The students brought new life to the hospital, and their experiences spawned their own professional careers. The success of the program allowed three more hospitals to join Service Corps programs, and an expanded summer program was ordered. That’s where I came in.
Camp Laurel, located in Andover, Connecticut, became home for my wife, Eunice, and me; our two children; fifty elderly, chronic, schizophrenic patients; thirty college students from the Connecticut Service Corps; and a few select staff members from the hospital. The students and staff knew the patients, which was a big help.
One of my fondest memories of that period, however, had nothing to do with experience or expertise. It had to do with a very lonely-looking, extremely withdrawn white-haired man called Sam and my young son, Ken. The two would sit on the bank of the lake and talk for hours. Well, at least Ken would talk. Sam just listened. One day, Sam brought along a piece of paper and a pencil and proceeded to draw a portrait of Ken as he talked. The drawing was beautiful. It turned out our elderly camper was an artist and writer, yet hadn’t revealed this to anyone in years. Eventually, Sam started a camp newsletter.
CAMP QUINEBAUG
Our Camp Laurel experiences paved the way for the challenges and deep rewards ahead of us. For the next three summers we would build Camp Quinebaug. Shortly after we closed down Camp Laurel, I immersed myself in recruiting college students for the next summer. I had the authority to hire thirty students for each of the large hospitals (housing approximately 2,500 patients)—Norwich Hospital in Norwich; Fairfield Hills Hospital in Newtown; Connecticut Valley Hospital in Middletown, plus ten for the Children’s Unit—and twenty for the smaller hospital in Meriden, Undercliff, and thirty who were to be groomed for the intricacies of camping with patients. The camp group included fifteen American Friends, a Quaker organization led by Mr. and Mrs. Paris. I also needed a supervisor for each group. I hired Alex Sotir, assistant football coach at Wesleyan University, as program director. Alex, his wife, Norma, and their three children were family friends, and having them with us that first summer was invaluable.
Eunice became my volunteer business manager, food service director, and waterfront director. In short, she was my organizer, right hand, lifesaver, partner, and compassionate saint working with students from around the world and, of course, “patients.”
That first summer we encountered a slight problem. Although during my own recruitment I was shown elaborate plans for a new summer camp in a reservoir and wooded area in Danielson, Connecticut, time went on and nothing materialized. When time ran out, I made an impulsive comment at one of the commissioner’s weekly meetings: “Well, I’m going out there even if we have to live in tents!”
Plans, funding, and promises fell through, and I had to eat my words. Next thing I knew we were calling the National Guard at Camp Dempsey asking to borrow tents. We asked Norwich Hospital to build us some platforms and picnic tables, rented some portable toilets, tapped into a freshwater pipe running along the road, and away we went. Only one major problem loomed: how to feed eighty people three meals a day with nothing but a fire pit. Fortunately, we were able to arrange a meal plan with Danielson’s technical school, otherwise closed for the summer. We transported two meals a day, one on weekends, to the campsite via the Blue Bomber, our antiquated school bus. We handled our own breakfasts and organized weekend cookouts. On Sundays, I cooked eggs for everyone!
With all the enthusiasm of those about to embark on an unknown venture, we sang as we put up the platforms and our tents—two 16-by-32-foot tents for the students, a smaller one each for the Friends’ supervisors, Mr. and Mrs. Paris, and one for Alex and me. By late afternoon we took a break and discovered the beautiful, clear lake. We picked a site overlooking the water for our dining room, a 100-foot-long army tent adjacent to a large, natural pit about 20 yards in diameter. This became our kitchen when we built a rock fireplace in the center. Eventually, we cleared brush, trimmed and cut down trees, and built an amphitheater. This gathering place hosted morning and noontime planning pow-wows and evening campfires. Two days later our families arrived and settled into our new summer tents—one for Alex, Norma, and their three children, Ted, Paula, and Michael, and one for our family of five, which now included our Dalmatian, Polkadot. This was our overall plan for the summer:
Week 1: We would focus on orientation and team building for the staff and Service Corps volunteers, pretesting for the research project, and camp preparations.
Week 2: Twenty “permanent” campers were to arrive, five from each hospital, presumably selected for the purpose of working with us to build the campsite, and stay for the entire summer.
Weeks 3–8: Every two weeks, forty new campers would arrive from the various hospitals, along with a few aides or nurses.
Weeks 9 and 10: The children from the new Children’s Unit at CVH were invited to attend the camp.
Week 11: We would spend a few days of breaking camp and falling from exhaustion.
Most of the patients/campers in the “permanent” group were fairly docile, friendly people, most more than fifty years of age, with diagnoses of chronic schizophrenia and having a variety of bazaar delusions and behaviorisms. Unfortunately, they arrived before we had a lot of our necessities, and I was still running around the state trying to get someone to respond to our requests. In fact, I put almost two thousand miles on my car in those first three weeks, while trying to run the camp and conduct some basic training for the students, who at first were overwhelmed by the variety of symptoms. Looking back, their inexperience actually helped. The student volunteers just ignored the strange behaviors and treated the patients as campers.
Nevertheless, because the days were so busy, our staff meetings usually started at 10 p.m. and lasted for an hour or so. By the end of the third week we were each averaging seventeen-hour workdays. Although I felt personally responsible for the fate of some sixty people, I was neglecting the needs of the students and staff who needed help. Finally, some of the students approached me and said, “We need more time to talk to you about the campers.” So we scheduled a meeting that evening. At midnight we sat at tables in the dining room tent and I began answering questions. At one point, while in the middle of answering a question, I noticed puzzled looks on the students’ faces. I suddenly realized that I was in the middle of a sentence and had no idea what the question was that I was trying to answer. I stopped, apologized, muttered something about being tired, and said I would talk to them in the morning. Shaking, I went back to my tent and woke Eunie. After we talked for a while, Eunie finally offered, “To hell with the department. Stop trying to depend on them. You can’t keep running around the state, beating your head against a stone wall. We’ll make do with what we have.”
The next morning I basically told that to everyone: “What you see is what you got. We all have to pitch in and not depend on the state to get things for us.” That was the turning point. We no longer held out hope of getting supplies and just went about our business building our camp while concentrating on the students, staff, and campers. I abruptly stopped going to Hartford or even making phone calls except to check in. I later learned that the department did not believe that the project was possible and wasn’t about to invest more money than it had to.