Silver Hatchback on a Misty Lake

Pranks were quite legendary at camp.  There were a few unwritten rules which everybody followed: 1) You could not interfere with a camp program. For example, burning down the dining hall would not be allowed. 2) You could not mess with people's personal property. Don't steal a personal car. 3) I think actually those were the only two rules. As we've stated before there are many vehicles on camp. These either were kept at the shop to be used on an as needed basis and with Ranger Bob's permission or they were assigned to people in various positions of power because driving your own vehicle on camp roads could do considerable damage. Most of the time people left the keys in the camp vehicles in case somebody else needed to borrow them. It was an easy way to not loose the keys. The reservation director (in charge of all 3 camps) was the incomparable Timmy Haag. In 1997 or 1998 he drove a silver two door hatchback a Dodge or Toyota or some other make, a few decades old. It was small but got him where he needed to be. Based around this car we came up with what I still consider to be one of the best pranks I have ever seen. It was so involved that it required planning, coordination, timing, equipment and we were so unsure about it that we actually double checked with Ranger Bob on its feasibility/allowability. When he gave us the green light we were ecstatic. The plan was basically to float Tim's car on the lake. Lake Waubeeka that is. There are three bodies of water larger enough to piss in at camp. Waubeeka Lake, Buckskin Lake, and Leister Pond. Leister Pond was at Summit Base and was small and created by damming the river that flowed off of Mt. Stevens and out towards Brant Lake outside of camp. Buckskin Lake was also formed by this river but I believe it was natural. And Waubeeka Lake was a really large lake formed by a serious sized dam on the same river. Large enough that you could do the mile swim or 1/2 mile required for Voyageurs without turning around on the lake. Being the largest lake, Waubeeka also had the largest waterfront. At the end of each Summer the docks would have to be removed and stacked up so that they wouldn't freeze and crack during the harsh Adirondack winters. However you couldn't back vehicles onto the waterfront to transport the docks to storage as it was quite sloped, so the docks were untethered from their anchors and rowed across the lake to the opposite side where they could be accessed by vehicle quite readily. The Quackers and I volunteered to row the docks across the lake at the end of camp, so they were left alone for us to take care of. The steps were to steal Tim's car, drive it to the place where the docks were taken out of the water, row a dock over, drive the car on the dock, and row them back to the middle of the lake. We had people set to help us with every step along the way, including Ranger Bob, and we had planned it out to a tee. Bob had even had us find out the car weight and the load bearing of each section of dock to make sure they would still float. Being as we did not want to get caught we had a 2 am start time planned. So of course we went out to the bar that night. I would not say that I stayed totally sober, but I definitely paced myself that evening. I think we all went to the bar just to calm some nervous energy. The Voyageur and I drove back in my boat ('82 Buick Regal or '86 Plymouth K Car). I was a little buzzed and I'm sure he was too. We were all set to get the plan in motion but there was a snag. Tim's car wasn't where it was supposed to be. Where it was parked every night. Someone had taken it and it was not part of the plan. We (not just the Voyageur and myself but the 1/2 dozen or so who were in on the plan) set out to find it. I don't know why I thought to drive out to the horse barn/new farmhouse to search. Nor do I recall why I went off the main dirt road onto secondary dirt roads with the boat, but I did. Perhaps the Voyageur recalls better, but I think we actually had a camp radio and called for help once we were good and stuck in the middle of a hay field. And of course Ranger Bob came to haul us out. Tim's car was eventually found. In what I irrationally recall as the most annoying thing anyone has ever done, two younger staff, one of whom may be related to an author on this blog, decided to "prank" us by stealing the car we were going to take to do a prank with. They hid it in an open air structure but parked so tightly as to make it a real pain to retrieve. But eventually we did. So here we go. Drive the car to the pull out on Waubeeka Lake. The Quackers and I got in a rowboat - you have to be a Boy Scout to understand that even though I had been drinking and we were about to move docks and float a car on the middle of a lake, we still wore life jackets. We rowed across the lake, unhitched three sections of dock perhaps 10' by 4' each and rowed them back across the lake. We tied the docks together, put ramps up to them and someone (was it me or someone else? really not sure) tried to drive the car up the ramps onto the docks. That didn't work, whomever it was backed out. So Bob got the Asst. Ranger, Chris, to do it. He got right up first try. With the car secure, we rowed pulling all three docks now with a car on top to the middle of the lake where we tied off and dropped many, many anchors. And that was that. The Adirondacks can get very cold at night, even in the Summer. In the morning there is often a good deal of dew and sometimes fog as the sun comes up and heats up the cold grass and air. On Lake Waubeeka this often leads to a great deal of mist. This morning was no exception. About 6:30 we drove down to the lake and it was extremely misty, but as the mist parted you could clearly see a small silver car sitting out on the middle of the lake. It was simply the best prank I had ever pulled or seen pulled in my life. I really hope somebody can send a scan of a picture so we can post it with this entry. This happened in the late 90s before cellphones were prevalent and everybody documented everything digitally.