Saturday, August 22 -Leaving our Marks

With only five days remaining to our summer at Lenore, we were all thinking about the various culminating activities we would be experiencing, as well as what we would be leaving behind for posterity.Today, marked the last Ritual for the season, and a final Senior Play was on the schedule, as well. As mentioned previously, we had "last wills and testaments" for both counselors and campers. We, the generous souls of Bunk 11, left our counselor, Debbie, an "automatic shower", and to Sue, we left "a bag of jacks and a ball." They, on the other hand, were a little more generous and bequeathed us "a giggling machine...for the long, silent winter," as well as "a big warm teddy bear that likes nothing more than to be cuddled." Aww. But, there were other tangible, things that we left to Lenore, that remained at camp. One of those was our bunk plaque. Each bunk spent the last few days of camp designing and decorating a small, square, wooden block that we would paint our names on, and hang on the rafters of our bunk, so all who stayed there in the future could see the names of the previous residents. Not only did this activity satisfy our need to be remembered, but it also was a way to avoid the possibility that campers would carve their names into every piece of wood in the bunk. At some point, the rafters must have become over-crowded, because there generally weren't more than ten plaques hanging at one time in a bunk. I often wondered what happened to the others. Perhaps they were in a room in the Lodge? Or, I used to imagine a huge storage shed somewhere on the property overflowing with hundreds of them. One would certainly make a great sounvenir today.
Another tradition that seemed to have gotten lost after 1960, was something called, "Scroll." The Inter Social Hall was decorated with animal skins on which were written the names of campers dating back, in some cases to Lenore's earliest years. This was clearly some kind of honor. And for at least 44 years, it was an important one. I don't remember if it was continued in some other form after 1960. (Perhaps the inscribing of an honoree's name in a book of some sort?) But, it was still a big deal in 1959, and the editor of the Lenorlog, Lisa Wald had this to say about it:
"...Scroll is a tradition in itself. The few campers attaining this honor are those who, in the eyes of the directors and counselors, have best lived up to the high standards and ideals of Lenore. Perhaps even more a part of Lenore's traditions is an intangible one--- the spirit of Camp Lenore. It is unseen and more often than not, uspoken of, yet it is an integral part of camp...As long as there is a Camp Lenore, we hope that these traditions will remain part of it."