The Getaway at Prince William that Big Mick attended in 1999 was the last one that Debby McClatchy catered. We had used her for many years when we were at Camp Letts, but we left Camp Letts when it became prohibitively expensive to meet the guaranteed numbers we needed to reach in order to be able to continue to use enough support facilities, including our own dining hall. So we tried moving back to Prince William in 1999, which is where the Getaway began and had been held for years before it moved to Camp Letts. We didn't fit at Prince William in 1999 (you may remember), so we went in search of a new venue and found Camp Ramblewood. We chose Ramblewood partly on the fact that we *could* bring in our own caterer, but bringing Debby back never worked out--the camp insisted on overseeing her in a way that nobody could live with, and it would have been too expensive. When we moved to West River, using the West River kitchens was a non-negotiable part of the deal, but the venue in other ways is so perfect for us that we decided to use it anyway. Actually, we had considered West River immediately after Prince William, and the fact that we couldn't bring Debby along to cater our meals was at least one of the considerations when we chose Ramblewood. But after several years at Ramblewood sans Debby, we learned we could live with the food, since that wasn't the real reason we came to the Getaway anyway.

--Charlie Baum