I’m the little boy from Canada in Homer McLemore’s Summer of ’63 Totem group. I follow Al Filreis's blog closely these days because it reconnects me with very fond memories of a very special time. I lived in the middle north of the province of Quebec in the early 60’s, a town then called Chibougamau….I could spell it long before the nuns at the town’s French School taught me how to read write and such. My Dad and his close friends were young men in a frontier mining town, full of family commitment and small town spirit. They loved to fish and their stories left you rolling on the floor…..sunken canoes, lost paddles, fish that jumped back out of their boats and such. They met Jim Wilkes and the Trailblazers in the summer of ’62 I think. They were awesome…they had this 3-ton Dark Blue Ford Stake truck and trailer full of 8 shiny aluminum canoes….they were like a busload of big brothers and they were full of great adventure…..that summer flew by. We waved goodbye to them in late summer….to the truck and guys that is. I remember they left the trailer full of canoes…..man I was proud of it. And they were from “way down south”. I didn’t know that Canada and the US were really separate countries, I remember feeling more like they were great folks from another part of the same country and we all loved adventure, the outdoors and having a good time. This was the early sixties and we lived outside of town on a small lake at the base of a big hill on top of which was located a brand new Dew Line Radar Station and its Observatory like Radar Dish Building….I had no idea what the Cold War was….I did listen to John Glenn on the radio as he orbited the earth and often saw the multiple contrails of the B-52’s going north “on manoeveurs”. I felt a part of the same world these Trailblazers lived in.
The next summer came all too slow but boy when they rolled back into town I was thrilled….we hung out by the campfire each night they were there and when they went off into the woods on their “trailblazing” trip I waited eagerly for their return…course I missed my dad too.
Then something magical happened…..I got to leave with them when the first group went “home” . Somehow I remember sitting in a school bus learning to sing, “If I had a hammer…” “Runnin through a swamp….” ( it had sound effects), and most of all “This Land is Your Land”……man it’s great to listen to Woody Guthrie singing this on “YouTube” these days….I remember staying at the bus drivers house one night in Liberty, N.Y. and I remember a lot of neat things about my first summer at camp. I’ve got the original picture that Homer McLemore sent to my mother in 2003. It’s the one in Al Filreis’ blog with Homer leading Totem on a hike…likely to the Neversink River or some other really great place. I’m the little guy second in line behind Homer. By the way I also remember the wild “ghost stories” the cabin leaders used to tell us around the campfires in the “sleepy hollows” around Wawayanda.
I got to go to “W” two summers in a row ( I got two “W” patches!) and the second time got to stay in the Castle when I was picked up at the end of the summer. I think it was 1963. That October we moved out of the north and into the Ottawa, Canada’s Capital City and way south of a land I’d lived in for 11 years… I was in public school in November 1963 and I remember President Kennedy.
I remember the morning flag raising at Camp Wawayanda, pledging allegiance to the Flag of the USA and signing the Star Spangled Banner. Most especially I am deeply touched and very grateful for the incredible experiences I enjoyed those summers in the Catskills with other kids who got together to have fun, shoot arrows, eat Fudgsicles from the canteen, watch 50’s sci-fi movies in the “barn” [the “Rec Hall” – now Margetts], be an Olympian from Siam….etc, etc.
Today I live on the West Coast. Actually “off” the West Coast on Vancouver Island. My wife, Bernadette and I own a busy bakery in the Comox Valley…just north of the middle of the island; 2,445 (Google) miles across North America from Frost Valley. We’ve moved in and out of corporate careers, travelled half-way round the world to work as short term missionaries in England, Turkey and Uzbekistan and returned home to live in our busy valley.
I love the Seattle Mariners, The Montreal Canadiens and pretty much everything in between about both countries.
I’ve had a tremendous number of great experiences these past 56 years. Who I am and what I’ve done has a lot to do with the lessons learned when I got to go to camp. I’m sure anyone reading this has similar tales to tell….I know I’ve enjoyed reading the many that are on Al’s Blog . New or old the tales tell the timeless truth…our great adventures start early in life and leave the most meaningful lessons.
I still feel a small part of a big family full of great spirit.
In a few words with much meaning …..thank-you.
Michael Pitcher
The little boy from Canada. 1963
