A spring-cleaning mouse encounters neighbors with spring fever while a cheeky squirrel goes a little nutty.  Unseemly seamstresses and “seamsters” put down their needles to celebrate while two of their cousins take the welcome wagon a bit too far! Joining in is the entire Bunny clan following mischief with mayham! All will have you dancing along in this magical tribute to one of the world’s most beloved children’s authors, Beatrix Potter!

Cincinnati Kinderballet continues the year long tribute that began with the Tailor of Gloucester in December 2009 with five more stories guaranteed to delight and divert children and adults of all ages.  With music from composers Zbigniew Preisner, Ludwig Minkus, and John Lanchbery that is at once touching and light hearted.  Choreography by Conni Berns, Laura Baresel, and Celia Wallen includes choreography inspired by Marius Petipa, Frederick Ashton, and Jules Perrot.  Special thanks to The Caswell Foundation for their ongoing support!  

For more information about AvO Ballet please contact us at 513 481-0092 or on line at www.avoballet.org.    

Saturday, 24 April: 2:00 p.m.  North Branch Library, Mt. Healthy                           

Saturday, 1 May: 11:00 a.m.  Sponsored by Batesville Memorial Public Library; performing at Batesville Middle School           

Saturday, 1 May:  3:00 p.m.  Heritage Hall, Historic Downtown, Rising Sun        

Saturday, 8 May:  2:00 p.m.  Harrison Branch Library                                                        

Saturday, 15 May:  7:00 p.m.  AvO Spring Recital, College of Mt. St. Joseph Auditorium

Saturday, 22 May:  11:00 a.m.  Hoosier Theatre, Vevay                                              

Saturday, 5 June:  2:00 p.m.  Groesbeck Branch Library                                                     

Saturday, 26 June:  1:00 p.m.  West Fest

Written by

Conni Berns

March 9, 2010

You might not be aware of this but Anneliese was the fifth child, born to Maria and   Reinhart von Oettingen.  Their first child died about the age of 8, and her favorite doll was the name they then named this their “replacement child” ( I was later told).  At a young age, Anneliese was quite precocious, sitting down at the piano and playing tunes by ear.  She still could come up with several at later times, but never had a lesson.  She loved to dance, and could do the bird’s nest at a young age, and started modern dance around age 11.  She begged to study ballet, but the family could not afford such frivolities. Her father referred to all that as, “Skipping around, meaning nothing”….

Her Mother recalled her own dreams, shattered at a young age.  She had wanted to sing in the opera, run away to be in the circus, become a stenographer- all impossible at her time, because her father insisted she marry and become a “Hausfrau”.  She made a deal with the Balletmistress:  she would become the office manager, and Annelise would help and take class, whatever needed to be done, in order for her to take class.  Three years later, when the Teacher needed to move, she asked Anneliese to take over her role, take the exams to become certified in Germany for all fields of instruction, lead her ballet company, and of course, for her to take over the business with her mother as the office manager.  Without this business Anneliese could not have supported her entire family, found refuge during the war, and saved others.

In America some time later she found an accordian, and started playing by ear.  She could play a bunch a songs, and just knew how to do it as if by magic.  I picked it up often, and never could figure it out, even though I took years of piano lessons, and knew the notes.  She would buy tubes of oil paints and canvas and start paintings, and end up with woods, lakes, boats and landscapes.  She painted and drew by some inner inspiration.  I am sure it was somewhat driven by the out of doors.  She often referred to the woods as a cathedral built more grand than any by human hands.

There were also German games she brought with her we played, and one of them was Handrummy- which had very specific rules to it.  You held 12 cards in your hand, drew a card, discarded, and in order to “lay down” you had to have trios counting up to 52 points- it was a chore to figure this one out as a child, but once you did, we played til late into the night.  Anneliese would always remark to those who did not win, “Oh, the German saying here, unlucky in cards, lucky in Love…”  Tyll always put down a trio with two seven of hearts- “but you CANNOT have two of a kind”, I hear Anneliese say,  and the arguement would start, ending with Tyll taking all his cards back. Then Anneliese would be upset because Tyll would not discard one of the sevens, and they would argue again, “Why don’t you just get rid of it????”   “But I might need it for something else.”   “You will mix it up again!”  “No I won’t!”  “”You do it everytime!”  The second way Tyll would get Mom upset is when he would lay down his cards and he would be short.  He would count wrong, so she always insisted on recounting his points.  She did not recount others often, but HIS? HE often took his cards back and started collecting again.  I think he liked the attention and seeing her upset about this.  Students could try her patience, and she remained super calm.  Tyll could heat her to the boiling point in seconds.

I think I have such wonderful memories of Eagle Bay because my Mother worked so hard.  Every hour in Cincinnati was spent with ballet, music, costumes, other people.  Here in the woods suddenly time was for us, too.  We went to the beach, we spent time playing games, we sat around the campfire.  Life took on a different pace, and it meant something else.  We appreciated each other more, because we understood each other better.

This picture was taken at our Eagle Bay reunion in 2009

Written by

Conni Berns

March 8, 2010

My grandfather had spent much of his life researching, buying and selling oriental rugs.  he had traveled extensively in the east and brought rugs for sale to Germany before the war. Even in Cincinnati our home was hung with many colorful rugs(they were not to be stepped on) with designs in reds and browns of richest hues.  Opa loved to spend hours designing squares of woven cloth out of skeins of yarn.  We had cotton of all kinds, wool, and the colors were incredibly beautiful.  He worked the patterns so that borders wove around the edges, and then handed the squares to Oma to sew together.  Soon we had rugs on the floor, and carpeting down the hall steps, all three stairways.  Grandmother was the crochet and knit expert, but Grandfather wove the rugs and planned the rugs. 

Oma taught me to crochet when I was young, and to knit.  It became a tradition that for a holiday or birthday my favorite doll would have a new surprise hat or  dress.  And Oma Covered up with a very soft multicolored blanket when she rested, that she had crocheted.  She told me the story of that blanket, and the rebirth it had.  It started as a pair of pants for Tyll when he was a baby, and as he grew she added bits of yarn from other garments(he was a chubby boy).  She once unravelled it, and widened it. This continued until he no longer needed it, so she made herself a blanket, and when she went to rest she could recall all the sweet times with him.

In Eagle Bay we often have times for crafts.  We will make time for drawing, knitting, crocheting, or even playing games.  Of course this means we are not dancing, which does not happen often, but it does happen.  Anneliese loved to spend time teaching her students how to crochet, and encourage them to go to the Old Forge Hardware store to chose some yarn and crochet a scarf or hat.  She often had supplies right in a buffet in the dining room.  She kept ping pong equipment, cards, darts, writing supplies, artist paints, watercolors, and crayons.  She kept a lot of books in the cabin for students, since she always insisted on a one hour quiet time after lunch.  It was interesting how your mind becomes creative without the noise of a TV or radio playing, and quiet time each day, so that you can draw or write down what you are learning, instead of being distracted before anything sinks into your mind.

Each student was asked to sit after each class and write down the combinations, and talk about the class so that we could record what we had done to take home with us a copy of the work.  We would even learn dances that we would perform at home later, inspired by the beauty and atmosphere of the woods.  After a few days we would be in the rhythm of the classes and building our strength and stamina, so that we felt a jump in our abilities.  It was with a great reluctance that we then felt the end of our stay nearing.  That is why many students stayed two or more weeks, and  enjoyed it all the more.

There have been a lot of renovations made to the area.  There is now a beautiful bike path the two miles from Eagle Bay to Inlet, where the shops, the Inlet Hardware, the Tennis Courts, the $3 Movie Theatre, the Screamin Eagle Pizza, Petals and Pedals, the Churches, the gift shops, and the Northern Lights Ice Cream Shop- Oh Yes and the Bakery is.  On that path, which runs alongside Route 28, is also the start of trails up Black Bear Mountain and Rocky Mountain, both of which have a moderately good view of the lakes.  The best view of the lakes in the area is from the top of Bald Mountain.  The Trailhead has been renamed Rondax Mountain, and is on Rondax Road, right off of Route 28 between Old Forge and Eagle Bay.  One of our special field trips is to take the chair lift up MaCauley Mountain, and see the view from there.  Our closest hike, Eagle Cliff is a great one, but not as much of a climb- and can be done in about 20 minutes.  Anneliese often added a boat ride from Old Forge along the lakes(first through fourth) for those campers who wanted to spend some time on the water.  It would be fun for some sailors or fishermen to rent boats and explore the area.  There are lakes and rivers for canoeing and kayaking, as well as tubing and waterskiing.

Old Forge offers the Water Safari which is a type of smaller version of King’s Island.  They have slides and water amusements.  There is a mini-car racing track, too.  They have a summer circus and a wild west where you can pan for gold.  Anneliese never took the campers there, though.  We were always too busy dancing and performing.  The Water Safari is an all day event.  One thing we did often do is drive to Blue Mountain Lake and visit the Museum there, because of its historic value and its interesting exhibits.  From diaramas to refurbished railroad cars it has just about everything Adirondack.  It tells the history of the Great Camps and the Hermits, the Indians and the high society.  The Story of Timber and the Olympics are all part of the area.  One summer we went to Font Ticonderoga, and another we panned for garnets at the garnet mine.  In all the years we have been in that area I don’t believe we have run out of ideas and always come home thinking,  “Next year we really should do that….”

Eagle Bay began when Anneliese was hired by Dr. Longstaff to teach at his Moss Lake Camp for Girls.  When Moss Lake closed in the early 70’s Anneliese invited dancers from Cincinnati up to her cabins in Eagle Bay.  There were two cabins.  One was a private quarters for Anneliese and included one large room we called “The Hilton.”  The other main cabin housed five bedrooms, the main kitchen, dining room, bathroom with showers, toilets and washing machines, and an indoor studio.  Jack’s shack was around the back near the out door stage. 

A typical camp day, according to legend, began at 7:00 a.m. with morning jog to the lake and a dip therein.  Never mind it was summer.  This was the Adirondacks and mornings in July could easily be 50 degrees farenheit.  (The water was much colder!)  Then it was jog home, eat breakfast and be ready for 9:00 a.m. class.  Class concluded when the alarm went off at the firehall across the street at noon.  Then it was jog to the lake for a dip and back home for lunch.  After lunch was usually rest time.  EVERYONE had to take a nap.  This, you can imagine, did not sit well with any newbie– especially the typical teenager who knew better.  Veterans knew the rest was key to survival.  The day was only half over.  Two o’clock was another class maybe only an hour until time to go canoeing or hiking.  We might even go to the garbage dump to see the black bears.  Some camps even did longer road trips to Vermont to perform or to Sarasota to see the New York City Ballet perform.  Other times it was to Golden Beach or Lake George.

But I digress.  This was the typical day only.  By the end of the week we were really ready to celebrate!  Banquet.  Tunnel of Fudge.  Camper awards… Each word is a memory charged with magical stories.  The banquet was like Christmas, your birthday, and the Academy Awards all wrapped up into one special moment.  It was filled with speeches, awards, special foods.  It was usually preceeded by the Talent Show, another time where creativity abounded.  Just keep in mind the camp was in the middle of nowhere.  There was no running to Walmart for a ready made costume.  Costumes were created from whatever could be scavanged.  One year they recreated the royal wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Di with aid of a borrowed shopping cart from Tim’s across the street which became Lady Di’s carriage…

Stuff of legends indeed!

The camp was sold in 2002 at the time of Anneliese’s passing.  We have, however been in contact with the camp’s current owner.  Since 2002 he has made some amazing renovations as seen in the pictures below.  We are set to rent the cabins and recreate the legend ONE WEEK ONLY:

Saturday, July 17th through Saturday July 24th. 

If we can get only 5 people we can make a go! 

Here are the numbers broken down:

$200.00 per person for the week to pay cabin “rent”  If that is all you need, that is all you pay.

$75.00 per person for the week to get meals prepared for you.

$125.00 per dancer for the week’s ballet classes and activities.  Others may not want to take class, but can still participate in activities: swimming, hiking, canoeing, sight-seeing.

If there is enough interest we are also renting a 15 passenger van from Cincinnati.  It will be driven by Alan and Michele Frey.  In splitting the costs we anticipate $150 to $200 per person depending on how many ride with. 

Total potential cost for transportation, stay, food, ballet class and a week in the Adirondacks is $500 to $600.00

The Magic is FREE!

Pass the word and let us hear from you!  Mom’s can come with for the “rent donation” and enjoy the beach while dancers are in class.  We are hoping to get $100.00 deposit from those ready to make the QUEST so we can secure the cabins.

We are also working on fundraising ideas so that any dancer who would like to attend can help us raise the money to defray costs.  We are considering a good old fashioned candy bar sale.  Please contact us with any ideas.  

We would also invite any Eagle Bay alum to attend on a day by day basis for $50.00 per day “rent and food!”   Anyone who came last year and had to find accomodations will know that this is a great offer!  The main cabin can sleep up to 11 people comfortably. 

Please contact Laura Hughes at 513 410-0277 with any questions.  Be sure to click on the pictures below for larger size views!

This photo was taken summer 2009 during our first Eagle Bay Reunion.

April 14, 2007

 My Mother loved Eagle Bay so much, she wanted to be buried there.  In fact, she decided that she did not like where her Father was buried in Cincinnati, so she had him dug up. Luckily he was in a cement square with an urn on it, allowing her to put him in the back of her station wagon, and drive him to Old Forge one summer.  She had bought 4 plots at the cemetary there.  She had him buried, and a granite stone with his name placed at the Urn.    When my Grandmother died, she also brought her ashes from California, in the back of the Safari station wagon to Old Forge, as before, having a stone engraved. 

In preparation for her own demise, she felt we would not do her justice.  She wanted a grand stone.  She had one designed, with a ballerina in fifth position on pointe, her name engraved, trees in the back- it was beautiful.  Several years in a row she would take students from the ballet camp to view her grave, pose them around the grave, as from the ballet “Giselle” and take photos.   

Her very goood friend Blanche lived next door to her cabin in Eagle Bay, and was always at performances, brought her special treats, such as buttermilk pancakes, and invited her to tea or coffee in her cabin.  Over the years Blanche took care of Heidi, the dog, and had her own dog, Dottie, as well. 

One day Mom returned from Old Forge a bit upset.  She had gone to the hardware, and taken students to the Muffin Patch for ice cream, stopped at the cemetary to see deer and the grave stone, and there were some lovely flowers at her grave.  She felt someone might have mistakenly thought she was already dead.  She was considering writing an article for the Adirondack Echo.  She had engraved her date of birth on the stone, but surely noone could mistake that there was NO date of death yet…While she was engrossed in dark thoughts of her own death, Blanche came over with some donuts from the donut shop.  She was listening to the conversation, and chimed in, “Oh, I put those flowers there.”    Mom was insensed, “But Blanche, how could you do such a thing?  You know I am not dead yet!!!”  And Blanche softly answered, in her sweet way that showed she had been reading her Bible and just thinking of the best for everyone, “I won’t be able to put flowers on your grave, because I am older than you, and will probably die first, so I just put them  there now.”  

When Mom was 84 and died in Florida Blanche was living in a nursing home in Booneville.  They died only a few months apart. 

Written by

Conni Berns

April 22, 2007

At the end of each camp session AvO would announce the talent show.    Students made up skits, from the profound to the ridiculous.  Students dressed in red, green and yellow tutus sang the jello song, wiggled, and shouted, “It’s alive!”   For several years students performed that ditty.  Mary and Beverly tap danced and were dressed as salt and pepper one year.  There was always a ballet class with someone impersonating AvO, pounding a stick, demanding perfection with a clutz in the class.  A large red curtain was hung across the studio, and we watched from the other side, as one student  did the hands and feet dance, the other did the legs lying down behind her.  Often Laura or Polly were impersonated, for the meals they cooked, or the special events they planned.   One skit involved our neighbor Blanche, bicycling on the exercycle, talking to the ballet students as they jogged by during their early morning jog.

Black Bear were common in the Adirondacks.  Our nephew, Jack,  was looking for a job for the summer before he went into the Navy, and AvO decided her girls could use some defense in the woods.  She told Jack on the morning jog, and on the hikes up Eagle Cliff, he should take a club and beware of the bear.  Of course, bear would be seen mysteriously appearing out of the woods, and raid the garbage ever so often.  Jack would also do training with AvO, to get ready for the intense work he was going to do in the fall, and AvO knew how to dish it out.  Dancers and Jack alike would love to head for the cool clear water of the lake to relax after the hard work of the day.  The lake was quiet, with the rare call of a loon, the frequent calls of chickadees, cardinals, and  waxwings. 

 Becky and Jim started playing jokes that summer, and Jack did not know he was going to get it good.  Jim took a string, fed it out the window over the roof, onto a board, and whenever Becky pulled it, it made the board knock loudly on Jack’s roof.  For days Becky pulled the string, and every morning Jack  would ask everyone if they heard some noise.  Everyone said, “no, you must be hearing ghosts.”  One night Becky just continued, and Jack started to shout, “Who is that?   I know you are out there!!!! I am coming out to get you!!”   This is at 2 a.m. and everyone is supposed to be asleep.  Becky stops pulling the string.  Jack, of course too scared to go outside to see what is really going on, keeps shouting.  Footsteps.  Becky now freezes.  She is horrified- the voice of doom…  “Now what is this noise in the middle of the night!!!!!!”  AvO  insisted on all the details, and Becky tells all, “Becky, you are a doctor, you should know better, this is not responsible!  You do something so silly like a child?”   Then she spoke to Jack, “And you go to defend our country, to fly to the moon, but you are afraid of ghosts?  What is this?  That has to go!”   She was most angry at Jim for disturbing her sleep, which she treasured so highly.  We heard this story many times at campfires for years after.  In his honor,  the room Jack lived in became “Jack’s Shack” .  

Image from Beatrix Potter’s Timmy Tiptoes. Oma seemed very much like Beatrix Potter at her writing desk!

Written by

Conni Berns

April 24, 2007

Oma had worked for years with my Mom as a secretary, and joined her in Eagle Bay for many summers.  She had the green room, or middle room (number 2).  She had an active correspondence with many relatives and friends around the world, so she insisted on a desk where she kept all kinds of writing supplies in the dining hall.

She always sent her mail air mail, and either my brother, Tyll, or I would have to personally go to the post office to mail her letters and request the proper stamps.  Her list would read something like
this,
5- 23 cent stamps
6-14 cent stamps
4 international exchange coupons 1.50 each
total 7.99.  I will give you 8.00 so I get back 1 cent.

Tyll and I hated going to the post office, mainly because she would recite the note to us, and when we returned ask us how many letters we mailed (so we didn’t drop any on the way), and make us wait while she counted the change.  One summer she noticed a chipmunk hanging around the cabin.  They were always a problem, getting into the bedding and food over the winter, so that we put everything into mothballs, and steel garbage cans.   She ordered Tyll to buy some peanuts.   She began to feed the chipmunk.  This little chipmunk was special to her, and one day she told us his name was Baldwin.

“How do you know it is a he,” we asked.

“I just know,” was the answer.

The chipmunk got bolder as the summer went on, coming into the kitchen for its peanut.   The chipmunk would fill its pouches with peanuts, and scurry off.   Soon Oma had it coming to her foot as she sat at her writing desk, which she did for hours each day.   You see, she did not whip off a letter in haste.   She meticulously penned a letter with handwriting that ressembled caligraphy.   She used onion skin paper, so the weight of the letter was minimal and she could write more.   She wrote to each relative in Germany in her close and extended family, her son in South Africa, her daughter in Oregon, her sister-in-law and family in Arizona, et cetera.  The summer ended, and we all knew Baldwin was all set for the winter with a large stockpile of food.

The next summer we all wondered what would happen with the chipmunk.   Sure enough, Oma sat at her desk, and Baldwin arrived to get his treat.  Only this time he started climbing up onto the top,
to look down on what she was writing.  She fed him out of her hand in between sentences.   She enjoyed her time writing and feeding Baldwin.   I know we have pictures of them at the desk.   Another
summer, and another, and STILL Baldwin came to visit.   And then one summer, the inevitible.  No Baldwin.  At All. 

The next summer we did see another chipmunk.   Oma was hopeful it might be Baldwin, but she knew right away it was not.   She knew HER friend Baldwin.   But something was strange about this little chipmunk.   Oma wanted to feed it, and it started to come to her, as had Baldwin.   She had Tyll buy peanuts, and put them out.  Sure enough, she started to tame this second chipmunk, and it came
into the kitchen.   She also named this one.   She always felt it was a messanger sent by Baldwin, so she named her Baldwina.

“How do you know its a girl?”, we asked.

 ”I just know,” she answered.

Oma saw Baldwina in the yard at the end of the summer with some baby chipmunks, she thought Baldwina wanted her to see.   Baldwina did not return the next summer.

Written By

Conni Berns

April 23, 2007

Someone was assigned to sweep the deck.  We would start the warm-up in the studio, and as the day warmed-up we could move outdoors to ther 30×30 deck surrounded on three sides by pvc pipe barres.  Blanche could watch us from her kitchen window when she had her tea, and when she invited Avo over, she would also be keeping an eye on us.  Dancing in the outdoors was amazing.  The sky above, the fresh air, the sounds, the insects, it was very alive and real.  Music intensified the experience.  Emotionally more striking, we danced more electrically, and reached out farther, the walls no longer held in our motions.  We tried to stretch to the stars, to touch the clouds.  It was a surreal experience.  To feel wind while you dance, to see a chipmunk scurry across the dance floor, it was a hoot.   My grandmother had named him “Baldwin”, but that is another story.

There were always students assigned to sweep the dining room.  One day a student swept up a piece of white bread.  AvO  examined it.  She called everyone in for a meeting.  She tended toward the thrifty side, after her days of starvation during The War.  There was a fuzzy bunny bank on the buffet into which each student had to donate a quarter whenever they left the lights on in their room, after they left.  She pointed to the bread that was wasted.  “Someone took a bite of this bread, the center has a big hole in it.  They did not want to eat the crust.  Then they threw it on the floor.  That is wasteful.  We cannot do this.  If you take it, you eat it, or do not take it. During The War we would have fought for a crust like this!”  She then took a string, and hung it from one of the lovely blue tiffany lamps that hung in the dining room.  It was a daily reminder of wastefulness to us all.  I shudder to think how the guilty one must have felt (we never knew who that was!).

 So much sand in the Adirondacks: we brought sand into the cabin at every moment.  Sweep the rooms, sweep the studio, the deck, the dining hall.  Eventually the dancers composed the Adirondack Broom Dance, with Brooms,  and dancing together swept the deck, practiced steps, listened to music, and  expressed themselves in true AvO style.

Written by

Conni Berns

May 30, 2007

Fourth Lake opens out before me like a dream come true, the mountains rise, first the blacker-green, then the bluer ones, then the greyer ones in the distance.  Off to the center right of the lake is Cedar Island, and the tiny Dollar Island sits   in front of us.  The beach seems long and endless to us kids, and the trees as tall as giants in a line behind us.  There are a few very small camps  right on the big beach, and they are not very fancy.  The time I recall, when we talked about a “camp” we meant a cabin, unfinished inside, 2 by4’s showing, plyboards up, often with gaps so you could see between the spaces.  Sometimes the roof leaked, OFTEN the roof  leaked.   The cabin was heated by a fireplace, or not.  Some camps just had cots for beds, and some used only bedrolls. 

Trucks have tires, and tires have inner tubes, like bicycles, today.  That is the important part of our adventure in Eagle Bay.  We all needed to find suitable kid-boats, and that meant innertubes.  Car tubes were smaller, and the plugs were short, so they would not jab you.  The truck tires were really huge, but those long nipples to fill them with air were painful when they got you in the back!  However, they carried a lot more prestige, and were a lot harder to get, since they were so big. 

The first set of tricks we mastered were the usual sit with the bottom inside, and paddle arms like oars.  Then we would jump or dive through the middle.  Another trick was throwing it as far as possible and coming up on the inside.

Adventure urges us onward, and we tied innertubes together with boat pillows, anchor on the end.  We put on masks and snorkles, and off to little beach.  In a caravan we swam out to the rock pile where the bouys are near Eagle Creek entrance.  We saw a lot of sunfish, bass, and grasses growing around.  What excitement!  this called for future planning! 

The next trip we tied on fishing gear,  and snorkled to the rock pile.  I did not like to fish, but Tyll did.  He would first spot the fish hideout, then proceed to fish for it.  He thus could check if he was fishing at the right depth, and if the fish liked the bait.  The fish could also be brought home on the boat pillow, or on a line.  I was there for the ride, swam off to have fun, or be a nuisance, as Tyll put it.

One of our childhood dreams came true one summer, when Tyll and I, and I think Bub-a-Flub, too all made sail-boats of our tubes.  We took sticks, tied crossbars to them, and attached our towels across them.  We waded in at Little Beach on a fairly windy day, and plopped into our tubes.  We paddled out past the dropoff in front of the stables (where Fields could not yell at us!), held up our towels, and waited…and waited…and waited.  The wind was light, and the towels were heavy.  I remember how heavy they were, and how much heavier they got with each hour we were out there in the water.  We finally got around the corner, and floated toward the beach, but  it took forever.  When we finally got to the beach our Mom was there.  She was NOT too pleased.  How dare we go out that deep, for that long, not tell her where we were, and have no way to come home in case of…. well in case of anything.

We did not try that again.  It was definitely not the yelling, but the exhaustion that convinced us to drop that idea.  However, I do recall that Tyll tried to build a raft.  He took pine logs, only small ones, lashed them together, like you see in the movies, or read in books.  He got on his raft and poled it out at little beach, however he never got anywhere, it kept tipping and going into the water on the corners when he moved or when seaplane waves hit it.  I think the Indians and natives that make canoes and boats to hunt and fish would do best to use the black inner tubes we used as children.  They did take us everywhere, and I think were as safe as anything I have seen, with very little training needed to use it properly.

 Written by

Conni Berns

Nov 27, 2008

The first time Mom went to Moss Lake Camp for Girls to teach Ballet she refused to leave us in Cincinnati.  She would not go for the summer and have Tyll and me wait elsewhere.  We were a package deal.  We came with a sitter (I believe that was the first year Mrs. Van Holle, Suzanne Farrell’s Aunt was our sitter), and we stayed at the nurse’s cabin on camp grounds.  It didn’t work very well.  We had to stay out of camper sight, keep off the daily camp areas, and be “unnoticeable” .  Then we had to be at meals when campers ate, and follow their rules of etiquette.  Mom found this worked not at all well.

The second year, and from then on, she found a rental in Inlet or Eagle Bay and commuted the 2 or 3 miles to work each day.  The problem was transportation.  There was none. 

The first year she bought a scooter.  It had two wheels, and ran on gas.  She was quite capable riding it, and she zoomed around with her feet on this little platform, carrying groceries between them when needed.  When we were eager to go to a movie, she would carry one of us in front of her about 50 yards ahead, go back get the other, jockey that one fifty yards ahead of the first, and hop on down the road til we got where we wanted to go.

Dr.  George Longstaff owned the camp and was a Dentist.  He insisted the teachers and instructors all be experts.  My best friend’s dad had been the Olympic fencing coach.  He was always looking for the best. Dr.  Longstaff decided Mom needed to learn to drive a car, so she could buy a car and “move up” to a more acceptable type of transportation.  I am sure he was not so satisfied with the sight of her coming to work each year on a little putt-putt scooter.

Mom would have driving lessons at any time of the day when she was at camp.  She would then descibe to us what she had done, and what she had learned.  It fascinated us.  “I don’t understand,”  she said, “He makes me drive backwards all the time.  He said if I can do it looking backward, forward will be easy.  I have driven all the camp roads backward, turned around, driven in circles, it is getting crazy.”  Finally she got out on the public roads and started driving forwards.

That’s when she explained another tecnique.  “In the mountains, on the very sharp turns, especially on narrow roads without any center lines, you can drive in the middle of the road, but you must honk the horn loudly.”

Anyone that has driven with my mom knows she had a unique way of driving.  She drove aggressively and was excellent at parallel parking.  She was not afraid of driving the larger cars, because she learned in Dr. Longstaff’s station wagon, “woody.”  She had excellent reflexes, as I noted while I was learning, and she would smash her hand on the dash yelling, “Brake!”  before I even saw the stop sign or the car stopping in front of me.  I always wondered if The Doctor had done that, too.  No, I cannot imagine him doing ANYTHING with a raised voice.  Raised eyebrows, yes.

She did take the driving test in New York after tutoring from the Doctor, and passed.  She then bought a car from a neighbor in Eagle Bay.  He was a car dealer in Syracuse, and she gave him $600 and he came back with a green 2 door Plymouth.  We had that car for a long time, and it served Mom well. 

Dr. Longstaff must have been a good teacher.  Mom never had a major accident, but she was constantly stopped fot speeding.  We would sit horrified in the back of the Plymouth, holding our breaths.  She began her story, “I just come from the old country, and there we have no speed limit, and I am so new to this all, …” She used the same tactic after she had been here thirty years.  I cannot recall when she EVER paid or received a ticket!!!!! She always charmed the officer out of it.