Book 4: Chapter 2: Section 2: Being a camper in 1970
David’s mother agreed to drive George and Kevin out to Camp Tall Trees. Since the commute was over an hour, she packed the car with some old comic books to keep the kids entertained. This helped a lot, especially since they quickly drove out of range for the local radio stations and the and the only music that she had was Elvis. Mrs Hubbard didn’t want to embarrass her son with her music so the four drove out to camp in silence.
There was a quiet anticipation, a nervous expectation in the car as they were thinking of the week in the woods that lay ahead of them. They drove past sites that were unfamiliar to them because they lived a sheltered life in the suburbs. For example, there was an old cement factory which was not operating because the workers had been on strike for months. Once they left the expressway the boys noticed that there were strip clubs and liquor stores at the end of the ramp. They looked at each other, smiled shyly, and didn’t comment because they only had a vague idea of what you would buy at a liquor store or a strip club. The pleasures of the flesh were still years ahead of them.
The interstate only took them to about half way to the camp and, for the rest of the way, they drove on the state highways. If they boys had been self aware then they would have realized how privileged they were because the rural areas of Kentucky are filled with poverty and they passed one mobile home after another. Also, there were a lot of dollar stores and pawn shops and used car lots. It was only as they entered Otter Creek Park that the poverty of Meade County melted away. It was like Oz by comparison to the rest of the county, with its pine tree lined road, public pool, and a boat dock that led right down into the Ohio River.
David’s mother followed the signs to Camp Tall Trees and the car full of boys drove into the camp’s parking lot. They tumbled out of the car, collected all of their luggage, and made their way to the administration build to check in. The first person who they met was Fr. Hemmerle. He had set up a portable table and chair in the ad building and the campers had to check in with him before they were allowed to go to the cabins. At first glance, he didn’t look like much, but everyone at Camp Tall Trees quickly came to the realization that the priest was the heart and soul of the place. The only way that a visitor knew that he was a priest was that he wore the garb of a black clergy shirt and white collar at check in. He didn’t bother to put on a pair of slacks or wear dress shoes because the camp was out in the middle of the woods where it was hot and everything got dirty very quickly. As soon as the last camper had checked in, Fr. Hemmerle took off the clergy shirt to reveal that he was wearing his old shorts and a worn out tee shirt underneath. To top off his outfit, the priest wore a pair of beaten up sandals. No one could remember the last time he had bought a new pair of shoes or any clothing to freshen up his wardrobe. He took some good natured grief about the holes in his shirts and shorts but Fr. Hemmerle simply pointed out that he was the only older man in camp and so everyone knew that he was the guy in charge. Nice clothes or a new pair of shoes were just a vanity to this priest and were diametrically opposed to his ideas of being a humble servant teacher. Besides, it was his camp; he ran the whole show and nobody was going to tell him what to wear.
Once the campers had reached the front of the line they gave Fr. Hemmerle their insurance forms and the money that they would to use to buy snacks. Since George, Kevin, and David were new to Camp Tall Trees, Fr. Hemmerle took a moment to size them up. Most of the other campers who checked in earlier were veterans of Tall Trees and Fr. Hemmerle remembered their names. In fact, he was so smart that he could not only remember the names of the campers from the previous year, he could remember the names of the campers from years ago when he was a seminarian. Fr. Springman, who took over the camp with Fr. Hemmerle, said, in grudging admiration, “It’s a gift” to have a keen memory. If he hadn’t been called to be a priest then probably Fr. Hemmerle would have had a great career as an actuary or a lawyer because he was that intelligent.
Now that the forms and the money was collected, Fr. Hemmerle assigned the campers their cabin for the week and told them who their chief, or cabin leader, was going to be. At this point, Mrs. Hubbard said goodbye to her son and his two friends and, with that, their last connection to the outside world was severed. Only when she was by herself, on the long drive back to Louisville, did Mrs. Hubbard allow herself a good cry because she knew that her only son had taken a huge step towards manhood and independence by attending his first overnight camp.
The neophyte campers walked through Tall Trees slowly, trying to take in the place and to memorize the location of the most important buildings, like the bathrooms. When they finally found their cabin, their leader for the week, or their “chief,” was waiting for them. Wayne Hall was a high school senior, not too much taller than his campers, and prided himself with his athletic build and his long hair. The three boys didn’t know it yet but they were lucky to have Wayne as their chief as he was always affable, patient, and known for his quick wit. George, Kevin, and David were the last three campers to arrive at the cabin. This was a rookie mistake because there were eight kids assigned to each cabin and the top bunks were quickly claimed by the first to arrive. Now the three boys would have to take the bottom bunks which meant that their sheets or sleeping bag would be stepped on as the top bunk campers climbed over them. Four of the other boys in the cabin were already friends from school and, after sizing each other up, the boys usually only talked to the campers with whom they were already friends.
The memories of Camp Tall Trees would stay with the boys for a lifetime. The sights, sounds, smells, and most importantly, the friendships that were bonded would always be with them. One of the sounds, for example, was waking up in the morning and the first thing that they would hear was of Fr. Hemmerle typing the schedule for the day in the administration building. He had an old Underwood typewriter, which was antiquated even by the standards of the camp, but Fr. Hemmerle liked it because it was reliable and if it broke then he knew how to fix it. The keys pounded away on the paper as Padre personalized the daily schedule by using kitsch like, “David Hubbard to the bottom of the pool” when he announced the time for swimming. As the “clackity clack” of the Underwood resounded through the upper and lower units of Tall Trees, Fr. Hemmerle liked to spruce up the schedule by adding cute remarks like “look for the lull in the day” or “the snipe hunt begins after rest period.” The campers checked the schedule as soon as they left the cabin to see if their name appeared. Fr. Hemmerle kept the original for his files and posted two carbon copies. The problem was that the campers wanted a free souvenir so they kept stealing the schedule so a special box had to be built, with a plexiglass cover and hung on a wall, to stop the theft. The kids could still see the schedule but they couldn’t steal the schedule.
Spending a week out at Camp Tall Trees was like going back to another time. The activities, the schedule, and even the ambiance of the place came right out of the 1950s. The first activity of every day, for example, was when all of the campers met in the parking lot for the flag raising ceremony. Fr. Hemmerle picked a camper out at random to raise the flag and then everyone put their hands over their hearts as they recited the Pledge of Allegiance. In fact, the whole camp had a militaristic bend to it. For example, the time for a snack break was called “ canteen,” and they didn’t eat at a cafeteria but at a “mess hall,” and the bathrooms were called “latrines.” The longest hike was call “The Death March of Bataan” and the counselors often referred to the campers as “maggots” as if they were in boot camp. The most popular activity of the week was a giant game of “Hide and Go Seek” only the camp referred to it as “The Commando Raid.” The counselors tried to get the campers excited about the game by saying that it was like conducting a raid behind enemy lines in WWII.
To reinforce the idea that the campers were living in the 1950s, on movie night a reel to reel
projector was set up so that the boys could watch old Disney movies like “Follow Me Boys,” “Flubber,” and “PollyAnna.” The screen was a bedsheet that Fr. Hemmerle had hung up from the ceiling of the lodge. Since movie night came at the end of hike day, the boys were so tired that they would have sat and watched anything, including a really bad and dated Disney movie. Also, since the movie was shown in the lodge, which was not a big room and it immediately became hot with so many bodies in it, everyone was in a semi-comatose state as they turned into a sweaty mess. And yet, because they were so young and impressionable, the memories of the movies would stay with them for a lifetime. It was the same with the songs that they sung in the mess hall after dinner. As with the movies, the idea was to give the campers some wholesome entertainment but also to imbue the kids with a sense of patriotism. They sung about Johnny Tremaine, the Battle of New Orleans, and the “Reuben James” and the “Titanic.” Years after their experience at Camp Tall Trees was over and they had become men, the memories of songs and movies that entertained them as preteens would come back from the deep recesses of their minds and were replayed without any warning or reason.
The least favorite activity of the week for the campers was hike day because many of them were not used to any form of vigorous physical activity. And yet, as the years rolled by and they transitioned into men, it was the hikes that they would remember the best. They felt like true explorers, in the back woods of Otter Creek Park, and thought that no one had trod on the beaten path that they followed. What made an impression on George was when the hikers came across a defunct watch tower by the bend in the creek. In the sunlight, the campers could see a huge web glistening and in the corner of that web was the biggest spider that the boys had ever seen. It was the stuff that nightmares are made of and George would go on to see that spider in every dark corner in every room that he was in for years to come. On that same hike they waded through creek water, trooped up hills, and had a picnic lunch of hot dogs and baked beans while sitting on the banks of the Ohio River. For a bunch of kids who lived in the suburbs and who were rarely out of the air conditioning, hike day seemed magical when the time came for looking back.
After the hike, the campers enjoyed an extended “rest period.” The down time that they spent together was also among the camper’s favorite memories. Gimp was the one craft that the kids could bring back to their cabin and they quietly wove together the strings. There was a lot of card playing as well. Sometimes, when they were feeling salty, the campers would insult each other and if it was a really good zinger then Kevin would put up a tally mark under the “Ace in the Whole” chart that he drew on the wall of the cabin. The good natured ribbing would end when the boys cheered in unison, “Ace in the Hole,” as if insulting each other was a form of competition. Also, because these were pre-teen boys, they found poop endlessly hilarious and their jokes often included the size, weight, and smell of the effort. They could never talk about shit at home, not in front of their mothers or sisters, but in the secure confines of a cabin in the middle of the woods they could share their ideas on this most personal subject.
The best campers were the ones who embraced their week at Camp Tall Trees, who wanted to win cabin of the week and tribe of the week. They had a competitive drive and wanted to direct their youthful energy in a positive way. They tried their best in every craft, tried to win every tournament, and sought to keep their cabins neat and tidy in order to get a good review so that they could win the “Cabin of the Week” prize. The ideal camper avoided the drama of living with their friends without an adult in the room, kept their perspective by remembering that camp was only for a week, and they didn’t take it too seriously. They excelled in the spirit of fun and were always excited about the next thing to come. It was a good training ground for the campers to figure out who they were and it was a peek into how the kids would grow into adults. For example, George was a guy with a lot of energy. He wasn’t concerned with being popular but wanted to enjoy the experience and have a good time. Kevin Hargadon and David Hubbard were the best of friends but they could not have been more different; Kevin was very laid back and nothing seemed to bother him while David was excited about everything and wanted to engage with everybody. The two were inseparable.
Of course, the heart and soul of Camp Tall Trees was Fr. Hemmerle. He had worked there while a seminarian in the early 1960s and then became the Camp Director in 1968. It was a huge responsibility for a man who was so young but, since nobody else wanted the job and the old director, Fr. Schmidt, was ready to retire. Fr. Springman who, like Fr. Hemmerle, was only 25 when he agreed to help start the camp but he firmly stated that he would only work for one summer. Aside from the way that he dressed, one of the other quirks that Fr. Hemmerle had was that he had all sorts of sayings that he would quote out of context. Or at least they seemed like they were out of context because they boys didn’t understand what they meant. His favorite quote was “the less to say, the less to mend.” At least that one made sense so the counselors and campers liked it. Some of the other ones, like “when you lie down with dogs you will get fleas,” or “the game is not worth the candle,” or even “when you sow the wind, you reap the whirlwind,” made no sense at all. The boys would just turn to each other and smile when Fr. Hemmerle let loose with one of these old chestnuts and the brightest of them learned how to parody the priest. Some of the impersonations were so good that they would use the mimicry as a part of the weekly talent show. The campers, counselors, and even Fr. Hemmerle really enjoyed the performance.
Against type, one of Fr. Hemmerle’s favorite things to do was to go to the pool during the swim period and dunk his favorite campers. The oldest campers, who were at the most fourteen years old, were his favorite targets because they were full of themselves and he wanted to take them down a peg. Padre was really strong for someone so unassuming and the kids had a good, healthy respect for the man who was a priest. All of that respect went by the boards when it came to dunking and the older kids tried to gang up on the priest. Yet no one could ever remember a time when Fr. Hemmerle went under and this was partly because he didn’t stay in the water very long. He became tired quickly and rather than risk his reputation of being undunkable, he was usually the first one out of the pool.
In any given week, there were over ninety campers at Camp Tall Trees and Fr. Hemmerle wanted each one of them to have at least one good memory of their week in the woods. One of the ways in which he did that was having a mail call after lunch. Padre made a big show out of sniffing some of the letters that he handed out to the campers as if they were perfumed. He liked to pretend that the letters were from the campers’ girlfriend. Everyone was in on the joke and it was all done in good fun. Sometimes a camper would turn red in embarrassment and felt the need to explain that “It’s from my Mom!”
Summer camp meant different things to different people. George, Kevin, and David bonded over their camp experience. When they got back home, the three shared told stories about camp to the extent that their friends and families grew tired of hearing about it. With a wink and a nod, they recited inside jokes and stories to each other and would continue to do so for years after their camper experience was over. But that was later. They still had weeks left of summer once camp was over and George, David, and Kevin would spend that time, free from all responsibility before school started up again, by going fishing and dangling from Hellmeyer’s swing where the topic of conversation always drifted back to their week at Camp Tall Trees.
Mrs Hubbard volunteered to pick up the boys from camp. She looked at David with disdain and complained loudly that the camp was sending her son home dirty. Fr. Hemmerle had said that the most common complaint from the parents was that their sons were smelly and sweaty and dirty when they picked them up. However, Mrs Hubbard took this to an extreme when she picked up David’s clothes bag and claimed that she could smell the sweat and mildew emanating from it. Rather than taking the clothes bag back home and washing the contents, she threw the duffle bag into the garbage before they even left the camp. She promised her son that she would buy him all new clothes once they returned home.
The car wasn’t out of the parking lot before the boys started to fall asleep. It had been an exhausting week and the air conditioning acted like chloroform as they passed out for the hour long commute back to Louisville. The three friends didn’t wake up until they pulled into David’s driveway and, as they did, they promised each other that when they were old enough they would go back to Camp Tall Trees as counselors.
Note: This blog is to represent the ideal camper experience. I will address all of the problems of being a camper and counselor at Camp Tall Trees in my later chapters.
