The Council Room

[DavidAyars]

Things have changed just a bit in the summer camp world, from Walter Bentley's time to now. The following Time Magazine column touches on both, mostly the now part. It's not much of a stretch to guess that BMB would have taken a very hard line on cell phones, iPods, laptops etc. at Wyanoke in 2008. (And I would as well, much as I love all three at home.)

from http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1820133,00.html

The Meaning of Summer Camp
by Nancy Gibbs copyright Time Magazine, July 14, 2008

I never went away to camp, even though--or maybe because--my father became president of the American Camping Association (ACA) when I was a kid. He liked to joke that my idea of camping was room service. I might have resented this had it been any less true.

I suspected it was time to send my daughter off to camp even before the day the power went out in our neighborhood and she and a hungry friend tried to roast a hot dog over a candle. Absent electricity, they spent the days making ankle bracelets and playing board games and writing a play together because no power means no screens, no iChat, no Sims. So I wasn't looking for some fancy culinary camp or robotics camp or whatever is fashionable now, just for someplace that teaches the appropriate interactions of sticks, weenies and flame. With no plugs.

Camps have always reflected children's dreams and parents' fears. In the 1880s, many rising middle-class families worried that industrial society had broken off some piece of the American soul, some tie to the frontier. Boys were growing soft: too much time with their mothers and their teachers, not enough manly activity. So the early camps promised, as a founder put it, to take "weakly boys out into camp life in the woods ... so that the pursuit of health could be combined with the practical knowledge outside usual academic lines."

Those first campers were wilderness tourists; today a wilderness is anyplace without bandwidth. I did send my daughter to tennis camp two years ago, but that didn't really count since it lasted five days and she was allowed to use her cell phone. This defies what I suspect is now the whole point of sleepaway camp: if 19th century campers were meant to retrieve lost survival skills--trapping, fishing, gunnery--21st century campers need to work on their social skills. The winter issue of Camping magazine noted that today's campers are often missing some basic interactive instruments; fantastically digitally aware, they are less familiar with the ideas of sharing their space, their stuff or the attention of the adults around them. For kids who are allowed to text during dinner, who have their parents on speed dial for whenever they get in trouble or need a ride, who communicate using more acronyms than a four-star general, a little autonomy is probably long overdue.

So I applaud the effort of traditional camps to pull the plugs: the ACA found in a 2007 survey that at least 3 out of 4 camps make kids leave their gizmos at home. It probably tells us something that the resistance often comes not from the kids but from Mom and Dad. Parents have been known to pack off their children with two cell phones, so they can hand over one and still be able to sneak off and call. Camp expert Christopher Thurber reports that parents grill directors about why they can't watch their kids' activities from a webcam or reach them by BlackBerry. Services like CampMinder and Bunk1.com do let camps post news and pictures to "help our families to feel as if they are with us at camp," as a Texas camp owner puts it. But that just invites inquiry about why Johnny looks sad or how Jenny's jeans got torn.

Even as they yield in varying degrees to the demands of hovering parents, camps have all sorts of nice ways to tell us our kids need a break from our eager interest and exhausting expectations. Camps talk about building "independence," argue that having kids learn to solve their own problems and turn to peers and counselors for support is a key part of the experience. The implications are clear. They're lighting campfires, hiding and seeking, doing the spooky things campers do that feel wonderfully illicit if just because they involve getting dirtier than usual. Nothing to worry about, Mom.

I'm betting that more and more parents will find that our concern about kids' wired ways overtakes our desire to be in touch. I'll hate not talking to my daughter. But I agree with MIT psychologist Sherry Turkle, who says our gizmos are a "tethering technology," a new kind of apron string, strong albeit wireless, a safety net woven a bit too tight. When colleges report kids explaining their lateness to class with the excuse that their mother forgot their wake-up call, when a professor finds undergraduates communicating with parents more than 10 times a week, I look back on my once-a-week calls home to the parents I was very close to and wonder if this really counts as progress. Maybe it wouldn't be bad to practice distance, not just physical but psychological; let our kids take a walk alone in the woods, maybe do the same ourselves, and relish the fresh conversations we'll get to have when we are together again come summer's end.

Find this article at:
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1820133,00.html
_________________
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

[Jim Culleton]

Great article, Dave! In previous posts I've asked the same question . . . . "What would Wyanoke/Winnemont be like today with all of our wireless technology?" I would want to ask Dana Russian about his son's current experience at Camp Belknap.

Personally the camp experience would have been compromised if kids had access to cell phones, PDA's and or laptops. Too much distraction from the work at hand. My kid's rarely if ever called home while I was councilor except in emergency situations. This kept the kids involved in the camp experience without undue outside interference. Geez, the campers and parents didn't seem to mind . . . . . . as all we had were the US Mail and the rotary phone in the dining hall and in Bea Stone's camp office! There were the Sunday "Letters to Home" and Parent's Weekends for interaction with family and campers. It worked out well and the kids gained from a consistent camp experience.

Glad that Wyanoke & Winnemont were no WiFi zones!
_________________
'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

[Mike Freeland]

She could have written several pages more and kept my interest. Is it really copyright July 14, 2008? That's next week.

Jim hit on a couple of things, especially the calling-home deal. Getting to a phone at Wyanoke back then required the approval of a no-nonsense committee, something so difficult (intimidating) to get that it was generally just not worth it. Sort of like a conscientious objector draft status. And it was a good thing that it was so difficult.

When I was a camper, things like telephones, buying a candy bar at Blacks and even crossing the threshold from the dining hall into the kitchen required permission. That concept seems to be a thing of the past. Nowadays, permission isn't an issue for a lot of kids. The concepts of permission and rules just don't seem to be there any more.

I was particularly annoyed by the thought of parents sending their kids to camp with two phones, one to be retained so the kid could skirt the rules. I think I'd keep both the phones and send the kid home. If you don't like it, send sweet little Aloysius to Computer Camp. What'd you come here for?

Well, things were different when I was a Midget. Everybody played by the rules. Right.

Uncle Gid used to send a large box of Hershey's chocolate products to me at camp every summer. Jeff Fincun had the largest stash of bubble gum I've EVER seen, before and since those days. And he chewed ALL of it. That was against the rules for sure. Mom used to send me comic books. And, in my worst violation of the spirit of the woods, I showed up, even as a camper, with a Transistor buried deep in my trunk! For those of you on the younger side, a Transistor in the 50s/60s was actually the entire 6-transistor radio, not just the component. It played AM stations in glorious Mono sound through a little white earwax-clogged earplug (for private listening), and which ran on a little Eveready carbon-cell 9-volt battery (black cat jumping through the hole in the "9") that lasted nearly two days, immediately after which it leaked vomit and bile all over the circuit board. You could get WLS in Chicago on some summer nights with the skip.

The candy I got, usually about 40 pounds of peanut clusters nobody really cared much for, was stolen by my mean councilor after he found it (the mixed stink of sneaker and chocolate coming from under a Midget's bunk isn't that hard to miss I guess -- somehow the chocolate seems out of place with the usual aromas) and was handed out to everyone at cookouts and other special occasions like, well, cookouts. There was always a huge load left over at the end of the summer. The chipmunks got it, I'm thinking. I was so sick of peanut clusters I didn't even want to take 'em home.

Then we, as councilors had our little record player (1800 D-cells) to play The Kingston Trio on. 'Member that Jim?

So we bent the rules. But we were just making our private lives a little happier after taps with the radios (now that I think of it, falling asleep with it stuck in my ear probably accounted for the puny battery lifespan and the earwax, not to mention those horrible strangling dreams.) We almost NEVER wanted our contraband to be shared with ANYONE, so we could use things like that only when others couldn't be included. Today's gadgetry includes outsiders to the exclusion of real, present people, benefitting nobody in the immediate vicinity. That's the main objection to those things at camp, in my book.

Even with all our own breaches of Wyanoke's ruscicity, I still bristled when I heard Mrs. Morin's TV ("thank-a-you s' verra much for the verra fine welcome for alla the champaigne-a-music-a-makers-a") inside Byrd's Nest when I was on my way to the dining hall for some after-taps cereal. TV just wasn't right at camp. Nor were Sunday papers. And LIGHT BULBS in cabins (J-16)! Nope.

I also would like to hear what Belknap's like now. And I'd love to see Garth's thoughts here too. He runs a traditional camp now in its 89th year. The digital age certainly affects his operation. We've actually discussed this quite a bit, and Agawam's attitude is "keep the electronics out", but within reason. You can't stop progress, even if you think it's more regress.

Still, a place like Wyanoke plopped into this age would be glorious. A little like Willoughby.
_________________
'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

[Jim Culleton]

Willoughby . . . . . . . . . . is that the "Twilight Zone" episode? Always love to watch the reruns! Is that where the train always stops at Willoughby? Great episode!
_________________
'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

[DavidAyars]

The issue date on the Time article is correct. Most magazines are dated forward maybe so that newsstand buyers don't think they're buying an old issue.

That reference in Nancy Gibbs' column to some parents supplying their little Snowflake with two cell phones sure raised my eyebrows too. I can never understand some parents scheming to undermine rules in a camp or school setting. I think I mentioned in the homesickness thread that, unlike Wyanoke, my kids' camps allowed kids or parents free access to camp office phones as needed, though I'm sure with some families, limits become necessary, but phone calls were still a rare occasion to or from camp for our family and caused no problems.

Camps don't like kids to bring an electronic device not only because it makes the woods more like home but also because it's one more expensive thing for the kid to lose, leave out in the rain, or get stolen.
_________________
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]

That is indeed the Willoughby I mean.
_________________
'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

[Jim Culleton]

[Tom Shirley]

My son's girlfriend is working at a camp in NH this summer and I was happy to hear that the electronics were banned from camp. I think kids really need that. Especially these days.

My family has a cabin on a lake in Maine and we go for twoweeks every summer. There is no electricity and we don't allow any battery powered devices either. The only exception is that my father listens tothe Red Soz games using headphones. We do a lot of reading and there are a lot of card games at night. Evey time we play hearts I am brought back to the hearts game sbeingf played at the junior camp OD platform.

I was wondering the other day about smoking at camp. I think I remember the Bentley's smoking but I don't remember seeing counsilors smoking (maybe Ken Torlone once in a while). Was smoking not allowed. Were there designated spots where they could smoke?
_________________
J-1 1970, Marc Liddle from Scotland
J-1 1971, Bob Vaughn
S-3 1972, Steve McDavitt
S-2 1973, Charlie Thomas
JA-2 1974, Dan Mannis
JA-1 1975, Dave Ayers

Proud to be Gray

[Mike Freeland]

Hi Tom,

Seems like everyone smoked in those days. Both Mr. and Mrs. Bentley smoked, usually in specific places like the office, corner of the dining hall veranda and on the Little Guest House porch. Everett Slocum used to perch on the toilet (trou up) at the far left (next to the urinals) in the Sr. Pines and smoke, flicking his butts at the little drain hole (about an inch in diameter) in the concrete floor. I never saw him get one in.

Lots of us smoked, and quite openly in front of the kids, though it was mildly frowned upon, and it was well before the days of smoking near any child being called "child abuse". I smoked in J-8 all the time, Pat smoked a pipe and kept a can of tobacco on his table in S-4. (brief aside: Pat noticed one time that his tobacco was disappearing a bit more quickly than he was smoking it, so he took a goodly quantity out of the can and stored it in his trunk, then shredded a couple of rubber bands into what was left in the can. Never said a word about it, and for some reason the pilferage sort of stopped on its own.)

I had a tradition of smoking a Camel (cigarette) at the top of every mountain I climbed in the White Mountains. And, though I've long since quit smoking, I have a Camel (cigarette) in a vacuum bag, ready just in case I ever get up my last unclimbed 4800-footer, Mt. Isolation. At this point, I don't think I'll get to smoke it.

There was a lot of smoking on the OD tables too, with the butts going into the OD fire.

Once, on a really rainy mountain trip with older Seniors and JAs into the Carter region, my Camels got wet and hadn't dried out enough to ignite, so I approached one of the older Seniors (you know who you are) and asked him to slip me a cig. "Whaddya mean," he said. "I don't even...", then handed me a Marlboro. I probably shouldn't have done that, but I justified it by thinking that it was just a tiny bit more morally acceptable to bum a smoke from him than imperiously confiscate his pack, then smoke all of them myself, which I definitely would have done.

The kitchen boys, back in '62, I think, had a number 10 can (like the ones with the bail and with the silverware, soap and Kurley Kate in it that came with your cookout box) with a few inches of water in it that they threw all their butts into. They didn't empty it all summer until someone kicked it over in mid-August in the dark. There's no aroma like that. That was downstairs, below the Jr/Sr. Dining Hall. I bet you can still smell it in the weeds where the dining hall once stood.

Again, in the early 60s, someone flicked a butt out the front doors of the Midget Chapel and it landed on an old mattress, which caught fire. I ran all the way down to the dining hall where BMB was sitting on the veranda and breathlessly told him there was a mattress on fire in the Midget Chapel. "Put it out", he said. I ran all the way back and did. Ah, youth. I must've been a real Gomer.

In the Winnemont section of the galleries is a councilor's handbook, and there's a section on smoking rules. Those rules were similar at Wyanoke, but I can't remember where they were written down. Maybe the Council Book, but I don't have a copy of that. Anyone out there have one?

So that's what I know about smoking at Wyanoke. Times sure have changed, haven't they?
_________________
'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

[Jim Culleton]

[Mike Freeland]

Rum & Maple??? No No No!!! If Pat ever reads this (not too likely, at least probababilistically), he would chastise you with great rancor. He always smoked Edgeworth. Always will. I think they stopped making it, though. Just like anything you tend to like, they pull it from the shelves when "they" find out it's your favorite.

And oh yes did we smoke in the Cabintown Chapel! The Cabintown Chapel was a chapel pretty much in name only. It was a remote haven for after-taps camraderie camp-wide at least in the early 60s. Nobody ever bothered us there.

Jim, do you remember the lobster/steak/corn-on-the-cob/BUTTER bacchanalian (without booze!! How the hell did we do that??) feasts we had between the chapel and the Midget shop? The lobster-offals food fights, the cleanups (by god we did clean up after those times, and damned responsibly well too.) Next day was business as usual. How did the kids ever sleep through all that? We never could have pulled that off in Boyden Chapel. So yeah we smoked in the Cabintown Chapel. At least I did.
_________________
'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

[Tom Shirley]

Funny how we have selective memory. I was a second year JA in 1975. I do vaguely remember some campers sneaking smokes but I honestly don't remember much about councilors smoking. Sounds like it happened but it must have been so common place that it did not make an impression on me.

My father always smoked a pipe and mixed Edgeworth with Half & Half. Funny that I remember that. Not sure why. I always hated his smoking. Especially in the car in the winter when the windows could not be opened.

I guess smoking was an accepted part of the culture back then. I bet you could not find a camp these days that allowed smoking near a camper.
_________________
J-1 1970, Marc Liddle from Scotland
J-1 1971, Bob Vaughn
S-3 1972, Steve McDavitt
S-2 1973, Charlie Thomas
JA-2 1974, Dan Mannis
JA-1 1975, Dave Ayers

Proud to be Gray

[Jim Culleton]

[Mike Freeland]

Oh yeah, the Piano Smash!

I don't remember very well who came up with the idea, but I think it was Pat. We did get permission to do it, and it went along swimmingly until someone either let the sledge hammer slip out of his hands at the top of his back swing or the head came off the hammer. Whatever it was sailed right through the crowd, narrowly missing Brad and god knows how many innocent bystanders. BMB raised his right hand in that "How!" fashion he had and said something like "Stop." That was it right there.

Jim, you're coming up with some amazing things after 45 years. Bet you don't remember what you had for lunch yesterday. I sure as hell don't. Probably because you never told me what you had for lunch yesterday

And you're absolutely right about setting up near the tennis courts. If you remember, there was a little stone fireplace there, and we boiled up the water for the lobsters on it. We borrowed the big pots from Phil Hodgson in the kitchen, so the cleanup involved getting in the Cabintown showers with the pots and some Kurly Kates (those things were like barnacles -- they were everywhere at Wyanoke) and generic floating soap to get all of the black soot off the pots and back to the kitchen before midnight. If we hadn't, we'd all have been part of the next New England Boiled Dinner.

Maybe we turned Candy Line that evening into Vallium Line, then put the kids to bed and read selections from the Federal Register to them for a couple hours before starting our feast. That'd probably do it for a 9-year-old.
_________________
'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

[Jim Culleton]