fellow concert goers. So we ended up walking all the way from the south side of Grand Rapids to the northern edge of town before a car puled over.
I ran ahead as the car pulled over because it was my turn to sit in back. I couldn’t believe my eyes when I opened the door. The driver was a young, attractive young woman. It’s not what I expected to see on the dark road, especially with the way Ed looked.
She turned out to real cool and was able to take us to Muskegon. From there we were not able to get another ride and ended up walking all the way back to camp. We had hoped to make it back in time to catch part of the Christmas festivities but that was not to be. When we did make it back, we were surprised to find that Jim was not in the cabin. We decided that there must still be some remnant of a party at Canoe Central even if it was 3:00 a.m. So we headed down to check it out.
Canoe Central was a ghost town when we got there. We couldn’t figure it out. But as we approached the staff cabins, we heard a stream of unprintable epitaphs from Jerry Brown’s cabin followed by Jim being tossed out on his ear.
Jim had a little too much to drink and passed out on Jerry’s cot. Jerry wanted to go to sleep so he tried to wake Jim up. Jim’s response was to puke all over Jerry’s sleeping bag. This is when we entered the scene. We half carried Jim home from Canoe Central, giving him grief all the way back to Tent City. Ed gave him the nickname of "Pukey Jim." The name stuck and we eventually shortened it to its acronym, "PJ."
Although this season was not the same as working at a section camp, I still had a great time. I enjoyed working with the guys at Ad Center and living in Tent City. I also had the opportunity to meet a ton of scouts and leaders. The troops that hiked the Heritage Trail came from all of the section camps.
I even walked part of the trail myself. Jim and I closed shop mid afternoon one day. I left my CIT in charge in case a troop straggled down the trail. I then I hiked down to the Logger outpost and we continued to Camp West to the Woodsman outpost. We took a couple of turns shooting the black powder musket there.
I remember standing on the shore of Crystal Lake, looking across towards Camp Stuart. What I really wanted to do is to work there, at the camp I went to as a scout.
| National Camping School |
| Dave, Roger and I |
| Off Weekend Float Party |
| Chuck Wagon Overnight |
| Christmas in July - Part II |
| Shootin’ the Tube |
| Hide N' Seek Bog |
| The Pine River Canoe Trip |
| Where Eagles Soar |
I got my wish. Pat Monahan hired me in the off season to his nature director at camp Stuart. I was ecstatic! I going back to section camp, and it was a dining hall camp, and it was Stuart, and I was in nature, and I was the director! It was like a dream come true. One of the prerequisites of being a director or a commissioner is that you need to be certified by attending National Camping School.
National Camping School for the Midwest that year was a weeklong session at Camp Tamarack in Jones, Michigan, that preceded staff week. A couple of weeks before it started, I got a phone call from Dave Tala. Dave was a fellow graduate from my CIT class, although he was in a different patrol and we never worked at the same camp that summer. But he still remembered me. He also was hired to work at Stuart that summer as field sports director. So he had to go to National Camping School too. He was calling to see if I’d like to share a ride with him in his car. Great!
I think Dave drove up to my parent’s house in Park Ridge from the south side of Chicago, where he lived. Then we drove back south to head to Indiana to go under Lake Michigan. That’s the same route we’d take to Owasippe so we were half way there. But we turned east once we crossed the Michigan boarder. Jones is about half way across the state.
I remember pulling into Jones. There was a white semi trailer parked on the edge of town. It had red and black lettering announcing the auction. The auction to sell Jones, Michigan! The whole town was up for sale. I had never seen that before.
We found the main road that led towards the camp entrance. There happened to be a bar at the intersection. So Dave decided that we should have one official drink before starting the week. So we sauntered into this bar in full class A uniform, including knee socks and garter tabs. We settle in at the bar and Dave asks me if I’ve ever had a Lime Vodka Collins A Vodka Collins make with lime flavored vodka). "No." So he order me one. This was my first, but not my last.
National Camping School was great. Duke Olechno was the instructor for nature directors that year. Duke was the staff man that inspired my interest in nature to begin with. So now I came full circle. He spent a full week filling our head with info on plants and animals, and more importantly, how to teach it to kids.
The first rule is KISS, Keep It Simple Stupid. Don’t get overly complicated or they’ll lose interest. The second rule is to give them a tool to remember by, an interesting fact, anecdote or story. Like Mullen being used by Quaker girls, as rouge because they were not allowed to use makeup and the soft, fuzzy leaves would irritate their skin and turn their checks red.
My favorite story that he told was of an experience he had while giving a star hike. He had a great routine to point out the constellations, which I have blatantly plagiarized. At one point, he shows Cassiopeia, which is arranged like a sideways "W." He explains that it’s the queen lying down on her chaise lounge. Just to the left and above are five stars that resemble a house on its side. That’s Cephious, the king. "One day Cassiopeia and Cephious were having a fight. The queen got so mad she took off her crown and threw it at the king. But she missed and over here…" At this point he’s jerk his flashlight, his pointer, up and behind his left shoulder. "…is where it landed," he’d finish, pointing right at Corolla Borealis, the Crown. It takes a little practice, but the move can be mastered. And it works great.
But that’s not the whole story. He tells of one time when he jerked his light up there appears a shooting star, purely by coincidence. But he didn’t miss a beat, " And here … is a shooting star." The kids were in total awe. How did he know when and where a shooting star would appear? I used that routine many times that summer. I even have used it now as an Assistant Scoutmaster. But I still chuckle when I o it because it reminds me of Duke’s story.
I learned a lot that week, skills and knowledge that I’ll always remember. I did pretty well too. I scored a perfect score on my testing. The only person to do that at that camp that year. So I was ready for Super Camp Stuart.
What a wonderful feeling to be back at Stuart after so many years. I’d make a point to visit my troop during their stay but it usually was just on my night off so I didn’t get the chance to spend much time at the camp. But now I got to spend my entire summer here!
Dave and I ended up bunking together that year in the same cabin, along with Roger. Roger worked for Dave’s and ran the archery range. The same job that was supposed to be mine back in 1974 at Blackhawk. Bruce the Moose and Mike The Bear, who I knew from Blackhawk, were in the cabin next to ours. They had brought up a refrigerator, which they set up in a scout wall tent between our two cabins. The staff slept in cabins constructed of a wooden floor and frame with screens and a canvas top. There was plenty of room for three to sleep on steel spring cots.
As soon as the last bus left camp on Saturday of the first off weekend, we all raced down to the waterfront for a party. One of the aquatics staff cabins had a real nice stereo that cranked tunes all day long. We set up a floating raft by stacking two wooden picnic tables on top of each other. We put it in the water then stuffed life jackets underneath to make it buoyant.
On top of this contraption we had our cooler. We then put life jackets on ourselves and tied another one to the ears of our coffee mugs so we wouldn’t loose them to the deep. We then floated out on the lake, soaking in the sun and listening to the music.. The top of the table settled a few inches below the surface of the water. It must have looked interesting from shore, six or so guys floating in a circle with a cooler in the center. We sat out there for a few hours in a totally relaxed mood.
Bear made some dutch oven pizza and cobbler for dinner that night. We continued to party on the beach as we watched the sun set slowly to the west, directly across the lake from us. Ironically, that’s were Camp West is located. But the camp is named after an early scouter, James E. West and not for its location on the lake. I still think that the sunset on Lake Owasippe is one of the most beautiful sights I’ve ever seen.
Then we started a bon fire on the beach as the stars started to appear. It was a beautiful clear night. Eventually, the stereo gave way to singing camp songs, ending with the Owasippe Lake trilogy. Then we settled in to just sitting around the fire and exchanging stories. Or sometimes just sitting back and staring at the sky. It’s truly remarkable to see the thousands and thousands of stars in the heavens. We often forget how awe inspiring it is when we live in the city. Just the site of the Milky Way is an amazing spectacle.
It didn’t take long for the sky to start glowing to the east behind us. Dawn was coming. We had partied and cavorted on the beach all night long. So we put out the fire and headed to our cabin to at least get a fw hours of nap time before the next wave of buses appeared with fresh "Green Grubbies."
One night, Dave overhead someone, I think it was Richie Golz, talking about an overnight trip they were taking that day. He and a couple of other staff from the aquatics staff made arrangements with some friends they had at the Horse Corral to go on a chuck wagon overnight. It was a last minute decision, but Dave and thought that would be a fun trip. It was a regular trip they ran for the scouts. They’d ride through the woods on a two-rack road for a few hours then set up camp for the night. They threw a canvas tarp over the chuck wagon as a shelter.
The wagon was full but they said Dave and I could come along if we wanted to set up our own tent. The sky was clear so Dave and I decided we’d just bring our sleeping bags and sleep under the stars that night. The ride was fun. Owasippe has some of the most beautiful woods a camp could offer. It’s too bad that most scouts never leave their section camp to explore the rest of the reservation that’s only a few steps away.
We started in the late afternoon so we set up camp late. Dave and I brought our own dinner, probably PB&J, because of the short notice. The rest of the guys would have had a trail dinner from Food Prep because they put their meal order in early. But we didn’t mind. This was a fun way to spend the afternoon and evening. So after the campfire, we rolled out our sleeping bag and stared at the stars for a hour or two until we finally fell asleep.
We were rudely awaken a few hours later to crashing thunder and blazing lightning as the once clear skies let loose with a huge thunderstorm. We tried in vane to inch ourselves under the protection of the wagon, but there was no room underneath. So we were half in and half out, getting totally soaked.
Eventually, we gave in and decided to head back to camp. Our clothes were soaked, our sleeping bags were soaked and we were starting to get cold. The guys in charge wouldn’t let us take the horses back because of the lightning. They were right but it meant that we’d have to hike back to camp. It wasn’t that far but it wasn’t much fun trudging along in the rain lugging a waterlogged sleeping bag on your shoulder.
The rain started to let up and the sky started to lighten up as we neared camp. It stopped altogether by the time we marched into our cabin. Poor Roger! Our entrance woke him up hours before breakfast. He was such a tolerant roommate.
Our bags were soaked so we decided to run into town and stick them into the commercial sized dryer at the Laundromat. But Dave was concerned that he might not have enough gas in his car to make the trip both ways and that there would be not stations open in town that early to gas up for the return trip. So we asked Roger if we could borrow the keys to his Vega hatchback. Still half asleep, Roger reached over to the ledge for his keys and handed them over. If we hurry, we should be able to dry our bags and return in time for the breakfast bell.
So off we rode in Roger’s Vega. Dave drove and decided to take on of the two-track back roads as a short cut. It really wasn’t any shorter but any excuse to go two trackin’ is a good one. We were only a quarter mile or so past the lone farmhouse on this road when the engine died. It seems that Roger’s gas tank was lower than Dave’s was and in his half-awake, half-asleep state he failed to mention this fact. So we hiked on back to the farmhouse to see if we could get some gas. Homes out away from towns often have a storage tank for their cars, trucks and tractors. It was about 6:00 a.m. by the time we knocked on the door.
A guy in his late twenties or early thirties answered, clearly we had awoken him from a comfortable sleep. We quickly explained our predicament and politely asked if he had any gas that he could give us so that we could get to town. He said he did and told us to wait a few minutes while he put on some clothes. He came out dressed in a few minutes and went to his shed that served as a garage. He grabbed a gas can and a length of hose. Neither Dave nor I could believe what happened next, he stuck the hose in his own car’s gas tank and sucked on the other end to start a siphon. It’s unbelievable to me that someone would gladly drag themselves out of bed at that hour and willingly suck down some gas fumes to help out a couple stranded knuckleheads. We later bought a cake from the bakery in town and left it on his doorstep with a note, as no one answered the door, thanking him for his help.
So off we went, again! We made it to town with no further excitement. But when we tried to remove the ignition key, it wouldn’t come out. Now it’s a standard feature on cars to lock the ignition key in. But neither one of us had never seen such a thing before. We didn’t know there was a little release switch under the steering column. The same key in the ignition worked the door locks. But there was a separate key for the hatchback. So we locked the car with the key in the ignition.
So we left our clothes and sleeping bags in the dryer and went to get the cake. Then we went back to the Laundromat to get the sleeping bags when they were dry. We had to then climb in through the hatchback to get back in the car. What a sight that must have been. Amazingly, after all that, we still did make it back to camp in time for breakfast!
Another Christmas in July at camp, and this time I was back a Stuart. We set up a Christmas tree up on our dinning hall stage (a couple of floorboards on top of two dinning tables). It was decorated with lights and homemadef ornament. At Friday’s dinner with the scouts, John Grout dressed up as Santa to pass out candy for the kids. Our program started out with traditional seasonal carols and climaxed with Santa’s appearance. John improvised by attatching cotton to his face for Santa's white, fluffy beard. He, nor anyone else realized at the time that he's end up high from sniffing the fumes. So when it was time for him to pass out the candy, he was up on the stage flinging it at the kids yelling. "You want some candy?" Pat and a couple of other guys reconized what was happining and the quickly "escorted" Santa from the stage.
One activity Dave introduced me to that summer was "shootin’ the tube." He learned of this past time while he was a scout camping at Wolverine South. The tube was a four foot concrete drainpipe under Gus Kopp dam that drained the water from the spillway on the lakeside back into Cleveland Creek on the other side. The water ran over the spillway through a steel grate that was meant to keep debris out of the tube. Then it went through the tube out onto a concrete pad or apron for about ten feet. Finally, it rushed into the rocks that marked the beginning of the creek bed.
Shootin’ the tube began by climbing your way into the tube from the concrete pad. There was a length of one-inch rope hanging down from above the tube to help steady yourself against the force of the flow, which was considerable. The concrete was slick from a layer of green algae that grew there, making footing treacherous. Once in the tube, you shimmied your way to the front. It helped to press your back up against the top of the tube to keep the current from washing your feet out from under you.
When you finally make it to the beginning of the tube, about a thirty or forty-foot trip, you’d begin your ride. In one single motion you would turn around and lie on your back with your feet pointed up and out and your arms clasped to your sides. The ride out took only seconds but it was a rush! The real tricky part, and very important, was to grab the one-inch rope hanging down in front of the tube. That was your brake. If you missed that, you would slide on out across the concrete pad and down into the rocky creek. Ouch! Fortunately, I made the catch every time.
I heard that the camp later installed a hinged grate in front of the tube to prevent scouts and staff from enjoying this exciting, but albeit dangerous past time. But I also heard that a sympathetic camp ranger (maintenance man) made a copy of the key for a few well-connected staff. I wonder if they still Shoot-the-tube at Owasippe.
Every week we’d run a contest after diner called the Staff Hunt. It was a simple game with only a few rules:
Of course there was a rule that none of scouts ever heard but it took precedence over all of the others:
One week, Dave and I decided to try something different. When Pat started the hunt by giving the staff a ten-minute head start, we quickly ran back to our cabin. We changed into cut-off shorts and t-shirts, grabbed snorkels and masks, and then raced off to the bog behind the shooting range.
We doned the snorkels and carefully worked our way out into the middle of the bog. This was a sphagnum peat bog, the last stages of a dying pond. The top is covered with lush green bumps of live moss. But right underneath is a dark tea colored water and muck mixture. The muck is the dead peat slowly decaying in the highly acidic pond water. Eventually, after hundreds or even thousands of years, the bog will fill in and this will be a nice, scenic little glen. Right now it was to be our hiding place. We made a couple of gaps in the peat and hunkered in just as the first scouts appeared, like ants at a picnic.
It was amusing to sit there in the midle of the bog watching all of the scouts searching through the woods and along the shores. But it was also darn cold! Dave had a wrist watch on and we decided that we’d make our break for the bell when there was only 15 minutes or so to go in the contest. We wanted to get caught so we wouldn’t lose our night off. But we also wanted to be the last staff caught as a demonstration of our hiding prowess.
Dave gave the signal when it was time and we started to climb out. A couple of scouts spied us immediately. One of them, a tall gangly boy, started to run across the bog to catch us. That strategy only lasted a few steps before his small footprints busted through the tender moss. Dave and I headed towards a point on the shore where there were no scouts.
We
faired slightly better than the first scout as we had our flippers on. They gave us a
little more surface area to spread our weight out. But we were still heavier than the
average scout. We busted through a few times, much to our frustration and amusement. There
was a small group of scouts waiting for us on shore by the time we got out. We tried to
dodge them as best we could, but they tagged us almost immediately and were rewarded with
our soaked envelopes, dyed an earthy brown by now from the peat water.
I don’t recall how many points we were worth. But I do believe we were the last to be caught that week. Roger, took a couple of pictures of us because we looked such a mess. One of them, my favorite, has us peering out over the edge of the empty garbage dumpster with our mask and snorkels!
It was the final "off" weekend of the season. And it had been a long and tiring summer. The staff had been working especially hard this season because of the "Camp Olympics."
The Olympics was the brainchild of Pat Monahan as a tie into the summer Olympics that were being held the year before. The post-meal program and contests were so successful, he implemented them again in 1977, even though there were no real Olympic contests that year. The staff held special contests in which the scouts would participate in following lunch. The scouts would receive a small strand of yarn, which they tied to a pop-top ring (remember those?). The scouts would button the ring under the flap of their uniform shirt.
The "Olympic" contests were held in the hours usually reserved for scouts and staff to rest a bit. Camp staff would often take a quick nap in their tent to recharge their "batteries." Remember that we also ate with the scouts and also performed songs and skits after each meal.
The net result of this special program, which was popular with the scouts, was that the entire staff was really beat after six weeks of always being "on." From the morning breakfast bell until mid-evening, staff was running around the camp either doing program (education/merit badges), singing songs or just being friends to the campers.
Therefore, it was decided that we needed a special "Off" weekend. Now Dave Tala and I had our idea of what the ideal "Off" weekend should be; a carefree day lounging in the sun at Duck Lake, a park right on the Lake Michigan shoreline. However, the rest of the staff was convinced that we should take a staff canoe trip down the Pine River. Dave and I resisted as much as we could but they convinced us that it would not be a true staff outing if the two of us did out own thing. So we relented... unfortunately.
After the last Yellow Banana (School bus) loaded with departing scouts left, we all grabbed our gear and loaded up the cars. Our first stop was Canoe Central where all the Reservation's river canoes were located. Canoe Central is on Cleveland Creek just below Kopp Damn, which forms Wolverine Lake. This was the starting point for most Owasippe canoe trips. The shallow creek meanders for a few miles before emptying into the White River. Troops usually continue along the White River all the way down to it's delta, which empties into White Lake, which is really a large inland bay of Lake Michigan. The trips end right before the low bridge at the mouth of the river at the dock outside of the Dog 'N Suds restaurant, also affectionately known as "Arf 'N Barf." The Canoe Central staff would come and pick up the scouts and their canoes and haul them back into camp.
Our trip down the Pine River was a great deal further away. The Pine River is a beautifully scenic river that winds its way through Manistee National Forest. Most of its shores are wilderness. There are even a few easy rapids that bring a little excitement to the river. The put in point is a little over two hours away so we had to plan on hauling the canoes and gear there and back.
One of our staff was a good friend of one of the Canoe Central staff. He was able to talk him into letting us borrow a bunch of canoes and a trailer, as long as we got it back early the next morning. There would be no trips scheduled being that the scouts would just be arriving the next day, so there was no logistical problems to contend with. So we hitched up the trailer to one car, tied a couple of extra canoes down in the back of a pickup, and lashed a few more on the Bruce "The Moose's" station wagon. We had one or two extra cars just for people (no gear). Meanwhile, another crew ran up to Food Prep to pick up our cold lunches, sandwiches wrapped in ax paper, that had been arranged for earlier. With all of the canoes, gear and food loaded, we were on our way.
Well... About ten minutes later, we were cruising down Fruitvale Road when the Moose-mobile pulled over to the shoulder. Bruce's wagon had blown a water pump. We should have taken this as a sign and call it quits right there. But we didn't. We transferred the two canoes from Bruce's wagon to the pickup truck, which now had three, and on top of the trailer between the top two canoes. Not exactly text book, but they were secure. The extra gear was tossed into the pickup as well and the bodies distributed among the remaining cars. Suddenly, it was a crowded ride up to the Pine River. A few folks even ended up in the back of the pickup truck. But that worked out because it was nice warm and sunny day, for the time being.
Once at the river, we started to unload the canoes and the gear. A couple of the cars then went down to the pull out point, "Low Bridge." The plan was for three cars to drive down, leave two at the bridge, and drive one back with all of the drivers. That way the cars could take the other drivers back to the put in point after the trip to retrieve the other cars and the trailer.
We had planned on leaving the car with the trailer at the end, but the driver, a cousin of Terry's I believe, didn't want to go or didn't want to leave it there. I never did hear the whole story but the trailer stayed at the put in point none the less.
It was mid-afternoon before we launched our first canoe. The delay when the "Moose"-mobile died and waiting for the drivers to return from low bridge had taken much more time than planned. Still we persevered. . And it was starting to rain. We still could have turned back at this point. But we didn't.
So in a light drizzle, Dave and I launched our canoe. We were near the front but not in the lead. The canoe in front of us had three staff, J.J. in the middle and two others. J.J. was the only non-swimmer on staff. So he as placed in the middle of a canoe with two other staff, a couple of guys from the aquatic staff I believe. This canoe also had all of the food. Dave and thought that it was a good location to be directly behind their canoe!
The trip started out fine. The Pine River is a beautiful waterway Almost all of the shore is undeveloped or part of Manistee National Forests. Early on there are a couple of spots with mild rapids - very mild - that make the trip more enjoyable over the White River, which is a flat waterway. We were beginning to think that the rest of the guys were right on and this idea of a "whole staff" outing was okay.
Then we heard the yelling.
It was a high pitched, panicky sound. As we neared it, we could tell that it was J.J. We turned the end and there was J.J. and the other two trying to get into a swamped canoe. J.J. was desperately trying to climb in the middle but all he was doing was making matters worse. One of the others was trying to explain that they needed to take the canoe to shore and empty the water before they try to climb into it. But J.J. would have none of it. His scampering and yelling only made the task of getting to shore more difficult to the other two.
It was an incredibly funny sight. We were laughing at them as we cruised on by. We were still laughing as we rounded the next bend. Until we turned the corner a spotted dozens of little white wax paper bags floating down the river in front of us. Our lunch!
The rest of the trip was rather uneventful for us. The constant drizzle did uncomfortably soak us. And a pair of hikers did moon us from up on the bluff. But they were too far away to determine whether we should be excited or upset about it. As the evening drew near, we started worrying about how much further we had to go.
We finally made it to the dam as dusk was wearing on. A couple of the canoes that were ahead of us were waiting. They had decided to stay put because of the dark. But Scotty Weber had pushed on, as did Duke Alechno. Scotty was one of the drivers so he had to get to low bridge in order to retrieve his car. Duke went on because a friend of his that came along was starting to show signs of hypothermia from being wet and exposed in the cool evening air. Duke wanted to get her into a car with the heater running.
Dave was the other driver who's car was at low bridge. So we decided to press on ourselves, even though it was nearly dark. The plan was for the two drivers to backtrack and find the access road to the dam. We would then come back for the drivers of the cars back at the put in point. Unfortunately, they were all still behind us so we could not take them with us. This would have saved a lot of time as we could have sent a car back to the start as soon as we made it to the low bridge. But we'd have to wait until we found the dam before we could retrieve the other vehicles.
The maps had the low bridge just a short distance ahead. Unfortunately, the river at this point was much slower and meandered through stands of willows, which obscured our view. This made the going slow as we picked our way through a maze of branching channels through the willows. It was almost totally dark by the time we saw the bridge.
We pulled our canoe next to the other two. The others were not there but they obviously made it. We walked up the bank and looked a short way down the road. We could see a couple of figures standing by Scotty's car and the engine was running. As we neared we could see Duke and Scotty talking. Inside were Scotty's girl friend and Duke's friend. You could see her shivering even through the blanket from Scotty's trunk, in which they wrapped her. They were all glad to see us.
It was quickly decided that Dave and I would drive south and search for the access road to the dam. It had to be nearby. We would then take the other drives back to get the remaining cars. The rest would stay at the bridge with the canoes and in the remote chance that someone else had decided to make a run for the bridge instead of staying at the dam. Low and behold, we hear someone coming. It was Terry and his cousin. If only he had brought his car with the trailer here earlier. We could have loaded up the gear and saved a lot of time.
It was completely dark as we set out for the dam. The overcast skies from the rain brought the night on quickly and blocked out any chance we had for a little moon light or star glow to help us out. A short way down we came across a two-track road heading back east towards the dam. It was a little rough, but Dave has driven worse roads. We bump and grind our way for a mile or so until we come up to a pile of rusted cars and other junk. A dead-end! This was little more than a local garbage dump. Worse yet, there was not enough room for Dave to turn around so he would have to back all the way out to the blacktop.
Just as he threw the transmission into reverse, the exhaust pipe detaches from he muffler. Blumb! Blumb! Blumb! Blumb! Blumb! Blumb! Blumb! Blumb!
"Oh, Great! What else could go wrong?"
Dave climbs out and tosses the hot exhaust pipe in the trunk.
Fortunately, Dave's pretty adept at negotiating his way back through the woods to the road. Once there, we head back south looking for another candidate to lead us to the dam. Then the headlights go out. Then on. Then out. Then on.
Dave stops the car and explains that this frequently happens when it rains. The dampness causes the battery connections to short out somewhere. So he climbs out, again, this time with a rag to dry off the terminals. I watch through the gap between the bottom of the raised hod and the engine so I can try to see what he's doing.
Then about 30 feet or so behind him, a hulking figure crashes out of the woods and starts lumbering its way towards Dave, who's back is towards the figure as he works on the car. The lights are flashing on, off, on, off, as the figure staggers towards the unsuspecting Dave.
I slide over on the seat and call out the door, "Dave. Behind You."
It turns out that the hulking, "Frankenstein" figure was Duke’s friend, who joined us for the trip. He apparently had a little too much to drink and had wondered off from the rest of the crew. The good news is that we must be closed to the dam as he was in no condition to travel far. We later found out that the folks at the dam were going crazy looking for him because no one noticed him walking off.
So Dave loads him in the car and tells him, "Don’t puke in my car. If you need to get sick, tell me and I’ll pull over." "Okay. Okay," was the reply. "Just DON’T get sick in my car!"
So off we go again. Blumb! Blumb! Blumb! Blumb! Blumb! Blumb! Blumb! Blumb!
Soon we found another potential road and this one turned out to be the right way. In a few minutes we pull up to the dam, where everyone is cold and glad to see us. Dave and I step out to great the weary travelers when we hear a sickening sound behind us.
"Rrrrrrrreeeeetch!" Duke’s friend puked in Dave’s car.
It took quite a while to coordinate the trip home. Dave drove Terry’s cousin back to the Low Bridge. Then there was a trip back to the put in spot to retrieve the trailer and the pickup truck. Eventually, all of the gear, canoes and people were loaded and we started to make are way back home.
And it was a long trip back to camp. We were all cold, tired and hungry. It was dark, drizzly and we hadn’t had a decent meal since breakfast. Remember that our lunch was floating down-river towards Lake Michigan when J.J. took his "swim." And our original Plan was to be back by or just a little past dinner. Well it was way past dinner and we wouldn’t be getting back into camp until after midnight.
We’d drive a while and pull over and switch positions. The guys in the back of the pickup truck were freezing in the cold, damp weather. And the passengers in Dave’s car needed a "puke smell" break. We did manage to find a few snacks for sale at a gas station. But we weren’t carrying a lot of money because we didn’t anticipate needing it.
Some time later, Dave Terry Naulty and I were in Dave’s car with Terry at the wheel. At one point, all three of us dozed off. One of us, I think it was Dave, woke up in time to yell and wake Terry. Right in front of us was a set of barricades where the expressway ended. Terry hit the brakes just in time. We were all shaking as he turned onto the exit ramp. We didn’t need any caffeine to keep us awake the rest of the trip!
Early in the morning, too early, we awoke to hear someone yelling. We couldn’t make it out at first, but after a while it became clear that Pat had called to say he was coming over with the "C.I." Pat, by the way, didn’t go on the trip with us as he lived in a cabin away from the camp with his wife Linda, who also worked at Family Camp.
The "C.I." is coming. Everyone jumped up in a panic. We needed to get the camp into inspection ready condition. And we were in no condition ourselves to stand inspection.
It wasn’t easy, but we managed to clean the camp up and get ourselves in uniform ready for inspection before Pat drove up… in a Fiat. It wasn’t the "C.I." Pat was bringing back to camp. It was the "Fiat." Scotty Weber’s girlfriend’s Fiat, which she had lent him to use for the evening.
We were too tired to be upset and we were just basically relieved that there was to be no inspection that morning. And the "Big Yellow Bananas" (a.k.a. school buses) would be arriving shorting anyway.
As an afterthought, Dave checked out the local weather conditions. It turns out that the cold, rainy weather had stayed to the north. It was warm and sunny back in Whitehall. Dave and I would have had a beautiful day at the beach had we stuck to our guns and gone to Duck Lake instead of the canoe trip. Oh, well. If we had done that, then I would not have been able to report this incredible tale.
Dave and I were returning to camp from town late one morning. We were heading east along Whitehall Road. Just past the intersection of Silver Creek Road, we saw something large in the middle of the road ahead of us. Dave slowed down. As we neared, about fifty yards or so, we suddenly realized what it was. There was a mature Bald Eagle feasting in the middle of the road on some road kill.
The size of bird was astounding. It was a tall as a young scout. Suddenly, we were too close for it’s comfort and it spread his wings open to take off. What an amazing sight. The wing span was huge. It seemed to take forever for it to pump those huge wings enough to lift it’s body in the air. We watched in stunned silence as it quickly soared away.
The summer of 1977 was my best ever at camp. And it was my last. Much like that eagle, I took off from this point as I entered my young adulthood. One never really seems to understand the importance of a given moment in one's life, until you have the privilege of looking back in hindsight. My years as an Owasippe staffman provided me with the most genuine and profound memories of my life. It's basically where I grew up.
But there's more to it than just a youth's adventure growing up. You cannot overlook the impact an individual can have in forming other people's lives. Mike Hurl inspired me to become a staffman without any intentional or overt act. He was simply being Mike Hurl the Owasippe staffman. Hopefully, I too may have served as that inspiration to others. I can recall the look of wonder and awe in an inner-city youth as I placed a frog into his cupped hands for the very first time. And the postcard from Las Vegas sent by a scout and his family because of an interesting star hike.
As I said in my introduction on my career in scouting, I believe my experiences in Scouting formed the foundation of who I am today and will continue to be in the future. And the most important part of developing one's character comes from giving. So I would encourage you to step forward, grab the opportunity, and become intimately involved in the program, whether it's as a camp staff councilor, or an active member of the OA, or even as an important leader or instructor in your own troop.
Today is your moment that you will look back upon some day, so soar with the eagles!
