Great minds think a lot!
             - Marge DeVito

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MARGE'S SHENANIGANS

MEETING MARGE

Karen Levine Morrison

My story begins my very first summer working in Surprise Lake Camp.
Early in the summer I went with my group to nature. Never having met Marge before, I was in for quite an experience. The girls were all excited to see the many animals in the nature shack. The next thing I knew the girls were lined up to hold a very special animal, and they had to be careful to hold it straight. So I went over to see this creature....at first I couldn't believe what I was seeing. There were the campers, lined up to hold a ...ZUCCHINI????
Sure enough, Marge had them convinced it was alive and petting it. So I went over, and of course I was told I had to hold it straight up or it would get upset, and I just had to shake it to see what the girls would do. Well they were upset and Marge jumped right on it and took it away from me, but then she said she would give me a second chance. So she handed me back the zucchini and I once again just had to shake it. She took it away from me, made me leave the nature shack and told me I was banned. I sat there thinking, "who is this woman" as I realized she had zucchini plants growing right outside the nature shack.
I thought that was the end of it. I was wrong.
In the dining hall the next day, during announcements, Marge cheerfully got
up in front of everyone and announced that I was banned from the nature shack.
Again I thought, "who is this woman?"
And again I thought that was the end of it.
The next time my group I had nature, I went with some apprehension. Marge
seemed very "forgiving" and let me come in. As I looked around, I saw a
zucchini inside a tennis can with a label "sick zucchini". And I just couldn't resist, she did it again, so I had to pick it up and shake it. Unbeknownst to me, Marge had dug out the top of the zucchini and put sour milk inside, and then replaced the top. Needless to say the zucchini got sick on me and Marge had the last laugh. That was the start of our friendship.

Marge and Jean

Before Marge worked in the nature shack she did housekeeping for the camp. One of her first assistants for this position was Jean Kambar. Jean was not immune to Marge's playful nature.

It was at Jean's expense that Marge discovered that dried up chocolate doughnuts looked a lot like poop.

Marge and Jean would ride around in a Jeep to do the housekeeping. One day Marge captured a snake, but it got loose in the jeep. She never told Jean about it, and for several days she would see the snake poke its head out from the dashboard. Jean never noticed.

Some time after that Jean went on a diet. Marge began advancing the seat of the Jeep up one notch every couple of days. Jean was convinced she was gaining weight. (submitted by Torre DeVito)

Marge and the
Mannequin Head

Marge got Whammy hooked on flea markets, so Whammy began to frequent them regularly.

One time Whammy bought a Mannequin head at one of these flea markets and bought it back to the Nature Shack. The first thing Marge did was put it in a cage... I'm sure she put some sort of creative sign on it, but no one can seem to remember what it said.

People remember walking past "The Shack" at night and being startled by the head looking out the window, as it did for many years (whenever it was not being used for pranks).

The head was often lobbed at campers passing Marge's house to go on a midnight hike to Cornish, an old estate that bordered Surprise Lake Camp where councilors liked to bring their campers to tell ghost stories.

It was left in peoples beds, in pots to startle the cook during pre camp, under the hood of the jeep to startle Ron, and various other places. Recently when Marge's friends were remembering some of these stories, they asked Marge's husband Tony if he knew where the head was. He said no, but the last time he'd seen it he had gone to use the bathroom in the camp infirmary, lifted the lid and yelled because the head was looking up at him. When they asked him if it was scary he said, "Of course it was, I was standing there with my P@K@R in my hand ....."

Marjorie was a prankster long before SLC ...
There were the halloween pranks she would pull as a kid, - a hose through a teachers window.. a bag of dog poop on the porch (at least she didn't set it on fire).

Marjorie May DeVito Halloween 1956(?)	You could say she started with the small stuff - prank calls, she was the first person I ever heard the Prince Albert call from ("Do you have prince Albert in a can? - Let him out") As well as the old "Is your refrigerator running? - Better catch it"
By 1959 when she joined the Army her practical joke habit had grown to at least 2 a week -shoe polish on a tattle-tale's nose, a tampered showerhead (I heard her tell this one in 1968 - well before the movie Private Benjamin.

So you see, Marge was pretty well a hardcore practical joker well before SLC, but but there is nothing like an audience to bring out the best (or is it the worst) in someone!

Then there was the time..

The time she terrorized Sam Guttman during rounds looking for the "Intruder"

Stuff Marge Really Did

Marge really did tie dental floss to fly's legs and let the kids take them out for walks.

She really did have a dead duck in the nature shack in a tank with the sign "Duck doing dead mans float."

She really did get people to pay to put their bare feet in vats of worms and called it a swedish foot massage (in fact she got well-to-do and status-conscious mothers to remove their designer shoes and let the worms "exfoliate" their feet on visiting day!). (submitted by Karen DeVito)

She really did drive Whammy through McDonalds after an animal auction so that he could throw a chicken in the window and ask them to Mc Nugget it for them.

She really did convince half of junior side that there was a hippo in the lake.

She really did pay the Will's boys to moon people, which they gladly did for a quarter. (submitted by Laura DeVito)

She really did shave one of the kittens in the nature shack to see if the kids treated it different than the others.

Rumors About Marge

In an effort to eat one of every kind of animal in the nature shack, Marge ate Fluffy.

Marge was laid to rest wearing a Whammy shirt.

When Howie How-are-you went to kiss Marge on the cheek she turned her head and slipped him the tongue.