As a kid, entering into Summer was akin to entering into the Christmas season. So I came upon the Summer of 1981 with crashing excitement for the warm days ahead. Mom was still only working three days a week, so I spent most Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays at Discovery House daycare center on Woodman Drive in Kettering. I’m fairly certain that this was the last time I went here regularly, although Mom seems to think I stayed here until I was 12 years old. This would have been the Summer of 1984 – which I know wasn’t the case, but perhaps I would still attend on occasion during Spring Break or weeks when my other babysitters were unavailable.
Discovery House was always fun, although for some reason I dreaded going. We would go swimming, on field trips, fishing, or other things to keep us occupied during the Summer. I’ll do more on this memorable location from my life in a future posting.
Mom spent a lot of her time playing softball – usually practicing or playing games two or three evenings during the week. Denise and I would often tag along to the various ball diamonds in the area – Ernst, Kennedy, and Delco.
We made only one home improvement around this Summer that I know of: we had the painted cement patio scraped and applied a brown outdoor carpet to it.
As for me, it is hard to say precisely what I was doing these days. Probably watching Laurel and Hardy movies, reading MAD Magazines, exploring the woods with my chums Lee, Chris, and Kenny, riding bikes around our neighborhood, and generally just being pleased with a childhood summer existence. These were good days.
My first vacation of the year came in the form of a week at Woodland Altars summer camp. I was a bit timid, so opted to stay in the Junior Lodge group. This was for fourth, fifth, and sixth graders. Regrettably, I have no photos of the experience but plenty of great memories. Oddly, the major thing that I cannot recall are any of the kids that were at the camp. Except for one: a little girl named Dolly, who cried at breakfast every morning because she was homesick.
I do remember that we had six co-ed groups of kids staying in the Heritage Lodge, in separate dorm quarters of course. The male counselors were Chris Bohlander, Dean Wenger, Dean Garrett, Harold Wenger, a tall guy named Jim, and my counselor, a Japanese import who spoke fragmented English named Joe Sakaguchi. Chris was apparently the most imposing as I remember one of the kids saying on the first day that he wouldn’t dare shortsheet his bed.
Shirley Yaussy from our local Beavercreek Church of the Brethren was the dean of the camp. I rode down to Woodland Altars with her and her husband Chuck on Saturday, July 11 – one day before camp actually began. They towed their camper and we stayed in it the first night there.
In short, I had a fabulous time amongst all of the activities, Bible study, hiking, vespers, swimming, campfires, games, endless four square, and our one night (typically Thursday) where we stayed in the tents. I’ll never forget hearing the scariest ghost story ever from Joe, which was capped by the old ‘flashlight under the chin’ finale.
On Saturday, July 18, camp ended for most of the kids, but I stayed on an extra day with them. Several of the counselors stayed as well – both of the Deans, and one of the female counselors Barbie Winterbotham and her husband Jim (both of whom attended our church). We spent a glorious day playing four square without the long lines of the kids, visiting Serpent’s Mound, and going to the local outdoor ice cream eatery – probably the Locust Grove Dairy Bar. By the end of the week, if I hadn’t learned a lot of scripture, I surely learned how to be a killer four square player.
List of the camp groups for that week – provided by former counselor Dean Garrett
The next vacations of the summer were two back-to-back trips, the first being our first excursion into the world of the Classic Chevy conventions. This took place the week of August 2 – August 8. Dad had gotten his 1957 Chevy in May of this year, but we had joined the Gem City Classics near the end of 1980, attending their Christmas banquet as the first club outing.
The ironic and purely coincidental thing about this trip was that this, our first Chevy convention, took place in the exact same city and hotel as our last Hudson convention had in 1979: the Hyatt Regencey in Dearborn, Michigan. This was very cool for me because I absolutely adored this high rise hotel with the lighted glass elevators. I wouldn’t see this hotel again until 2004, when I had my friend Bob swing by here during one of our road trips.
In its day, it had a monorail system that would transfer hotel guests to the mall across the street. I spent hours riding that thing back and forth from the hotel to the mall. I recall picking up one of the volumes of The Beatles Illustrated Lyrics by Alan Aldridge, as well as a special edition of National Lampoon’s True Facts at the mall.
Oddly, I remember our earlier Dearborn trip a little better than this one, but I’m sure that I hung around the older kids Dennis Matherne, Mark Wilson, and Missy Karver. I seem to recall running into a lady in the hotel and getting burned with her cigarette. The memory only remembers what it wants apparently.
And I remember going all out in a t-shirt, rolled-up jeans, and with a simulated pack of cigarettes rolled up in my sleeve for the 50’s dance. Yes, I went crazy on the dance floor, attempting my version of the Twist and other ridiculous dances of the era. Obviously the photo at the top of the posting was taken during this event, as were the two below.
Mom, Denise, and I get wild on the dance floor
Denise, little girl on a big floor
Unfortunately, there weren’t many photos from this trip – or any other part of the summer for that matter, with the exception of the next and final Summer trip of 1981, which immediately followed this one.
The next trip of the Summer of 1981 up next…
I have a lot of memories of Ernst and Delco parks as well, and of playing at the gyms in which our parents played volleyball. But I don’t remember you being there. You must have been finished playing at the parks before I went regularly.
I started buying Mad Magazine after seeing your collection.
Were Lee, Chris, and Kenny aware of the lions in the woods behind your house?
Chris
February 26th, 2010
I spent 5 summers as a camp counselor at Woodland Altars. I remember the week you were there. I think I still have the camp list of participants (counselors and campers) from that week. I remember one camper had what I would call a “riddle” where he would take his finger and draw a face in the air and the person being shown was to do the exact same thing — but people would usually get it wrong. The trick was that people weren’t using the same hand to draw the face as the leader was using. I kind of remember the boy with that riddle was you. Am I correct?
Dean Garrett
April 5th, 2011
That riddle – and other similar riddles – entered my life that very week. Although for years afterward, I introduced them as camp staples, I can’t take credit for making them up. If memory serves me correctly, it was my counselor Joe Sakaguchi who brought them from his homeland of Japan and introduced them to us.
And I’d love to see that camp list.
Brad
April 5th, 2011