Summer’s most vivid escapades unfolded beyond the corners of our cozy camp. Setting out by foot or car caravan, we explored nearby paths, lakes, ridgetops, hamlets, horse trails, a roller rink, other camps’ softball fields and an abandoned house.
At an age when we pushed impatiently at many of life’s boundaries,
these outings often were journeys of self-discovery as well as a break from
routines. They brought physical challenges, eye-opening experiences, new skills
and fresh layers of maturity, accomplishment, pride.
A weekly destination was
Our waterfront retreat was a privately owned park with a muddy, man-made
lake, shared with rural families and other vacationers. It featured a wooden
bathhouse for changing (if you didn’t mind spiders) and a skate-rental rink
where we’d come on evening excursions. But the main attractions, and tests of
young courage, were beyond the water’s edge – a country lake with weeds,
snakes, diving-board rafts and a seemingly distant shore.
Two rafts were accessible to all but novice dog-paddlers (the Guppies),
while a third was a rite of passage to be earned, a challenge that separated
camp veterans from newcomers. Swimming abilities were screened by instructor
Paul Sarkisian, a slim, tanned crew-cut czar of the water (and also a block-away
Inwood neighbor from Park Terrace West).
A handful of the strongest swimmers got to accompany Paul on a freestyle
journey to the opposite shore during mid-afternoon as younger campers took a
post-lunch break to read graffiti scratched on the bathhouse wall, catch spiders
or explore the grounds.
The hierarchy of swimming achievements could be as important as the
softball batting order or whether you were a wallflower or dance partner at the
socials. “I was so proud when I swam out to the third raft,” Leslie (Cooper)
Fox recalls from Princeton Junction, N.J.
For most off-property adventures, we wore more than bathing suits and
nose clips. Some trips involved toting canteens and picking blueberries on the
way to rocky lookouts known as Sam’s Point,
The most frequent outing hardly seemed liked leaving camp at all, since
we viewed the run-down farmhouse shell further up our dirt road as part of our
extended playground – an unescorted destination for all but the youngest
campers.
And as counselors, our sole off-duty day each week (we clearly
needed a union) usually was spent in Pine Bush or Ellenville – reached by
grabbing a ride with a delivery vendor or, more often, by thumbing our way in
pairs or foursomes. Time was passed at a Dairy Queen, drugstore soda fountain,
movie theater and luncheonette before we returned with magazines, candy,
postcards, toiletries and paperbacks in brown sacks.
No one philosophized about any of this at the time, of course, but the
simple destinations and activities weren’t what made these field trips so
enjoyably memorable. As with the overall camp experience, the journey itself was
most important – the testing, the achievements, the independence, the newness
of it all.
We reached bigger rafts and diving boards, our pals were watching . . . and Mom and Dad weren’t around.