Red Eyes and Love Letters

 

At age 10 or 11, I attended a boy’s camp about an hour south of Buffalo, NY called Camp Hickory Hill. It was a week-long Christian sleep-away camp, and I absolutely loved it.  By day, we rode horses, shot arrows, and played Capture-The-Flag, my favorite. By night, we gathered around a campfire, sang Christian songs and heard mini-sermons and testimonies from 19-year-old camp counselors. 

 

The daily schedule consisted of various activities around the property, some elective, some mandatory. One of the regular activities was “Wilderness Training”, which I don’t think I would have “elected” so it must have been compulsory.  Ed, our Wilderness Training teacher, was a quirky, bookish man—soft-spoken and gentle.  I’m not sure if he was chosen to lead this activity because he was skilled or because it was simply his turn on the rotation.  We became friends and even after my time at the camp we exchanged a few letters, in which he shared some of his poetry. It was a little dark for an 11-year-old, but I was glad to be treated as though I were mature enough to appreciate it.

 

One day, for Wilderness Training, Ed handed out blindfolds to all the boys in my cabin. Then we all lined up single file with me at the front. We all put our hands on the shoulder of the boy ahead of us and I put my hand on Ed’s shoulder. And then, he proceeded to lead us out to into the woods. There wasn’t a lot of explanation about why we were taking a blindfolded hike. Perhaps he was going to abandon us and make us find our way back.  Or perhaps he was going to give us a homily at the end of the trip packed with meaningful metaphors about leaders and followers and Jesus. Whatever the intended purpose of the blindfolded exercise, it never came to fruition. 

 

A short way into our journey, still blindfolded, I stepped onto a rotted-out log and my foot went straight through it. I didn’t think much of it at first, but a few moments later, I heard screaming behind me.  As I plodded forward, I asked Ed what was happening. Ed, who was the only one not wearing a blindfold replied, “I’m not sure.” I pulled off my blindfold, turned around, and saw the dozen or so boys behind me running and screaming through the trees. It took me a moment to make sense of the scene before me. Then, I saw the bees. That rotted log had been the home of an active beehive. After I had crushed it and walked on, the boys behind me were led blindly, single file into a cloud of furious bees. Ed called to them, to encourage them to stay close, but there was no communicating with them.  They were scared and getting stung repeatedly. Some of them were running around still blind folded, running into trees or each other.  Once things had calmed down, we returned to our cabin to survey the damage.  Many of my bunk mates had been stung several times.  One of my friends in the cabin, Aaron Pitroff,  had been stung on the mouth and his upper lip had swollen to three times its normal size.  He looked like Fred Flintstone. I was the only one who hadn’t been stung. I never told them that it was me who stepped on that log. 

 

On another day at Camp Hickory Hill, I came into my cabin to find the smallest, nerdiest kid crying and speaking to our cabin’s counselor.  I liked this kid, mostly because his presence meant that I was the second smallest and nerdiest kid.  Our counselor was doing his best to be comforting and find out what happened. I went to my bunk and busied myself, so that I could listen in.  The boy explained to our counselor that some of the other boys had stolen his camera, and they had taken pictures of “Red Eyes.” The counselor didn’t know what this was, and neither did I, but it was clear the boy didn’t want to explain.  At the counselor’s coaxing, he forged forward for the sake of justice. He wiped his eyes, and with a fair amount of embarrassment explained. “Red Eyes” was the name the boys in our cabin gave to the act of bending over, pulling down your pants, and spreading your butt cheeks.  Apparently, two of the older, bigger kids filled this poor boy’s camera with pictures of their anuses.  It’s important to note that this was the 1980s.  This was no digital camera.  This was a film camera, and ten-year-olds didn’t get their film developed on their own. We all understood that if the boy hadn’t caught them red-handed, (red-eyed?), that in about a week, some suburban mom would be stopping by the Rite-Aid to pick up photos of her son’s first week at camp and would be in for a serious surprise.  The counselor, to his credit didn’t laugh, at least not in front of us campers.  The offenders were sentenced to buy the boy new film from the camp store, and I think they were forbidden from buying candy from that store the next day.  It seemed like a harsh, but fair sentence. 

 

Lunches at Camp Hickory Hill ended with a strange ritual involving the daily mail.  A counselor, with a stack of letters would get everyone’s attention and he would announce the recipient of each piece of mail. When a camper or counselor received a letter from home, they would be required to run a lap around the cafeteria to retrieve it.  If the letter appeared to come from a girl, the room would join in a chorus of accusatory “Oooooohs” Then, the facilitator of the mail ritual would sentence the addressee to extra laps.  Like the Blind Hike, I didn’t really understand the intent of this strange tradition.  I still don’t, really. “If you need emotional support from home, you’re a wimp, so you have to pay” or something like that. But it was always done in a spirit of playfulness. It wasn’t remotely serious, and I think most of the boys in that room secretly hoped to hear their name called and be assigned laps.  I attended Camp Hickory Hill for two consecutive summers.  And I guess I must have told my mom about the letter ritual after the first year, because in my second summer, I got a letter.  And not just any letter. This letter, which had no return address, reeked of women’s perfume, and was sealed with a lipstick kiss.  When the counselor got to my letter, he made a real meal of it, asking other counselors to smell the envelope, and showing off the lipstick seal. When he said my name, it was the loudest reaction to a letter I’d ever seen.  The boys playfully punched my shoulder and said, “You dog!” Counselors high-fived me as I stood to do my laps.

 

I think I had to run around the cafeteria 10 times to get that letter. When I finally finished and read the letter my mom wrote, “Hope this didn’t get you in too much trouble. Haha.”  The boys around me were jealous of my fictional girlfriend.  If they knew who had actually written it, I suspect they’d be even more jealous.