This is a home movie from Carol (Stone) Stickney who said, “Most of it is around the pool, a few water ballet poses, some ceremonies on the deck there by the pool and a shot of my baby sister at the water faucet outside where we brushed our teeth. Kind of neat that you had photos of the well where I learned (tried to learn) the words to the song. (see her essay below). Again and shots of the big room where I sang the song as well as the outhouse..all in my little essay. I recognized a couple of friends names on the wall and sent inquiries out about that. My maiden name was Stone.
Dunroamin – By Carol (Stone) Stickney
Surely they didn’t send me off to camp when I was seven. I think they did. For whatever reasons there we were, me and my friend Lulu. Packed up with all of those little white shorts and those red neckerchief ties for Sundays..foot locker trunks packed with whatever we needed for the duration. Somewhere out of Fayetteville Tennessee was Camp Dunroamin founded by the Gerish family as they were tired or roaming and so they cutely named the camp Dunroamin.
I can close my eyes even today Sunday morning July 16, 2001 and visualize the place. We were all in cabins with double Decker bunks, lord knows how many of us in each of the two cabins. The older girls were in the cabins down the hill that was attached to the dining hall. No airconditiong in those days..kept cool by lots of swimming in that wonderful swimming pool kept forever cool by those spring fed pumps of water. There were two groups of us for rivalry purposes. The Chiggers and the Fleas. I was a flea. This skinny little seven year old wondering why in the world I was there and reminded every night when they would play taps with that mournful lone trumpet of how I would have rather been at home in my own bed. Lulu made it easier, we were best of friends and she was my next door neighbor and there we were in this together. Now Lulu was a natural born athlete and very competitive so she was made for life at camp. I had to sort of make my way in that world.
One of my most vivid memories of those days was the camp talent show. This would have been towards the end of that first summer that I was there. I think I spent two summers at that little place in the hills of Tennessee .We were to have a talent show and as I recall some older camper was to sing the song Again. Well it seems that she got sick, either had a cold, sore throat or something else and so I was recruited to sing. I might say on a very last minute basis. I seem to remember someone sitting with me down at the little well house there in the center of the campground frantically trying to teach me the words of that song. Being able to sing I could sing the tune of the song but the words were something else. To this day I have a hard time memorizing things so the challenge that day was beyond me. That evening was to be my “moment in the sun”. I got up on that little makeshift stage in that big room where the event was to be. Now you have to understand that I looked more like the “little matchstick girl” than a sultry nightclub singer that I was to be. They had wrapped a little green blanket around me like a slinky strapless dress and there I was center stage and the music began. I would like to say that I “knocked them dead” that night with my rendition of that song but somehow about the second line it all broke down..I made up words for a while but then had to admit defeat and walk off of that little stage feeling pretty silly. To this day when I hear that song I can picture myself in that little makeshift strapless dress and be glad that I at least had the courage to try.
Of course those of us that were younger were the source of entertainment for the older girls. By now, some of the girls in the camp down the hill were having their “Periods” , “On the Rag”, and they loved to be very mysterious about all of that. When explaining why they couldn’t swim they would say “Oh, I have tethrapool”. What is “tethrapool” we would ask and they would break out into laughter and tell us that we were too young to know what that was that someday we would find out but that we had to be a bit older. How in the world they came to that name is a mystery to me and I have to say that I am now sixty one years old and I have never heard that word out of those environs.
There would be evenings that we would hear a whistle blow and it would be the signal that we were all allowed to walk through the woods to that little camp pool and swim for a couple of hours..those were the times just swim as we wanted under the stars listening to those wonderful sounds of the bugs singing and then wander back down the hill to hear that mournful taps and sleep the sleep of the just.
I can’t close out my memories of Camp Dunroamin without those of those outside toilets. Set back off in the woods from the cabins were the outhouses..that smell of lime thrown down those open holes with the wooden seats..most of us were little city girls and those privies were something else. I mostly recall the spiders..why they liked to collect in those outhouses was a wonder but collect they did. Taking a flashlight up that hill at night and sitting in that little wooden outhouse was quite an adventure.
I made it to Camp Dunroamin for two seasons and that was it for me. Now my little competitive friend Lulu went from there to other camps. I’m sure winning prizes for her skills in tennis and such but for me I had had enough of the good life.
