One of my less auspicious moments started out innocently enough. It involved a fellow that we called Stonewall. Stonewall earned his moniker because he was particularly fond of indulging in a certain mind altering plant. He was another one of those one-hit wonders. He only showed up for one summer, and like many others he had been somewhat duped into thinking that our camp was something it was not.
Our camp filled a number of positions with people like me that had come to the camp as a camper, and then returned in subsequent summers to work there. We knew what we were getting into. I was never a camp director, but my understanding was that it was largely up to the directors to fill out the remaining staff needs. The directors needed to sell the camp to the prospective employees and they may have been a bit creative with how much was disclosed. Stonewall showed up to camp and was somewhat surprised to learn that: 1)It was a boy scout camp; 2) He would be living in a tent the entire summer; and 3) Camp didn't actually start for a few weeks after he had arrived. The official camp season was 8 weeks. 6 weeks of campers and a week on either end to set up and disassemble the camp. This worked well for high school age staff, but for those of us in college, we had a longer break. Fortunately, you could negotiate to come up early and work what was called "Ranger Staff", named because you worked for the "Ranger". It was mainly just manual labor, but it was fun. One summer I was tasked with building a lean to, which went remarkably well considering I had no carpentry experience and there was no design. There was one that was already standing and I copied it. You would also have people who showed up early but had not negotiated before hand. There was an informal understanding that they wouldn't get paid, but they would get free room and board provided that they did some work. This particular summer I had negotiated to work Ranger Staff and Stonewall rolled in early because he had been told the wrong start date. We got along well. As you would expect, he was very mellow. After camp started, I didn't see him nearly as much because we were working at different camps.
Towards the end of the summer, Stonewall approached me with an interesting proposition. It turns out a couple of the Counselors in Training (CITs) had gotten lucky with some ladies over the course of the summer. The life of a CIT is not a glorious one. All of them are too young to drive, so they are dependent on others to leave camp. Every week, in the evenings, there would be a couple of vans that would take them out, the destination was almost always Lake George. It was a good destination because it was pretty close to camp and there were arcades, tourist shops and other avenues to entertain the CITs. My understanding was that two of the CITs had met some young ladies in the beginning of the summer and then arranged to meet up with them during subsequent weeks. Apparently the culmination of this series of meetings involved an overnight stay.
This overnight stay was forbidden, so they needed someone to help them out who understood discretion. Stonewall fit the bill. Stonewall had agreed to pick them up the following morning, provided that they would agree to pay for a gentlemen's brunch. I was fortunate enough to be invited along by Stonewall. So we ended up dining at a very nice restaurant in Lake George. It was sufficiently late in the morning that miomosas and bloody marys were on order. Stonewall was driving and his intoxicant of choice was not alcohol, so I made sure that he got his money's worth out of this free breakfast. There are only so many pancakes you can eat, but the liquid refreshment goes down far more easily. Eventually we headed back to camp. Since it was an hour drive or so, I picked up some refreshments to sustain me for the rest of the day.
When we arrived back at camp, I did my best to keep up with the manual labor that accompanies the end of camp. For awhile, it went well. After some time though, I needed a nap. I was woken from this peaceful slumber by the camp director who was none too pleased with my antics. He had placed my final paychecks on my chest and told me that today was my last day. Then he left. But the load was there. In past summers, when someone had been terminated, load and I had been tasked to act as security. Our job was to make sure the person didn't lash out and hurt someone or camp property. Initially, that is what I thought the load was there for, but he was just there because he was a friend.
If I had been smarter, I would have realized that I was getting my full pay and didn't have to stay until the end of camp. Instead, I fought to stay so I could finish out the following days. I began to realize that perhaps I hadn't really been fired. For instance, when I talked to the reservation director, the overall boss of the camp, he had no idea and told me that as far as he was concerned I could stay. This made sense considering who the our director was that summer. Ranger Bob said it best when he stated "That boy could fuck up a free lunch" Our director was basically a shaved chimp. He loved starting projects, making a big mess and then moving on to the next one. For instance, he decided to add a shower to one of our buildings. Rather than do it right, or up to code, he simply framed out an area outside the building and ran water to it. There was no drain in place so the water just spilled out the bottom. There was no tile, so after a few uses the plywood began to rot. It was pretty par for the course. His other favorite thing to do was chop down trees. He would have been happiest if our entire camp had been turned into a giant meadow. Fortunately, he was kept on a pretty short leash.
So I stayed. I went to the end of the year dinner and left when everyone else did. I saw our director a few times and initially his response was "What are you still doing here", but eventually he changed his tune and stated that he was only joking when he fired me. It really summed up the whole camp experience. First, it is incredibly difficult to get fired. Even if you do get fired, it is kind of up to you whether you took it seriously or not. If I had it all to do again, I wouldn't change a thing.
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