Hobo Day at Camp Waupaca

Stomp on your hat, tear your clothes, cut open the toes of your shoes, run to the campfire pit and rub some charcoal on your face, It's Hobo Day. How many campers can remember that they took part in a Hobo Day at camp? It was also the day that all of the camp cooked out at their cabins.

The worsted dressed camper in each cabin group won an extra canteen, often a bottle of soda (offered only once a week). The worsted counselor also got a bottle of soda. Judges were Kitchen Girls who had helped super clean the Mess Hall, Kuklin's Kookerie. Just before flag lowering there was a rush by campers and counselors to look as grubby as they could.

“All here at the side of the rails,” each counselor called out when his cabin's number was called. Then the judges walked around the line of campers. When they thought they had a winner he was asked to step forward. When they had checked out everyone in line they would look closer at the ones that they had asked to step forward three steps more. Walking around the boys and men as if shopping for the ideal date, the judges would note out loud the parts of the costumes they liked. Often trying to embarrass the contestant. The carefully selected winners had a blue ribbon pinned to his ragged shirt to turn in for his prize. Winners usually wore the ribbon all that night.

Most likely from the first day of camp the kitchen staff had been saving the metal cans that food had come in. The cans were in the food box to be used as bowls or plates depending on the food that was supplied to put in them. Most often the meal was kosher hot dogs, cooked but cold, so that if a camper wanted them hot they had to find a stick. “Not that stick Isaac, that's poison oak!!” Buns were served for the hot dogs, no one had figured out how hoboes served their bologna. Large cans of hot (really just warm) kosher beans were usually what was supplied to put in the tin cans. “Keep the windows up tonight.” Desert was an apple or other fruit eaten by hand and what a hobo might have picked from a framer's orchard.

An alternate meal was Hobo Stew which was a broth-based mixture of meat and thick with vegetables. Staff carried kettles of this to the picnic tables. Problem: failure to feed all cabins timely. Also, it did not allow sword fights with the hot dog sticks over the blazing cooking fires.

The campfire that night was usually a story about a lonesome hobo and singing around the camp fire. After the camp fire everyone was “Take a good shower tonight”. Taps were sung and Hobo Day was over.

Later years this day was toned down and eliminated. I guess parents may have said, “How'd you ruin your $300 Nike's?” When they got an answer they may have called the camp director.

Backwards or Inside Outside Morning at Camp Waupaca

Usually occurred in the last four weeks of camp. This was most likely so as not to embarrass the counselors who were accustom to come to flag raising after a long night out. If they showed up strangely dressed they could excuse that by saying “I thought that this is Backwards or Inside Outside Day.

Wearing their underwear over their pants was how most boys dressed for that event. The other dress was to put a shirt on backwards. As this was uncomfortable the boys would quickly change their clothing around as soon as possible after breakfast.

Gold Rush Day (Carnival Day at some camps)

Each cabin decided on a game of chance to win “Gold Rush Money” so they would have a trip to the A&W in Waupaca (later when the A&W closed it was the Dairy Queen). After cleanup the boys set up the game or games that would make them the winners of their cabin group.

The CITs would set up a jail, maybe a cabin in their village or the porch of the rec hall. The jail game was more of a kidnapping than putting a bad guy away for the safety of the camp. If the captured did not have money for his fine, his cabin mates were to pay it. If they did not the convict had to stay locked up until the end of the game. It was surprising that the CIT's always ended up with the most money. Could it have been a Chicago thing? Did they learn this at Capone's school of How to Get Rich and Not Pay Your Income Taxes.? It was too bad the camp did not use the raft as a substitute for Alcatraz.

A game might be a ring toss, break a balloon with an air rifle or sling shot, homemade roulette wheels, or toss a ball into a can. Several times the counselor who taught archery used the archery range for his cabin, it was not much work for the cabin. It never won. Whatever the game that a cabin had the campers and counselors had to use their imaginations to find something different that would attract customers from the other cabins.

The week before Gold Rush Day the camp grounds keepers were given a pile of stones and a gallon of yellow paint. They used various methods to coat the stones with yellow paint. Many times, they also painted a large stone that weighed about 30 pounds to see if any camper would lug it to the assay office (the canteen shack). While the campers were in their cabins for rest time, the grounds keepers spread the yellow stones on the golf course or the far fields.

After the bugle call for action after the rest hour campers ran to the Rosen Bowl with pillow cases, laundry bags, or potato sacks they got from the kitchen. Two old prospectors with shove and pick came out of the rec hall to announce, “There's gold in them thar fields. Neff ta make ya rich as Rocherfeller. On tha count of three git out thar and get yourselves rich. 1 yep that’s the first one, 2 button my shoe, the, darn if I didn't forget what's next. Any you young folks recon wat tis?” Campers usually together, “Threeee”. “Well what's ya sitting here fur. Git goin to find your gold!”

The “Gold Rush” was off running, stumbling, and tripping to whatever field held the gold that year. With as many stones as the campers could find they lined up to have their “gold” weighed on a kitchen scale. There were sometimes when a young camper had not found a great pile of the yellow stones the assayer clerk would put his thumb on the scale. Each pound would give the camper from $2.00 to $5.00 in ''Gold Rush Money” . The rest of the day until flag lowering the campers played the games. Before they lined up for the evening ceremonies the campers gave the money they had won. The cabin in each cabin group that had the most money got a trip to the metropolis of Waupaca for a break from camp life. Sometimes the winning cabin would choose an activity, other times it was a prize announced before the game. Choices were usually food, movie, blowing, miniature golf, or go karts if that choices were offered.

Land Rush Day

This was an experiment to add another specular event to booster camp moral after the cabin 3 & 4 fire. It was based on the Oklahoma Land Rush. The night before the game Chuck Cooper told a story of wealth and poverty that awaited those who staked claims to the land that the government opened to settlers. The first to put down their claims usually were the big winners of the race. Surface land did not show the riches of oil that laid below.

Wooden stakes were driven into the ground on the far fields. Each stake was marked with a colored flag so any left after the game would be picked up so they could not injure anyone. Each stake had a number and the number corresponded to a master sheet that described the land's value.

Examples: Your land has a large pool of oil under it, value 1 million dollars. Your land blew away in the Oklahoma dust bowl, value 1 dollar. Your land became your ranch, value 500 thousand. Your land became Oklahoma City you sold city lots, value a hundred million. You farmed your land, value 30 thousand.

Rich or poor the gamble the camper took did not depend on the placement of his stake, but the luck of getting the right one. CITs were on the field to help supervise the hunt for the stakes. CITs were on the field to help supervise the hunt for the stakes. Cabins 1, 2, 3 and 4 were given a three minute start to level the field a bit. The rest of the cabins ran to the field in a mass like the original land rush. Each camper could bring back up to three stakes. The 12 campers who were determined to be the richest won a root beer and ice cream treat in the mess hall no matter the cabin they were in. CITs also got in on the treat.

Like any gamboling activity the winners were very happy and the losers were cheated.

Blue and White War

I will try to be completely objective with this activity. Although the activities allowed every camper to exhibit their strengths it also show cased their perceived their weakness. When I was the range officer an outstanding camper was to be a CIT the next year. He asked me to recommend him to be my assistant on the rifle range the next summer. I was very happy to do that. He told me that his parents agreed to send him to camp the next summer. The Blue and White War had changed leads several times, the teams were very close. The Super-Duper Relay was getting really lopsided with one team over thirty minutes behind at the last contest, the horseshoe throw for ringers. In practice that morning my proposed assistant had made five ringers in a row. He needed only two to get his team to the water boiling contest. Three throws into his station and one was a ringer. From that time until the other team got its two ringers, he threw and threw and threw with no ringers. The other team had a hot fire before he got his second ringer.

He was so upset that he did not come to the banquet that night. The nurse had him stay in the infirmary that night. He did not eat breakfast with the camp the next morning. He boarded a bus without saying good-bye to anyone. He never came back to camp again.

This of course was extreme reaction for a loss. The race is just a game. Several times over the years I saw several good campers who either themselves or team mates put the blame of losing the game on them. They were not in camp the next year. The activities that were to end the camp on a high note may have left them flat.

Wayne Towne 2018

Dividing the entire camp into two competing groups was a tremendous taking. The Big Chiefs and their assistants had to spend a lot of time to have the teams balanced. Most of the time they did a great job and there were seldom a run away in the competition.

The volume of the cheers in the mess hall may still be vibrating in the rafters.

We're from the _____________ Team, couldn’t be prouder! Can't hear us now we'll yell a little louder!1!

Sticks! Sticks! Big Chief ________ is up to dirty TRICKS!

Look at the score _________ Team! But don't cry ________ Team. You are getting beat by best!

Fill in by remembering your favorite cheers and live the moment again. Win or lose, what part did you play?

After the war cheer:

We are the White Team/Blue Team, couldn't be prouder! Can't hear us now we’ll yell a little louder.

The competition included every aspect of camp activities except a hot dog eating competition. As there was so much activity no one will have the same memories of their favorite Blue and White War.

Whatever team a player was chosen for there were no slackers on either team. The entire camp was exhausted as they gathered at the site of the water boil to cheer on the last opportunity for their team to win. For which side won the ring of the bell was a relief. Friends would be friends again. In a sense there were no winners of losers individually. Everyone had done their best and could be proud of whatever they had accomplished. All that was left of camp was a banquet and packing.