Chapter Eleven - SMA: Summer Camp

OK, what the hell was that? Wireless Internet? Steak dinners? Freakin' RV Camping for Families? Now I feel very old indeed. I want to rant about how all we had was powdered drink mixes and peanut butter and jelly for lunch. Blah, blah, blah.

When I got back home from SMA I only had about 10 days to get ready for camp. It felt very much like going off to military school, with lists of uniform parts, personal supplies and paperwork. Big differences: I was getting paid to go and I'd be sleeping in the great outdoors for over two months. I was riding an emotional high and I could hardly wait to get there.

I got to Goshen Boy Scout Camps and set off to Camp PMI for indoctrination. The camp was run by two brothers, Dave and John, who attended the University of Maryland. They were both big lacrosse enthusiasts and used to play that sport's version of "catch" in the parking lot. But what set our staff apart from all the others was our volleyball team. Dave and John taught us how to serve, set, pass and spike, and we were simply awesome. We challenged camps from around the lake, (there were six altogether back in them days), and never lost a match. It started an appreciation for volleyball that I still have.

My particular job was to instruct campers in two merit badges: Rifle and Shotgun Shooting and Archery. My supervisor was a guy named Ron. Interesting guy, and a paradoxical character at that. He was a certified NRA Safety Course Instructor, and he was a dyed-in-the-wool hippie. Long, blond hair tied in a ponytail and he brought a coffee can stuffed to the brim with some of the finest Colombian bud I had ever seen or tasted. He did have one disturbing personal habit: He would occasionally reach into his pants and scratch his balls. That's not so bad. And then he would smell his fingers! Eeeww. I won't lie, the bud and the weirdness set the tone for the whole rest of the summer. And the games were on!

As a first year counselor, one of my duties was to greet new campers and give them the tour of the place before leading them to their site. I would then act as liaison between the troop and camp staff. I showed them were to get food for each meal, and I ate with the guys now and then for goodwill. Each week passed pretty much like the one before. I would tour the Scouts, teach rifle class, eat at our amazing camp staff dining area, and enjoy lots of free time canoeing and hiking out in the Appalachians. Free time also meant going into Lexington, known to us as "Big Lex". Our choices of entertainment were limited, but we did our best. Top of the list had to be the Lexington Theater. No, we never saw any first run movies there. It was the first place I ever saw an "R" rated movie specifically featuring sex scenes. These were really tame by today's standards, but to see mostly naked women cavorting around the screen simulating sex was a tremendous turn on for this Boy Scout. Those images fueled many a fantasy-driven solo act. Like the song says, it's only nat'chral.

Our transportation to and from camp was a cranky old school bus that probably took Harry Truman to elementary school. The driver was this fellow with huge, coke-bottle glasses, and he maneuvered the shock-less rust bucket over the twisting dirt roads like he was being chased by the hounds of Hell. With no air conditioning we had to leave the windows open, allowing the diesel exhaust and dust to wash over us in a toxic wave. This driver dude had only one rule: Be on time. The bus pulled out of Big Lex at 9PM sharp, and if you weren't on it you had to walk back. One night some fellow staff members and I missed that bus and trudged that lonesome road. All 17 miles, in the dark. We arrived at camp just an hour before dawn and got excused from duty all day. Good lesson in punctuality.

I was the only staff member who knew about flag protocol, so I got to be in charge of Flag Detail. We made a whole production of it, marching out to the pole, hauling it down, folding the flag and marching off. Grandpa would have been proud.

One group of Scouts stood out that summer. A particular Troop I escorted had a Patrol made up of all the older Scouts, guys close to my age. They took one look at me, growing my fringe of a beard and looking a bit bleary eyed, and they saw a party buddy. One night they introduced me to the wonders of PCP-laced pot, and I thought I had lost my mind. After that I only socialized with them to play some guitar and sit around BS'ing.

The mosquitoes were vicious, and I used to coat my body with OFF! foam every night to keep 'em away. I heard that one night a bunch of them got together and carried off one of the smaller campers. I'm pretty sure that was just the aftereffects of the PCP that made me think that, but I wasn't taking chances.

At Camp PMI we played this horrible practical joke on all the new campers. In the main hall there was a beautiful picture of a clear mountain lake, with fir trees and mossy rocks all around it. Underneath it was the title: "Iron Springs". We would plan a hike for all the new guys up to Iron Springs, embellishing the story every day. "Oh. man, the water is so clear you can see all the way to the bottom." "And it's so cold it'll take your breath away." And so forth. The Scouts would dutifully follow the camp guide up an incredibly steep trail, sweating and cursing all the way but thinking always of the reward at the end. And at last, there it was: A rusty old bed with, you guessed it, iron springs. The looks on those kids' faces were precious. And the lesson learned there would last them a lifetime: Don't trust nobody, sucka.

We hosted a Troop of deaf scouts, and I learned some ASL that summer. Always nice to get a view on another language.

That summer was also nearly my last one on Planet Earth. I took part in a Closing Campfire ceremony near the end of the season, and the other two guys and I decided to do something really special. We painted our faces and torsos half white and half black and did a "silent ceremony". It was all very American Indian and sacred and whatever. The guys were impressed. After we started the bonfire we went to the swimming dock to rinse off the makeup, after smokin' a quick doobie, to be sure. I jumped into the water in the deepest area and ducked under to scrub off. When I emerged, one of the other counselors was standing on the dock right over me with his schlong out preparing to piss on my head. Hilarious! So ducked back under and did a frog kick to swim under the dock and come up on the other side. Just as I kicked off, it felt like I had been hit on the top of my head with a hammer. The world turned gray around me and I drifted briefly before realizing I needed air. I started to swim but I had no idea which way was "up". My hands flailing in front of me, I felt sand and mud and knew I was at the bottom, so I pushed off slowly, in case I was under the dock itself. I broke the surface a few feet from the other side and gulped in a lungful of air. The other two counselors looked plenty worried as I climbed up the ladder.

"Man, what happened?. The whole dock rattled and we didn't know where you were!"

I was feeling a little bleary, and a warm trickle was running down the side of my face.

"We gotta get you to the Medic."

With the help of the two guys I wobbled up the camp road to our Medic's office. He was a medical school student making some extra dough tending to cuts and scrapes so common to boys playing with axes and such. In the hot, humid confines of his office, lit by a strobing fluorescent light, he peered at my scalp and poked at the cut. I could smell the alcohol on his breath as he slurred:

"Lo's like you gotta purty good cut. How'd it hap'n?"

"Cut myself shaving."

He grinned back at me, then disinfected the wound with something that felt like XXX Hot Pepper Sauce. One butterfly bandage later I was out into the night again, thankful to be alive.

I was a pretty good shot on the rifle range. I could put a hole through a dime at 75 feet. Ron noticed this and told me I should try for the NRA Sharpshooter Badge. So I started a serious program of target shooting that got me qualified for 6th Bar Sharpshooter. Felt great to do that, as I could wear the medal on my SMA uniform. A week before we broke camp, Ron presented me with my certificate and a bill for $50 to cover all the ammo I'd shot up to get it. I was floored. He had never mentioned paying for the bullets, and I got pissed. I took my case to John, the Camp Supervisor. He told me that he was the one to instructed Ron to bill me. I tried to make the point that I really needed the money for school. No dice. Then a devious thought struck me: blackmail. I am not a devious person by nature. I have been taken advantage of many times and will be again because I just don't want guile to exist. I'll bear the burden of my bleedin' heart. But this time I did not back down.

"John, there are a lot of people at the National Capitol Area Council who would be pretty pissed off to hear about the stuff that goes on around here. The parties, the dope, the drinking. I don't want to be the rat, but I will if you keep shoving this bill at me."

John looked like I'd just run over his dog. "Fine. Don't pay it, asshole. But you won't be getting a job up here again."

Whatever. I won. Stick it.

August 9, 1974

We'd been hearing the news all Summer. Congressional hearings, impeachment procedures imminent. It was only a matter of time. That afternoon somebody went into town and rented a black & white TV so we could watch Mr. Nixon give his resignation speech. It was odd to have the outside world intruding on our idyllic hideaway in the mountains, and we all left the dining hall with mixed feelings.

A week later the last campers rolled out of the parking lot. We set all the critters in the Nature Center free, including the rattlesnake I had caught. We took down tents, racked the canoes, had one last big blowout party, and went back to the world.







In Chapter 11: The beginning of the Best Year