Chicago, IL

For nearly four decades Cap Cavins, Mishawaka Owner and Director, would leave his home in Lake Forest, his car packed with a slide projector and Camp brochures, and head off on a tour to meet with Mishawaka families and prospective campers. Others later took up this role, and each year I used to look forward to the arrival of the Mishawaka Road Show to my hometown of Macomb, IL- chicken dinner at the Holiday Inn! I am just three days in to my Mishawaka World Tour, and though some of the logistics and technology has changed, the purpose has not. The face-to-face connection that is so important at Camp is just as important in the off-season as we work to spread the word about the value of a Camp Mishawaka experience.

As I sit in the Starbucks in Oak Brook, IL (along with 15 or 20 other road warriors) I can’t help but think of Cap Cavins, and later Dick Peterson, Jon Erickson, and Janet Hubbard Anderson- and all the other Mishawaka Travelers. They did not have wifi, digital slides, four-wheel drive or any of the other modern tools that make travelling – and staying in touch today, so much easier. Or at least I think they do!

There is something about seeing a camper, and camp family in their home that is affirming for all. For me, it is nice to meet many of the parents that I had not met, and it is always great to see how campers have grown and get their updates. For them, it may seem odd, at first, to see someone from Camp outside of Camp. But as soon as the pictures start – green grass, open water, and smiling familiar faces, Camp seems as real as ever and we are all “right there”. I am looking forward to seeing as many Camp families and campers that I can!

I remember being frustrated in my first years travelling for Camp- I was tempted to drop brochures up and down the streets to reach more people! There are many ways to spread the word about the value of Camp Mishawaka, but I am not sure this would have been the most effective. I once asked a seasoned Camp Director how he found all his campers, and replied, ‘One at a time.’ In hindsight, it makes perfect sense. The Camp Mishawaka story is an individual one- and different for each camper and each prospective camper.

So, help us tell the story and spread the word-even if we can’t visit you this year. We have wonderful printed material, have just launched a new website, updated our videos and are trying to make sensible, effective use of social media. But, as always, the best to way to tell the Camp Mishawaka story is face to face. Find someone to share your story with today. And I promise you won’t see me in your neighborhood passing out brochures!

Safe travels and I hope to tweet some of this road-trip and update the blog from time to time. I will look forward to being in touch.

Steve

The point was driven home for me recently in an article in the New York Times entitled “The Joy of Quiet”. The author recounts attending a seminar on “Marketing to the Child of Tomorrow” and being struck by Madison Avenue’s interest not in the latest digital technology to sell soap to children, but by the Ad World’s interest in “stillness”.

I had seen the data before, but it is always startling to see it again: The average American spends at least eight and a half hours a day in front of a screen. The average teenager sends or receives 75 text messages a day. The average office worker enjoys no more than three minutes at a time at his or her desk without interruption. As quiet and stillness become more scarce, children will begin to crave, the author argues, nothing more than freedom from all the blinking machines and ring tones. Remarkably, and a bit regrettably, that is the best news for the Camping Movement I have read in some time.

Since its founding in 1910 Camp Mishawaka has been all about unplugging, though they did not call it that in 1910. At the start, the Camping Movement arose in response to worry about the Industrial Age, urbanization and modern conveniences undoing the American “Frontier Spirit.” In today’s information age, even with most of our physical frontiers conquered, there is still profound value in a traditional Camp experience. The author points out the, ‘information revolution came without an instruction manual’, and that:

All the data in the world cannot teach us how to sift through data; images don’t show us how to process images.
The only way to do justice to our onscreen lives is by summoning exactly the emotional and moral clarity that can’t be found on any screen.

I don’t pretend to know every one of the places one can find such clarity, and I suppose there are many. Faith, family and friendship come right to mind. But I also know that one can find a life-long sense of emotional and moral clarity in the north woods of Minnesota. I’ve seen it happen over and over, and would like to believe that I’ve found my own sense of the same here on the shores of Lake Pokegama.

I’ve also seen it knee-deep in loon goop on a portage trail or in the sunset over a flat Lake Superior, or in any other of a number of Camp Mishawaka wilderness trips I have had the privilege to take or lead. I think this video captures just this feeling from our campers and staff from 2011, and I am pleased to share it with you here.

Tripping at Mishawaka

Be sure to select the HD option and go full screen for the greatest effect!

Best regards,

Steve

The first thing that struck me was just how poor my penmanship was! Maybe there is hope for our son Harrison yet- though I am hardly a shining example of the “Palmer Method” today. Once I was able to decipher my own script, I got thinking about how today’s parents might feel getting letters like the ones I was writing. They were not too detailed, the very first letter I wrote in 1974 simply stating that the, ‘Dragon flies are thik up here. It is lots of fun. My counselor’s name is Peder. Play lots of baseball. It is raining today. June 20th’ , but there was a central theme. I was having a blast.

That is not to say that all my missives home were Pop Line and A-Ball. I had some difficulties, many of them likely self-inflicted but some of the trouble I found might trigger a parental visit, or at the least a call, email or text today: Not getting selected on a trip when we “drew straws” to see who got to go, failing my Jr. Lifesaving class after foregoing a “big” trip so as not to miss a single class, being placed in a cabin with 3 boys from the same home town three years in a row. The last one did prompt a letter from my mother, but by the time the Director received it we were all fast and furious friends.

The Counselor Reports sent to my parents were just a general as some of the ones that get written today, but even all these years later I can recognize myself in them. My 2nd year counselor wrote, ‘He did find a group of about four boys to gang around with. They got into a bit of trouble pestering the other boys but nothing serious happened’. Cap Cavins signed the report, but I am not sure we would (or could) send this out in good conscience today. No doubt my Parent’s concerns were allayed when my counselor went on to say, ‘ Steve is a good kid who has a little growing up to do ( I was 10!) However, I think the growing up will come in time. Looking back I think that I was not unlike Steve. He’ll come along’. That was the same year my cabin mates and I took all the springs out his bed and short-sheeted his mattress. When he discovered this he pulled me off my top bunk and had me sleep in his bed for the rest of the night.

But it was the letters I had written as an older camper, and then as a young staff member that were the most interesting. I don’t recall not wanting to return as a CIT, but apparently in 1980 I was convinced that I did not want to come to Camp the following year. By the end of the summer I had changed my mind- thankfully. In 1987 I was the Head of Belding (my first year in that role) and the same year that Mishawaka was set to sell the Girls Camp and consolidate operations. I wrote home with great sadness, anger and worry about this news. It was not at all clear that Camp Mishawaka would continue. I never could have imagined that in three short years I would be in a position to help make sure it did.

As I told friends about the work my siblings and I were embarking on each of them shared a story about taking part in such a clean-out. Why do parents keep so many things? I started to think, as we were plowing through boxes that were transported in toto from my Grandfather’s house after his death in 1981 and not opened since, that parents keep this stuff to give their children a chance to remember – even when they can’t.

Thanks for making Camp Mishawaka a part of your memory.

Best regards,

Steve

Two nights ago I sat at the Boys Camp and Girls Camp final campfires and listened to our CIT’s reflect back on their summer and their time at Mishawaka, and as they fought back tears to describe their experience, I could not help but think of that “change guru” and come to one conclusion: How dare he!

How dare he, or others, announce the end of something that is so important to today’s young men and women. How dare he assume that because attention spans and summers are shortening, there is still not a market for what we do.

To be sure, the landscape has changed dramatically in my 20 years as Director of Mishawaka. The resurgence of the sports-specialty camp, shifts in the school calendar (some schools began August 8th!) exotic opportunities around the globe for today’s children, the rise in operating expenses that forces tuition increases which outpace inflation have all contributed to a smaller market.

But, if you could have heard these campers’ speeches, you would again realize the incredible role a summer camp experience at Mishawaka can play, and that it is something that we all must preserve and protect.

These young adults spoke with an astonishing moral clarity. They realized that as they passed from being campers, an important stage in their lives was coming to a close. To a person, they spoke about their first year of Camp and the fear that they felt when they first arrived; and, to a person they talked about how, in some cases in a matter of minutes after arriving, this apprehension was eliminated by a friendly gesture on the part of a counselor. The talked about being challenged, being included and valued for who they are, and about being a part of something larger than themselves.

They spoke about the joy of being “un-tethered” from the technology and social expectations and pressures they face at home. They talked about their friends at Camp
-friendships that will likely last a lifetime, and the examples and role models they had at Mishawaka. With one foot firmly in childhood and the other stepping into the slippery slope of adulthood, they referenced the foundation that Mishawaka has helped them build. Each of them knowing well that this grounding will allow them to make the transition confidently.

In the midst of the most recent “Age of Uncertainty” it is inspirational to see these campers filled with so much confidence rooted in real experience, optimism for their future, and enthusiasm for the simple things in life. It affirms, again, our mission statement:
It is the purpose of Camp Mishawaka to make a positive impact on the lives of campers that lasts a lifetime.

Yours in Camping,

Steve Purdum

Such were some of the nick-names of David Larsen, and for those of you who knew him, these monikers likely evoke a certain memory, or bring to mind a particular adventure. When you move to Northern Minnesota from out of state, one of the fist things you notice is that everyone here has a nick-name- Hoolie, Snakes, Snags, Spaulding, Petey, A. V., Buzz, Lloydie, Bruno, Mouse, Barney, Squabie, Robere, Chief, Though there is no formal ceremony, one is given these names as a sign of friendship, acceptance and celebration.

Once, a camp counselor from Scotland told David and me that he did not like all the nick-names he was getting, and he thought he was being teased. David explained to him that this was a sign of friendship and he only needed to worry when people stopped giving him nick-names. From the list of above, it is clear that David had earned the tribute of friends, and was celebrated by many. And David was still getting nick- names.

But by whatever name you knew David, you knew he had a big spirit, incredible loyalty, a great sense of humor, and a longing for adventure. His warmth and kindness were infectious, his friendships were deep and lasting- built from the ground up, founded well below the frost line. That was a good thing – for while David was easy-going, he was never particularly easy.

David’s great love was hunting, and if you ever had the pleasure of watching him drop the bead on a flushing grouse or passing duck, you knew why. He had an instinctual drive and focus when hunting- as if he were dependent on the meat for living. It was poetry in motion and he seldom missed. A fact he was all too happy to remind you of.

Not that the poetry didn’t turn tense at times. He knew just how he wanted the morning set of decoys, and wasn’t afraid to let you know it if you set the blocks a little too far, or a little too close. David had exacting standards for these rituals- seeking and finding a kind of perfection in this hobby that is so elusive in other parts of life.

In recent years – whether motivated by frugality or frontier spirit, David did rely on his fall harvest almost entirely to get him through the winter. It may have just been that he didn’t particularly like to shop for groceries. On a recent outing David and I went to Cub Foods for lunch and to make a deposit at the bank branch. It was his first time there, and he could not believe that there was a bank in the grocery store.

David sought perfection in his work at Camp Mishawaka. Over the years he set thousands of feet of dock- each year with a ruler in one hand (6 inches above the water) and a level in the other.

He had other rituals: shorts only between Memorial Day and Labor Day, no shaving from Labor Day till the end of deer season, a poppy on his hat for opening of fishing, among others.

But some of the rituals in David’s life were difficult, and try as he did to change these, and others tried to help him, he was not always successful. It was not always easy to watch, but it was even harder to turn away. So strong, so full of life, yet as human and as imperfect as any of us.

I was reminded of this not long ago when re-reading A River Runs Through It, by Norman McClean. He writes:

‘Each one of us here today will at one time in our lives look upon a loved one who is in need and ask the same question: We are willing to help, Lord, but what, if anything is needed. For it is true we can seldom help those closest to us. Either we don’t know what part of ourselves to give, or more often than not, the part we have to give is not wanted. And so it is those we live with and should know who elude us. But we can still love them- we can love completely without complete understanding.

As David might have said-

“It was a pretty good gig”.

It was just too short.