Before the loss of innocence

I started going to summer camp at a very early age, the summer after my second grade school year. I’ll never forget saying goodbye to my parents and running away on my tip toes, bursting with excitement at what this anticipated week had in store. I get chills as I write this, thinking about the all the fun I had those summers at Van Buren Youth Camp.

VBYC - Language Arts Week - 1992

VBYC is like any other summer camp for kids, or at least what every other summer camp should be. We were woken up to a recording of reveille played over the loud-speaker, followed by the camp directors cheerful voice announcing some of the days activities. I remember my cabin mates and I would wrap in a cocoon of our sleeping bags, the sleep still in our eyes, not yet brave enough to face the morning chill. One by one we’d slowly climb out of our bunks, complaining about the frigid air that leaked through the thin plywood cabin walls. The adventurous campers would make their way to the lake to run through the numbing waters in a ritual known as “Polar Bear.” Complete insanity if you asked me. Don’t get me wrong, I tried it a few times, but I prefer a hot shower to the frigid waters of the lake.

We were given an hour or so to get ready before breakfast, take your showers, get dressed, and after we’d all gather as a cabin and make our way down to the flagpole. Every morning there was a ceremony where the flag was raised, and looking back on it, it seems just so….American. It was the usual pomp and circumstance, three boys or girls walk the folded flag down to the pole, unfold it in the traditional military fashion, attach it to the rope, and string that bitch up. Don’t get me wrong, it was fun at the time, practicing the routine until you got it right, but I’m a bit jaded when it comes to American tradition.

 

Map of VBYC

The same ceremony was held just before dinner, taking down the flag, folding it correctly, and then carrying it back to its rightful place. I’ll never forget the time two of my cabin mates and I were picked to do the evening ceremony. The three of us were like peas in a pod, giggling at each others jokes like little catholic school girls.  Why we were picked for such a serious task still boggles my mind.

Everything was going just fine. We walked towards the flag in unison, all on the same foot, and lowered the flag respectfully, being ever so careful to not let it touch the ground. If it did, it were to be BURNED, and no one wanted the burning of our countries great flag on their conscience. I imagine we lost our focus as we started to fold the flag. The proper way, and I still remember to this day, is to fold it in half, fold it in half again, and then do a triangle fold so that by the time you reach the end, only the stars are showing. Well…needless to say, we fucked that up. We tried over and over, but for some reason, we couldn’t for the life of us get that damn flag folded right.

That’s when the giggles set in. I looked up to one of my friends, I could tell he was trying to avoid my gaze, the other staring in wonder trying to figure out where we had gone wrong. All it took was eye contact and we lost it. I started to laugh, then they started to laugh, which made us all laugh harder. We tried to stop ourselves, but as you know, that only makes it worse. The laughter started to spread among the rest of the campers as well, girls holding their mouths, knowing they shouldn’t laugh, guys out right pointing at us. It was then that I saw my friend grab his crotch, and a small wet spot began to grow in his pants. He doubled over, not able to stop laughing, while he wet his pants from laughter. We quickly did the best we could, the flag still folded incorrectly, and made our way to it’s resting place. Before dinner we were pulled aside saying we did a very bad thing, stomach’s still cramped and tears still in our eyes.

Meal time was like no other. Held in what was called the mess hall, long tables in rows, with benches for seats filled the space. On one side of the room hung a HUGE moose’s head, Boris, the camp mascot. On the other side were few stuffed animals…real animals….a cat, a porcupine, and I forget the third. 30 minutes before the meal, members of each cabin would come to the mess hall to set up their cabins respective table, laying out forks, knives, getting pitches of kool-aid and any other things needed. The rest of the camp came barreling into the hall, as if we hadn’t eaten for days. And then came the fun.

VBYC was built on tradition, and one of the best the camp clung to was the “no elbows on the table” rule. See, if you were caught with your elbows on the table twice during one meal, your cabin would call you out, and start to sing, “get your elbows off the table John Plyer, get your elbows off the table John Plyer! We’ve seen you do it twice and it isn’t very nice, get your elbows off the table John Plyer” at which point everyone would shout out the punishment they deemed necessary. “Kiss the Moose, Kiss the Moose!” or “Water Test, Water Test!”

Cleo - The camp mascot

Kiss the moose was the obvious favorite. Water test consisted of balancing cups of water on your head and on the back of your hands as you walked up and down the rows of tables, trying not to spill the water. In all my memories of camp, I only remember on person ever doing it successfully. There were others as well, but those are the ones that I can remember.

Days were filled with any and every camp activity you could ever imagine. Arts and crafts at the art barn. Water activities like swimming or canoeing. Archery lessons. Games of dodge ball, kickball, softball, any kind of ball you can imagine. One thing I appreciate more now that I’m older is a time called “thought”. I still remember the stillness to this day, walking down the path towards the edge of the campgrounds, coming to an opening along the lake where makeshift benches were placed. I’m actually getting teary eyed as I type this, remembering just how peaceful it was.

God…I haven’t thought about that for years. My eyes tear up as I write this because I haven’t felt such peace as I did then. Thankfully it still resonates as strongly now with the flood of these memories.

Thought was basically a time where the entire camp came together for moments of silence. It didn’t happen every day, only a few days during the week. Everyone would chat as we walked along the path, but at a certain marked point, you were asked to stop conversation. We’d quietly walk a bit further into the opening and find a spot on one of the benches. A counselor or staff member would start by reading a poem, or telling a story that was close to them in some way. Nothing depressing was ever mentioned, it was more a quiet celebration of the life that surrounded us, in the woods or in the lake, or in our lives in general.

The sounds of nature began to swell as everything around us prepared itself for the sunset. Crickets chirping, insects buzzing, the wind blowing over the lake. Such an ease to the end of the day. One by one, campers would start to make their way back to the camp, taking with them the stillness that had settled within them.

Of course no story of summer camp would be complete without the haunted legend that had been passed down from generation to generation. As I lay in my bed now, my eyes closed, and the apartment silent, I can still hear the THUNK and drag of Drag-Leg Sara’s gimp leg. Cue chills…..

I heard the tale of Drag-Leg Sara quite a few times over the years and each of them a bit different from the last. Come to think of it, the seed of story telling was probably planted that very first summer at VBYC. We begged my counselor Rick to share the story of Drag-Leg Sara for at least 2 or 3 days, until finally he cracked.

“Are you guys sure you want to hear the story? It’s pretty gruesome, and from what I’ve heard, she’s still out there to this very day….”

That’s when I knew I didn’t have to hear the story. No way in hell did I care to hear about how some crazy woman chopped up a bunch of campers and got away with it. The story I wanted to hear was about how she chopped up a bunch of campers and the next thing you know the SWAT team was in place taking that crazy bitch down, bullet between the eyes. Simple as pie. Camp is back in session. But alas……

The dead don't sleep

That night when it was time for lights out, Rick went to the neighboring cabin to invite their counselor over to tell the story. He had been working at VBYC for the past 4 summers, and was the official expert on all things psycho killer related. The story went on about Sara, this homely crippled woman who worked in the kitchen, who, daily, was taunted and ridiculed by the campers whenever she would show her face. I think I remember her having a hair-lip in one version….

Enough was enough for Sara, and one night for dinner she made chicken noodle soup. And in that soup she put some sort of sleeping agent, which was served to the entire camp, save for one single cabin of boys and one single cabin of girls, who had clearly mistreated her the worst. As all the campers and staff started to fall asleep at the dinner table around them, the two remaining cabins began to panic and fled in various directions, some going to the boat house, some going to the archery range, some going to the recreation center, etc. It was in each of these well known locations that Sara would have her vengeance one by one, with those miserable children that ridiculed her so.

Throughout the story Rick would do the sound effect of Sara dropping her leg…THUNK…and dragging it across the cabin floor, the sound amplified by the black silence that engulfed our poor excuse for shelter. That was the kicker for me. Sound effects. I thought to myself there was no way in hell we’d be safe in this tiny little cabin, or anywhere else on camp grounds for that matter, and so began my refusal to use the bathroom after sunset.

Which leads me to, quite honestly, one of my darkest secrets to this day, of which I have told only one other person in my entire life.

We were told should we need to use the bathroom at night, to tap our counselor on the nose three times. They’d wake up, we’d be on our merry way, and back in our sleeping bags before we could wipe the sleep from our eyes. They should have thought about that before they told us about Drag-Leg Sara and her fetish for wearing the hair of her victims. I REFUSED to go to the bathroom at night, I was having a hard enough time putting my feet on the cabin floor after lights out, there was no way I was going out into the pitch black to chance meeting Sara and her arsenal of weaponry.

Uh Oh.....

I woke up in the middle of the night to a wet sleeping bag. Thinking maybe I had forgotten to close my canteen, I reached down to feel my underwear. Soaked from piss. I was mortified, but there was absolutely nothing I could do at this point. I definitely wasn’t going to go to the bathroom now, I had already made the mess, and I figured there was nothing Drag-Leg Sara liked to do more then torture whiny bed wetters. My stomach was in knots, and as I lay in my piss soaked sleeping bag, I felt this incredible urge to go number 2. It hit me like a ton of bricks, and there was no stopping it. I jumped out of bed, and as silently as a mouse, dropped my underwear and took a dump right there in the middle of the cabin floor. I used my already filthy underwear to wipe, and I reached out door, and threw them underneath the cabin, where I imagined they’d never be found.

I put on a fresh pair of underwear, and shivering, laid on top of my sleeping bag, feeling as absolutely low as a 7-year-old could EVER feel.

It was almost as if the sun decided to rise over the midnight surprise I had left for the cabin, illuminating it like a trophy on display. All 8 of us guys went on about who did it, what was it, is it real, until Rick told us that what we were looking at was the present from a raccoon that must have snuck into our cabin late at night. Couldn’t have thought up a better lie myself. In my naivete, I thought I was off the hook….but we can chalk that one up to innocence of the youth….

After breakfast, when the rest of the cabin went on their way to the morning activities, Rick asked if I could stay behind for a quick second. He explained to me that he knew the accident that had happened last night was my doing, and told me that before I explained to him what happened, that I shouldn’t worry in the slightest. They were already taking my sleeping bag to the staff washing area to be cleaned, and no one in the cabin would ever find out the truth. “Let them think it’s a Raccoon” he smiled, “they’ll be looking for that sucker until they leave!” He assured me that if the time came again for a late night bathroom trip, he would do a once over on the path, to make sure it was clear of any signs of Drag-Leg Sara. And in return, I promised to tap him on the nose to wake him up.

And he was right. No one in my cabin ever found out the truth. We laughed till the end of the week about that raccoon though! Some guys set traps, others talked about how big it must have been, seeing as the present left was pretty substantial, and others, such as myself, opted to let him be in hopes that he would never return.

Days came to an end as traditionally as they had started. When evening recreation time commenced, the staff would have us all join hands with the person next to you, and follow the chain as we walked silently to the fire pit. The fire would rage and fill the darkness patterns of yellow, white, and blue, all dancing in the hot embers. We sang song around the fire, told jokes, and shared stories about the day, things we had learned, new people we had met and things we had in common, bringing us all a little closer than we had been the night before. Camp fire ended with a full sing along of Kumbaya.

Yes. Kumbaya. As if it wasn’t sweet enough already…..

Cliche or not, I found myself back at VBYC for another 4 summers, at which point I decided to go to band camp since I had started playing the trumpet. It was supposed to be one of the hardest decisions of my life, how on Earth could I give up my summers at VBYC for another camp?! Simple….VBYC was 7 days out of the summer, and band camp was 14. I looked forward to making double the memories in twice as much time, and promised to never forgot the ones that shaped me forever.