Bluff called

I am pretty sure his name was Jeff.  Every summer, there would be members of staff that had returned from the previous summers and new staff members.  Some of these new members eventually became regulars, but there were a lot of one hit wonders.  They came up for one summer and then moved on to other things.

Jeff was one of these one hit wonders.  He and I were about the same age, about 20 at the time.  Jeff was an amazing mechanic, one of those guys that could fix anything.  He is the only person I know that bought one of the vehicles from camp, one of the old Air Force trucks and fixed it up.  He took a vehicle that had previously been ruled only street worthy enough to drive on camp roads and made it into a vehicle that could run all day on the highways.  The other thing I remember is that he was an incredibly finicky eater.  At lunch, he would just eat bread.  Seriously, just 5 or slices of white bread.  He would have been incredibly happy if he was a duck that all the people fed, but weren't supposed to.

Jeff is in the back row, all the way to the left.  Voyageur is in the back, 4th from the left.  

Although he acquired the truck at camp, he had originally come up to camp on a motorcycle.  Up until this point, I had never ridden a motorcycle.  My first motorcycle experience was to come, but it did not involve Jeff's motorcycle.

Chris Kenyon was the camp director for Waubeeka that summer.  He had a truck and a motorcycle.  That summer, I had neither.  One evening, I was joking around with him and asked if I could borrow his truck to go to Lake George.  He said no, but said that I could take his motorcycle.  I think he was pretty sure I wouldn't take him up on it.  He was wrong.  Jeff gave me a quick crash course on how to drive a motorcycle.  Since I knew how to drive a stick shift, it wasn't that difficult, just that the clutch is operated by hand rather than foot.

Then, Jeff, me and a lovely little blond lady were off.  Looking back, it probably was not the best plan.  We went at night and chose to go by way of the NYS Thruway to Lake George.  I think the posted speed limit was 65, but traffic moved at about 80+ mph.  The bike I borrowed was only 250 cc, I had that sucker wide open and still had trouble breaking 70 mph.  The entire way, I was concerned that I was going to get pulled over, but of course we didn't.  I was absurdly attired.  I think my riding outfit was a pair of shorts, a thermal underwear top and this gore tex jacket that I wore unzipped because it was particularly warm.  So I had this big jacket just billowing behind me in the breeze.  God it was fun.

I can't remember exactly what we did that night.  I am sure Jeff ate some bread.  The ride back was even more fun, because at this time I had become pretty comfortable with the bike.  The last 8-10 miles back to camp involve driving around Brant Lake.  For some absurd reason, the speed limit on this road was set at 55 mph, even though there were tons of sharp curves and it was a pretty small road.  I remember the moon reflecting off the lake and going just fast enough that there was a lovely lean associated with each turn.

Chris was surprised that I had taken the bike for such a long journey, but he was happy that I returned it in one piece.