Kali
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Camp is...
The place I grew up. It’s my Hideout from a stressful world. It is my #1 Vacation destination. Camp is where I learned to swim, ride a motorbike, where I have caught most of my fish. It is where I almost learned to waterski. Camp is where I am the happiest. It is where I can relax. Where I can always be me. It is where I have met the newest family members, where family can always be found. Camp is where we reunite after periods of living our separate lives. Camp is where I learned to love my extended family, in fact Camp made it so I did not know the difference between immediate and extended family because everyone was right here. Camp is where I learned to be myself.Camp is where many people learn to be themselves. Camp is where I hope Jen’s and my children learn to be themselves. And as the world changes around us, I hope they will experience things as I did, at Camp and through Camp. Camp is the best place on earth, and there’s nowhere I’d rather be. Camp is the physical manifestation of perfection, relaxation, and most of all love.
Shani circa 2004
I know it isn’t a big building, but it’s never been small. As a child, I remember not being able to see the desserts sitting atop the counter. I remember trying to sneak a peek while my family was at the beach. I remember the mornings, wrapped up in a big cozy cotton blanket, staring down at the calm water. Looking out the screen, watching the ducks enjoying time on the dock before anyone woke up to shoo them away. The only kind of cereal was the healthy kind, but here at my camp, that was O.K. I didn’t mind the lack of berry crunch, or sugary swirl, the oats were good enough for me, but only when I was there. Only when the wind smells like pine or when the roads were quiet.
I remember the morning sand in between my toes, sending shivers up my spine. The water is cold and still. I poke my toe in and watch the ripples hit the shore. I remember the walkway from the camp to the beach seemed twice as long on the way back up, even though it wasn’t even very long to begin with. I remember being scared of that place where I saw the snake even years after it had slithered away.
The blueberries in Freedom, New Hampshire, are sweeter than the blueberries in heaven. I remember having to bring my gram’s watch so I could be back before too late because too many times I ate blueberries until after dark.
As I grew up, I gained more and more privileges. Like going to the raft without a life jacket, or using the canoe with my cousins. I remember late nights on the water’s edge watching the stars with my family. I’d look up, and pick my favorite and just stare at that one until my eye lids became too heavy. Then I would turn and go back up to the place I loved so much.
The familiar creak of the screen door is a sound I only recently learned to love. The pictures on the wall, the trophies on the mantle, the ash in the woodstove, are all things that make this little cottage my home. The spiders here remain alive, and the moths are welcome. This is my camp, and it is their camp. The door to the bathroom is more than just a door, it is a record keeper from way back in the 40s.On the door is every person’s height, multiple times, from various years. There is Champ’s from 1959, or Joe’s from 86. I see my marks from over my lifetime, and I can’t even remember half of them being recorded. I do remember the one in pink ink though. I wasn’t supposed to use pink, no one before ever had so I might as well. I did, then I remember not being able to hide the fact that it was me.
I remember the morning sand in between my toes, sending shivers up my spine. The water is cold and still. I poke my toe in and watch the ripples hit the shore. I remember the walkway from the camp to the beach seemed twice as long on the way back up, even though it wasn’t even very long to begin with. I remember being scared of that place where I saw the snake even years after it had slithered away.
The blueberries in Freedom, New Hampshire, are sweeter than the blueberries in heaven. I remember having to bring my gram’s watch so I could be back before too late because too many times I ate blueberries until after dark.
As I grew up, I gained more and more privileges. Like going to the raft without a life jacket, or using the canoe with my cousins. I remember late nights on the water’s edge watching the stars with my family. I’d look up, and pick my favorite and just stare at that one until my eye lids became too heavy. Then I would turn and go back up to the place I loved so much.
The familiar creak of the screen door is a sound I only recently learned to love. The pictures on the wall, the trophies on the mantle, the ash in the woodstove, are all things that make this little cottage my home. The spiders here remain alive, and the moths are welcome. This is my camp, and it is their camp. The door to the bathroom is more than just a door, it is a record keeper from way back in the 40s.On the door is every person’s height, multiple times, from various years. There is Champ’s from 1959, or Joe’s from 86. I see my marks from over my lifetime, and I can’t even remember half of them being recorded. I do remember the one in pink ink though. I wasn’t supposed to use pink, no one before ever had so I might as well. I did, then I remember not being able to hide the fact that it was me.
Camp 2009 by Patrick
Camp 2009
Camp means swiming
and biking and visiting
with family and friends,
and without camp gram-
jam would be history.
Camp means a lot to
me. I love hearing
laughing and hearing
birds singing. that is what
camp means to me. by Pat
and biking and visiting
with family and friends,
and without camp gram-
jam would be history.
Camp means a lot to
me. I love hearing
laughing and hearing
birds singing. that is what
camp means to me. by Pat
The Camp at Freedom, by Cousin Bill Shaw
I suspect my first visit to the camp was in the summer of 1939. It was not the camp that is now there, but the one which burned down about 1950. At my Uncle Ray's suggestion and arrangements, I had been at Camp Lincoln, the Portsmouth YMCA camp in Kingston, NH, despite the fact that I lived in the Bayside section of New York City. Uncle Ray's wife was my father's sister, Bertha. He was always known to us as Uncle Ray although his full name was George Raymond Chick and outside the immediate family he seemed to be called George or Doc. He had been a Medic in the army in France in World War One. He took pity on his city boy nephew. 1 was a couple of months shy of my seventh birthday.
The camp at that time was one of three on the lake. The other two were owned by Ray's brother and a close friend called Uncle Marlin by the kids. The cabin was small with a door on the roadside into the kitchen with a bedroom to the right and the living room behind the kitchen and the wrap around porch on the lake side. There was no electricity but an ice box, a pump beside the sink and a kerosene lamp in the living room. The kids all slept on cots on the porch.
For the next five years I spent four weeks each summer at Camp Lincoln. Uncle Ray and Aunt Bertha would come over on Sunday afternoons to check on me and leave me some of Aunt Bertha's famous blueberry muffins (the blueberries picked from the woods around the camp). Uncle Ray had a water spaniel which he had trained to dive on command and a show for the whole camp would be put on. The spaniel raced down the hill to the dock and leaped off the end, spread eagled, for a big splash, a quick swim back and up the hill to her starting point, ready for the command to go again.
Following those weeks, I usually went to Freedom for Uncle Ray to teach me how to fish. I learned as much by watching as listening so it was fortunate that Uncle Ray was left handed. He tended to cast with a side arm motion which I copied. Since I was right handed this worked well. He and I could both cast in the same direction from opposite ends of the boat. That boat was a long row boat which I believe he had built himself. It was really built to be used with a five horse power outboard motor but oars were kept in it for emergencies. One summer when I was there with my family, but without the Chicks, I had the boat to my self but no motor. I discovered just how big the lake was. I didn't get much beyond Levitt Bay. I caught only one fish in five days and that was after docking the boat following two hours of "not a bite". I saw a turtle poke his head up about thirty feet from the dock and tried to land a spoon near him. He disappeared but as I retrieved the line a pickerel hit the spoon and I had my only catch of the week.
Fishing with Uncle Ray was one the joys of my life. We would go out about seven in the morning for two hours and again about six in the evening. We might do some trolling on the way thru Broad Bay up to Spindle Point but we both preferred to drift and cast at Spindle Point, or near the island in Levitt Bay or at the submerged boulder where Berry Bay starts to the river. Uncle Ray caught the biggest pickerel I ever saw at that spot. It dove and struggled for a good five minutes before we got it into the boat. Boating the fish was always a problem because Uncle Ray did not believe nets were fair. Over the years I managed to catch some pickerel but I loved being there whether we caught anything or not. One year we had no luck for three straight days. Uncle Ray told me we needed an early bedtime because we were going to Huckins Pond in the morning as he had never failed to catch something up there. We took the boat to a creek to the right of the YMCA Camp on Broad Bay and motored very slowly, with me lying on the forward deck calling out the rocks. That creek eventually went under the road and into the Danforth Ponds to another even narrower creek that led up to Huckins. We were all alone on Huckins and saw only one sign of civilization; an abandoned shack. Uncle Ray soon had a good sized pickerel and we returned in triumph although somewhat chagrined. We sheared a pin in the engine halfway across Broad Bay and had to row the rest of the way.
We cleaned and ate everything we caught. He taught me how to clean a fish but Aunt Bertha cooked them. Pickerel are sweet but bony. The fun was catching them. The only bass I ever caught was off the island in Levitt Bay and it was a particular thrill as it jumped several times, which a pickerel won't do. Uncle Ray explained that pickerel eat young bass, so plentiful pickerel means a lack of bass.
At that time, there were few boats on the water, particularly during the week. The shore opposite the camp was owned by the power company and there were no cabins on it. Uncle Ray believed in five HIP engines. Chick Motors sold Johnson outboards and he frequently brought up a new one for a weekend and "broke it in". One Sunday, Uncle Marlin came up but did not have his boat in the water yet. He borrowed Uncle Ray's but, in mounting the engine, he failed to fully tighten the clamps, and when the engine caught in about ten feet of water it popped out and sank. They sent for me. They gave me a line with a loop and asked me to dive down and connect it to the engine which was in plain sight from the surface. On the third try I got it attached and they pulled it up to the boat. Ray and Marlin spent the rest of the day tearing down the engine and putting it back together. In doing that they lost a cotter pin and Ray fabricated one from a hair pin supplied by Aunt Bertha. They tested the engine and it ran fine. Over the years I have wondered if whoever bought that engine had occasion to tear it down and wonder why Johnson was using hairpins in their outboards.
Uncle Ray did not believe in fishing when the sun was high. The kids spent most of the day time in the water. The dock extended about twenty feet into the lake and there was enough depth at the end for a shallow dive. The boat was tied to the dock. There were also day trips. I particularly remember the darkness of Tilton's General Store in Freedom with the sign " Open Every Day (except when i go fishing)". Our visits showed that Mr. Tilton did a lot of fishing. Midge and I also hiked up Green Mountain and viewed the White Mountains from the top of the Fire Watch Tower. Running back down was easier and a lot more fun. On a trip to Cannon Mountain, Uncle Ray stopped in Lincoln on the way home to ask if there was a short cut to Ossipee. He was told that the Sandwich Notch road starting about three miles east of Campton would cut several miles off the trip and that it was passable. We tried it. It was a ten mile dirt road but the first two miles were up and the next eight down. It was tough on car and driver but exciting to the ten year old in the back seat. Uncle Ray said he probably misunderstood the man and heard "passable" rather than "possible". Veronica and I drove it again about fifteen years later and found it rugged but beautiful. One day in August, Uncle Ray and I scoured the countryside trying to find a farmer who still had some ice buried in sawdust in his barn. We were lucky on the fourth stop as the ice box at the end of the porch was almost empty.
Uncle Ray also taught me to shoot with his 22 rifle. In the middle of one lesson he became irritated by a very noisy squirrel and took off thru the woods after it with the 22. He fired two shots but the squirrel got away. He also showed me his Army Colt 45 automatic pistol which he had kept from his service in France. The next time I saw one was in Korea ten years later and it was on my waist while I was serving as Officer of the Day once a month.
An owner several sites east of the camp had a boat with a twenty-five horse outboard which he would noisily run at full speed between Levitt and Broad Bays on weekends. This annoyed Uncle Ray and everyone else. One summer in the mid forties a rumor went around that this owner, known as Jackie Junior (or was that his boat?), wanted to put in an airstrip behind the row of cabins on the lake. Uncle Ray went into town ( Center Ossipee?) to see who owned the land and, with his brother, promptly bought the land behind the lake front cabins. I can remember driving into Freedom with him and Aunt Bertha when he would stop in the middle of the woods and peer out the side. Bertha would ask what he was looking at and he would very slowly say "See that tree? That’s my tree. Bertha would say "Oh Ray, don't be silly!" It worked out very well in the long run.
Uncle Ray spent a good deal of time teasing Aunt Bertha, which she loved. Much of the kidding was about Bertha's sister, Fannybelle, who was a short, stocky, extremely warm hearted, very talkative dynamo. I imagine he also kidded her about her brother Ralph, my father, who was as useless with mechanical objects as Ray was talented, but he did not do that when I was there. His daughter, Priscilla (Robin), did not always enjoy his kidding. While she was rarely there when I was, I have never forgotten her seething when driving with her father as a passenger and me in the back seat and rather than suggesting she slow down, he said "You know those are telephone poles not a picket fence".
Uncle Ray was a second father to me and could provide things my father could not. After my father died in 1949, Uncle Ray stepped in and gave my sister away at her wedding and was my sponsor when I graduated from Bowdoin College, both in 1953.
I shall never forget the view of Mount Chocorua from the dock at either sunrise or
sunset. My last recollection of the old camp is the sound of gunfire and firecrackers on VJ Day ending the second World War in August of 1945.
Cousin Bill Shaw July 14, 2009
The camp at that time was one of three on the lake. The other two were owned by Ray's brother and a close friend called Uncle Marlin by the kids. The cabin was small with a door on the roadside into the kitchen with a bedroom to the right and the living room behind the kitchen and the wrap around porch on the lake side. There was no electricity but an ice box, a pump beside the sink and a kerosene lamp in the living room. The kids all slept on cots on the porch.
For the next five years I spent four weeks each summer at Camp Lincoln. Uncle Ray and Aunt Bertha would come over on Sunday afternoons to check on me and leave me some of Aunt Bertha's famous blueberry muffins (the blueberries picked from the woods around the camp). Uncle Ray had a water spaniel which he had trained to dive on command and a show for the whole camp would be put on. The spaniel raced down the hill to the dock and leaped off the end, spread eagled, for a big splash, a quick swim back and up the hill to her starting point, ready for the command to go again.
Following those weeks, I usually went to Freedom for Uncle Ray to teach me how to fish. I learned as much by watching as listening so it was fortunate that Uncle Ray was left handed. He tended to cast with a side arm motion which I copied. Since I was right handed this worked well. He and I could both cast in the same direction from opposite ends of the boat. That boat was a long row boat which I believe he had built himself. It was really built to be used with a five horse power outboard motor but oars were kept in it for emergencies. One summer when I was there with my family, but without the Chicks, I had the boat to my self but no motor. I discovered just how big the lake was. I didn't get much beyond Levitt Bay. I caught only one fish in five days and that was after docking the boat following two hours of "not a bite". I saw a turtle poke his head up about thirty feet from the dock and tried to land a spoon near him. He disappeared but as I retrieved the line a pickerel hit the spoon and I had my only catch of the week.
Fishing with Uncle Ray was one the joys of my life. We would go out about seven in the morning for two hours and again about six in the evening. We might do some trolling on the way thru Broad Bay up to Spindle Point but we both preferred to drift and cast at Spindle Point, or near the island in Levitt Bay or at the submerged boulder where Berry Bay starts to the river. Uncle Ray caught the biggest pickerel I ever saw at that spot. It dove and struggled for a good five minutes before we got it into the boat. Boating the fish was always a problem because Uncle Ray did not believe nets were fair. Over the years I managed to catch some pickerel but I loved being there whether we caught anything or not. One year we had no luck for three straight days. Uncle Ray told me we needed an early bedtime because we were going to Huckins Pond in the morning as he had never failed to catch something up there. We took the boat to a creek to the right of the YMCA Camp on Broad Bay and motored very slowly, with me lying on the forward deck calling out the rocks. That creek eventually went under the road and into the Danforth Ponds to another even narrower creek that led up to Huckins. We were all alone on Huckins and saw only one sign of civilization; an abandoned shack. Uncle Ray soon had a good sized pickerel and we returned in triumph although somewhat chagrined. We sheared a pin in the engine halfway across Broad Bay and had to row the rest of the way.
We cleaned and ate everything we caught. He taught me how to clean a fish but Aunt Bertha cooked them. Pickerel are sweet but bony. The fun was catching them. The only bass I ever caught was off the island in Levitt Bay and it was a particular thrill as it jumped several times, which a pickerel won't do. Uncle Ray explained that pickerel eat young bass, so plentiful pickerel means a lack of bass.
At that time, there were few boats on the water, particularly during the week. The shore opposite the camp was owned by the power company and there were no cabins on it. Uncle Ray believed in five HIP engines. Chick Motors sold Johnson outboards and he frequently brought up a new one for a weekend and "broke it in". One Sunday, Uncle Marlin came up but did not have his boat in the water yet. He borrowed Uncle Ray's but, in mounting the engine, he failed to fully tighten the clamps, and when the engine caught in about ten feet of water it popped out and sank. They sent for me. They gave me a line with a loop and asked me to dive down and connect it to the engine which was in plain sight from the surface. On the third try I got it attached and they pulled it up to the boat. Ray and Marlin spent the rest of the day tearing down the engine and putting it back together. In doing that they lost a cotter pin and Ray fabricated one from a hair pin supplied by Aunt Bertha. They tested the engine and it ran fine. Over the years I have wondered if whoever bought that engine had occasion to tear it down and wonder why Johnson was using hairpins in their outboards.
Uncle Ray did not believe in fishing when the sun was high. The kids spent most of the day time in the water. The dock extended about twenty feet into the lake and there was enough depth at the end for a shallow dive. The boat was tied to the dock. There were also day trips. I particularly remember the darkness of Tilton's General Store in Freedom with the sign " Open Every Day (except when i go fishing)". Our visits showed that Mr. Tilton did a lot of fishing. Midge and I also hiked up Green Mountain and viewed the White Mountains from the top of the Fire Watch Tower. Running back down was easier and a lot more fun. On a trip to Cannon Mountain, Uncle Ray stopped in Lincoln on the way home to ask if there was a short cut to Ossipee. He was told that the Sandwich Notch road starting about three miles east of Campton would cut several miles off the trip and that it was passable. We tried it. It was a ten mile dirt road but the first two miles were up and the next eight down. It was tough on car and driver but exciting to the ten year old in the back seat. Uncle Ray said he probably misunderstood the man and heard "passable" rather than "possible". Veronica and I drove it again about fifteen years later and found it rugged but beautiful. One day in August, Uncle Ray and I scoured the countryside trying to find a farmer who still had some ice buried in sawdust in his barn. We were lucky on the fourth stop as the ice box at the end of the porch was almost empty.
Uncle Ray also taught me to shoot with his 22 rifle. In the middle of one lesson he became irritated by a very noisy squirrel and took off thru the woods after it with the 22. He fired two shots but the squirrel got away. He also showed me his Army Colt 45 automatic pistol which he had kept from his service in France. The next time I saw one was in Korea ten years later and it was on my waist while I was serving as Officer of the Day once a month.
An owner several sites east of the camp had a boat with a twenty-five horse outboard which he would noisily run at full speed between Levitt and Broad Bays on weekends. This annoyed Uncle Ray and everyone else. One summer in the mid forties a rumor went around that this owner, known as Jackie Junior (or was that his boat?), wanted to put in an airstrip behind the row of cabins on the lake. Uncle Ray went into town ( Center Ossipee?) to see who owned the land and, with his brother, promptly bought the land behind the lake front cabins. I can remember driving into Freedom with him and Aunt Bertha when he would stop in the middle of the woods and peer out the side. Bertha would ask what he was looking at and he would very slowly say "See that tree? That’s my tree. Bertha would say "Oh Ray, don't be silly!" It worked out very well in the long run.
Uncle Ray spent a good deal of time teasing Aunt Bertha, which she loved. Much of the kidding was about Bertha's sister, Fannybelle, who was a short, stocky, extremely warm hearted, very talkative dynamo. I imagine he also kidded her about her brother Ralph, my father, who was as useless with mechanical objects as Ray was talented, but he did not do that when I was there. His daughter, Priscilla (Robin), did not always enjoy his kidding. While she was rarely there when I was, I have never forgotten her seething when driving with her father as a passenger and me in the back seat and rather than suggesting she slow down, he said "You know those are telephone poles not a picket fence".
Uncle Ray was a second father to me and could provide things my father could not. After my father died in 1949, Uncle Ray stepped in and gave my sister away at her wedding and was my sponsor when I graduated from Bowdoin College, both in 1953.
I shall never forget the view of Mount Chocorua from the dock at either sunrise or
sunset. My last recollection of the old camp is the sound of gunfire and firecrackers on VJ Day ending the second World War in August of 1945.
Cousin Bill Shaw July 14, 2009
For Gram
I don’t fit in any place, never have and I don’t intend to start trying now. Camp isn’t a great exception to this in the big picture, but it is something dear to me in a way nothing else can be ever. Camp is where my family is no matter where we live. Camp was the safest place and closest thing to a base and stability I knew as a child. Invaluable. To this day it is the place I fear police harassment the least, and watch what I say and do the least. Besides being deep in the woods when no one knows I’m there, Camp is where I feel closest to free.
I am not a native Vermonter, and I don’t want to claim Mass. anymore than it wants me. Camp is the biggest and most consistent reminder to me that I come from people, not straight out of the mud. We cook and eat food together where relatives of mine who were dust before I was born did the same, and to me that is more beautiful than anything any one of us could create materially in a life time. No matter what it looks like when the time comes, Camp is where I’ll bring my grand kids to walk in my gramma’s footsteps and point out where the one horse and log built road used to wake me up with branches scratching ma’s car.
– Netdahe
I am not a native Vermonter, and I don’t want to claim Mass. anymore than it wants me. Camp is the biggest and most consistent reminder to me that I come from people, not straight out of the mud. We cook and eat food together where relatives of mine who were dust before I was born did the same, and to me that is more beautiful than anything any one of us could create materially in a life time. No matter what it looks like when the time comes, Camp is where I’ll bring my grand kids to walk in my gramma’s footsteps and point out where the one horse and log built road used to wake me up with branches scratching ma’s car.
– Netdahe
Monday, August 3, 2009
Another Great Old Home Day
I have about a million photos and some video, but here is one of the traditional group shots from Old Home Day 2009. We were 47 people, 4 less than last year. The weekend was filled with sun, laughter, smiles and great food. Who could ask for anything more? Love you all.
Sunday, July 26, 2009
Monday, July 20, 2009
Comment:
Great one, Neil -- well worth the wait.
(For some strange reason, this is the only way I can post a comment on this blog.)
(For some strange reason, this is the only way I can post a comment on this blog.)
Sunday, July 19, 2009
Camp
My positive feelings about camp start before I even get there. Car rides are no fun, but the one to camp is one of the nicer rides I do. All bike rides are fun, and the one to camp from home is fabulous. The trip through Crawford Notch is always scenic and wonderful. It’s like the setup to something really nice about to happen. Camp itself is a place of rest and a general being at ease for me. What it is to me is:
A beautiful lake
My children learning how to swim
My kids loving to go swimming
My kids learning how to ride their bikes
My kids loving riding their bikes
A wonderful family
A battle against cold coming through every door and window on winter nights
Winning that battle with a warm fire
Getting up in the middle of the night, feeding that fire and feeling it get hotter as I doze back off
Me and Zoe
A great weekend before Harper was born, just me and Zoe
Gram
A place with a ton of great road rides right close by
Blueberries
Little kids voices
Little kids having fun
Spending time with my kids
A canoe or kayak paddle
Sleeping in a tent
Getting up in the morning with nowhere to be all day, and because of that, enjoying my coffee just a
little more than I usually do (and that’s quite a bit)
Good food, and lots of it
A dopey parade that’s fun
Friends
Reading my book
A walk around the edge of the lake in winter when it’s really quiet
Harper and Patrick having a place they love to go to
A cold delicious beer I might not drink otherwise
A walk around the circle
Warm sun
Booming thunderstorms
Snow
Sitting on the deck
A great launching pad for other fun trips and a great landing pad from other fun trips
The one lobster I might eat all year
Odd jobs that I really love doing because they help out Gram
The pleasant clang of galvanized garbage cans
The creak of the swingset
Kids drawing on an old overturned boat
The smell of sunscreen
Sand in my sandals
I guess I’ve been going to camp for 20 years now. I never had anything like it when I was a kid. One summer when I was 10 my family rented a camp on a lake. I thought I had died and gone to Heaven. I never went back, but I remember how much I loved it. I couldn’t tell you how close the next house was or how many annoying people were buzzing motorboats there or if the road was paved or dirt. Things have changed around camp in the last 20 years, but when we go there with Harper and Patrick, I’m sure they’re just like me when I was 10, just loving it. The beauty of the place comes through all the more watching my kids love it. I've heard the story about Robin's mother (I think) not getting out of the car when her husband showed it to her. It's cool to think that his decision to buy this place has been one that affected so many other people's lives with happiness and fun. Good going.
Monday, July 6, 2009
Sunday, June 14, 2009
Sherrilyn on facebook
Such great memories. So much warmth, kindness, generosity and love....
Sherrilyn Brannon, 5/11/09
Comment from Cindy: I want what Sherrilyn said on an embroidery sampler hanging on the wall at Camp. If only we were really that wonderful, but it's a fine goal...
Sherrilyn Brannon, 5/11/09
Comment from Cindy: I want what Sherrilyn said on an embroidery sampler hanging on the wall at Camp. If only we were really that wonderful, but it's a fine goal...
Camp by Marigrace, on facebook
Camp= Robin drinking coffee and watching "Good Morning America", Raetha wanting to go swimming again and again, and again, Zoe, in a car seat sitting on the counter, the "older" Stoddards bopping in and out, (how did it happen that you all are not that much older than me now?) Hanging on the porch in the rain, sitting on the corner seat (always believing it was my seat) watching Cindy mix some delicious food up at the counter, Sally- showing me her stitches on her ass, Scott, playing Neil's Sugar Mountain on the turntable, Tommy and Joe howling as they played another endless game of Risk, Charlie -sitting in a loin cloth telling some zany story, David= finally having the gold shots work (I remember watching the pain), Wayne, always asking "how are you?" and meaning it..... Babies.. beautiful babies.... playing, laughing crying, growing into adults before my very eyes. All these from different times, but always accompanied by the presence of Robin and the pictures of on the walls.
Good Lord, I missed Deb... there with her kind, gentle soul.. the voice of reason, laced with compassion with that glorious edge
Marigrace O’Gorski on Facebook 5/11-13/2009 (2 separate posts)
Good Lord, I missed Deb... there with her kind, gentle soul.. the voice of reason, laced with compassion with that glorious edge
Marigrace O’Gorski on Facebook 5/11-13/2009 (2 separate posts)
Saturday, June 13, 2009
Camp Through the Years
When I first went there in 1967, I could already tell that Camp was something special to the Stoddard family. I had already hung out often enough Orchard Rd. in East Natick, but when I went to camp I had the feeling that this was a special place to the family, a home that was more than just home. It was when I went to Camp that I first sensed that maybe I was actually going to become a part of that family. I guess Camp was (and still is) the place where everyone was family.
Some years later, when little Zoë and I were living in Lexington, along with going to be with family, going to Camp also meant making a foray into The Country: Route 125 was pretty undeveloped, route 16 was without a number of its later bypasses, and the Camp road itself was a narrow 2-track cart road where you were liable to scratch up your car on the encroaching branches. All around was nothing but woods, and when you came out at the end of that little road there was Camp, just Camp: no year-round house across the road, no Association Beach Club over at “the green camp”, no McMansions on a paved road that didn’t exist yet. During this period Camp was a safe and welcoming place where Zoë could spend summer vacations in the loving care of her Gram, while I took some extended downtime from the single parent gig (beyond the regular weekend time kid spent at Cindy & Wayne’s), knowing that my kid was happy and having a great time. I really loved that parenting role better than anything else in my life, but I have to wonder whether I’d have loved it so wholeheartedly without that occasional long stretch of time off. And of course I was up to Camp every weekend during those summers – for the kid, for the family time, and to be in The Country.
Nowadays the place where I live is more in the country than Camp is, and my kid and her kids and husband live just up the road. So when I go to Camp it isn’t to get out of the city and into the boonies, as it was years ago. These days the family is much bigger and more spread around, and Camp is the central gathering place, not too far from where any of us live, where all of us can be together and still be at home. That part has never changed. There’s no other gathering, not even the Christmas celebration, that’s quite like Old Home Weekend, where the whole family, including an ever-growing constellation of friends, lives in close proximity to each other for a period of days, and where we all BELONG. What Camp means to me now is that convergence, that coming together. You just don’t get that anywhere else, not really.
Oh, and the lake is nice, too.
David
May 6, 2009
Friday, June 12, 2009
"Camp"
“Camp” By Donna (Amado) June 2009
This has taken me a long time to get into print (sorry Gram) because the thought of Camp evokes such strong feelings, in many layers, that it is difficult to capture effectively and I surely won’t do it justice here…
Camp holds 3 major dual-components for me, personally:
· Stillness & Reflection
· Depth & Processing
· Love & Acceptance
It’s a lot of work and planning (for me) to get up there; lists of what we’ll all need, laundry, pack camping supplies and necessities, coolers, load up the car, buy food on the way, 3-hour drive…but once I see those first camp signs on the tree I begin to feel some release of the vice that accumulates from the pressure of the “real world,” which gradually becomes far removed from the Camp experience. The next set of camp signs brings further release which depending on the mood of the moment, the music on at the time, and if the kids are awake; can make me cry. The first priority upon arrival is to hug hello and quick catch up with Gram and greetings to whoever happens to be at Camp. You guys know me, I can’t actually relax until I unload the car (still miss my Jeep) and set up home-base. I have no problem being teased for this (“Setting up the condo?”)
Once that is done, I NEED to head to the water, where the kids are already waiting – “Can we swim NOW, Mama???” Suits, sunscreen, dry towels, book, journal, camera; ahhhh…the internal chaos begins to settle into a calm stillness allowing me to reflect on what has been stuffed down to allow me to keep going every day at home.
An eternal connection occurs; to the “self” and the loving of others - family and friends who also reflect and connect in this vortex of compassion and wisdom that Camp becomes when we gather. A little piece of me lives at Camp all year long waiting for me to come back to myself.
I believe that being at Camp allows for stillness and introspection which brings out the depths of each of us. This can be (usually is for me) a good thing; bringing about self-acceptance, growth, and peace. This has also been known, at times, to cause conflict to arise. Those conflicted either clear the air and continue to love, or they leave, usually not to return! “Who the hell is Linda?” (I never knew, but have had “Lindas” of my own at Camp!)
While at home, I may meet someone and imagine how would they fit in at Camp? Would they respect Gram and the “Elders”? Would they walk the loop with me; swim to the raft, kayak, and help to keep the children safe? Would they pitch in or expect others to carry their weight? Would they “get” the humor? Can they be still and insightful, compassionate, empathetic, silent? My imaginings of other’s capabilities have not always (as you who love me know) coincided with the reality so I no longer put too much weight on this projection, but sometimes I can rule them out right away from the exercise!
Camp is joy and cathartic love and Gram is the nucleus of the microcosm of Camp. Gram lovingly knows “her” people. She senses when to give you space and when a quiet sit together is just the thing. So when Gram offers conversation and advice, one listens and shares.
Gram and her Stoddard Clan are some of the most wonderful people on the planet and I like to think that they/we do her proud by being who we are. I often feel a bit on the edge looking in, as I do in most realms, but only of my own doing. I dive in and duck out based on my absorption level and need for solitude, of which I get very little of at home and often crave like a drug – peace and solitude. Yet, I deeply love my Camp family and know they embrace me even with my flaws. Being there feeds my soul like nestling in the Great Mother’s womb.
This has taken me a long time to get into print (sorry Gram) because the thought of Camp evokes such strong feelings, in many layers, that it is difficult to capture effectively and I surely won’t do it justice here…
Camp holds 3 major dual-components for me, personally:
· Stillness & Reflection
· Depth & Processing
· Love & Acceptance
It’s a lot of work and planning (for me) to get up there; lists of what we’ll all need, laundry, pack camping supplies and necessities, coolers, load up the car, buy food on the way, 3-hour drive…but once I see those first camp signs on the tree I begin to feel some release of the vice that accumulates from the pressure of the “real world,” which gradually becomes far removed from the Camp experience. The next set of camp signs brings further release which depending on the mood of the moment, the music on at the time, and if the kids are awake; can make me cry. The first priority upon arrival is to hug hello and quick catch up with Gram and greetings to whoever happens to be at Camp. You guys know me, I can’t actually relax until I unload the car (still miss my Jeep) and set up home-base. I have no problem being teased for this (“Setting up the condo?”)
Once that is done, I NEED to head to the water, where the kids are already waiting – “Can we swim NOW, Mama???” Suits, sunscreen, dry towels, book, journal, camera; ahhhh…the internal chaos begins to settle into a calm stillness allowing me to reflect on what has been stuffed down to allow me to keep going every day at home.
An eternal connection occurs; to the “self” and the loving of others - family and friends who also reflect and connect in this vortex of compassion and wisdom that Camp becomes when we gather. A little piece of me lives at Camp all year long waiting for me to come back to myself.
I believe that being at Camp allows for stillness and introspection which brings out the depths of each of us. This can be (usually is for me) a good thing; bringing about self-acceptance, growth, and peace. This has also been known, at times, to cause conflict to arise. Those conflicted either clear the air and continue to love, or they leave, usually not to return! “Who the hell is Linda?” (I never knew, but have had “Lindas” of my own at Camp!)
While at home, I may meet someone and imagine how would they fit in at Camp? Would they respect Gram and the “Elders”? Would they walk the loop with me; swim to the raft, kayak, and help to keep the children safe? Would they pitch in or expect others to carry their weight? Would they “get” the humor? Can they be still and insightful, compassionate, empathetic, silent? My imaginings of other’s capabilities have not always (as you who love me know) coincided with the reality so I no longer put too much weight on this projection, but sometimes I can rule them out right away from the exercise!
Camp is joy and cathartic love and Gram is the nucleus of the microcosm of Camp. Gram lovingly knows “her” people. She senses when to give you space and when a quiet sit together is just the thing. So when Gram offers conversation and advice, one listens and shares.
Gram and her Stoddard Clan are some of the most wonderful people on the planet and I like to think that they/we do her proud by being who we are. I often feel a bit on the edge looking in, as I do in most realms, but only of my own doing. I dive in and duck out based on my absorption level and need for solitude, of which I get very little of at home and often crave like a drug – peace and solitude. Yet, I deeply love my Camp family and know they embrace me even with my flaws. Being there feeds my soul like nestling in the Great Mother’s womb.
Harper
Camp is very important to me for many reasons. Camp is one of my favorite places to go every summer. I am very fortunate to have a place like camp to go to, and spend time with my family. I love going to camp so much because it is one of the most fun places (for me, anyway) to spend a couple of weeks during my summers.
Going to camp is something I look forward to every summer. I love to swim, play, and hang out at camp. Some of my favorite things at camp are: family, the lake (and swimming until it is time to go to bed), the disgusting amounts of food, riding my bike around the circle many times, making s'mores, playing with Nell, and the many other kids there, yelling at the noisy boats on the lake, building fairy houses, swimming all the way out to the "No Wake" buoy, eating dinner at the picnic tables and watching the sun set over the sparkling lake, water tubing with Pat and Nell on the back of Marigrace's boat, making the messy "potions" that many of the adults hate, and so, so much more. All of these things, I am so grateful for, and I appreciate very much.
I love falling asleep at camp, or Gram's house hearing people I love talking or laughing or running around, and the loudspeakers from Camp Robin Hood, and even the somewhat obnoxious sound of the boats going by on the lake. I also love waking up every morning at Gram's house or camp (wherever I may be staying) to see the sun shining, and smell pancakes or something delicious cooking.
Occasionally I wonder, if there is any place on earth I would rather go to spend time with my family, than camp. Probably not. So, that is what camp means to me, and I am so grateful that I have camp there for me.
Thursday, June 11, 2009
By Cynthia Robin Stoddard Gascon Crandlemere
To me Camp is Camp with a capital “C”.
Camp is old memories.
Mr. Winkley, his profile with his pipe, shark’s teeth, seahorses and candy bars. Nana in the doorway in a thunderstorm, Grampa and his big Mercury. (They tell me I tried to wash it for him and he wasn’t amused!) Cutting our pancakes one bite at a time because Grampa Chick said that is good proper manners. Not slamming the door. Daddy in his black and white swim trunks. The Cushman bread truck. Burying trash in the woods. Shampooing in the lake. The Bretton Woods Boy Singers, “It’s a Grand Night for Singing...” truly a thrill. Where we were when Marilyn Monroe died, when Bill Murdoch died, the 1968 riots. Trips to Abbotts for Popsicles and comic books.
A real fireplace. Picking blueberries. Trips to Storyland. Trying to get a tan. Taking the boat out in the lake to read a book. The sound of “Taps” coming from Robin Hood.
Never once in all the years of my childhood realizing how fortunate we were to have a “summer home”.
Camp is newer old memories.
Weddings. Sleeping on the sofa bed in the living room surrounded by a crowd on the floor, staying up late. The “Who the hell is Linda?” award. The smell of pine and ferns. Papa Dick. The next generation playing, “Ew wanna pay wif fia?” Is the front the front or the back? Boogieman path and walks around the loop. Slamming the door. New traditions, like the Madison Donation. Endless possibilities for new traditions.
Camp today owns and holds all these memories and so many more.
Camp inspires writing like this from Zoë and Donna, the younger generation: “This (photo of Camp) is hard to look at when it's whatever-below outside and the depths of winter. I like this photo and it makes me think of all the people who aren't in it, but must be just around the corner. There's Tommy with a big pan of food to put on the picnic table...or the kids laughing in the water, Raetha napping in the hammock and David emerging from the bunk house wondering what's smells so good...in come the twins and Shani having just woken up wondering who's around and Ben is full of glee to see them wondering if they'll let him hang with them... Meanwhile Neil is finishing up the last batch of dishes, goddess bless his soul.”
Camp is food, from old days to new. Fresh caught trout with catsup and English muffins. Pancakes with chocolate ice cream. A&P spice bar cake for Mom’s birthday. “Camp spaghetti”. Boxes of “Seconds” chocolates from Abbott’s. Tommy’s smoked meat. Clam dip. Baked Alaska. Corn on the cob. Blueberries. Chewing on Checkerberry leaves. Camp is where I can cook all day long.
Camp is important exactly because it is important to every single person in this family and more. It is the very essence of what makes us a family, while at the same time gives us a special place to celebrate being a family. We are Camp and Camp is us. We will never know how close we all would or would not be if we didn’t have this place to “be” together.
Camp is Old Home. Old Home has so many memories of it’s own.
And all the memories are so vivid and alive because Camp is still so alive, the touchstone for us all. Camp holds the echoes of precious voices that are gone and precious voices still to come.
And of course seeing my child and then my grandchildren swimming and playing in the same spot in the same lake where I swam and played is such a tremendous gift.
But most of all Camp is where my Mama is. Always has been and always will be.
Nellie Nails it in Three Poems
Camp
Small white house, shaped like a breadbox,
dusty white, with big blue shutters and a blue frame around the door.
There are tears in that old door.
I used to like to imagine that they had been made by huge mosquitoes.
There’s a little chimney, but only a loaf-thin Santa could get down there.
It feels so good to sit there with my cousins on the dusty, dusty couch,
roasting marshmallows in the old pot-bellied stove.
Somewhere, someone is playing music.
I couldn’t be happier.
Rain
The droplets fall making a soft pattering sound on the roof like little feet running over my head.
I hear Gram say ‘this house is like a rain magnet; rain comes to it like an ant to honey.’
The three-room house smells like cinnamon and cake.
I smile as I drift off to sleep.
Small white house, shaped like a breadbox,
dusty white, with big blue shutters and a blue frame around the door.
There are tears in that old door.
I used to like to imagine that they had been made by huge mosquitoes.
There’s a little chimney, but only a loaf-thin Santa could get down there.
It feels so good to sit there with my cousins on the dusty, dusty couch,
roasting marshmallows in the old pot-bellied stove.
Somewhere, someone is playing music.
I couldn’t be happier.
Summer sunset on the lake
I sit out on the deck looking out at the lake.
It looks like someone has taken the sky down and put it on the lake.
The sun, like a golden halo for the trees.
And all the colors surrounding it are aglow.
Waves lap gently on the soft sandy shore.
I sit out on the deck looking out at the lake.
It looks like someone has taken the sky down and put it on the lake.
The sun, like a golden halo for the trees.
And all the colors surrounding it are aglow.
Waves lap gently on the soft sandy shore.
Rain
The droplets fall making a soft pattering sound on the roof like little feet running over my head.
I hear Gram say ‘this house is like a rain magnet; rain comes to it like an ant to honey.’
The three-room house smells like cinnamon and cake.
I smile as I drift off to sleep.
Auntie Sally
Helping Mom/Gram get her proposal together in these last several months, trying to be vigilant to her desires and needs and getting them into words that held her meaning all put me in a different place when I began to the write about what camp means to me. I have been focused on what camp means to her; we spent many, many, MANY hours talking about her reminiscences.
She talks about when her father with Uncle Norm and Uncle Marlen bought the land and Grampa brought Mom and Nana up to see it in the side car of his Harley. She tells stories of her uncles and aunts; Uncle Marlen and his death always come up. Many people think of camp as being solidified after Mom bought it from the estate that Nana Chick left to Mom and Aunt Midge. But really the concept of what camp would mean to our family was solidified when Uncle Marlin died. The three men, brothers really though Uncle Marlen was not blood, had owned the land together so when Uncle Marlin died, Grampa and Uncle Norm had to figure out how to hold it all together so that it would continue to stay in the family.
Those of us who reminisce about camp now talk about what it was like before the MacMansions; we talk about camp when there was only Grampa's Cart road. But, Mom talks to me about when there was no cart road, she talks about her father making that road by pulling two trees behind a tractor. The younger generations talk about the way other folks have taken down trees in their yards uglying them up; Mom talks about the years when there were no trees at all after the fire.
When we look forward, we talk about what will happen when the land and cottage will overflow and not hold us all. Mom talks about when there was no cottage at all after it was destroyed by the fire; she talks about standing on the road and seeing only piles of burnt pieces of wood and ash and being able to look down to the lake unimpeded by anything save for the char covered fireplace. She talks about how her father did not hesitate for a moment about the importance of keeping camp, about him and Uncle Norm going around to all the neighbors to buy their burnt property from them. Those neighbors didn't see what Grampa saw; they didn't see that this shoud be a special place for us all forever.
We worry about Cindy being afraid of the mice that might be in there; Mom talks about the time her Grandmother came up to see the land and wouldn't get out of the car because the place frightened her. We go to the lake and stand neck deep and talk, ducking under to pick up a rock that our feet have touched and throwing it to the side to keep the lake bottom sandy. Mom talks of the years we stepped on pieces of window glass or china rounded by the water and threw them into a bucket because they were so beautiful. She remembers the bricks tumbling down the hill into the water as her father and mine rebuilt our camp. We still find the broken chards of brick today. And after the camp was rebuilt she remembers her mother's friends coming up from Portmouth to surprise her with a house-warming shower, giving her beautiful quality china and how Nana always used it in that manner, having their meals formally in the tiny little diningroom. She talks about her mom and dad at camp and you can see in her eyes that she is seeing them right as she talks.
I think I'm ready now, to say what camp means to me. It means my mother's stories of the special things about love and family that she remembers while she sits here looking and seeing what we can't see. It means my father's stories that I can still hear when I sit on the porch and look out to the lake and listen to him. It means my brother's stories as he tells them on the deck at night. It means my sisters' stories when Raetha tells them from her memories, and Cindy from hers. It means the childrens' stories from Zoe to Pat.
And, finally, what camp means to me are my own stories. They are endless. They have defined me, they are mine. My memories are all about sound and faces. My heart cherishs the voices and the laughter; my eyes can never get enough of the faces I love so much. I find such pleasure in hearing the children; there is no laughter I love more than when my siblings and I laugh together; I love my mother saying, "that's enough of that". But maybe most of all I love that I can hear the voices of people long past. I can still hear my grandfather's and grandmother's voices, I can hear my father's voice and laughter, my Uncle Billy's, Dickie's is there and my Cindy's; and I love that I can see their faces, as with my mother, if you were sitting with me you would see in my eyes that I am seeing them right as I write. I love that the long and winding road of my life always leads me to that door.
Henekis
I have always tried (and failed) to describe what camp means to me. In a world where everything shifts, changes, moves and/or goes away camp has always been a constant in my life (much like the love that I receive from the people that often are my company). It is the place I go that has held me throughout the years. It is where my happiest childhood memories took place and the place that I have spent the most time dreaming of my future. When I am at camp I hold on to every moment for its vast depth.
I have somehow managed to develop into the type of person who is constantly on the go - busy, moving, consumed. Sometimes I forget to just sit with myself and breath. As much as camp has always been about the company and love that I am surrounded by it has also always been that space of calm where I remember to breathe. Camp is where my sorrow seems tolerable and my laughter comes from the deepest places of my being.
I can’t speak of camp without speaking of the water! I need water, crave to be surrounded by water, find sanity in the water! There is no water that fulfills that for me more than our lake. True meditation to me is lying perfectly still on top of the water, ears submerged, focusing on my breathing to keep me afloat with muffled voices and laughter in the air above me. Oh those voices and laughter! They are the treat waiting for me.
Camp (as alluded to so far) is also so much about the people! I am in love with our family – everyone individually and all of us as a whole. Camp is where I get to have everyone and we all get to have each other. The outside world can’t touch us while we are lost in the playing, the cooking, the eating, the swimming, the cleaning, the napping…the loving. There is safety and an indescribable beauty to that feeling. I feel so amazingly lucky.
In all, I have to say that I have always felt an utter sense of renewal from being at camp. It is a feeling I have never consistently gotten from any other one place. Camp is the perfect combination of the things that feed my soul!
I have somehow managed to develop into the type of person who is constantly on the go - busy, moving, consumed. Sometimes I forget to just sit with myself and breath. As much as camp has always been about the company and love that I am surrounded by it has also always been that space of calm where I remember to breathe. Camp is where my sorrow seems tolerable and my laughter comes from the deepest places of my being.
I can’t speak of camp without speaking of the water! I need water, crave to be surrounded by water, find sanity in the water! There is no water that fulfills that for me more than our lake. True meditation to me is lying perfectly still on top of the water, ears submerged, focusing on my breathing to keep me afloat with muffled voices and laughter in the air above me. Oh those voices and laughter! They are the treat waiting for me.
Camp (as alluded to so far) is also so much about the people! I am in love with our family – everyone individually and all of us as a whole. Camp is where I get to have everyone and we all get to have each other. The outside world can’t touch us while we are lost in the playing, the cooking, the eating, the swimming, the cleaning, the napping…the loving. There is safety and an indescribable beauty to that feeling. I feel so amazingly lucky.
In all, I have to say that I have always felt an utter sense of renewal from being at camp. It is a feeling I have never consistently gotten from any other one place. Camp is the perfect combination of the things that feed my soul!
Auntie Rae
his is my beautiful aunt's beautiful piece that she wrote about Camp.
Breathing Camp
By Raetha-jeanne
I am the ‘Underwater Breath Holding Champion’ of the world.
I can hold my breath from mid-November to mid-April, like a hibernating turtle buried beneath frozen mud, until a puff of spring air thaws winter’s chill. Then, I gush forward and burst open the shutters and breath, breath in the scent of camp.
Camp is the smell of a sweet stale inside April air that promises August. Camp is the smell of pine sap, moth balls, Grampa Winkle’s pipe and sweet fern. Camp is the smell of my mother’s coffee, my brother’s grill and wet towels left on the floor. Camp is the smell of babies and sunscreen.
Camp is the sound of wind rushing across the lake and getting caught in the Pine Barrens. Camp is the sound of a Friday afternoon stillness filled with the anticipation of the arrival of family and friends for the weekend. Camp is the chatter of the voices and giggles of the people I love the most.
Camp is a summer morning that smells like pancakes and bacon with both parents sitting on the porch sipping coffee, diamonds bouncing off the water and blinding me with the happiest feeling I have ever known. Camp is where all my best memories were conceived.
Camp is where I made my babies.
Camp is the place I feel safe. Camp is where every wound I have ever endured has been healed, from a skinned knee cured by lake balm and summer air to a broken heart eased by ancestral shelter and the grounding of familiar earth; sand, golden-brown pine needles, melted glass, blueberry bells and pine cones.
Camp is where tradition is kept. It’s where the language of family is spoken without lyrics, only tone. Camp is where I step down as the ‘Underwater Breathing Champion of the World’ and where Netdahe too has to pass on the crown and where neither of us will ever tell Tommy that he isn’t the underwater King anymore either.
Camp is the breath of my family.
Breathing Camp
By Raetha-jeanne
I am the ‘Underwater Breath Holding Champion’ of the world.
I can hold my breath from mid-November to mid-April, like a hibernating turtle buried beneath frozen mud, until a puff of spring air thaws winter’s chill. Then, I gush forward and burst open the shutters and breath, breath in the scent of camp.
Camp is the smell of a sweet stale inside April air that promises August. Camp is the smell of pine sap, moth balls, Grampa Winkle’s pipe and sweet fern. Camp is the smell of my mother’s coffee, my brother’s grill and wet towels left on the floor. Camp is the smell of babies and sunscreen.
Camp is the sound of wind rushing across the lake and getting caught in the Pine Barrens. Camp is the sound of a Friday afternoon stillness filled with the anticipation of the arrival of family and friends for the weekend. Camp is the chatter of the voices and giggles of the people I love the most.
Camp is a summer morning that smells like pancakes and bacon with both parents sitting on the porch sipping coffee, diamonds bouncing off the water and blinding me with the happiest feeling I have ever known. Camp is where all my best memories were conceived.
Camp is where I made my babies.
Camp is the place I feel safe. Camp is where every wound I have ever endured has been healed, from a skinned knee cured by lake balm and summer air to a broken heart eased by ancestral shelter and the grounding of familiar earth; sand, golden-brown pine needles, melted glass, blueberry bells and pine cones.
Camp is where tradition is kept. It’s where the language of family is spoken without lyrics, only tone. Camp is where I step down as the ‘Underwater Breathing Champion of the World’ and where Netdahe too has to pass on the crown and where neither of us will ever tell Tommy that he isn’t the underwater King anymore either.
Camp is the breath of my family.
Camp
Gram has asked all her children and grandchildren to write something about what Camp means to them. Camp means so much and so many things to me that I've been avoiding this task. I just don't really know where to start or how exactly to approach a subject that is so much about feelings and senses; smells, sights, temperatures, sounds, tastes, immersion.
Camp is immersion. The first thing I always wanted to do when I was little and arrived at Camp in the summer was jump in the lake. Straight away. (We didn't go to Camp in the winter back then. Never. Could the little ones in our family even imagine such a time? We just had the camp, not Grammie's house, not a paved, plowed road leading there. It was strictly a summer place. You would sleep in the back seat until the limbs of the trees on Grandpa Chick's road scraped the windows of the car and woke you up. Then you knew you were there.) And I remember being very small and not wanting to leave Camp and actually having my sneakers on and TIED (arrggggh, that's it, when the sneaker are on and tied; you are GONE, back to that other place that isn't really home or where you want to be; the suburbs!) and "falling" off the dock into the lake so Dad would be forced to stay longer. I don't even think I knew how to swim at the time. I was desperate.
Now when I go to Camp it is to immerse myself in my family. Their loudness, craziness, overbearing, over-the-top ways. Ways that I need to escape sometimes (I am, after all, an only child, at least by some definitions). But ways that I crave and need for sustenance and identity. So Camp is immersion. When I am there and immersed, I know exactly who I am. I am a Stoddard. I am proudly my grandmother's daughter. That's not a typo. Anyone who knows me well knows I spent every summer, beginning when I was 5 years old, at Camp with my gram. And I am nearly as close to my mother's generation (9 years to Raetha) as to my own (6 years to Netdahe, another 3 to Henekis). So while I love being the eldest grandchild, I also feel like gram's youngest kid. I'm grateful to be hers AND my mom and dad's. She helped raise me and I like to think that I take after her in some ways. Most importantly, she taught me loyalty, acceptance, forgiveness and unconditional love. And how to swim.
Back to Camp. When I first walk into Camp after an absence, I am struck by the smell of the aging pine and the way the light refracts through those single-paned windows. It usually overwhelms me with emotion and this has been the case ever since I can remember. That smell. That light. I'm home. I suddenly remember my childhood, my teenage years, young adulthood, and just last summer. Everyone is in that tiny, dusty camp. Champ is there and the two of us are playing cribbage during the day when everyone else has gone to Attitash for the Alpine Slide. Gram is sitting in her housecoat in the early morning, sipping her third cup of coffee and watching the Today Show while I stumble out of the side room in my pajamas. Aunts, uncles and their friends are laughing, smoking dope and watching Saturday Night Live and I spy them through the Raggedy Ann and Andy curtain that serves as my bedroom door. Grammie and Raetha have accidently locked themselves out during a mid-week, late night skinny dip and are calling me out of sleep to let them back in. They're giggling. I'm heading outside to sunbathe in the front yard (or is it the BACK yard) with Rae, who is grown-up (a teenager!) and beautiful and makes it so that boys come around. Neil and I are spending a February weekend on a mattress on the living room floor and I'm reading Jane Austin. I'm nursing my new baby girl on that crazy fold out couch that Poppa Dick bought while aunts, uncle and cousins sleep in the next rooms. I'm introducing everyone to my 5 week old foster child at the beginning of an intense parenting journey...
Everything else happens outside. In the lake, in the yard, at the picnic tables, in the hammock and in the road. And now all my friends, and all of YOUR friends want to come to Camp and to Old Home Weekend. Because Gram makes everyone feel special and at home and loved and part of a family. Unconditionally. Camp helps her to do this. Gram and Camp and Family are all the same here; they all stand for each other, reference one another in their existence. Our holy trinity. On Old Home Weekend I am so proud to show off my extended family to my friends and my friends to my family. Camp and Gram let me bring these people all together. I'm no only child! And Look! at how charming and strange and brilliant and f-ed up and neurotic we all are. Look at the ways we've screamed at and mistreated one another, but continue to come together in love. Look at the way we take care of our children and each other. Look at how we always come back to Camp, no matter what. It's love. It's why I know love so well. If Gram hadn't given us all Camp and herself, it wouldn't be this way. Love would be something else and it wouldn't be nearly as rich or safe or encompassing. I can't even imagine who I'd be.
Camp is immersion. The first thing I always wanted to do when I was little and arrived at Camp in the summer was jump in the lake. Straight away. (We didn't go to Camp in the winter back then. Never. Could the little ones in our family even imagine such a time? We just had the camp, not Grammie's house, not a paved, plowed road leading there. It was strictly a summer place. You would sleep in the back seat until the limbs of the trees on Grandpa Chick's road scraped the windows of the car and woke you up. Then you knew you were there.) And I remember being very small and not wanting to leave Camp and actually having my sneakers on and TIED (arrggggh, that's it, when the sneaker are on and tied; you are GONE, back to that other place that isn't really home or where you want to be; the suburbs!) and "falling" off the dock into the lake so Dad would be forced to stay longer. I don't even think I knew how to swim at the time. I was desperate.
Now when I go to Camp it is to immerse myself in my family. Their loudness, craziness, overbearing, over-the-top ways. Ways that I need to escape sometimes (I am, after all, an only child, at least by some definitions). But ways that I crave and need for sustenance and identity. So Camp is immersion. When I am there and immersed, I know exactly who I am. I am a Stoddard. I am proudly my grandmother's daughter. That's not a typo. Anyone who knows me well knows I spent every summer, beginning when I was 5 years old, at Camp with my gram. And I am nearly as close to my mother's generation (9 years to Raetha) as to my own (6 years to Netdahe, another 3 to Henekis). So while I love being the eldest grandchild, I also feel like gram's youngest kid. I'm grateful to be hers AND my mom and dad's. She helped raise me and I like to think that I take after her in some ways. Most importantly, she taught me loyalty, acceptance, forgiveness and unconditional love. And how to swim.
Back to Camp. When I first walk into Camp after an absence, I am struck by the smell of the aging pine and the way the light refracts through those single-paned windows. It usually overwhelms me with emotion and this has been the case ever since I can remember. That smell. That light. I'm home. I suddenly remember my childhood, my teenage years, young adulthood, and just last summer. Everyone is in that tiny, dusty camp. Champ is there and the two of us are playing cribbage during the day when everyone else has gone to Attitash for the Alpine Slide. Gram is sitting in her housecoat in the early morning, sipping her third cup of coffee and watching the Today Show while I stumble out of the side room in my pajamas. Aunts, uncles and their friends are laughing, smoking dope and watching Saturday Night Live and I spy them through the Raggedy Ann and Andy curtain that serves as my bedroom door. Grammie and Raetha have accidently locked themselves out during a mid-week, late night skinny dip and are calling me out of sleep to let them back in. They're giggling. I'm heading outside to sunbathe in the front yard (or is it the BACK yard) with Rae, who is grown-up (a teenager!) and beautiful and makes it so that boys come around. Neil and I are spending a February weekend on a mattress on the living room floor and I'm reading Jane Austin. I'm nursing my new baby girl on that crazy fold out couch that Poppa Dick bought while aunts, uncle and cousins sleep in the next rooms. I'm introducing everyone to my 5 week old foster child at the beginning of an intense parenting journey...
Everything else happens outside. In the lake, in the yard, at the picnic tables, in the hammock and in the road. And now all my friends, and all of YOUR friends want to come to Camp and to Old Home Weekend. Because Gram makes everyone feel special and at home and loved and part of a family. Unconditionally. Camp helps her to do this. Gram and Camp and Family are all the same here; they all stand for each other, reference one another in their existence. Our holy trinity. On Old Home Weekend I am so proud to show off my extended family to my friends and my friends to my family. Camp and Gram let me bring these people all together. I'm no only child! And Look! at how charming and strange and brilliant and f-ed up and neurotic we all are. Look at the ways we've screamed at and mistreated one another, but continue to come together in love. Look at the way we take care of our children and each other. Look at how we always come back to Camp, no matter what. It's love. It's why I know love so well. If Gram hadn't given us all Camp and herself, it wouldn't be this way. Love would be something else and it wouldn't be nearly as rich or safe or encompassing. I can't even imagine who I'd be.
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