Troop 30 BSA Poughkeepsie, N.Y. Alumni Page

I just recalled another boy scout occurrence. The troop went to Hunter Mt one time around mid 60's. I recall the state was widening route 28. We camped by one of the leanto's the state had there. It was next to a stream and a bridge. We hiked up to the ranger tower and got a card from the ranger that said we climbed hunter mountain. On the way up, I stumbled and twisted my ankle. On the hike back down, I trailed behind the group by a hundred yards. A black bear came out of the woods and stopped on the trail and sniffed the air. I froze in place and nearly pi**ed my pants because it was about 50 yards in front of me. The bear did not look at me and crossed the trail and went off into the woods. I waited about five minutes than ran as fast as I could with my ankle hurting me. When I got back to camp I soaked my foot in that stream and found it had small trout in it. I'm sure I told folks about the bear sighting but that was my first up close experience until I moved down here to Florida.

Do you guys remember the small car racetrack we had at the youth center? Or the public race track up on Main St. ? I think it was mid to late 1960's. We used to come in on Saturdays to race our cars. I recall we had apple cider and donuts at one of our Friday night meetings. It must have been around Halloween. I was with Stan Waryas when we went to the Cider Mill on Cedar Ave and got some cider fresh squeezed. We didn't finish off all the cider at the meeting and left in there overnight. We came on Saturday morning to set up the racetrack and race cars and found the cider had fermented. Needless to say no one said anything about it and we finished off the now Apple Jack.

Well guys, so far I only had two postcards out of the 50 or 60 I mailed out come back with Return to sender, Attempted not known or Unable to forward, and they were for Edward Mikula and Paul S Becchetti, from St Augustine FL and Chicago IL respectively. Both were way before my times and probably a couple original members. I'm not going to continue to search, since it is very time consuming and it costs money. I did searches like this for years for my marine corps association and once was more than enough. The nice weather is coming in and I'm starting to do more outdoor stuff.

In August 1964, the Mountain Dew brand and production rights were acquired by the Pepsi-Cola company, and the distribution expanded across the United States and Canada. It was probably that winter, that the troop was camping in a cabin and one of the guys brought one of those ceramic jugs filled with Mountain Dew soda. We took turns hefting it over our shoulder and taking a slug of Mtn Dew. Anyone recall that?

The other strange experience took place at the end of a summer camp. It must have been 1968 the last year I worked at the camp. There were no regular campers just workers or it could have been a OA work weekend to close up the camp. I was staying in a tent on the right side of the parade ground. There was another camp site behind the little rise behind the flagpole. It was dark and I had left the mess hall and walked up towards the parade ground. Turning left off the road into the parade ground I saw the camp area behind the flagpole was lit up bright. I thought they had a couple double mantel lanterns going and did not think about it. I could not see anything behind the hill but before I got to the tent, the light shot up into the sky and in an instant disappeared. I walked over to the tent and went to bed, not understanding what I had seen. I still don't know what I had seen in either case? Strange but true.

Did anyone experience any strange occurrences at Camp Nooteeming? I had two that I have never forgotten or talked much about. One happened when I was with two other scouts. I thought they were Johnny Del Santo and Steve Sette but neither recalls the incident. I'm assuming it was fall and we were troop camping, because the leaves were off the trees and summer camp would have been over. The three of us were walking up the road towards the back of the property where they had the Junior leader training area. We were approaching the break in the stone wall that the road passed through. Off to the right we saw a light in the woods about 50 or 60 yds away. As we got closer to the wall the light appeared to be following the wall and floating above it and getting closer to us. The light was oval in shape and looked like fog, you could see through it. When we were about 10 yds from the wall and the light, we looked at each other, and without saying anything we turned and ran away. I can picture the light through the trees, the wall and running away but I can't see who was with me?

I recall another story. We were camping in cabin 33, at the back of the camp property and I was bugging Mr D to let me try some of his chewing to***co. He warned me about it and finally gave me some and after a few minutes of chewing, I turned green and began throwing up. It lasted for hrs and I have not used chewing to***co since. I did however start smoking and chewed the ends of ci**rs.

The name Thomas Beck popped into my head. I believe he was in the troop and lived up in your neck of the woods John? Maybe Lindbergh Ave? I knew a girl at IBM named Nancy Beck, that told me her brother was in the boy scouts with me. It's hard cleaning the cob webs out of my head.

I modified this map of camp Nooteeming from sometime in the mid 1970's, to show some of the areas that should be familiar to us all.

Anyone remember the chapel in the pines?
We used to play some flashlight game around it at night?

A more recent view of some lean-tos at Camp Nooteeming. I don't know where these are located. I only recall those behind cabin 10? or was it cabin 27? From the moss on the roof's they have been there for some time.

Having a keen interest in Scouting, in 1969 Charlotte Cunneen Hackett willed the family house and 44 acres to the Boy Scouts of America. A ceremony was held that year in May, at which time the house was christened “Cunnett House,” a combination of the family names’ Cunneen and Hackett. The Town of Hyde Park subsequently purchased the house and property from the Boy Scouts during the 1990s and it became a municipal recreation area. “Today the recreation administrative offices are in the house and we also have our Adventure Day Camp use some of the rooms on rainy days,” said Hyde Park Recreation Director Kathleen Davis. “Also, we have community, recreation commission and Hyde Park trail committee meetings here in the house.” Hackett Hill Park is at 79 East Market St.

While working at Camp Nooteeming in 1968 some of us went to the Hitchcock estate and marked trails for hiking and followed some of the trail markers we found. We found several of the hippie camp sites. They were a mess like the mansion.

The Hitchcock Mansion and home of the Castalia Foundation in Millbrook, NY. The hippies left the inside a disgusting mess.

Remember this?

I had a couple opportunities to go to summer camp with the troop at Camp Nooteeming and I also worked at the camp for two seasons. I had a chance to work out at Hackett Hill when they started using it as a Junior Leader Training Program (JLTP) site instead of the Camp Nooteeming site out in the back part of the camp. I also had an opportunity to camp out at the Hitchcock property, in Millbrook, for a 3 day camp for something like survival and pioneering. I'm not sure if it was for JLTP or some merit badges? I did cooking & pioneering merit badges, when I worked at Nooteeming. I do know, I was introduced to eating frogs legs and they did taste like chicken.

Do any of you remember camping out at the Polish Club property on Hibernia Rd, before it was the picnic grounds? Helping to clear out some of the trees in the locust groves and swimming in the Wappinger Creek. Also, the grass fire that got started and helped create the nice grass and parking area that the picnic grounds enjoyed? I don't recall if the troop was camping there when the fire occurred but I'm sure the troop was there a couple times?

I thought I would have made contact with a few more people by this time? I'm sure I had the correct addresses for the Bishops and Roth brothers, Rudy Wiedemann and several older guys, before the 1960's. Well so far we have myself, Johnny Del Santo, Steve Sette and Steve Parrella, Joe Molinaro, George Marvella and Bill Heybruck. I'm hoping we can make contact with more. I sent a letter to Stan Waryas's wife and did not hear anything back from her. I remembered Stan would take lots of slide pictures and show them to us at the meetings. I asked her if she had any of the pictures and that I would be interested in posting them on the website, if she did.

Here is the list of names I accumulated from newspaper articles and input from others. If you recall any other names, let me know and I will update. I have a more comprehensive list with dates of activities, if anyone is interested.

Sending out my last batch of postcards. I identified 103 people associated with Troop 30, unfortunately, I found that 27 have passed away. I sent out 53 postcards and about 23 I cannot narrow down a location for. If any of you have pictures, stories etc about Troop 30 feel free to post them. Through the newspaper articles I learned that the troop at St Joseph started in Sept 1949 but I can't find when it ended at the First Baptist Church , on Mill St. I hope whoever comes to this site enjoys the memories.

19 May 1972

15 Jan 1967

10 Feb 1957

17 May 1956

2 Dec 1954