The Council Room

[Frank X White]

Now when I reflect on my summers at Wyanoke I picture a lot of rites of passage/coming of age stories. Here are some of the things that come quickly to mind.

# Surviving an overnight camping excursion on the Kancamagus Highway in a torrential rain. We got completely soaked in our tents, but not before having a great campfire dinner.

# Learning in the dining hall over the radio (or perhaps TV) that Thomas Eagleton had resigned as George McGovern's VP candidate in '72.

# Arriving at one if the AMC huts after the end of a long day’s hike, and a handful of us diehards ran to the summit and back before dinner.

# Bringing my parents down to the Winnipesaukee waterfront and insisting that they drink directly from the lake, as we did all the time in those days. I remember them obliging albeit a bit reluctantly.

# Routinely getting a little nauseous on the hilly rides to church in Wolfboro on Sunday mornings after a full breakfast.

# A very fond memory of our tent's overnight canoe/camping trip, eating s'mores for first time and telling stories by the fire.

# Being called to see Mr. Bentley two times. The first after trying to pickup some girls on the town ferry ride, and then again when I rigged a bunch of camera flash cubes to go off at night in the tent. (Got bopped on the head first with flashlight for pulling that stunt.)

# Discovering where Chicago, IL is on the map in the camp library, after my parents visited to let me know we were moving out there in a month.

[DavidAyars]

Welcome Frank (Francis Xavier, or FX)! Great to hear from you!

Your memories are very cool. There are only a few news stories that I have any memory connection with camp, and the Eagleton one is not one of them. I remember the story of Sen. Eagleton resigning as VP nominee, but I don't associate it with camp. But I just checked, and sure enough, he quit on 8/1/1972, during the camp season, and I was there that day. Just don't remember that.

The only news stories I remember in connection with camp, in order of noise/impact at camp, are:
1. The first moon landing in July 1969, which everyone watched on TV.
2. The news story about the smoking gun of evidence which sunk Richard Nixon, which I heard on a radio in the camp office while putting the finishing touches on the Farewell Banquet Log in August 1974, and his TV statement announcing resignation from the presidency a few days later, which I watched on TV at home after being the councilor on the 6-week NYC bus run. I took a bus back to camp the next day as Gerald Ford was grimly inaugurated.
3. Assorted Red Sox scores and standings, especially since Bob Vaughan would post them on the blackboard in the dining hall.
4. Nixon impeachment hearings 1974--these were not the Watergate committee hearings of the year before, but the impeachment hearings in the House of Representatives. I listened to parts of them on the radio while laid up for a couple of days in the Infirmary--I don't remember why I was there, but I remember listening to these hearings. They were beyond tedious. Zzzzzzzz.
5. Woodstock Festival August 1969--I remember hearing a news story on the Jr./Sr. Shop radio on WRKO AM 670 out of Boston about massive traffic jams in New York. They made it sound miserable.

Nos. 4 and 5 were not generally discussed at camp, but I do think of Wyanoke in connection with them. Most Wyanokers tuned the outside world out as much as possible while there, but I was always something of a news junkie, even at camp.
_________________
Camper: J-8 1965 (Kevin Ryan), J-8 1966 (Mike Freeland), S-6 1967 (Russ Hatch), S-3 1968 (Jeremy Cripps), and JA-2 1969 (Dan Mannis).
JC: J-2 1970 (Bill Bettison) and J-3 1971 (Gene Comella). Councilor 1972, J-5 1973, and JA-1 1974 & 1975

[Frank X White]

David:

Thanks very much for your warm welcome and follow-up reflections.

I think you are spot on about the camp 'tuning out' phenomenon. Seems perfectly reasonable from one point of view, but then from another there's no way to put a cap on events from the outside world.

Having been just that much a younger lad, prior to my Wyanoke experience I vividly recall my parents saying an emphatic no to my sister when she wanted to go to Woodstock. Or the Beatles at Shea Stadium. Or both.

What a great site this is! I've been viewing all the images, and today stumbled upon the fact that I had a pretty good batting average the summer of '73 #:,)

http://www.wyanoke.com/gallery/Farewell-Banquet-Log-1974/FBL1973Pg16

Cheers, FX

[DavidAyars]

Interesting that when summoned "to the woodshed" with BMB, it was almost always to one of two places. You didn't say where you got called those two times, but I bet it was either:

1. The Little Guest House porch.
2. The corner table on the dining room.

Campers and staff almost never got summoned to his office in the Chapel, or to see him in a section of camp or at an activity site, or at the waterfront. Whatever was done wrong was almost always dealt with later and not when it happened, even if observed. Though there were rare exceptions, by and large Mr. Bentley believed in preserving dignity and not showing people up in front of groups of others.

There weren't a lot of times I got called in, but I do remember one, mentioned elsewhere on this forum, on one of those miserably hot summer days when the air wasn't moving. Right after lunch, Mrs. Bentley, in a bad mood from the heat, brusquely asked me to go get a councilor for her, and in an equally bad mood from the heat, I snapped back that I wasn't going that way and walked off. Mr. Bentley called me on it a day or two later. To the corner of the dining room porch. I knew they were right. I apologized alone to Mrs. Bentley and all was truly forgiven.

Oh, another time I got in trouble as a JC, goofing off in the dining room in front of campers. But the "older and wiser" councilor with me took by far the main heat for that one. I was just told to show better judgment and not do that again.

Things like this were generally dealt with pretty reasonably. Punishments like picking up and then holding a bucket of rocks didn't come from BMB in my time.
_________________
Camper: J-8 1965 (Kevin Ryan), J-8 1966 (Mike Freeland), S-6 1967 (Russ Hatch), S-3 1968 (Jeremy Cripps), and JA-2 1969 (Dan Mannis).
JC: J-2 1970 (Bill Bettison) and J-3 1971 (Gene Comella). Councilor 1972, J-5 1973, and JA-1 1974 & 1975