My first summer was 1955, I was nine years old. My older sister and I went for the month of August. Our mother had been an Arts and Crafts counselor in 1940 and was happy to send us there. As it turned out, it wasn’t the best year to send us.
I was in Junior 3, one of the younger camper cabins. I can’t remember being homesick myself, but I can remember others having a difficult time. Maybe it was because my older sister was there, I don’t know.
It rained a lot that summer. Two hurricanes…..first Connie, then with already swollen rivers and streams, along came Diane. It was difficult to enjoy outdoor activities, but as a new camper, I knew no different. Initially, we could swim and wash our hair in the river, but as the water rose, the waterfront was brought up to the campus and that ended our swimming.
Campers would line the banks, up on the campus, and watch as animals, buildings and all kinds of debris sailed past us. As the water rose to a scary height, we weren’t allowed near the edge of the campus.
Eventually, the whole camp packed sleeping bags and carried brown bag lunches and hiked to Camp Ministerium (the adult camp a few miles away). We’d eat our bag lunches, and then sleep in the big barn. Our brother camp, Camp Miller, had already evacuated to Mini as their camp lay almost river level. The next morning, the girls camp would hike back to Hagan and try to make a day of it. That afternoon, though, we’d pack up and hike to Mini for the night.
The brown bag lunch consisted of either a bologna and cheese sandwich or a peanut butter and jelly one. Also included was either an apple or an orange. The smell of the oranges all night was so strong that to this day (age 69), I still can’t touch an orange.
Our parents were due to visit on the coming Saturday, change/visiting day, when some campers would go home and others would arrive. Instead of cars arriving we got a phone call from our parents who could get no farther than Stroudsburg, because the bridges had been washed out. Not only in Stroudsburg, but all up and down the Delaware and Lehigh Rivers.
It was about this time that the camp began to close up for the summer. We were going home early. It must have been hard for the staff to close up with campers there. We waited in the parking lot all day for busses to arrive and make their way to various points close to where the campers (boys and girls) lived. By the time my sister and I got off the bus somewhere in Philly, it was past midnight. Our relieved parents were waiting for us.
The experience didn’t make a bad impact, aside from the oranges, as I went back ten more summers: camper, Counselor In Training, Junior Counselor, Counselor and Department Head (Pioneering). I loved camp! I never felt more ME then at Camp Hagan. I was 4 when I entered Kindergarten and was always the youngest child in my grade. I really felt the difference there. But at camp, we were all one united group in our cabins.
As I think back to those days, I can see the campus as it was the last summer I was there. The buildings, the trees, waterfront, Pioneer Unit, the Council Fire, the cabins and tents in neat rows, the Outdoor Chapel, shuffleboard court, canteen, on and on.
I can hear bugle calls, laughing, birds, crickets, prayers, cheering, hymns, boots walking the path to the Outdoor Chapel, shutters slamming for one reason or another and quiet….a very soft and comfortable quiet that seeps into you without your knowing. It really hits you when you leave.
I can smell (those dratted oranges…I ALWAYS traded for an apple), the wood smoke of campfires, the bleach of Friday morning clean-up, smoke from the counselors smoking in staff quarters, newly cut grass, the smell of the kitchen and my favorite…the smell of those evergreen trees only found in the Council Fire circle. They were never planted anywhere else in camp, so the smell is always there alone. I can be walking somewhere today and pass an evergreen with the same odor and I’m back at Camp Hagan…a girl again.
