Another Camp Story

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. 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….”

The Cemetary Story

My Mother loved Eagle Bay so much, she wanted to be buried there. 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.

Talent Shows

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.

Baldwin

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.

Adirondack Broom Dance

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.

Eagle Bay Boating

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.

First Years at Camp

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.