March 2, 2019. Madison, Mississippi. A Weekend in New York.

In the summer of 1960, Ken and I worked at the Salvation Army camp in Sharon, Ma., just outside Boston. Ken taught boating and led the camp band while I worked with The Golden Agers and the women and children campers. When the campers changed, we explored the area. Once, it happened to be a weekend so we decided to go to New York. Of course, we had no money but we had our camping gear. But no camp spots were available in downtown New York so we drove out to Long Island. Eventually we spent the night sleeping in our VW bug parked in a school yard. We woke up to kids playing. I remembered that family friends, Jean and Wilf M. lived in Manhattan but we could not find a phone booth so we found the SA headquarters and fortunately it was open. We used their restrooms and then asked to use the phone. Except we had no number so they looked it up. Jean and Wilf welcomed us with open arms. Ken and I played tourist, then met for dinner at their home. And they took us to the Rockets. We were wearing camp clothes so they outfitted us with their clothes. We slept on a mattress on the living room floor which was perfect. After a splendid breakfast we four attended a fancy church, again wearing borrowed clothes. We left to drive back to camp but not before we ate yet another delicions meal. Ken and I were lucky. We had a wonderful time in New York thanks to the hospitality of Jean and Wilf. We often laughed about our stupidity in thinking we could camp in New York. But we had a great time camping on the living room, and so did Jean and Wilf.