Then and Now — Proud to Be a Camp Laney Boy

It’s hard to outrun your shadow, not that I’d want to in this case.

Rob Hammond, left, and Eric Sieb

It was midsummer of 1960, and I was 9 years old, still sporting the then very stylish hairstyle we called a flattop. (See the photo for proof.) I’m front row, center, a proud member of the Possum Hollow Crew.

It’s incredible to realize that I was at Camp Laney one year before current owner Rob Hammond began his 50-year tenure there. The camp, founded and run by Coach Malcom Laney and his wife, Louise, has been part of my DNA for 64 years, but that’s not news. The camp experience becomes a part of who you are, even if you were there for one year, like me, or if it becomes your lifetime endeavor, like it is for Rob Hammond and his wife, San.

Coach Laney was a legendary high school coach at Birmingham’s Woodlawn High School. He has been inducted into several sports halls of fame. Winning five state championships in 10 years will bring some plaques your way, and each was deserved.

I was fortunate to cross paths with him at my hometown church in Tuscaloosa. He had founded Camp Laney in 1959 and had quite a few fellows from Tuscaloosa attend in those early years. Coach Laney used his coaching connections all across the state to find the best counselors. They, in turn, recruited kids from their own towns to fill up cabins such as Possum Hollow, Skunk Bunk, Kangaroo Sac, and Hawk Haven.

Author Shurett, center of the front row

I still cruise by Possum Hollow numerous times each year. I tell my buddy and Mentone Mayor Hammond I’m doing a welfare check on Possum Hollow when my Mary and I ride through the Laney campus. We can only do that when camp isn’t in session, of course, and everyone knows it’s not a welfare check.

It’s a time when I can leave the present outside the gates of Camp Laney and cruise back to 1960 for just a moment or two, remembering camp activities such as Capture the Flag and other games. The boys of the camp then were divided into two tribes – the Apaches and the Commanches. I was a sneaky Apache, trying to grab the flag of those stealing, lying, no-good Commanches.

These drives to reminisce a bit spur such great memories, and there are times I can almost smell chicken frying like it did every Sunday – the day we wrote letters home to our parents and told them how good the food was.

I only attended one summer. By the summer of 1961, I had already embarked on a newspaper career – I had a paper route and worked every summer thereafter until I was 63. But Camp Laney continues to touch my life.

About four years ago, one of those no-good Commanches, Eric Sieb, made a return trip to Camp Laney. Eric brought his wife, Claudia, all the way from Phoenix to see Camp Laney. He’d told her the same types of stories I’d told Mary for so many years, and Eric and Claudia both wanted to see if the magic was still there.

It was and it still is.

The Siebs and the Shuretts have become great friends since their first trip here together, and that’s just another blessing Laney has brought us. And our Phoenix friends have fallen in love with this part of Lookout Mountain, so much so that they will break ground on their new home in McLemore in a couple of months. It’s another gift from Camp Laney.

Camp Laney has given me much in the past 60+ years. It taught me that homesickness isn’t fatal. I learned that a 9-year-old lad could fall in love at a camp dance with Camp Skyline. I knew I should have asked her name when we danced because I couldn’t find her when we had a second dance.

Mentone is so blessed to have a number of camps for boys and girls here atop our beautiful mountain, and everyone who has ever spent part of their youth here has many special memories of the Mentone Magic. It lasts forever.