Absolutely, there is a need for a program like the old CCC.   

When a kid, there was a recently abandoned CCC camp on Cornell Univ. farm land just a quick bicycle ride down Ellis Hollow Road.   In the complex of vacant rustic and militaristic buildings there, including a defunct radio shack with notepads,  crumpled documents, headphones and microphones still on the desks in front of imposing grey metal cabinets with dials and knobs, my friends and I spent endless hours playing "war", building forts with the hay bales then stored in the former bunk houses and dining halls, playing chef at the giant stoves, pretending to sleep and be ambushed on the cheap metal spring cots, swinging by the ropes still hanging on the activity yard skill building equipment.   

What do kids have to play with today that provides so much creative and physical activity?   They need those old abandoned places to wander in surreptitiously, places with no rules except "Don't Get Caught", playing hide and seek and trying not to be caught by the owners who really don't care at all.  There is a need for new CCC camps to be built so they also can be abandoned in a few years to provide such fine informal playgrounds for the next generation, places with still enough evidence of what is was to be an adult so you could play at being it too and learn how to grow up.

cp in bc
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Leland Torrence 
  To: [log in to unmask] 
  Sent: Saturday, May 22, 2010 3:40 AM
  Subject: Re: [BP] State Parks,


  I have not been following this Park trend closely enough so someone may have already brought this up:  we need a New Deal type of program - civil service for all - such as the Civilian Conservation Core (1933-1942).  Of course its abolishment in 1942 was in essence the immediate metamorphosis to a standing army, but hey, they learned a lot, and got a lot of good stuff done.  Any thoughts?


  Best,

  Leland

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