Front row: xxx,xxx,xxx,xxx,Brian Graefe, Kevin Hobbs, Mike McBain, Jerry Trehearne
Middle row: Pete Janssen, Laura Ventresca, Sally Runyan, E Lee Roane, Bob Marietta (WOP), Doug Henke, Gary Wilberg, Milt Spathelf, Bob Black, xxx, Dr. Bruce Black, Dottie Runyan, Omer Runyan
Back row: xxx, Carl Stoutamire, xxx, xxx, Tim Loose, Larry Brennan, xxx, Stu Gentry, xxx, xxx, xxx, Jerry Benson
I remember that summer of 1976. Early in the season I started doing "Bicentennial Moments" at lunch. I can't recall which teevee network started them, but all through 1976 one of them included a brief "on this day" type feature with their news. So on the spur of the moment I did one. And another. I did one nearly every day that summer. Lunch was always somewhat informal. Crews were rarely present, unless they had come in early and paid for it. Three days a week a graduating Voyageur class would be present, but generally, lunch was staff only. Since days off started at noon, lunch also had a number of us in less-than-formal Scout wear. If the Director was away, lunch could often degenerate into outright anarchy- as posted some time back in the description of the Baar brothers bear-hugging each other with catsup and mustard bottles... But I digress. We had a collection of historic American flags in the office from the Woodbadge program, I think. During that summer we regularly flew banners other than the fifty star standard.
Bicentennial moment- let's see...
"The birchbark canoe in the Long House next to the Trading post has long been a symbol of the American Indian, made from native material and widely used in these waters for hundreds of years. Early European explorers adopted and adapted it, including the French Voyageurs, trappers and traders who came to this region in the Seventeenth Century. It is not widely known, however, that the Indians made aluminum canoes as well- just like the ones we have in the field! Indian women patiently chewed bauxite until the aluminum could be extracted. This process was tedious. And few canoes ever were made this way. The Indians soon discovered birch bark made a much more successful material for their craft. Remember this, as you paddle out into the lake, and think for a moment of those squaws working for months at a time, wearing their teeth down to nubs, to produce the aluminum necessary for a full-sized canoe.
"And imagine how hard it was to make rivets!"
That's one that I recall- something like that. Most were even sillier."