Alumnae Story
A Camping Trip I Hated to Leave

By Jackie Childers
Lexington Park, Md.
formerly of Hebron, Neb.,
Troop 99, We-So-Braska Council

It was summer of 1959, and three Senior Girl Scouts from Troop 99 in Hebron, Neb., journeyed out to an as-yet-unnamed camp west of McCook (a trip of several hours in the days of un-air-conditioned cars)  where we camped with 11 other Seniors and about six adults in two units.

We had our tent, sleeping bags, and gear for a weeklong primitive camping experience.  Since we were last there, in 1957, a lodge had been built, which had electricity and a large refrigerator for storing perishables.  The latrines were clean, the pump worked, and there were showers rigged up with large oil drums raised above them. We lashed up our own shower curtains, pitched our tents, made ready our kitchen work areas and fire circles, got assigned partners for Kapers, and settled in. 

Several memorable things occurred during the week. Karen caught a garter snake and a blacksnake one day, and I wore the garter snake on my left arm all afternoon, while she wore the black snake across her shoulders, with one end wrapped around one upper arm and the other around the other. The snakes seemed content, and we were the camp eccentrics! We also caught a pocket mouse, but it chewed its way out of my pocket in no time! A well-known local naturalist visited camp that night and, at his urging (and because, let's face it, the snakes were becoming a bit inconvenient, we let our snakes go before the campfires were lit.

Claudia came down with appendicitis and had to be rushed home to McCook, so I moved out of our tent into hers with her cousin Connie.  Connie and I maintained correspondence until the late 1960s when somehow we both moved the same year and lost each other. 

A thunderstorm flooded our "storage" tent and ruined a few items, including a pair of "straw" flats I had along to wear to church in town on Sunday. (I was actually grateful, for I’d not had the nerve to tell my mother the shoes hurt my feet!) It also cracked the ridgepoles of a couple of tents (canvas tents, another thing from the “good ole days” that I'm glad not to deal with). As a result, we spent the last couple of nights sleeping on the lodge floor. I discovered that earth really is softer than wood!

One night, one of the girls made pizza from a mix. Of course, the reflector oven only held a 9-inch square pan, so it was rather thick, with the tomato sauce kind of sunk in and the Parmesan barely noticeable. I wasn’t impressed but we ate it all, and making pizza became a monthly feature of Senior meetings the next year.

Susan was headed for the 1959 Roundup. I was an alternate. Arlyce came along for the fun of it. Linda and Karen and Cash (Carol-Sharon) were either going to Roundup or alternates, and Connie and Claudia’s moms were the camp directors. Of the six girls in the other unit, I recall only one, Patty. We ended up in the same class in nursing school, graduating in 1965.

Would I have gone back again? In a heartbeat! It was hot, sticky, and we didn’t get to go to town swimming as we'd been promised, but it flew by and I hated to leave. I've felt the same about every camping event I've been on since!