Camper Experience

      Scott’s mother followed the signs to Camp Van Dorn and, after taking a wrong turn or two, the car ascended into the camp’s parking lot.  The boys tumbled out of the car, collected all of their luggage, and made their way to the administration building to check in.  The first person who they met was Fr. Jubal Early.  He had set up a portable table and chair in the breeze way of 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 Van Dorn quickly came to the realization that Padre 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 traditional 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. Early took off the clergy shirt to reveal that he was wearing his old shorts and 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 shirt to freshen up his wardrobe because he wasn’t going to throw away a piece of clothing only because “it had a little wear to it.”  He took some good natured grief about the holes in his shirts and shorts and certainly didn’t look like he could be in charge of the summer camp.  Fr. Early refused to take the bait and simply stated that since he was the only older man in camp, no one had to point out 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. Early their insurance forms and the money that they would to use to buy snacks.  Since George, Bill, and Scott were new to Camp Van Dorn, Fr. Early took a moment to size them up.  Most of the other campers who checked in earlier were veterans of Van Dorn and Fr. Early remembered their names.  In fact, he was so smart that not only could he remember the names of the campers from the previous year, he could remember the names of the campers from when he was a seminarian.  Fr. Kemper, who took over the camp with Fr. Early a few years ago, said, in grudging admiration, “It’s a gift” to have such a keen memory.  If he hadn’t been called to be a priest then probably Fr. Early 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. Early 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. Hancock said goodbye to her son and his two friends and, with that, their last connection to the outside world was severed.  Scott could only manage a side hug and a half hearted “love you too” when his mother wanted so much more.  Only when she was by herself, on the long drive back to Knoxville, did Mrs. Hancock allow herself a good cry because she knew that her only son had taken a huge step towards adulthood and independence by attending his first overnight camp.

   The neophyte campers walked through Van Dorn 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.  John Hood 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 John as their chief as he was always affable, patient, and known for his quick wit.  George, Bill, and Scott 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 but the last guy, Irv McDowell, didn’t know anyone and pretty much stayed to himself.  Irv had turned in his paperwork late and was put on a waiting list.  When a boy backed out, Fr. Early put Irv into George’s cabin where there was an extra bunk.  After sizing each other up, the eight boys usually only talked to the campers whom they came with and Irv was left by himself to read his book or study his baseball card collection.

   The memories of Camp Van Dorn 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. Early 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 in 1970, but Fr. Early 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, “Scott Hancock 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 Camp Van Dorn, Fr. Early 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. Early 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 it.

   Spending a week out at Camp Van Dorn was like going back to another time.  The activities, the schedule, and even the ambiance of the place came right out of the 1930s when the camp was built. 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. Early picked a camper out at random to raise the flag and then everyone put their hands over their chests as they recited the Pledge of Allegiance.  In fact, the whole camp had a militaristic bent 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 hospital, or the first aid clinic, was called “the infirmary.”   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 past, on movie night a reel to reel projector was set up so that the boys could watch old Disney movies like “Follow Me Boys,” “Davy Crockett,” and “PollyAnna.”   The screen was a bedsheet that Fr. Early had hung up from the ceiling of the lodge.  It was all so primitive that the boys felt like they were being transported to another time.  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.  For example, Fr. Early showed a cartoon to lead into the main feature and one of the cartoons that he played was “Ben and Me.”  George learned a lot about Benjamin Franklin from that short film and kept that history lesson with him for the rest of his life.  

         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.” Years after their experience at Camp Van Dorn 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 Nathan Bedford Forrest State 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 water, trooped up hills, and had a picnic lunch of hot dogs and baked beans while sitting on the banks of the Holston  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 Bill would put up a tally mark under the “Ace in the Hole” 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.  At camp, however, a good and loud fart automatically gave you points on the “Ace in the Hole” competition.

   The best campers were the ones who embraced their week at Camp Van Dorn, 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.  Bill and Scott rounded out the trio of friends but they could not have been more different; Bill was very laid back and nothing seemed to bother him while Scott was excited about everything and wanted to engage with everybody.  The boys were inseparable and their chief called them the Three Musketeers, a name that would stick with them when they went back to school in the Fall.

       Of course, the heart and soul of Camp Van Dorn was Fr. Jubal Early.  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. Kemper, was ready to retire.  The old priest agreed to help Fr. Early start the camp but he firmly stated that he would only work for one summer.  The counselors and campers took an immediate liking to Fr. Early because he was quirky.  For example, Padre had all sorts of old 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. Early 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. Early really enjoyed the performance.

   Against type, one of Fr. Early’s favorite things to do was to go to the pool during the swim period and dunk the campers under the water.  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 board 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. Early went under and this was partly because he didn’t stay in the pool for very long.  He became tired quickly and rather than risk his reputation of being undunkable,  he was usually the first one out of the water.

   In any given week, there were over ninety campers at Camp Van Dorn and Fr. Early 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.  Irv McDowell went back home as quiet and sullen as he was when he arrived.  Camp seemingly had very little affect on him and he didn’t even try to make friends.  After all, he had his books and his baseball card collection.  On the other hand, George, Bill, and Scott bonded over their camp experience.  They 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 they returned from camp and George, Bill, and Scott spent that time, free from all responsibility, by going fishing at Chickasaw Park, dangling from Heintzelman’s swing, and singing the songs that they had learned at Camp Van Dorn.

   Mrs. Hancock volunteered to pick up the boys from camp because she wanted to be there for the initial excitement of having her son share the stories from his first week away from home.  It didn’t go the way that she had expected.  Scott looked like he hadn’t showered in a week and Mrs. Hancock complained loudly that the camp was sending her son home dirty.  Fr. Jubal Early had said that the most common complaint from the parents was that their sons were smelly and sweaty when they picked up the campers.  However, Mrs Hancock took this to an extreme when she picked up Scott’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 whole duffle bag into a garbage can at camp, and promised her son that she would buy him new clothes once they returned home.

   The car wasn’t even out of Forrest State Park before the boys started to fall asleep.  It had been an exhausting week and the air conditioning acted like chloroform, cooling them off after a week in the woods so that they passed out on the hour long commute back to Knoxville.  They didn’t wake up until they pulled into Scott’s driveway.  Mrs. Hancock was upset because she was hoping for a bonding experience with her son, that is why she offered to drop off the three boys and to pick them up as well.  Instead, all she was able to do was to stare at her son as he slept.  When they were about ten minutes away from home, Mrs. Hancock woke the boys so that they had time to put on their shoes and otherwise get ready to go back to their parents.  They only lived a house or two away from the Hancock so they could walk back to their own homes.  As the three boys stumbled out of the car, gathering their duffle bags and crafts, they promised each other that, when they were old enough, they would go back to Camp Van Dorn as counselors.  Ten years later, they did exactly that