Memories of Past Students and Campers

Note:  Initial entries below are excerpts from Fred Chesson's website. A direct link to the full body of his work is provided. Following these are new entries we have received from a variety of past students and others (all of which shall remain anonymous) with first-hand experience at either or both facilities.

"While Camp Leo's official colors were yellow and blue," one former camper explained, "I soon found out that black and blue were more to the point. Much in vogue was a ping-pong paddle, applied sandpaper-side down to bare bottoms, the culprit being held down firmly across Mr. Francis' lap." 

LWF made an immediate impression on us.  About an hour into the trip, he called one of the kids to the front, slapped him and made him kneel next to him until we got to St. James School, where others joined us.

The last year I was there, he caused a stampede of our horses prior to an outing to Weirs Beach, when he fired a pistol several times in the air as a signal to the kids to board the bus. It took me quite a while to round up all those spooked horses.

John, a young camper of 7 or 8 recalled having a small skin rash below his left knee. "Francis instructed me to go down to the shower room located in the basement of the office and wait for him. He came down and told me to undress, including my underwear. Even as a young boy I thought it strange. He then commenced to clean the impetigo wound while I was totally bare"...

Another camper recalled Francis' "Badge of Office" being a long switch, which he regularly carried about camp. "If you were sent out to cut a new one, you knew you were in for Big Trouble."

"Gas Dryer Incident" - 1959

...saw Francis forcing a boy into a large clothes dryer and briefly turning on the gas.  Other students released the victim before serious injury had occurred.

...Francis, brandishing a chain, seen chase a scantily-clad youth across the snow covered grounds.

...many of the escapees went over to the new Laurel Crest Academy in nearby Bristol

The State's Attorney, John D. LaBelle, revealed to the Court (June 30, 1961 Superior Court Trial in Hartford) that Francis made his victims remove their pants and underwear before beating them with a hairbrush and a variety of belts and whips

On one field trip to Hartford on a winter day, we were in a school bus with Mr. Francis driving, when some kids threw snowballs at us.  He promptly stopped, opened the door, and ordered us to 'Go Get Them!!'  It was like a civil war battle right on the side of the road.

On another field trip, we were running late, sitting in the bus, and Francis became very impatient because this crippled student was still on the second level of the main house.  He had to wear braces to help him move.  Francis finally lost it.  He ran to  the top of the stairs and threw the poor kid down the entire flight."

1968....I was a sophomore in the so-called high school class of four boys. School actually started up in Camp Leo. We stayed in the unheated cabins with no hot water from early September until Halloween. 

"I had the 'honor and privilege' of being a Camp Leo camper for about 36
hours in the summer of 1986 - when I was ten years old. That summer there
were 8 (or nine) of us. All girls. Mr. Francis claimed that the boys would
be coming in August.  He was sweet as pie when our parents dropped us off.
But changed rapidly once they left.  "Because of the short time, and my age, I don't remember much about his personality except for his actions.  I do remember though, the tremendous feeling of relief when the police came to take us away.  We found out later that one of the two British counselors there told him that they needed to
phone home (Francis told us all that the phone had been broken) so he had
to go into town.  That is when the counselor called the police. All of the
parents except one pair entered a law suit, which naturally, lasted for
years...."

New Entries
(Table of Contents Linked To Story)

• Francis' Plan For Transforming Kids

• Tenderfoot Mountain

• My Last Year

• The Radio Club

• Girls Across The Lake

• Mass Paddling Ritual

• Henry & Dorothy Ball

• Camp Leo Meets The Girl Scouts

• White-Faced Hornets

• Camp Leo Activities

• A Camp Leo Adventure

• Our Mount Washington Climb Ritual

• Father Brendan

• Sailfish

• Sailfish Race

• Camp Fires

• Bug Juice

• Foreign Campers

• Rusty The Horse

Francis' Plan For Transforming Kids

Francis' plan to transform kids was rather simple.  First, he would cut your hair, take away all your clothes and issue the odd uniform designed to keep us separated from the rest of society.  Next, he effectively controlled our access to the outside world and scheduled constant activities, calculated to make us all conform to his idea of sameness.  In other words, he was trying to eliminate our identity, break us down and rebuild us according to his own image.  Any deviation from his plan would result in very severe and immediate punishment.  The military service has been doing exactly the same thing effectively for many years and it's a form of brain washing.  Perhaps it worked with a few kids but most of us resisted and did whatever he wanted while he was looking, but did what we wanted when he wasn’t.  Naturally, he was unable to carry out his plan as effectively with the day students and I don't think any of them really understood what the rest of us were going through.

Francis might have been more effective with his plan if he had been more clinical about it and didn't let his temper and perversions get in the way.  That he was allowed to continue for so many years with those two major personality flaws is the real crime though.  Lots of responsible people knew what was going on, but did nothing to help.  Some of the teachers knew what Francis was doing and did nothing.  The kids often told their parents what was happening, but either the parents didn't believe their own kids, or they just thought the kids were exaggerating and making up stories.  Francis was bad enough, but the real criminals were the other members of the Leo Foundation who never checked on him, or else knew what he was doing and ignored it.  At least two of them were priests.  They both knew exactly what Francis was doing to the kids and chose to turn a blind eye to it.  Many of the Christian Brothers at Camp Leo also knew what was going on and kept it to themselves.  Of course, as we would later find out, the Catholic Church was quite adept at ignoring problems and covering up perversions when it came to little boys.  I guess Saint James was no exception.

Tenderfoot Mountain

Tenderfoot Mountain was another of the attractions at Camp Leo.  Although it was one of the smallest mountains in the White Mountain range, for us it was the most important as its base was less than a mile from the Ranch House.  Because it was so close, many of the campers climbed it as often as they could and, over the years, had beat down the easiest path to the top.  Someone from the staff always took the little kids up there a couple times a year, but the older kids would climb it whenever they wanted, without supervision.  Since it only took about 45 minutes to an hour to climb, some of us hiked up there whenever we didn’t have anything better to do.  The top of the mountain was covered with wild blueberries and raspberries; so many that it was quite possible to get sick eating them and yet never come close to eating them all.  Other than the berries, the top of the mountain was bare and had a view that let you see everything for miles in every direction.  Sometimes we would skip lunch and climb the mountain just to fill up with berries and take in the view.  Every once an awhile, we could get permission to bring sleeping bags and sleep overnight on the summit.  Whenever we did that, I was always absolutely amazed at the number of stars in the night sky.  With no lights to interfere, half of our world was nothing but stars as we laid there staring at the heavens.  That was the only time in my life that I have looked at the Milky Way and felt it really did look like spilled milk.  It was an incredible experience and a wonderful place.

My Last Year

My last year at Camp Leo, we had a big problem with someone had been stealing things from the cabins in my area when everyone was at breakfast, or activities. To catch the culprit some kids took turns hiding in the loft of a few cabins to watch for the thief. On the second day of their "stake out", they caught 3 kids right in the act. The kids who actually witnessed the stealing went to Brother Felix, LWF's assistant, told him what they saw and he said he'd talk to the boys. A week later he hadn't talked to them and, when asked, he said nothing could be done about it, but it wouldn't happen again. I really wish that had been the case, but the stealing started again the following week. Again, we went to Brother Felix, but he just told us it had to be different campers doing the stealing now. That was when we were first introduced to the term kangaroo court by the older boys. A group of older campers from our site assembled in the woods while others brought the boys who had been stealing. We held a trial, just like we had seen on TV, with a judge, jury and defending attorney. Naturally, it really was a farce. All three boys were found guilty and sentenced to fight some other boys. The fights were nothing more than dancing contests before they were broken up because the guilty boys were crying so badly. I don't think anyone was actually hit, bit the stealing stopped. A couple of weeks later; I was called to the office and put on a bus to Boston as one of the kids had told his parents. There was no beating and Francis never even said a word to me. I had been kicked out of both the camp and school even though I hadn't been a ring leader. I will always remember that day as one of the happiest of my life. After that day, my life suddenly became normal and it has been normal ever since. The following fall I called the pay phone at Saint James and spoke to one of the kids I knew. He told me I was the only one kicked out for the kangaroo court incident and, at that very moment, I was the happiest scapegoat in the world.

The Radio Club

There were many activities at both the camp and the school, but for those of us who heard the call of modern technology, there was the Radio Club. At Camp Leo, one of the first projects we got into was building a crystal set. A crystal set was one of the first radios ever used. It required no batteries, or power of any kind and yet it could pick up several radio stations. The brother who was the Radio Club teacher bought the parts and told us how to put them together. Our crystal sets were the most primitive kind using a rock crystal as a receiver and a "Cat Whisker" for a tuner. Later on, we learned how to make a more sophisticated tuner using an empty toilet paper roll and some copper wire. With a long wire for an antenna and an earphone to listen, we could hear a few local radio stations. We were thrilled. Several of the boys in our camping area wanted crystal sets too and a few of the members of the Radio Club agreed to build them for a very good price. Business was great until the brother noticed his electronics inventory was depleted and we were made to pay back the loss. One year, we got to make two-way radios for some of the camp and school vehicles. We made them from kits that the camp bought from the Allied Radio Catalog. Francis complained that one of the radios wasn't made right but it worked just as well as the others. In any event, he installed it in his Jeep so it couldn't have been that bad. I think he just liked to complain about everything.

Girls Across The Lake

Once, when we were returning to camp after visiting with the girls across the lake, we spotted Lenny's car speeding down the dirt road, evidently coming back to the camp from a trip to town. Knowing we'd be in big trouble if he caught us, we ran into the lake and hid in the water behind some big rocks. We knew Francis had seen us, because he stopped the car, got out and looked around. He knew we were from his camp by the way we were dressed, but he didn't know who we were or exactly where we had run off to. Neither of us moved a muscle, even though mosquitoes were making a meal of our backs and eventually we saw him get back in the car and drive off. We continued to watch though and noticed his car didn't pass another section of the road visible from our location. He had driven down the road and stopped again thinking that when we saw him leave, we'd get up and he'd catch us. However, we waited quite a while longer until we finally saw his car pass. Then, instead of continuing to follow the road, we swam across the lake to a point near the camp's dock. From there we walked back to our cabin, changed our clothes and went over to the horse barn near the entrance to the camp. There we discovered that Francis and some of the Christian Brothers were out on the road searching for some kids who had left the camp without permission. No one ever found out it was us they were looking for and a few days later we visited the girls again. We did it all summer and were never caught.

Mass Paddling Ritual

Francis was not around much when I was at Camp Leo, so it was mostly a pleasant place. The day to day operation of the camp was left to the Christian Brothers from Quebec, led by Brother Felix. With the exception of Saturdays, it was entirely possible to go the whole summer hardly ever even seeing Francis as long as you stayed away from the office. We couldn't avoid seeing him every Saturday though. Saturday morning was when we had to take a shower in the basement of the office. Francis was always right there in the shower room to check off each camper and to inspect us when we finished. He must have enjoyed this particular job as I don't remember him ever missing it or ever delegating it to one of his staff. We used to joke quite a bit about how Francis loved to watch naked little kids. Saturday afternoon was the time when Francis came around to inspect all the cabins, military style. Once several cabins in the youngest camping area weren't ready for inspection. As many as 20 of the little kids had to report to the office later for a mass paddling, where Francis made them get naked on his lap and reportedly whacked them a few times with his hairbrush. For many of these little campers, this was the first time they had been punished in this manor and evidently, some of them accidentally urinated on him. Lenny with urine soaked pants. I wish I could have seen that. In fact, I wish I had thought of it.

Henry & Dorothy Ball

Two people from Camp Leo and Saint James that I will never forget were Henry and Dorothy Ball. The Balls were a black couple from Bermuda. They worked for one of the schools on that island, but had been recruited to work at Camp Leo during the summer as cooks. They did such a good job at Camp Leo, that when Agnes Hennessey, the first cook at Saint James quit, the Balls came to work at Saint James. At Saint James, Mr. Ball was our janitor and handyman, while Mrs. Ball was the school's cook: their daughter, Susie, was a student. They were the most pleasant and friendly couple I've ever met and, because they loved children so much, they became our substitute parents. Mrs. Ball knew the name of every single student and, if she ever realized that you were having a problem, she would often give you sound advice as you went through her food line. Except for dessert, each student served himself. Mrs. Ball was very proud of her desserts, so she served them herself. It also gave her the opportunity to speak to each student as he went past. She was a great cook and a good friend. We always looked forward to her meals and especially her desserts.

Mr. Ball always seemed to have plenty of time to talk to the kids about their problems while he worked. Sometimes he would let us help him and it was a special treat when he let us operate the floor buffer. He would get us all laughing when he'd let one of the bigger kids try it and watch them lose control. Then he'd call the littlest kid available to demonstrate to the big kid how easy it was. There was a trick to using a floor buffer and, unless you knew it, no matter how strong you were, you could not control it. It would just spin you around. If you knew the trick to operating it, however, even the smallest student could control it. Sadly, Mr. Ball died shortly after I left the school. I believe that Mrs. Ball and Susie continued on until the school closed. Without a doubt, the Balls made our lives at that depressing place a little easier to tolerate.

Camp Leo Meets The Girl Scouts

Camp Leo shared Manning Lake with a family who owned some property and rented cabins on the opposite side of the lake. They also had a teenage daughter who we would see from time to time waterskiing around the lake. Often, she would also have various friends at the cabins visiting her. Naturally, we were all interested, but it was forbidden for us to leave camp. Even so, several of us would sneak away from the camp every day and visit the girls across the lake. This was possible because attendance was never taken at our various camp activities and as a result, we were never missed. My friend liked the owner's daughter and I liked her friend. Most afternoons that summer were spent across the lake with the girls; talking about the things that teenagers were interested in, listening to records and swimming in the lake. Life was great then. When we figured it was time to go, we would simply sneak back into the camp and resume our normal activities.

Every so often, we were allowed to take a few canoes and camp overnight across the lake, probably a couple of miles from Camp Leo. Once while on an overnight there, we were exploring the woods and came across a Girl Scout camp several miles away on another lake. Being boys, we decided to spy on the girls hoping to see something. Come nightfall we knew they were undressing and getting ready for bed, but we were too far away to really see anything, so we crept a little closer. We still couldn't see anything so, afraid of getting caught, we returned to our own lake and back to Camp Leo the next day. We did it again a few weeks later, but with the same results. Another camping trip was planned shortly thereafter but I had gotten into some trouble and was unable to go. From what I was told, this time they went all the way into the girl's camp and were looking right into one of their cabins. Unfortunately, a counselor spotted them and yelled, while the girls in the cabin started to scream. Our kids took off into the woods with the Girl Scout leaders in hot pursuit. They thought they made a clean getaway until they returned to Camp Leo the next day and found Francis waiting for them. After that, overnight camping on the other side of the lake was permitted only if you had one of the Brothers with you.

White-Faced Hornet

The White Faced Hornet was a problem at Camp Leo. Every camper either knew a friend, or had a personal encounter of his own with the dreaded beast. The nests were usually the size of a large football, hung from the lower branches of a tree and looked like layer upon layer of grey parchment paper. In addition to being super sized and having a rather nasty disposition, The White Faced Hornet was also very aggressive and had a powerful sting. Anyone even coming near a nest was sure to get several stings that would swell up and hurt for a week. One time, a friend of mine was walking through the woods near the Ranch House and, not even seeing it; he actually bumped into a big nest, knocked it down from the tree and accidentally tore it open when he fell on it. Thousands of very angry hornets immediately swarmed out of the broken nest and began attacking my friend. Naturally, he ran away but the hornets followed him. He was finally able to get away from them by running to the creek and submerging himself in the cold water. Eventually, the hornets left but he had been stung many times over his head, back, chest and legs. His eyes were just about swollen shut by the time he was able to stumble back to the Ranch House. Brother Felix took one look at him and rushed him into town for emergency treatment. The doctor said he'd be fine but told him the hornets could have killed him if he hadn't jumped into the creek. Then he gave my friend a couple of shots and sent him back to camp. The next day he was still tired, sore and swollen and he slept most of the day. He still showed signs of swelling two weeks later but was fine after that. About every week, or so someone would get stung by one: Fortunately, it was never me.

Camp Leo Activities!

Of all the activities at Camp Leo, swimming and boating were definitely the best.  In order to go boating, however, it was first necessary to achieve several difficult swimming skills.  The camp had three swimming areas based on swimming skills:  Tadpole, frog and advanced.  Tadpoles could only swim in the shallow area in front of the dock.  The first swimming skill was to pass the basic swimming requirement that the brothers set to advance the camper from the tadpole swimming area to the frog swimming area.  Once you advanced from a tadpole to a frog swimmer, you could swim in the second area of the dock, defined by the rectangle of the dock.  The next achieved skill allowed you to be an advanced swimmer who could swim in the roped off area that was beyond the dock and over everyone’s head.  Even though it was a great honor to be an advanced swimmer and swim in the advanced area, the next achievement required much greater swimming skills and allowed the camper to take out a boat on his own.  In order to take out a boat, a camper had to demonstrate that he could ultimately save himself in any situation by swimming to the shore from any point on the lake.  To pass this particular test, the advanced swimmer was taken by boat to the other side of Lake Manning and made to swim all the way back to the camp’s dock:  perhaps a mile.  Only the swimming instructor could decide if a camper was ready for the boating test, so it was necessary to obtain permission from him to even take the test.  Most campers did not make it the first time or even the second, so this was definitely a right of passage for each and every camper.  Because of this, whenever a camper was taking this particular swimming test, as they neared the camp’s dock, everyone in the dock area stopped whatever they were doing and cheered the swimmer on.  It was an honor just to make it to this point, which is why we cheered.  If the camper passed the test he was allowed to take out a rowboat entirely on his own.

 Once you achieved the rowboat-swimming test, to advance further it was necessary to take the canoe test.  The canoe test was only done in teams and entailed two campers taking out a canoe and sinking it.  Then your team had to shake all the water out of the swamped canoe and jump back in without swamping it again.  Not an easy task and most campers flunked the test even after many tries.  Most campers were able to shake the water out, but sunk the canoe when they jumped back in.  If your team was able to pass the canoe test, however, then you could take a canoe out by yourself and were also allowed to go camping with the big kids on the other side of the lake.

A Camp Leo Adventure

It was the summer of 1957 and Camp Leo’s annual trip to climb Mount Washington, boring to veteran campers but a first time adventure for me. The climb up the mountain had taken most of the day and it was beginning to get dark by the time we reached base and saw our fellow campers boarding the bus. Bored out of our wits and always looking for some sort of adventure, my friend and I decided it would be a blast to hide in the bushes and see if we could get left behind to enjoy a reckless night of freedom. Naturally, we didn’t really expect to get away with it but to our amazement, the door to the bus closed and it pulled away without us. I remember a feeling of charged excitement tainted with a little fear of what might happen when we finally got back. Nevertheless an attitude of false bravado won out as my companion and I shrugged a “what the hell” at each other and laughed.  To celebrate our freedom, we stopped for hamburgers at a nearby diner and in an act of further rebellion we bought a pack of “the forbidden”; Lucky Strike cigarettes on the way out and began hitchhiking.

  Some time before midnight, a car pulled over to give us a ride but it turned out to be a concerned local cop who took us to the police station.  We told him what had happened and he called the camp.  Francis admitted we belonged to him but was not going to come get us.  We spent the night sleeping on a conference table in the police station and the next morning started hitchhiking again.  Not far from the camp, the parents of another camper picked us up.  We told them our story and they were shocked that Francis didn’t know how many he was supposed to have on the bus and that no bed check was done at the camp site.  Two of their boys were missing and no one in the camp knew it until the police called.

Our Mount Washington Climb Ritual

A summer at Camp Leo was never quite complete without our being forced to climb nearby Mount Washington.  Although Mount Washington is not the highest mountain in the US, it is the highest mountain in the east and there are several, not too difficult, places to climb it.  The place Francis chose for us to scale the mountain was called Tuckerman’s Ravine.  This assent to the peak was well marked and required no special climbing skills.  Nevertheless, there were several places where people and sometimes, whole expeditions had fallen to their death.  Markers had been placed at those spots to remember those who died and also as a warning for all current hikers to be especially careful at those places.  As far as I know, no one had died climbing Tuckerman’s Ravine in several years, but it still had some very dangerous places and the climb was definitely no “walk in the park”.  Because of that, we probably should have had some adult supervision, but we didn’t.

Every single year it would be sunny and hot at the base of the mountain.  However, by the time we reached the top, the temperature was always below freezing and it would be snowing, or an ice storm raging.  Dressed in nothing but shorts and a t-shirt, we were definitely not prepared for the winter weather we ran in to.  One year I thought I’d be smart and brought a jacket with me.  Unfortunately, Francis made me leave it on the bus.  When we reached the peak that year we encountered freezing rain and sleet.  Also that year, one of the older campers slipped on the ice and injured his leg.  I don’t remember the extent of his injuries, but he couldn’t walk and had to be driven down the road while the rest of us walked in the freezing rain.  Considering the circumstances, it’s a wonder more of us didn’t get hurt or catch pneumonia.

For some reason, every year at Camp Leo we had a different resident priest.  Most of them were quite old and the only thing they did at the camp was to say the daily Mass at the Chapel.  At one time, I’m sure they had been effective priests, but at that time and at Camp Leo, they just didn’t relate to the kids at all.  Saying our morning Mass, they would drone on and on and take forever to finish.  To make matters worse, the Mass was still said in Latin, so none of us understood a word of it anyway.  All we wanted to do was to get it over with so we could scramble up the hill to the Mess Hall and eat breakfast.  One year, our priest was particularly old and enunciated every Latin word and syllable so slowly that, after two months of this daily torture, many of us learned to say the entire Mass in Latin for ourselves.  Later, this skill came in handy when we wanted to curse without getting in trouble.  We would just substitute phrases of the Latin Mass for the swear words.  It worked so well that once a nun heard me cursing up a storm and she ended up laughing uncontrollably instead of pulling me aside for punishment.

One year, however, we had a young priest at the camp by the name of Father Brendan Morrissey.  Not only was he young, but also he dressed differently than any priest I had ever seen.  He was a Capuchin Monk and he dressed in a brown robe with a hood, a rope for a belt and simple leather sandals.  He was the only priest at the camp who understood that his real job was to minister to the kids, not just to say the morning Mass.  He’s the only priest there who actually appeared to enjoy kids.  He was a real friend and we were always welcome in his room at the Ranch House.  We opened up to him with our troubles and problems just like he was one of us.  This is what a camp priest should be.

 Father Brendan listened to us and we told him about all the abuse that was going on at both the camp and the school.  Some of it he witnessed for himself firsthand.  He said he believed us and gave us the impression that he was shocked at the abuse we had to endure.  He gave me the impression that he was going to try to do something to help us, but I never saw him again after that summer.  Years later, I was shocked to learn that Father Brendan was actually a board member of the Leo Foundation and, until he died, had supported everything that Leonard Francis did.  He certainly did fool me.

In addition to swimming, Camp Leo also offered row boating and canoeing.  All campers took swimming instruction and your swimming skills determined where you were allowed to swim.  As you passed each test, you were allowed to swim in the deeper swimming areas of the dock.  The best swimmers were allowed in the roped off area beyond the deepest section of the docks.  In order to use the rowboats, however, you first had to be able to demonstrate that you could swim across the lake.  Use of the canoes required additional instruction and testing.  During my last year at the camp, Francis bought several small sailboats called a Sailfish.  A Sailfish was a very large surfboard with a rudder and a sail.  Two could sail with it easily, but it was actually small enough for one to handle.  Naturally, everyone wanted to try out the new Sailfish, but the Brothers in charge of the waterfront required more instruction and some unique tests before that could happen.  Only those campers who had passed all their physical tests, up to and including the canoe test would be allowed to take the Sailfish instruction and eventually the Sailfish test.  The instruction taught us how to handle a sailboat in all kinds of conditions and involved a written test about sailboat safety.  The physical test involved tipping the Sailfish over until the sail was underwater, (which we discovered was quite easy), and then pulling the sail back up and righting the boat.  The whole process sounds much easier than it actually was.  Once the Sailfish was capsized, the sail fills with water and it becomes too heavy to right the boat without knowing several tricks and techniques.  After a few days a number of us finally qualified and we began enjoying the Sailfish.

Sailfish Race

Toward the end of the summer, the Brothers decided that all the Sailfish campers had practiced long enough and announced that the camp was going to have a Sailfish race.  Instructions, more practice and preparations took about two weeks.  The Brothers had placed special buoys with flags all around Manning Lake to mark the course of the race and we contestants were all properly instructed as to how we were to conduct ourselves and how to properly traverse the course.  Finally, it was the day before the big race and we were all ready for a practice run.  I was certainly not the oldest in the race, but I thought I could handle a Sailfish fairly well.  While I didn’t really think I would win, at that point, I figured I could do a respectable job of it.  We all lined up and with the wave of the flag we started moving along the course of the race.  Under no pressure, I just did what I had always done and concentrated on doing everything right. 

 I could hear the kids on the dock cheering someone, but it took several seconds for me to realize they were cheering me.  Much to my surprise I was actually in the process of passing the first place sailboat with the wind at my back and speeding for the big turn and the race to the finish line.  After the turn the wind was coming straight toward us.  I knew a sailboat couldn’t go forward directly against the wind so I began some tacking maneuvers.  Tacking is a method where a sailboat zigzags back and forth diagonally to make forward progress against the wind.  Everyone seemed to have problems tacking and I pulled far ahead.  By the time the second boat crossed the finish line, I had already put my boat away.  I was flying high.  Here this was only the practice race and I blew everyone else away.  I could barely sleep that night thinking about the real race the next day.

 The next morning I got up early, but the rest of the day was just a blur as I could think of nothing but the race that was scheduled for the afternoon.  Finally, the big race was about to begin and I was absolutely confident that I would be the winner.  The wind was coming from the opposite direction as it had been yesterday, but that just meant that we would have to tack on the way up and speed with the wind to our back to the finish line.  I knew from the practice race that I was very good at tacking and knew that I would easily take a big lead in the beginning and no one would catch me after that.  As the race began, I quickly dropped to second place and was about to be passed by another boat when I made a stupid error and almost swamped the boat.  Losing my momentum, two more boats passed me.  By the time I reached the turn, the wind changed direction and again we had to tack all the way to the finish line but not before being passed by one more boat.  In the end I came in second to last and had no idea what had just happened.  That’s when the Brother came up to me and told me that many of the other kids had held back on the practice race.  That was the day I learned about strategy and the dangers associated with overconfidence.

 Just like any other day, Saturday started with early morning Mass and a mad scramble up the steep hill to the Mess Hall for breakfast.  But after breakfast on that day, there was a big departure from our regular daily camping activities.  On this day, we went back to our cabins to be assigned a work detail, designed to keep us busy until our 10am showers.  Some of the work details were simple cleaning or picking up activities within our own campsite area, others involved duties at the Ranch House, usually supervised by Francis himself.  No one but the brown noses wanted the Ranch House job and I’m proud to say that in my four years at the camp, never once did I draw that detail.  Because my campsite was near the campfire area, three of our kids were always assigned to find wood for the Saturday evening campfire.  I always volunteered for this particular work detail, even though it was very hard work. I don’t know why, but I actually liked tramping through the woods and pulling large dead trees to the campfire area.  I also liked helping the Brother in charge, stack the wood so it was high and would burn just right.  He always made it seem like he was scientifically placing each log and would tell us the approximate length and diameter of the trees that he needed next.  He also cautioned us never to go back to the same place so we wouldn’t pick one area clean.  Sometimes he would reject some of our logs, for some reason or another, and tell us to put it back exactly where we found it so that it could be used another time.  When we finished, we were very dirty and sweaty but we always took a few minutes to admire what we helped to build.  The finished campfire looked like a large Indian Teepee with tree trunks standing up all around the outside to more than twice our height.  That evening we would all sit around the fire telling stories and singing songs.  I was always amazed how the fire burned so that the logs never collapsed or fell where they weren’t supposed to, they just burned from the middle of the fire out and all the still burning logs and ashes fell right into the designated circle, exactly as the Brother had designed it to do.

Bug Juice

At Camp Leo, the time period after supper until lights out was usually considered to be free time.  The Canteen was open where you could buy candy and soda, among other things, and it was often possible to take out a boat, just for the fun of it.  Some of us would take off into the woods for a smoke, play a game of tetherball, or just hang around the campsite and shoot the breeze with our friends.  No matter what we did with our free time, however, every evening around dusk, most of us would head to the Mess Hall for the daily movie.  On Saturday, we could see a full length, feature movie.  Although nothing that had been just released, none of them were very old either and most were quite good.  The rest of the week we could see educational and instructional movies, sometimes called shorts.  Any time someone asked what movie was playing that night, we’d say “How to Make Bricks”; a stupid joke we never tired of even though none of the movies had anything to do with making bricks.  The shorts, however, covered all kinds of interesting things from the assembly line of a factory to the various operations of a slaughterhouse.  I remember one about a modern dairy farm where the milk went from the cow, through pipes to holding areas, where the various processes took place, until the bottles were filled, capped and finally loaded on to trucks.  Each step of the process was completely automatic and the only time humans were needed was to hook the milking machine to the cow and load the trucks.  The trucks then drove off and the drivers would put the bottles on the consumer’s doorstep.

After the movie, we were served what we called “bug juice” and cookies.  The “bug juice” was actually a fruit juice that was part lemonade and had little pieces of real lemon floating in it.  We drank it by the gallon for every meal except breakfast.  I don’t know how it was made or where the camp got it from, but it was delicious, always cold and we could have as much of it as we wanted.  There was never a shortage of “bug juice”.

Although we had no foreign students at Saint James when I was there, we did have several students from Venezuela and several more from Quebec at Camp Leo.  I assume that one of the reasons they attended was to learn English through their association with the other campers.  Unfortunately, there was little, or no association between the American and foreign campers thanks to the unintelligent arrangements on the part of the camp.  The Venezuelan campers were all housed together in one cabin in the Junior Area, while the French Canadians were housed together in one cabin in the Ranch Area.  In addition, all the foreign campers did the same activities at the same time, while the Americans did their activities at another time.  The only time we ever saw the foreign campers was at Mass and at meals and naturally, they always sat together and we sat elsewhere.  In other words, what we had was segregation.  As a result, we didn’t learn any French or Spanish and they didn’t learn any English.  Even worse, we all developed resentment for each other resulting in many fights.  The intelligent thing to do would have been to split up the sleeping and schedule arrangements, forcing everyone to find a way to communicate with each other.  The seating arrangement at Mass and meals probably wouldn’t have changed as we were allowed to sit wherever we wanted, but even so, the mixture the rest of the time would have insured we would all learn at least some of each others language.  More importantly, the mixture would have resulted in more tolerance and less fighting among the nationalities.

Rusty The Horse

At Camp Leo, I liked horseback riding best, but I also liked the rifle range and anything to do with swimming and boating.  I was one of the younger kids in my group and almost always ended up with Rusty the horse.  Rusty was an old, gentle, red-brown horse that would never do much more than walk.  For that reason none of the older kids ever wanted to ride him.  It seems that Francis got Rusty from a small, traveling circus where little kids would ride him for a small fee.  Evidently, Rusty learned that no one would ride him if he refused to move, so Francis was able to pick him up for a very good price.  Brother Augustave knew all about horses and he worked with Rusty until kids could ride him again.  The Brother could make Rusty do anything but for others, Rusty would only walk and occasionally trot.  Because I was always stuck with Rusty, he got to know me quite well and one day I actually got him to canter.  I was thrilled, but the older kids still made fun of Rusty and said he was ready for the glue factory.  The next day we were riding around the field, as we usually did after our lessons, and it was decided that we would all race back to the barn.  Everyone knew that whoever was riding Tennessee would always win because she was, by far, the fastest horse in the camp next to the paint, Apache.  It was fun to do anyway.  That day, however, Rusty decided he would gallop for me, actually passing Tennessee and beating her to the barn.  Everyone, including myself, was absolutely astonished.  After that, everyone wanted to ride Rusty and I was delegated to another horse for the rest of the summer.  To my knowledge though, Rusty never galloped for any of them.  I did get to ride Rusty for trail rides and did so several times that summer and following years.