Alum Spotlight : George Shuster
Bumper Cars on Larkin Pond by George Shuster , Former GSSNE BoardChair
I thought some Alums might be interested in what was really happening on the Camp Hoffman waterfront in the Summer of 1964 .
That was the first summer that I was the boating instructor at Camp Hoffman . As such , I was supposed to teach both how to paddle canoes and row rowboats . As a quasi-rower myself , I had no clue how hard it is to teach rowing to novices , especially as compared to canoeing .
With the canoes , nearly all the campers , even the youngest , caught on right away , and with every group we soon had canoes smartly paddling around Larkin Pond in good order .
But what a difference with the rowboats ! Maybe it was going backwards as you do when rowing that caused the problem . Maybe I was just a bad instructor . Whatever the reason , the initial attempts were complete chaos ! And I ’ m not even talking about “ advanced ” techniques like “ feathering " the oars between strokes — just the basics . The closest analogy would be : “ Bumper Cars on Larkin Pond ”! I ’ m not saying it wasn ’ t a lot of fun . In fact I suspect the campers rather enjoyed all the inevitable collisions !
Are there any Alums out there from the Summer of 1964 ( or 1965 ) who remember these “ Bumper Car Rowboats ” the way I do ?