"SEWEY TEWEY AND SMELL CONNELL" - Wed. November 8, 2017

RECOLLECTIONS… of an Original Continental

“Sewey Tewy and Smell Connell”

By Les Connell

After concertizing from Portland to Miami, the 1964 Continentals boarded a ship for a 3 day cruise to Nassau in the Bahamas.  Sponsored there by Youth For Christ, they would perform a special concert for the Governor of the Bahamas at the famed Queen Elizabeth Hotel. Les and Bill seemed to have a schedule of their own and one morning snuck ashore before the group had been released to snorkel and enjoy a day in Paradise…and they paid the price for their folly! 

“Tewson and I were grounded on the ship while the others got to enjoy the Bahama tropics!  Later in the morning, some of the group had rented a glass-bottom boat and were sailing by yelling and teasing us.  We got the great idea to jump overboard (probably Bill’s idea, he was always getting frisbees from gas station roofs whenever our bus needed fuel).  

Anyway, we did it.  We jumped off the ship into the beautiful blue Bahamian ocean… 

Only a moment before we jumped, the ship discharged its sewer into the harbor right where we dove in.

The Continentals on the glass-bottom boat saw this and cheered and enjoyed our distress.  From then on, we got new names… “Sewey Tewey and Smell Connell.”   We carried those distinguished names throughout the rest of the tour.  Two of our peers (now pastors) still jokingly call us by those nick names to this day… over 50 years later.

The moral?  Never sneak off a Cam Floria Continental tour - ever!!"

Les toured in 1964 as a tenor on our 2^nd tour with the Originals out of Portland, Oregon around the U.S. and to the Bahamas.  After serving in Viet Nam, he resumed his work with the U.S. Forest Service and been the pianist and choir director at his church, both over 50 years, along with serving with the Gideons for 25 years, the last 3 as president of Gideons Int’l of Oregon. Bill and his wife Jackie (of almost 50 years) have 3 daughters. 

" I learned many lifelong lessons from Cam....one was choir directing, which I've done for years, and another is a passion for climbing mountains...I've climbed 33...and since I'm now 70, that will probably be it!"     

Bill Tewson was also a pianist and wrote many songs in the early days of the Continentals, notably for the musical “The Apostle.”  Currently, Bill is a chiropractor in Fairbanks, Alaska.