Harold Hiken didn’t hear the four-hundred feet flowing almost silently down the lake boardwalk at six in the morning. In fact, it would have taken radar to detect the passage of every person in his camp over that route, through the passage behind the barbecue pit, down the main camp road, and along a rarely traveled path to the riding stables where Camp Timberlane hid from it’s director at breakfast-time on July 2.

At 8:30 a.m., fifteen minutes after the entire camp usually shows up at the flagpole, and only moments after he had checked several cabins and found no one around, H.H. sent a bewildered S.O.S. message over the public address system. “Now here this, now hear this,” he said. “Has anyone seen my camp? I’m missing my whole camp!” At that point, the nearly 200 members of the Timberlane community began marching down the road from the riding ring to the flagpole, chanting rhythmically along the way. Senior counselor Steve Friedman, dressed as Moses and complete with robe, staff and recorder, led the pack. H.H. said he was relieved to get his camp back.

The evacution--called one of the best gags pulled in the fifteen years of Timberlane history--was suggested and engineered by senior counselor Lee Glicksman and his motley group of program aids (P.A.’s) Glicksman, realizing the need for total silence at an hour unlikely to see H.H. awake, decided to sneak all fifteen cabins down to the waterfront and far away from the Hiken house, located in the central area of camp. Each P.A., dressed in camouflaged fatigue-wear befitting the wee morning hours, led a cabin group silently from its cabin. The move took 90 minutes with older campers arriving at the riding ring first, and younger boys sleeping later--until about 7:00a.m.

It was reported that H.H., who had risen earlier than had been expected for a before breakfast haircut, had seen a P.A., a junior counselor, and a camper running the camp road before 7a.m. J.C. Jeff Shovers and P.A. Steve Lebau apparently told H.H. that they were giving the camper a kind of”hell morning” (a non-existant ritual) and this satisfied the director’s curiousity. Although Harold reportedly told the P.A. and J.C. that the camper needed sleep, he apparently did not suspect strange goings on despite the odd explanation for a 6:45 a.m. run. Those three were the last persons out of camp.

Counselors Mark Abrams and Ivan Cole played guitars and sang quietly during the campers’ two-hour wait until the 8:15a.m. flag-raising bell. Also Fred Heller entertained with his banjo, picking such numbers as the theme song from “The Beverly Hillbillies.” Several goups of campers played cards to pass the time, and a few boys who had thought to bring sleeping bags or blankets rested in them comfortably. Part of the success of the “camp heist” was that absolutely no information was leaked to Harold, because most campers did not know of the plan until they were awakened that Wednesday morning.

“My own son didn’t even tell me,” lamented H.H. forlornly after the prank.
“But dad, I didn’t know,” Jimmy Hiken wailed.

Harold said that after returning to camp from the haircut at about a quarter past eight, he glanced in the lodge and saw no tables set (waiter’s bell rings at 8a.m., and by 8:15 all fifteen tables are always set.” He then confusedly announced on the public address:”Attention--all waiters come set your tables. That was the waiters’ bell...” H.H. then checked Menominee cabin and Siox cabin and found no one in either. In Hawk cabin, H.H. said he found Craig Ukman, who answered upon questioning that he didn’t know where the rest of the camp was.

“I think that Ukman ought to go in the lake,” H.H said jokingly afterward.

H.H.’s S.O.S. announcement came after Camp Timberlane had been missing from flag raising for about fifteen minutes. The kitchen staff, in on the planning, allowed for a 30 minute delay in their pancake breakfast.