Camp Morehead By-The-Sea
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Camp Morehead By-The-Sea
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Tales of Cap'n Tommy Tommy Cordova is the one person who spans almost the entire Camp Morehead era. His father, known to all as "Pop", ran the Craft Shop for years. His mother worked at the camp as well as his brothers. Tommy sailed the sailboats, ran the motorboats, drove the trucks and buses, and generally kept everybody entertained for longer than most of us can remember. Many of us old salts have communicated with him since hearing of his illness. I expect that few of us have as many friends. If you have a good Cap'n Tommy story, suitable for family viewing, please e-mail it and I will add it to this page. If you have a good photo that can be scanned and sent as a .GIF or .JPG file, please send it as an attachment to Cap'n Royster Chamblee. I'll start with Tommy's class in knot tying. After wowing everyone with his Spanish Sheepshank, Tommy would demonstrate the bowline, the bowline-on-a-bight and the running bowline. He would conclude with his famous "dragging bowline" which was performed by dragging a regular bowline down the pier.
from Cap'n Robert Ponton My best memories of Tommy are the trips to Shackelford Banks on the Pontoon Boat. The kids would go to the ocean and Tommy would stay on the boat and eat vienna sausages. Coming back to camp we would go through Beaufort and past the log storage place where they watered the logs to keep them fresh. Tommy always convinced the children that the logs were being grown there. After the Shackelford trip was cancelled because of the Coast Guard, Tommy took the all day sailing trip most every day. He was the best sailor I knew and could tell when it was going to rain and what the wind would do after the storm depending on where the storm came from. Great memories.
from Cap'n James Morrow Tommy story, and a true one, I swear: Tommy always said you would never see a single bolt of lightning from the pier. There would always be two. The reason was that after the first bolt, there was a corresponding flash of Tommy streaking down the pier on his way home. Tommy claimed he could be sitting on the porch at home having a beer by the time any second lighting bolt arrived. And Tommy said, more than once: "Camp Morehead-by-the-Sea, also known as Camp SeeMore-by-the-Heads, situated on a bluff and run on the same principle." (The big problem here is that most of the Tommy stories were somewhat off color and punctuated by that grin of mischief.) [Ed: Campers have laughed at the "Camp SeeMore" and "bluff" sayings, separately and in combination, since the early 1940's -- An example of Cap'n Tommy keeping the great traditions alive. A couple that I remember: "Moi lord honey, you've got oyes like a Mullet!" Then there was "Moi lord, the toide was so hoigh the sharks came in the yard and ate the collards!"]
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