Goose Quills Christmas Edition 1949

Camp Kehonka Goose Quills Christmas Edition 1949

Camp Kehonka Goose Quills Christmas Edition 1949

And, remember:

….Christmas means gay laughter among children and all who are young at heart; wonderment even by sheep, cows and a donkey at a creche scene; white snow, sleigh bells and church bells; groups of carol singers; mysterious visits by a jolly, roly-poly fellow with a white beard, red suit and a huge sack of candies, gingerbread men, fir-balsam treese and toys; gifts, especially for less fortunate neighbors far and near; deep feelings of love, hope and faith;  – all honoring the birth of Christ whose life should inspire in each of us unbounded good will toward everyone.

May you and yours have a Very Merry Christmas!

We have photographs, camper uniforms from the 70s/80s, some silver jewelry and ceramics + a lot of paper ephemera, including song sheets and Banquet Day favors.

What we really need are three-dimensional items to be lent to the museum for the exhibit, especially any shop-made jewelry, woven items, pottery, art, furniture, camp trunks, memorabilia from the Kehonka Yacht Club (KYC), musical instruments, etc.

If you have anything that fits the bill that you would like the Museum to consider for participation in the exhibit, please contact:

Cheryl Shanahan
email: cheryl at luckygingerstudio dot com

Please include what you would like to contribute and its provenance (era, background/significance to the camp’s story).

Kehonka Reunion at the NH Boat Museum in Wolfeboro, NH
Saturday, August 18, 2012
4p-?
Cookout with Musicale

Details to follow…I’m trying to nail some things down Visit (and bookmark!) this page to see updates + link to the page for Musicale requests.

Note: many area camps are letting out that weekend, so area hotels, motels and rentals will be booked up before you know it. Please follow this link for information on how to get to the lake + area accommodations.

Kehonka’s New Duckling
Linda Lee Ballentine
Enrolled: August 26, 1948
By Althea and Bally

For the record, this has to be one of the most poignant pieces of Kehonka ephemera that I have ever had privilege of seeing. Gretchen Hurlburt Thompson kindly contributed it to me last winter.

I never had the fortune of knowing Linda, who lives on in a cherished spot of many members of the Kehonka flock.

If you have any fond memories of Linda, please share them with us!

Bet you wish you could be on Kehonka Hill today with all of your friends…wearing COLORS…making sundaes…eating sticky buns…..building human pyramids….singing songs….watching the counselors humilate themselves and us onstage.

Camp Kehonka 1945 Banquet Day Favor

The above graphic is a favor from 1945 (thanks, Gretchen Hurlburt for never throwing away ANYTHING Kehonka related!).

Click here to learn more.

The museum is interested in certain items either on a donation or loan basis. We’re refining a list of what may go into the initial display, so I expect to have a “call for contributions” in the coming months.  At this juncture, the “angle” leans towards items pertaining to Kehonka and its waterfront heritage (e.g. sailing, swimming, canoeing + other activities we did along the shore….weaving, pottery, shop, etc).

I am also exploring options for coordinating a Kehonka reunion in mid-August 2012 to tie in with the collection’s debut.

Stay tuned!

This post really is for all who have been unable to make it back to the Lakes Region and/or for those who wonder, “What in the world does camp look like now?”

The following slideshow is a collection of photographs that were taken this morning. Wonder no more!

Click to view slideshow.

Among the improvements which have been made at camp are those concerned with riding. The new Kehonka ring at Beaverbrook has been used as our second ring, the other remaining at Brook and Bridle.

Thus far two successfull supper rides have taken place. Several counselors, as well as campers, have participated.

****
From the August 1959 edition of Goose Quills:

For the past two weeks, a new system has been organized for the supper ride. In order for the more advanced riders to have a more exciting ride, the beginners and intermediates have been grouped for their supper rides on different nights. Because of rain the ride for advance rider had to be postponed until Tuesday, August 11, while the beginners and intermediates will have their outing the following Thursday.

~Barbara Mercer

As noted in the prior post, during this era of camp, Goose Quills were published weekly while camp was in session. Enjoy.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, BALLY!
A Sketch of our Birthday Boy (written by someone who should know)

This is a great day, for it was on this day (not so awfully long ago), that Mr. A. (rumored to stand for Ayerskalfhe) Cooper Ballentine, more commonly known as Bally, was born. One can get some idea of his antiquity by recalling the redundancy he has to dwell on his excursion with George Washington when they crossed the Delaware together.

To say the least, our friend is a walking encyclopedia and dictionary combined. He can explain in detail how a differential compensates for the movement of the driving wheels of a car or he can readily convince the most stubborn disputer that a red-headed woodpecker has black eyes. His vocabulary – estimated at a mere twenty thousand words – includes a few choice pieces. Most prominent and the one Noah Webster has yet to hear about is “difuglty,” whic he admits is nothing but a perversion of “difficulty.” He gleefully refers to anything from a glass of milk to a 4-motored airplane as a recantularparalepiped.

Indeed, it would take years of careful study and suffering to satisfactorily diagnose Bally’s “jokes.” To call them jokes is a compliment of the greatest magnitude. Perhaps it would be better to say “puns.” These so-called puns can be divided into two groups. First are those which the maestro originated on the spur of the moment. These are generally the hardest to bear under. Second comes the group which has been saved through the ages vast – a mossy, moldy collection of rare tid-bits, which I, for one, have heard so many times that I know them as well as I know my A B C’s.

This versatile gentleman has always had one outstanding handicap. It still remains as one of his chief sources of trouble. For it was only a few summers ago that Navy plane landed on the lake in front of camp. They had mistaken our friend’s head for a landing beacon. Campers are curious to know what attracts the mosquitoes to camp. The answer is easy, for where else are they afforded such an appropriate landing field as Bally’s head? The place in mention is soon to be roped off anticipating the coming major league ball game: Mosquitoes vs. Grasshoppers.

Yes, this is a great day. It is the day when we celebrate the birthday of the person who, in spite of his bald head and tall stories, stands as a symbol for the ideals of camping – ideals which have made Kehonka what she is today.

BIRTHDAY MESSAGES

“To Bally On His Birthday”

Though Bally is never erratic,
He sometimes is idiosyncratic,
But nevertheless,
It is easy to guess
That Bally has brains in his attic.

On his Ballytudinous cranium,
You couldn’t even grow a geranium.
How could it take root,
If it sent down a shoot,
In his gray cerebellum terraneum?

His language is supermagnendous,
His puns are superb but horrendous.
He’ll search in his mind,
Certain syllables find,
And come up with a word like gargendous.

Nancy: Happy Birthday from the kitchen!
Miss Ackley: Who’d think that Bally’s older than I? He’s 33 & I’m 25.
Mary-Olive: Happy days and weeks.