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Mitchell Kaidy
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01/09/04 - 22:11:41
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By Mitchell Kaidy The stubby, coal-burning New York Central train heading for Poughkeepsie, N.Y. slowed to a screechy stop along a quiet, leafy stretch of countryside cut by two sets of tracks. No building or evidence of activity greeted it—only a slim, vertical sign revealed its location “Dover Furnace.” Then came the ringing voices and jostling figures of boys hauling off their suitcases, noisy, laughing, boys jumping out of three passenger cars to find two trucks waiting for them. One of the truck drivers beckoned them to heave their suitcases aboard and to start hiking the leafy, sunlit trail about two miles to camp, the hike serving as a useful introduction to life at Camp Sharparoon. When the trucks filled with suitcases, the older boys were advised to carry their luggage. In the first of my six summers at Sharparoon starting in 1937, the camp stood proudly exclusionary. Under the criteria set by the New York City Mission Society, it excluded girls; excluded dark races, and excluded boys from Brooklyn and other boroughs. The last exclusion should have, but didn’t, bar me and several of my Brooklyn friends. By pulling political strings, our group of five or six boys, ages 12 to 14, broke the barrier in 1937; but until the exclusionary policy was officially repealed several summers later, our small group comprised the only campers whose homes weren’t in Manhattan or the Bronx. Set within hundreds of rolling acres in a wondrous valley surrounded by rock hills and a perfectly-oval lake, Sharparoon was not only a breathtaking revelation for urban dwellers but a rugged experience where maturing youth could test themselves against other youths as well as against the primeval countryside. In that first year, 1937, a single electrical cable that connected to the Chief’s rustic cabin and to a tiny white clinic with siding and windows was the most visible evidence of civilization at the camp. Only irregularly staffed, and by non-medical personnel, the clinic was initially the only truly enclosed, house-like structure on the camp’s hundreds of acres. For the rest, the roofed cabins were open, tent-like affairs, each with eight doubled canvas bunks where at night flashlights or candles were the only sources of light. One or two counselors, usually in their late teens, bunked with the boys. At night, under a full moon as the temperature dipped, the cabins’ canvas siding was rolled down, enclosing mosquitoes in such swarms that sleep in that valley became highly disturbed—if possible. In those early years, I recall that spring water was at first supplied by a rushing stream that flowed down the rock face. So for at least several years earlier most of the water was drawn by hand; until a waterline was connected to the kitchen and to the main camp’s outdoor privies. Underscoring the rustic setting, several huge, wood-fired kitchen stoves were kept leaping with burning wood in the loghouse dining room, so six days a week squads kept busy felling and chopping dead trees with axes and two-man saws. Volunteering for this work for several years, I took pride in wielding saws as well as chopping wood. Like the rugged setting, food at this economical camp was legendary in its simplicity and just as legendary in its sparseness, rarely quelling young appetites. To stave off ravening hunger, many a camper swept off with slices of bread and apple butter to tide him over to the next meal. Huge “Powerhouse” chocolate bars selling for a nickel came to the rescue, filling ravening appetites from the camp store as fast as they could be supplied from the nearby villages of Dover Plains or Pawling, N.Y. The philosophy of the New York City Mission society was to take the boys off the not-so-mean streets and introduce them to a rugged outdoor life reinforced with religious training. So while testing the young campers with a schedule of competitive sports-- swimming, soft and hardball, touch-football, races, and strenuous competitions--the religious component was never minimized. To extend the camping privilege to as many boys as possible, the Mission Society pegged rates lower for campers who remained only two weeks--$8 per week. After two weeks, the rates were almost doubled to $15 weekly. One highlight of the two-week periods was a strenuous competition known as “Capture The Flag.” According to instructions that remain in my possession for a contest on Wednesday, Aug. 9, 1939, the “Mad Russians” were to wear white handkerchiefs tied around their arms, distinguishing themselves from the “Nazis” who wore no handkerchiefs. The “Mad Russians” flag stood in the parking area, while the “Nazis” flag stood at the baseball pitchers’ box. The typed notice awarded five points for capturing the enemy’s flag and placing it on the play lodge porch, warning “No Slugging, No Strangleholds, No Kicking, and No Throwing of Missiles.” On the bottom, the notice included the following warning: “One entire side shall be docked one point if one of their men is caught using unfair tactics such as the aforementioned slugging, kicking, etc.” That encounter is still vivid to me, because I bear scars on my left side caused by being dragged, while clutching the flag, across a partially- buried stone. Rugged though they were, those sports constituted the fun part of camplife in that pre-World War 11 period, and constituted only a phase of the physical demands. In most Summer camps, the maintenance work was performed by a paid staff. Not at Sharparoon. The daily work schedule is reflected in the names of the worksquads—Wood from Woods, Wood Carrying, Wood Chopping, Kitchen, Garden, Sanitation, Campus, Lake, Road, Incinerator, Athletic Fields, and Dish Squad. Of these the Dish Squad was the most time-consuming, since, despite the dysfunctional or absent hot water, three times daily, including Sunday, all dishes, pots and utensils were washed and scrubbed by hand. One Summer, I signed up for this trial of cracked skin and broken fingernails. The reward was eight weeks of free camping. Sharparoon never forgot or minimized Christian self-fulfillment, and, although hymns and prayers at meals served as daily reminders, Sundays were officially the Lord’s Days. Each Sunday, the open-air chapel with rustic benches located in a setting that looked across the lake, rang out with hymns and prayers that reverberated across the water and disappeared into the pine woods. Self-improvement was further pursued in such areas as meeting Red Cross qualifications for Senior as well as Junior Lifesaving badges. Too young to pursue the Senior badge, I swam, retrieved rocks and righted swamped canoes on my way to gaining the Junior badge in 1939. But it was understood that the campers would also strive to achieve entry into a select circle. That was the CS and CS Circle-- black-and-red felt-cutouts that were worn on shorts, shirts or bathing trunks. These, based on both athletic achievements and hiking prowess at night without a compass, were highly-regarded and highly-pursued. To this day, those felt red-and-black badges viewed in my old trunk revive those endless Summer days of Christian sharing and striving for self-improvement. ### (A journalist, Mitchell Kaidy of Rochester, N.Y. contributed articles with a team of reporters in 1963 that won a special citation from the Pulitzer Prize Committee, and in 1993 he won a Project Censored Award. He was a combat infantryman in World War 11, and is listed in Who’s Who in America, 2004.) |
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