Six Decades Later, I Remember With Tears

Memories of Highland Retreat will forever be with me.

Four ducks on a pond, 
A grass-bank beyond, 
A blue sky of spring, 
White clouds on the wing; 
What a little thing 
To remember for years-
To remember with tears!

- William Allingham

At Highland Retreat Camp's annual dinner last night I was asked to share some memories of being a part of the leadership of the Camp's fledgling summer camp program in the early 1960's. Board member Rowland Shank and our good friend Gerald Good asked me to be an assistant director for the 1964 season, and asked my soon-to-be wife Alma Jean to help with the food.

I didn’t realize then how that summer would change our lives, leading us to continue working there for the next two years as camp directors, with my home economics major bride managing the kitchen. After that I was privileged to serve on the Highland board for many years, and helped raise money for Highland’s first swimming pool and other projects. Later our own children enjoyed summer camps there and served as counselors.

Preparing for my little talk got me in touch with a rich reservoir of emotional memories I will always cherish. I can still hear Gerry Good’s boisterous voice and hearty laugh, the quieting sound of Capon Run in the middle of the camp grounds, the enthusiastic singing around the campfire, which I loved. Some of those songs still sing themselves in my head: 

I love the mountains,

I love the rolling hills,

I love the flowers

I love the daffodils,

I love the fireside
When the lights are low..

Ah, the firesides. I can still see the weekly "log cabin" campfires blazing in the dark and finally collapsing in a dramatic burst of flames. And I can see the circle of campers all around the pond in a late night candle lighting ceremony, and the quiet candle-lit walk back to camp for the night. And then the  intense competition between tent groups in the last morning's fire building contest.

I can still smell the weekly tinfoil dinners, the pancake and eggs breakfasts around each group's campfire, the Friday evening chicken barbecue provided by Carl Harman, and the taste of lots of great food, enriched by the surplus USDA butter and cheese and peanut butter that were in plentiful supply in those days. 

I can re-experience all this in a deeply visceral way, suggesting the power of this kind of weeklong experience in the company of God’s world and God’s people in a setting like Highland.

I remember one summer particularly, when outstanding counselors like Ron Moyer, Paul Beiler, John Fairfield and others regularly got up well before breakfast to go on bird a walk with whoever wanted to join them, just for the sheer love of nature, and how joining them was seen as really cool by a lot of the kids who looked up to them as role models. 

I recall parents saying things like, My son or daughter couldn’t stop talking about camp and their friends and their hikes and their adventures. And I remember hardworking but fun loving kitchen workers. Not above an occasional prank, one of them once put some ex lax in some chocolate chip cookies packed for a counselor's all day hike, as revenge for his habitually complaining about the food.

So many random things come to mind, mostly the blessings that came our way in spite of our youth and inexperience, and in spite of how primitive everything was those early years. For example, there was the famed “Wayne’s Motor Lodge”, a slightly renovated and very small chicken house which served as the first kitchen, our having to carry water from the bath house for cooking until the first real kitchen was built, the little camper we lived in the first summer we were directors, and of course the army surplus tents that housed the campers in those early years.

So with all camp supporters, I hope we can keep creating these kinds of memories, and always keep the program simple, close to God, close to nature, close to our hearts and always in our prayers.

Highland annual dinner