E-Mail from Dennis Karoleski to Judith Florian, Jan 2, 2009 10:17 PM, describing being a counselor at Camp Buffalo:
1/02/2009
Part 1
Hi Judy,
My name is Dennis Karoleski and I was a counselor at Camp Buffalo for two consecutive years in the early 1960's.
My neighbor, Bill Yaw, arranged for an interview with Don ?? who was the manager at the time. I remember him as
a not too tall wiry, energetic man with thinning red hair and a ready grin. We all called him "Smitty". My
interview with him for the job consisted of walking me around the camp to identify the various plants and
trees located there. They must have been desperate because I got the job in spite of the incorrect names I
had for the local flora and fauna. I suppose it may have been because I grew up playing in the woods and
fields around Washington and was able to catch most of the small wildlife in the area with my bare hands.
At one time I had as pets most everything living around there smaller than a deer. I occupied the second
cabin from the left when looking out the chow hall door but I don't remember its name. The cabins were
across the field and arraigned in a row consisting of two groups with a space in between where a short path
leading to the corrugated iron combined latrine and showers were located. There were a few pine trees
clustered around a water fountain and a flag pole in the middle of the grounds and a latrine and shower
down a short path behind the row
of cabins.
As you drove down the road toward the camp the area became more and more forested. The camp entrance was to the
right through some more trees. When you came up the road to the camp you passed a small building for the grounds
keeper at the corner and then a field on the left and another sparse stand of trees on the left. Just to the
right and below the chow hall was an isolated cabin where my "zoo" was located. The chow hall had a large
covered porch overlooking the road where the older counselors would sit and have a smoke and make plane for
the next day after dinner. Farther along the road bent towards the left and up the hill past a small building
housing the registration office and nurse. As you topped the hill a dirt track lead off to the right toward the
BB gun range and the camp dump. We had a two wheeled cart with high
spoked wheels that we used to take the trash out to the dump pit. That was a favorite spot for the hawk to perch
the second year as it could feed itself with rats, mice and other varmints that lived there.
You will have to forgive my lack of precision about names and dates as they have never been very important to me.
(My curse). Anyway the first week was referred to as "hell week". That was the time set aside for the staff
to get the camp ready for the first crop of kiddies to arrive for their camp experience. We had to evict
the wasps and spiders from the cabins, cut and clear brush and build the dam across the creek and in general,
make the place presentable by sweeping and painting. Additionally, I had to explore the area to become
familiar enough to map out points of interest for my nature walks.
For instance, did you know there once was a small settlement up the hill from the dam opposite the camp complete
with overgrown roads and an old flooded coal mine? Part of making the stream wide and deep enough for canoes to
navigate involved wading upstream and throwing the rocks that washed down during the spring floods up onto the
banks. These rocks later provided many homes for water snakes which I came to appreciate later that summer. While performing
this task I lost my 1962 Trinity High School class ring. It's probably
still down there somewhere as a matter of fact. After clearing the channel and brush from the banks we could get
to the actual dam assembly itself. The stream bed at that point had a concrete floor that made up the dam foundation as
well as the spillway. Extending up from this foundation were a number of concrete pillars that had two deep
square grooves cast into them. The grooves were aligned
across the stream in such a fashion so that when planks were slid in place they
formed the breastworks of the dam. We stacked them, one atop the other until the required
depth of water was reached. That clever design allowed us to form a dam that was both
easy to build and also easy to remove at the end of camp season.
The first year working there four of us were driving to camp one morning in, (I think), Bill Yaw's Dad's
Plymouth. As we passed over a small cement bridge I spotted a hawk's nest at the top of a dead snag about
100 yards to our right up a little draw. Incidentally, that small bridge under the road at that spot had the
largest millipedes I have ever seen in Pennsylvania. They were as big around as my little finger and between
6 and 8 inches long and there were a lot of them. I had noticed the large bird's nest on previous days but
never saw any adult bards attending the nest. That was unusual as it was breeding season and I would have
expected to see an adult bird or two somewhere in the vicinity. After a few days of watching it became obvious
that it was an abandoned nest which was hardly surprising. There were a lot of them in those days because hawks
were routinely shot on sight as chicken thieves by farmers.
I routinely looked at it each day as we passed that spot and on this particular day I noticed some movement
in the nest. We stopped the car and piled out to have a look. As we watched we saw little heads bobbing
in the nest so we four hiked to the tree to investigate. All of us were pretty fit and athletic in those
days, probably from the war games most boys played then so a climb to the top of a 70 foot snag that had
no branches was not beyond our skill. Since I saw the movement I went up first and when my face rose over
the rim I saw two chicks and an unhitched egg. Evidently the parent birds had been killed or abandoned it
so we decided to rescue the starving birds which were baking in the hot sun. I didn't know it at the time
but both chicks imprinted on me and I became their parent from that time on. We held a brief war council
at the top of that old snag to consider our options which were very limited. The chicks had just hatched
and would be crushed if we tried to put them into our t-shirts and neither the chicks or egg would survive
the 70 foot drop to the brush below. If you can visualize this, we untied and removed our shoe laces with
one hand while clinging to the dead tree which was about 4 inches in diameter at the top. We tied them
together and handed them up the line, each boy tying on his laces in turn to make a long string. I tied
my ball cap to the lace and in that improvised basket, lowered the chicks and dead egg down the row. The
last guy then tied it to his belt and we all shimmied back down the snag. I know it seems impossible
today but we didn't know that and it was a great adventure at the time.
This particular red tailed hawk stayed with me all summer and was free to fly anytime it wanted. I raised
both chicks by feeding them snakes and frogs the kids and I collected along Buffalo Creek. Their diet was
enhanced with sparrows shot by the kids on the BB gun range. (It was always risky to walk by the range as
you risked getting a welt on your butt from some little juvenile delinquent). In my role as mother hawk I
had to show them how to catch and kill the food that largely consisted of fish eating water snakes. Buffalo
Creek was literally infested with them in the summer so we had no trouble catching at least two or three
during the two per day nature hikes I conducted. These water snakes were very aggressive and usually struck
out at anything that disturbed them. I developed a method of catching them that you might have seen on the
TV show "Dirty Jobs". I simply let them bite me and after prying their jaws off my hand put them into a
screened box we carried along for that purpose. The trick is to not jerk your hand back when the strike
occurs because if you do you risk ripping your hand out of the snake's mouth. Since they are fish eaters
their mouths are lined with rows of needle like teeth and they cause a nasty gash if you flinch. Consequently,
if you remain calm you end up with something less than what you got in the berry patch or from the rose bush.
It goes without saying that method only works as long as there are very few poisonous varieties in the area.
The hawks became the centerpiece of the camp zoo and even made the Washington papers when they sent a reporter
and photographer out to do a story about the camp. I think the photo has me with the by then adult hawk on one
arm and a 5 foot corn snake coiled up on my other shoulder. One of these days I would like to come back to
Washington and check the newspaper archives to see if its still to be found.20One of the hawks was taken by
a counselor who was let go early. The other became my friend and stayed with me all summer. I would call
like a hawk and it would fly down and perch on my arm, staring into my eyes. I still have the marks from
when it would lose it's balance and fall upside down, flapping it's wings while trying to regain it's balance,
all the time still locked on my arm with its talons. I still have the scars to prove it too. Being ignorant
of all ways falconry, I didn't know about arm guards, jesses and the like until many years later. When I
judged it to be old enough I encouraged it to fly by running with it and launching it like a model airplane.
Even more remarkable, the next year I saw a hawk on a branch overlooking the camp dump and on a whim called
to it. It responded in kind, flew down and perched on my arm as if a year hadn't passed since the last time
it saw me. It must be remembered that red tails migrate over the winter and this bird had not only survived
its first winter migration but still knew me well enough to feel safe on my arm. It stayed with me all
summer but I never saw in again after I left.
The corn snake was another animal I made friends with that first summer. I was in bed one evening when
some kids came running to the cabin and woke me up. It seems a few kids had cornered a large snake in
a shallow hole in the slope behind the chow hall. It was already dark when I arrived and Smitty ordered
me to wait until it got light next morning before I attempted to capture it. He was worried because it
looked like a copperhead to him and the last thing the camp needed was a poisonous snake bite. Such a
large snake would be a valuable addition to our little zoo so we kept watch all night and used a stick
to prod it back into the depression to prevent its escape. In the morning I caught without much drama
and upon close examination and much arguing it was decided that it was a corn snake native to the area. It's
a powerful constrictor that feeds on birds, rodents and other snakes. It's coloration and bar bell markings
mimic the poisonous copperhead's as a defensive measure, hence the concern. You can tell them apart by
the orientation of the scales behind the anus and, of course, by the lack of fangs. Neither of which
is easily determined by the light of a kerosene lantern in the dead of night. All references say
they eat only live pray but it became very fond of little raw hamburger balls. It tamed down
very fast and by the second day of handling stopped attempting to bite and began to eat out of
my hand. In a week or so it began to follow me around and scare the hell out of poor mothers
dropping their kids off for camp. If it was loose it would slit her up to my leg, up my pant
leg and emerge at my neck where it would enjoy my body heat and bask in the sun. The hawk and
the snake became my trademarks and contributed to a once in a life time experience for me. Possibly
the only person who disliked the snake more than the ladies was the cook who had to regularly sweep
the reptile out of the kitchen with his/her? broom.
The corn snake is a very strong snake and would regularly escape from its case and make straight for
the kitchen. It could wiggle it's nose in the crack between the screen door and the frame and actually
get into the kitchen that way. We watched this performance many times and usually waited for the cook's
startled scream followed by the performance with the broom. It was always good for a laugh.
Sources:
Letter from D. Carey "Murf" Polan to Judith Florian, December 21,
2008, one page
The Observer-Reporter newspaper, Washington PA, "Sixty years later, survivors have vivid memories of killer storm." by Sarah E. Core, Staff Writer. 169th Observer-Reporter Edition, page A-1 and A-2.
The Observer-Reporter newspaper, Washington PA, "Ill wind
changed local man's life: Tornado 54 years ago started Youth For Christ leader
on religious course." Campbell, Christie. Washington, PA: The
Observer-Reporter, June 23, 2004.
The Charleroi Mail newspaper, Charleroi Pa., numerous articles.
Information from ex-Campers.
