Today we remember D-Day, the heroic effort that signaled the end of World War II in Europe. It is also my father's birthday - he would have been 107! This picture of him dates from the early 1970s. He died in 1984.
His younger brother Vic, a West Point paratrooper, jumped into Normandy 77 years ago today.
I wrote this post in honor of my father and his brothers Vic and Dom.
The picture to the right shows the brothers Campana - Dom, John, and Vic with my mother Ruth. It must be from the late 1960s.
Here goes:
I clearly recall seeing the White Mountains of New Hampshire. For a young boy from Long Island, NY (with its towering hills soaring to 400 feet), the sight of Mt. Washington, the highest mountain in the Northeast at 6,288 feet, conjured images of Mt. Everest or Mt. McKinley from the pages of National Geographic. It was the summer of 1957 and my mother Ruth was driving our Ford Fairlane full of children – me, my older sister Ellen and younger sister Ann – to see my father John, who ran the Bretton Woods Caddy Camp on U.S. Route 302, within sight of the iconic Mt. Washington Hotel, the site of the famous Bretton Woods monetary conference in 1944.
My father spent his summers working at camps to earn money. During the school year he taught at Erasmus Hall High School in Brooklyn, NY, the second-oldest high school in the USA. Dad was a native of Boston and proud to have graduated from the USA’s oldest high school and oldest college – Boston Latin School and Harvard, respectively. He was terribly bright and an athlete as well. Although small in stature he excelled at baseball (shortstop and pitcher) and ice hockey (right wing). But golf was his passion and training young men to serve golfers was a labor of love. Before the BWCC he directed the caddy camp at the Balsams Resort in Dixville Notch, NH.
The campers came mainly from the greater Boston area and towns around New Hampshire, Maine and Vermont. They spent their summers earning money and getting a healthy dose of that crisp New Hampshire air. On their days off they would hitch-hike to some of the may scenic areas, climb some of the mountains or earn extra money by working at the hotels washing dishes, pans, etc.
One of their great pastimes was competing against other camps in the area. A favorite opponent was the Maplewood Caddy Camp, about 15 miles west on U.S. Route 302, which served the Maplewood Hotel and golf course. The MCC was operated by the North Bennet Street Industrial School (NBSIS; the ‘Industrial’ has since been dropped) a craft, trade and industrial arts school in Boston’s heavily Italian-American North End. The camp’s director was John T. Dexter, universally known to his campers as ‘Mr. D’ or simply ‘D’. He and my father were good friends and my father enjoyed the trips to see ‘D’ and visit the MCC.
I learned that summer that my father enjoyed those MCC visits so much because they were like trips back to his youth. John P. Campana was a caddy at the MCC during the late 1920s-early 1930s. Not only did he caddy there but so did his brothers, Victor and Dom. I never spoke with my uncles about their experiences but did so with my father. I suspect that they would have told me the same. For one thing MCC got them out of the city, expanding their horizons. Although many of the campers were from the North End, not all were. But all learned the value of hard work, doing a good job even if you didn’t feel like it, working under unpleasant conditions (e.g., caddying in pouring rain), getting along with those you did not especially want to know. Other characteristics? Honesty. Frugality. Teamwork. Friendship. Loyalty. Honor.
The three Campana brothers learned their lessons well. Dom went to college and had a successful career. Vic graduated from West Point and became a paratrooper. He jumped into Normandy on D-Day. He retired as a lieutenant colonel and then began a career as a high-school teacher. John left the Boston area and for 36 years was a New York City high-school teacher and administrator. Their sons went to caddy camp as well. Dom’s son Ken was at Bretton Woods with my father, and would have a long career as a meteorologist with the National Weather Service after earning a Master’s degree from MIT. Uncle Vic’s son Victor Jr. (aka ‘Cubby’) would follow in his father’s footsteps as well.
As for yours truly, one 1957 summer day in New Hampshire, Mr. D asked my father if I would like to become a camper. I jumped at the chance and started a 10-year caddy camp career: 6 years as a camper and 4 years as a counselor. Half those summers were at MCC, but in summer 1963 MCC ceased to exist because the Maplewood Hotel burned to the ground that winter. So the NBSIS moved the caddy camp to Cape Cod to service golfers at Clauson’s Resort (now the Cape Cod Country Club). Quite a change from the White Mountains, but it was hard to beat those year-end New England clambakes!
The camp experience meant as much to me, if not more, than it did to my father and uncles. Why? My mother Ruth Emerson and my father met in New Hampshire in 1941. My father again worked summers, this time as a golf instructor at the Maplewood Hotel’s golf course. My mother, a North Carolina schoolteacher, had a summer job as a waitperson in the Maplewood Hotel’s dining room. They met and had their first date on Bastille Day (14 July) at Parker’s Drug Store in Bethlehem.
The NBSIS caddy camps no longer exist. It’s sad. When I told my wife Mary Frances about my camp adventures she was incredulous. She had never heard of such a thing and could not believe someone had the foresight and wisdom to create such an experience for boys. It is hard to explain to the uninitiated how enriched my life has been but for the existence of the camps and the friendships they fostered. Although I am now on the other side of the USA (Oregon) it matters not one whit. I’ll hop on a plane to attend the reunions we now hold. The boys with whom I worked – Frank Colvario, Peter Xeller, Guy Battista, Tony Wozniak, Rick Bellitti, and many others – greet me as a dear friend. They are likely unaware of how much they affected my life.
As I embark on life’s 18th fairway, I can feel the bags of Sam Chase and Herb Kaplan (two of my favorite golfers at Clauson’s) weighing on my shoulders. Wouldn’t trade that sensation for anything.
Michael E. Campana is a professor at Oregon State University in Corvallis, OR. He attended the Maplewood camp from 1958 through 1962 and Clauson’s from 1963 through 1967. He failed to inherit his father’s talent/love for golf and doubts he could carry doubles with the Chase and Kaplan bags for one hole, much less 18.
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