I started Camp Hagan when I was 8 years old. My parents decided it would be best to start off with 2 weeks. I started out in Junior 1 and stayed there for 2 years. Junior 1 was the only cabin with electricity, and I was told that at one time it was the craft shack. I remember that that was where I learned to make a square corner and to fold things with the folds to the front. It was the first time I got undressed in front of non-family members, and I was a bit embarrassed at first. I got over that quickly.
Every year I added 2 weeks to my stay until I got to 8 weeks, which was the maximum. At first, I spent most of my time in the craft shack or the nature tent – I have always loved science and art and still do. I remember taking short hikes to “Hitler’s Tomb,” which was a cistern for the camp water. During my time at Hagan, we had a camp-wide contest between the odds and evens, and Hitler’s Tomb was renamed “Bloody Mary’s Tomb.” This renaming had to do with a song about Bloody Mary that one of the teams made up.
I remember my first overnight hike to Camp Ministerium. I was 8 or 9 years old and had to borrow a poncho to make a bed roll. The thing kept falling apart on the road and was too big and bulky for a little kid, so I had my parents buy me a sleeping bag for the next year. I remember sleeping under the stars and looking at the Milky Way and the shooting stars. Sleeping under the stars and the bacon and eggs the next day made the struggle with the bed roll all worth it.
Growing up in the suburbs of Newark and New York, going swimming was always a special treat. At camp we got to go swimming twice a day in the Delaware River. We had the buddy system, and the counselors would blow the whistle periodically and we had to grab the hand of your buddy and hold your joined hands in the air. I remember how hard it was to swim against the current and how easy it was to swim with it.
We had to wait on the path to be allowed down to the riverbank. We would sing “Here we sit like birds in the wilderness, birds in the wilderness, birds in the wilderness; here we sit like birds in the wilderness, waiting for the whistle to blow.” One of my former cabin mates, Nancy Cuttler, sent me this picture of the waterfront from the early ‘50’s. You can see there was no dock. The counselors would position their rowboats along the ropes and white blocks to keep watch over the swimmers. We wore different colored caps depending on our swimming skills. White and white advanced for the non- swimmers, red for intermediate, blue for advanced and green for those who passed their junior lifesaving badge. Only the blue and green caps were allowed in the deep water beyond the rope and block barrier to the raft.
As I grew older, I realized that there was more than the craft shack and nature tent at camp and I started to work for awards. The Hagan uniform was a tan top with shorts and a brown tie tied in a square knot. You could work for awards by completing tasks such as sports, crafts, swimming, and other things. The awards were different colored ties with the first award being a red tie, and the highest a white tie. The ties were triangular and had something stenciled on the back. I remember that the red tie had a cricket on it.
The older campers were allowed to take longer hikes, and Bushkill was a favorite. We were allowed to buy treats there, and treats were strictly monitored at camp. We could buy only one treat a day at the canteen at the Great Hall after supper. The treat was a candy bar, ice cream bar, or soda. One soda was called “birch bark,” and I have never seen it anywhere else but at Camp Hagan. We never used cash on campus but were issued coupon books of scrip to buy sweets.
Our parents were not allowed to send us food unless they provided it to the whole camp. One of my cabin mates was Carolyn Mc Gonigle and her dad owned a pretzel company. Once every summer he would provide the entire camp with Mc Gonigle pretzels.
Another thing I loved was canoe trips. The old camp truck would take the canoes up stream and we would paddle them back to camp. There were a few rapids along the way, and we had to work hard to avoid hitting the rocks. Although the rapids were a bit dangerous, navigating through them was a lot of fun.
The Korn Kribbe building was added sometime in the period I was at Hagan. Before it was built, we used the Great Hall for all gatherings. We had movie night on a screen behind the Great Hall. I remember seeing the Phantom of the Opera and was scared to death.
The food was prepared by the kitchen boys and was pretty good. We would sing through every meal and I loved the songs. We would drink something like Kool Aid and called it “bug juice.” We had to eat everything on our plates, unless we had a letter from our parents saying that we were allergic to it. I can remember that I could not stomach Russian dressing or kidney beans and got my mother to write a letter saying I was allergic to them.
I was a CIT my last year at Camp Hagan. That was a wonderful experience and I loved every minute. Camp Hagan was a very important part of my life and I learned a lot there. I am amazed that at 77 years of age, I can remember so many details as well as so many songs.