Hobo Day at
Camp Waupaca
Stomp on your
hat, tear your clothes, cut open the toes of your shoes, run to the campfire
pit and rub some charcoal on your face,
It's Hobo Day. How many campers
can remember that they took part in a Hobo Day at camp? It was also the day that all of the camp
cooked out at their cabins.
The worsted
dressed camper in each cabin group won an extra canteen, often a bottle of soda
(offered only once a week). The worsted
counselor also got a bottle of soda. Judges were Kitchen Girls who had helped super
clean the Mess Hall, Kuklin's Kookerie.
Just before flag lowering there was a rush by campers and counselors to
look as grubby as they could.
“All here at
the side of the rails,” each counselor called out when his cabin's number was
called. Then the judges walked around
the line of campers. When they thought
they had a winner he was asked to step forward.
When they had checked out everyone in line they would look closer at the
ones that they had asked to step forward three steps more. Walking around the boys and men as if
shopping for the ideal date, the judges would note out loud the parts of the
costumes they liked. Often trying to
embarrass the contestant. The carefully
selected winners had a blue ribbon pinned to
his ragged shirt to turn in for his prize. Winners usually wore the ribbon all that
night.
Most likely
from the first day of camp the kitchen staff had been saving the metal cans
that food had come in. The cans were in
the food box to be used as bowls or plates depending on the food that was
supplied to put in them. Most often the
meal was kosher hot dogs, cooked but cold, so that if a camper wanted them hot
they had to find a stick. “Not that
stick Isaac, that's poison oak!!” Buns were served for the hot dogs, no one had
figured out how hoboes served their bologna.
Large cans of hot (really just warm) kosher beans were usually what was
supplied to put in the tin cans. “Keep
the windows up tonight.” Desert was an
apple or other fruit eaten by hand and what a hobo might have picked from a
framer's orchard.
An alternate
meal was Hobo Stew which was a broth-based mixture of meat and thick with
vegetables. Staff carried kettles of
this to the picnic tables. Problem:
failure to feed all cabins timely. Also,
it did not allow sword fights with the hot dog sticks over the blazing cooking
fires.
The campfire
that night was usually a story about a lonesome hobo and singing around the
camp fire. After the camp fire everyone
was “Take a good shower tonight”. Taps
were sung and Hobo Day was over.
Later years
this day was toned down and eliminated.
I guess parents may have said, “How'd you ruin your $300 Nike's?” When they got an answer they may have called
the camp director.
Backwards or
Inside Outside Morning at Camp Waupaca
Usually
occurred in the last four weeks of camp.
This was most likely so as not to embarrass the counselors who were
accustom to come to flag raising after a long night out. If they showed up strangely dressed they
could excuse that by saying “I thought that this is Backwards or Inside Outside
Day.
Wearing their
underwear over their pants was how most boys dressed for that event. The other dress was to put a shirt on
backwards. As this was uncomfortable the
boys would quickly change their clothing around as soon as possible after
breakfast.
Gold Rush Day
(Carnival Day at some camps)
Each cabin
decided on a game of chance to win “Gold Rush Money” so they would have a trip
to the A&W in Waupaca (later when the A&W closed it was the Dairy
Queen). After cleanup the boys set up
the game or games that would make them the winners of their cabin group.
The CITs would
set up a jail, maybe a cabin in their village or the porch of the rec
hall. The jail game was more of a
kidnapping than putting a bad guy away for the safety of the camp. If the captured did not have money for his
fine, his cabin mates were to pay it. If
they did not the convict had to stay locked up until the end of the game. It was surprising that the CIT's always ended
up with the most money. Could it have
been a Chicago thing? Did they learn
this at Capone's school of How to Get Rich and Not Pay Your Income Taxes.? It was too bad the camp did not use the raft
as a substitute for Alcatraz.
A game might be a ring toss, break a balloon
with an air rifle or sling shot, homemade roulette wheels, or toss a ball into
a can. Several times the counselor who
taught archery used the archery range for his cabin, it was not much work for the
cabin. It never won. Whatever the game that a cabin had the
campers and counselors had to use their imaginations to find something
different that would attract customers from the other cabins.
The week before
Gold Rush Day the camp grounds keepers were given a pile of stones and a gallon
of yellow paint. They used various
methods to coat the stones with yellow paint.
Many times, they also painted a large stone that weighed about 30 pounds
to see if any camper would lug it to the assay office (the canteen shack). While the campers were in their cabins for
rest time, the grounds keepers spread the yellow stones on the golf course or
the far fields.
After the bugle
call for action after the rest hour campers ran to the Rosen Bowl with pillow
cases, laundry bags, or potato sacks they got from the kitchen. Two old prospectors with shove and pick came
out of the rec hall to announce,
“There's gold in them thar fields.
Neff ta make ya rich as Rocherfeller.
On tha count of three git out thar and get yourselves
rich. 1 yep that’s the first one, 2
button my shoe, the, darn if I didn't forget what's next. Any you young folks
recon wat tis?” Campers usually
together, “Threeee”. “Well
what's ya sitting here fur. Git goin to find your gold!”
The “Gold Rush”
was off running, stumbling, and tripping to whatever field held the gold that
year. With as many stones as the campers
could find they lined up to have their “gold” weighed on a kitchen scale. There were sometimes when a young camper had
not found a great pile of the yellow stones the assayer clerk would put his
thumb on the scale. Each pound would
give the camper from $2.00 to $5.00 in ''Gold Rush Money” . The rest of the day until flag lowering the
campers played the games. Before they
lined up for the evening ceremonies the campers gave the money they had
won. The cabin in each cabin group that
had the most money got a trip to the metropolis of Waupaca for a break from
camp life. Sometimes the winning cabin
would choose an activity, other times it was a prize announced before the
game. Choices were usually food, movie,
blowing, miniature golf, or go karts if
that choices were offered.
Land Rush Day
This was an
experiment to add another specular event to booster camp moral after the cabin 3
& 4 fire. It was based on the
Oklahoma Land Rush. The night before the
game Chuck Cooper told a story of wealth and poverty that awaited those who
staked claims to the land that the government opened to settlers. The first to put down their claims usually
were the big winners of the race.
Surface land did not show the riches of oil that laid below.
Wooden stakes
were driven into the ground on the far fields.
Each stake was marked with a colored flag so any left after the game
would be picked up so they could not injure anyone. Each stake had a number and the number
corresponded to a master sheet that described the land's value.
Examples: Your land has a large pool of oil under it,
value 1 million dollars. Your land blew
away in the Oklahoma dust bowl, value 1 dollar.
Your land became your ranch, value 500 thousand. Your land became Oklahoma City you sold city
lots, value a hundred million. You
farmed your land, value 30 thousand.
Rich or poor
the gamble the camper took did not depend on the placement of his stake, but
the luck of getting the right one. CITs
were on the field to help supervise the hunt for the stakes. CITs were on the
field to help supervise the hunt for the stakes. Cabins 1, 2, 3 and 4 were given a three minute start to level the field a bit. The rest of the cabins ran to the field in a
mass like the original land rush. Each
camper could bring back up to three stakes.
The 12 campers who were determined to be the richest won a root beer and
ice cream treat in the mess hall no matter the cabin they were in. CITs also got in on the treat.
Like any
gamboling activity the winners were very happy and the losers were cheated.
Blue and White
War
I will try to
be completely objective with this activity.
Although the activities allowed every camper to exhibit their strengths
it also show cased their perceived their weakness. When I was the range officer an outstanding
camper was to be a CIT the next year. He
asked me to recommend him to be my assistant on the rifle range the next
summer. I was very happy to do
that. He told me that his parents agreed
to send him to camp the next summer. The
Blue and White War had changed leads several times,
the teams were very close. The Super-Duper
Relay was getting really lopsided with one team over thirty minutes behind at
the last contest, the horseshoe throw for ringers. In practice that morning my proposed
assistant had made five ringers in a row.
He needed only two to get his team to the water boiling contest. Three throws into his station and one was a
ringer. From that time until the other
team got its two ringers, he threw and threw and threw with no ringers. The other team had a hot fire before he got
his second ringer.
He was so upset
that he did not come to the banquet that night.
The nurse had him stay in the infirmary that night. He did not eat breakfast with the camp the
next morning. He boarded a bus without
saying good-bye to anyone. He never came
back to camp again.
This of course
was extreme reaction for a loss. The
race is just a game. Several times over
the years I saw several good campers who either themselves or team mates put
the blame of losing the game on them.
They were not in camp the next year.
The activities that were to end the camp on a high note may have left
them flat.
Wayne Towne
2018
Dividing the
entire camp into two competing groups was a tremendous taking. The Big Chiefs and their assistants had to
spend a lot of time to have the teams balanced.
Most of the time they did a great job and there were seldom a run away
in the competition.
The volume
of the cheers in the mess hall may still
be vibrating in the rafters.
We're from the
_____________ Team, couldn’t be prouder!
Can't hear us now we'll yell a little louder!1!
Sticks! Sticks!
Big Chief ________ is up to dirty TRICKS!
Look at the
score _________ Team! But don't cry
________ Team. You are getting beat by
best!
Fill in by
remembering your favorite cheers and live the moment again. Win or lose, what part did you play?
After the war
cheer:
We are the White
Team/Blue Team, couldn't be prouder!
Can't hear us now we’ll yell a little louder.
The competition
included every aspect of camp activities except a hot dog eating
competition. As there was so much
activity no one will have the same memories of their favorite Blue and White
War.
Whatever team a
player was chosen for there were no slackers on either team. The entire camp was exhausted as they
gathered at the site of the water boil to cheer on the last opportunity for
their team to win. For which side won
the ring of the bell was a relief.
Friends would be friends again.
In a sense there were no winners of losers individually. Everyone had done their best and could be
proud of whatever they had accomplished.
All that was left of camp was a banquet and packing.