For decades Camp Maqua girls made jokes about the Camp Mahn-go-tah-see boys’ camp across the lake; how maybe they would swim over to see them; or the boys would boat over past them, so they could see them. And as many of them that dreamt of that, there were thse girls who said they were far too young to even notice.
Andrea Gale (1970-74) said she was too young to pay attention, but by the time she left camp that last year, she was just as boy crazy and screamed like the other girls. Randi Wynne-Parry (1969-73) said they all knew the boys were there, but all they did was talk about them. Cindy Rose(1968-70) figured the talk of the boys and girls meeting in the middle of the lake was just talk– the great boy talk.
Patrica Purcell, a self-professed late bloomer in the fifties, loved the concept that there was a boys’ camp across the lake, but laughed that she would not have known what to do with them had they boated over!
“I was a late bloomer and I was so glad there were no boys at camp, “ said Jan Schreiber (1962-70). “In fact my least favorite part was when the boys from the camp across the lake would come over. I didn’t even have my first boyfriend until I was seventeen. I was glad not to have to deal with boys because it facilitated the freedom from the issues and pressures to be a particular way.”
“I do remember two counselors—Geri Fleming and June Nuckoll. I think we must have been good kids, because basically the counselors left us along,” said Judy Rowden (1948), “but the main thing we always wanted was to see those boys at Camp Mahn-go-tah-see, but we never did!”
The girls would row as close to the camp as they could, so they could wave, but Barb Ballor (1951-55) said the staff were careful not to let the boys get too close. Karen Short (1945-48) remembered staff patrolling for boys, and Kim Moore (1968-72) worried about the boys prowling when she camped near the property line in Hut 7. Carrie Norris made jokes with her friends about the boys swimming across the lake to see them, but said she never saw any boys during her time in the seventies’.
“When we got older, we got to be in Hut 9 by the water. “You had to be a certain age,” said Gretchen Jacques (1955-57). “I can still hear those girls talking day and night about the boys across the lake at the camp and how they were going to paddle across to meet them, but they never did. And, I was not into boys at the age. They always just talked about it.”
“I felt like I always knew how to swim and loved the canoeing,” said Mary Jo Rawlings, who camped in the fifties. “We would boat over to the boys’ camp and when they saw us coming, they jumped in their canoes to meet us and would try to swim out to us, but the counselor would say we were far enough and we would have to go back.”
Beth Phillips (1972-73) loved boating on the Sunfish and laughed when she recalled that once the girls found out they were meeting boys on the lake in that sailboat, everyone wanted to sail! Mary Lou Winn (1946-48) was one of those girls. It took her three summers to finally pass her swimming and diving tests, which made her eligible to get to the third raft and canoe across the lake. “Honestly, most of the girls wanted to pass to be able to go over there, but I think it was mostly counselors who were interested.”
Did you have ulterior motives with your swimming pursuits— to be able to boat over to the boys camp( and did you do it?)