Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, February 27, 1992 TAG: 9202260206
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: CHRIS GLADDEN STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
ON THE CAMP TUNE TRAIL
IF you have ever sung "Gopher Guts," competed in a greased-watermelon swimming contest or made a bear scare bracelet, Katie Letcher Lyle wants you.Lyle is a Lexington writer and teacher who is researching a book on summer camps and their influence on happy campers for nearly 100 years.
It will cover every aspect of summer camps from dirty jokes heard around the campfire to silly songs and the arts and crafts campers created.
So far, she has gathered information from all across the country except the Pacific Northwest and Texas.
Lyle teaches Appalachian folklore and Southern food ways at a dozen elderhostels a year, and much of her information has come from senior citizens. She's particularly looking for memories of summer camp experiences between 1900 and 1910, though recollections from any period are welcome.
Lyle was originally going to focus the book on camp songs, but she quickly decided to expand it after information on other facets of camping started to trickle in.
"I sent out an eight-page questionnaire to 100 people about camp songs and discovered that songs weren't the most interesting thing. I heard stories about short-sheeting beds, making love in cornfields and sneaking canoes," she says.
According to the American Camping Association, 5 million youngsters go to summer camps a year. They may be church camps, Scout camps, or ritzy and expensive private camps.
They're often named after owners, or bear Indian names or names that sound like Indian words or reflect ideals of the healthy outdoors and camp camaraderie. Names like Camp Hubert, Camp Minnehaha, Camp Mont Shenandoah, Camp Friendship and Camp Sunny Skies. And, of course, there is Camp Granada, immortalized in Alan Sherman's novelty song about the woes of summer camp.
"Camp is only an American experience," Lyle says. "No other country has it. I believe the reason has to do with the gene pool. We came here to escape the dirty cities of Europe. We wanted wide open spaces. We wanted a respite from the cities for our children."
Camps have always had a wholesome aura about them. But "they're not all roses," Lyle says.
"I learned about sex at camp," Lyle says. "Camp was a place where information about sex was passed along. It was the first place you saw nude bodies of people older than you."
Information about the birds and the bees, that first sneaked cigarette or the exchange of naughty jokes or gruesome stories are all part of the camping experience, Lyle says. The stories, songs and jokes may be lessons in life that help young people learn about and cope with such subjects as sex and death.
She discovered several categories of camp songs: among them naughty songs, gross-out songs and boring songs such as "Ninety-nine Bottles of Beer." The latter is so tedious, she believes, that it probably originated as an English drinking song to test the motor skills and memory of the increasingly inebriated singer. She also discovered that camp jokes were as risque 80 years ago as they are today. But some of her sources are reluctant to pass them along.
"People are hesitant to tell them, but they're real period pieces," she says.
The idea for a book on camp songs originated 30 years ago when Lyle was a folk singer in the urban folk revival of the early 1960s. She and a friend discussed doing a book on camp songs. In the ensuing years, however, a number of writing projects were completed before Lyle got around to camps.
She has written several novels, one of which was nominated for a Newbery award and another turned into an HBO movie. One of her short stories will soon be published in "Elvis in Oz," the upcoming anthology of works by graduates of the Hollins writing program.
And she has written two non-fiction books of historical non-fiction. One is "Scalded to Death by the Steam," a book on train wreck songs; the other is "The Man Who Wanted Seven Wives," a study of a West Virginia murder and how it got turned into a ghost story 100 years after the fact.
Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, N.C., published both those books and has agreed to publish the camp book, Lyle says. Meanwhile, she's been busy at her personal computer in her cluttered home office, trying to finish the book by summer. She also intends to travel to the Library of Congress in Washington and to the archives of the American Camping Association in Martinsville, Ind., to complete her research.
Lyle is still looking for camp photographs and the memories of campers everywhere. And it's evident that she has been deeply immersed in her material.
With no prompting whatsoever, Lyle bursts into one of the songs she has gathered:
Did you ever think, when a hearse rolls by,
that you may be the next to die?
They wrap you up in a big white sheet,
And throw you down about 50 feet.
Worms crawl in, the worms crawl out,
The worms play pinochle on your snout . . .
Lyle is looking for all sorts of camp memories and says she will take collect calls if they relate to summer camps. Her number is 463-5439.