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This week we have had beautiful spring weather here on Lookout Mountain! Temperatures have climbed into the 80′s on several days. A cold front came through yesterday and temperatures began to fall, but we know that spring cannot be far away and soon this place will be filled with the happy laughter and shouts of campers and staff. We cannot wait! We are busy readying our camp facility for the arrival of our 2009 campers and the opening of Alpine Camp for Boys’ 51st camping season. The daffodils and forsythia are blooming, the trees are budding and soon we will be seeing the redbud and dogwood in bloom. We are excited that many of you Alpine Alums now have sons following in family tradition and are enrolled in our 2009 season.
Alums, please know how much we enjoy the contact with each of you. We encourage you to post updates on yourself in the Alumni Section of our new website. We also love having you stop by camp to see us when you are in this area. Just last Sunday we had a surprise visit from Richard Lamb, longtime camper from Shreveport, LA. Richard has recently been transferred with his company, Medtronic, from Shreveport to Birmingham, AL. Richard and his wife, Kathy, and daughter, Kappy, stopped by to see us. We had a great visit and relived a lot of of camp memories. Richard and his brothers, Walter and Patrick, were longtime campers. Their cousin, Christoper Peatross, was another Alpiner for many summers. Walter Lamb is a bank president in Shreveport and Christopher Peatross, a graduate of Stanford, works and lives in Orinda, CA. We recalled lots of names of camp friends and cabin mates. Richard does not forget a name and wanted updates on all camp buddies that he has not seen or heard from lately. We hope we will see more of him now that he is living so much closer.
Let me take this opportunity to encourage you Alpine veterans to use the Alumni Blog on the new website to post updates on yourself. We love getting these updates from you telling us of your whereabouts, your family, and what Alpine connections you have made recently. Earlier this month we had an email from James Herring, a former staff member from Canton, MS. James is married and lives in New York City and has several boys who will soon be camp age. In addition to James we have a number of former campers and staff living in New York including Kyser Thompson, Mike Keller, Stuart Hurt, and Tarpley Mott to name a few. Maybe we need to organize an “Alpine Picnic” in Central Park this spring?
Recently I was “friended” on Facebook by Louie Little, staff member from 1973 and 1974. Louie, originally from Jackson, MS and a graduate of Mississippi State, now lives in Dallas where he is Director of Human Resources for East-West Ministries International. Louie and his wife, Kaky, have a son, David, a student at Wake Forest, and a daughter, Katie, a high school senior. Louie and Bill “Shu” Wilshusen, another Alpine Alum, occasionally meet for lunch and catch up on Alpine connections. “Shu”, another counselor from the ’70′s is a Vanderbilt graduate and practices law in Dallas. “Shu” was the cabin counselor in “Fun City”, also known as Alahe, back in the 70′s with an all-star group of campers including Robert Clark, Patrick Toomey, John Puckett and David May. Who else enjoyed those happy days back in “Fun City”? If you were in “Shu’s” cabin that summer, let me know. I know that Robert Clark now lives in Lookout Mountain, TN and has two sons that are Alpine campers. John Puckett lives in Jackson, MS and he has three sons who are Alpine campers. I understand that Patrick Toomey is a resident of Birmingham.
Recently I received an email from my oldest daughter, Toy, with an update on Nate Rawlings from Lookout Mountain, TN, an Alpine camper from ’91-’97. Nate was usually first term, but in ’97 he was with us second term. Nate is a Princeton graduate and now serving in the U.S. Army in Iraq. This is his second deployment to Iraq, and he finishes his tour there this month and plans to leave the Army to go back to graduate school, hopefully in Journalism. Nate has been an NPR correspondent in Iraq for the past year. His final radio message went out on March 6. You can catch it an others at www.npr.org/nate. Nate, thank you on behalf of the entire Alpine Family for your faithful and courageous service in protecting our freedom! We are indebted to you and the many others who have defended our country since 9/11. God Bless you as you move toward graduate school.
By the way, I have moved into the 21st Century, and you can now find me on Facebook. This has been a great way to locate former campers and staff. Please “friend” me and that is a great way for you to update me on yourself, your family, where you now live, and what you are doing if you don’t want to write a post on the Alumni Blog on the website. Many of you guys have registered in the Alumni Guestbook, but now you need to go back and update your profile such as entering your spouse’s name, your occupation, your anniversary, and the dates you attended alpine as a camper/staff. This will be a huge help for our office. Again know that we are always delighted for you to stop by camp and see us when you are traveling in the area.
So, here are the dimensions at Alpine. We play with level, poured concrete pads. Each court is 7’1″ long by 4’3″ wide. The two courts are 16 feet apart, from the front edge of one court to the front edge of the other (the long ends face each other). Our courts have two holes in each court (for two games to play at once). Each hole is 18″ in from the wide side and 22.5″ in from the front edge of the long side. The holes are 6″ in diameter and are constructed from schedule 20 PVC pipe (around the inside of the hole. The courts are covered with an industrial strength outdoor carpet. I have seen great washers courts made out of wood so that they can be moved around (plus your mom probably doesn’t want two huge concrete pads next to her flower bed). I have even seen some that have wheels underneath for easy travel! 
