West Chazy Campground-Observance Present, Memories Past

DFH Volume 1 Issue 24

Continued from Vol 1 Issue 23

By Camilla [Dayton] Luckey, daughter Of Rev. Charles and Josephine Dayton.

Gerald Ralph was there, old guard and “extended family”— his mother was sister of Charles Dayton’s first wife, Gladys MacDonald, making him cousin of Izzie Hayes. Gerald was putting vinyl siding over the wood siding my Dad and I long ago salvaged from Chazy’s Miner (Minor?) Institute as it was being razed, early ‘60’s (same era as the cement block frenzy began; same era as my dad built that whole row of four or five cottages). The oak flooring throughout the Ralph cottage is still tight and gorgeous. I remember helping lay it. Gerald has changed the windows to vinyl and added an interior partition. He even has installed a hood above the stove!

Gerald stopped for a break, and we enjoyed a leisurely chat about various Daytons and about campground changes. Gerald told me about the Baptist youth group, I believe numbering a few hundred, that rents the grounds for a week or so annually. The kids are quite the “Jesus Group,” he says.  Sounds to me they are what everyone wished my generation to be.  Gerald and I also talked about Gerald’s fabulous collection of vintage woodworking hand tools and his and Carol’s recent move from Corinth to a Queensbury condo. They spend a lot of the summer season on the campground. “It’s home,” he said. They’ve had the cottage for more than forty years, first owners.

Carol was antiquing in Canada with Beth and Amy until Sunday morning, when I caught her in her bathrobe on my last lope, my third that morning, ‘round  the grounds, looking and listening for sounds of people stirring so I could say good-bye before my own departure. There were lights and sounds (these cottages aren’t soundproof) at the Ralph’s. Carol had been awake for hours, she said, but just relaxing in bed, where Gerald serves her coffee every morning!. My intended five-minute chat became a two-hour heart-to-heart; I was her flower-girl in the ‘fifties.

Saturday afternoon I slipped into the tabernacle, closed but not locked. I sat for a while on the platform steps. They seemed in the exact same place, maybe even the same steps, as in the former tabernacle, the one that collapsed under a heavy snow and was rebuilt as The Charkas Dayton Tabernacle in 1970(?). Lots to remember, lots to regret, lots to wish to re-live. Then I worked out a little minor-key melody on the old upright (piano), right next to a timepiece organ (surely not the Stevenson original?!), and finally I dared stand at the pulpit to pray and pretend. Lots of noise in those rafters and that metal roof when the place is empty, and the trees fan the wind. Of course it wasn’t really empty!

Chow Line at Old Dining Hall in early 950’s

The dining hall was closed except for the men on retreat, so I bought a terrific country breakfast at Guma’s, a sort-of-new (new to me) local restaurant on the edge of town and a fave for campers.  Best raspberry jam I’ve ever tasted. I assumed Guma’s was empty, as I walked in at seven a.m. Mine was the only car in the front parking lot and I didn’t know there was another lot at the side. So I was extremely startled when I heard “Cammie! Come join us!” Whoa! Where’s the ghost? And who would immediately recognize me after decades of absence?  But the voice was Phil Hunter’s. He and the campmeeting association president were seated, nearly hidden, in the corner booth. After introductions we three embarked on a conversation so engaging my eggs were cold before I touched them Truthfully, I don’t think we really did finish the conversation, just put it on pause. That’s what I hope.  I can hardly wait for more. The subject was holiness camps and the Holy Spirit. No chitchat breakfast, that one!  I liked both guys and I am pretty sure the new president liked me. He certainly seemed to enjoy our discussion. He is relatively new to West Chazy camp life. His name is Paul Robar.

As you exit the campground, if you turn your head left  (as a driver always should, before turning right) you can see, looming large, a silver silo with … ears?…propellers?…antennae for receiving  messages direct from heaven? No!….there’s a newly built windfarm on yon hill, in the direction of Altona!!

Other than that, the whole area seems as economically depressed as ever, except for the deservedly popular Guma. But the fields and hedgerows are heaven if you love native plants.

Old, Original Tabernacle

The cow creek (remember the swimming hole in the back pasture?) has shifted course a little and has filled in quite a bit. I can’t imagine Bud Hewitt, nephew of Reginald and childless Jo, taking a dive, as I once saw him do. I think Dad dared him. They use the creek for baptisms now. Looks to me they’d have to prostrate themselves to get their bellies under! And they mow to the creek! The place is packed with lovely buzzing creatures, a few flowers and ferns that look to be on steroids, so rich and free.

Shirley Pauling (in his 90s and, as mentioned above, owner of Dad’s fireplace cottage near the tabernacle, between the Seaman and Stevenson cottages) is the association volunteer who mows the “back forty,” the former cow pasture that stretches to the creek. He has an eye—beautiful job, nice balance between mown grass and waving wildness. We must remember, of course, it was the time of the annual men’s retreat, so the grounds were what is probably unusually spiffy. (Meaning: freshly mown.) I hope the Paulings eventually offer Dad’s cottage to me. I have no idea how much they paid or to whom. Or why they chose my dad’s! I told Shirley Pauling,  perhaps not wisely, of the night the priest at St. Joseph’s (across street) noticed a car convoy slowly rolling, lights out, down the campground road beside the dining hall. The priest, good neighbor, called the cops. But by the cops’ arrival the crowd of kids already in the attic of my dad’s cottage was heavy enough that some kids downstairs heard a rafter crack, I learned later. It could have been a catastrophe.

Anyway, before the dissolution of Wesleyan ownership several years ago, long before the association’s re-organization,  I, not being Wesleyan, was not allowed to own, either through inheritance or purchase. How things have changed! This summer I recognized approximately half the cottage names. I wonder, how many are still Wesleyan? The president of the board is not Wesleyan. This year’s men’s retreat speaker was. And the Charles Dayton Tabernacle no longer has pews but cushy, stackable chairs!!

“Everybody” was kind enough to welcome me, a non-member never mind a non-man, at the Saturday night end-of-retreat campfire. Imagine, a crackling, ember-tossing open fire right under those trees!  And my dad was the pyromaniac?! It was a beautiful stacked-stone pit with a Scout-worthy blaze, located midway between the Perry Motel and the kiddie tabernacle area. That area is now furnished with various genuine playground equipment, gone the stony sandpile and its few rusty toy trucks.

Many Dayton readers won’t see much that is immediately personal or relevant in this West Chazy report. Never mind; I didn’t write it for you but for your grandchildren and my own.

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West Chazy Campground–Observance Present, Memories Past

DFH Volume 1 Issue 23

By Camilla [Dayton] Luckey, daughter of Rev. Charles and Josephine Dayton.

AUGUST 2019:   It was my high school 50th— Beekmantown Central, the sprawling, district school a few miles south of West Chazy on Rte. 22. Yes, class of ‘69, summer of love, Age of Aquarius, Woodstock. My class! Maybe I’ll get to my part of that story later.  

Joyce Timpson Schauer, lifelong friend from Corinth, had mentioned that Norma, her sister, spends lots of time in West Chazy these days. Norma stays on the campground, I believe with Lori, John’s widow, who has Uncle Paul’s cottage. It occurred to me that if I were to attend my Class of ‘69 reunion I might as well pay the campmeeting association instead of LaQuinta, if, that is, the new campmeeting association would allow. They would.  Phil Hunter, of that long-faithful Glens Falls family, was my contact, suggested by Norma. Phil seems to be the official groundskeeper, although association members share never-ending tasks such as leaf-raking and roof repair; there are prices to be paid for that glorious old-tree canopy.

I stayed at the Perry “Motel,” built in the sixties-seventies cement-block frenzy that followed whatever year it was that my dad’s autumnal leaf burning ritual—a solo task that year—turned disastrous. One of his several simultaneously burning piles of leaves (he was always a person to multi-task) turned to embers the dorm and two or three cottages that directly faced the tabernacle. In those days, towering shade trees, heavy with leaves, graced the now bare, blistering lawn today used more for parking rather than for picnics.  The century-old wooden dorm and cottages were tinder boxes. Dry leaves had collected underneath and lay there, waiting.  I remember the afternoon but not the year. I know from other afternoons the crafty, peek-a-boo glint of those sparkly orange snakes as they try to curl their way onto the route and destination of their own choice That day they succeeded, and the campgrounds were forever changed.

The Perry “Motel” was built for tabernacle access, like the wooden dorm it replaced, but the Perry is sited at one side, not the front, of the main tabernacle (Charles Dayton Tabernacle) and is equally close to the Missionary Tabernacle, sometimes called the Ladies’ Tabernacle.

The Perry is located approximately where stood what I believe was the Hewitt cottage, the one with the friendly screened-in front porch, the one that should perhaps be intentionally typo’d ‘perch.’ The Hewitt cottage was heart and center of the campground, a watchman’s perfect tower or a gossip’s paradise. Every flow of pedestrian or vehicular traffic was visible and, it seemed, every passerby’s conversation or crunch of gravel was clearly audible. Jo Hewitt’s porch rocker was probably closer to the tabernacle pulpit than was the back row of tabernacle pews, and Jo was anything but a gossip. She was a person of fewer-than-few words and a perfect person to overhear material that needed to be lifted in prayer. She, widow of Rev. Reginald Hewitt, conference president who preceded my father, was a watchman who had suffered much. Reginald had died in 1961(?) in a flaming car crash only a few minutes from West Chazy camp, his destination. My own last memory of the quiet Mrs. Hewitt—remarkable to a child (and to me even as a young adult) for her veined apple-red cheeks and cute little apple-shaped body bestowed dignity by a permanently flawless French chignon and super thick rimless spectacles—was my mother greeting Mrs. Hewitt the summer after Mrs. Hewitt had just endured a winter of chemotherapy. Mrs. Hewitt nodded, not speaking aloud, her cheeks still rosy with red spider veins set now upon a palette of pea greens. Her chignon, maybe a bit thinner, was unchanged. My mother held her horror till we’d passed from earshot. My mother didn’t know, of course, that only a few summers later she herself would have her own pea green chemo pallor.

The Perry, as of 2019, is twenty bucks a night.  It’s a little rough but the water’s hot, the sheets clean, very few spiders (nothing worse!), and there were two bottles of water as well as a souvenir frig magnet in my welcome packet. And air conditioning!  Alas, to have AC, a window unit, meant the sole window was sealed, at least it could not be opened (!), and thus I could not enjoy the melodious sweet summer breezes which I believe are the campground’s hallmark natural beauty, a glory of the leafy trees.

Those fabulous trees are losing the battle to practicality  “Fire and ice” prudent board members have forever intoned, understandably. That’s a lot of leaves to rake. Fires are a proven danger.  Just read the above paragraphs! And who will pay for the roof when age or ice brings down a limb from one of these high and mighty beauties? and the roof moss!! I note that several cottages have been given shiny metal roofs, including my dad’s cottage that Shirley Pauling now owns. Cottages that have been let go, and there are several, belong on movie sets, romantically covered and drooping from pretty, green decay. Nevertheless, if you, dear reader, are looking at these lines  “in future years” and the pragmatists have won and the entire campground is scalped to a silent but easily mown-and-raked grass green, not moss green, with no standing timber.  Be aware that there was another time, a time when Mother Nature (and the Atwood family, local farmers) gifted West Chazy with a sanctuary much bigger than the cement-block tabernacle interior and naked front yard. There was a place where the psalmist would have felt at home, where Nature’s praises of her Creator were in glorious concert. There are just enough trees and just enough space between them to make beautiful worship music, as well as problems.

I was given, besides my Perry key, which I never used, and two water bottles and a frig magnet and registration form, a standardized and very general “holiness” statement requiring my signature. It was so general it presented no problems. Anyway, who doesn’t want holiness?  It’s just the type of lifestyle that puts ten-year-old girls into garters that I find problematic!

 Anyway, the entire experience felt very strange and very precious on counts too numerous to give in detail. One I will mention: the continuity of some of the population.

(to be continued next month—November 2019, Vol 1 Issue 24)

Do You Remember This Building or the Surrounding Buildings? Answer

DFH Volume 1 Issue 12

Last week I asked you if you remembered this building.  I think probably only those born before 1960 would remember it.  The tabernacle was rebuilt by the time that most of us attended there, but it was similar enough to the old one that most of us knew what it is.  It is the West Chazy Champlain District Tabernacle located in West Chazy, New York. The following description of the campground came from the Sun, Jan. 12, 2008, WEST CHAZY “Since the turn of the last century, the Wesleyan Bible Camp has been a fixture in West Chazy. However, mounting finances and decreasing revenue have put the camp in danger of closing permanently. The camp, which was first established in its current location in 1901, consists of 145 private cottage sites, three dormitories, a tabernacle, dining hall, 16-room motel, maintenance directors residence, and 24 campsites spread over nearly 35 acres off West Church Street.”  I’m nearly certain that the campground actually dates to about the 1870’s.  Most of you attended there summer after summer but have amnesia when it comes to remembrances which others would enjoy hearing about.  Three of you have sent me some of your fond memories. Here are some of the favorites.

Priscilla recalls

• standing by the open window in the girls’ dorm bathroom and hearing Keith play the piano in the nearby Youth Tabernacle.  I remembered how he played the previous year and very distinctly remember thinking, “Hmm.. the Tyler boy is coming along pretty well with his playing…must’ve practiced a lot this year.” I had no idea we would end up together.  (Keith and Priscilla were married in 1979.  Keith passed away in 2007).
• wondering if Dorrie Lamos ever did anything else at West Chazy besides play the organ or piano for services. She was so faithful, always there to play for EVERY service. I’m sure her husband was there, too, but mostly I remember her always in position.
• me trying not to touch anything in the ladies’ shower- it looked so gross from age and many months of non-use between camps although I know someone spent time scrubbing for the next season.
• watching for UFOs because it seemed like such a logical place for one to be.
• trying desperately to keep my eyes open during marathon meetings.
• trying to get away with something—anything…!
• hearing a little camper excitedly shout, “Look at the birdie!” as Robin Mattoon and I (Crusaders counselors) laughed and pulled the blankets over our heads because the bird was a bat and was flying around the dormitory.
• wondering if the world was going to end when I went to bed… 1967, the 6-day War—is this IT?!
• being on the 2nd floor of the Crusader dorm when a huge airplane skimmed the top of the trees. It was deafening!.
• checking out the merchandise at the “book store” in the tabernacle (now I manage a Christian book store at church).
• the day Dad was trapped under a lumber pile at the sawmill and The Hayes family came to the rescue….  I could go on and on, but I guess I have already.

Judy Dayton recalls

• Listening to the metal box springs at night.
• Peeking through the knot holes into the room next door.
• Best hot dogs ever.
• Listening to an etiquette “sermon” by Aunt Jo in the missionary tabernacle.
• Having to wear dresses all the time (no gym wear).
• Walking the back lanes of the camp grounds where there was no lighting holding hands.
• Sleeping over the dining hall….wondering what to do if there was a fire.
• Listening for the dinner bell…Pavlov’s dog training.
• Looking over my shoulder to see what relative was watching me and reporting to my parents.
• Going to the mail window to get any cards from home.

Jim Dayton recalls

Good, Good memories.  Memories that, in a small way, gave me some spiritual roots I have cherished for my lifetime.  I wouldn’t trade these memories.  I suspect you feel this way too. Why not join in the conversation?  After all, they’re our memories too.

• Taking up residence in the unfinished boy’s dorm; the walls were half finished concrete block walls (about four feet high) and the roof was the starry sky.
• Marching from the West Chazy tabernacle to the West Chazy church to attend bible school [see photo above]
• “Dating” girls and holding hands during the evening service.  Then buying them a hot dog and coke at the snack bar— with sticky fly paper everywhere above the food and ice cream
• Going to St. Armand beach and hoping we would see a French Canadian in a bikini (this was the 1950’s).
• What counselor, in his or her “right mind” would take 50 to 100 kids on a mountain climb to a summit, where, if you walked a very short distance, to the eastern side, you could climb back down the mountain with one step?
• US Air Force 8-engine B-52 strategic bombers [armed with a nuclear payload] flew directly over the tabernacle in the direct flight path to Plattsburgh Air Base. They were flying at perhaps 500 ft over the tree tops.  It was cool when it would disrupt the evening evangelistic service with a sound so deafening it had the potential to permanently damage your hearing.
• Trying to find a dark place after the evening service where you could attempt to kiss your date. The campground had a militia that walked around with flashlights to prevent that very thing.  Rev. “stubby fingers” led the posse, and Rev. Ed “the peeker” Elliott was a pretty good hunter too.  I don’t remember the rest, but they had so many hunters that we kids didn’t stand a chance.
• One year, rumors started to circulate among the younger kids that I had signed a contract with the New York Mets.
• Trying to “score a date” with the coolest of the camp meeting girls.
• Jackie Tyler and Mary Jane Murray wearing baseball gloves on their heads to the evening evangelistic service.
• Dorrie Lamos playing the organ.
• Carl Timpson playing a musical solo on the saw.
• The bookstore in the tabernacle
• Getting your meal ticket punched by Rev. “Stubby fingers” Chapman
• Fund raising by uncle Chop during the service with public financial pledge commitments from the floor. “Dayton Brothers will give $1,000” brought gasps all over the congregation.
• Saturday night was “Sunday School night” during the evening service.  It was “Statistics evening” and I loved stats…I still do. (Glens Falls had highest average attendance at X, with Corinth finishing at Y….rats, we’ll beat ‘em next year)
• Sneaking out during the Sunday Ordination service to be first in the outrageously long dining hall line (always Turkey).
• Buttering the toast with a paint brush.
• Gary Tyler, Rich Cook, Dwight Hayes and a fourth, in a very good quartet singing Down by the River Side.
• Roger Rounds, a teen evangelist with muscles bulging from one end of the platform to the other end— (A “wannabe” Arnold Schwarzenegger)
• Don Klob – a pastor with a heart for youth and a very good man.
• Rev. Ed “the Peeker” Elliott who never shut his eyes during prayer.
• Rev. Howard Chapman’s VW pickup, the envy of all young boys
• My heart throbbing over Judy Potter who was too popular (and uppity) to date me. She’s been my soul mate for 55 years and my wife for 51 years.  Thank you, West Chazy, for Judy Potter.
• Teens vs. Preachers softball games in a cow pasture.
• Dirt poor, dedicated pastors with hearts of gold.
• “thou shalt not’s”  seemed to be the theme of every camp meeting.
• Sword Drills…a race to be the first to find a bible verse and read it.
• Praise ye, the lord, hallelujah.  During the evening service we played calisthenics.  Now that I look back on it, I cannot believe that grownups, did that during a church service.  It certainly seems like trivializing worship.
• Shouts of “Amen” or “Praise the Lord” or “well, glory” during the service.
• Scary altar calls with “tarrying”, “just one more verse”,  “with every eye closed raise your hand.” Altar call theme songs: ”Just as I am” and “Lord, I’m Coming home”.
• Dirt floors, with wood shavings over the dirt to keep down the dust and dirtiness, and you were still expected to kneel.
• Rev. Charles Alexander Dayton standing tall in the pulpit.
• Trying 24×7 to get away with something.
• “I’m in the Lord’s Army” with hand and body motions.
• Good food in the dining hall.
• Bare naked men in the public restroom…there were two shower’s which were just shower heads mounted on the wall…no curtains or anything.  We boys stayed dirty for two weeks.
• My dad ‘s largest cottage  located on “Board walk” (near Mediterranean Ave).
• Doc Steven’s “mansion” including a TV.
• Missionaries displaying poison dart blow guns, and 20-foot snake skins.
• You knew you were at the end of a missionary slideshow because the sunset picture appears on the screen (sometimes you were glad and sometimes you wanted more)
• “chalk artists” drawing the abracadabra black light sunset scenes during the offertory.
• Youth night choir and youth dress up.  I got to wear my red sports jacket!
• Accordions galore.
• Dormitory pillow fights.
• A knot hole in the floor of the boy’s dorm.  We poured sand on the bunk bed below.
• Pauline Streeter…the camp meeting nurse dressed in her nurses’ uniform and staying in the infirmary near the tabernacle.

Cammie Luckey had a different perspective on Camp Meeting life because her father [my uncle Chop AKA Rev. Charles Dayton] oversaw the Camp Meeting facilities, its conference meetings, the overall administration and much of the physical labor for keeping the camp meeting apparatus functioning properly and dynamically.  Chop was “the glue that held the thing together.”  He did the job well, and Cammie had an eyewitness view of the “goings on.”  Here some of her remembrances:

That West Chazy tabernacle roof was a lot higher and steeper than it appears from the photograph’s perspective.

I was up there on the upper roof, once to shovel off the heavy snow that threatened to bring down the entire structure, and at least once to shutter tight (slide- and wing-bolts) those square roof vents, not visible in this front-on photo, that ran along below  the soffit on both sides of that upper roof and were only open during the campmeeting season.

These were just two chores unseen by typical camp-goers. Most campers left West Chazy on Sunday to return to their 9-5 lives in Watervliet or Glens Falls or Springfield or wherever, oblivious to what happened on the WC grounds the rest of the year. Only a few, mostly clergy, for whom 9-5 lifestyles were rare, waited till Monday to pack and leave.

So what may have been the camp season’s most holy moment, an annual sacred rite even if the participants would probably be appalled at that four-letter “r” word, was never experienced except by a relative few. Most people remaining on the grounds late Sunday night, the hour of that sacred rite,  were scrambling to pack or were saying sentimental farewells or, if they were of a certain age, trying to catch one last canoodle behind some bush as far away as they could get from the tabernacle.

The rite was not begun until after the final “seeker” arose from the altar bench (originally sort of like a chopped-off saw horse and only eventually a genuine, polished rail) but before the lights went out for another year. Then, a circle was formed.  Shoulder-to-shoulder, hand-in-hand, the circle followed the inside perimeter of the tabernacle. The circle stretched across the entire front, between the altar benches and front pew, from side door to side door. It went along both sides to the rear, actually the front, the main-entrance wall as shown in the photograph, where one corner held Rev. Ross’ Bible shop full of enticing biblical toy paraphernalia effective at keeping little kids quiet during long sermons. A personal favorite was the 2×2” flat square on which you slid little squares the size of Chiclets until you formed the verse John 3:16. Today it would be Rubic’s Cube.

Anyway, the circle closed ranks and stood still, waiting at attention. These were the league’s team captains, so to speak. This was end-of-season wrap. A few solemn words were given by “names of note” such as Ray Smith of Watervliet, who regularly delayed his own 9-5 electric utility job for this higher, holy priority. Or he drove home to Watervliet in the wee hours of Monday morning. Sometimes these were words of victory, sometimes triumphant resolve. Often they included knowing phrases of foreboding, experience having taught that the circle would never be exactly the same twice. Who would fall?

After a few shared memories of sad moments and spiritual highlights, someone,  such as John Lamos, husband of Dorrie Dayton Lamos, sounded the first note of the two songs traditionally sung. “Will the circle be unbroken, by and by, Lord, by and by?” Everybody knew the answer when it came to the matter of this earthly tabernacle circle;  but everyone in this holiness circle also was well aware of other ways to fall. They usually had to deal with a fall or two every year at the “annual conference” that preceded the campmeeting.

The final song was always “God Be With You ‘til We Meet Again.”

These lines sound like something straight from John Boy Walton, a family-values TV icon circa 1970. But I could also reminisce about other “nearby structures,” as Jim referred to in his request for recollections. I recollect the Sunday afternoon I, the conference president’s (aka district superintendent) daughter spent “making out” with Steve in the Special Speaker cottage behind the tabernacle while Steve’s dad stood a few dozen yards away, at the pulpit.

(In those days there were three services daily. Typically only the evening and Sunday services featured the altar-calls that perhaps unfortunately defined the campmeeting experience. The other services were for those who wanted to “go deeper,” for folks such as Ray Smith and various little old ladies, the unappreciated, anonymous spiritual powerhouses.)

“From the person to whom much is given, much will be required.” At the time and for many decades I resented that I was not among those who packed up and pulled out on Sunday to a life far distant from West Chazy. I did not appreciate the feast table at which I was feeding despite myself,  reluctantly living fifty-two weeks of the year in the three-century house known as the “President’s Home” (burnt to the ground by a hair dryer) adjacent to the campgrounds. I regret how long it took me to realize the rare, rich and eternal significance of those acappella voices rising to the rafters and roof vents and way beyond.

by Cammie Dayton Luckey, May 2019

Yield Not to Temptation…Well…maybe just a little

DFH Volume 1 Issue 6

by Jim Dayton

Uncle Chip’s (Chester Dayton) mid-life crisis spanned the years from the late 1950’s through about 1965, when he was around 45 -55 years old.  In those years, his thing was cars.  In about 1962, he bought a Karmann Ghia.   To a teenage kid, and probably adult boys too, it was near the top of the list of the finest piece of machinery ever built.  It was sold by Volkswagen, which also made Porsches, and it looked just as fast. Of course, the company also sold bugs; the Ghia had the horse power of that putt-putt car and so much class!  It was respectfully fast, but not a killer machine.

In the summer of ’63, when my hormones were racing, Uncle Chip decided he would ride up to West Chazy Camp Grounds with dad (Paul Dayton).  He left that heart stopping beautiful work of art in our driveway.   To make matters tempting, my entire family was already at camp and I was home alone.  And to really make matters worse, Uncle Chip left the Ghia keys on top of the refrigerator.  What do you suppose a kid would do in a situation like that?  That’s right. Steal that gorgeous machine and go on a joy ride, even if he didn’t know how to drive and didn’t even know how to shift a four-speed transmission. 

At first thought, it was a battle of good and evil.  “To steal or not to steal, that is the question!”  Evil prevailed.  I briefly wondered if Chip was testing me and knew the odometer reading. The urge was more than I could bear.  I learned to shift without jerks and grinding gears right away.  Now, where would I go?  More evil filled my mind.  In kayaking, class 5 rapids are as good as it gets, and I was determined to do a class 5 drive. Up and down blind, winding roads, over an unguarded railroad crossing–without peeking left or right for terror… “OK, Wimpy, let’s get it on.”

In a short time, I was bearing down on a slower car.  There was a solid yellow line and a blind bend in the road.  The imp, which now controlled the wheel, screamed, “So what! Go for the adrenaline rush.”  And I did. Then, it was full throttle up West Mountain.  I came down the hill much faster than I went up. Finally, having exhausted my curiosity, I returned home about a half hour later. I suppose I may have logged 35 miles on the odometer.  Again “So what!” I had had a thrill and had survived.  If Uncle Chip wanted to press charges with the town cops, it was OK, and well worth the penalty.  I never heard anything more about my adventure from Uncle Chip or my dad, but about four years later Uncle Chip wanted to sell the dream machine to me.  I was headed to college and needed every penny I could save, so I was forced to decline his offer.  I could tell it hurt his feelings.  Now that I’m much older, and I’d like to think a little wiser, I realize he would have sold it to me for practically nothing.  That’s just the way he was.  Another very generous Dayton. 

Come to think of it, I hadn’t realized how much I missed that Karmann Ghia until I started writing this article.  I may shop for one, even though I’m overweight and too decrepit to get in and out of one.  Perhaps I’ll just get it so my grandson can drive it.  After all…he’s a fifteen-year-old kid with raging hormones. I could accidentally leave the keys on top of my daughter’s refrigerator.

Toil, Labor and Determination

DFH Volume 1 Issue 2

by Camilla Luckey

Lori Dayton’s West Chazy Holiness Campground cottage.

Another West Chazy camp note: That row of cottages where the “double” one was owned by Uncle Paul and then Johnny may have always looked (and probably still does) a little rough and tumble, hardly two adjacent siding boards matching, but it represented to “Chop,” my dad, a blessing/bonanza of major proportion. It put people into camp meeting ownership and fellowship cheap, the main cost being his own labor and tired muscles. That row was mostly put together with salvage materials from an agricultural school (Miner Institute) being torn down in nearby Chazy. Dad dismantled as much as he could before the dozers won. He worked in a “quick and rough” manner,  and mostly alone. As  the material arrived in load after load at the campground, I was recruited to pull nails, stack, draw chalk lines and otherwise help make the stuff usable. This was “utility not beauty,” though many of us  have learned now to appreciate the extinct North American virgin woods and untutored DIY products  and see great charm in the pre-sheetrock structures.  I don’t recall ever being taken to the salvage site; maybe my mother drew a line in the sand. Maybe this is why I always carry a tape measure.

By the way, these campground construction sites were the Conference President’s preferred office space. He would offer tomato soup and a grilled cheese — and a hammer. Psychologically very wise — preachers and laymen alike felt freer to let loose with the truth and accept it, too, man to man in work clothes—always several extra around. No ladies, alas, but Dad always spoke admiringly of a lady in Moores or the Elllenburg area (I forget her name but can see her face) who got up on the barn roof to help her husband. 

So, many may consider him a showman, but what he did in front of other people he also did when acting alone for his audience of One.

The Church Pews

DFH Vol 1 Issue 2

By Camilla Luckey

Dad was the District Superintendent  of the Champlain District of the Wesleyan Church in Upstate New York during my high school years.  We  lived in the District Superintendent’s home adjacent to  the  West Chazy Campground, our church retreat center. Dad grasped every opportunity to secure furniture and equipment for the camp (for “Free  or next to nothing!”).  Once he brought a truckload  of secondhand church pews complete with cushions he’d bought at a bargain price some place near Albany. All the big churches with fancy pews were located there, not in the country churches in and around the Adirondack Mountains that made up most of his District. It was  the dead of winter, and the snow was hard packed. He felt we had to get them into the tabernacle, the camp Worship Center. So we dragged them there. As I remember, it was all the way from our driveway, but that part could be a faulty memory because what I recall is the extreme effort required,  since we were on snowshoes. I don’t remember if anybody helped. If so, it was likely Bob (the Rev Robert) Finley who was always ready to “run down” from Ellenburg Depot at a moment’s notice when his DS needed him.