Finding Ellis

He wasn't big, Ellis. At least, not when I met him in 1956. He was something of a boy wonder at Camp, having won the World Cup of Camp sailing races – the Wilson Trophy – at the age of eleven.

His full name was Roys Arthur Ellis – the third no less. But, went by “Terry”. Me, I just called him Ellis.

Camp was Camp Ahmek, the boys camp of the Camp Ahmek/Camp Wapomeo combination established by Taylor Statten. Ellis was from Boston and had been coming to Camp since 1948 when he was 51 months old.

Ellis and I became friends. Odd, given his brash demeanour set against my shyness.

Son of an airline pilot, Ellis could be counted upon to make the remark that would put the counsellor over the edge. He backed down from nothing. He rarely apologized. Turned out he was pretty smart too – or so he told me.

By the summer of 1960, Ellis wasn't small any longer. Blonde, lithe and about six foot two, he arrived in Camp and announced that his family had moved to California and he was now a surfer. He cut just the right image, it being the Beach Boy era. "Bitchin'" was his favourite word. It meant good – very, very good!

In the summer of 1960, Ellis was on kitchen staff and I was a first year counsellor. We had each developed a love of paddling – fast. So, we decided that we would form a team and compete in the annual staff canoe race – called the Stilson. In the race in late August, we did poorly, dumping our canoe about five minutes from the finish. We swore a lot. One of the things we swore was that we would compete again. And, do better.

We kept in touch during the winter of ‘60/’61. And, good to our word, we competed in the 1961 Stilson, almost upsetting the defending champions – the formidable Conacher and Cousineau – who beat us by half a boat length. Progress!

Ellis and Pigott - Stilson 1962 Time 31:30

We teamed again in 1962 – for what turned out to be the last time. We won the Stilson handily and hoped this was the beginning of a dynasty. Life would intervene.

When Camp broke in late August of 1962, Ellis was uncertain of his plans. You see, he had dropped out of Harvard and might have to find a real job. I was headed into my last year of an undergraduate degree and my return to Camp again was uncertain.

In February of 1963, I was studying in my university residence room. There was a noise in the hall. Then, a tapping at my door. “Ellis, what the hell are you doing in Toronto?”. Turned out, he was in town visiting a Camp girlfriend. We spent some time together over the next couple of days. Then, he simply disappeared.

Ellis never returned to Camp. I lost track of him. A Camp informant told me Ellis had never gone back to university. Instead, he earned a commercial pilot’s licence and flew cargo planes into Asia for Flying Tiger. Whatever he was doing, and wherever he was doing it, no one seemed to have contact particulars – even members of his family.

Over the years, I thought a lot about Ellis and about our Camp exploits. And, our friendship – past.

When it happened in 1996, I wasn’t expecting it. Working in my office, a fresh e-mail appeared on my computer screen. For a time, I ignored it, thinking it must be spam. It had “Aloha” in the sender’s address.

It wasn’t until later that I noticed that “Aloha” was preceded by “RAEllis”. What the hell is this?

It turned out that Ellis had been looking for me. Through the Camp office, he obtained my e-mail address. From out of the Pacific, I learned that Ellis was living in Maui (when he wasn’t working) and running a camp when he was. My God, I thought, Ellis is still in the camping business.

From our initial exchange of e-mails, I learned that Ellis was not dead or in jail but actually living in paradise. I also learned that we were both fat and out of shape, thinking about our histories and wondering how much future each of us had before us.

Ellis’ “camp” – as it turned out – had nothing to do with kids or summer pastimes. The “camp” actually housed a large number of men involved in a pilot project to determine whether the island of Kahoolawe could be cleaned of ordnance. You see, Kahoolawe had been used for military target practice until the mid nineties. Dangerous place, apparently.

With Ellis, I shared some of the details of my journey from lawyer to entrepreneur and back again. And always, one of the central themes was Camp – the place we met.

From time to time, I received nostalgic e-mails from Ellis telling me about his first experience at Camp at under five years old, the terror of the loons and the immense separation between Canoe Lake and his home in Boston. He told me of the Hawaiian boys he had adopted. He told me about his concerns for his future livelihood. From time to time, we talked about Ellis returning to central Canada for a visit to Camp. That wistful ambition has not materialized – at least not yet.

As often happens, our communication fell off to intermittent. But, always, there was a Christmas Eve e-mail each checking with the other to make sure we were still on the planet. Once, pictures arrived, depicting a cabin in the bush – much like at Camp – and two young boys standing with an older guy sporting a ponytail. We all change.

Privately, I believed that I would never see Ellis again. Then, two apparently unrelated events changed all of that. In the summer of 2007, my wife’s sister announced that she wanted the three of us to go on a trip together to celebrate a milestone birthday. A number of destinations were considered before we settled on the Hawaiian islands. The big event would occur on March 28, 2008. So, a trip was organized which began on Lanai and concluded with the big party – March 28, 2008 – on Maui. In the back of my mind I thought Ellis might find his way into that program.

The second event was slightly unnerving. In November of 2007, an e-mail arrived from Ellis announcing that he was celebrating his 65th birthday on March 29, 2008 and would I attend his party. I suspected that Gitchi Manitou had gotten into the act because on March 29, 2008 I would be within 20 miles of the Ellis party. So, I accepted Ellis’ invitation, obtained an invitation for my wife and her sister and got directions to Ellis’ place outside Wailuku.

The three Canadians spent 10 splendid days in the solitude of Lanai before moving to Maui to celebrate some birthdays. I spoke to Ellis on the telephone from Lanai and we decided to play golf on March 28, 2008. I wondered – would I recognize Ellis? Would the differences inscribed by time overcome our common history? Would we pick up were we left off 45 years ago or start over?

I saw him from a distance – a figure in sandals beating balls down a driving range. A ponytail stuck out from under his hat. And, there was something disinterested in the way that he waved at the balls. I knew it was Ellis – his diffident posture gave him away. Forty-five years on, his body language was unmistakable.

“Terry”, I called. He turned and walked toward me and extended his hand. “Mr. Pigott. You’ve lost weight”. And so it began – again.

The golf game – Terry and myself in one cart, my wife Carole and her sister in the other – was a travelogue – one having nothing to do with the golf course we played.

For starters, Ellis had never been known as “Terry” on Maui. Everyone who addressed him in my presence called him “Aussie”. It fit, Stewart Appleby will probably look like Ellis in thirty years. “Aussie” it turned out was a hangover from the days that Ellis ran a surf shop on Maui.

Over the course of that afternoon, I learned that the legend and the reality of Ellis – pretty much – lined up. He did drop out of Harvard – to surf. He opened a surf shop in California in the mid sixties and moved it to Maui a little later. After the surf shop, Ellis took jobs with varying levels of responsibility – cabinet maker, sugar plantation worker, plant manager and his stint as the camp manager on Kahoolawe. Now, Ellis is retired. At the end of it, our day on the golf course produced some questionable golf. But, the ride filled almost two generations of blanks in our lives.

The golf game over, Ellis drove away in his truck. I noticed that it was slung high off the road. I would learn why the next day when we joined Ellis to celebrate – with his friends – his 65^th birthday.

March 29^th was another glorious Maui day. Sunny, with the Trades picking up as the day lazed on. At Ellis’ recommendation, we drove the road around the north end of Maui. In that drive, there are twenty terrifying miles of a single lane road that re-define the term “single lane”. In a dozen places, road signs warn the approaching driver to honk before rounding the next blind curve. All this with the Pacific pounding in below us, at the bottom of magnificent cliffs.

“Turn up at the thirteen mailboxes – mile 5” were our instructions. The road was paved for about half a mile. Then, we learned why Ellis’ truck was high slung.

I sort of recognized Ellis’ place because he had sent a picture of it. Under the rain shadow of West Maui Peak, Ellis’ home – and also his work shop – sat in a clearing in the forest. We noticed Ellis had some neighbours as we drove up then in. But, at “Chateau Ellis”, we saw only buildings, sky and lots of foliage.

At Camp Ahmek, Stan Murdoch re-built and maintained the Camp fleet of cedar strip/canvas canoes. Stan’s workshop – with his saws and wood and canoes in progress – abutted his living quarters. Stan Murdoch has moved to Hawaii and come back as Ellis.

The birthday gathering was small at first – Richard and Warren. It picked up steam as the afternoon progressed. Among the guests were Bradley and “Small Boy” whom Ellis had taken in as young boys when their family abandoned them. There was a distinct Hawaiian flavour to the event – not in music or outward signs – but in the Hawaiian sense of extended family. No doubt about it, Ellis has many friends – no surprise to me. What I also saw was the profound humanity of Ellis in seeing two young boys abandoned and reacting to it by taking them in, seeing to their schooling and otherwise raising them like a father, or at least a big brother, might.

At his home, Ellis got out some Camp pictures and showed his friends what we looked like so many years ago – two aging dudes talking about their glory days. Actually, Ellis’ boys looked mildly impressed.

We talked more about family and life and Camp and what a wonderful gift it was to see one another forty-five years on.

We left the party before dark. I last saw Ellis framed by palm fronds, drinking a beer. And, clearly enjoying himself. Sixty-five – going strong.

“Bitchin”.