My summer on staff at
Camp Keowa, Crystal Lake Section, Ten Mile River Scout Reservation
Even when in high school, I was not embarrased about being a Boy Scout.
That's why my biology teacher, Leonard Hill, called me aside one day to
ask whether I wanted a job for the summer. Since jobs were scarce for
teenagers, I agreed. It seems that he had been chosen Camp Director for
Camp Keowa, a part of Ten Mile River Scout Camps.TMR, as it's known is(are?) the summer camp(s) of the Greater New York Councils of the BSA. TMR consists of 3 sections (Crystal Lake, Schiff, and Delaware), each of which consists of 4 council-sized camps. Camp Keowa, along with its sister camp, Camp Rondack, were part of Crystal Lake Section. Each pair of camps had one dining hall. One camp ate at the dining hall, while the other was fed at the campsite with heater stacks delivered from the same kitchen. Each pair of camps also shared a health lodge. That's where I worked. Mr. Hill's wife was the nurse and she was in charge when the doctor wasn't around. There was one doctor for each section and he'd split his time between two health lodges. Since Keowa and Rondack were for the boys from Manhattan, we had boys from Harlem and Chinatown and everywhere in between. The health lodge was a busy place, dealing with amputations, heart attacks, and even polio. It was a mini-Bellevue. At night, one of the CIT's would bunk down (with the bats) in this old lakeside mansion. Other nights, we could sleep at our tent on staff row.
My bunkmate on staff row was an exchange Scout from Cuba by the name of
Luis Manuel Ballcorba y Gonzales. He was to be the last such exchange
Scout ever to come from Cuba. While there, he learned that Scouting had
been abolished by Fidel Castro. He cut the BOY SCOUTS DE CUBA strip
from his shirt, giving it to me, saying he wouldn't need it.
I said earlier that I hadn't inquired about the pay. It's a good thing I didn't. The pay was only 25 dollars for the WHOLE SUMMER. That overstates the case, though. Social Security tax was calculated on my full compensation, including the room and board for the summer. It turned out that the main reason they paid us 25 bucks was so they could have something from which to withhold our Social Security. I think my take-home pay for the summer was about 8 bucks. Despite the lack of financial reward, I must admit that it was a very worthwhile summer.
Besides Luis, the people I remember most are the chaplains: Catholic, Jewish, and (for half the summer) an Episcopal. They were the only ones in the camp who had any wine. Well, some stories are probably best left untold...
Since getting on the web, I see there is a TMR Alumni Association. If you were on the 1960 Camp Keowa staff, please e-mail me at: don@shorock.com
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