RIP: Aquehongian Lodge # 112, June 1938-March 2013

I recently attended Aquehongian Lodge #112’s 75^th Anniversary Banquet. It was the final meeting for the Order of the Arrow Boy Scout lodge that I grew up in.  On April 1, the lodges in all five New York City boroughs will be merged into one.

The Order of the Arrow (OA) is an honor society for campers. In order to become a member, you need to be at the least a First Class Scout and meet several camping requirements.  Then you are selected from your peers.

Those who are voted in undertake an ordeal. In the old days, when I was selected, you slept on your ground cloth, were given a candle so you could read the pieces of the OA ritual. You ate little and worked the next day. Times have changed and thus, the ordeal changed with the times. 

I was an eighth-grader when I passed my June ’84 ordeal. I joined the ritual team that fall. That team is now called ICE (Inductions, Ceremonies and Events).  Again, times have changed.  I took my Brotherhood the next spring.  To obtain that honor you must have been an Ordeal member for 10 months, been on a committee, attended a few service projects and learned the OA’s obligation, handshake, song and admonition. 

As I moved along in my membership, I became ritual team chairman and used to write the OA Tap Outs for my Lodge. I called them “Tap-Mania”. I was copying “Wrestlemania”, something all of us 80s teens loved. 

In Sept. 87, I was elected Lodge Chief.  One of my best friends counted the votes.  The incumbent dropped out of the race minutes before the election. My opponent got two votes. I wasn’t supposed to know that. My buddy opened his mouth. I hope the kid I beat cast one of his two votes. I got like 50. The next year, I ran unopposed.

My dad was chief of the soon-to-be defunct Shu Shu Gah Lodge # 24, Brooklyn. I joined Scouting to emulate “my fadder,” that’s what a former Chappy camper, my summer camp called his dad. I think he still does.

While I was chief, I had to be publications chairman at the same time. I was somewhat of a dictator. But I loved my Lodge so much. I could not let anything go wrong. I was chief of our 50th Anniversary party.

In June 1988, I earned my Vigil Honor, the highest honor you can receive in the OA. In my mind, it is the highest honor in Scouting. I am Eagle. However, the Vigil is more spiritual. Those of you that know me understand how spiritual I am.

I was chief during the Ordeal weekend that I took my Vigil Induction on. Sadly, two Cub Scouts drowned during the afternoon. 

My friends and I were building the ordeal’s induction fires and went to the rededicated Berlin Lodge in Pouch Scout Camp to get lunch. The old one was torched about a year before my some kids.

 

The ritual team did not associate with anyone else. We were bound to each other. We formed a clique. We walked down the trail and saw a Cubmaster letting his Cubs swim in Orbach Lake, Pouch Scout Camp. No swimming was allowed at the time. We yelled at them and made them come out.

 

We ate and walked back. We saw the Cubmaster, who admitted he couldn’t swim was in the lake up to his knees screaming the names of two kids. I was wearing a bathing suit. I tossed off my shirt and sneakers. My other ritual team members did the same. We jumped into the lake and led the Lifesaving merit badge lost bathers drill. We pulled one kid out. The ambulance rushed him off to the hospital. Unfortunately, he didn’t survive.

 

We were told the other kid ran out of the lake. So we set up a massive search all day and night.

I did my Vigil induction that night. My dad came to the morning ceremony. He saw me get my Vigil sash, axe and name. “Alhaquot Aptonen” interpreted as “Stormy Speaker”. I was so proud. But he pulled me off to the side and said the FDNY pulled the other kid out of the lake. He drowned.

I made my best friends in my Lodge.  Many of the guys are now married with kids. Some are getting married. 

When I was chief, I gave out positions to be on my “Cabinet”. Man did I love playing politics.  I was not nice. I was only 17. So if you wanted a job and ate lunch with me in the Tottenville High School “liberry”, you got a job. Yes, I know it is library. But a teacher in I.S. 34, once said all my students think they are going to the “liberry”, not the library. So it stuck with me.

As ritual team member, I played many parts. We dressed up as Lenni Lenape, Delaware Indians. We wore war paint. I was Meteu, the medicine man of the circle in induction ceremonies. I was Allowat Sakima, mighty chief of the circle in the Brotherhood ceremony. The Vigil inductions remain secretive. I was in those too.

The kids that got their positions by hanging with me in the “Liberry” practiced and photo copied the rituals at lunchtime. We were a Tony-award winning team.  I was very dramatic. Once a helicopter was flying over our ritual site. I was doing the OA’s “Legend”. I stopped looked at it and raised my staff.  It circled and flew away. 

I can tell thousands of stories. My friends and I sometimes meet for a few beers and reminisce.

Jumping back to our final meeting.  They called up all the Vigil members to join the ceremony to call out the new candidates for this esteemed honor.

I’m happy to say that everyone was able to join us in the ceremony. Some of our older crowd had some trouble getting up there. But we made sure they were recognized.

The meeting ended all of us in a circle singing, “Firm Bound in Brotherhood,” the OA song. 

Our eyes were filled with tears.  I had an amazing time seeing people, I have not seen in over 20 years. I wish others were there.  Those that couldn’t make it because they had other plans live too far or are in the great lodge in the sky. We placed a sash on the fire for those brothers that were watching us from heaven. We walked out. Part of me died.

There are places I remember

There are places I remember “There are places I remember, though some have changed.” I think we all have those places. But only a select few have the Hill: Chappegat Hill (Chappy). It is located in Ten Mile River Scout Camp, Narrowsburg, N.Y. At one time it had been its own camp. When I was there it was part of Camp Kunatah. Chappy closed after the summer of ’88. Kunatah closed several years later. TMR is still running. But not at the capacity it used to. A few weeks ago, a brush fire hit Chappy. Other areas north of the hill were also hit. None of us Chappy campers knew the extent of the damage. We were told the man-made structures (there were not many left) survived. A few days ago, someone known as my leader went up to camp to do some work for the TMR Museum. Naturally, he went to Chappy. A visit to TMR is not a visit if you don’t spend time on the Hill. He saw first hand how this brush fire devastated the remains of the childhood stomping grounds of countless Scouts. He reported back to the individual that served as the chairman of the Troop committee and assistant scoutmaster during the summer camp season. Immediately an email was sent to our scoutmaster and myself. We were devastated. Within a few hours our, ASM sent an email to dozens of former campers. Now some of us are still in touch with each other on a daily basis. Some of us haven’t been in touch in years. But as soon at that email went out everyone was in tears. For us, Chappy is where we grew up. Hundreds upon hundreds of emails flew. We were all devastated. We all started talking about our favorite Chappy moments. These moments included famous camp sayings, activities and more important our teen friendships. I brought up my memories of being the camp vampire. I used to stay up all night. Very often, I would sit at the picnic table by the Palace (the office) in the wee hours of the night. We talked about our famous dead fish fights on our canoe trips. You see our SM would pile up dead fish into his canoe. Anyone who paddled by was fair game to be whacked in the head, chest, or limbs with a dead fish. Other memories included movie night usually the mindless 80s movies. Of course, I own many of them and watch them religiously. We talked about our famous Action Park trips. I fell off the Alpine slide in ’86. We talked about the red stuff that our favorite Italian restaurant, El Monaco’s, poured onto everything, even the salad. The red stuff was their marinara sauce. Across from El Monaco’s was Candy Cone. A cute little ice cream shack with two broken video games. I visited in 1999. It was still the same. Sadly, these places, like our Hill are gone. In 1984, I scored the winning run for the Sigh Figh Space Gators patrol. We won the softball game and that run put us over the top and made us the Chappy Olympic champs. I still have my Gold Medal. In ’85 a few campers and I made much fun of the kid that used to eat his feet. To punish us, our SM made us clean up the whole blow out party. We spent the night cleaning the dining hall and scrubbing lots of pots. We had a great time. Over the last few days, we all shared timeless memories. Of course one particular area we talked about was the latrine. The camp staff torched the precious latrine shortly after camp closed. But in our minds it is still our hub. One camper spent his entire summer sitting on his seat. It was his social network. This was way before Facebook or Linkedin. Well I can go on for thousands of pages. But you get the point. We love camp. We are saddened by the recent turn of events. But maybe it is for the better. We are not there anymore. Our memories will live forever. Nature will rebuild this beautiful site. One day, some of us will take our kids to see where we grew up. It’ll look different. But our spirit will be felt.