The Council Room

[Mike Freeland]

While responding to Jim Graves' note about hypnotism, I thought of certain events or fads which swept Wyanoke from time to time, causing BMB to label the season as "The summer of (place event/fad here)". "The Summer of the Fisher Cat" was one, for example.

Another such was "The Summer of the Rock-Throwers". There was a rowdy gang of ne'er-do-wells from Wolfeboro who would sneak into the woods up by Forest Road or the Guest House and lob stones into the Senior Camp after Taps, mobilizing every OD in the world to capture the miscreants. As far as I know, no one was ever nabbed, but it made for some exciting evenings. kept the kids up well after Taps, too. Oh Horrors.

Then there was Hoagy Klink (please forgive my possible misspelling, Mr. Klink - Clincque, perhaps?), a (then) bad-ass local my brother had the audacity to annoy down at the Carry one night. That was so long ago ('62 or so) that I forget most of what happened. I do know that there was some trepidation about going to town after that. Jim Culleton, I think, had some part in that, or maybe just some recollection, right Jim?

There was also the "Hey Rube" incident up in the Midget Ball field, which had guys sitting in trees waiting for the locals to come out to the Neck and stop whatever was going on. I think that one might have been a hoax though.

Pretty much anything that happened that was out of the ordinary, we ascribed to "Townies". That was convenient because a lot of it was us - witness the disastrous raid on Melansen's Beach by Garth and Mark Johnson (I was ODM and couldn't go, dammit). That was definitely the work of Townies.

Unfortunately, my memory of the details of these events has gone soft. Anyone out there have some fill material?
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'56-C-9 C. Mosher '57-C-9 Bill Feaster
'58-J-14 H. Peavy '59-J-11 G. Wood, C. Duncan
'60-S-8 R. Leavitt, D. Hemphill '61-S-1 E. Slocum
'62-JA-1 H. Dunbar '63-C-2 (JC)
'64-C-5, (JC) Councilor
'65-C-9 '66 - '72-J-8
'73-JA1 '75-J-6

[Chris Gill]

I remember being terrified of the townies when I was a Jr in J-8. I was certain I was vulnerable because the attack was going to come through the tennis courts. My councilor at the time was not very reassuring. I think he took great joy in seeing how scared he could get me.

Looking back on it I think that the theory that the townies were throwing rock into the Sr camp is a bit far fetched. How far was it from the FURP to the OD table? I think a more likely explanation is that the acorns were falling off the oak trees.
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1965-1975
C7,C8,J8,S4,S3

[Mike Freeland]

[Jim Graves]

On one of the nights I was Jr. OD during the summer of 74 or 75 I went into one on the tents to quiet the "boys" down to discover that in the midst of them was their councilor Ken Torlone. He mentioned that he was there and everything was OK. Attempting t do my "duty" I barked something like, "well it's after taps and you all need to be quiet. Which ticked off Ken because I had unwisely reprimanded him in front if his boys. A few nights later Ken approached me and said he needed my help because "townies" were expected to raid the camp that night and we needed someone to watch the midget ball field. Being the gullible responsible person I was, I dutifully went out to the ball field for about an hour with no trouble to be seen. I think I returned and reported to whoever was OD for the night and went down to the dining hall. When I returned to go to bed I found that all my belongings were missing. Some things were in front of the tent, under the tent platform and my memory is foggy but I found either my trunk or bed in the rafters of the upper jr. pines. How those "townies" or "torlonies" got around me and raided my tent escapes me.
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Jim Graves
67 J-2 Jerry Hoyt
68 J-5 Todd Whittimore
69 J-9 Charlie Thomas
70 S-1 Bob Arnot
71 S-5 Russ Vaughn
72 J-2 Dan Mannis
74 J-? (The small cabin across road from J-2) Councilor
75 J-5 Councilor

[Pat Freeland]

After too long I am back on the site and can splain Hoagy Klink.

It was 1963, I was a young, callow, and perhaps, based on this story, slightly suicidal. Six of us from CTown went in to Baileys one night to get ice cream. I remember Gene Scanlan and Dick Hawkins were there, don't know who the other three were. We drove John Munsel's red Chevy. He was OD and asked us to get him a cherry coke. As we turned on to Forest Road on the way back, a car full of girls threw a roll of toilet paper at us, and taking that to be a clever new way to pick up guys, we told them to follow us.

We drove to Carry Beach and were about to get out of the car when we saw a bunch of townies standing around a car and drinking beer. When they started coming toward us we drove on down Forest Road past camp to the airport, turned around and parked along the road near camp. The girls followed and we stood around their car chatting. The townies arrived and parked heading toward the airport on the opposite side of the road, got out of their car, and walked over. We ignored them and chatted with the girls.

Finally one of the townies, a rather large hunk of pot roast with no hair and fewer brains asked if I could drive the car. I said yes, and he told me to get in it and drive away. I asked him if he could drive their car, he said no to which I retorted something about getting his license. He turned his beer bottle so he was holding it by the neck, held it over the car fender and repeated his instructions. I told him not to pull the cave man bit at which point his mates started taunting the rest of our group and he said he was going to get me.

One of the girls whispered to me that they were scared of the townies so we (the girls and we) got into our cars and drove back toward camp. The townies had to go on down the road to turn around and in that time we were able to pull well in toward the midget archery range. We left the girls in their car and asked head councilor Mr. Scheirer if, under the circumstances, we could bring the girls into the chapel for a while. Nope.

John Munsell asked where his cherry coke was and we decided that we'd go get it. The townies were on the beach but didn't see us until the return trip, and as we passed they jumped into their car and tried to follow us but once again we eluded them. They drove up and down Forest Road looking for us so we decided to have it out with them. Lots of guys from the dining hall grabbed logs, canoe paddles and other quaint instruments of combat and hid in the woods near the Sr tennis courts while I walked along the road making my face plain to every passing car. No townies.

Finally someone, I think it was Dave Clemens, said let's go to Carry and get this resolved. About 30 of us went down and stood in a line facing the townies. Dave went over to talk to them and they started pushing him but that stopped soon, otherwise there'd have been a fight. He talked, they talked, and then he said "do you see the guy over there" and shone his light on every face. It stopped on my face, I stood unmoved while my short life flashed through my mind, but since I had been to chapel that Sunday, they didn't recognize me, but they did say that if they ever saw the red chevy they'd drive it off the road and beat the sh** out of the driver. And then they said "and the worse part is those guys got the girls."

Next day one of the kitchen crew came up to me and said "I hear you met Hoagy Klink." I said "who" and he told me he had heard about our adventure and that the guy who threatened me was just out of Concord prison where he did time for armed robbery, his name Hoagy Klink.

That's it, no moral, no sequel, no punch line, just a firm resolve on this reporter's part to not mouth off to muscular guys with no hair.
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Living with wife Vicki happily retired after we moved back to Cornwall, Pa.

[Jim Culleton]

Such a great topic and a great story, Pat! I must have missed out on most of those "townie" encounters as I don't recall ever engaging any gangster type townies during my 9 summers at Wyanoke, except for two nice young ladies (girls back then - 10th graders) during the summer of '63.

Stu Borger and I did wind up dating one of Burtis Vaughan's and Henry Maxfield's ( local realtor) daughters for most of that summer for which I am indebted to Pat for covering so many Midget Camp OD's for both Stu and me. I have mentioned this incident in a previous post so I'll try to be brief here:

Stu and I had an overnite at Land's End on a particularly rainy August night and invited the girls to visit us at Land's End after the kids were asleep. I escorted them from the Sr. parking lot, down through the Senior Camp and down the soggy one lane path to Land's End with all of us covered in ponchos. We were fortunate that the weather was so lousy that the Senior OD must have been in hiding so we encountered no resistance on the way down nor back to the parking lot. All told our "visitors" stayed at Land's End for a couple of hours with only 1 camper waking up and wondering where the females voices were coming from!

Looking back I'm sure that Stu and I could have been fired for this and, at the very least, severely reprimanded!

In another incident the young ladies drove up from town after Taps to visit Stu and me just outside of the Midget parking lot . . . . . . . not really a lot since the area could barely fit 3 cars. The girls parked along side Forest Road and just as they were about ready to get out Brad drives by in his stationwagon and stopped in front of their car! I said, "Geez, were in trouble now!" Brad, in a very diplomatic calm voice said something to the effect that we should not be hanging around these young ladies! Thankfully Brad didn't see their faces and so didn't know who they were and assumed that they were townies. Stu and I laughed about it afterwards and I still think about that incident and Brad's comments.
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'56 - J-9 J. Moulton
'57 - J-11 J. Moulton
'58 - J-4 E. Web Dann, S. Hood
'59 - S-6 P. Leavitt
'60 - S-2 F. Avantaggio
'61 - JA-1 RK Irons
'62 - C-9 JC with P. Freeland
'63 - C-1 JC with S. Borger
'64 - C-6 Councilor

[Jeff G]

There is a Carlton Hoagland Klinck up in Vermont.

Email is Hoaglandk@aol.com

Have fun...

Gotta love the www.....

JWG

[DavidAyars]

I saw him too, and with that name, you figure it has to be the same guy, but I'm skeptical... unless he really settled down after he got married... which is possible, I guess, but if you websearch Vermont's CHK, you'll see he's involved in stuff I don't think the Hoagy Pat encountered would have been involved in.

The Klinck family still has a phone listing in Wolfeboro under first initial J, with no address listed. During the later camp years, they owned property on the east side of Forest Rd. between Melanson's and Main St, and had a sign by the driveway which read "Klinck... Klank... Klunk". You do the math.
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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

[Jeff G]

I did some more digging and when you check the aol profile as noted in my previous posting.... BINGO.

Carlton H Klinck of Burlington has as a note that his nickname is indeed, Hoagy.

Looks like this diamond in the rough buffed up nicely. Always good to see that. Jeez..you should see the schools his daughter and son-in law are associated with. Harvard/Yale/MIT/Skidmore. Not too shabby.

Regards,

JWG

[DavidAyars]

Maybe it's the same guy. I'm still skeptical. It would be quite a rehabilitation... on paper, anyway.
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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

[Mike Freeland]

Jesus, Dave, you did it again. The Klinck...Klank...Klunk sign was a mystery to me back then -- what the hell was that supposed to mean?? And I'd forgotten it completely until you brought it up. Even after Pat's, um, discussions with him, I never made the connection. Wow.

Well, I'm glad on a couple of levels that Hoagie did well for himself and family. First,of course, is that it's always good to see anyone do well, especially after a maybe rocky start (and really, we don't even know that for sure. I mean the guy has achieved nearly legendary stature among Wyanokers of the day, and who's to say that the tales of his reputation weren't a bit hyperbolic? Maybe it was an aberrant summer of testosterone and bravado. We all grow up, huh, and we're not 18 any more.)

The other reason to be pleased that things went well for him is that, if you Google "Hoagy Klinck", this thread comes up right on top of the list. Another excellent reason to be charitable. I hope he isn't inclined to google himself, but then again, I'd love to have him get involved here. It'd be interesting to see if Mr. Klinck recognizes Pat's face, or the incidents.

Jeff, you're looking terrific, if your avatar is any indication. I'm glad to see that you finally took up smoking again. Honey's half gone. My GOD that's good stuff!!
_________________
'56-C-9 C. Mosher '57-C-9 Bill Feaster
'58-J-14 H. Peavy '59-J-11 G. Wood, C. Duncan
'60-S-8 R. Leavitt, D. Hemphill '61-S-1 E. Slocum
'62-JA-1 H. Dunbar '63-C-2 (JC)
'64-C-5, (JC) Councilor
'65-C-9 '66 - '72-J-8
'73-JA1 '75-J-6

[DavidAyars]