85 Stories for 85 Years

JAMO - STAFF '86

One of the memories that stands out most to me from my years at TL is from my 2nd or 3rd summer on staff.  I was a timid counselor in Rangers.  The kids showing up knew more about TL than I did as they were on the 4th, 5th, 6th, summers.  It's the first night and it's pouring.  We're supposed to roast hot dogs and smores for dinner.  Frankie and I are making small talk, playing some games, decorating name tags for the bunks, etc.  We are unsure how to go about cooking this food.  Mac, Emmet, Summer, Peter... march out of the cabin, knives in hand, wearing only underwear, and say they're going to build a fire.  I'm skeptical.  Frankie and I are content to hang in the cabin with the others.  We hear noises.  Chatter.  The breaking of limbs, rustling in the woods, running into the cabin to rip out some notebook paper, grab a lighter.  

"Can we use kerosene?" 

"No"  

Within 15 minutes, still in the pouring rain, I can hear the crackling of a fire.  These kids built a HUGE fire in a deluge on the first night of camp. Ten minutes later we were eating our fire roasted hot dogs on soggy buns.

Rakhim - STAFF '23

Tulio B. - Former Director

The only work of Richard Hook I can say I ever improved on had nothing to do with planks and hammers but rather the “hook” of a catchy little ditty call “To Stop The Train”.     Richard introduced this simple round at songs one morning, and perhaps it was the hand gestures, perhaps the subject of choo-choo trains, but it the eye-rolling from Senior Lodgers and even many staff members was palpable.   So Jay Silvio and I took matters into our hands and decided that no collective cynicism could that stand before our boundless enthusiasm and massive hype that we brought to teaching the camp how to get LOUD and PROUD with “To Stop The Train”.     Somehow, that has stood the test of time and forty years later, as the Barn Day Campers create new constructions at the old TL Crafts Barn, and the Arts Mahal produces new camper creation, you can still occasionally hear the Upper Lodge filled with a new generation learning how “To stop, the train, in cases of emergency... “

Andrew R.

When I was on staff hurricane Bob came and some of the senior staff all came to talk about how it was important that we got prepared for it. Since it was called hurricane Bob I just assumed that it had been made up as an excuse to clear out the culverts and do other maintenance that was necessary!

Phil R.

I don’t remember too many specific details about building Rivermen. Mike and I had some big dreams that Dave Martin (former TL Director) put a quick end to. We were told to build a standard rectangular cabin. The recessed porch was our one special addition. I also remember Mike and I skipping rest hours so that we could cut the rafters on our own without camper help. I don’t remember how we came up with the idea of building it all with hand tools, but it was a fun challenge and we were able to move in with campers before the end of the summer.

Steve P.

It rained 15" in 24 hrs and took out rt 100 in multiple spots. As a 9 yr old first lodger, it was tremendously exciting to see what water could do to a road. A bunch of us ran down rt 100 to Tinker Gorge, which was a raging torrent. 

(Formerly named) Wigwam cabin (old version down and right of Tipi [now Sycamore] Stadium) was sliding towards the lake because the ground was so saturated. I was part of a team that cabled it back to a tree with a come-along.

Kelly Olive, who I think was waterfront director at the time, went down to the Woodward dam to open the gates because the water was getting so high spilling over them that there was risk of it bursting. I wish I remembered what kind of mechanism it was that allowed the gates to be opened under all that pressure.

Steve P.

As a Counselor Apprentice I attempted (with help) to make a fair ride called the "quaker cannonball" the idea was to have a seesaw with the victim on one end and have four people jump down on the other end and launch the poor soul into the lake. I wasn't comfortable with the idea of flinging the subject the long way over the fulcrum, so instead the rider perched on the lakeside end with the beam pointing down, and the people jumping on the opposite end would twang the person to the point that the board was almost horizontal. The problem was that it tended to fling the person more upward than forward and there was a strong chance of coming down on the board. I think we were all relieved when John Nichols shut it down.  

Once, during testing I was the guinea pig and had my knees slightly bent. When the ballast boys jumped on their end my legs did a massive negative and I was sore for a week.

Lorring P. 

Here is a photo from 1962 senior lodge Lumberjack Cabin. Peggy Klein’s brother Jimmy (back left corner) usually won the mental raffles for the extra dessert. I am on the far right junior counselor/athletics. $150. for the summer; $89 left in my account at end of summer.

Loring P.

Here is a photo from a public library performance in Nov 1962. I learned to play the guitar at F&W.

Tulio B. - Former Director

My first summer at Timberlake I was apprenticed to the great Richard Hook at the Arts Barn (now the Barn Day Camp).   Richard Hook was an extraordinary craftsman, with vision and talent.   I was creative, unskilled and utterly lacking in the “measure twice, cut once” discipline necessary for woodworking.   So I managed the kids.  I’ll never forget when Richard Hook got fed up with a camper hammering nails when it wasn’t the time for it – he “punished” him by putting him aside with a box of nails and a block of wood, thinking he’d be bored and repentant after ten minutes.   Over thirty minutes later, that camper had covered that block in so many nails they were packed together like porcupine quills.  Kids are resourceful, just not always in the ways we’d like them to be!   

Tulio B. - Former Director

What the craftier Full Season kids did that summer was work for 6-7 weeks on each building actually functioning boats.  These were flat-bottomed and similar in size to a single person kayak.   There was a regatta in the last week of camp and I suppose at least one camp family was delighted and perhaps surprised to be tying a new watercraft to the top of the car for the ride home to their apartment in NYC.