Feather River Camp

Around 1969, when I had left Schurz, Nevada, we (I) decided to open a kid's camp.  Somehow, I don't remember how, and I don't remember his name, I met a man who owned one of those old resorts  in the Feather River Canyon about 20 miles up the canyon from Oroville.  This place had maybe 10 cabins, a bit meeting hall, a large kitchen and several out-buildings.  Perfect for a camp.  It was situated in some of the most beautiful mountain terrain I have ever seen.  I just remembered it also had a large bar-b-que area for large parties.  It was about a hundred yards above the actual Feather River and had a magnificent waterfall about 100 feet high.  So, I leased the facilities from this guy who had not idea what to do with the place and he was a little fascinated by the possibility I was attempting.  Now, you must understand, I had less that 0 dollars.  We were deep in debt.  But, that never stopped me before.  I had some stationary made up with a logo we produced.  I put an ad in the SF Chronicle.  I was expecting to have elementary aged children, rather we ended up for a year with five high-school aged kids with some social and emotional problems.  There was a bus that picked them up for the ride to Oroville High School.  The problem was they did not want to ride the bus the hour or so it took to get to school, so I took them and picked them up every day in my 1955 Chevy.  The drive was rather treacherous over a couple of miles of dirt, mountain road above pretty steep cliffs.  Then, 15 miles or so on paved Feather River Canyon Road.  (I'm sure that's not the name, but I can't remember what the road was actually called.)  No problem, right!  Wrong!  It was one of those times when my alcoholism should have landed me in jail or worse.  You see, I would drop the kids off at school and then go on to Chico where I owned a series of units that I rented out.  I would spend the day working on those units.  No problem right!  Wrong.  I would drink the whole time and arrive in the afternoon half-drunk to drive the kids home over that same dangerous road.  One of those times I am totally not proud of, but that I cannot change.  God was looking out for me and for those kids because we made it through the school year without mishap.
There is a lot more I could write about this experience, but I will only tell you that in spite of myself, and with the help of my partner, I think we did some really nice things for those kids and we got a lot of positive feedback from their parents.  We did not have enough money to continue so the whole thing only lasted one winter and we were off to someplace else.  Maybe Riverside.  But more later . . .
I think this was the beginnings of a letter we were to send out to prospective clients or an ad.  Not sure which.  If you click on it you can see what it says I think.  I notice it was titled "Feather River Camp."  This must have been early in the planning, because the name we eventually decided on was "Camp Mayaro" which was the name of the original resort.