The New and the Old

I’m Back!

Camp ends and I take a break from the blog… this is often times not a planned thing (it wasn’t planned this year either); it just happens! From late May till Mid August the blog consumes a big part of my day. To wake up and NOT have to write is somehow delightful to me. It makes the day more special. But then I begin to miss writing my thoughts and the vacation is over.

I plan on taking my camera with me this Fall, to take pictures of what I see and share them with you. Kelly mentioned how lovely camp is in the Fall and I agree. It is the best season of the year but nobody is here to enjoy it! I will try to bring you into the process… it will be fun!

Today I did what I have done every day this month… walked over to the Old Greenville Highway to check on the Vic. You don’t even know about the Vic (I bet). It is a very old two story building on the West side of camp. This is the building that the Kitchen boys live in, and it is kind of scary looking. In the 1890’s (when it was used as a boarding house in Tuxedo) the community turned it into a hospital to care for people who had the flu. Legend has it that 8 people died there! Now do I have your attention?

When you drive out the back of camp on closing day, look to your right… the Vic is there and it never looks all that great. You probably assumed that it had nothing to do with camp, but it is actually pretty important. We have tried to fix it up twice, but each time it was a half hearted attempt. This time we are doing it right.

We have hired a construction company to replace the rotten framing boards, put on new siding, new windows, new roof, new bathroom… the works! It is going to look great.

There are two other buildings on that road that we own… and they are getting the same treatment! The White House used to be where the men staff lived, we moved them to another house (just down the street from the Vic). We named it the MAN-sion. Get it? Nobody lived in the White House last summer, it was just too moldy. We brought in the construction crew and have started repairing it too… tearing everything out and replacing with new wherever needed (and it is needed almost everywhere!!!).

Add it all up, and it is a lot of work. The main road of Tuxedo runs by this area and EVERYONE slows down to watch the progress of the work. We brought in big earth moving equipment to clear the briars and remove some old buildings. Just opening everything up has completely transformed the area. It now looks more like a park than anything else. New grass is growing and the Vic is getting put back together slowly. Suddenly, this part of camp is nice. People WANT to live out there… I think that God is honored by this work.

Every day, all year long, we improve the land. We fix buildings, we add landscaping, we prune trees, we pull briars, kill poison ivy, and take joy in the result of the work. Camp used to be an industrial site… back around the turn of the century (1900) it was a brick yard. The slimy clay that forms the bottom of the lake made for good bricks! There was also a big corn field and some old houses. Dr. Sevier tore some houses down, repaired others (the hostess cabin, my house, and Whitehall), built some new buildings (the dining hall and pavilion), and brought in salvaged buildings from another place (the tentalows).

This work was never completed, every year he found many things to repair and many ways to improve the way camp worked. He added water lines, power lines, roads, paths, walls, steps, huts, and so forth. When Dr. Sevier died, Gigi (my grandmother) took over. Then my parents, and then Margaret and me.

You might enjoy seeing the progress this winter. I will give you an inside look… I hope it is fun!

Jimboy