I have the privilege and the honor to be the first person inducted into the Order of Chanco. Check it out. That’s my signature in its adolescent scrawl on the handcrafted tea-stained fake parchment paper hanging in the back corner of the current dining hall. Now my kids (who are very tired of hearing his story by the way) tell me that it is so long ago that I am now the ” Ancient Order of Chanco” as opposed to the younger members of the “Old Order of Chanco or the “Order of Chanco.” How did that happen? Did we get segmented by decades?? Despite all my professional accomplishments, this honor holds a special significance for me. It was the beginning of something that is alive and strong still There is an immediate connection between OA’s of any summer when they meet. It became symbol that you really had been associated with Camp long enough to truly understand the spirit of Chanco.

While I did get attend camp the first year the camp open (at a whooping cost of $45 a session by the way), being the first one from that first OA group to be inducted was just a matter of where I was standing on the James River beach that night in 1971. There were four of us in the first group of inductees: me, Mary B. Cox, Joe Brown, and Pat Tillottson. Pat was the first staff Order of Chanco as she was on staff in 1968. My first two years were as a camper, two on staff. Mary B and Joe were campers.

The first Initiation Night was an interesting experience. Interesting because we OA’s didn’t know why we were doing it and I don’t think Charlie Hughes did either. He later told me he wanted to steal some things from the Boy Scout’s Order of the Arrow and remake them into Chanco’s own. We just knew we were building the first of a tradition that could be carried forward. On one level it was a marketing ploy to get campers to return year after year. However, in true Chanco spirit it grew to mean a whole lot more. It is laughable now about how we spent that first Initiation night. Charlie, in his undeniably unique way, rousted us from our beds in the middle of the night. It was absolutely pouring down rain—Chanco style. It was a night to stay in bed under the covers but that was not to be. Charlie blindfolded each of us and placed us in the back of Clanko, the rusted bright blue farm truck that was on its last leg and used for everything from moving campers around to hauling garbage. Charlie was at the wheel and I don’t remember anyone else being with him that night. Not sure who that might have been since Pat was the PD, Carol, his wife, was in the camp trailer with small children and all the other staff had the potential to have their own initiation night in the future so they had to be excluded. Charlie took us for a wild ride on the back roads of Surry County. It probably lasted an hour. I remember it being the bumpiest ride ever. We were tossed around in the back of that truck like water balloons on Big Day. He purposely hit every pothole and turned hard on every corner. It’s a wonder we didn’t break down in that old bucket of bolts. I think the ride was supposed to scare us but I remember being more amused than scared. We were then told we would be spending the rest of the night in a “secret location.” It sounded very mysterious. However, we ended up back at the camp in the loft of the old barn. We slept on straw with old sleeping bags and itchy wool blankets. At least it was dry, or almost dry.

In the morning, we were allowed to remove our blindfolds but we were told to spend the rest of the day in the barn area in silence preparing for Indian Night. We had known Indian Nights of course but we understood this one was to be different. The typical Chanco play would happen as usual, complete with magic fire, but we weren’t performing our parts as we usually would. We didn’t get to prepare the site or make the toilet paper roll torches or bring down the campers to the amphitheater. Being tapped in by Charlie was our main purpose that night and we didn’t know exactly how that would play out.

One of our tasks that day was to create our OA Indian costumes. We were so enthralled with our creations: hand sewn Indian costumes made from tent scraps (yes, green canvas tent scraps left over from those tents that were no longer able to be used) and tempura paint from the arts and crafts tent, lanyard string and beads and whatever we found in nature were used as well. Our other tasks were to create some new symbols. We were thoughtful in making even the smallest decision about the evening ceremony. Even choosing red and white “C’s” as the symbol for the face paint was a moment that we cared about but never realized then how long it would still live on. I can still remember how carefully we painted each other’s faces that afternoon.

I remember the actual ceremony. We got through the ceremony with great weather and did not have to face the rain of the night before. Rainy Indian nights are the worst. We were placed near the fire in an area reserved for us. One of those old logs with lots of ants. I can’t say for sure who was Chanco canoing in the moonlight that evening but I remember that image like it was yesterday. Our induction was not a tapping like it is now. We were simply called up before the camp and Charlie said some nice things about us in his broken and self-created Indian dialect. You know, his ever present reference to the “wherethefuckarewe” Indian tribe, a joke that –at least at that time—evaded most campers and even some staff! We were asked to sign the “parchment” and we received our fourth and final feather. I still have my feathers….well at least three out of the four. That’s excellent for 36 years if you ask me. Other than kumbaya I can’t tell you what music we had. It was before the Chanco song was even written. We proudly went to bed with our “peace” paint on and came into breakfast wearing what was left of it.

So many new traditions were built off of this first night. Certainly an OA service project beats being tossed around in the back of a pickup truck. I hope other OA’s will share there experiences here and capture that special part of the Chanco spirit.