What would camping be without mosquitoes, spiders, frogs, and other creepy crawlies? There were numerous tales of bites and sightings that scared little girls to death, especially in the dark, as they walked to use the “Brownie”.
Marsha Immerman can still smell the “612” insect repellent from the forties’ and fifties’. Sisters Marcia and Kathleen Dworman used to count each other’s mosquito bites in the sixties’. “The mosquitoes bit me all night long, since my bed was right near the screen that had holes in it. I would hide under my sleeping bag, get hot, crawl out, get bit and then hide under it again,” said Kathleen.
“I was eaten alive by mosquitoes,” said Maggie Young, who camped in the sixties’and seventies’ and went home looking like she had chicken pox, since she could not leave them alone. Julie Richardson (1966-68) was allergic to them and would have welts all over her body, but it did not stop her from campfires.
Janet Gehres was the camp nurse in 1961 and felt bad when she led the girls into a swampy area playing hide and go seek. ‘We came back with mosquito bites all over our behinds!”
“We would play capture the flag in the woods and come out itching from poison Sumac. There were mosquito bites and earaches, but that never stopped us from loving the times there. I remember one year we all switched from “Off” to “Cutters” insect repellent. My frames and glasses melted when the Cutters spray got on it. I couldn’t see out of my lenses,” laughed Julie Bernard (1970-78).
There were mosquitoes everywhere and Carrie Norris (1972-73) said she went through so many cans of “Off” that she is quite sure the repellent has caused damage to her. And she was not wild about the spiders, either—nor were many girls!
Andrea Gale (1970-74) admitted she had a deathly fear of spiders and would scream when the Daddy Longlegs were in her cabin. She was not one of the girls to venture out in the middle of the night, for fear of finding them, but she remembered the counselor accompanying the brave girls by flashlight.
But, there were a few brave spider girls, who named their hut (10) “Spider’s Paradise” in 1950 and the initiation to that hut was to hold a spider for five minutes.
The “Loon” in 1951 noted one hut formed a Spider Club. Their initiation was to pick up two spiders and touch three others in the span of three days. “If you have three offenses, you are out of the club” and their saying was “Everybody’s got to go sometime.”
Frogs and toads held a particular aversion to many campers. Penny Mitchell (1951-54) ventured out on “Fright Night”. “I was in the cabin that was supposed to pick up the toads, so I lifted up the back of the canoes and there was muck under there, and I found the toads, but came back with leeches all over my feet. I think we poured salt over them, but I remember scraping my legs and feet on the edge of the metal bunk beds to get those blood suckers off. I had trouble sleeping that night.”
“One year I was appointed the person responsible for the cleanliness of our cabin. I was on the floor in Senior Village doing my check. I pulled a quilt back under the bed and there was a giant toad covered in dust bunnies that had obviously been there awhile. It started a lifelong phobia of toads,” laughed Nancy Weber (1962). “I literally live in a swam here and it is the cosmic joke that I abide with amphibians. I garden now and I love that I can identify where my phobia began, as I holler to the toads to get out of the way.”
Other girls played with the tiny frogs by the water’s edge, but Susan Rawlings’ “bad thing with frogs” in Florida had its origins at camp in the fifties’. “Frogs always seemed to be jumping on me. I tried to think why I was so upset by this and I remembered a camp experience. I was in a cabin with so many girls with the name Sue, ao they told me I should be called Margie, since I was Margaret Susan. That wasn’t a great thing for me to be called by a name I didn’t use, but then a frog got in our cabin and I was trying to get away and I inadvertently stepped on it and killed it. Well, my cabin mates didn’t talk to me for days. They were so upset because they thought I did it on purpose. I would zone out if things got uncomfortable and I still do in life,” she admitted.
What were your adventures with creepy crawlies at camp?