Share Your Story
We would love to share your favorite camp memory!
Please email it via e-mail to alumni@fourwindscamp.org
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John Wineman (1976-1987)
Never Too Old for the Pata Pata
I faced some tough challenges as a child, showing up on camp’s doorstep six months after my mother passed away. Camp was instrumental in putting all the pieces back together again. I can think of no other experience that has contributed more to my interest, growth, and character than Four Winds. After spending eleven summers at camp I hung up my Polaris ring and headed out into the real world of grad school, jobs, marriage and starting a family. Now at thirty-six, I have gravitated back to the Northwest with the desire to revive feelings of friendship, growth and community camp provided when I was younger
Camp provided a place where I could break out of constraining roles and experience new things, march to a different drum and be someone different. It was OK to live in a tent, square dance, sing sea shanties, write poetry and enjoy “unplugged” music. Over the years as I went from child and adolescent to teenager and adult, camp provided gifts and guidance all along the way. As a counselor in my college years, I was never poorer, paid less, yet as truly content. When I got married, I put my Polaris ring back on. My financial plans involve saving for my children’s camp tuition along with college; they are equally important. I’ve been known to break into spontaneous pata pata much to the dismay of people who don’t appreciate fine Polish folk music.
My recent involvement at Four Winds and having children of my own has forced me to think about the things that are important. I want to help Four Winds so that it can exist for the other nine year olds out there that need its help more than I ever did. I truly appreciate the efforts of the people who touched my life at Four Winds.
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Suzie Culley Bounous (1968-71)
| As a counselor, one summer at Four Winds, my cabin and three boys tents had gone to one of the local islands in the sound for an overnight. We had tied up our five large war canoes at the dock before we camped for the night.
Upon rising in the morning we thought someone had stolen our canoes! Not one was left tied to the dock. Closer inspection revealed that they were all still carefully tied to the dock pilings and were under twelve feet of water with the stern of each canoe doing its best to reach for the surface.
Fortunately a male counselor, whose name now escapes me, braved five deep dives. As he untied the canoes from down under, they rocketed up out of the water into the air like breaching whales. From them on this brilliant counselor didn’t forget that there are tides at Four Winds.
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Richard Falknor (1945, 1946)
| Powdered milk, powdered eggs, canned orange juice, Wheaties and Rice Krispies opened by spearing the packages with a knife. Fresh grapefruit, singing “here we sit like birds in the wilderness, waiting for the food to come,” are strong recollection from the mess hall, but we called it something else. |
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