To celebrate making the front page of the Bangor Daily News, I’m publishing the first chapter of A Bad Case of Moosepox. Of course, if you’d like to get your own full copy of the book, Chris may still have a few that he might be able to sell.

Chapter 01- The Diagnosis

I suffer from a debilitating and incurable disease. No research foundation or national charity is dedicated to its eradication; and the disease has left me, and over a thousand other victims, facing increasing pain and suffering as the years progress. However, before I enlarge farther on the agonies that befall our small group, let me assure you that we collectively enjoy every moment of our affliction. This has become part of our lives, and it gives us strength as we face many of our problems.

We have not been attacked by an ordinary virus, but by a very special virulent type, which we have picked up over a long period of years as a result of our association with a small camp for boys in Maine. The disease is lingering, and in my case has done much to limit, and at the same time, expand my life over a period of some 60 years, with no end in sight. I refer, of course, to the scourge of Moosepox.

I can explain my exposure to this rare disease in one short sentence, but I will need the rest of this book to explain that sentence. The sentence is: “When I was eleven years old I was sent away to summer camp.” The explanation and results are more complicated.

The camp had the improbable name of Flying Moose Lodge, and almost the moment I set foot on its turf, I was hooked. Three years as a small camper infected me with a serious case of Moosepox, which can only be described as a growing infatuation with the camp and the way of life it engendered. Seven years after my camper days, I attempted to find relief from the pangs, which increased with each succeeding year, by returning in the role of a counselor. Things only got worse. They got so bad that in 1940, when the camp came up for sale, I bought it. For me to take this step with our country facing world war, and myself just out of college, may sound foolish, indeed; but we sufferers are prone to make rash decisions. Be that as it may, that was one of the best decisions I ever made.

Directing the camp since that moment has eased some of the discomforts of Moosepox, but others have developed. The continuing desire to maintain the camp’s original philosophy, and at the same time provide for an extension of opportunities for future generations, developed into a time consuming job. Don’t mistake what I am saying, I loved every minute of it, Moosepox and all. I am sure that the family has felt from time to time that the camp was consuming all of us, for Alice and the children were developing the disease at various levels as we spent our summers in that magical environment. Now grandchildren share with us, each infected in his or her own way by the pox which is upon us.

It is a rare month that doesn’t bring a letter from a distant camper or counselor, which, when you read between the lines, indicates that others suffer as well. Occasionally, I will receive packages of old camp mementos, which were probably sent on at the insistence of a long-suffering wife who was finally determined to clean out that closet or desk once and for all. I have been sent old camp newspapers, yellowed with age, which have been saved for all these years. They send me old photographs, and even old camp awards which go back to the 1920s. I often wonder how many times those pieces of Flying Moose have crossed and re-crossed the country, and have been packed and unpacked, just to preserve a small piece of a wonderful past.

I suppose that it is inevitable that anyone who works at one thing for some 50 years, will have stashed away many memories of those days so well spent. Personal and interesting as all those memories may be, it is too much to expect that any one other person will have exactly the same collection, even one as close to all of this as one’s wife. However, there should be a considerable number of people who can remember along with me at least some of what follows; and having once lived in the intimate circle in which all of this took place, can well imagine how the rest could have happened. Those who have never heard of Flying Moose Lodge can, perhaps, find amusement as these recollections touch on parallel situations at other places and in other times. If you have never been to Maine, and if you have never been associated with a boys’ camp, some of this may seem strange, and at times childish. Rather than feel sorry for you, I would like to share this different world, and show you what you have missed.

I certainly never realized during my camper days that I would some day own and operate Flying Moose. The idea never occurred to me; but if it had, I am sure that I would have relished it. Good things evolve slowly, and so did my association with the camp. When I decided that I wanted to become a teacher, the possibility of becoming involved in summer camp during vacations seemed only natural. What started out as summer employment, soon began to fill the days between vacations as well, and my case of Moosepox became more acute.

Directing a camp for two months, and teaching school for the remainder of the year, may at first seem like an effective way to split the year into two completely separate parts. I was soon to learn that the two were intricately entwined. In the summer I found myself away from the classroom, yet constantly discovering new approaches to old problems, approaches that could make me more effective in the academic world. Even more so, I found that although I might be in Pennsylvania or New Jersey with the family between summers, that I was never very far from Flying Moose, and consequently not very far from Moosepox. There was plenty of time for brainstorming. There was plenty of time to think through difficult situations. There was also time to work out carefully the design and detail of new projects as they came along. On top of all that there was the challenge to present our program to a growing audience, in hopes that enough campers would enroll so that the summer would pay for itself with, perhaps, something left over for mortgage payments, and for four struggling college nest eggs.

What follows is not arranged chronologically, for chronology has very little to do with Flying Moose. That is why campers from the distant past can return in the 1980s and feel very much at home with the same buildings, the same attitudes, and the same philosophical outlook. That is why old campers can enjoy current copies of the camp newspaper; and present day campers can derive an equal amount of interest from the old copies in the files. That is exactly as it should be. Very little changes at Flying Moose except the length of boys’ hair.

The summers I spent in Maine as a camper, a counselor, and as a camp director, have meant much to me personally. They have given me golden opportunities to make my own decisions, some of which were good, and some of which were not quite so good. I feel strongly that the events of those years, as well as the people involved in those events, should be recorded in some fashion, in hopes that they may bring even a fraction of the enjoyment that is mine, to all those who have shared those great years at Flying Moose. My children seem to think that I am approaching the age when I will forget all that has happened, or what is perhaps worse, lose all sense of proportion. Now is the time.

Place yourself in the role of a fly on the wall, or if you prefer, of a mosquito in the tent, and see if you can understand a little about Moosepox. See if you can understand how the interactions of hundreds of people at this small camp have meant so much to so many. Yes, Flying Moose has touched the lives of scores of men and boys; or more appropriately, scores of men and boys have touched Flying Moose. Each has left his mark, some more indelibly than others, but nonetheless marks. In what follows some names will appear again and again. The story can be told no other way, for some contributions were so uniquely personal, that to mention them anonymously would do them an injustice. Of course there is much that I have left out, for not every moment can fit conveniently into 22 limited chapters. Above all, remember that the camp itself had a strong personality of its own. It almost seemed that it recognized how important that personality was to so many of us; and it worked tirelessly to keep it so. I have felt during many trying moments that the camp took over and kept things on an even keel while I fumbled and bumbled in the wings.