Thursday, August 6

Geez... ANOTHER trip to Tanglewood? This time, it was for "Tanglewood on Parade", which was generally a crowd-pleasing evening of Boston Pop favorites. It also was, most likely, our last trip to Tanglewood for the season. As August progressed, the evenings became increasingly cooler, often requiring the addition of our green CL jackets and pants. (How lovely were those green gaberdine numbers?) There was such a wealth of cultural activities all around us, it was easy to become jaded about it. The younger campers were far more interested in the possibility of going to Friendly's.
To Lenorites, Friendly's was the be-all and end-all of rewards. It was the ultimate "carrot on a stick" incentive, but in this case, the stick was encased in ice cream. The deal was, if you received the green flag every day for an entire week, you'd get to leave camp and go to Friendly's in Pittsfield for ice cream cones. If you received the flag for two weeks in a row, you'd get sundaes. Three weeks: something more elaborate. Now, most bunks didn't get the green flag for clean-up two weeks running. However, when I was a Valley Senior one year, I remember we got the green flag every day for the entire summer. This was a huge deal, because we went to Friendly's every week. We finally ended up with our big reward of having dinner there one night. Patty melts, and Awful-Awfuls. (a giant milk shake, whose name was later changed to the Fribble...) I don't doubt that the rules were modified slightly after that...