Don Johnson offers some old and some very new memories. Kids and Grandkids at Camp.

I have been promising myself to put some words to paper and your latest posting did the trick.  Please keep up the e-mails and site work. Thanks

Camp Clark Reminiscing:

I guess I have to look up the rest of the words to these songs to add to the list:

“I’ve been working on the railroad”

“She’ll be coming round the mountain”

“The old rugged cross” 

“Father Abraham had seven sons”

My first year as a camper, I was in Kowah lodge.  Attached is a picture. We were on the second floor the craft shop was on the first.  I think I was 9 and we lived in Marion, MA and my parents knew Bob Hastings.

I can remember a camp out in the Junior Pines area in an old woolen army sleeping bag under the stars; it rained on us that night.

Another year found me in Craiglaigh Cabin.

We moved to Mattapoisett and my parents enrolled me in the New Bedford YMCA, Saturday program to learn to swim.

Year’s later Bob Hasting asked me to go to Springfield College for water certification and for two summers I was a counselor in Rotary cabin and worked the water front.

Tom, Carl and I took the Duck for a sail in a good wind and running before the wind snapped the mast and ended up on the north end of the lake.  Bob came to the rescue and in about a week my father working for a boat yard in New Bedford had come up with a new mast.  Need to say a learning experience.  Tom has explained our Junior point Scandinavian setting in his posting.  My mother made us a flag with the Swedish flag on one side and the Norwegian flag on the other. We flew that flag at Junior Point every day.

Sunday evening services on Brown Bread Hill and collecting pine cones for every year at camp.

Swim meets and ball games with Camp Burgess.  Camping hikes and overnights in the dunes at Sandy Neck.

Camp experiences set the stage for many years of family camping, backpacking, and many fond memories with my kids and adults in the outdoors.

Camp has had several generations of Johnson’s

My brother-in-law Robert Tenney came to live with us in Falmouth and was a camper and a counselor.  Our two sons’, Christopher and Scott were Camp Clark campers. Christopher worked the water front at Camp Lyndon teaching sailing for a year before going off to the service.

For a few years, we would return for an “Old Timers Softball Game”

Our youngest daughter Karen was a day camper at Camp Lyndon, and we hosted a Spanish exchange student that year.

Karen’s oldest son Ryan attended Camp Lyndon for a season two year’s ago.

This has been a very fun and happy exercise.

Thank you all who have set this stage and carried on an important tradition.

Don Johnson (Fuzzy) (Chief Lono)

My first year as a camper, I was in Kowah lodge.  Attached is a picture. We were on the second floor the craft shop was on the first.  I think I was 9 and we lived in Marion, MA and my parents knew Bob Hastings.


Thanks to Donald Johnson for “The old rugged cross”. This song reminds me of two important things in my life. First my grandmother. It was her favorite song.  She passed away in 1978.

Secondly I always think of the Old Rugged Cross on the top of Camp Clark's Brown Bread Hill. Both memories bring tears to my eyes.

Brown Bread Hill - The Old Rugged Cross
Thanks to Bob Zimmermann for the photo.