March 24, 2004
I have not been up to North Woods for about
three years now, but I try to get there every now and then just to look
at the site and remember the fantastic things that happened to me there
when I was a camper and a staff member. I think that I was in
every section during my tenure there and before Nate did the right thing
and asked me to leave, I was even the truck driver. We managed to
attend the 50th and we camped on the upper ball field in our Dodge van;
my wife, my 20 month old and our barely six week old. Today, the older
boy is working for the NFL producing commercials for them in NYC and the
younger one is at MIT getting an MBA after three years working following
his graduation from Harvard. They each attended North Woods back
in the eighties for a season, but the camp was having some issues at the
time and they ended up having a camping experience elsewhere.
After practicing law for 28 years and making
the final tuition payment of the youngest, I left the law to do anything
but that. To my amazement, I ended up becoming a free lance photo
journalist. Most of my work is for the Associated Press and the Boston
Globe, although I do assignments from time to time for the Chicago
Tribune, the LA Times and the Washington Post. In addition, for
the past two seasons, I worked for the NFL shooting the Patriots home
games. My work has appeared in Newsweek and Sports Illustrated as
well. I am having a fantastic time in this new career and I feel totally
rejuvenated as a result. My wife of thirty-two years, Charlotte is
still teaching third grade and enjoys it immensely. We consider
ourselves indeed fortunate.
North Woods has a very special place in my
heart. I grew up there and I do not think that there was anything
in my life that influenced me more than my experiences there. Not
only did I learn new skills, but more importantly, I learned about
living in a community that was diverse and yet at the same time
dedicated and loyal to the ideals that the camp engendered. I only
wish that every young man and woman could have this life experience as I
think it would help make the planet a better place.
He also sent the following recollections for
the History pages as well (which we will place there as soon as the
relevant years are put up!):
1. My counselor in the Trail section, Trail
5, I think was Steve Cochrane and he had a bit of genius running
through him...when we had the carnival up at the farmhouse at the end of
the year, he and Wayne Hill the counselor in Trail 7 came up with
some amazing ideas for things to do: one year they built a bomber on
wires that dropped a dart onto a city below...if the dart hit a
building, you won a prize or tickets or something...the next year they
built a catapult that heave a huge rock across the back of the yard of
the farmhouse and if you hit a building you won...Nate was not too
pleased about that one...
2. I remember that as a member of the Forestry Patrol, our counselor was
Chuck ?, all six feet ten of him...he was a basketball player at
William and Mary and quite the outdoorsman...one day he and Bob Gould
decided to see if they could set a record eating Traylor Rogers's
donuts...well, Trailer got plenty annoyed, but I think Chuck ate more
than 20 and Bob put away at least 15...
3. On a trip with the Forestry, we were hiking one of the trails from
one side of the Presidentials to the other...we got to Mt. Washington on
July 31 in the midst of a snow storm...we hiked down to the Great Gulf
shelter where Warren Broadhead, the assistant counselor proceeded
to put an axe into his foot when it slipped off a slippery log...we
hiked out by flashlight to the Glenn House only to be turned away by the
manager because we were too grubby...this enraged one of the guests who
invited us in and treated us to a steak dinner while we made
arrangements for Warren "Squeaky" Broadhead to be taken to a
local hospital for treatment...
4. There was the day as CIT's that Nate thought we were a bunch of screw
offs...one of our members was Jon Landau the man who made
Bruce Springsteen the Boss...Anyway, Nate thought that we need to
toughen up so he dragged us in the rain to Mt. Chocorua...much to his
surprise and shock, we all ran ahead and beat him to the summit by more
than a half and hour...
5. I had the good fortune of going on an exchange program with a
Canadian Y camp on Lake Muskoka the Georgian Bay area of Ontario...that
was a great experience....
that's about it for now...the rest I will
have to think about...
