Talent Shows

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” .