The Mailgabber features writing by members of the Camp Family. This month, we have an excerpt from the 2021 Fall Alumni Newsletter, the Keylog. You can read the entire issue here. Interested in submitting for Mailgabber? Send submissions to Louis.
We all know the iconic Rec Hall features – the second- and third-generation names that are quickly filling up one wall, the “WIN OR LOSE BE A GOOD SPORT” sign, the mounted deer head above the fireplace, the 1964 “Survival Big Trip” poncho… But there are somewhat hidden treasures amid the hodgepodge of history at the heart of camp, too. Here are a bunch of them, described in the captions below the photos:
The “WIN OR LOSE” sign is familiar, but did you know there’s a cabin and date written on it? “Swamper 6, 1941.” So the “Win or Lose” sign arrived just before the U.S. entered WW II.
Dozens of campers and staff served in that war. Muggs and Janet Lorber collected and framed photos of nearly 40 of them.
Roger Wallenstein’s face is depicted on the Paul Bunyan Day mural on the Lumberjack porch. He’s skating around a frying pan.
Orange paint dots are on the floor, marking where Swamper and Logger tables are centered.
Can’t find an overflow spot in the Rec Hall? You might find a few extra tables in the rafters.
Cabin photos — from 1929 — are part of a framed homage to Nebagamon’s first summer.
Resting beneath the Deacon Seat is a small, self-explanatory box — “JUDY’S SOAP BOX.”
The oldest Big Trip plaque might be the canoe paddle announcing the “1935 Big Trip Rostrum.” But there are quite a few pioneering plaques in the Rec Hall, including a 1952 Porcupine Mountains excursion, as well as Isle Royale and Madeline Island adventures in 1967. And the smallest? A spoon-sized, unadorned understatement: Big Trip ’65.
In 1978, 20-year staff member Bob Blackbourn gave Nardie and Sally Stein an unexpected gift, now hanging in the Rec Hall.
The bookshelves behind the Logger tables in the Rec Hall brim with countless, largely forgettable old tomes. But one, at least, was rather prescient concerning the off-season travels of a certain camp director: Adam of the Road.
