Camp at the Eastward
What does pure energy look like? Does it exist? I've been up way too long. Staying up (too) late is fun sometimes on a school night. There's an implicit harmless naughtiness.
On the topic of being decidedly NOT naughty, for some reason I'm thinking about Camp at the Eastward right now. This is the whimsical name for the place they sent us Presbyterians for a week every July. Located in partly-sunny Starks, Maine, Camp at the Eastward was four or five small log cabins, and two larger cabins, where about 25-30 kids from all over the state affiliated with our synod? (Is that the right word?) would, well, congregate.
I looked forward to this all year. In the geologic measurement of time that's particular to the preteen years, a lot could happen in a week: romances blossomed and wilted, Motley Crue songs were played during morning calisthenics; roasts of camp counselors were planned; poorly executed versions of James Taylor songs were butchered by well-meaning girls who had not showered for five days, but who had dutifully applied hair-spray and other accessories with regularity.
This was a church camp, yes; but in the true spirit (as I understand it) of Presbyterianism, the focus was not on Bible-learning per se, but on community; the cultivation of well being and collective social health among the church's youth. We did incorporate God into our days at camp, but couched in other terms: for example, in the form of substituting "Jesus" for "baby" in song lyrics. (I distinctly remember a conversation about how we could spin a Jim Croce song into a kind of hymn, by thinking of the central dyad as a person and God instead of a man and a woman. Wow. Operator, that is not how it feels.)
We drank TEENIs from the "camp store," which was a box of goodies purchased at the IGA in Farmington, the closest blinking light. TEENIs, if you don't recall, are delicious colored sugarwater beverages in small plastic bottles sealed with a tin foil disc. They are also delicious frozen. They cost 5 cents at the camp store.
I went around in men's long underwear for some hours during the week, at night - for some reason being clad, effectively, in a red wool leotard with a butt-flap fastened by an unreliable button was acceptable. We had a dance on the Saturday night before everyone's parents arrived the next morning.
During the week we made baskets, hiked in the woods, and planned our showcase showdown on Friday night - the culmination of the week's events. This was a series of projects, thematically linked, that groups of us would be assigned to. It sometimes involved interpretive dance, but that was ok - it was the go-go 80s, after all.
In our down-time, which usually followed our raucous daily trips to the swimming hole in a neighboring town, we would gather in one cabin or another and play cards, talk about boys (if boys were not, at that moment, present), or engage in the occasional game of Bullshit. We called it B.S. because the camp counselors could not be made aware; when they asked us, we said "B.S." stood for "Bible Study." The counselors, bright-eyed twenty-year-olds, I'm sure were onto this, but turned a blind eye until Bullshit turned into STRIP Bullshit. There were Revelations involved.
An especially cool counselor, first name of Burns, let some of us ride in his car to the swimming hole. We had an old school bus for transporting us back and forth, but it wouldn't hold us all. So we'd race the bus in Burns' car, which had recently been taxed with making the trip from Seattle on its strained axles, blaring Huey Lewis and the News' "Sports" record at top volume. Burns tried to sell us on Day Two on the latest Laurie Anderson release (he was a progressive guy), but we weren't having it - we Wanted a New Drug. (Sometime when I've had a margarita or two, I'll tell you about my Huey Lewis & the News scrapbook. It was arranged alphabetically and included a page dedicated to the sax player, Johnny Colla. The Z page was especially embarrassing: "zeroes they are NOT...")
When Huey Lewis sang out the cities whose Heart of Rock and Roll is still beating, we sang SEATTLE the loudest, as that was Burns' hometown. (Starks was not mentioned.)
On a rainy day, we sat in the mess hall and did the Rain Thing: first everyone snaps their fingers lightly, then louder and louder, move to clapping hands, then reverse the process. With enough people doing it it sounds identical to a rainstorm's coming and going on a tin roof. Ethereal.
There was the night that an unhappy camper got a bit too rambunctious during a game of Capture the Flag and accidentally caught Muffy McNear's eye with a pointed stick he was waving around. While Muffy was rushed to Central Maine Medical, the camper in question hid from us for a period of many hours. This dramatic night's denouement occurred after bonfire when search parties located him hiding in a teepee right in the center of the field. (How did we not look there?)
Muffy's retina was scratched, but she made a full recovery.
I have to tell you about Tiger. His real name was Jim, but everybody called him Tiger.
My friend Michelle, who was nice to me out of context at summer camp but mean to me at school, went out with Tiger Wilkins for the first 2 days of camp, but Tiger and I went out the last 2 days. Way more meaningful. When things didn't work out with Tiger and Michelle, he and I bonded at bonfire over the discovery that we agreed that "Theatre of Pain" was Motley Crue's finest hour. (It wasn't, and I didn't agree. But Tiger had a half-shirt on.)
Tiger was 16 when I was 14. There's a funny picture of us BOTH with half-shirts on, his arm around me as I beam at the camera through my braces. I love Van Halen! Even though it's Hagar! He's 16! We Belong, in a World that Must Be Strong: That's What Dreams Are Made Of!
Tiger smelled exactly like videotapes. Remember when you opened a 3-pack of VHS tapes and dumped out that set of stickers for the top and sides of the box? (I labeled and numbered sequentially my recordings of Friday Night Videos, which I watched over and over again.) The VHS tapes had a sweet smell, vaguely reminiscent of grape bubble gum, but not that treacly; there was an edge underneath. It was totally tantalizing. Even showerless for five days, this is what Tiger smelled like. His letters to me in the year after we left camp smelled like that too. I knew I would save those letters for a long time, or the idea of them, and I tried to find ways to preserve that scent.
Sunday would bring the weighty, inexplicable sadness of pulling away down the dirt road, our parents at the wheel with quizzical expressions, for another year gone. The Starks townies would come back and continue the seasonal job of vandalizing the bunks in the cabins: messages (paradoxically and implicitly expressed) of hope for our return in the coming year.
In Cabin 3, there's a permanent marker inscription indicating my undying love for Tiger Wilkins, sometimes referred to simply as "Tige." It's on the side of the bunk, to the right as it faces the wall of the cabin. There's a "5150" next to it.
On the topic of being decidedly NOT naughty, for some reason I'm thinking about Camp at the Eastward right now. This is the whimsical name for the place they sent us Presbyterians for a week every July. Located in partly-sunny Starks, Maine, Camp at the Eastward was four or five small log cabins, and two larger cabins, where about 25-30 kids from all over the state affiliated with our synod? (Is that the right word?) would, well, congregate.
I looked forward to this all year. In the geologic measurement of time that's particular to the preteen years, a lot could happen in a week: romances blossomed and wilted, Motley Crue songs were played during morning calisthenics; roasts of camp counselors were planned; poorly executed versions of James Taylor songs were butchered by well-meaning girls who had not showered for five days, but who had dutifully applied hair-spray and other accessories with regularity.
This was a church camp, yes; but in the true spirit (as I understand it) of Presbyterianism, the focus was not on Bible-learning per se, but on community; the cultivation of well being and collective social health among the church's youth. We did incorporate God into our days at camp, but couched in other terms: for example, in the form of substituting "Jesus" for "baby" in song lyrics. (I distinctly remember a conversation about how we could spin a Jim Croce song into a kind of hymn, by thinking of the central dyad as a person and God instead of a man and a woman. Wow. Operator, that is not how it feels.)
We drank TEENIs from the "camp store," which was a box of goodies purchased at the IGA in Farmington, the closest blinking light. TEENIs, if you don't recall, are delicious colored sugarwater beverages in small plastic bottles sealed with a tin foil disc. They are also delicious frozen. They cost 5 cents at the camp store.
I went around in men's long underwear for some hours during the week, at night - for some reason being clad, effectively, in a red wool leotard with a butt-flap fastened by an unreliable button was acceptable. We had a dance on the Saturday night before everyone's parents arrived the next morning.
During the week we made baskets, hiked in the woods, and planned our showcase showdown on Friday night - the culmination of the week's events. This was a series of projects, thematically linked, that groups of us would be assigned to. It sometimes involved interpretive dance, but that was ok - it was the go-go 80s, after all.
In our down-time, which usually followed our raucous daily trips to the swimming hole in a neighboring town, we would gather in one cabin or another and play cards, talk about boys (if boys were not, at that moment, present), or engage in the occasional game of Bullshit. We called it B.S. because the camp counselors could not be made aware; when they asked us, we said "B.S." stood for "Bible Study." The counselors, bright-eyed twenty-year-olds, I'm sure were onto this, but turned a blind eye until Bullshit turned into STRIP Bullshit. There were Revelations involved.
An especially cool counselor, first name of Burns, let some of us ride in his car to the swimming hole. We had an old school bus for transporting us back and forth, but it wouldn't hold us all. So we'd race the bus in Burns' car, which had recently been taxed with making the trip from Seattle on its strained axles, blaring Huey Lewis and the News' "Sports" record at top volume. Burns tried to sell us on Day Two on the latest Laurie Anderson release (he was a progressive guy), but we weren't having it - we Wanted a New Drug. (Sometime when I've had a margarita or two, I'll tell you about my Huey Lewis & the News scrapbook. It was arranged alphabetically and included a page dedicated to the sax player, Johnny Colla. The Z page was especially embarrassing: "zeroes they are NOT...")
When Huey Lewis sang out the cities whose Heart of Rock and Roll is still beating, we sang SEATTLE the loudest, as that was Burns' hometown. (Starks was not mentioned.)
On a rainy day, we sat in the mess hall and did the Rain Thing: first everyone snaps their fingers lightly, then louder and louder, move to clapping hands, then reverse the process. With enough people doing it it sounds identical to a rainstorm's coming and going on a tin roof. Ethereal.
There was the night that an unhappy camper got a bit too rambunctious during a game of Capture the Flag and accidentally caught Muffy McNear's eye with a pointed stick he was waving around. While Muffy was rushed to Central Maine Medical, the camper in question hid from us for a period of many hours. This dramatic night's denouement occurred after bonfire when search parties located him hiding in a teepee right in the center of the field. (How did we not look there?)
Muffy's retina was scratched, but she made a full recovery.
I have to tell you about Tiger. His real name was Jim, but everybody called him Tiger.
My friend Michelle, who was nice to me out of context at summer camp but mean to me at school, went out with Tiger Wilkins for the first 2 days of camp, but Tiger and I went out the last 2 days. Way more meaningful. When things didn't work out with Tiger and Michelle, he and I bonded at bonfire over the discovery that we agreed that "Theatre of Pain" was Motley Crue's finest hour. (It wasn't, and I didn't agree. But Tiger had a half-shirt on.)
Tiger was 16 when I was 14. There's a funny picture of us BOTH with half-shirts on, his arm around me as I beam at the camera through my braces. I love Van Halen! Even though it's Hagar! He's 16! We Belong, in a World that Must Be Strong: That's What Dreams Are Made Of!
Tiger smelled exactly like videotapes. Remember when you opened a 3-pack of VHS tapes and dumped out that set of stickers for the top and sides of the box? (I labeled and numbered sequentially my recordings of Friday Night Videos, which I watched over and over again.) The VHS tapes had a sweet smell, vaguely reminiscent of grape bubble gum, but not that treacly; there was an edge underneath. It was totally tantalizing. Even showerless for five days, this is what Tiger smelled like. His letters to me in the year after we left camp smelled like that too. I knew I would save those letters for a long time, or the idea of them, and I tried to find ways to preserve that scent.
Sunday would bring the weighty, inexplicable sadness of pulling away down the dirt road, our parents at the wheel with quizzical expressions, for another year gone. The Starks townies would come back and continue the seasonal job of vandalizing the bunks in the cabins: messages (paradoxically and implicitly expressed) of hope for our return in the coming year.
In Cabin 3, there's a permanent marker inscription indicating my undying love for Tiger Wilkins, sometimes referred to simply as "Tige." It's on the side of the bunk, to the right as it faces the wall of the cabin. There's a "5150" next to it.
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