Chewin in the Chung

I sent Jill Simmons LJilly28@aol.com an E-mail, but I didn't keep a copy. She replied with this:

But Karl, If I remember correctly, you are the one who bought beer for the very underaged Alex Murray and drank hard alcohol in camp proper. I love
kids, spend my life teaching them English and decent decision making, and I am the first one to object to 17 year olds smoking pot as anesthesia for
stresses of homelives and schools . Pot is bad stuff as it prevents good self-analysis. Winona's problem with this is every camp and schools
problem, society'sd problem, and the older people do a good job of watching over the younger ones, lifeguarding the nightlife. You were there for the
worst summer, a situation that has been thouroughly remedied by some strategic firing and hiring. But the only 17 year olds ever hired by Winona
are ones who have come up through an award-winning CIT program; otherwise, it's 19 and through one year of college. The camp program is very full andf
organized: in Junior and Inty, the strucure is enormous, in senior, it's by camper's volition. For people like me and Ben Stonebraker(Stoney) and
countless others, the Ordways have given us a homebase and a sense of family for decades. We are successful, viable, highly achieving people because they
believed in us. You can't deny that campers flourish at Winona, and it's nhot only the 'popular' kids who do well. Look at my roomate Brian tippy, a yale
grad who teaches at Hopkins: he was a very introverted, unathletic kid but his loyalty to Winona is steadfast and he is now CIT director. I DO
understand your viewpoint and even agree that it's inappropriate to ignore underage partying. However, nhone of it touches a camper's experience and no
one has ever been hurt or endgangered in a nightlife that is much tamer than your average freshman college dorm. Doers Indian Acres not deal with this
issue at all?

Yours, Jill