Tuesday, November 11, 2008

mowing the Castle Hill

Doug Kerr, now of Lewis, NY, was a camper in '68 and '69, then CIT, LIT, Counselor and then joined the maintenance staff. Eventually he worked year-round on the maintenance staff. Doug writes: "Did you know I had the record time for mowing the Castle Hill with a hand mower solo? Carl [Hess] trained us well!"

In those days the Castle Hill was mown by hand. I suppose that's because tractor mowers in those days were not built flexibly enough to handle riding sideways at such a steep angle. For whatever reason it was done by hand - tiring, hard work, and terrible on the ankles! Andy Kremer, I recall, wore spikes (like soccer shoes, or baseball cletes) when mowing it, to keep himself from falling over and tumbling down the hill.
Doug is our source for the spectacular photograph below. Top row, left to right: Bill Van Zandt, Carl Hess, Morris Slater, John Kremer, Norm Gurfinkel; bottom row, left to right: Mike Schiffer, Dave McBride, Andrew Schiffer, Doug Kerr.


John Kremer writes: "This would have been my first summer on the Maintenance staff - Norm and I lived in one of the dorm rooms in Hayden - I think the younger Schiffer is actually John, who would have been my age. Andrew is the youngest and he did not join the staff until years later when Chuck had the crew."