4H Camp

There are few feelings quite like the last day of school. To the kid mind, the next school year doesn't even exist until that first 'back to school' sale reared it's ugly head. But when you got off the bus that last time, summer stretched out before you as far as the eye could see.

We lived in the country so there weren't many musements. We had to invent our own fun. We hung out in our tree house, or rode our bikes around the immediate neighborhood (we lived halfway up a big hill so we couldn't go far without either having to push our bikes where we were going, or push them home). We played in and around the barn across the road and explored the woods and gulleys in our area. If it was hot enough, my mom might take us swimming down at the lake.

It was the '70s and there was nothing on TV during the day. We were only allowed one hour per day; The Brady Bunch, Emergency and shows like that got those golden sixty minutes. Hang around the house too much in general and my mother would put us to work, so we gladly stayed outdoors.

Boredom soon overcame us...

...and it was only day 3.

But please... no sympathy; it still wasn't school!

My dad worked at a 4H summer camp only a few miles away teaching woodworking.

I had gone to that 4H for a standard week long session when I was around eight. I didn't care for it. Even though we were doing supposedly fun stuff at camp, it kinda seemed like school to me... 24-7 school.

Going to 4H with my Dad was a different story. At school I was just another jerk who got picked last for dodge ball. At camp, as a “staff brat,” I was cool!

My dad would wake my brother and me up in the morning. We groggily got in the car (sometimes on the back my dad's motorcycle if it was just me) and drive a mere 4 miles down dirt roads, like our own. We pulled into the Ontario County 4H Camp and parked behind a simple brown building that was my dad's wood craft lodge. We walked straight to the large main lodge where there were two long lines, girls and boys. We passed the lines and entered unimpeded. The smell of bacon and pancakes woke me right up. We sat wherever we liked. The doors opened and the hoard of hungry sleepy campers poured into the lodge like batter onto a griddle.

Not just anything could get me out of bed that early in the summer. Their breakfasts were exceptional!

After breakfast my dad unlocked the pad lock on the sliding barn doors of the woodcraft lodge that overlooked the vast front lawn of the camp. I opened the all windows by pulling on a rope that lifted the hinged shutters up and secured the rope to a cleat. There were no screens so the summer breeze blew gently through the shop. The smell of the lumber along with the lives pines around the camp were the essence of summer to me.

Before long, a group of campers showed up and sat at the several tables while my dad went into his spiel about woodworking, safety and the projects they could build. The campers looked around at the tools and sample projects hanging on the wall. They may have wondered who that kid was sitting off to the side on one of the work tables like he owned the joint.

That's right mortal children, I'm cool!

It was at first amusing and eventually tedious to hear my dad repeat his speech every hour, every Monday every week of summer I may have even skipped a Monday or two for that reason, but every other day was a bit more fun.

My dad enjoyed it all. Teaching woodcraft a lot more satisfying than teaching high school. He loved working with wood and there were many things around our house both large and small which he had built, not to mention nearly doubling the size of the house itself. Unlike his high school students, the campers were, for the most part, happy to be there and motivated.

My dad had one or two guys assigned to work with him. Wayne was one teen-aged counselor whose first choice for what to do with his summer was definitely not woodcraft. My dad had to give him one task after another to keep him working or he would just stand around. He was was patient with him and by the end of the summer Wayne was able to work unsupervised. After a couple of years he became a motivated tour-de-force of woodcraft became one of my dads most valued assistants.

There were varying degrees of difficulty to the projects. First timers could select plaques; shapes like a horse or a chicken traced on to a square piece of quarter inch plywood, cut out on a scroll or jig saw, sanded and stained. There was a pig shaped cutting board.

The were the quintessential wood shop projects like a birdhouse, pencil holder and book ends but they were all designed to be completed in four days. Many of the projects my dad had inherited from his predecessor: 'Gramps'. Gramps was a 4H legend after teaching woodcraft for many years before retiring. He would visit occasionally and was quite a character with many stories to tell.

For the more advanced campers there were corner shelves, step stools, a toy car and truck and one my dad introduced: a “limber jack,” which was a Appalachian Mountain folk toy; a wood figure on a stick whose arms and legs dangled freely at the joints that appeared to 'dance' on a flexible stage as you tapped it with your hand.

A video showing a limberjack in action

One project existed almost as a joke: a “round tuit” which was small piece of plywood cut into a circle like a token and had the word “tuit” written on one or both sides. Whenever some put off a task by saying “when I get around to it” you handed them the round 'tuit'.

Four sessions of campers came every hour or so until one of my favorite parts of the day: lunch.

Breakfast was awesome at 4H Camp, but lunch was incredible. Again we, as staff, got to enter before the campers and sit where we pleased. The cooking staff was the same group of ladies that fed me during the school year (actually that was my mom, I almost always brown-bagged it), but they were allowed a better cuisine at camp it seemed. They baked fresh rolls every single day and the food was hot, tasty and worthy of a restaurant.

I can smell those warm rolls now!

After lunch was rest period. Often my dad would lie down on one of the work tables and meditate or nap, I would work quietly on whatever project I was building: this meant (hand) sanding, staining or finishing. Afterwords the campers were up and around doing whatever they did. My dad took lumber deliveries and cut the large pieces of wood on the radial arm saw into raw pieces for the projects. My brother and I swept up saw dust and cleaned up the woodcraft lodge. When we had time we would work more on our own projects; customized versions of the more advanced camper projects or things we had dreamed up ourselves.

Then we did what none of the campers could do: we went home.

I never felt jealous of the campers. Quite the opposite. To me it was the best of both Worlds. I went to camp, but I did what I pleased and no one picked on me like they normally did. I usually stuck close to the woodcraft lodge but occasionally I would take other 'classes' like boondoggle, art or photography.

When kids learned I was a 'staff brat' I could hardly help but rub it in a little.

“That's right when you're swatting mosquitoes, coughing on smoke from the camp fire, and sharing a stinky latrine with 50 other dudes and lying on that nasty mattress, I'll be watching TV, taking a hot shower in privacy and sleeping in my own bed.”

There was other fun I had with the campers. One summer I found a wounded bird and nursed it back to health. I kept the bird in my room perched on a tennis racket out over my dresser with some books weighing down the handle and some newspapers on the floor below. I never would have guess it would be such hard work. I spent most of my days digging up worms for my bird. I took it to camp with it perched on my finger in the car. When we arrived I placed it in the tree just outside the woodcraft lodge. A couple of unsuspecting campers by that very window and my trap was set.

“Yeah I kinda have this thing with animals you know; call it a gift.”

“You do not!”

“Sure I do. Okay, I'll prove it. See that robin up in that tree there?”

“Yeah.”

I went outside, climbed the tree, and speaking in soft bird whisperer tones I approached my bird. Naturally, she didn't fly away. To their further amazement, I stuck out my finger and she hopped on. I carefully climbed down the tree with the bird still on my finger.

Jaws hung open.

That's right, I'm cool.

I suppose there were things the campers had over me. For one thing it was hard to woo the girls from the woodcraft lodge (not many girls took wood craft—they always made the horse plaque) or from home in the more social hours of the evening.

Maybe it would be worth it to have another go at being an actual camper again. I signed up for a week of having to wait in line to eat, take off my 'staff brat' stripes for a spell to meet a lovely thing or two.

I had a much better time in camp as a preteen than I did as a kid. I liked the kids in my cabin, especially a guy named Bill Weirsma. He was one of the younger kids in the cabin but he kept everyone in stitches with his one liners and crazy stunts. His antics certainly cost us points in the cabin competition (an attempt to bribe us with candy to behave and keep the cabins neat) but it was totally worth it.

There was only one activity that was mandatory: Swimming lessons. I was already decent swimmer after an early career at the Canandaigua YMCA, but I never quite cottoned to swimming in general, especially first thing in the morning when my swim period was scheduled. I just didn't like being wet. Seeing the girls in their swim suits though took a lot of the sting of that cold early morning water.

There were a number of girls that I liked, a smaller handful that seemed to like me and there were one or two fit into both categories, but I never had a great camp romance. There are only a couple I can remember specifically. There was Diane from Geneva. After camp was over we had what I thought was a date at Roseland Park (the local amusement park) but she had other ideas. She brought along her high school friends who all smoked dope--a deal killer for me. Then there was Karen from Fairport. Karen was the one that got away; I really liked her but lost her address soon after camp. I suppose if I really really like her I wouldn't have lost it.

One of our counselors was a guy named Dave who was seemed to be the heart throb of every girl (and female counselor) in camp. Normally that would earn my contempt (jealousy) but Dave was actually a pretty cool guy.

Dave was one of the guys that ran the pioneer camping program. Each day we learned a new survival skill like starting a fire with and without matches, boiling water in a paper cup and how to spot poison ivy. On Thursday night we took our sleeping bags off our bunk, walked past the main lodge, shedding a tear that we were forgoing one of their delicious dinners and hiked to an area about a quarter mile from camp where we cooked our own dinner over an open fire and spent the night on the open ground in our sleeping bags. I had gone from my own bed, to a squeaky bunk to the cold hard ground. Their weren't many girls in pioneer camping either.

I lied on the ground in my green Coleman sleeping bag. It was pitch black. Sleeping bags were scattered about like bodies after a South American bus accident. I was having a hard time sleeping already; then it happened: a raccoon fight.

I know what you're thinking Raccoons? Those silent fuzzy comic creatures that wouldn't hurt a fly. If you've never heard a raccoon fight, it will change your whole perspective. They go from cute critters to bloodthirsty killers in a Quentin Tarantino movie. It's horrible! Especially from only a few yards away.

All the other kids improbably seemed to sleep through it while I cowered in my sleeping bag, cringing with each banshee-like battle scream and growl and hiss and... what the hell was that?!

I was certain that: A. They were rabid and, B. The winner of the fight was going to waddle from the dead body of his opponent, straight over to where I was lying and bite me in the face. Sure enough, a few minutes after the long horrific battle I felt something round and warm settle against my leg. I couldn't believe it. I froze with terror. I didn't move a muscle for over an hour hoping it would simply wake up and go away. Finally it did, and I could finally scratch that itch on my leg. I probably went to sleep eventually but it felt like I was up the whole night.

When I got up I carefully looked around and saw my demon raccoon. Some kid, still asleep, had rolled on the open ground during the night until his butt hit my leg.

The last day of camp was a competition between the cabins that involved all sorts of events. Somehow I got talked into a swimming race.

Great.

At the beginning of the race there was one trash talking guy who was already claiming victory. He could have it, I didn't care. All the boys in the race sort of decided the order we would finish, ranked by levels of bravado, even before we'd taken our marks. When we hit the water it occurred to me that the trash talker was an asshole and it would be nice to at least beat him. To my disbelief I came in a hair away from first place by the kid who ranked himself third. The trash talker who'd said he would be first was forth.

Against all probability I had fun as an ordinary camper, but being a 'staff brat' was a lot more fun. I have good memories of both.

Years later my friend Jim met a great singer who's band had just been hired away from him. We needed a singer, so we met to jam at my parents' house. The guy looked really familiar to me but I couldn't place him. My Dad could though. It was Dave, the heartthrob from 4H pioneer camping. We formed the band "Dark Heart Alarm" for several years. Dave and another guy from that first jam session are still at it: Dark Heart Alarm on Reverbnation.

There was one particular summer that my dad had a special project. When his woodcraft duties were complete he (I would work on it here and there throughout the day) would spend a little time each day customizing a '74 Chevy Van into a family camper that would take us on the single most adventurous vacation of our lives, but that's next weeks blog post: “Colorado, Part I”

DOUBLE J's Double Take

A Music & Personal Update

I don't have a key to the gate that leads to the place where I rehearse. I am one of a few people that use the place and I think there is only one or two gate keys. Unless I happen to find the gate left open, I have to jump up on a four foot wall, carefully navigate some cacti and sabre-like agava plants (wondering about the possibility of snakes during these warm months) and jump down another four foot wall. Rehearsals have been going really well though. Each time I jump the wall I notice I am making less mistakes and my voice is getting back to the shape it was in when I was recording. I do realize it's been over two weeks since I posted to my blog. Only the second time I've missed in nearly two years. I'm choosing to blame distraction by a recent bit of unrest in my life. Due to financial reason's of the company I contract with, I have been effectively laid-off my job on Jeopardy. Jeopardy is a part time job, but with my Tennis Channel hours also being cut back it's been a scary scramble to get work enough to get by. More important than the money is not getting to work with my wonderful friends on the show. It really is like a family and I am quite sad not to be there when they start taping next week. Some work has spouted up and distressing as unemployment is, I have also been excited about where this will take me. Closed doors, open windows and all that. The good news is that I have lost 15 pounds of the last three weeks . No, it's not because I'm stressing. I have been on a diet that forbids all meat, dairy, wheat (gluten) and sugar. I can't say I'm enjoying what I'm eating all that much, but I must confess there have been many tasty alternatives and it hasn't been nearly as bad as I thought it would be. What started out as a one week liver cleanse has turned into an extended weight-loss program (My wife's a crafty one). My other secret is some carefully selected vitamin and natural supplements. I have been doing light exercise like taking walks and games on the Wii Fit but I believe that as my journey towards the magic 200 grows closer I will have to rely more heavily on aerobic activity. I would like to add that this past month my blog past ten thousand hits! To thank you all for your faithful reading, I will be posting nude photos of myself! Wait, wait, come back! I was just kidding!