Early Chicagoland Horizon

When I started attending the Chicagoland Muscular Dystrophy Summer Camp in 1969 there already was a tradition of a loosely-organized gathering at Oak Street Beach on Chicago’s near-north side on a Saturday soon after camp ended.  Afterwards, there were a few parties the rest of the year, some of them hosted by MDA itself.  In the early 1970s, a group of volunteers, in their late teens and early twenties, began to be more active in organizing parties and outings throughout the summer and occasionally at times during the rest of the year.  Outings included trips to Wrigley Field and Ravinia, the home of an annual summertime music festival of concerts.  The initial leaders of this group included Jimmy Liptak, Rich Westley, Ron Balsamo, Marion Liptak, and Danny Martin, and regular participants included Bob Medrala, the Angelico`s, and me, Rick Balsamo.  A day’s outing could be a long affair when including the hours needed for pick up and drop off of campers living all over Chicagoland and the travel to and from the destination.

At some point in, I think, the mid-1970s, the leaders began to formalize the group and its mission.  My brother Ron writes that "Horizon was originally called 'Horizon for the Handicapped'.  I got the idea ... from [the book] The Little Prince and its reference to the horizon."  Soon it was referred to as the Horizon Association.  Not long afterwards it was established as a registered non-profit to facilitate fund raising and stability.  If I recall correctly, when it came time to register the organization, the name “Horizon Association” was already taken so it was established as “Association of Horizon.” 

One of the earliest and regular Horizon activities was a winter camp, which for years usually consisted of at least a few sleep-over days ending on New Year’s Day.  The first of these was in 1976 at Camp Villa Marie on Pistakee Lake, in the Chain-O-Lakes area of Northern Illinois northwest of Chicago.  The camp was owned and run by the Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago, and consisted of a number of heated, well-insulated smaller buildings with bedrooms in addition to a large dining hall as well as a main building and activity center.  I had gone on a retreat there in high school and I was familiar with the place, and made the arrangements to use it for almost a week between Christmas and New Year’s day.  The Archdiocese couldn’t have been nicer or made it easier.  All they required of us was to leave it as clean as when we arrived.  We brought our own food and shared kitchen and clean up duties.  The New Year’s Eve party was fantastic, with many more people driving up from Chicago for the day and night just for the party.  That camp was the beginning of Horizon camps which have continued to all the way up to the present.

After a nice run (? six years or so), at some point Horizon Camp was not able to return to Camp Villa Marie and an alternative needed to be found.  Someone then secured a large retreat house owned by an order of Catholic Brothers, located of all places on the other side of Pistakee Lake from Camp Villa Marie.  There was no large room suitable for a large party, and I think at that point the annual Horizon New Year's Eve parties came to an end.  The retreat house was a large mansion with some upstairs bedrooms and large rooms downstairs.  To the best of my memory, Horizon ran many weekend camps at this location in summer and early fall, and I remember swimming in the lake there.  It was a loose atmosphere with people coming and going, some staying for hours and some for days.  A couple of memories stand out.  My brother Ron would cook up a massive amount of pasta and sauce that became famous as "Ron's spaghetti", and Jimmy Liptak or Rich Westley would drive the big, old panel truck (that the Liptaks graciously acquired for Horizon's use) filled with us campers over to the Dairy Queen for ice cream.     

For many years now Horizon has hosted a week-long summer camp, held for some time now at a campsite on Lake Bloomington just north of Normal, Illinois.   

Rick Balsamo  

[Last updated June 9, 2014]