Ellen

Camp Quidnunc 1963 and 64
by Ellen Forman Muraskin (borrowed from the Camp Reunion Website)

I went to and absolutely adored Camp Quidnunc when I was 10 and 11, in the summers of 1964 and 65. I stayed in Sky Blue the first year and Sherwood Forest the next.

I had a counselor from Texas named Char.

I hiked to Bald Rock. I slept outside in a bedroll one night.

I washed my hair in the lake with Prell. Fish bit me. Spiders bit me. Mosquitoes covered my arms and legs with bites. If I hadn't looked so happy when I met my mother after two weeks, she probably would have been alarmed at all those bites.

I made a friend (Audrey Seidman) that I have to this day. The day we met, she dropped her footlocker on my foot.

I wrote poems and burnished copper and learned to make campfires and washed dishes in buckets that were brought to every table in the dining room. We sang

"Mandy was a little Bahama Girl..." and "I Won't Grow Up" while we washed dishes.
I peed in the "la" which did not flush. The faucets were rabbit-ear devices you had to squeeze together. They only ran cold water. I washed my clothes with a washboard.

I had a black tent mate named Gwynn, who was a good friend. I noted this in a letter home, describing her as "Negro."

I wrote letters home to my bathroom. Also my family. My mother has kept them; they are so excited and enthusiastic. I still have the Q spiderweb pin and the little charm bracelet with the fir tree.

And you?

Ellen Forman Muraskin, from Troop 612 (I think) in Middle Village, Queens, circa 1963-64