"Come to Sequoyah"

Personal reflections

       One of the high points of my visit to Sequoyah, in April 2002, was the time I spent alone after I bade farewell, first to my fellow Sequoyans, then to Barry Durand, who had been "Chief" of the efforts to preserve and protect our priceless heritage.

       Then, it was just Sequoyah and me.

     Barry had told me of his impression, based on his encounters with old campers, that although summer camp is necessarily a communal experience, revisiting Sequoyah after many years is a deeply personal experience, often impossible to communicate in words.  This observation recalled for me one of the last Sequoyah brochures.

       Yes, Barry had caught the essence of Camp Sequoyah's Purpose:  to give boys time to be alone, to teach self-sufficiency, by engaging them in outside challenges, to pull them out of the self-absorption of childhood.  Barry is a persuasive witness to the spirit of Sequoyah — still present, though Chief and campers have long departed.

       C. Walton "Chief" Johnson furthered this purpose by maintaining an exquisite balance between rigor and fun.  While Chief indeed emphasized self-reliance, he never meant the Sequoyah experience to be a Darwinian ordeal.  Certainly our cabins were without facilities, but they were designed to provide the basic comforts:  bunks, closets, good roofs, raised floors.  We got three squares a day, and activities were presented as challenges — but fun challenges.  For example, we might return from a "Sloppy Slurch" all muddy and wet, laughing ourselves silly, but next morning our aching bodies would remind us that the "slurch" up Reems Creek actually had been an all-day rock climb.  Chief recognized, that even boys who were not made for physical challenges could benefit by activities scaled to their abilities.  Thus, a camper was free to choose the difficulty of his weekly hike and to engage in crafts or riflery, instead of judo or canoeing...or swimming that frigid lake. (Now there was a character builder!  Fully aware of the implication, I went the sybarite's way and opted for swimming, sailing and skiing the warm waters of Canoe Camp.)

       To a degree, Sequoyah is a victim of its own success, for even as it liberated boys from dependency, it made networking more difficult.  Though Sequoyah was enriched by father-son legacies, Old Sequoyans do not have a "Class of..." or varsity sports or fraternities on which to focus (and which schools exploit to win alumni loyalty).  Our focus was less on the social experience than on the natural world around us and our relation to it;  though teamwork was stressed, keeping in touch with nature was more important than keeping in touch with each other.  This has made mobilizing an effective constituency a challenge.  But if we truly believe, that losing Sequoyah and its legacy would be a tragedy, and if we are Sequoyans worthy of the name, then surely we can muster the energy and commitment to meet the challenge.

       Returning to Sequoyah is a powerful experience, which transcends mere nostalgia.  To be sure, there's a Proustian sense of returning to a lost part of one's life, due to the air that envelops you as you step out of your car — air redolent not of madeleines, but of fresh, sweet woods.  But no longer subjected to continuous trampling, the baseball-tetherball-frisbee field above the dining pavilion has become a lush, verdant campus. 

       Then, there's the silence.  Only a few are lucky enough to have communed with Sequoyah "off season," away from the bustle and cacophony of summer camp life.  This silence is a new Sequoyah experience, a profound one which, as never before, will transport you to the inner space of time spent alone.

Come to Sequoyah!

Jack M. Rice