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| Photo taken several years before the author was there. I'm surprised the pickerel weren't jumping onto the foredeck. Five feet long, minimum. |
Check out the wooden wraparound splash guard on this vintage
Sunfish. The gooseneck height was rigged for maximum tacking and
gybing comfort. I sailed this boat many times on that same pond,
Elbow Pond in Andover, New Hampshire. Ragged Lake Camp,
a summer camp where my brother and I went for the summers of
1972 and '73, was an ideal place for boys to go to gain appreciation
for the outdoors, live in tents, wash in the lake, eat in the mess hall,
drink bug juice, get eaten alive by mosquitos, and partake in all the
other charming activities that summer camp could afford.
Now that I've opened this can of worms, expect more on this
enchanted place, considering the onset of summer.
I'd have thought you'd get shipped off to the Poconos. Maybe they figured that was close enough that you could still hitchhike back home.
ReplyDeleteI did my time in East Stroudsberg. Pine scented mountain air. Bracing swims in the Delaware. Powdered eggs for breakfast.
I think I first learned to question authority there when a counselor sent me off to find fifty feet of shoreline.
You remember Leonard Skinner?
He got ptomaine poisoning last night after dinner.
Hitch-hiking! Yet more ammo for future posts.
DeleteThe shoreline quest reminds me of one of my CIA classmates. Our chef-instructor, pissed off at something (surprise) ,sent him to another kitchen to get ketchup for the Bechamel. It didn't end well. We all silently wished he would realize the trap. Oh well.
O D: And by that time, my family was separated and Mom and the boys were permanently Jersey residents. There was a very prominent NJ presence there at Ragged Lake, with the directors having come from the same Garden State.
DeleteThe can of worms will squiggle open.
Jeez, what you learn on the blogosphere! 'Fer instance, you and H did summer camp in NH??
DeleteAs usual, I think O Dock was on the money, with reference to the cohort.
The pal I shared an apartment with when I first moved to NYC had all 2(?) of Allan Sherman's records, and he sang this classic felicitously (if lubricated), when prompted.
Oh, and yes, as O Dock also noted, a camper in the '70s could easily find their way home after a spell in the wilderness by simply raising their thumb!
DeleteI was just gonna say, a creative sign trumped the thumb any day. Doug, you want to chime in? I hitched back and forth across Pennsylvania with a wide array of drivers, some of whom made me/us fear for our lives. Later, I did the Poughkeepsie to Bridgeport route a handful of times. Hitchhiking these days is all but non-existent.
DeleteSad but true, Baydog. And probably for good reason in our society today. It's the principle in the insurance industry known as adverse selection. Too many of those drivers willing to pick up riders today have motives other than just helping a fellow traveler.
DeleteTo your point about fearing for your life at times, we were probably just naive. Seemed to us like it was just an easy rider.
I met Peter Fonda at Lahiere's a few years ago. He sat in the back corner of the bar next to the piano for hours one Saturday night. Pete was banging away, and Peter and his dining mate seemed to have quite an enjoyable evening. One of the unforgettable memories.
DeleteAnd if I remember correctly, I kept daring Pete to play The Pusher.
DeleteTakes me back to the 1950's where Dad took us for Sunday sailing on Monument Lake. Sad to see there's no sailing there now.
ReplyDelete"Summer camp," is this strange ritual an east coast tradition? In California, we'd go up to the ranch or the "Lake." (Lake Tahoe) In Hawaii, we'd go to the beach....it didn't matter if it was summer or winter. So, since this summer camp thing is a mystery to me and possibly others, please engage us with more tales of wonder from the wilds of New Hampshire.
ReplyDeleteJoe, summer camp is for kids who grow up where trees are something the landscape service installs.
DeleteUntil the age of ten, I thought there were only two kinds of tree: 10- and 20-gallon.
Oh come on Joe! Summer camp is where you tried and failed to impress that special girl.
ReplyDeleteThere's a topic for you......
I'm a little late to the party... was the whole Sunfish wooden? I've seen some sweet photos of restoration jobs done to old Sunfish woodies.
ReplyDeleteSummer camp for us was usually just a week or two (with the whole family) on Lake Michigan. And <a href="http://camp-arcadia.com/>Camp Arcadia</a> is more of a rustic resort than a true camp.