While You're Up, by John M. Camp, Jr.
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EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION

I met Jack Camp in his twilight days, but even then, he was aglow with youthful enthusiasm and positive force. My job was to record and produce his memoirs. Jack Camp's wife, Rachel, envisioned the project and came up with the title, While You're Up. She and Mr. Camp's children had long experienced the phrase and knew what would follow. For Jack Camp was a charming master of requests – little favors quickly organized, itemized, and granted while the head of the household remains seated.

The book took eleven months to finish. The interviews, which I taped, began on February 11, 2008. Jack, a keen observer, answered my questions with a startling abundance of detail and easily turned mental videotape into flowing words. He had a large vocabulary and he played all 88 keys. His responses were delivered in a rich Southern accent, and his voice ranged from bass to tenor, sometimes mid-sentence.

Over a period of just six months, his memories filled forty-four tapes. After I transcribed the tapes and put everything in order, we read the manuscript aloud and Jack added more information. A 388-page book emerged that told the tale of a privileged survivor. Privilege was assured by birth. Survival, necessary for several reasons, came from resources and faith lodged within him.

Jack's grandfather, Paul Douglas Camp, was rough hewn but heavily endowed with persistence and business sense. With other family members, he purchased a sawmill and vast tracts of timberland during the depressed days of Reconstruction. P. D. Camp and two of his brothers, Robert J. Camp and James L. Camp, parlayed various strengths and attitudes into a commercial entity that grew like pine saplings on a five-star tree farm.

Jack's father, John Madison Camp, worked along with the second generation of Camp Manufacturing relatives to expand the business. He supervised the operation of mills in Wilmington, N.C., from 1911 until 1914; in Wallace, N.C., until 1929; and at Russellville in St. Stephen Parish, S.C., from at least the early 1920s until 1943. From 1923, John Camp made his home back in Franklin, Virginia — raising his children across the street from his own parents' residence in a town where farms and mechanized industry rubbed dusty shoulders daily.

Indeed, Jack Camp, an only son and a first grandson, was born with a silver toothpick in his mouth. But, he had to work hard to compete at Camp Manufacturing and to satisfy the standards of a business too beautifully run to tolerate nepotism. In 1956, Camp Manufacturing Company merged with Union Bag, of Savannah. The resulting corporate giant, Union Camp, took its place in the upper half of America's Fortune 500 industries. As a result of the merger, Jack Camp gained a promotion, but would later face one of his darkest moments because of career misjudgments. However, he admitted his mistakes and, to paraphrase another Southerner, not only endured, but prevailed.

Family was the backbone of Jack's life. He grew up in a little town where the limbs and branches of his family tree hung close. Grandparents, parents, sisters, aunts, uncles, a bevy of cousins, and many family in-laws peopled his world. In the midst of his service in World War II, he took a wife — Jean Stafford of Greensboro, N.C. The couple had four beloved children, Sharon Camp Carter, Jean Camp Harrell, John M. Camp III, and Robert Hill Camp.

Jean Stafford Camp died in 1983. In 1988 Jack married Rachel Cameron Fox, a Wilmington native. He gained three stepchildren: Rachel MacRae; Hugh MacRae III; and Nelson MacRae - a hunting and fishing buddy.

Jack's life had more than one paradox. He was abounding in aptitude, but managed to graduate last in his class from VMI. Nevertheless, over time, he rose in the alumni ranks to become president of the VMI Foundation. Though dogged lifelong by bouts of vertigo, he learned to fly, trained scores of other pilots, became an Air Force pilot in India, flew The Hump, and had not one frightening incident of his own making throughout fifty-three years in the cockpit. Though known for his abrupt and bossy nature, he spent much time and effort checking on friends, communicating with family, sending cards, giving gifts while distracting those who are dolefully preoccupied with his ribald jokes.

Despite being thoroughly human, Jack had a heightened awareness of spiritual reality. Raised in the old Southern Baptist tradition of faith and scholarship, he had a good background of knowledge. It was his daily spontaneous prayers, both at table and in virtual secrecy, that spoke volumes. With no attempts at self-righteousness, he simply kept in contact with his eternal Commander-in-Chief, and tried to do his best with the nature that was his ration.

Both in conversation and on tape, Jack's vocabulary always amazed. Words like "persiflage" and terms such as "Aristotelian syllogism" peppered his talk. What a privilege it was to spend time with someone who caused me to grab the dictionary as soon as I returned home. I believe his parents, both steeped in the wonders of language, and the time in which he grew up play a part in his eloquence. As for timing, he was approaching middle age before television, with all its leveling effects, reached Franklin. A vigorous daily reading regime keeps new words coming.

The World War II portion of Jack's life story provided a taste of that era's history seldom chronicled. Though fortunate enough to avoid the heat of battle, he did his part through aviation, and through many letters home, he left a rare record of life in India at that time.

Jack's correspondence dated November 18, 1944, exhibits a positive theme I observed throughout our interviews. "Maybe I am too philosophical, but I hear of boys (pilots) being killed all the time and while I hate it, I can't allow it to upset me. Believe me — that is the only attitude for flying personnel."

What Jack said then, as a 25-year old man, was refined and strengthened through the years. The same calm attitude that kept him picturing successful flights rather than dwelling on other peoples' crashes was illustrated in one of his favorite sayings. "I don't care if the mule goes blind. I'm just going to sit in the wagon and hold the line."

Mastering the art of keeping negativity at bay is an exercise that may have saved his life during the mid-1980s when an oil line broke in the plane he was flying resulting in a blackened windshield. Greensboro newspaper reporter Conrad Paysour quoted Joe P. Cramer III, a Lieutenant Colonel in the Civil Air Patrol as saying Jack was "a cool character."

His continued refusal to tense up in tense situations buoyed him through many challenges of being a senior citizen, including a serious hearing problem, six successful joint implants, and spinal fusion surgery. In the midst of hospitalization for cardiac irregularities, he calmly tried to compute how much money manufacturers might be making off his heart monitoring equipment, and what country supplied which product.

I am so thankful to have worked with Jack Camp. At age 89, he fulfilled the words of one of his favorite songs from the distant past — the Rodgers and Hart's classic, "If you ask me, I could write a book."

- Susan Taylor Block

Table of Contents

Editor's introduction Wallace, NC St. Stephen, SC Franklin, VA The Elms 718 Clay Street Cypress Cove Country Club Life in a Farming Community Franklin Baptist Church Camp Manufacturing Company The Dismal Swamp Boating Fun Hunting Excursions Fishing Experiences The Institute: VMI World War II Life at Home Union Camp Giving Gifts Rancheros Losing Jean Rachel Coming Home to Franklin Letters from India during World War II Epilogue

Robert, John, and Jack Camp at Virginia Beach, 1979.