Cliffside Scrapbook - Awards, badges... Scroll down!
Click on the active pictures for enlargements.
Counselor Assignments - 1958 - Click here
"Good Old Mountain Dew?" Click here!
(Words in the Songbook, under "M")

CIT letter, 1957. Click to enlarge
Harry Lothes article. He was a good friend of my father. Click to enlarge.
One of the annual Achiement Award certificates -- in 1951 there wwere at least a couple of notable activities!

Click to enlarge.

Click on this collage to enlarge (It's about 130K). 1953 was a pretty good one as a Cliffside camper (obviously a slow start in swimming, but everything else was cookin' reasonably well.) The counselor in the picture is Bill Bynum. Remember the riflery medal?
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We made all kinds of stuff as CITs at Cliffside. Finally, the counselors asked us to cool it a bit, because we were using up too many supplies. This guy, "Ace", was originally drawn by Ron Brooks, craft counselor in '58; I wood-burned it. I was told that Brooks and Jerry Butler wrote "For your Precious Love," which hit the top 40 that year. He had a bunch of 45 rpm copies of it and played it incessantly at the craft shop! Ron Brooks denied authorship later, but said he just liked the song...One co-composer was, however, Richard Brooks
Here's Brooks and his group in 1959. Don't ask where I got this...can't remember. Must be from a deejay magazine or something.

Ron also sang "The Cliffside Blues",
which is completely unprintable.
"For your Precious Love" really did hit the charts. Here's a chart from good ol' WHMS, my first actual job...Note number 35. Click for a full-size picture, from 1958. Remember some of the songs?

From the Carbide News, 1971

Here's a bunch of riflery material - something the kid was interested in and good at! Brassards from 1951, 52, 53, 54

Sharpshooter in 1954, and the first three Bars the next three years.
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Then, as a JC and CIT at Camelot and Cliffside, they let me shoot a LOT of targets, and I finished up the 9 bars and qualified for Expert Rifleman... Great fun, but I don't have a single target. Guess we had to turn them all in to get the awards.
The craft shop was a favorite. Early on, they provided a big box of multi-colored tiles and some masonite and turned us loose. This coaster was on the table around our house from that time on, and we still have it.
...and who doesn't remember making at least one potholder! The all-metal one was a later model; when I was a camper, they were wood, with a bunch of small nails pounded in around the frame...
Frankly, I don't remember if these were camps crafts or Cub Scouts ... Mom liked them, though.