Camp Conestoga

Camp Conestoga is a Boy Scout Camp located near Bakersville in southwestern Pennsylvania. When I was a teen, I went with the other youth from our Scout troop to summer camp. It was a bit primitive. We slept on cots inside canvas tents, two “men” to a tent. There was a mess hall with long tables and benches. Meals were served mostly “family style.” Food was passed hand to hand in deep dishes. Each person served themselves. There were toilet and shower facilities. Hot water was one luxury I was glad that they had.

My father decided I needed a haircut before I went, telling our barber, (Uncle Charles) that I was to have a crew cut. I’d never had close cropped hair before and haven’t had one since (other than the buzz cut required when I joined the United States Navy in boot camp.) There must be something about camps and short hair.

I have an odd shaped head and I hated the crew cut. Before I went to Camp, I wore a baseball cap or a ski cap stuck on my head. At Camp I wore my Scout cap as much as possible. I believe that today I wear a hat when I go out because of that childhood “trauma.” The brim of a ball cap also keeps the sun out of my eyes and the rain from spattering my glasses.

Several memorable events happened that I remember. Some local entrepreneurs would walk into the camp selling donuts. They carried the donuts on canes. They slid donuts through the holes making them easy to carry. Extra food at camp was wonderful and dangerous to hide in your luggage. One guy smuggled in bananas. Who knew that skunks loved bananas too?

One scout slept soundly. His snoring sounded like a freight train, disturbing several scouts in nearby tents. They waited until he was sound asleep, then like pall bearers, with one at each corner of his cot, lifted it out of the tent and carried it to an adjacent field. There they abandoned him and his cot. The next morning he was back inside his tent, but four fresh furrows in the grass marked the trail that the legs of his cot being dragged back to his tent.

Evening campfires and skits were late evening entertainment, with each group of scouts being responsible for different skits. Two I can remember were Peanuts, the elephant and another where several scouts would run in apparent terror yelling, “The viper is coming. The viper is coming.” The last scout would enter holding a roll of toilet paper over his head with a paper tail waving behind.