The Council Room

[DavidAyars]

There were some elaborate and ingenious practical jokes pulled at camp, particularly in connection with overnight trips. Dave Bentley and Tom Falcon were rumored to be involved in “one or two” of these.

There were a couple of less elaborate ones that I was involved in. In one, JA-2 moved Dan Mannis’ bed, trunk, table, etc. out to the middle of the baseball field and set it up exactly in the same relative position as in the tent. We all laughed and laughed especially while we were clearing brush for about eight hours the next day.

In the 1970s, Bob V and I scheduled a day off together on a Monday. We thought we could do a good day hike climb of Mt. Lafayette and plotted to combine it with a practical joke. We intercepted a multiday Franconia trip from Wyanoke about an hour into their ascension of Mt. Lafayette and took off our day packs and passed out their mail and a few candy lines to them. “Hey, it’s just another routine service by the Wyanoke Camp Store. Have a great trip.” Then we said we had to deliver mail to the Presidential trip a few huts away, ran on ahead to Greenleaf hut where they were spending the night, and tipped off the hut croo to give them a hard time. We descended by a different trail back to Bob’s Beetle. To do this, beginning the week before, we knew who was signed up for the trip and held up the most recent letter each of them got in the camp store, which of course is a violation of USMail rules, but anything for a prank.

But I know there were better camp practical jokes than these.

Mike posted in other threads about a couple of pranks that misfired—50 yards of shoreline:
http://www.wyanoke.com/newforum/viewtopic.php?t=39
And the Kehonka panty raid of 1960: http://www.wyanoke.com/newforum/viewtopic.php?t=158

What other pranks were you a part of or do you remember hearing about?
_________________
Camper: J-8 1965 (Kevin Ryan), J-8 1966 (Mike Freeland), S-6 1967 (Russ Hatch), S-3 1968 (Jeremy Cripps), and JA-2 1969 (Dan Mannis).
JC: J-2 1970 (Bill Bettison) and J-3 1971 (Gene Comella). Councilor 1972, J-5 1973, and JA-1 1974 & 1975

[Mike Freeland]

Hmmm... Pranks/practical jokes. I just got off the phone with Tom Falcon, and neither of us could remember anything of the sort, even after discussing it at length we came up empty. Nope.

And of course, we in the trips department NEVER pulled any sort of jokes on the campers, because trips were nothing short of dangerous and deadly serious from climbing into the bed of Freddie's truck, to climbing out of it after the trip was over. Never. It would have been irresponsible.

And the 50 yards of shoreline? That was an unsubstantiated rumor. I'm pretty sure of it.
_________________
'56-C-9 C. Mosher '57-C-9 Bill Feaster
'58-J-14 H. Peavy '59-J-11 G. Wood, C. Duncan
'60-S-8 R. Leavitt, D. Hemphill '61-S-1 E. Slocum
'62-JA-1 H. Dunbar '63-C-2 (JC)
'64-C-5, (JC) Councilor
'65-C-9 '66 - '72-J-8
'73-JA1 '75-J-6

[Jim Culleton]

I will never forget the "Mervin Pifnick" stunt and I forget the year . . . . perhaps around '60 or '61? I don't even remember who started this hoax but I'm sure it was a councilor in the Junior Camp! Did we ever find out? It was clever to say the least! As campers, did we ever question the name "Mervin" and "Pifnick" as really being real in the first place?

Anyway, a mysterious trunk showed up at the beginning of the camp season with Mervin's name on it. It was even assigned a tent as I recall. Days went by and a few weeks went by but Mervin never showed up (at least under "Pifnick"). I believe that announcements were made early on at meals asking about his whereabouts.

Mike, Pat and Dave B. will remember this hoax, who perpretrated it, how long it lasted and whether Mervin ever attended Camp but under a different name?

Could it have been you, Pat?

P.S. I do remember "short sheeting" a few beds back as a Junior. It was sort of cool doing that kind of stuff at that age, but we quickly grew out of that in favor of some other stuff later on.
_________________
'56 - J-9 J. Moulton
'57 - J-11 J. Moulton
'58 - J-4 E. Web Dann, S. Hood
'59 - S-6 P. Leavitt
'60 - S-2 F. Avantaggio
'61 - JA-1 RK Irons
'62 - C-9 JC with P. Freeland
'63 - C-1 JC with S. Borger
'64 - C-6 Councilor

[Steve Hood]

I am not sure the difference between a hoax and a prank, but most of the things I recall at Wyanoke were harmless and in good taste.

One that comes to mind was when some pranksters engineered it so that J-4 campers and councilors would have breakfast at Ole's Beach, at the end of Johnson's Cove, directly across from Land's End.

Dave Clemens was the J-4 Councilor, and took his campers for an overnight at Ole's Beach. During the wee-early-hours of the morning, a group of pranksters took his dining room table, chairs, plates, silverware, etc. and somehow loaded them onto war canoes, and silently paddled over to Oles Beach, where everything was set back up again for breakfast. How they remained quiet has always amazed me. They must have been quiet paddling past Land's End, because "Capt" Taylor slept through it. When Dave and his campers awoke in the morning, they were all set for breakfast on the beach.

Fortunately, as Camp Bugler for about 7 years I avoided being the brunt of pranks and practical jokes --- for the most past. On a few occasions someone snuck in and turned off my alarm clock and hoped I would over sleep. I don't think I ever did. I spent a lot of time on the water, with the sailing program, and sometimes I would come ashore and my bugle would be mysteriously hidden. One time, somebody not only jammed paper into it, but actually pushed small pieces of tiny paper all the way up the lower bell piping. I was not able to get it all out, but Freddie Nichols heard about it and came to the rescue. He rigged up some kind of an air pressure hose, and attached it to the mouthpiece, and was able to blow out the remaining paper.

One thing I did that seemed cool at the time, is now a prank I think I should not have been involved in. BMB never wanted things disrupted, especially during the closing days of camp. He sternly "suggested" that I not blow any kind of a "jazzy reveille" on the last morning. Pete Sawin played the saxaphone, and talked me into a jazzy reveille duet. BMB was not happy. In retrospect, I am sorry for doing this because he was always gracious and fair in his dealings with me. I regret that I let him down. In terms of the Wyanoke Motto, I guess I exercised "courage" in doing it, but did not express properly "loyalty" to the Camp Director.

I'm sure I was the victim of, or perpetrator of, certain others. But these are all that come to mind for now. Maybe I can add more at some later time.
_________________
1951: C-9. F. Whitemore, P. Durkee.
1952-53: J-11. E. Wilkins.
1957: S-7 D. Irons, JA
1958: J-4 W.Dann JC
1959: J-1 G.Engstrom JC
1960-61-63: J-6. Councillor
1964: JA-2. Councillor

[Steve Hood]

I would have thought that there would be more pranks posted. Maybe nobody wants to own up to anything.

Here are a couple more pranks.

This is a J-4 prank that was played on Stew Borger and Web Dann You Stew had trouble sleeping silently through the night. I do not remember the exact details as to why this happened, but he would wake up and either sing out, or yell something that was blood-curdling. Almost like he was dreaming, but he said he was not dreaming and the net day did not remember doing it .... I remember that Web always had some rolled up socks, and when Stew sat up in his bed to be noisy, Web would throw the socks at him, and then Stew would lay back down and fall back to sleep. I don't remember who did it, but as a prank, someone hid a tennis ball inside the rolled up socks and Web threw it at Stew and beaned him fairly hard...

And another prank I remember also dealt with Web. But for the life of me I cannot remember who it was. There was a councillor or maybe a junior councillor who was going to be out late at night. Maybe a night out, or may after a day off. Someone put a note on his pillow that basically said: "I need to see you as soon as you get back....Important... Wake me up and let me know you are back...... signed Web Dann." Needless to say, when the person finally returned to camp and woke Web up, he ended up in some big trouble because of being caught.
_________________
1951: C-9. F. Whitemore, P. Durkee.
1952-53: J-11. E. Wilkins.
1957: S-7 D. Irons, JA
1958: J-4 W.Dann JC
1959: J-1 G.Engstrom JC
1960-61-63: J-6. Councillor
1964: JA-2. Councillor

[David Bentley]

Alright, I am succumbing to self-inflicted pressure to tell of this prank, although it doesn't directly involve Camp Wyanoke, it certainly comes close enough to make it interesting.

Some preamble is necessary to set the stage. In the Fall of 1933, Harvard won the annual Harvard-Yale game, that year played at Harvard. The Game of 1934 was to be played at Yale, and Yale was looking to avenge the previous year's loss, and Harvard was equally looking to make a repeat victory over their arch rival. Much hoopla surrounded the build-up to the Game, inclulding a parade complete with two divisions, each headed by a marching band, following a well-marked route through Town to the stadium.

In an effort to discombobulate the psyche of the Crimson visitors, fans and players, a group of Wesleyan University fraternity brothers (Psi Upsilon) managed to infiltrate the security of the parade route and, at just the right time, replace some signs directing the second division of the parade onto a different route which ultimately ended up with the two divisions marching smartly toward each other on a street with no room available to pass. Needless to say, organized chaos ensued, some quick reshuffling had to be done, and the parade managed to regroup and proceed to the stadium for opening ceremonies.

Now, mind you, I wasn't there at this time, and I am only going on the first-hand account told to me years later by one of the Wesleyan fraternity brothers involved in the prank. I have every reason to believe this story since that fraternity brother grew up to be my Dad.
_________________
C-1 49 J-7 52 S-3 55 J-10 58
C-7 50 J-7 53 S-2 56 J-8 59
C-8 51 J-4 54 S-7 57 (JA) J-8 60 - 64
1965 - 1968 Military service
Pine Cone 68 - 75 (with wife,Sherry,
and daughter Tracey)
Wolfeboro - full-time since 1997

[Chris Gill]

I had a counselor send me all around camp looking for a left handed smoke shifter. The same guy had me save my film to take pictures of the wonderful view on top of Mt Zealand.

I worked construction for many years and we used to send new guys out to find either a metric crescent wrench or an aluminum magnet.
_________________
1965-1975
C7,C8,J8,S4,S3

[DavidAyars]

[Mike Freeland]

Wait. What?
_________________
'56-C-9 C. Mosher '57-C-9 Bill Feaster
'58-J-14 H. Peavy '59-J-11 G. Wood, C. Duncan
'60-S-8 R. Leavitt, D. Hemphill '61-S-1 E. Slocum
'62-JA-1 H. Dunbar '63-C-2 (JC)
'64-C-5, (JC) Councilor
'65-C-9 '66 - '72-J-8
'73-JA1 '75-J-6

[Jeff G]

Hey Dave..

My Dad would have witnessed that prank as he was a freshman at Harvard that fall.

It's better than the band reroute in "Animal House."

As you may or may not know, my Mom dated your Dad later in the decade. Guess she liked the wild ones. :-0.

Jeff G.

[Tom Rawson]

Re: Steve Hood's account of J-4's luxury breakfast set-up at Ole's: I was one of the campers in J-4 that year. It was 1966. I believe it was Dan Mannis and Tom Falcon who set up our dining room table for us. It was revenge for a J-4 log entry roasting Dan and Tom, which was revenge for one of their log entries. An ongoing feud. You get the picture. There was a written message waiting for us on the table that morning:
Rose are red
Violets are blue
Look to the north
For the blue war canoe
So, at least we had a way to transport all the stuff back to camp, which we did in a timely manner, but not before breakfast at camp, so anyone walking out on the porch would have noticed the table missing.
Hoaxes I remember:
* on a White Mountain hut trip Mike F warning us about the dangerous mammal known as the side hill gouger
* on a lake canoe overnight, another dangerous critter--the sand viper--attaches to skin and paralyzes for a day (maybe ancestor of the deer tick?)
* on an overnight at the place across Winter Harbor, warnings of escape convicts from Moultonborough or Tuftonborough or one of those places
I think Mike F was part of all these hoaxes. Each successive time I raised the credibility question due to remembering the previous hoax, the counselors insisted I'd be a fool not to heed the warning.
_________________
1963 C-5 Walter Scheirer
1964 C-2 Bill Sloane
1966 J-4 Dave Clemens
1967 S-1 Garth Nelson

[Mike Freeland]

Wow, I guess I had my hand in a bunch of those scams. I was too lazy to want to hork a table, milk pitcher, flatware (not silver, or I'd still have a lot of it), plates, bowls and cups, across Winter Harbor to Old's Beach, though.

As to the escaped mental patient from the notorious Tuftonboro Insane Asylum, I did manage to create a memorable night for one of Garth's S-1 overnights at Melansen's Beach (across the harbor from Wyanoke, as you mentioned, Tom). Garth had casually mentioned to the boys that a dangerous escapee was last seen around the Carry Beach (Oooohhh, that's right over there!!!) but not to worry, and shortly thereafter I came crashing through the woods (well, I tried to crash - the woods were so thoroughly cleaned of firewood and underbrush it was like walking across the ball field, breaking twigs in my hands), grunting and coughing and carrying on to the best effect I could muster.

The scene I emerged on was priceless. Everyone was huddling around the camp fire, and one camper was latched to Garth's leg like a ball & chain as he (Garth) wandered over toward the lean-to to greet me.

Mission accomplished: eight or so innocent adolescents scarred for life. And armed with ammunition for their first camp councilor job.

We had fun with those gags, but in the spirit of Santa Claus, no harm was ever intended. For some kids, these things were more intense than others, but we as 21-year-old councilors really didn't have the maturity to watch for those differences amoung our charges. I guess that's too bad, but it's also the way of the world.

Overall, though, I can't tell you how important and profound my sense of responsibility, concern and desire for cameraderie with and for "my kids" was. That didn't mean I couldn't [your favorite word here] with 'em. And when Garth and I got together with our tent groups, it was Katie bar the door! What the hell does that mean?

Some of my favorite memories of my Midget-hood were being told scary stories before Taps. I passed that on, I guess.

We did go overboard on a couple of occasions, and that was regrettable. Really regrettable, but there again, we were in our twenties. Jeebus, how young that is, huh?

I don't have the time to check now, but the prank that really backfired on me was the "fifty yards of shore line" gag in post-camp. That should have been covered earlier in this discussion. To me, that was the day that the WRATH of GOD (Freddie) came down upon my head. I'm bald to this day.

Turnabout's fair play.
_________________
'56-C-9 C. Mosher '57-C-9 Bill Feaster
'58-J-14 H. Peavy '59-J-11 G. Wood, C. Duncan
'60-S-8 R. Leavitt, D. Hemphill '61-S-1 E. Slocum
'62-JA-1 H. Dunbar '63-C-2 (JC)
'64-C-5, (JC) Councilor
'65-C-9 '66 - '72-J-8
'73-JA1 '75-J-6

[Tom Rawson]

Yes, I was in that S-1 group with Garth at Melanson's Beach. That was 1967.
_________________
1963 C-5 Walter Scheirer
1964 C-2 Bill Sloane
1966 J-4 Dave Clemens
1967 S-1 Garth Nelson

[Ed Farrey]

I think it was 64, I was in S5. We were determined to be the "bad boys" at camp. Outrageous behavior like failing inspections and screwing around w the OD's. We had to run track and hold lanterns at arms length. No effect on these "bad boys". The third night running we were hauled off the track and into the little guest house (where the BBQ's were held). Shock and awe when BMB was there. Suddenly in way over our heads! Threatened to kick us out of camp and put us on a bus (probably a bluff) but more importantly yank our into town night. Told us he would see us the day of the next "town night"
180 behavior change. He provisionally reinstated our town nights. That's how you deal w "bad boys).
That same summer we were campfire aids. We decided to to have the "mother of all fires". The week before the fire was meager. We soaked all the wood in kerosene for days, secreted Dixie cups of kerosene, and replaced the water bucket w kerosene. When it got time to light the fire, it seemed like not so great an idea. It started right up and someone mentioned how much better this fire was. The fire started to pick up steam. Blankets and people started pulling back. You didn't need a flash light to read a report. The high pine tree branches began to wilt. Someone picked up the water bucket to slow it down.
Fortunately one of us got cold feet and switched the kerosene for water. When the water hit the fire one of the Dixie cups took off w a whoosh.
BMB sent someone over to tell us to report to the office after breakfast. He asked a couple of questions and we explained that we were scared it would be another meager fire. The fact that we were scared now lent that note of authenticity, plus the Dixie cups of evidence were gone. He gave us the benefit of the doubt (undeserved). Stern admonition, that he didn't want any more meetings w us for the rest of the summer. From his lips to God's ear.
_________________
58- C3 Schumaker
59-60 C-5 Berard
61-62 J-5 Hemphill
63 S1 Joe?
64 S-5 ( a guy from Parsons U)
65 (3 week JA) Irons
69 C-1 Counselor

[Jim Culleton]

Ed Farrey . . . . . . . . Welcome to the website and thanks for sharing! You may remember my brother Dick Culleton who progressed along with you during your years at Wyanoke. I think his last year was in '65 as a Senior. Looking at the rosters . . . . . . you and Dick were in S-1 together in '64.

Wasn't your mother a nurse at Wyanoke for a few years? That sounds familiar to me.

Welcome again!
_________________
'56 - J-9 J. Moulton
'57 - J-11 J. Moulton
'58 - J-4 E. Web Dann, S. Hood
'59 - S-6 P. Leavitt
'60 - S-2 F. Avantaggio
'61 - JA-1 RK Irons
'62 - C-9 JC with P. Freeland
'63 - C-1 JC with S. Borger
'64 - C-6 Councilor