I'm a little senile, so if I already wrote about this, a thousand pardons. I could look back to see. But why, when it will give me so much joy to write about it?
My first camp was Bar-L Ranch in Guthrie Center. It was the camp of choice for folks from Atlantic, along with Camp Foster, which was the YMCA camp at Okoboji I believe. Bar-L was a horse ranch and I was crazy about horses from an early age.
My sisters went to Bar-L before me, so I remember riding along to drop them off, and getting a ride on their horses. What a thrill. We have home movies of Cindy trying to get on one pony, putting the wrong foot in the stirrup - very confusing for a young kid trying to figure out why she was going to end up sitting backwards on the horse. Ah, the stuff of America's Best Videos.
The year I turned 7, I got to go to camp with Cindy, who by then was a camp veteran at age 11, all knowing of saddles and such. Bar L was run by the Luckinbill family - Harold, who seemed to me to be a large man with a large voice. He was boss. The girls bunkhouse was located above the mess area, with the bathroom below. We all stayed in bunk beds. It was all very big stuff for a youngster.
The first day, Sunday when we got there, we were assigned our ponies. I was the smallest kid, and got one of the smallest ponies - a black one whose name escapes me now. The camp counselors would saddles them up and we would help get the bit in their mouths and away we'd go. I imagine my mother giddy, tears in her eyes thinking "a week with 2 less children!"
Each day would start out with a big breakfast of pancakes and the like. I can't imagine I took many showers that week, but we did go swimming a couple times, perhaps that helped me avoid stiff hair and smelly body. After breakfast, we'd go for a trail ride, and if I was lucky we'd get to canter in a circle at the top of one hill. I was in the group with the smallest ponies.
In the afternoons we did crafts like weaving plastic lanyards, punching leather key rings and making clay ashtrays. Early in the week we did a stint of square dancing - I still know a few beats, heel toe, heel toe. slide slide. I was too young to have sweaty palms about the whole deal. Though I was concerned about sitting by Cindy at mealtime, and when I budged in line I got a swat on the butt by Harold.
One night we got to ride our horses bareback! Wow, that was way different than riding with a western saddle. That ranked right up there with one of the biggest thrills of my life, the night at the bag swing camp. That was an area outside Guthrie where seed corn bags were strung on long ropes from trees. There were cliff and ladder launch areas. It was a thrill and a blast to conquer those bags. Better than Disneyland any day!
At the end of the week, we Catholics were forced to get up, don doilies on our heads and go to church in town. How I longed to be a Protestant on that day. Character building I'm sure. Then our parents would come to get us after lunch. I attended Bar-L some 4 years. One year I went with several Atlantic girls, including Sally, Barbie Gee and Barb Hutchinson. We had fun on a snipe hunt, at Smores and carved our names into the sandy rock above the camp.
My little piece of Americana. Carry on campers. One day, some twenty something years later, I got to take my darlin' girl Amy and niece Leslie to Bar L to spend a week. The circle of life!
My first camp was Bar-L Ranch in Guthrie Center. It was the camp of choice for folks from Atlantic, along with Camp Foster, which was the YMCA camp at Okoboji I believe. Bar-L was a horse ranch and I was crazy about horses from an early age.
My sisters went to Bar-L before me, so I remember riding along to drop them off, and getting a ride on their horses. What a thrill. We have home movies of Cindy trying to get on one pony, putting the wrong foot in the stirrup - very confusing for a young kid trying to figure out why she was going to end up sitting backwards on the horse. Ah, the stuff of America's Best Videos.
The year I turned 7, I got to go to camp with Cindy, who by then was a camp veteran at age 11, all knowing of saddles and such. Bar L was run by the Luckinbill family - Harold, who seemed to me to be a large man with a large voice. He was boss. The girls bunkhouse was located above the mess area, with the bathroom below. We all stayed in bunk beds. It was all very big stuff for a youngster.
The first day, Sunday when we got there, we were assigned our ponies. I was the smallest kid, and got one of the smallest ponies - a black one whose name escapes me now. The camp counselors would saddles them up and we would help get the bit in their mouths and away we'd go. I imagine my mother giddy, tears in her eyes thinking "a week with 2 less children!"
Each day would start out with a big breakfast of pancakes and the like. I can't imagine I took many showers that week, but we did go swimming a couple times, perhaps that helped me avoid stiff hair and smelly body. After breakfast, we'd go for a trail ride, and if I was lucky we'd get to canter in a circle at the top of one hill. I was in the group with the smallest ponies.
In the afternoons we did crafts like weaving plastic lanyards, punching leather key rings and making clay ashtrays. Early in the week we did a stint of square dancing - I still know a few beats, heel toe, heel toe. slide slide. I was too young to have sweaty palms about the whole deal. Though I was concerned about sitting by Cindy at mealtime, and when I budged in line I got a swat on the butt by Harold.
One night we got to ride our horses bareback! Wow, that was way different than riding with a western saddle. That ranked right up there with one of the biggest thrills of my life, the night at the bag swing camp. That was an area outside Guthrie where seed corn bags were strung on long ropes from trees. There were cliff and ladder launch areas. It was a thrill and a blast to conquer those bags. Better than Disneyland any day!
At the end of the week, we Catholics were forced to get up, don doilies on our heads and go to church in town. How I longed to be a Protestant on that day. Character building I'm sure. Then our parents would come to get us after lunch. I attended Bar-L some 4 years. One year I went with several Atlantic girls, including Sally, Barbie Gee and Barb Hutchinson. We had fun on a snipe hunt, at Smores and carved our names into the sandy rock above the camp.
My little piece of Americana. Carry on campers. One day, some twenty something years later, I got to take my darlin' girl Amy and niece Leslie to Bar L to spend a week. The circle of life!
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