LAKE LUZERNE, N.Y. — Suspended by ropes high in the Adirondack pines, young campers at Double H Ranch can leave behind all sorts of things — worries, hospital visits, but especially the idea of being limited by medical conditions.
A teen harnessed to an angled cable leaps from a platform and zips down to the forest floor as Green Day's "Time of Your Life" blares from a boombox.
The summer scene of young daredevils at the Double H is testament to Paul Newman's philanthropy. His idea in the '80s to start a camp in Connecticut for critically ill children has grown unexpectedly into an international phenomenon with a ninth Hole in the Wall Gang camp opening soon.
The camps will host thousands of children, for free, well after the 81-year-old actor speaks his last line before a camera.
"If I leave a legacy," Newman said, "it will be the camps."
The rustic cabins of the Double H are tucked in the woods of the southern Adirondacks near a mountain lake. Programs run year-round, but the place really buzzes in the summer. As campers climb ropes among tall trees, others paint faces, ride horses, swim and play soccer. It's typical summer camp stuff, which is the whole point.
Though campers' diagnoses include cancer and muscular dystrophy, counselors cringe at terms like "sick kids' camp."
"We want to present the opportunity to be a child first, not a child with an illness," said camp director Jacqueline Brown.
The story of the camps begins, improbably enough, in 1980 with Newman and his pal A.E. Hotchner stirring up oil and vinegar with a canoe paddle in the actor's Connecticut barn.
They wanted to pass out bottles of homemade salad dressing during a round of Christmas caroling. As the pair explains in their book, "Shameless Exploitation in Pursuit of the Common Good," Newman thought of selling the leftover dressing. That idea spawned the now ubiquitous Newman's Own brand of dressings, pasta sauces, popcorn and salsa, which have raised some $200 million for charities.
Announcing plans for the original Hole in the Wall Gang camp in 1986, Newman said it was made possible by salad dressing, "and the people who buy the damn stuff." Newman has remained fuzzy on his inspiration, saying he just woke up with the idea.
However, the origin of the camp's name is clear to any fan of "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid." The Hole in the Wall Gang was led by Newman's affable outlaw character, Butch.
Double H (stands for health and happiness) opened in 1993 after the late amusement park developer Charles Wood called Newman proposing they convert an old dude ranch into a second Hole in the Wall Gang camp.
The Adirondack camp's success cleared the way for affiliated camps in Florida, California, France and elsewhere, said Newman's Own Foundation board member Bob Forrester.
Only about 15 percent of the money that Newman's Own Foundation gives out goes to the camps. Newman wants the camps to have broad-based support, so camps must rely on other sources.
Signs of the life-and-death struggles playing out here are subtle, like the line of young pine trees next to the soccer field representing campers who have died.
Newman stops by occasionally, but his visits to the camps have become more difficult as the camps multiply and he gets older. At 81, Newman has the same wiry build he had circa "Cool Hand Luke," but he walked with a shuffle during a dinner this summer for Double H supporters at Saratoga Springs.
Newman clearly loves the camps. "I had no idea they would sprout like mushrooms," he said.
On the Net: www.doublehranch.org or www.holeinthewallcamps.org