Well, just one month this time. This past weekend I had a total surprise meeting with one of the Camp Columbus Callahans and her family who it turns out live not far from me in California, and I'm again inspired to unearth the times past in New Jersey. She had a camp photo taken during one of the weeks I was there (and so was she), and there I was and there so many folks I still remember also were (the priest I've been trying to remember was Father Kelty). Sometimes all it takes is an old photograph....
Axeman, many thanks for your notes about Kresson, the Square Circle, etc. My father died in 1965 and I'd think that most of his Square Circle compatriots are gone as well (he would have been 90 this year). Chief amongst them was an archer/bowhunter named Jim Loftis, and I also remember the name Albright but no others. Every spring-early autumn Sunday and some Saturdays from about 1961 through 1964 we went to the Square Circle and my father shot the field archery course once or twice each time. I often shot too but was easily bored with not shooting as well as my father or my sister did.
Instead of shooting I typically wandered around to the other side of the lake where there was a large brushpile inhabited by bluebelly lizards (aka eastern fence lizards, Sceloporus undulatus). Mr Evans at Evans pet shop in Haddonfield paid me $1.50 for each adult bluebelly I brought him on Monday and so I had a little lizard-catching cottage industry going for awhile. Later he reduced it to $1.00 and I chose to discontinue the industry. Nowadays I'd be horrified if my son (I don't have one) proposed the same business relationship. I caught my first bluegill and my first trout in Square Circle lake, and one winter day I almost went through the ice when I skated beyond the limit post. I felt the ice cracking under my skates and I think the only thing that saved me besides keeping my cool (literally) was that in those days I weighed about 70 pounds in winter clothes. That experience ranks with just a couple of others as being capable of giving me a chill to this day. But otherwise I have good memories of the lake and I never mentioned my near disaster to my parents.
My father would have liked to become a successful bowhunter, but it was not to be. Each deer season during those same years we (my father, me, and my younger brother) went to Lebanon on Saturday (is hunting still closed on Sunday in New Jersey?). Several times he could have had a shot and something always got in the way, and I suspect that in truth he was just as happy to be in the woods and not to have to deal with a deer carcass. His friend Mr. Loftis invariably scored on the first or second day of the season, which messed up the New Jersey FG hunter success stats to no end. I did appreciate the challenge of bowhunting--my uncle and cousin who lived in Morristown were confirmed firearms people and were part of that crowd during the three-day season in December. They often connected and to me it seemed far too easy compared with archery hunting. In any case, my father died never having collected his deer, but he was hell on the Square Circle target butts.
It's good to know some of all that survives. I can't imagine that things are as open around the Square Circle as they were back then, but I guess if the club is still there then there must still be some space. I'll never forget the club,the lake, or the ice.
Thanks
Sean
