As a child I attended a Hull House camp called The Bowen Country Club, located in Waukegan, Illinois. During the summer groups of mothers and children spent two week at this beautiful camp which was filled with flowers, grass and trees.It was a welcome change from the Taylor Street slum area where we all lived.

Part of the staff of this camp was made up of former campers and in 1942 or 1943 staff was hard to get. World War II had begun and all of the young men were in the service or doing other essential war work. It had gotten so bad that women were recruited as counselors for the cottages that housed younger boys.

At this time a former camper, Mike Garippo, whose nickname was “Superman” received a two week furlough before going overseas to the war. Instead of spending his leave with his family or looking for girls in bars, Mike volunteered to come out to the Bowen Country Club and work as a counselor at the cottage that housed boys ages six to ten. He felt that a male influence was important for boys at this young age. So he came to Waukegan to spend his precious furlough.

One of the main requirements for children to move from the “Baby” cottage to the “Children’s” cottage was the ability to handle a knife and fork at the table. There were other requirements as well. I filled out those requirements at the age of five, so I was put into the cottage where Mike Garippo was acting counselor. I was small for my age and all of the other kids in that cottage were older and bigger than I was.  (Editor’s comment:  Rosenwald cottage housed the mothers and their infants.  This was a unique concept in summer camps, but was consistent with Jane Addams’ theory of symbolic interactionism, which she employed  for the benefit of the immigrant population that resided in the near-west side of Chicago, the “Hull House neighborhood.”)  .

One of the games that was played was called “Scalp Rush”. It consisted of a dirt filled bag that someone would hold and try to prevent the others from taking. It was a rough and tumble game that involved a good deal of physical contact. It was played in an open field.

Somehow the other boys in the cottage thought that it would be a good idea to shove the “scalp” into the hands of me, the smallest one, and then all pile on top of me. They did that. And one or two thought that it would be an even better idea to shove my face into the dirt. They did that too.

To this day I can still feel the fear of not being able to breathe and of having all these people on top of me so that I couldn’t move. I struggled and managed to lift my face a few times to gulp some air before my face was pushed back into the dirt. I was terrified and weakening fast.

Then all of a sudden, I heard a voice yelling. The bodies on top of me started to get tossed aside. At last I could turn over on my back and breathe. I opened my eyes and there was a giant standing over me. His back was to the sun so that I couldn’t make out his features, but it looked like he had a halo around his head from the sun.