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Steve Cunnignham writing -- These Home Letters have been reproduced here as they originally appeared in the years they were published (as best we can - see Larry Pickett's comments below). There were misspellings, gaps and non-uniform formats. Such as it was using the old Remington typewriters without deletes, spellcheck and inserts. Some of the text was unreadable due to wrinkles in the original mimeograph template and was replaced by a series of "?" or "#" characters. You will notice in the sixties that, occasionally, the same date will appear on two newsletters - such as with 1964 and 1966. You may also notice that some Home Letters lack a space between the day paragraphs, probably as a means to cram more text into two pages.     

Larry Pickett writing -- The early ones are done on fairly plain letter head and reproduced on one of those blue ink memo machines that we all loved to breath the fumes of. These documents most likely wouldn't lend themselves to scanning and intrepretation by OCR software as the type is faint, the paper yellowed, and the lines not always straight.

Looking over this stuff is an emotional mixed bag. It's such a lift to see how the camp started how much the origional ideas were still visible when we were there. It's sad to realize that today what with government regulations and the life style most kids are used to that there isn't such a wonderous place out there and it may be almost impossible to start one. I can't help but think that's a terrible loss. For the past 4 years I've been involved with a bunch of adolescents and young adults that make it their business to have fun and enjoy life to the fullest and yet take responsibility for their behavior and support each other through the pains of growing up. Any time any of them get together there's noise, ceaseless activity, and a lot of love in the air - in a lot of ways they remind me of the spirit of Hyde Bay and why after all these years so many of us drive our kids crazy with Hyde Bay stories and flock to you and the project of preserving some of this on the web. I think the Director and Directoress would be overjoyed knowing that Hyde Bay's spirit continues on.

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