The Council Room

[DavidAyars]

Anybody recognize that date off their top of their heads? Well I wouldn't have either, but I just netflixed the DVD “The Dish”, which is a pretty good, mostly-true but fictionalized film about the Parkes radio antenna dish in Australia and its crew and their role in relaying radio transmissions during the flight of Apollo 11.
http://www.netflix.com/MovieDisplay?movieid=60020894
http://outreach.atnf.csiro.au/visiting/parkes/looselybased.html

Sunday, July 20th was the date that Apollo 11 landed and Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first men to walk on the moon. The world was transfixed watching live TV coverage of the event. People were deeply moved that such a thing was even possible, and it became a high point in international prestige of the USA. It was also a rare date on which a news event disrupted the camp routine.

In my 11 summers at Wyanoke, this was the only date I remember a TV set being brought into the Chapel at camp for an all-camp event. Many summers, campers were invited to the Council Room for the All-Star Baseball game on a small black-and-white set. But on July 20th, Wolfeboro resident and camp councilor Bob Thomas, as I remember, brought a TV from his home into the Chapel so everyone could see the historic event. In those days, a 17-19” TV was a big set, so I'm guessing that was the approximate size of Bob's TV. I do remember that from my vantage point in the JA rows in the back of the Chapel, the relatively small size of the screen, combined with the long-distance transmission from Manchester to Wolfeboro and the fuzzy pictures even people right near a big city got live from the moon made it pretty hard to see what was going on, but I was still riveted by the coverage and very glad then and now to have had the opportunity to see history being made. Though just a few years later, lunar flights featured sharp color images sent live from the moon, by then, most people were had lost interest. In 1969, the lunar expedition everyone remembers watching, video transmitted from the moon was at best an indistinct, static-ky black-and-white with just a few shades of gray.

I remember seeing the landing on TV in the Chapel (3:17pm Eastern time, it says on a website), but I'm not sure that everyone in camp was there... maybe, maybe not. Then the TV was turned off for awhile, and the whole camp came to the Chapel later in the evening. According to the website I found, it was 9:39 Eastern time when Neil Armstrong began to exit the Lunar Module, and a painfully slow 17 minutes later before he actually set foot on the lunar surface. By that time, of course, some of the youngest campers were asleep in their seats. The moonwalk continued until after midnight. Many of us may have called it a night earlier, around 11:30pm, I think. I remember walking out of the Chapel that night and seeing the beautiful full moon in the very clear sky and being awed that people were actually walking around up there. Anyone else remember seeing this at camp? Mike, had you left on a trip that Sunday? I don't imagine anybody saw it up at the AMC huts.
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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]

That day, Garth and I had somehow gotten permission from Althea Ballentine to allow our tent groups to camp overnight on Kehonka's beach (with the stern caveat that we keep especially the seniors away from the girls. For that reason, we didn't allow Garth's seniors to pack any cologne or deodorant. Didn't work -- somehow they all seemed to come away from that night with phone numbers written on the backs of their hands.) Anyway, We were invited to go up to their dining hall and watch the moon landing with the Kehonka-ites. Chris Gill was in my tent then, as were Teddy Flaherty, Marc Futoran, John Glass, Bobby Hildreth, Doug Hodge and Mike Williams.

For the record, Garth's S-1-ers were Greg Anderson, Jimmy Bacon, Mark Bridgeman, Dave Curtis, Bill Danforth, Ed Growney, Frank Harrington, Andy MacKenzie, Jimmy Reynolds and Blair Thaw.

It was a really memorable night, and I remember the snowy black and white tv with rabbit ears that someone kept fidgeting with. We did get to see it though, and I'll never forget it.

I remember the All Star game being a big thing, though I was never interested in it. I was a bit of a purist, and so the idea of watching anything on TV while at Wyanoke just didn't seem right. Mrs. Morin used to have a TV in Byrd's Nest, and you could hear audience laughter as you walked by on the way to the dining hall for some of her chocolate cake with the white icing after Taps. It just didn't sound right, but I allowed her that as long as she kept the cales and brownies coming.
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'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

[Mark MacDougall]

That night was the only time I remember seeing a TV at Wyanoke. We watched the landing on a very small brown B&W TV with rabbit ears in the big building in Cabintown.
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Cabintown, '68,'69,'70

[Harry Sloan]

I also remember a TV being in the Chapel for that first moon walk. I think it was the first and last time that I saw a TV while I was at Camp. I felt like was a part of history.
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68 S-6 ( Jon Crane ) 69 S-6 ( Kent Newby ) 70 JA-2 ( Dan Mannis )