The Campton Gym - Shot Clinic and Dance Recital

Good, Bad and Ugly - the Campton Gym was a universe in itself.  One memory - lining up in kindergarten to enter the gym at Campton.  Then, smelling something strange - alcohol fumes.  It was a shot clinic - maybe booster shots for whooping cough and diphtheria or possibly polio shots - before it was oral vaccine.  In any case I had forgotten about that slip of paper pinned to the front of my dress, a permission slip signed by my mother that I could receive the vaccine.  I had no idea why we were going to the gym that day.  But I felt bamboozled.  I hated shots.

One of my better memories of Campton is a dance recital, first or second grade.

Cheryl Thompson is at the left of the photo, I'm next to her.  We must be figuring out what we're supposed to do next.  The girl next to me appears confident, that she knows exactly what she's doing.

Our dance teacher was Mrs. Baum.  She lived on Horn Blvd., I think.  Mrs. Baum put an ad in the Silver Bay Shopper.  She taught gymnastics, tap and ballet.  In the photo above we younger students are doing a dance with an Asian theme - our mothers made black pants and the shirts were blue - both of a shiny acetate I believe - something to give a hint of silk.  Our fans were cardboard, covered with the same fabric as our mandarin-collared shirts.  We wear white socks.

Mrs. Baum only taught for a few year, then became ill.  I think she died very young.

I want to express my gratitude that she shared her joy of the dance to young girls in Silver Bay.  I used what I learned from Mrs. Baum when I was in my twenties and a chorus girl in Moorhead State's GUYS AND DOLLS.  One of our Moorhead friends recently mailed us a CD with some of Bill's sets and a few of my stage pics. This photo has both - Bill's set of the musical and me, standing far right.

Flap, flap, flap, ball-change, Hop, shuffle, step, flap, ball-change. Those tap combinations were still in my muscle memory all those years later.. "I love you a bushel and a peck... " Hey, they're still with me today.