The decline and fall of the Hub
Once upon a time, during the late disco era when feathered hair reigned supreme and men's shirts were unbuttoned to an embarrassing degree, the Hub was the undeniable social nexus for Kawabi staff. During my early days as a camper, I would pass by the hub and see a fair majority of the staff crammed into the living room section of it, laughing, talking, smoking with music blaring. By the time I was on staff, the hub lay predominately unused; a ball room without any dancers as it were. So it begs the question, what happened to this mighty icon of Kawabidom?
To anyone reading this who was on staff post '86, the question rattling around their brain must be, 'why hang out at the hub? Isn't that just Skip and Nish's summer house?'. Well, yes and no. As far as I can remember, and even into the twilight of my camp experience, the hub remained a central meeting place for staff. But back in the 70s, it played a central part of staff life. Why? Simple: music. If you wanted to listen to tunes, that you'd later on in life perceive as 'summer classics of youth', then you had no choice but to go to the hub. For alas, this was the only place on camp property that you could play your music collection, which back then was 99% vinyl. Simply put, back then there was no practical way to install a turntable, or even God forbid, an 8-track tape deck in your tent. This led to the large collection of milk box containers filled with records that sat in the hub during my early days there, noticed during the occasional pancake breakfast which was won by way of some skit, game of skill, or talent for 'bomahawky-bomahawky'.
I was always kind of envious that the staff at that time came together to bond through music at this central place, which I could only think provided them with a togetherness and camaraderie that I never knew on staff. I've always enjoyed it when my friends and I have a 'music' night, whereby we sit around and play tunes for one another that we think the others should hear and would appreciate. I picture them all sitting there in their bell bottoms and checkered snap-on button shirts, laughing, smoking, chatting enjoying some choice Cat Stevens or Rolling Stones selections. I fear I missed a unique bonding experience.
Though that may be too much of a romantic assumption. My brother, who was four years older than I was, and started camp a wee bit earlier than I did, related a story to me a little while ago. He said that one rest hour he and his tentmates were listening to some Rush (again people, we're talkin' the 70s ), when all of the sudden, Mr. Rolling Stones himself, Greb (who was a legendary extrovert during my early years) burst into the tent and announced, "thank God somebody around this camp listens to good music; not like the Abba/Carpenters shit they play at the hub. Just good solid rock and roll man!" I didn't ask if Greb stayed and listened to Rush with a bunch of B6ers after this diatribe. But it does point the way to what happened next.
I've always been pretty snobby about my musical tastes. And one of the basic tenants of a music snob is that 95% of everything in the top 40 is crap (until 25 years passes, when it turns into nostalgic period pieces that can be listened to with irony). But one of the things that makes a top 40 hit is that the majority of people think they like that pap that is fed to them and want to listen to in incessantly. So I'm thinking that back in the day, if you wanted to listen to some of your LPs in the hub, you'd have to be willing to sit through a tonne of crap to do so. My thoughts turn to when I did dishes with Sketch/Leslie, who's first reaction when I brought my ghetto blaster into the dishwashing area was to ask if it received CFTR (the antithesis radio station of my musical tastes), and then asked to put on a Whitney Houston tape, which I explained in very, very undiplomatic terms that a snowball in hell had a better chance. And there wouldn't have been any way I would have stuck around the hub to sit through that either. Fortunately, technology offered a solution: the cassette tape and portable player.
By the 80s tapes and ghetto blasters were cheap enough that any idiot like me could have one and be a one man DJ, all for the price of 8 D-size batteries every couple of weeks. No need to sit through anything. And because of the compact size, no need to go and hang around at the bosses' house, where you'd have to watch what you did and said. Not only that but you could hang out with just your select group, instead of having to be polite to some complete social retard, who you have no idea how they made it onto staff, and know that their days are numbered regardless, but still have to pretend that you're civil to them anyways...I'm not going to name names here, but you know whom I'm speaking of. Elitist, yes, but remember, these were the teen years when forming socially ostracizing cliques was what it was all about. Simply, I'd rather hang out at the Bear Naked than the hub.
Ironically, the next nail in the coffin was the increasing amount of non-smokers on staff, combined with increased limitations of where one could go to smoke. I remember passing by the hub on my way down to the beach and only being able to see a blue cloud in the living room of the hub. Now I'm what you can call a smoke-friendly person, but even I would have had real reservations about living in a building that had ridiculous amounts of tobacco smoke whaffting through at all hours, not to mention the perma-stink. Understandably and justifiably, as social mores towards smoking grew less tolerant, the idea of having counselors hanging around children with butt-in-hand, became less of an acceptable premise. I witnessed the de-smokification of Camp Kawabi, from the obvious (such as in the hub) to the hidden (in your tent during rest periods) to forbidden (requiring one to go off camp property to indulge in a secret vice --but on the up shot, allowed me to begin my love affair with the dew line). But the point I'm making was that this shift in policy took away one more raison d'etre of the hub...a crucial one.
So I'd say that by my last year on staff, 1988 (and yes, please do not make comments about the fact that I'm writing about things that happened over a quarter century ago) the hub was like one of those run down movie theatres that couldn't adapt to the coming of television and the VCR; faded glory. The rationale behind going to the hub, listening to music while hacking back an Export A green, had disappeared. In its place, the staff of camp Kawabi fragmented with groups of like-minded individuals going off to listen to their walkmen, somebody's tent, out to the dew line for a smoke, etc. Gone were the days when you went and joined in more social experience, fostering a communal sense amongst the staff. Perhaps I'm romanticizing it way too much, but I can't help but feel that I missed out on something special. Then again I also missed out going to Woodstock and the first Lolapolooza, but I've gotten over that.
To anyone reading this who was on staff post '86, the question rattling around their brain must be, 'why hang out at the hub? Isn't that just Skip and Nish's summer house?'. Well, yes and no. As far as I can remember, and even into the twilight of my camp experience, the hub remained a central meeting place for staff. But back in the 70s, it played a central part of staff life. Why? Simple: music. If you wanted to listen to tunes, that you'd later on in life perceive as 'summer classics of youth', then you had no choice but to go to the hub. For alas, this was the only place on camp property that you could play your music collection, which back then was 99% vinyl. Simply put, back then there was no practical way to install a turntable, or even God forbid, an 8-track tape deck in your tent. This led to the large collection of milk box containers filled with records that sat in the hub during my early days there, noticed during the occasional pancake breakfast which was won by way of some skit, game of skill, or talent for 'bomahawky-bomahawky'.
I was always kind of envious that the staff at that time came together to bond through music at this central place, which I could only think provided them with a togetherness and camaraderie that I never knew on staff. I've always enjoyed it when my friends and I have a 'music' night, whereby we sit around and play tunes for one another that we think the others should hear and would appreciate. I picture them all sitting there in their bell bottoms and checkered snap-on button shirts, laughing, smoking, chatting enjoying some choice Cat Stevens or Rolling Stones selections. I fear I missed a unique bonding experience.
Though that may be too much of a romantic assumption. My brother, who was four years older than I was, and started camp a wee bit earlier than I did, related a story to me a little while ago. He said that one rest hour he and his tentmates were listening to some Rush (again people, we're talkin' the 70s ), when all of the sudden, Mr. Rolling Stones himself, Greb (who was a legendary extrovert during my early years) burst into the tent and announced, "thank God somebody around this camp listens to good music; not like the Abba/Carpenters shit they play at the hub. Just good solid rock and roll man!" I didn't ask if Greb stayed and listened to Rush with a bunch of B6ers after this diatribe. But it does point the way to what happened next.
I've always been pretty snobby about my musical tastes. And one of the basic tenants of a music snob is that 95% of everything in the top 40 is crap (until 25 years passes, when it turns into nostalgic period pieces that can be listened to with irony). But one of the things that makes a top 40 hit is that the majority of people think they like that pap that is fed to them and want to listen to in incessantly. So I'm thinking that back in the day, if you wanted to listen to some of your LPs in the hub, you'd have to be willing to sit through a tonne of crap to do so. My thoughts turn to when I did dishes with Sketch/Leslie, who's first reaction when I brought my ghetto blaster into the dishwashing area was to ask if it received CFTR (the antithesis radio station of my musical tastes), and then asked to put on a Whitney Houston tape, which I explained in very, very undiplomatic terms that a snowball in hell had a better chance. And there wouldn't have been any way I would have stuck around the hub to sit through that either. Fortunately, technology offered a solution: the cassette tape and portable player.
By the 80s tapes and ghetto blasters were cheap enough that any idiot like me could have one and be a one man DJ, all for the price of 8 D-size batteries every couple of weeks. No need to sit through anything. And because of the compact size, no need to go and hang around at the bosses' house, where you'd have to watch what you did and said. Not only that but you could hang out with just your select group, instead of having to be polite to some complete social retard, who you have no idea how they made it onto staff, and know that their days are numbered regardless, but still have to pretend that you're civil to them anyways...I'm not going to name names here, but you know whom I'm speaking of. Elitist, yes, but remember, these were the teen years when forming socially ostracizing cliques was what it was all about. Simply, I'd rather hang out at the Bear Naked than the hub.
Ironically, the next nail in the coffin was the increasing amount of non-smokers on staff, combined with increased limitations of where one could go to smoke. I remember passing by the hub on my way down to the beach and only being able to see a blue cloud in the living room of the hub. Now I'm what you can call a smoke-friendly person, but even I would have had real reservations about living in a building that had ridiculous amounts of tobacco smoke whaffting through at all hours, not to mention the perma-stink. Understandably and justifiably, as social mores towards smoking grew less tolerant, the idea of having counselors hanging around children with butt-in-hand, became less of an acceptable premise. I witnessed the de-smokification of Camp Kawabi, from the obvious (such as in the hub) to the hidden (in your tent during rest periods) to forbidden (requiring one to go off camp property to indulge in a secret vice --but on the up shot, allowed me to begin my love affair with the dew line). But the point I'm making was that this shift in policy took away one more raison d'etre of the hub...a crucial one.
So I'd say that by my last year on staff, 1988 (and yes, please do not make comments about the fact that I'm writing about things that happened over a quarter century ago) the hub was like one of those run down movie theatres that couldn't adapt to the coming of television and the VCR; faded glory. The rationale behind going to the hub, listening to music while hacking back an Export A green, had disappeared. In its place, the staff of camp Kawabi fragmented with groups of like-minded individuals going off to listen to their walkmen, somebody's tent, out to the dew line for a smoke, etc. Gone were the days when you went and joined in more social experience, fostering a communal sense amongst the staff. Perhaps I'm romanticizing it way too much, but I can't help but feel that I missed out on something special. Then again I also missed out going to Woodstock and the first Lolapolooza, but I've gotten over that.
posted by Nick | 11/01/2005 11:00:00 a.m.
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