Camp High Point 1975 BLOG

This letter was written June 2, 1992 for Mr. Ed Y. well after the Tenth year reunion meeting of class 1977, so that he could share some of the high lights at his next reunion meeting; which would have been the Twentieth year of the reunion. (1997 he never attended) I recently had delivered a hard copy of this letter and its update, and spent some time reminiscing the past or reading the past. Mr. Ed Y. and wife are still alive and well, he does have a pace maker, and had recently a tune up of his pace maker, so he should be good for another thirty years!

Hi Ed.

I hope and pray all is well with you and the family! I know that a year isn't up yet, but you got me thinking about the twentieth year celebration for BHS you said that they had you stand up and say a few words about the early years of BHS. You said that you spoke a few words about BHS and sat down; well, when Twentieth year comes around I want you to be prepared. You know, that you are not getting any younger, and you should write down some of the events of the past, let me just jog your memory with a few of these events of the past. In 1975, at High Point, the following events come to mind, (Just in jest).
Chapter one

I recall, that the Philadelphia Flyers were in process of winning the Stanley Cup, (I am not a Flyers fan); I recall that the pastor of High Point preached about morals. He referred to a news incident that had happened that month to these two girls that were assaulted and locked in a trailer and set on fire! I recall that the head cook at Camp was Libby's Dad, Mr. Han...! The food was great and I gained several pounds at camp!

I recall we the faculty and the students were promised that camp would have everything that is possible to want or to have at camp, like swimming, horse back ridding, water skiing etc. But, Murphy must have been working over time. The out door swimming pool had no water in it, the hill above the pool had a chain link fence with a ten foot hole in it. That hole was produced by a parked jeep (whose parking brakes had failed) that went through the chain link fence and traveled about a hundred feet, fell into the pool, the students had to be content with playing capture the flag.

I recall Helen Ams... had a ball just like a teenager, smiling and having a great time on a mini bike, as she rode on the mini bike trail, all she needed was a leather jacket to complete the scene. (She has claimed that she had no recollection of the incident)

Do you remember Bill Cart...? All of the dorms at high point were in need of cleaning, because they were very dusty and dirty and we had to clean them ourselves. Well, your boy Bill gave me a sleepless night. (The first night.) When the freshmen and myself turned in for the night, then around two O'clock AM, I began to hear strange noises. I was in the gym area, and Steve and his seniors were next door. I heard this strange metal banging, I heard it once, I heard it twice, and thinking to myself could this be the ghost of High Point. I could not fall asleep, so, I put on my flip-flops, I grabbed my flashlight and walked into an adjoining large meeting hall to confront this ghost. This meeting hall area was previously a swimming pool that now was converted into a large meeting hall, by covering the swimming pool with a wooden floor. And what do I find; there was good old Bill Cart... , he made himself a bed of metal chairs, four or five chairs on one side and the same number facing these, and every time he would turn, I could hear these metal chairs clanging. I asked him, what was he doing here, and why he wasn't in his dorm? He gave me this story, that he was unjustly accused of some incident, and that he was ordered to go to Mr. Mon...'s dorm. It was beginning to rain cats and dogs, so, out of the kindness of my heart, I let him stay. I told him to be careful and not to make so much noise with these metal chairs. I went back to my bunk, and about 15 minutes later I hear these chairs banging again, it seemed that there was no end to it. That was it, I could not fall asleep and Bill had to go. I told him, that it was impossible to sleep and that he had to go where he was sent. I finally got a few hours of sleep. I learned the next day what happened from you (Ed). First of all, Bill who had mischief on his mind for camp, that is why, he volunteered to sweep, and wash your dorm, so that it would sparkle. He thought that he had earned so many brownie points, with you, that there wasn't anything you wouldn't forgive or overlook. But, as it turned out, this was not the case. Bill had brought a bag of dried beans with him, and at night he would flick a bean at some one, to get a response or just cause confusion. It soon dawned on you why good old bill was so willing to clean up the dorm by himself. You soon put two and two together and accused bill of that havoc, and besides you found a bag of beans in his bunk. Well, as it turned out Bill did not go to Mr. Mon...'s dorm but spent the night on the bus.

The following night was a bit better for me, but things didn't go so well for poor old Steve. One of the seniors, sneaked outside, and set off a firecracker, by the window of their dorm. Steve's dorm had only one door to it that opened into a hallway that lead to the gym area, however there were lots of windows facing the woods. Well, when Steve went out to see what happened several things took place. One, Roland Buc... remained in his bunk, the rest of the seniors disappeared for parts unknown. Roland got up and locked the door and went back to his bunk and pretended that he was hard asleep. When Steve came back to the dorm, the door was locked he then proceeded to bang on the door, with his fist and foot as hard as he could. This futile action didn't get him in, but it was loud and noisy enough that it woke me up, so I went to see what happened. What do I see, Steve frantically banging on the door and shouting let me in. It soon became obvious, that he wasn't going to get in. We then proceeded to go out side to see what we could see on the inside his dorm. With the aid of my flashlight, we could only see one bunk occupied, and deducted that it was Roland Buc.... We than banged on the windows, I then proceeded to use my mini fog horn, but to no avail, Roland just wouldn't budge, pretending he was hard asleep. I realized I wasn't going to be able to offer any help, so I returned to my bunk to get some needed sleep. How long Steve was locked out, or how much sleep he got I don't remember. I do remember that the next day, as every body was headed for breakfast, I met up with Steve and by his side was Roland pleading with him that Steve's punishment was to sever. Roland with almost tears in his eyes asked me if it was fair to lower his Bible grade, because he couldn't hear Mr. Mac... banging on the door. I tried to be neutral in the matter, because camp was just beginning. Roland, then bent over to adjust his baggies [plastic bags] that he had pulled over his socks to keep them dry in his sneakers, from the rain soaked grass. It was the first time I saw that solution of using baggies of keeping your socks dry from wet sneakers. The baggy adjustment might have been, just to fight back the tears. [Recently on the radio I have heard of Roland being a pastor in some Pa. Church.]

Good old Ted Tay..., took a liking to me and signed up with the freshmen class and me. [So did the others like, Ted DeS... as well as Don Kne.., and Dean Ree..] You looked at my sign up list at school and told me that this guy was trouble, I asked what kind and you replied and said that this guy snores like a bear. Little that I knew the trouble that it would cause me at camp. If I happened to fall asleep first there were no problems, but if Ted fell asleep first, then there was no sleep for me. As good fortune had it my bunk was by the door, and Ted's bunk was right next to mine, this turned out to be a mixed blessing. Well, any way it came down to this, if Ted fell asleep first, I had no choice but to stick out my foot and give his bunk a slight kick to wake him, and then I did my best to fall asleep. The only thing that my freshmen pulled on me was a disappearing act. As I said my dorm was a locker room next to the gym, with two doors and no windows, and contained these large lockers, so most of them could fit inside those lockers, I don't remember if Ted T, Ted D, Don or Dean were able to fit in one of those lockers. I would like to know which freshman came up with that bright idea. (Class of 78) Maybe Ted T or Dean could supply the answer.

I brought a lot of things to camp if you remember, and the one thing that I would remember to bring would be rubber flip-flops, for walking around and use in the showers. On the other hand, Ted would walk bare foot, and when he was ready to tuck him self into his bunk, he would reach over with his long legs and proceed to wipe his feet on my clean sheets, and then tuck his feet in to his bunk. [He wouldn't do it while I was watching, but it didn't take a rocket scientist to figure out what was happening.] I confronted him about this, and he eventually stopped this practice. I didn't want to move him or his bed because there would no way that I could reach out and kick his bed to wake him, so that he would stop snoring. Ted the genius, when I was covering Steve's class one day (early in 1974), bright Ted launched a paper plane into the air, which he made from his notebook paper, unfortunately for him it was a used piece of paper, with red pen markings on it. So I picked up the plane looked at the red markings on it, and played detective and found the only person with a red pen! Guess who got a detention?

This is the good part, if you recall I had to hold science classes, up there, for all the students. And you were gracious enough to help me out. So, the question that I was faced with was, what was I going to try to teach up there. And the thought came to me that this would be a good opportunity to study fungus plants and the like. I prepared for the event by buying several rolls of baggies, and bought about a dozen of Golden Nature series books on fungus plants for identification; that covered several topics such as birds, snaked, insects, fungus plants, etc.

My classroom was in this converted meeting hall, which was part of the gymnasium complex. Out side the gym, there was a sloping hill that had a pretty steep incline, about a mile or so in length. That took some effort to climb. The road, on this hill ended up in a wooded area, with cedar trees and an out door camping area, where we saw a couple of campers up there. Now, the first class that we took up there was very successful in locating all kinds of mushrooms and fungus plants. I think, that the first group may have been sophomores; well, any way, the students were given baggies and they collected their specimens, and return back to the gym complex to identify their specimens and make a sketch of what they found. Making good use of Golden Nature series guidebooks. All of a sudden it dawned on me, that this class picked the area clean, and that it would be very frustrating for the other students trying to find specimens. I got this brainstorm, and as soon as this class was over and classes began to rotate. I turned to you, and asked if you would take all the specimens and return to the camp area and replant or redistribute all the of the fungus plants. So you grabbed the baggies and took off up the hill. Now, here comes the seniors, are brightest and best. Well, I explained to them, that we were going to go up the hill to this camp area, to find various fungus plants, collect them in baggies and then return back to class and make a sketch of what they have found and identify them using the Golden Nature series guide books, it sounded good to them. Again, as I said it took a little effort to climb this somewhat steep hill. As we arrived at the sight, we met Mr. Yod... leaning against a cedar tree, after greeting you the students spread out with their baggies and started to find their specimens. You did a good job in redistributing the specimens; I encouraged them to be diligent in searching out the specimens. Suddenly we hear this shout! Oh! Here's one; or "I found one" and again we would hear these comments repeated. I tried my best from breaking out into laughter and seeing Ed having a hard time tying to keep a straight face. You know how it is, when you can't laugh, that is the time you want to the most. We would look at each other and grin, and grin, and tried to keep a straight face. It never dawned on the seniors that, you don't find mushrooms and morels unattached to the ground, and in many cases leaning against the cedar trees.

We would return back to the classroom area and the students made sketches and identified the specimens. You (Ed) replanted these mushrooms two more times. Every time I remember this incident, I get a laugh out of it. I specifically remember, that I told the students to wash their hands, in the shower room, where they had this laundry soap (yellow); one student by the name of Barbara, I think her last name was Reh..., rubbed her eyes first, then she washed her hands, and ended up with sumac poisoning, around her eyes; Her mother had to come down to camp, and take her home.

Murphy really must have been working overtime, the outdoor swimming pool was empty, and the engine that was used for water skiing was being overhauled. However, there was a boat there, in this man made small lake or very large pond that was full of algae the long filamentous type. This was somewhat of a disappointment to some of the students that were looking forward to water-skiing. So, the workers there, scrounged up an engine for the boat, but they weren't sure if it was powerful enough to water ski with. The motor was attached to the boat, and that sort of lifted some of the spirits, with the hope, that now they would be able to do some water skiing. Of course, I was there, and good old Steve was there with his bathing suit. (Guess who came loaded bear). Now, Steve said, since this was going to be a test, and he thought that, he should be the first to test it out, or be the first to water ski. The motor was attached and revved up and Steve put on the skies, sat on the little peer holding the stick that was attached to a rope that in turn was attached to the boat. Steve let himself down into the water hoping to be the first to water ski. The boat took off, you could see Steve starting to move, but the boat was not strong enough, to raise Steve out of the water, so that he would end up on his skies. What had happened was hilarious, because of the low power of the engine on the boat, and Steve's weight, and all the fresh water seaweed, there was no way that Steve was going to break the surface. The slow speed, and all that seaweed wrapped around Steve's neck and chest, all you could see, was one head making a complete circle in the pond. Steve walked out on the grass, and was covered with fresh water algae around his neck and his chest. It reminded me of Jonah and the whale; " Jonah 2:5 The waters compassed me about, even to the soul: the depth closed me round about, the weeds were wrapped about my head." Steve acted as a rake in the water and made a nice path for the next person, but it was decided that the engine was not powerful enough to water ski, so the skiing was scrapped.

I forgot to mention, that a day prior to the skiing lessons or should I say demonstration that Steve gave on how not to water ski, some of the students, and I may add a few faculty members showed up at the pond. There were a few domestic ducks there, and the strange thing was that there would be duck eggs on the grass and you could see several eggs in the shallow parts of the pond. And by the second day, our favorite student had made her presence known to all, need I mention her name. The Beau... clan, was something, they were always ready and willing to teach others: patience, longsuffering, and humility. Cheri always tried to be helpful in science class, by blowing out the fusses, when doing the Bunsen Photometer lab. [I remember John (her brother) would leave a blob of spittle on the windshield, every time I gave him detention. The third Beau.., Wendy, would stuff her face (potato chips) every time my back would be turned to the class. One learns to have eyes in the back of his head, especially when teaching in a Christian school. It took me several years to learn that when praying, one should from time to time open his eyes and see what is happening in the classroom; a real eye opener. Second day of camp Cheri got into the junior's dorm, and put Vaseline on all of the toilet seats. This went over in a big way with the girls.

The third day, in the after noon, as I was headed for the mess hall, and as I mentioned before we did have some good rain, there was Cheri being given a mud bath in a puddle, by some of the Junior girls. By the time I got there, the mud bath was all over, and that's where I found out that Cheri was getting as good as she was giving. (You may want to ask Becky if she remembers any of this?)

The following day, Cheri was up to her old tricks again. There at the small pond, there was this ten-foot dock sticking out into the pond, where one could set out into a canoe or rowboat for a ride. Well, this dock was a convenient place to walk out on and examine the pond. Now as someone would walk out, and bend over to take a look and see into the pond, Cheri would sneak up on them and push them into the pond. By the time I got there, several students had been launched or should I say pushed into the pond by Cheri, one of the students decided to launch Cheri; some of the students were laughing, because she got what she deserved. This didn't go over to well with her, so she proceeded to take off her soaked sweater, and was ready to whack me with it. I looked her in the face and said girl you better not. It just so happened that Steve M was standing several feet away from me, so she turned to Steve and whacked Steve in the head and chest with this soaked sweater, and started to run away. This didn't go over very well with Steve, he pulled the soaked sweater from his face, and proceeded to return the favor, running after her and hurled the sweater as best he could, but the heavy sweater fell short. Steve noticed a duck egg lying in the way, running he bent over and picked up the egg, lost his balance on the slippery wet grass, regained his balance and proceeded to catch up with her, and whacked her on the back of her head with the egg. Well, Cheri not only got an egg shampoo, but she ended up with egg on her face as well. The following year, when we had that bike-a-thon, and I was located at a place where I could observe any problems that might be encountered by the students. Here comes good old Cheri on her bike, headed right for my car (the 66 black Mustang), pretending that she was having a problem braking and slammed right in to the side of the car, I got out and check the door and not to much damage was done, fortunately for me, Cheri was loosing her Midas touch. How much more mischief Cheri got into, only Cheri knows, but, I am sure that one could fill a book.

The last evening, Mr. Mon... came around to thank the teachers for their work and effort, and proceeded to give every teacher about $ 35.00 dollars, money that was left over from camp. This was a pleasant surprise.

[Following section is not in the original that was sent to Ed, it is more of an update!]

The strangest thing happened to me on the day the faculty was going to inspect camp High Point, the school had a short day, and some of the exams were given. One of the exams that were scheduled for that day was the Biology exam second semester. After administering the exam, I placed them on the desk, Ted DeS... after leaving for his locker he then came in the classroom, which was right next to the kitchen, which served as my laboratory, and just in the hallway were my lockers, where I stored my supplies. He began to bug me about returning his science magazine, he would not be put off, I mean what was the hurry, for some reason he persisted. I had to leave the classroom, and go to my storage locker, which was right out side of the classroom, but out of sight of the desk, I retrieved the magazine and returned to him. Just in that split second, when I returned to my desk to my surprise the exams were missing! Panic set in, I looked high and low, around the desk, hoping that they would appear, but no use, they were gone. I went up, my classroom was in the basement, to the van, where the Principal and faculty were waiting to depart for High Point, with an expression of puzzlement on my face, I tried to explain to the Principal that my biology exams had disappeared. This remained a great mystery for two years. Finally at the end of two years, I got word that the student that had stolen the exams, and had deposited them into the nearest crick, the individual had confessed at a senior trip. And he never apologized to me, but he did pay me a complement at the 1987 reunion, mentioning that he did enjoy the devotionals that I would share in class, was the comment made to me by Mr. Ed Y. this got me started to put some of my devotionals into the computer. I had begun to switch from the old Apple II computer, to the newer Atari computer, the reason for this, was the fact that I got an Atari computer from my nephew. The Atari was a whole new ball game; again all the programs had to be typed in or bought. I chose the least expensive way that is to type my programs in. The word processor that I typed in worked great, and with a little effort I managed to convert the processor to Ukrainian processor and a Russian processor, which my older brother made use of. Because he used to write Ukrainian devotionals, he was a Graduate from Philadelphia College of Bible. The challenge was getting the Atari printer to print Cyrillic, which I did. Today with the PC there is no challenge in getting the printer to print Cyrillic or Polish; it is all done for you. To copy some of the devotional files form the Apple II, I built an interface, and the same was done for the Atari, built another interface. I started a web page, mainly to post the devotionals, but it made more sense to add a section on home schooling. All due to a complement made by the student that lifted the biology exams! A copy of the Biology Second Semester Exam that went missing is added to this site.

I recall that the following year, while the faculty was waiting in the van, out comes Steve Mac... with this big grin on his face telling the Principal that some one took his Bible exams, and he could not locate them. Well the smile was short lived; some one came running out of the new building saying that they just found the papers. You have to realize that amount of work that goes into in marking these exams. So in a way the fact that my exams disappeared, meant that a lot time was saved for me, although the students did not have an exam grade for that semester, just an average grade.

Last year coming home from Ed's house, I came across a yard sale, there I picked up two scanners for five dollars, one brand new, the other over used but still workable. The Logitech scanner, uses a roller feed and is great for coping all of my old ditto Lab work sheets, as a matter of fact the Exam that went swimming in the local crick was done on that scanner.

There were two students that I had transported to camp, and got to ride in the red Ford, Ted T. and Bryan Cla.. . Ted T. used to exist by the kitchen door from the basement where my classes were. And he would help himself to the senior's soft pretzels, which were in the freezer section of the refrigerator, I wonder if he ever reimbursed the seniors for this snack, never asked him about it. You have to remember that Ted was a growing boy, and got quite tall, today he is still growing not vertically but horizontally, as of 5/16/05.

One time Ted T. had brought in a digital clock that he could not get it to work, having built several digital clocks, I trouble shot the clock for him. The payment was several transistors, and a few clock chips. The really big pay off was years later, when he was working one night and came across a demolished pinball machine, and gave me a call, because it contained all those electronic parts. I had helped him in getting his SCSI drive working in his computer, that's because he had given me an old PC that he had purchased from the department, and he wanted to upgrade his CPU from 133 Mhz to 233 Mhz. Which he uses now and runs 24 - 7, however just last year he got a lightning strike on his computer and it blew some of the components. I got information on how to check out the power supply, from my younger brother, with this information he was able to get the computer working, so now it is running today 24 - 7. He gave me that old computer that he had removed the 233 CPU chip from, and many of my files, had been done on that computer. Several years back, he asked me if I would meet with him and John Goe... , because John wanted me to read his article on dinosaurs, and I did go over it. I have to locate the web site where his article is published, every so often John calls up and ask to meet with him at the local Burger King to read more articles that he has written, and I do. This last meeting last year John mentioned that his computer or should I say his monitor from his dinosaur computer that he does his work on had expired. Because it is a 386 model that you cannot get on the web with, and he does all of his email work from the library. I decided to give him a newer computer, a 486 model, but you want believe what happened? After cleaning the power supply, which is usually very dusty; and the various boards, and putting it back together it no longer worked! So what was I supposed to do, so I decided to give him my working computer, that I used for all of my email work, it was a 133 model that could be upgraded to a 233 Mhz. I spent a day getting new parts for it so that it would be complete. I installed a sound card, a CD drive, a small IDE drive and so on. I loaded every free program that I had, word processors and even a HTML editor, if he ever decided to post his work himself.

When I was selling my Mustang a few year back, Ted came over to check it out, Ted told me in 75 that if and when I was going to sell the Mustang, to give him a call, Ted is in the business of buying antique cars and fixing them up and selling them for a good profit. In an email, I told him that the asking price was five, so he asked, is that five hundred dollars; no I replied, it was five big ones, and that is how much I sold it for.

The saga of class 77 seems to go on; I recently sent snail mail to about half dozen of the class members to check out their pictures before they came down. I had one mail returned, that was Maria Gonz...; it was stamped with a comment that there was no such address, so I will have to find out if the school has a correct address, so that I can forward the mail to her. I mentioned in the letter how Mr. Ed Y. and myself caught her on the steps of the Church smoking, what it turned out to be, she was trying to light a cigarette to put into her lung device, which she and I think Pricilla were working on their science project. In each letter I would try to recount some incident that occurred in school to them or their brothers or sisters.

Ted DeS... was playing basket ball one evening at the school, and it was late at night, and he had no way of getting home, so I offered him a ride, as it turned out, he lived several blocks from my old high school. As you know Ted is no longer with us, Ted had this habit of getting his work done ahead of time, a rare trait. He was working on a science project a year in advance, he had a friend of the family drop by the school to show him how to work on Pyrex glass tubing, that I would leave them in the Lab with Mr. Per...'s permission.

Don Kne... and Brian Glov... got into a fight and Don Kne... was expelled. At camp, walking with Steve to the mess hall, Don catches up with us and shows me this unusual "nut" and asks me what kind was it? I looked at Steve and then I looked at Don and said all nuts look alike to me! Don was greatly disappointed at that answer! Just because one is a science teacher, you expect that person to be an expert in all fields of science, like they say Master of all trades expert in none! The last time we the faculty saw Don, was with Dean Rei..., in Dean's commercial van, at a teacher's convention in Pa. Don is married to Nannette Mce..., and his younger brother Dave did the character sketch of yours truly, included the field trip pix.