YMCA Camp Thunderbird Alumni News

Many who served at camp during sixties, seventies, and eighties remember the Harris Family. Tim was the son of Ernest Hartis. In his own words, please join me in enjoying this story of Tim's music journeys.

Music has been part of my life since my elementary school years in Indian Trail, NC. I have enjoyed pop and rock, country, folk, southern rock, beach, disco, various Christian styles, and more recently, jazz standards. I remember my older neighbor Kevin playing in a rock band around 1969. I walked across the street to hear his group play Creedence Clearwater Revival’s song “Proud Mary” in his carport. Very cool! So, naturally, I asked for a guitar for Christmas.

I first played a small toy guitar, which I think was battery powered. I vaguely recall my best friend Steve and me setting up cardboard boxes as drums for our band’s debut performance for our parents in his back yard. Santa soon brought me full-sized electric and acoustic guitars. They were cheap instruments made in Japan and probably sold by Sears. I took a few informal lessons in a guy’s home near Indian Trial. One of the early songs I played was the easy, three-chord country hit “Green, Green Grass of Home.”

The Monkees were more my thing than The Beatles. I bought my first 33-rpm vinyl record album around 1970 using money earned from mowing senior neighbors’ lawns. My mom Maxine drove me to K-Mart in Charlotte, and I looked through albums in the record department. I was so excited to find an inexpensive greatest hits album by The Monkees, with songs such as “Last Train to Clarksville” and “I’m a Believer,” that I didn’t pay attention to the cover fine print. I was devastated after opening the record at home to find it was actually an album of The Monkees songs played by a classical orchestra.

As a fifth grader my family moved from Indian Trail to YMCA Camp Thunderbird at Lake Wylie, SC. My dad Ernest took the maintenance director job, and our family’s year-round home was at camp where the Duke Energy Pavilion is now located. I soon played in teen bands, and we’d set up drums and amps on the front porch facing Snake Island. I wasn’t a big hard rock fan, but one song I recall singing was “Paranoid” by Black Sabbath. Not exactly a YMCA theme song! It’s a small miracle that we didn’t get complaints about noise and content. Thanks to camp director Bill for his tolerance and patience during those years.

A new wave of country-rock and folk-rock came in, and it would influence my life through the 1970s as part of the camp maintenance crew. We listened to songs by The Eagles, Jimmy Buffett, James Taylor and John Denver on the camp’s old blue Ford pickup truck radios while emptying heavy metal (not music) green trash barrels by hand. Those artists’ songs were also heard at the summer camp’s Saturday night dances in the rec hall. Campers could dance with their friends, or even get out on the floor with a counselor they had a crush on. For years the final song was “Sunshine On My Shoulders” by John Denver. Later “You’ve Got A Friend” by James Taylor closed the dance.

I enjoyed 45 rpm vinyl records around this time. I remember about 1972 buying “The Happiest Girl In The Whole U.S.A.” by Donna Fargo at a Landrum, SC, record store while on a family trip. I also recall taking the record “Honky Tonk Woman” by the Rolling Stones to Clover Middle School to play at a Bible Class party. But my classroom friends didn’t want to listen to the Stones; they played “Brand New Key” by Melanie instead. Around this time, my school friend Eric gave me the “Crocodile Rock” record by Elton John for my birthday.

As a high school student in 1975, I thought I was a big dog taking a weekend road trip to Clemson with camp friend Wes and other college students. The first song they cued up on the record player in their college YMCA building dorm room was “Sister Golden Hair” by America. Loved those opening guitar licks. My camp friend Chad and I later took fun road trips around the southeast from Florida to Ohio in his little grey Honda Civic listening to our theme songs by The Eagles’ “Take It Easy” and Jimmy Buffett’s “Margaritaville” on the radio and cassette tapes. With us at times were Mickey, Dan, Todd, Tammie, Margaret, Jimmy, Jesse, Gail, Jennifer, Mary, Ken, Ernest and others. A few of us, including Gail who played guitar and sang, took a day trip to Atlanta once to hear Christian singer Keith Green in concert.

Many camp alumni will remember the Waldrop gang. This was an informal fraternity of camp maintenance workers, each given a club name by honorary president Jesse. The Waldrops included several musicians, and we’d perform songs like “Country Roads” by John Denver on the rec hall stage for the evening program. May, Mark, Judy, Robert and others played guitar. I recall practicing the country tune “Lucille” by Kenny Rogers and the old bluegrass standard “Orange Blossom Special” with Virginia on fiddle. Steve, Joe, Bubba, Chad, Mickey, Ken, Jesse and others played pans, saws, and toilet plungers. We’d often take familiar songs and substitute funny words about camp life.

May was an awesome singer and guitarist at camp. She also performed a few times in a variety band that I played with regularly in the community. She sang everything from Boston’s “Piece of Mind” to Jackson Brown’s “Stay.” But her signature song was Janis Joplin’s “Me And Bobby McGee,” and May’s version is on YouTube. We played at the old Bethel Community House by Lake Wylie where there were dances during the summer. May later wrote the camp’s popular theme song “Carolina Gave Me You,” which is on the camp’s Facebook page.

Chad, my brother Ken, and I were in Florida one time, and on our way (or not so on our way) back to camp, we visited May near Mobile, AL. She worked at a newspaper with a sister of Jimmy Buffett’s. I half-jokingly asked May to get us free tickets to the upcoming Jimmy Buffett concert at the Carowinds Paladium near Charlotte, and Ken asked her to get him Buffett’s autograph. She wasn’t able to get the tickets, but she did get Ken an autographed Buffett photo. It surprised him later in the mail, and he still has it.

I played various guitars, including one that belonged to older camp counselor friend Randy, who attended Clemson. In 1975 I bought the electric guitar that I still own today, an early 1970s blonde American Fender Telecaster. Maxine let me skip high school on Friday, October 3, 1975, and she drove me to Reliable Music House in downtown Charlotte to buy the used guitar. It was priced at $250, but all I had on me was $247.40. They sold it to me for $238 plus $9.40 tax. That music store opened in 1963 and became an institution in Charlotte before closing in 2001.

Mary Ellen began her tenure at Camp Thunderbird in 1989 as a seven-year-old camper. She was a staple at camp through 2004 as a camper, CIT, counselor and head counselor. As a counselor, Mary Ellen worked at sailing, skiing and the pool. She loved water activities and even served as co-chief and chief at the pool and sailing. Charlie began his time at T-Bird in 1999 as a younger boy’s counselor while working at the ropes course. He followed that up as the Outpost Coordinator and then three years as the younger boy’s head counselor. After a short stint away from camp he returned for two summers as the Program Director from 2005-2006. The closing ceremony of 2005 marked a special moment for the Grahams as Charlie proposed to Mary Ellen on stage. Bo Thompson announced the first Diamond Bandana that night! Charlie and Mary Ellen now live in Mt. Airy, NC with their two children, Beau (7) and Libby (4).