Sleep away camp. June, 1979. It’s the summer before sixth grade. In the photos above, I’m in fifth grade and seventh grade, respectively. So that summer I was somewhere in between. Much closer to the photo on the left, since spring baseball season gave way to my summer birthday. There’s still some adorable innocence in that photo, despite trying to look cool with the wristbands and batting glove. God damn it, I loved that glove.
Years later when I ended up working at the very same sleep away camp as a counselor and supervisor, our fantastic social worker/all around great person Lynn Levin would always remind us at the beginning of the summer that a lot happens to a kid in a year. A “good” or “bad” kid from one summer might be very different the next, etc.
This was two years. Look at the difference in the faces.
Something shifted. Photo on the left: sweet innocence. Photo on the right: a hint of the ability to portray a believable douche. What happened exactly? When did it happen? Where did it come from? WHY did it come from?
I’m at Tamarack, a camp in rural Michigan. This was my first summer attending an overnight camp for an extended period. Three weeks total.
My first attempt at an overnight was the summer prior. It was a single night, on-site excursion at Willoway, the day-camp I went to. This foray into the world of sleep away camp consisted of two major childhood traumatic events that may or may not have contributed to what happened one year later (And beyond? Was this the psychological catalyst? Again, probably not.).
The traumatic events:
1) The overnight took place on the camp grounds, not out in the wilderness or any kind of wooded area. A playground and all the main buildings were nearby. But it was still pretty dark on the main grounds. There was a single bright light above the bathroom door. Bright enough that you could see the bugs flittering around it from the tent. But there were still about 50 yards of terrifying, paralyzing darkness in between that door and me, rendering me too scared to leave my tent and venture out by myself. Surely a murderer lurked in those shadows. Just as surely as a chicken-shit lurked in his/my sleeping bag.
In “Watching The Wheels”, John Lennon sings, “Well I tell ‘em there’s no problem. Only solutions.” My solution was simple: shit my pants, and throw the pajama bottoms into the nearby bushes! I’m guessing that’s not the solution John Lennon had in mind when he wrote that song. Or maybe that’s exactly what he had in mind. Regardless, it sure is fun to close your eyes and ‘imagine’ him saying
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