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Health & Fitness

My Best Summers as a Boy

Great Times!

If I could write a song, a cheerful song, a timeless song, I’d write one about my summers at Boy Scout Camp. Camp Siwanoy was in Wingdale, New York. It is now a luxury home development and I do wonder if any former scouts live there. Lol. Never to forget the ordeal of the trip to the doctor for the shots, the buying of the foot locker trunk, sleeping bag, and Yucca sack, what I truly remember is the smell of the pines the moment I emerged from the car, every time I went to that place. Being from Pelham Troop 1, the oldest scout troop in the U.S.A. I was put in a location high above most of the camp, in a "tribe" called the Delawares, but close to everything, which included a lake, athletic field, mess hall/recreation center, craft lodge, nature lodge, and a few other crude wooded buildings like the Administration office, (I actually eventually worked there running the Camp Bank and some other chores). As campers we all were awaken at 7 AM by a small iron cannon that shot off a blank shotgun shell that echoed wildly off Mohawk Mountain with the sound rolling through the hills. Later on when I was on staff it was me who would shoot off that canon right under the flag poll where I hade just raised the flag. One morning I misread my watch, and shot the canon off at 6 AM, the phone rang right after that; the camp director was not pleased. As scouts at Camp Siwanoy we would stay in two-week intervals. There were 4 two-week intervals that covered most of July and August. Some of the highlights included when the West Point cadets would come and shoot off ordinances like fireworks, until one time they actually misfired and a couple of young scouts ended up in the infirmary. This was about the time 1964-65-66 that Vietnam was about to become what it became. Once every two weeks there would be a weekend 3-day hike for the whole camp, but split up into like 7 hikes. There were the privilege trips such the Lake Candlewood Canoe Hike; the Housatonic River Canoe Hikes that were really canoe trips with little hiking, It was two Housatonic River hikes (20 miles along the Appalachian Trail.) which ran in opposite directions that were the forced marches. When the two met up somewhere in between it was a big deal. Finally for the true hikers there was the 50-mile hike, something big in those JFK days. I did them all the hikes except the 50 mile one…although years later I did one at Philmont Scout Reserve in New Mexico. The food during the hikes consisted of things like freeze dried Chicken a la king, cheese on crackers, of course SPAM, and pancakes and some sort of powder breakfast hot cereal said to be oatmeal. There were a few other main events, the Aquatic Meet (swimming, rowing, canoeing events) Athletic meets (running, javelin, shot put, high jump etc.) and a scouting meet with things like fire by friction, knot tying, lashing polls, and other neat scout skills. The meets were all scored with points. Which ever “Tribe” scored the most points would win the coveted "Thunderbird” insuring best seating in the mess hall, for movies, and all other group events. The Delaware’s mostly Pelham troops, for some reason always won the Thunderbird. WE all slept in four-man stand up tents with those single thin mattresses on military spring mattress stand with our trunks underneath. It was not unusual for some tents to have regular guests at night like raccoons, chip monks, rabbits, and yes one dude once stole a snake from the nature lodge for a few days and kept it in his tent. I will never forget the end of each session when we had the huge final campfire with the wood stacked up almost 6 feet high. We would sing a song with the lines, camp Siwanoy to be forever, and now that is true only in our minds, but yes it does live on in my mind for my forever.

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