hmmmm i recall some like this, and some different. each year it was different. if the bradfords were here, they BOTH would point that out.

i attended a few camps...several camps if you include the "camp" they set up at resorts each summer, at schools and at "luxury" campgrounds, the last one is similar to camp, but there is more freedom and very little structure.

i think my "MANY" camps annoys the overnight place and to be honest, a lot of camping memories comes from there, i would have to see it on paper hour for hour or day for day, i guess to figure it out exactly. and then billdw if he was here would point out we also had military camping and then everyone gets quiet, as that took up the most time and we all know that.

i went to camp during a different decade than ken who is writing that and i will get more of those and put them in here, i guess, watered down of course. from what i know right now, i am hoping to get more info on it, girls camping began in the 50's because the daughters of the owner or director wanted to go to camp as campers, so they set up a little two week camping thing for girls. it did not follow the boys regimen at all back then. the activities were things like doing nails, facials, crocheting, knitting, crafts, cooking, hair and makeup, swimming, boating, canoeing, archery...i wasn't around back then, but i heard about it because we couldn't believe it.

they weren't on a heavy schedule. they had either buffet breakfast or breakfast in bed and they didn't have to dress for line-up or get up at a certain time. the morning was mostly at their leisure, but breakfast stopped being served at a certain time and they had to then clean their cabin. cleaning your cabin is a big thing at camp because it gets dusty and dirty beyond belief every day (plus a lot of kids have allergies to dust, i am one of those myself).

when they started having line-ups for girls, the girls/young women, who had been raised with "girls camping" in the 50's, REFUSED to come to line-up wearing clothing, they showed up in pajamas and their robes, slippers and rollers in their hair. lol. even the women on administration would do this. and it went on like this into the early 70's.

the section of girls camping was expanded to a full month for girls in the 1960's and a full month for boys. the boys had the better month of august, when the lake water is warmer and the temperatures in general are warmer (more of a need for camp, i guess in august as the mountains are cooler than the cities). however, since girls get cold easily, for us, august would have been a better month. NONE of the men thought equal rights would ever work out, there was still segregation of blacks, even though they were "liberal" in making sure there were some blacks at camp, like 10 percent maximum which they considered a lot. the blacks actually wanted to bunk together and have a black counsellor, but the camp was trying to stop that and wanted everyone at camp to share a cabin with someone black so they would learn that all people are the same. it was major news if you had a black in your cabin as ridiculous as that is, and within a couple of days or less you knew that. in fact, you forgot the color of the person beside you completely because they are simply whatever their name is that is in your cabin. once that would happen, the camp considered the integration a success and were verrrry happy.

their chef was part black as well and he had been there about 50 years for real, so the camp was attempting equal rights way before it was being picketed all over the country. when he retired and they needed a new chef, it was like we had a new chef every two years, it was never the same again for some reason. the former chef was the only one who had stayed on and even lived as a caretaker in the rooms above the dining hall during off season when the camp was closed during the winter months.

i was a little kid during a time of great "change" at the camp or perhaps the country in general. the age to get into camp had always been around age 8, same as grammar school age. this age was then switched to age six when the camp was for a decade or so, a scouting camp, as cubs are six when they join cub scouting.

girls have brownies for scouting, and the age was six OR first grade. some kids are smart and aren't six in first grade, they are four or five. ballet had also changed around that time, and the age limit was age FIVE and/or toilet trained. some girls especially, are toilet trained at age 3 or even 2 (less so with boys i guess). so when the 4 year old little girls started signing up, the boys laughed and insisted that would NEVER work with boys camping so it would't work with the girls. it was allowed, only because females are trained to care for little kids and babies anyway. they decided to view it differently and that the counsellor could also decline and not take the kid at all. (nice attitude).

i had gone to day camp before i started over night camp. i had also had a year or more of ballet and performing ballet. i was a brownie. lol. they actually QUESTIONED me on all of this at the camp when i got there, as a parent can say or fudge any document they want to if they are trying to get a half-summer off by sending their kid to overnight camp. i had been repeatedly told you don't go home at night before i left for this camp, but i didn't really understand it because at day camp, we went home either mid-afternoon on a morning session or around 4:30 on an afternoon session. so when nightfall came and i was still at camp it was disconcerting.

Early on, in the late 60's beginning of the 70's, campers gathered in front of what had become the Boys AND GIRLS Club to go to their session of camp. for girls it was 1st or 2nd session or you signed up for both. later on they also had a thing called a SHORT, where you got an extra week in june out of it and it was a separate session, like a preview kind of thing, generally lasting five or seven days. a real session is 12 days and there is ONE visiting morning/afternoon for the parents to visit, generally from 12 until around 5. the time is not accurate, as in a hot summer the camp uses mountain time, and is TWO HOURS BEHIND whatever civilization is using. and in a regular summer they are one hour behind, and the fliers state they do NOT practice daylight savings time at all, so the parents had to govern themselves accordingly. (they had tried just altering the schedule so we would get up earlier, but the girls refused to do that and balked, so they just changed the clocks. lol.)

parents visiting day was always INSANE. it was also an open house and it was alumni visits. early on everyone's families brought picnics and grilled and things, they might even bring their relatives. it was seriously nuts. everything was open and the swim and boating areas were all used for FREE. later on, they made it so that guests were not permitted to take a boat or canoe out without an escort as most of them had no idea how to dock or turn the boat around at all and were leaving our boats all over the lake, just LEAVING them there, or bringing them over rocks, or getting stranded all the time. it was a big deal if they ruined a boat, because it was one less boat that WE WOULD have to use that summer, it wasn't always fixable or replaceable right away, orrrrr it was a lesson, and they wanted us and the parents? to "feel" what they did and take responsiblity. there was always MORE going on than just the activity, it was a matter of becoming a proper person, as in properly responsible, proper regard for other people and other's things.

eventually, the picnic thing either fell out of fashion or it was decided it was too chaotic. they always sold burgers and hotdogs at the trading post, but finally one year they sold full grilled chicken dinners for under one dollar and that solved the food chaos thing permanently. it never made sense that they cooked INSIDE the trading post anyway, it was already too hot in there. everyone was thrilled when they made it so all the cooking was done outdoors or in the dining hall and brought over, unless it rained.

the cabins used to be open and parents would want to look around inside at the bunks and the sleeping bags. this ended as well, when people ended up getting robbed or worse, attacked by "visitors" inside these cabins. so we were told to make sure we had all of our stuff and locks were put on the cabin doors and parents and guests could only look inside. day camp and silver lake camp all had the same thing so it was no surprise to me. i had been surprised that the cabins were open to begin with. also, all you need is ONE whacko visitor or ONE whacko parent who is a pervert or a thief and you have trouble, life is what it is.

on friday evening they had awards and the parents came back again, around 7:00 to collect their campers and watch the awards ceremony. there was very little time to see the parent and we weren't really supposed to see them, as there were too many other things to do. we would go to our bunks and pack up as best we could. we were told to lock our trunks and roll up our sleeping bags, sheets, pillow case so that at 9 or 10 o'clock when the night was over, everything could just be picked up. the parents were lined up and sent over to council ring to take their seats and were instructed to leave the kids alone. the kids were kept inside their cabins to pack and get properly dressed for council ring. EVERYONE had to wear camp sweatshirts with their badges sewn on the back of it for each year at camp in which they completed a certain number of activities properly. very early on the badges were in the shape of one of the letters of the camp, later on the badges were in the shape of a triangle designating a teepee, then they gave out indian heads. so the badges were never at all uniform and were all different shapes and sizes and colors.

for some reason there was often a lot of confusion with who should or should not get a badge and if you didn't have a veteran camper in your cabin who was helpful or a cit properly doing their job helping or an informative counsellor, the kids wouldn't even know they were supposed to be getting their card filled in for their badge. ultimately, administration was requested to go over the cards repeatedly and ask to SEE the cards to get them done. i had to have mine done with a maintenance guy when i showed my card to administration and the marks weren't on there properly in certain sports. maintenance brought me out there to test and i passed and then the counsellor was fired for not giving out proper scores (she did this to dozens of campers, which is weird all by itself and no explanation either, just refused to give out more than one point and you need at least three points in each sport to get a badge. the girl was a bitch). it went on for two or three summers dealing with her and then she was let go. you also had to "track" down whoever taught you the sport in order to get it filled in. the structure of it was a mess, especially for new people or for little kids. when i was older, i would drag people around to make sure they got their's because i knew what would happen if i didn't. a lot of my friends wouldn't do that, they didn't want to be bothered or waste their own precious time, helping people get their cards filled in. and some kids who had missed years for varying reasons, would purposely sabotage others so they wouldn't get their badge because they hadn't gotten all of their's.

some kids refused to participate properly so they knew they wouldn't get their's anyway. other ones refused to go to the activities and would keep saying they were ill and go to the infirmary kind of stuff.

getting a good score wasn't hard. for example, in boating, you get one point for getting into the boat that is on the water. you get another point for trying to use the oars and staying out on the water while the boat is floating around. you get another point for getting out of the boat properly. that's three right there. its kind of taught similar to driver's ed. the stronger driver ends up rowing the most, which is wrong, because your arms won't build up muscle to be able to row, if you aren't rowing to begin with. if you are a rower then you get another point and if you are able to turn the boat and/or dock it then you get another point which is a full five.

so basically, get in and get out and sit in the boat on the water is THREE POINTS. each activity is like that. its verrrry basic, so why some of the counsellors put the little kids especially through the ringer with it, is beyond me. cancelling them out early on and making it grueling to do all this stuff, MAKES THEM NOT WANT TO TRY anymore and they give up PERMANENTLY unless they figure out what happened and that the counsellor is an asshole. it can actually end up being this huge trauma. one year when i had forgotten to do my card because i was putting together a camp manual and photos etc., i had to go around to the counsellors to get it done. it went well, until i got to the counsellor lm, for canoeing. she refused to sign it, even though it was an easy sport for me. she was like what are you going to do about it. i ended up announcing to the dining hall how many didn't get their points for canoeing? it was like HALF the campers, she refused to give out points. wtf? they had to test everyone at the dock and over ride her. luckily, she was only a counsellor for that one year. when asked why, she said she didn't get all of her points for canoeing or boating as a camper (the reason she didn't is she was sent home for violence and wasn't allowed back for two summers because of violence, she was HITTING people with the wooden canoe paddle). why even make her a counsellor later on? at other camps she would have been expelled PERMANENTLY. at this camp they sent them home and gave them other chances in other years. she should have been sent to a special ed camp where they deal with people with violence issues all the time.

the badges from these reports were given out to almost every camper during the friday awards night in session one and probably to half of the campers in session two only because most of them already received their badge during session one. the cornerstones were bestowed on select campers for truth, love, friendship, fortitude, and leadership (which often went to whoever won the cit award winner, unless the camper getting the veteran's award had more points.) you had to memorize a couple of lines of the cornerstone and sometimes the friendship cornerstone was given to two campers who were bestfriends, but the real idea of the friendship one was that the camper be really friends and a friend to all and a friend to animals and nature and all that. like a person well met, kind of person.

the fortitude one which means bravery or courage, went something like this: "i am the cornerstone of fortitude (like the example of fortitude) be brave, i don't remember the rest. lol. they announce that it goes to the camper who best exemplifies that cornerstone at that time for that characteristic. some people win cornerstones often and some people never win them at all. some people are so far removed from all of that, that on awards night, they don't quite know what is going on who is getting what or why. the program-pamplet for the night, which explains all these different things, helps it along, but most of the campers don't read or collect those (though they should, each year should have been archived somewhere. often the programs would have the names of the winners in there, so it was important that the parents not see the campers and tell them. the skit that won would be shown. and songs sung on the way into the council ring and during camp. singing was a big thing and the parents go for this, some of the songs sound excellent with little kids following it along in their high voices. they have you practice until you get it. its usually the same songs every year. they also try to get the parents to sing along to some of the songs. lol. but i think they like this part. singing is actually a mood lifter. the trophies are given to best rookie, veteran, cit and counsellor. the best veteran camper is the one with the most competition, like 100 people vying for it, vs. 16 trying for counsellor and 20 trying for cit. generally there are only a dozen or so rookies and the younger rookies rarely win it if they are competing again a camper who is ten or twelve and at camp for the first time. they should have had something for the little ones, as some of those kids are only between age 2 and 5, its amazing they got through at all.

the trophies were gold (fake gold) and inscribed. you could take it home, if your parents were non-existant or assholes and didn't want trophies in their home, it could be left at the camp and they would display it and store it for you, but then there is a chance it could end up gone as well. later on they made it so you could opt for a plaque with gold for the same thing.

Tireless guardian oer' our way
Thou has kept us well this day
While we thank thee, we request
care continued pardon rest
Amen

was this dinner and then this next one breakfast? new day? so then just lunch is missing?

this one was lunch i guess. someone else posted it.

Father for this new/noon? day meal we do speak the praise we feel....
Gracious giver of all good thee we thank for rest and food....Amen

totally don't recall this one at all, but here it is in case its needed?

The Lord is good to me, and so I thank the Lord, for giving me, the things I need, the sun, the rain and the appleseed, the lord is good to me....amen

Tireless guardian oer' our way
Thou has kept us well this day
While we thank thee, we request
care continued pardon rest
Amen

must be dinner? "kept us well this day"



Father for this new day meal we do speak the praise we feel....
Gracious giver of all good thee we thank for rest and food....Amen


must be breakfast? "the new day"


totally don't recall this one at all, but here it is in case its needed? maybe lunch, but i don't recall it?

"The Lord is good to me, and so I thank the Lord, for giving me, the things I need, the sun, the rain and the appleseed, the lord is good to me....amen ..

year someone put peanut butter in the chow bell names not mentioned but camp director was very pissed also same year all camp counselor bunks were put out side some were in lake think camp director Ronnie Grovwiki and asst was George ILi it was a fun year Zook brothers were there that year 69.

george almost drowned that summer. He played the part of the slimey and by accident he was knocked into water with costume on and was under water for awhile if anybody was there that year I would like to hear from you.


nyBivz many memories of hours fishing off those rocks. camp is where i learned to like hanging out with myself.

probably true of all of us, alone time - privacy is the most vital part of being alive.

Very Zen.

nyBiv for the most part, i was not allowed to hang out at all the camp activities when i wasn't enrolled as a camper, as my family lived up there because they worked there, i had to find ways to occupy my time.

i spent many hours alone exploring, fishing, catching frogs etc. and learned to love it. as an adult, i'm still a bit of a loner because i learned to love being alone and on my own so much...you really aren't alone when you are alone...you FEEL the whole nature thing, the force of it and you generally don't feel that, when you are with other living things and out there.

Had some very long talks with myself on those rocks. I never actually felt alone on those rocks..always felt right at home, one with nature kind of thing. Actually felt more WITH things when there, not less, always MORE.

does anyone remember the story about the rocks post it in the files section of this group to me the best story teller on all camp stories was Ronnie Graboweicki he told very good stories to the Kids wonder what ever happened to him. I looked up to him when i was younger he was a nice guy at boys club & Camp

Can someone write up the story about 3 bears rocks and put it in the files page of this group i`m not good at story telling there is a few camp stories that i remember (1) 3 Bears rocks (2) rocky the moose head in dinning room (3) the mad man of butler if someone could write these stories it would be nice to have them on file in our group... the deer head in the library.

oi had one week of seniority on me when we were 13. I continue to hear about it. During girls camping in July when the maintenance staff would clean the sanitation building, oi, with seniority, had to clean the light switches. There were two of them.

My job was to clean the urinals. Keep in mind it was GIRLS camping so they were rarely used. The rest of the group had to clean everything else.

pky

this is priceless:


Yes that is Ny Piechowski!!! I went to college w/her but sadly lost touch after. Haven't seen her on FB. C oi u know she had a major crush on u

oi I was digging her too. I was just too retarded to close the deal

D ilver Omg. She would die if she knew that!!

oi - ugh!

oi - I was just so unaware back then.

oi - as opposed to now when I'm unaware but, I'm aware of my unawareness.

P elly We're all unaware C oi.

G oi - I.have.no.words.for.this...

C oi Another great example of, when you're down and out, you can ALWAYS count on friends and family!!!

Thank you one and all. I haven't laugh this much since I had lunch with P elly & R lia on Friday.

A lunch that started at 11:30 a.m., ended at 9:30 p.m., and I got home at 2:am. OCA!!!

Kim N sin!!

P elly - C oi, that was a great Friday "lunch".

P elly actually says, we're all aware c oi. (he is saying, we are all aware that you are unaware and aware that you are aware that you are unaware. lol.)