|
Contents
Home
Books
WhatILearned
Our New House
PrincetonVisit
Kawanhee
Truck Postcard
A Letter
Pics I Bought
Pics Not Owned
Spoon Ad
AH Davenport
Go
Old Topics
|
Camp Kawanhee
A Memory Book
The Odd Fellow's Club
I think one of the best stories we ever had was when we were counselors. George and Raymond of course were the directors and you know their individual personalities. They were quite different from each other, even as brothers. I had some good counselor friends, Ted Wilson , Bill Fleming and Herb Hedges. One day when we had our day off we went to Lakewood Maine in order to see a play at the Lakewood Theater. We were driving down toward Skowhegan and we saw a sign for The Odd Fellows Club. It advertised when they would meet and so on and so forth. We thought it would be great to take that sign and bring it back to Camp Kawanhee and put it right in front of the office. Little did we know that when we did take the Odd Fellows sign, the farmer on the property was eating his lunch and he saw what we did. Before we got to the Lakewood Theater, the local police had us stopped, checked the trunk, and saw the sign. Of course it was a felony of sorts and we got put in the Skowhegan jail. And you can guess who had to get us out, George and Raymond Frank. We never had the opportunity to put the sign where we thought it belonged. The story sticks out in my mind because at a prior reunion, Ted Wilson gave me a nice plaque with the citation from the Skowhegan police for that particular event. We just wanted to try to create a little spirit and hoopla between the Frank brothers because Raymond appeared so stern and George was fairly affable.
Camp Kawanhee for counselors
I started out in 1948 in Lynx lodge. I was 14 years old. I came from Cleveland Ohio and I remember George Frank was the one who got me involved originally. When I got up to camp on Webb lake and Weld I thought the environment was so terrific that I said to myself, some day I am going to bring my family up here and I am going to buy property. In 1981 we bought the property in Rangeley Maine and we have a wonderful home there. We still spend July August and September there.. And of course that never would have happened if I hadn't gone to Camp Kawanhee
I actually was one of the originators of the wrestling program at Kawanhee. They had mainly boxing when I first came. I was a wrestler during high school and college and I convinced George Frank that they ought to be expanding and developing that program. Instead of just having a canvas mat on the ground, they ought to get into some wrestling mats and equipment. It really grew into quite a program.
One of the great experiences I had was being the counselor of the Green barn. It was out past the crows nest, before it burned down. I liked that because most of the campers in that lodge were the older seniors and because I was in charge of wrestling I could handle that particular group. It was a lot of fun. Many times they called it Camp Kawanhee for the counselors.
I remember a cook by the name a Lawrence. He was a curmudgeon. He certainly was someone who did a good job putting out the food for a boys camp. The food was quite good, and of course every Sunday we would have a banquet type meal. With all the trimmings and so forth and in those days they did not spare the expense in regard to providing good quality food.
Roy Nickerson had a single high bar right outside his Pine Tree lodge. He taught us how to do the gymnastics on it. For trips, I liked the upper Kennebec trip rather than the lower because of the high white water rapids. I loved to shoot the rapids. Don Wambaugh was the counselor in charge. He was a very fine canoeist. And of course Bates would take us in the bouncing buggy. I was not a singer but we did put on skits and plays. We were required to do that on the Friday nights. Each lodge had to create something that was original and put it on in the Rec. hall.
I was the captain of the Maroon team and Bobby Applemon(sp?) was the captain of the gray team. I think I lost by a little less than 100 points. So we had quite a time. We still had the war canoe races. They were dramatic. And we had the track and field events and capture the flag and all the primary activates that they are still involved with, we were involved with in that day and age. We were very fortunate to have had such a wonderful experience early on in our lives. The persistency, graciousness and appreciation of not only the outdoors but of the many people we met.
Jock Duncan 48-56 Maroon Captain 1952
For 25 years I have loved having a second home in Rangeley Maine and being so close to camp.
|
