Camp: Day 3

In a few hours I will be on my way to pick up our little camper. I fully expect that she will not want to leave.

Since I know I’m going to pick her up later, my worries have subsided somewhat. They are still there. I hope her experience has been much different than my experiences as a summer camper. I had other reservations as well. I have spent time as a camp counselor.

I spent a week four different summers working as a counselor at Junior High 4 at Camp Sumatanga. I have to admit, my actions as a counselor don’t exactly fill me to the brim with confidence for my baby girl’s camp trip. I had little spurts of evil that I hope her counselors and camp staff are lacking.

I was 17 years old my first summer as a counselor. I was young and cocky. Well, as cocky as I have ever been anyway. As cocky as an insecure, self-doubting teenage boy can be. A friend of mine from church, Jody Creasy, was there as a counselor also. During that week I met Heath Mixon, who would become one of my best friends.

Toward the end of the week we found out some of the campers were planning to stay up late and do something to another camper. We had no idea what they were planning to do, just that they were planning something. Their intended target was one of the less popular campers, so I, especially, took an interest in what might happen.

We knew who was plotting, so we decided to interrogate them. We started with all of them together and got nowhere. Individual questioning was the way to go. For this we took a page from the CIA’s playbook. Non-torturous torture. Red-bellies!

Two of us would hold the interviewee stretched across a bunk by his ankles and wrists. The other would administer the red-belly. A continuous stream of firm, but not hard, slaps to the midsection. We got nothing. This is why I argue even today that torture and intimidation does not work as an interrogation technique.

One thing we did get was threats. One of our victims threatened long and loud. His dad would sue us, the directors, the camp, the conference. Everyone and anyone who might be involved. We brushed him off, publicly anyway. I, for one, kept glancing over my shoulder looking for process servers for weeks after camp ended.

After the questioning we decided to stay up late and thwart any tomfoolery they might attempt. Teenage boys get bored in the wee hours of the night. When we get bored we usually resort to one of a few things. Porn, pranks, or pyromania (I mean fire, not the Def Leppard song). Since we had no access to naked things we went with pranks and pyro.

Someone had hair spray. Someone else had a lighter. Nature provided the rest. We burned sticks, grass, and pine needles. That soon grew tiresome. Then we found a cicada. Their wings are apparently very flammable. We burned bugs for a while, but soon this became boring as well.

I don’t remember where the squirt bottle came from. It may have belonged to one of us. It may have been part of the campers vs. camper plot we sought to thwart. Regardless of its origin, it found its way into the hands of 3 devious counselors. We spent hours, literally hours, filling the bottle, wetting campers’ pants, filling the bottle again, and repeating the wetting. It’s amazing how much you can wet someone’s crotch before they wake up.

Yikes! That sounds way more perverted than it was.

We squirted water onto their groin areas to make it look like they wet the bed. Look like it to whom, I don’t know since everyone else was asleep. It did keep us amused for quite a while, though.

That was the most underhanded of my counseling activities. I did have a few other not-so-proud moments. I made a camper cry after telling her and everyone at our and the surrounding dinner tables that her earrings looked like a bunch of gumballs. Not a terrible thing, but I felt really bad.

My last year there I had another run-in with a camper. My sister was there as a counselor. One of the campers did something to make her cry. I went looking for him. When I found him I screamed and postured and threatened. I started out calm, asking what he said or did to my sister. The kid was a smart ass, and eventually I lost it. Another counselor pulled me away before I got in a world of trouble. There was never a chance of violence, I just kept getting louder and louder. And there were definitely threats of violence.

A few seconds after I was out of sight of him, I felt terrible. It didn’t take me long to apologize to him. Mostly, I was ashamed that I’d lost my cool in such a public way. That was one of the very few times I’ve publicly lost my temper since I was 9-10 years old.

I hope my little girl doesn’t have any screaming, vindictive counselors like me.

I expect that she has had only good experiences. I hope that the worst part of her few days there will be when we drive away from camp.

I’m really glad she went. She has an independence that our older son has yet to demonstrate. I want him to go to camp next year. I’m not sure that will work out. I know it will not be any easier.

The one thing I’ve thought of more than anything these last couple of days is the future. She’s been gone for 2 days and I’m a wreck. I cannot imagine what it will be like when one of them moves out.

I joke. It’s how I cope. I’ve said countless times, “I can’t wait ‘til they move out!” It’s not true. Well, actually sometimes it is true. The last couple of days have shown me how difficult that really will be. That, like this trip to camp, will be for the best.

Hopefully we’ll have many more of these experiences to prepare us. It will still be a sad day. Two sad days actually.