2017 Aug 24th

All right, enough of our accidental president, our national embarrassment, Here is a more cheerful piece abut a camp for crippled children during WW @.

Many years ago, during World War II, I was a counselor in a summer camp for crippled children. Of course no one calls them crippled children anymore. Now the preferred term is physically challenged, or handicapped. The camp depended heavily on charity for its existence, and I would guess that “crippled” brought in far more money than “handicapped.”

The camp, Camp Daddy Allen, was named for a Philadelphia benefactor; it was located in the Pocono Mountains of northeastern Pennsylvania in a federal recreation area. This was 1943 and the war had taken its toll on the supply of able-bodied males available to be counselors. Therefore, at sixteen, and with two years experience as a junior counselor, I became a senior counselor in the older boys’ unit. We had about twenty-four campers in each of four units, older boys, younger boys, older girls, and younger girls. The campers had various handicaps; most were from the effects of polio. Many were from cities and most had never seen another kid with the kind of handicap they had. For the first time they discovered that some other kids were worse off than they were. A fair number were in body braces. They propelled themselves along the trails on their crutches, buoyed somewhat by the knowledge that the President of the United States had the same problem.

All of the campers had to be able to benefit from a normal camping program such as might be found in a Boy Scout camp, or a YMCA camp. There were obvious limitations. We had sleep outs, but they were very close to camp. Most of these were city kids who were not very comfortable in the woods where they assumed that spiders, snakes, bears, and wolves were lurking. We managed to get all of them to have at least one night sleeping on the ground by a campfire. Maybe sleeping isn’t the right word.

We had softball games, but we needed about fifteen players on a side. A kid with the hugely muscled arms from years on crutches might bat, and another kid with withered arms would run the bases for him (or her). In the field the same pairing would have the kid with the withered arms chase down the ball, bend to the ground grabbing the ball under his chin, and then running to his buddy who would throw the ball in. They were unflappable.

We had one unusual activity for the kids. This was advertised well in advance. We had a Bandersnatch hunt. These kids had never heard of Lewis Carroll so there was nothing to give us away. Our Bandersnatch were not described as frumious, as were Carroll’s. They were described as very shy, with an affinity for wet wood. Indeed the way to catch one, which was the purpose of a Bandersnatch hunt, was to drag a fair size piece of wet wood through the forest on a string, thus tempting a Bandersnatch to jump from its hiding place and grab the bait. When you felt the wood catch on something this might be a Bandersnatch. If it was a Bandersnatch, it would not let go of the bait and you could put it in a sack you carried for that purpose. You had to be very careful though, because Bandersnatch can easily have their very short legs fall off. This is of no concern because they grow back very quickly. When you have a Bandersnatch in your sack, you were to return with it to the dining hall, which was the base of operations for the hunt. Prizes were offered for the largest, the prettiest and the smallest Bandersnatch. (There is some debate about whether Bandersnatch is both singular and plural, like aspirin, or only singular. Number aside, the Bandersnatch is certainly singular.)

The hunt was over when the bugle blew calling everyone back to base. Many Bandersnatch were seen and many were almost caught. It amazing how dragging a piece of wet wood through the woods can fool you into thinking something has grabbed it when it was just temporarily snagged. The program director claimed to have caught one. He reached in his bag and pulled out an eighteen inch long garter snake which had been decorated with water colors. He held it up for all to see saying that its legs had fallen off when it was captured. Then he topped himself. He also had a large newt in another bag. It had all of its legs and it had also been decorated with water colors. The youngest campers were in awe; the oldest campers were suspicious, but a few, “Don’t give Santa Claus away,” comments handled that problem.

 Speaking of Santa, that reminds me that in our search for activities we decided on a camp Christmas. Naturally we picked July 25^th. We got a Christmas tree, a huge spruce specially cut for us by the few remaining caretakers of the Park Service property. The kids trimmed the tree. We had all of the traditional decorations, lights, tinsel, shiny glass balls and a star for the very top. The dining hall was designed so that the big stone fireplace was about in the middle. Naturally we had a fire in it and we had the kids scour the woods for a Yule log. (Nights in the Poconos were chilly so the fire was not without some comfort.) We sang Christmas carols after lunch and after dinner. About a week before the natal day we had a drawing. Each kid got the name of someone for whom they were to make a present. The craft shop hummed. Lanyard material flew off the spools. Painted pine cones were big. Of course there was Christmas themed wrapping paper. The counselors saw to it that there was a gift for everyone. Christmas Eve saw Santa arrive in the person of a well padded camp director who did a little curtain chewing with his Ho, Ho, Hos; nobody minded. Christmas Day we had turkey with all the trimmings. Some of the older kids came back in later years as counselors. They often told me that camp Christmas was the best Christmas they had ever had.

I was a counselor at Daddy Allen every summer beginning when I was fourteen and ending when I was seventeen in 1944. That was the summer I enlisted in the Army Air Force reserve. I left for service after I graduated from high school in 1945. In 1947 the Easter Seal Society opened another camp in central Pennsylvania. I was the head counselor of the older boys’ unit. That year the University of Pittsburgh recruited Jonas Salk to develop a polio vaccine. He accomplished that by 1955 and soon afterward, when Sabin’s vaccine also proved effective, there was no longer much need for camps like Daddy Allen.

Excerpted from “More of the Same” © by Henry E. Klugh