One degree of separation

 

The greatest thing that happens in a week at Olympia is that you meet some amazing people and you can't believe the inter-connectedness of your separate journeys. The six degrees of separation in which we are all connected make for great stories. One story of human connection involves one person I have known for over 10 years as a coach and motivational speaker, and the other I met on a Facetime call last week. I feel I have known both my whole life. 

 

Maybe I have. I may have crossed paths with them without knowing it a lifetime ago in Kitchener Ontario, but there is an awesome Olympia Sports Camp and Oxbow Lake relationship that binds this story together.



 The Olympia connection is that I met Kevin O’Reilly, an Olympian longer than most, in 2009 when we both were coaching week 5 basketball. How long has Kevin been at Olympia? He worked with Gerry Withers. That's before Bruce Ransom! Gerry was the original maintenance man at Olympia and even worked there when it was a Kiwanis Camp. A classic link to the past. My first conversation with Kevin was while sitting on the dock, enjoying a beautiful sunny Muskoka day, and I found him inspiring and open about his life. We really connected on the subject of mental health and the power of vulnerability and are still connected to this day. 

 

The Oxbow connection is that Kevin’s friend Shawn Thomson has a family cottage in the second bay from Olympia, along Oxbow Road East, the road that many Olympia coaches and counsellors have used as a training run for the life of the camp. Shawn and Kevin and several other good friends have been having a boy’s weekend at the cottage every year since 1986.

 

Good stuff, but that’s not the story.

 

In 1948 the Lands and Forests Office in Dwight opened up some crown land on Oxbow Lake for purchase and Shawn’s father Bill Thomson bought a lot for $75. He and Shawn’s grandfather, also named Bill, built a prefab cabin. With no road access at the time, the main part of the cabin was built in three separate pieces that were taken by a large boat, launched near Olympia, to their site. Then over the next few months  they took hundreds of trips in a rowboat with a small engine on it to take everything else needed to finish the job. 

 

Shawn has been there his whole life and is a bit of a local historian on life on Oxbow. He remembers when Oxbow Lake Lodge was the place to go for supplies and small grocery items. It burnt down and now is the site of the Oxbow Lakeside Community Club, located just west of Olympia. The place with all the flags. He talked about the Mizpah Cemetery on Limberlost Road that has 11 people buried there, most from the 1880’s and 90’s. He recalls the store that used to be at the top of the hill as you leave Olympia. He remembers as a kid watching the campers from Kiwanis camp head out onto the lake every afternoon at 2pm for a Pirate Ship display, in a flotilla of kayaks.  I could listen to Shawn all day long and he inspired me to dig further. And I did.

 

 The Kiwanis Club of Toronto bought the property from the Norwegian Air Force in 1945. The Norwegians wanted the camp to be used “to improve the lives of Canadian children.” The Kiwanis Club ran a camp for underprivileged kids until 1975, where campers paid $15 for the week and that included the bus ride from Toronto. Dave Grace bought the property in 1979 and Olympia was born.

 

Great stuff, but that’s still not the story.

 

Kevin moved from Arnprior, Ontario to Kitchener when he was in grade 4. He went to St Paul’s school and attended St Francis Church. He met Dan O’Reilly (no relation) who was friends with Shawn Thomson. Shawn also lived in the Forest Heights area of Kitchener and he and Kevin became friends. They are still friends. Shawn, Kevin, and Dan are three of the guys at the guy’s weekend on Oxbow. What really makes this a story is that St Francis church is on Gatewood Drive in Kitchener. When I was a kid, I lived on Gatewood Drive. I literally may have been at church when Kevin was there, only to meet him three decades later on a dock at Olympia. I may have walked past Shawn in Queensmount arena or various other places in the neighbourhood.  What is amazing is the similar paths the three of us took in Kitchener, only to meet and talk about it now, just because I am writing a book. What makes the connection even eerier is that the mother of Kevin’s three kids, Faith, Clarke, and Joel, is Valerie Clarke. Her father Philip Clarke, and my dad John Dooley were partners in an accounting firm that was called Butler, Dooley, Clarke, and Starke.

 

As with most things in life, I am finding the more I put into this project the more I get out of it. I can’t describe what it meant to find a connection to my dad through these two great friends. I’m excited to visit Shawn’s cottage next summer.

 

Speaking of next summer. I want to use the forum of this blog to promote registration for camp next year. Dave and the staff have a huge hill to climb after 2 years of the pandemic to get people excited about registering for camp again. They need allies, and there are hundreds of us.

 

The importance of allies in any hero’s journey can’t be understated. I think 2022 will be a great year as the camp will return and flourish, but we need to be allies. My dad used to say you have to make hay when the sun shines and now is the time to get the word out to our circle of influence. The camp website is  www.olympiasportscamp.com Check out the website. Register your kids. Get your kids to get a few friends to join them at camp. Send a note to your club teams, your school teams. Don't do this to help the camp. Do it for the kid whose life will be changed because they got to go to Olympia Sports Camp in the summer of 2022. Help spread the vibe that after two years the best sports camp in Canada ( with the four reasons we hear at every opening) will be back and be better than ever. 



The link to the blog is TuesdayswithDave.blogspot.com


This blog is about the journey of the writing of the book A Hero's Journey: From Little Norway to Olympia Sports Camp. The blog will contain excerpts from the book and my personal thoughts on what the place and the people that make up Olympia's journey is all about. The title comes from the great book Tuesdays With Morrie, by Mitch Albom. The blog's title is recognizing Dave Grace as Camp Director, but all content is my own. 

 

 

 

 

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