Archive for the 'Pemi history' Category

Life at Pemi involves some jargon with which neophytes may not be familiar. Here, then, is a Pemi primer: an introduction to the lexicon of the place. (Definitions with a hyperlink have another blog item devoted to them.)

AC: Assistant counselor. Most cabins have a junior counselor who assists the head counselor. He has just finished his junior or senior year of high school, and is almost always a former Pemi camper.

Bean Soup: Every Monday night the camp convenes in the Lodge for a reading of Bean Soup, a series of articles, some humorous, about the week’s events at camp, read aloud by the editors.

Brave: The Pemi Brave is an award that is earned through a series of accomplishments by an ambitious camper who excels in a variety of fields across the Pemi curriculum: athletics, nature, the outdoors, public service, and more.

Bunk: A bunk at Pemi is an upper or lower bed in a cabin or tent. Some camps use the term “bunk” for cabins, but Pemi doesn’t.

Cabin: A cabin is the camper’s home for the summer. There are also three heavy-duty canvas tents on platforms at Pemi– Junior Tent, Hill Tent, and the Lake Tent.

Chief: The Chief is the highest achievement at Pemi, earned by only eight to ten boys in Pemi history. Like the Brave but much more difficult to earn, the Chief award is obtained only by the Pemi boy who has demonstrated remarkable achievement across all aspects of the Pemi program. It takes multiple years to complete the requirements for a Chief.

Distance swim: In order to be permitted to take a boat out solo when the waterfront is open, a boy must first complete his distance swim: a closely supervised swim, about .5 mile long, from the high dive at the Junior waterfront to the high dive at the Senior waterfront.

Division: There are four divisions at Pemi: Junior (ages 8 – 11), Lower Intermediate (ages 11 – 13), Upper Intermediate (ages 13 – 14), and Senior (ages 14 – 15).

Dope stop: After a hiking trip, Pemi campers stop for candy and a soda. It’s not the best part of a hiking trip, but it’s pretty darn good. The term “dope” derives from the early New England slang for soda pop.

Flat Rock: Diagonally across from camp on Lower Baker Pond, this rock sticks out into the water (not surprisingly, the rock is flat). Most nights at camp, in lieu of a meal in the Mess Hall, a cabin of boys and their counselors will canoe across the lake and cook their dinner over a fire.

Free swim: Every afternoon at 5 pm, campers have the option of enjoying Free Swim, which is held in both the Junior Camp and Senior Camp. Campers are closely supervised by counselors, and must swim in groups of either two or three. Because this activity is included with the price of tuition, it is considered doubly “free.” (We kid, we kid.)

Gilbert and Sullivan. Every summer, Pemi performs one of four Gilbert and Sullivan operettas: HMS Pinafore, Pirates of Penzance, Mikado, or Iolanthe. These productions take an entire season to put together, and the results are frequently soaring.

Hanover Day: During Pemi Week, the senior campers get to spend a day in town. Shopping! Pizza for dinner! A movie! Ben and Jerry’s ice cream! Need we say more?

Inspection: Every day, after breakfast, the campers and counselors clean their cabins.

Junior Brave: This award, like the Brave, is earned by a camper in the Junior division who achieves success in the outdoors, nature, athletics, and more.

Lower Baker Pond: This is the lake that Pemi is on. No exaggeration: it’s one of the most beautiful places around.

Metal Boy: A fictional character of Pemi lore. He’s made entirely of metal. Watch out for rainy days!

Mess Hall: The dining hall: a beautiful sloped-roofed, high-ceiling building perched on a hill overlooking camp, where all meals are eaten, family-style.

Occupations: The daily, structured activities, based on lesson plans. There are three occupational hours before lunch, and for juniors, a fourth after rest hour.

Pagoda: The bathroom—for going “number two.” See the entry for “Squish” below for the Pagoda’s partner in crime.

Pemi Hill: Behind the Intermediate and Junior camp there is a wooded hill rising up about Pemi. A short, steep trail up the hillside takes Pemi campers to a wooden shelter that sits beside a fresh spring. Each cabin has the opportunity to spend a night up there at least once a season, and cook breakfast over the fire in the morning. It’s close enough to camp to still be able to hear that bugle calls, but far enough away to still feel like camping.

Pemi Week: The last week of Pemi, when the normal schedule of occupations ceases and daily events celebrate the season: Games Day, Woodsdude’s Day, the Triathlon, the Art Show, the performances of the Gilbert & Sullivan operetta, and more. It concludes with the Final Banquet, the Final Bean Soup, and the Final Campfire.

Pine Forest: Like Flat Rock, Pine Forest is a dining location across the lake which cabins can canoe to with their counselors and cook dinner over the fire.

Polar Bear: Every morning, campers leap out of bed with a glad cry (“huzzah!”), do quick exercises to wake up, and then jump in the lake. (Required for the first week that a boy is at camp for the summer, it’s optional afterward.) Just for fun, here’s a video of a young Pemi camper jumping into Lower Baker Pond.

Pink Polar Bear: Why jump in the relatively warm lake to wake up, when you can dunk in a very cold stream first thing in the morning? Many boys choose this option.

Rest Hour: After lunch, for a blissful hour, the campers relax on their beds and quietly read, write, or listen to music. There is a chance that counselors might even enjoy this break more than the campers.

Soap bath: Every Sunday, campers are obliged to be weighed, and then take a quick bath in the lake, using their biodegradable soaps. While hot showers are available all week long, some campers are occasionally reluctant to bathe themselves of their own initiative. Thus, the soap bath.

Squish: The bathroom. But only if you have to go “number one” or brush your teeth.

Tecumseh Day: Pemi’s historical, epic athletic rivalry with Camp Tecumseh. Think Athens vs. Sparta, but instead of bows and arrows and chariots, think baseball, soccer, swimming and tennis. And better sportsmanship. And no killing.

Two-day, three-day, four-day: Overnight trips. Junior cabins go on two-day long hiking trips; Lower Intermediates on three-days and Upper Intermediates on four-days. Seniors can go on a series of ambitious and optional trips, such as climbing Mt. Katahdin, paddling the Allagash waterway in Maine, or traversing the Presidential range in the White Mountains.

Bugle Calls:

Pemi is one of the few places where you don’t really need to carry a time piece: the bugle calls, played by a counselor, let you know what time it is. Here are some of the most common ones.

Reveille: Played at 7:30 sharp, this bugle calls pierces the quiet morning air with an upbeat and clear message: get out of bed! Former Pemi counselor Lance Latham sent along this great video he shot in the summer of 1987 of counselor Dean Ellerton playing reveille. Tom Reed, Sr., is seen on the hill, helping to encourage the boys out of bed.

First call: Played five minutes before a meal begins. Here’s a cheesy YouTube video, not affiliated with Pemi, that demonstrates the call.

Tattoo: Played at 8:45 pm, this bugle call means that it is time to start getting ready for bed. Here’s another YouTube video, also not affiliated with Pemi (and somewhat weird), that demonstrates the call.

Taps: The bugle call, played at 9 pm, when it is time to sleep. Here’s an excellent History Channel clip about the origins of the call.

There are more than 20 flags hanging from the ceiling of the Mess Hall at Pemi, and each represents the country of a camper or staff member who has come to Pemi from abroad. Among many others, the flags for China, South Africa, Japan and Cameroon are up there. Also hanging from the rafters is a black and red flag; on the black half are five white stars depicting the Southern Cross, and on the red half is the image of a Bird of Paradise: it’s the flag of Papua New Guinea.

Most people who have a relatively recent connection with Pemi know that Papua New Guinea’s flag was first hung in the Mess Hall for Nuwi Somp, a longtime counselor who’s from that country, and a man who carries with him joy enough to light up all those around him. If you’ve met him, you know that one of his most striking characteristics is his laugh: it’s one of the most spirited, bubbling laughs you’ll ever hear. While he wasn’t at camp in the summer of 2009, his son, Sompy was. And Nuwi’s daughter, Joann, attended Camp Wawenock in Maine. (Getting the Somp children to their camps, a massive undertaking in itself, was spearheaded by Pemi’s Head of Nature, Larry Davis.)

Photo by Fred Seebeck.

Their story is told in an article, “Home (9000 Miles) Away from Home,” by longtime Pemi counselor and Bean Soup editor Josh Fischel. Fischel is the Public Information Associate at the American Camp Association, New England, and the article was published on that organization’s website. The article tells the story both of how Nuwi Somp first made a connection with Pemi, and what the camp experience was like for his children, Sompy and Joann. I recommend giving it a read.

Getting to know international campers and staff is, in my opinion, one of the richest parts of a Pemi experience. My counselor when I was a camper in the Lake Tent in 1994 was Andy Kerr, from Scotland, and over the years I’ve loved having friendships with BUNAC counselors from the United Kingdom. (And I’m going to assume that the process is rewarding the opposite way, too: to spend a summer or more at Pemi from another country must be a fantastic experience.)

This summer, campers from England, Italy, Spain, Mexico, Switzerland, Germany, and France will be at camp. If you came to Pemi from abroad, what was that like? Or, for American alumni, when you were at Pemi, were you friends with someone from another country? Perhaps you can shed some light on what it was like to share a cabin, a table, a soccer game or a hiking trip in the White Mountains with someone from another country—even if they didn’t travel as far as the Somps did to the shores of Lower Baker.

-Rob Verger

Anyone who has ever attended a Pemi lunch or dinner has experienced how singing, a Pemi tradition, can fill the Mess Hall up to the brim, and sometimes beyond it. In recent years, favorite songs have included “The Happy Wanderer,” “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot” (with accompanying hand gestures), and the famously anticlimactic “Three Cheers for the Jones Junior High.” (It’s the best junior high in Toledo.)

But different songs have been popular at different times in Pemi’s history.

For example, Tom Reed, Sr., mentioned “And When the Battle’s Over” as being a song that is never sung anymore, but used to be sung “to honor any distinguished visitor.” The “Junior Camp Song,” Tom says, “has always been sung,” while the song about the Pemi Kid is rarely sung these days. “Bloomer Girl” is sung less frequently, too. (And bloomers have gone out of fashion.)

Then there are other classics, like the “Clam Shell Song” or “We’re From Camp Pemigewassett” or the “Marching Song.” That last one comes in two versions—with embellishments like the words “sweet gasoline” when the song is sung during the regular season, and a more serious, non-embellished version when the song is sung at a banquet.

When I asked Tom if he had a favorite song, he chuckled. “I don’t think I have one, but I think the “Boating Song” and the “Campfire Song” are the most beautiful songs we have, and the kids love both of them, and then there are the rabble-rousers, like the “Junior Camp” song, and so on. I like them all, but like them not just for the music, but for the Pemi connections they have.”

What songs were popular when you were at camp, and which was your favorite?

–Rob Verger

Skinny, angular, caught eternally in mid-stride with evidently no part of his body on the ground, the boy depicted in Pemi’s logo is known simply as the Pemi Kid. Cap in hand, socks pulled to his knees, a Pemi “P” on his shirt and a big grin on his face, he captures a lot about the Pemi spirit. He’s happy and running, we just don’t know where to. And he’s been holding that pose for more than 90 years. Today, the logo is on the sign hanging in front of the camp office, and has a prominent position here on our newly redesigned website. He’s graced Pemi clothing from the itchy wool tank tops of the 1920s and 1930s to the Under Armour tees of today.

To learn more about the logo’s history, I called up both Tom Reed, Sr., and Al Fauver to ask them what they remembered about its creation. Both of them spontaneously began to sing bits and pieces of a song, written by Dudley Reed (Tom Reed Sr.’s father), about the creation of the image of the Pemi Kid:

List to the tale of the Pemi kid

Born in 1919

Created by Williams of Oberlin

Out of the back of his bean

He carries a message of “pep and speed”

Most unlucky gossoon

Always going but never arrives

He was born in the dark of the moon

Don’t use “gossoon” in your everyday speech? It means, according the Oxford English Dictionary, “a youth, a boy; a servant-boy, lackey.” It’s also a convenient rhyme with “moon.”

The original image of the Pemi Kid—hanging in the camp library—was created by a counselor named Jack Williams in 1919, sprung seemingly from “the back of his bean,” (his head) where most good things usually originate.

I asked Tom Reed, Sr., what the Pemi Kid symbolized to him. “It is the kind of innocent active energetic skinny Pemi kid, striding along with his cap in his hand,” he said.

“It was the indomitable Pemi kid,” Tom added, with a chuckle.

“Action,” is what Al Fauver said the Pemi Boy symbolizes to him. “Always doing something.”

“What it really means to me, anyway, is here’s a kid that goes away, and there’s so much for him to do,” Al said.

“I think that the greatest thing” about the Pemi Kid, Al added, “is that song.”

And what about that cryptic line, he was born in the dark of the moon?

To be born in the dark of the moon, Tom Reed Sr. explains, means “that you would have misfortune.” Why did Dudley Reed include that line? Perhaps because the poor “unlucky gossoon” is “always going but never arrives.” Happy running, Pemi Kid. Whatever the alignment of your stars, you’ve managed to be a central part of Pemi mythology for nine decades.

Music and lyrics to the song, below.

–Rob Verger

Music and lyrics © Camp Pemigewassett

Pemi sailing program, circa 1930s.

Thank you to everyone who commented on the first item of this blog. It was great to read about the rich and profound memories many of you shared.

One theme was education. Dan Murphy wrote, “Pemi inspired me to become an educator. Many of my favorite counselors were teachers during the school year and their influence led me later to a career in education.” And Phil Landry, a full-time fly-fishing guide and instructor, followed that thought by writing, “While on Pemi’s staff I learned too much to summarize here, but I learned how to teach. Not only that, but I learned how to teach ‘the things that I love.’”

Other themes were love of sports, music, and the outdoors. Jim Bingham wrote about “Hiking the Presidentials in 1966, on a 4-day trip, using a Pemi-supplied Army surplus wood-and-canvas pack ‘frame’ that I lashed my canvas duffel bag to…” (We don’t use those frames anymore, but a few do still kick around the trip room.) And Jan Zehner, who had a career in the foreign service, wrote that, “Four years as a Pemi counselor (late ’50s) cemented a love of water, mountains and nature in general.” Oliver Pierson, who now lives in Namibia, Africa, captured the fullness of life at Pemi this way:

“I was lucky enough to beat Tecumseh, hike the Mahoosucs, win a tri-state soccer tournament, take the lead (female) role in Pirates of Penzance, win the Pemi Brave, and enjoy countless other awesome memories while a camper at Pemi.”

Musician Stephen Funk Pearson credits Pemi as being where he learned the guitar: “I first picked up a guitar and took lessons at Pemi and went on to perform all over the world and my newest cd “Artists Around the World” is all my original compositions for guitar with other instruments which are performed by world-renowned musicians.”

Personally, the best thing about being at Pemi for me was the close friendships the place offers, and the simplicity of being so close to the natural world for a summer—the beauty of an afternoon spent sailing on the lake, or the feeling of space and air and freshness when you break above tree line on a hike in the White Mountains. Jaime Garcia spoke to that when he wrote about how Pemi influenced the way he saw the world during a career in the Navy:

“Throughout my trips around the world … I have appreciated the natural beauty of the visited ports and had the opportunity to go on several nature trips during my time-off (hiking, whale watching, etc). Even while the ship cruised through the Pacific Ocean, I appreciated taking a few minutes to watch the stars – they always reminded me of standing the ‘night patrol’ duty” on “clear but cold summer nights” at Pemi.

Counselors love to halfheartedly complain about having night patrol duty, but most find that it’s usually a peaceful way to spend an evening, outside and under the stars.

Finally, Erik Muller, who I believe was my assistant counselor when I was a camper in U-1, captured the Pemi spirit in broad strokes, this way:  “… I discovered so many things to appreciate. The importance of sportsmanship, trying new things, giving, the beauty of the outdoors, and just how to live with others began at Pemi for me.”

Thanks, everyone, who commented. We encourage you to share your thoughts, and suggestions for the blog, in the comment field below on this item and the previous one. It’s great to connect with so many people here. Keep your eyes out for more items to come!

–Rob Verger

The Four Docs, the founders of Camp Pemi.

Welcome to Pemi’s new blog! Check this space often for news from camp, information on Pemi’s history and traditions, discussion on camp-related topics, and the occasional profile of a Pemi alum, camper, or staff member.

We plan on offering a wealth of information– varied, useful and possibly even entertaining– in this space. We hope that it grows into a forum where everyone in the Pemi family can participate, be they parents, campers or staff. We also hope to include as many voices as possible, both in the blog items to come and in the comments field below. We’ll explore topics that pertain to campers, like Pemi’s diverse programs or the possibility of homesickness, and to parents, like the challenges of “letting go,” or how colleges might view the camp experience.

Since 1908, Pemi has been on a remarkable journey. As those who know Pemi well can attest, Pemi’s excellence comes not just from the singularity and warmth of its community, but also from the balance it strikes between tradition and change. For example, most Pemi boys still start each summer day with a jump in Lower Baker Pond, but happily we no longer have to cut ice from the lake each winter to use as a refrigerant during the summer, as we did in the early twentieth century. In short, Pemi has been around a long time, and has evolved a great deal since its birth. While boys at camp still have to write a letter (on paper!) home each week, here we’re happy to embrace the digital age.

To celebrate the launch of the new web site and this blog, we turn to our Pemi alums, and ask: Did one or more of Pemi’s program areas– sports, nature, music and the arts, trips, the waterfront and boating– influence your passions or professions? And what ideas might you have for how this space can be used?

Please submit a comment below to join the discussion. (If you don’t see the comment field below, click on the “Full Post and Comments” link above, just underneath where it says “Welcome.”)

–Rob Verger

Rob Verger, a freelance writer, is a former Pemi camper and staff member. His work has appeared in the Boston Globe, the Travel Channel’s website WorldHum.com, the Valley News, and other publications.