“We loved to torment the boys across the lake,” laughed Geraldine Folkert (1942-47). “Every year we would paddle over and take their canoes, so they would have to paddle our boats back over to get theirs. We never really had any social outings with them, but I think some of the counselors used to mix with them.”
“We did little cabin pranks every summer, but by far the best prank was paddling over to Mahn-go-tah-see and escaping with their war canoe,” laughed Cindy Knapp (1968+). “We decorated it, renamed it the S.S. Maqua, covered it with shaving cream and seaweed. We were so proud of ourselves. Thankfully, we didn’t get into too much trouble.”
Judith Moore, assistant director, agreed that there were no organized mixers when she was at camp in 1970 and 1971, but also agreed the boys could get up to no good in the evenings, but never anything serious.
Carol Wahl (1974-75) loved that they never got caught when they took the big canoe, which could handle most of the staff, and paddled across the lake to the boys’ camp. “There were about ten of us that “tee-peed” the entire beach with toilet paper. Of course, they retaliated, but for the life of me I cannot remember how.”
“It was always tantalizing knowing the boys were across the lake,” said Pamela Hartz (1966-75), but for the staff, there were patrols to make sure the boys were not in Maqua. Shelley Harris (1965-75) recalled a whistle system for alerting when boys were in camp. Since Hut 5 was elevated, they could crawl under and knock on the floors to scare the girls.
“At night we could hear all the noises outside the cabin and when we were in Senior Village, we would do patrol or guard duty around the camp to check to make sure everyone was in their cabins and all was well,” said Chris Lambert (1958-65). “We were never worried about animals, but we were worried about the guys across the lake. One night we chased some of them and came pretty close to catching one, but he ran up Chapel Hill and made it to the property outside the camp. Good thing we didn’t get a hold of him,” she laughed. “He would have been a mess.”
“The older kids got to sleep in that hut above the boathouse, which meant some of the girls could meet the boys easier. Our counselor was going with a boy at the boys’ camp and we got wind of it. So, we started singing the song “Cowboy Joe” and put her boyfriend’s name in the song. I have a photo of her in front of the Brownie and we all thought she was a model because she was so pretty,” said Patsy Walsh who began camping at Maqua in 1938.
The counselors from Camp Maqua would pay back the counselors at Camp Mahn-go-tah-see with their pranks, despite the fact that they were not supposed to go over there. Barb Cruey (1956) had fond memories of the pranks, but Kim Moore was always freaked out thinking the boys or prowlers would come into camp when she was in Hut 7, since they felt like they were all by themselves.
What do you recall of the pranking between the boys and the girls?
