Lad's day camp leads to a lifetime of outdoor adventures
It all started when I was a young lad of 5 and in kindergarten. That’s when I first went to camp.
It was a day camp in the backyard of a house on Philadelphia Avenue, run by the women who ran the kindergarten in Chambersburg. I called it Mrs. Nelson’s day camp.
A number of my lifelong friends attended. Together we went through kindergarten, grade school, junior and senior high school. A few of these friends even went on to the same college and graduation as I did.
Summers in Mrs. Nelson’s tiny swimming pool were terrific. That’s where I learned to get my face wet and blow bubbles and jump into the deep end. Although it was only three feet deep, it seemed to me at the time to be bottomless.
There were also monkey bars, swings and scary woods at the back of the property that led to Wolf Lake. I hated the rest periods after lunch on the floor of a room in the house where Mr. Nelson had lots of taxidermy stuffed animals. I remember distinctly the blankets that we laid on. They were old army blankets that were green and scratchy.
Mrs. Nelson’s day camp was the highlight of my summertime for a number of years. Then, when I turned 9, I was too big for Mrs. Nelson’s pool. The deep end of the pool came to little more than my waist. And I could reach the top of the monkey bars with my feet on the ground.
And so it was decided that I should spend my summers at Mountain Lake Camp in Fannettsburg, Pennsylvania. This was a big change for me. Mrs. Nelson’s was a day camp. Mountain Lake Camp was an all-night camp and lasted every night for six to eight weeks.
I did not have a lot of time to be homesick. I could swim in a large pool as well as the lake. There were other things too. I was taught archery and rifle shooting skills. I mastered canoeing. I loved evening campfires with scary stories.
I had a great time with friends playing tennis and horseshoes, and watching movies on Sunday nights. I learned to make arts and crafts, such as they were and such as my lack of manual dexterity would allow. I rode and jumped horseback.
I still have clear memories of canoe trips across the lake to turtle island to catch painted turtles, and up the Conococheague Creek on camping adventures. The fishing below the dam was terrific. Then, too, the several hikes to a soft-serve ice cream stand were worth the effort — even though we had to walk through Sleepy Hollow on the way there and on the way back.
And, on weekends, the big dance was one of the highlights of my years at Mountain Lake Camp. That’s when I shared my first kisses and held the sweaty hands of a number of summer young loves.
For seven summers my summertime was spent at Mountain Lake Camp. Then I outgrew it. When I turned 16, I got my driver’s license and a little red Corvair. A few years later I gathered up a buddy and we drove north over the border into Canada. We caught a train just past Niagara Falls and traveled as far north as the train would go, to a place called Timmons, Ontario.
We located a fishing camp and made arrangements to stay in our tent on its property. We rented a boat and motor, and off we went fishing.
No one knew where we were. We had not told our parents where we were going. Because if we had, we would not have been able to go to Canada.
Once there we didn’t tell the owners of the camp where we were taking their boat. Mostly because we didn’t know ourselves where we were going. We just took off onto the massive lake.
I was self assured. After all, I had spent seven summers learning all the skills I was sure I needed. Yes, I was inexperienced, carefree and ready to explore the world.
We were totally alone in the wilderness. I nearly drowned on more than one occasion. I learned a lot of lessons about more than boats, motors and fast rivers. I learned about self reliance, independence, responsibility, my faith and how much I didn’t know.
For a number of years I continued to travel this way ad hoc to Canada. Then when I grew a bit older I spent summers traveling to one fishing camp or another. I fished in some of Canada’s most famous fishing lakes, like God’s River and Lake Horwood, Great Bear and Kasba.
I have been at summer camp for 70 years now. Starting in kindergarten. Then Mountain Lake Camp. And in tents and fishing lodges in Canada. There were several years that COVID rules prohibited me from traveling across the border to Canada. Once the prohibitions were lifted, I hightailed it back to the far north.
The problem is that time has passed and more years have been burned. I feel older and the far north presents its dangers. I am afraid that age might be sapping my dreams of another summer in the wild.
Memories seem to have moved on from my skimming the boat across the lake to my favorite places on Earth. The conquering of mighty rivers and bays teeming with fish, monster lake trout and the reward for another year of hard work. But, then again, we will see.
Bill Gindlesperger is a central Pennsylvanian, Dickinson College graduate, Pennsylvania System Of Higher Education (PASSHE) Governor, Shippensburg University Trustee, and Chairman of eLynxx Solutions. The firm provides enterpriselevel cloud-software for communicating, specifying, approving, procuring, producing, reporting and activities necessary to obtaining direct mail, packaging, promo, marketing and all other printing. He is a board member, campaign advisor, successful entrepreneur, published author and commentator. He can be reached at Bill.Gindlesperger@eLynxx.com
This article originally appeared on The Herald-Mail: Lad's day camp leads to a lifetime of outdoor adventures
