One of the most creative people I've ever met,
John Giannotti spent an entire two-week session sitting out on the lawn in front of Hird Lodge carving a new totem pole from a huge tree Chuck White selected and felled for him. John was the camp director and seemed to be able to do all his work--talking with campers and staff, even taking phone calls on an extention dragged out the lodge's window--from that spot. At the end of the session the pole was done and it was time to put it in the ground at the entrance to the main part of camp.
Take a look at several photos of this hilarious scene. No one can remember whether this was 1977 or '78. Asked to identify some people in these photos, Michele Palamidy wrote:
Well in the first one i think that is Lou Senor from maintenance in the back [with mustache], Valerie Kay [the blonde on the truck], Karen Giannotti, with her head cut off, Bernard Gauthier [dialysis doctor] bent over near the totem, Paul Brown's back with the heart on his shirt, Jan Gickner on the ground to the right [curly hair, in overalls], and, sitting on the totem pole is one of the Kremers. [The little girl is Dani Giannotti.] Of course that is the indomitable Chuck White driving the backhoe in the later pictures!
John Giannotti writes:
Michele's photos of the totem pole brought back so many wonderful memories. Seeing my then 6 or 7 year old daughter, Dani, in one of them induced incredible tears of joy. Your account of the carving, however, is totally inaccurate! You state that I did 'little else' for two weeks while carving it. Hey, I was Girl's Camp Director at the time! Carl Hess and Chuck White chopped down this twenty five foot hemlock and dragged it up the hill. We mounted just outside of Hird Lodge, where the Girls Camp Director's office was located. I remember getting an extension for the phone so that I could carve and talk to upset parents at the same time. Now THAT was multi-tasking!
John Kremer remembers:
I remember that summer well, and can also recall having to repaint the Totem pole shortly after it was raised, the wood was still so green the paint just did not hold. By the way, the 'Kremer' that Michele recounts sitting on the pole was me - next to Lou Senor, in the dark blue shirt; also in the last photo I am working level with Chuck on getting the pole plumb. 1977 or '78 would have been my 2nd or 3rd summer on the maintenance crew, as one of Carl's and Chuck's boys.
I suppose what intrigues me about this scene is that it is like so many others: it becomes mythic; everyone remembers it more or less similarly yet with different emphases; it serves as a springboard for associational memories. This was the time of our lives.
