So good it has to be bad for you

After a week of mess hall food, take out pizza was manna from heaven. Who wants a slice of Trotta's?

Click the menu to enlarge it.

You can visit their website and take some home tonight.

http://trottaspizza.com/

Happy Eating

Bob

...and to have everyone in our Fort Scott Family...

Legacy

I was thinking today about how Fort Scott was not only a family place, but families came and worked there, and some marriages got their start there as well. It would be interesting to find out how the percentages of families working at say Proctor and Gamble, would have compared to the families that came through Fort Scott. I have no doubt that the Fort Scott Families had a far greater positive impact on the campers, staff and parents than you could find anywhere else.

I don’t know of very many marriages, but let me list them and maybe all of you can help fill in the blanks:

1. Tim and Ellen (Hilliard ) Buell ( I miss you old buddy)
2. John and Carolyn (Schmidt) Farmer
3. Mike and Heidi (Theobald) Strong
4. Terry and Pam (Gray) Fazenbaker
5. Mark and JoAnne (Wolf?) Maxwell

I know there are dozens more, they just don’t come to mind right now.

Here is a list of all the families I can remember, and I definitely need help with the names:

1. Mark Maxwell, JoAnne Maxwell, Lynn Wolf
2. Tom, MaryAnne, and Laura Beiting
3. Steve, Ted, Carol, and Sue Leonard
4. Bernard, Steve, and Kathy Sinchek
5. Doc Schroeder and his nephew….?
6. Katie, Steve, and Sandy Ratterman
7. Rose, Stephanie, and Jessica Vesper
8. Eric and Evan Frayer
9. Mike and Jeff Kirschner
10. Sarah Oswald, and her brother….
11. Ed Shannon and his family
12. John, Richard and George Stenger
13. Terry and Mark Fazenbaker
14. Megan and Ian Jones
15. Missy and Trip Edwards
16. Bill, Kay, and Karen Morrisey
17. Pat, Ed and Tom Fairbanks


*****Note: if anyone does not want their name to appear on this blog, please contact me and I will remove it immediately******

1st Milestone

Milestone

We passed the 1000 page load mark yesterday. I wish I had a way to tell which person was our lucky #1000, but I will just say thanks to everyone who has stopped by so far.

As I said in my letter to Don Koehler, a conservative estimate would be that there are 40,000 people out there who have been touched by Fort Scott. Hopefully most of them have fond memories of our beloved camp. I would be nice to hear from many more of them. Please spread the word.

Bob

The heat index is 105

Anybody Thirsty?

Warning: This Entry is a Rant

I drove by camp yesterday. In retrospect, I wish that I had not. I have been avoiding going by since I knew that they were going to develop the property into a subdivision.

It’s not like I was going to get overly emotional when I saw what was happening. Camp is gone, we all know that. But I regret what it has become.

I used to brag that I could find my way around the property blindfolded. Yesterday, I was not sure that I could even place where the Gatehouse had stood.

The corral is gone, and so is the forest that had been planted near it.

We all saw the pictures from Joe Wessel’s Blog showing the local fire department burning down the Girls Lodge.

The pond that the previous owner had built is gone, and the front hill has been re graded.

All that we knew and loved has been removed.

The sad irony of it all is that the developer chose to keep the name Fort Scott.

The grounds are nothing but a bunch of mid price houses and cul-de-sacs now. I always flinch when a developer announces a new subdivision and they call it something like “The Oaks” or “Settler’s Walk” or “Deer Creek”, and brag about the natural setting and walking trails. What is natural about asphalt and manicured lawns? The only way a deer would be seen there was if it got lost.

I did not drive down the streets.

I think I would have been sickened to see Schroeder Way, or Pottenger’s Lane.

If there is one bright spot in all of this, it has strengthened my resolve to preserve what is left. And I will confess that I don’t do this for my kids, or for posterity, or even for you, the person that might be reading this rant right now. I do this for me.

Fort Scott was sacred a sacred place for me. Some of my happiest memories of my youth originate at Fort Scott. I never had a job where I made less money, but that brought more joy and happiness into my life.

Long Live Fort Scott

Bob

I probably shot down a thousand airplanes that day.

I crawled through mud, and dirt, and straw, and of course horse manure. I rode a broom everywhere I went, and had to know the correct knots to tie my "horse" to a railing or tree or something when we went in to eat.

We had to have demonstrated our ability to ride, or at least not fall off or panic when the horse decided to be contrary.

We helped saddle. We helped feed and clean the stalls. We helped the counselors with program. We worked our butts off.

Finally, on awards night, we got called down to the pool apron and received our patch and got to sing the Cavalier Anthem.

As a camper, this was one of the best nights of my life.

I wish I could find that patch.

Blood on the saddle

Blood on the ground

Great big puddles of blood all around

Pity the cowboy

Bloody and Red

the old cow pony

done stomped on his head.

Did they do this in the girls camp?

Have a great weekend

Bob

We called it Warball

All you needed was an asphalt tennis court, about 40 teen aged boys, a dozen or so half inflated volleyballs, and a ton of testosterone.

Add to that some counselors that had a warped sense of humor, and the game became a game of shirts and skins.

Add to that a lot of sunshine, and suddenly, both teams were laying on their backs, on the hot asphalt, behind the baseline, waiting for the counselors to count off "1-2-3 Warball"!

To my knowledge, noboday ever got seriously injured playing,maybe a skinned knee, or a little overheated. There was that one time that the kid wasn't looking and stepped right in front of a ball and literally got knocked out, but we dont count that really. Do we?

The bottom line is that WE LOVED THIS GAME, to the point of taking parts in tournements in the evenings, and playing it again on open program Saturdays.

Who thinks we could play this game today?