“Every camp session yielded a copy of the goings-on of the campers in a newsletter, aptly named the “Loon”. It was usually a tongue in cheek review of what went on in each hut, activities of the days at camp and humorous stories relaying such things as deep dark secrets, anecdotes of the date and confessions of campers.
An early edition, somewhere in the 1920’s titled “Confessional Edition” and subtitled “A Bugler Bungles” read as follows; “There was only one of us—I—deserted by my family for the summer and was forced to earn money and a summer vacation at the same time. We—I—thought and thought and finally decided on a summer camp—Maqua, it was called. Since I was young and inexperienced, I was not too careful in my choice but then Maqua seemed a fairly nice camp.”
“Sad as it may seem, it was immodest in its attire in this regalia. I stepped out of a hut and behold sunlight, bright as any lily of fair girl—and then—ah then—two males sitting in a car. Two males looked up me and then away, but not before they had completely identified me as the bugler. But I, what could I do? Heaven know how much lower I may descend the stairs of gegradation, but it can be but a little lower. Woe is me!”
Poor girl. Years passed. Decades passed and immodesty seemed to go out the window, as well as what your hair looked like at camp. Some came with one style and left with a new haircut, unwashed hair or bleached streaks in their summer hair.
Debbie Pennington (1961-62) wasn’t clothes crazy and did not go to camp with all new clothes, but she did remember either bleaching her hair just before going to camp or maybe even bleaching it at camp.
“I was one of those girls who didn’t tan and had fuzzy hair and then there were those girls from Birmingham with their straight blonde hair,” said Cara Prieskorn (1966-71). “I can remember we had a hula contest and one person from each cabin would do the hula. Laurie Cullen was the only one who could actually do the hula. She had the moves, that girl, but she ended coming in second after some cute girl in cabin one due to her cuteness, not because she could hula.”
Kerry Weber recalled that her Mom had carefully packed all her clothes (1952), with ribbons to match every outfit, and had instructed her to braid her hair each day. “When they arrived, my hair was hanging straight down and all messed up and they knew I hadn’t put a brush to my hair, probably the entire time!”
“I remember that every day I had to walk to the big teenage girls’ cabin down by the lake,” said Judy Sherman (1946-49),” so that a family friend by the name of Barbara Jacoby, could brush my hair into braids.”
Cindy Belanger (1968-70) got a new short haircut before she left for camp, so she wouldn’t have to wash it. She remembered wearing her Camp Maqua tee shirt and the blisters from the new white tennis shoes she had every summer when she left for camp. “I don’t know why, but my Mom always bought the wrong size for my tiny feet, so I had Band-aids on all the time. We always got new undies and socks for camp, but we didn’t do the top dollar stuff.”
“One year my photo was on the flyers,” said Margot Homburger (1946-52). “ I have heard this from other people that it was the year to get permanents. We didn’t comb our hair at camp and my face appeared on that flyer—-and there were those sailor hats we all wore.”
Minette Jacques (1955) admitted to being a loner. “I had a ball at camp, but I never had to follow the crowd. I didn’t give a rip about social stuff and I sure didn’t care about my hair!”
Did you care about your clothes or hair at camp?