What It Was Like (2 page)

The meeting place for the counselors was the parking lot of the Holiday Inn on Hempstead Turnpike. Fair enough. It was centrally located and convenient if anyone had to stay over the night before. When we turned into the parking lot, I could see a big silver bus in the corner past the hotel by the curb with a whole lot of people and luggage next to it.

As we drove closer, I said to my Dad, “You can drop me here.”

“I can get you nearer,” he offered.

“No,” I said. “That's OK. It's crowded over there.”

My Dad pulled the Chrysler over to the curb and stopped the car.

“Don't worry,” he said. “I don't have to meet your new friends.”

“It's not that!” I protested, but he just chuckled and got out of the car to get my stuff out of the trunk. But I got out faster.

“I've got it,” I said, pulling the old Samsonite out with a wide swing, almost hitting him.

He waited for me to clear away and then slammed the trunk hard.

“Good,” I said, glancing over to the bus and the growing crowd near it.

“Well,” my Dad said. “You made it.”

“Thanks,” I said. I stepped forward and gave my Dad a good hug. “Take care of Mom. And the Mets.”

“I can't guarantee anything!” he shouted as I picked up the suitcase, slung the strap of my knapsack onto my shoulder, and walked toward the crowd. “Especially the Mets!”

I was glad that he drove me, that we'd had a last good moment together. But he was right; I didn't want to have to introduce him to all these new people, people I didn't even know myself.

You should know that I'm not the most outgoing person in the world. I am, generally speaking, cautious. I like standing back and watching things, but I can get by in most social situations. So as I walked toward the bus and all the people, quite a few dressed in green-and-white Mooncliff uniforms, I felt mildly optimistic about my prospects for the summer. All these people seemed excited and enthusiastic to begin the summer, even at 7:00 a.m. “Energetic, positive young people,” indeed. I approached the group and dropped my suitcase next to all the other suitcases that were being loaded into the open belly of the bus. People were all talking, chattering excitedly. Most of them seemed to know each other, and they appeared genuinely happy to see each other. The girls all seemed to be pretty and bouncy, the guys all tall and jockish. I wondered just how I was going to fit in with all these cheerful, upbeat people.

“If you haven't checked in, please check in with Susie at the front of the bus!” some guy bellowed, and I obeyed.

I walked up to a round-faced, freckle-nosed woman in a Mooncliff baseball hat and sweatshirt with “Susie” stitched on the front, standing near the open bus door with a clipboard in her hand and introduced myself. She welcomed me with such enthusiasm and sheer niceness that I thought she was joking. But she wasn't.

“Marcus!” she yelled. “Come ‘ere and meet a new guy! He's gonna be your next-door neighbor!”

When I said that all the guys were tall and jockish, I should say that there were exceptions. One was a blondish, heavy, sheep-doggy kind of guy who was walking toward me with a big smile and an extended hand.

“Marcus Miller,” he introduced himself. “So I guess you're in the Inters?”

“I guess I am,” I said.

“Well, don't worry,” he said with a hearty snort. “I've been going to Mooncliff forever – since I was a kid – so I can tell you everything.”

“Where all the bodies are buried,” added Susie with a secret smile for Marcus.

Marcus grunted and guided me away from the bus, “She's just kidding. There are no bodies.” Then he let out with a deep, macabre Dracula-type laugh that surprised me. Maybe there would be some nice, smart people to hang out with this summer.

One thing: this Marcus could talk. As we waited for the bus to load, Marcus started a running commentary on the camp, the owners, the campers, the quality of the bus we were riding, the box lunch they gave us, everything. I found out that Marcus had to have either something going into his mouth (food) or coming out of his mouth (talk) at all times. But I was happy to let him chatter on – it was really too early in the morning for me – and I learned a lot about Camp Mooncliff and the summer that awaited me.

“That's Jerry Mays, the H.C.,” Marcus muttered, nodding in the direction of a tall, sharply crewcut man in a Mooncliff varsity jacket and pressed chinos. “Boys' head counselor. He's basically . . . OK.” Marcus said “OK” grudgingly. “The Marshaks love him ‘cause he keeps a lid on spending, so we all have to learn to live with him, as long as we're living in the Moon-shak.”

“I can do that,” I volunteered. I wanted to seem eager and agreeable, and I
was
. Looking around at all the other counselors, I judged that most of them appeared to be a couple of years older than me. (I was, after all, hired as a “Junior Counselor.”) They all seemed very wholesome and alert and well prepared for the summer. I was going to make every effort to be likewise.

I am no fan of long bus rides, and if you add in a soggy tuna fish sandwich and warm orangeade, you get some idea of my inner/outer circumstances on the almost-three-hour trip to Mooncliff. Marcus sat next me and talked, almost non-stop, the whole way. I must have dozed a little during the ride – in fact, I'm sure I did – but I learned more of Marcus' inside tips about being a counselor at “the Moon-shak”: how to manage my free periods when I got them; what the best bars in Boonesville, the town nearest to Mooncliff, were; how to bribe your waitress, who was a “Boonie” (the Mooncliff word for “townie”), in the Mess Hall for better service and seconds; where the best place was to take a girl if you wanted some privacy – the Quarry. All during the bus ride, the girl counselors did a lot of singing and clapping. Camp songs, college songs, Beatle songs, Motown songs, Byrds songs, folk songs. From “Michael, Row Your Boat Ashore” to “Puff, the Magic Dragon” and some songs I didn't know.

“Get used to the singing,” Marcus whispered. “That's Mooncliff spirit.”

“Spirit” turned out to be a big thing at Mooncliff. People were always being encouraged to get or get more of or get the right kind of “Mooncliff spirit.” I found out later that “Mooncliff spirit” meant different things to different people.

Not quite three hours later, including a quick bathroom stop at the Red Apple Rest on Route 17, the big bus wheeled slowly off the narrow two-lane blacktop road in a wide turn. Crunching gravel, the bus drove through the front entrance to Camp Mooncliff, marked by a huge green-and-white painted sign, in a frame made of real logs. We were there, at last. Everyone cheered, including me, as the bus rambled down the long entrance road through the dark forest. I was very ready for this bus ride to end.

When I finally stepped off the bus onto Camp Mooncliff soil, it felt like I was stepping onto the Earth for the first time. It took me a moment to get my balance and it was bright so I had to shade my eyes, but the ground under my black Keds felt good and solid. Squinting, I stood away from the bus as the swarm of counselors who knew what they were doing sorted the luggage from the bus's lower storage compartment.

I had seen the slide show in Stanley Marshak's basement, but there is nothing like the reality of
being there
. And, to honor reality and be completely accurate, Camp Mooncliff was spectacularly beautiful. I'm not a nature freak or a Boy Scout or anything, but I know beauty when I see it: the bluest, clearest sky; a large hourglass-shaped lake surrounded by lush, green hills; long, graceful lawns; green grass and trees everywhere, with flowers of different colors all along the neatly tended gravel pathways; lots of white buildings, trimmed with green shutters and doors, spread out over the rolling campus like big, new toys. Even the air was clean and beautiful.

A bunch of us guy counselors grabbed our luggage and walked together down to the Boys' Campus. The bunks were arranged in circles – Junior Circle, Inter Circle, etc., for each group – and Marcus showed me where Bunk 9 was, next door to him in Bunk 10. They were nice, tidy little buildings, with cute front porches; everything had obviously been repainted recently. When we were walking down to the bunks, I saw a crew of workers putting clean, fresh sand into the sandbox in the little kids' playground and laying flowers in a pattern around the giant flag pole, spelling “CM” in white petunias. (At least I think they were petunias.)

“Our kids –” Marcus told me, “Inters – ten-, eleven-, and twelve-year-olds – they're much easier to deal with than the real little kids, who can drive you completely bats. Some of those kids are barely
toilet-trained
. But the teenagers, the Seniors, they're even worse. They'll give you lip if you let them. Some of 'em have beards thicker than mine! Our kids, you can still scare.”

“Well,” I said. “That's good.”

As soon as I walked into Bunk 9, I could tell that another guy had already moved in. I assumed it was my co-counselor, the Senior Counselor to my Junior Counselor. (Some people, those with cars, drove up on their own.) He had taken the bed in the far corner of the big, rectangular room. His bed was all made up neatly, with two plump pillows at the head and a perfect bedroll at the foot. His end table, this big, green-painted cubby, was already set out with his belongings, and he had a Boston Patriots pennant thumb-tacked to the bare wooden cabin wall. And he was, from the sound of it, in the shower.

“Hello!” I called out loudly, even though I was fairly sure that he couldn't hear me. But it just seemed polite.

The rest of the main room was taken up by a dozen or so unmade army cots, soon to be occupied by the campers, in two rows against the walls, with a big green cubby for each bed. I took the bed in the opposite corner from my co-counselor, all the better to keep an eye on the kids. Plus, having a corner gave me two walls, some extra places to put my stuff, and my own window. I needed that: I like to breathe.

I walked from the big main room out to the back porch. I could still hear the shower going full-blast in the bathroom. (Now I could hear my new partner
singing
.) On the large, screened-in back porch, just as Marcus told me it would be, was my father's old army trunk that I'd had shipped there two weeks before. Taking up the other two non-screened walls of the porch were two rows of empty closets, so everybody had a good place to hang clothes. More and more, it looked like Mooncliff was pretty well organized.

I dragged my trunk back to my corner of the room, undid the combination lock, which I remembered on the first try, and started to unpack my squashed clothes. I opened the cubby next to my bed and checked the inside for cleanliness. Not bad, but I still dusted out all three shelves with my hand and a tissue from my pocket. I started to transfer piles of my clothing from the trunk to my bed, trying to maintain the order of the stacks, when I heard the slap of wet footsteps behind me.

I turned and saw this lanky guy wearing nothing but a towel – around his head. He was dripping water from everywhere, and I mean
everywhere
.

“Yo!” he said, drying his hair roughly. “I thought I heard somebody, but I had soap in my ears. Good shower!”

“Hey,” I tossed him a wave.

He took the towel off his head, wrapped it around his waist, and came toward me with an extended hand.

“Hi,” he said, still talking rather loudly, still with soap in his ears. “I'm Stewie Thurman. I guess the bus got in?”

I introduced myself as he re-wiped his hand on his towel.

“Glad to see another human being,” he said.

“I can pass for that,” I replied, and he laughed easily, which I was happy to see.

“I drove down yesterday morning,” he continued, looking me over, checking out my stuff. “It wasn't so bad.”

“From where?” I asked.

“Massachusetts. Western Mass.”

“Cool,” I said, never having been there, but it seemed like the right thing to say.

“There are closets in the back; they even have some wooden hangers,” he said, walking back toward his bed and dropping his towel to get dressed. “This place is pretty nice. I used to be a counselor at this camp near Burlington – Camp Manitopa. All boys. Ever hear of it?”

“No, but I don't know that much about camps. This is my first time.”

“Oh, I guess that's why they put you in here with me. I've done this before.”

“At Manitopa.”

Stewie paused again, “I thought you said you never heard of it.”

“Never mind,” I said, seeing that Stewie was no rocket scientist. But then again neither am I, and he seemed like a sweet, laid-back, loosey-goosey guy. He looked older than me by a couple of years, but he acted younger. I could see where we might be a good combination.

As I unpacked and Stewie performed his post-shower rituals, he talked about a lot of things: his beloved car –”the Super-Coupe” – which turned out to be the 1961 Plymouth Belvedere with a custom light-blue paint job that he'd driven down from Massachusetts; his vast experience as a counselor (“That was a real camp, man – we just had
tents
and
outhouses
!”); his excellence as a wide receiver on the junior varsity football team at the local state college he went to, and his slim hope of moving up to the varsity that fall; and his grandparents' cranberry farm. All summer long I learned about the whole process of cranberry farming from Stewie. Up until that time, I did not know that there were two different ways to grow cranberries: dry and wet. At every Thanksgiving dinner for the rest of my life, as long as it lasts, Stewie Thurman and his grandparents' cranberries will probably cross my mind.

As he dowsed himself with cologne, powdered his underarms, and dabbed his acne with some kind of pencil, I got my things unpacked and organized. While Stewie kept up his free-flowing monologue, I carried my hanging stuff into the best remaining closet in the back porch, placed my toiletries in the best remaining cubby in the bathroom, and made my bed. With all these new people around me, I made a conscious decision to be a good listener this summer.