Camp

by Michael D. Eisner

  The visitors ask about the summer, how everything has been going. Those who have known Waboos over the years anticipate that his answer will focus on how great a time the campers have been having, how the weather cooperated for the trips, what a nice job the staff is doing. Everything is positive with Waboos. He won’t hint that his wife, Katie, is sicker than most know; won’t admit, even to himself, that he is in pain from this, that there can be life and death in the world outside Keewaydin. Nobody dares ask why she hasn’t been there for a few summers.

  Waboos’s daughter now stands at his side, talking to some parents about their sons’ projects, which she supervised in arts and crafts this summer. His son Peter is outside on Waramaug ball field, charming parents as Waboos did for so many summers, telling them things they never knew about their own children.

  Back outside, by the lake, the afternoon activities have begun. Pepe’s baseball team is playing in this final game of the session, between the so-called South and West units, while Q’s North team is the odd squad out. In trademark fashion, Q knows exactly what he wants to do, and he puts his life preserver back on and heads to the lake. After mastering a variety of activities and sports at camp—basketball, mountain climbing, canoeing, diving, boxing—in the last week, he’s suddenly been entranced with kayaking, and he has become a regular at staffman Bo Saxby’s lessons. With no more than four campers ever showing up for the activity, and an engaged teacher like Bo, Q has picked up the skills quickly. While his mother stands knee-deep in Lake Dunmore, camera continuing to flash, Q does his single rolls (yes, it’s just what it sounds like—actually rolling the kayak, and the camper inside, 360 degrees).

  About thirty feet away, perched on some large rocks behind the backstop, Pepe’s mom sits as her son claps his mitt in left field. As colorful and emotional as Pepe usually is, he seems a bit more reserved since lunch. Sure, he’s still his combative and playful self, joking with staffmen, but with each of his signature moves, Pepe looks back at his mother. While Q’s mom makes small talk with some parents and suns herself in the glistening light off the lake, Pepe’s mom remains away from the action. Pepe, the dutiful son, returns to her side each inning, the two huddled close together, whispering.

  Then, suddenly, he is gone. When Pepe’s turn at bat comes up in the third inning, he is nowhere to be seen. It’s not a major problem; with thirteen campers in the lineup, the game continues with little disruption. Where is Pepe? A likely spot: inside his tent, on his bed, opposite his mother, as the two struggle to zip his duffel bag closed. She reminded him they needed to finish packing, and they went back to the tent to do just that. His mother is clearly a stranger to the traditions of Keewaydin, where campers can have fun now and pack later.

  Pepe is happy to see his mother, just like the scores of other campers who right now share the joys of camp with their families. Fathers share canoes with sons; mothers and sisters play tennis opposite male counterparts; older brothers stand impressed on the basketball court, watching siblings who are better shooters than they were a month ago. One hopes that by the end of visiting day, by tonight, Pepe and his mother can find something to bond over at camp besides packing to leave. Maybe the distance between the two worlds, between the two cultures, is simply too great—at least too great a distance to make up in a single day.

  Nightfall can sneak up on you at Keewaydin, as it has on the scores of parents who continue to swarm the Waramaug campus. Pepe and Q are nearly all packed. Bags and trunks are loaded into cars, and somehow upon final sweeps of the area, the same things pop up: a brand-new pair of white socks underneath the bed, a tube of sunscreen left atop a neighboring cupboard, a T-shirt saturated with mud at the back of a cubby (it will not make the journey home).

  The parents and campers are due at the Waramaug Indian Circle in about five minutes, and preparations for the final circle of the session are well under way, with benches from the dining hall provided for the extra attendees.

  The families make their way over, filling the benches as a growing flame begins to punctuate the center of the circle. Suddenly, as inevitably seems to happen in crowds like this, there is an instant—perhaps a full second—where all the conversations magically come to a halt. Now it’s the crackling fire that’s doing the talking. Aaron Lewis pauses in the silence and stands to welcome everyone.

  The staffmen will take turns announcing the awards and giving out the collection of certificates, ribbons, and symbolic citations. Staffmen can give out “K’s,” symbolizing technical mastery, and they can award certificates and ribbons to campers whose participation and enthusiasm were notable.

  Next come the awards for ultimate Frisbee. Two kids who can throw the Frisbee the best are recognized, and then the staffman begins a short speech about a camper who might not have been the best at playing the game but who worked hard and improved drastically throughout the summer, especially on defense. He says that this is as important as throwing the Frisbee or being able to leap high to catch the disk, and it merits a ribbon for this camper. He pauses for dramatic effect, then announces the camper’s name. It’s Pepe.

  When Pepe’s name—to his complete shock—is called out in front of the entire wigwam, and the parents, and his own mother, Pepe’s reaction is completely spontaneous. As he walks up to collect his ribbon, his already infectious smile is on high voltage. His eyes are smiling; his ears are smiling; his nose is smiling; his whole tiny body is a giant smile. It’s just a small ribbon, but you get the feeling that as he clutches it in his right hand and sits back down next to his beaming mother, the ribbon will be making the journey back to Orange County amid heavy security.

  From there, the awards ceremony morphs into the Q Spratley show. Last night at the staff meeting in the dining hall, some of the biggest disagreements sprang from the dilemma of which awards to give Q. A ribbon in basketball was a given, but there were a host of other activities that he had quickly mastered this summer. His name is called again and again tonight—a “K” in diving, with the staffman who’s making the announcement recalling a lesson one afternoon when Q was the one giving him pointers; a ribbon in mountaineering; a “K” in boxing, with Cameron MacDonald, who runs the program, recounting Q’s awesome sparring sessions.

  On each trip to the front, Q’s head is cocked slightly sideways, his face passive yet struggling to contain emotion. On two of his trips, he actually skips and half-runs back to his spot on the bench, each time sneaking a quick glance at his mother to make sure he gets a look at her face.

  While Q is busy racking up awards, Pepe has become the most vibrant camper. With each award called, the throng breaks out in cheers and Pepe’s high-pitched screams can be heard above the crowd. A little while later, Pepe is called up again. The staffman announcing the soccer awards says, “This feisty young Waramauger is known for his pizzazz.”

  Now he has a ribbon for each hand.

  As the fire dims, the mood changes.

  Aaron Lewis is suddenly talking about procedures for campers leaving in the morning—or those leaving tonight. Now he’s talking about the strangers who will join the tents tomorrow afternoon, the second-session campers. And then he’s dismissing the group, which, not surprisingly, doesn’t hurry to leave the benches, lingering instead around the fire, in part to stay warm, but also to preserve the magic of the Indian Circle that they just created. Like everything else in camp, the campfire has ended with a song. The lyric to this particular song of eighty years—“Now the day is over, Night is drawing nigh”—always triggers a bit of sadness. On this night, the last night of the summer, there is a more emotional overtone. The song ends with “Dunmore no more.” It gets you, even at eight years of age. For now, a flame has been extinguished. Only next summer will there be Dunmore more . . . and more . . . and more.

  Pepe and Q trudge back to their tents, the last time this summer they’ll trace their steps along this route. Their mothers follow behind, talking like veterans as they rave about the campfire to each other. Maybe they�
�re thinking about what might be going through the minds of their sons on the eve of the trip back across the country.

  Oh Keewaydin, good night . . . God bring thee sweet dreams . . .

  Oh Keewaydin, good night . . . may thy slumber be blessed . . .

  There’s something incredibly poignant about the words that Russ MacDonald is singing, standing near the backstop of Waramaug ball field, and then walking toward the wigwam’s tents as he sings. Russ, Waramaug’s director emeritus, sings this good-night song, the first of two each night that are sung to the campers directly after lights-out. His voice is a smooth tenor, a steady and slightly gravelly tone that projects to the farthest tents.

  Pepe and Q have said their good-byes. With their flights back to California in the early morning tomorrow, the mothers determined that it made more sense to have the kids sleep with them tonight in the hotel. The good-byes were a bit awkward—high fives or half-hugs, imitating athletes on television. Pepe sought out a few basketball mates; Q stayed near his tent, almost avoiding the issue as his mom gently reminded him to say good-bye to Grant, his staffman.

  Suddenly, they have vanished into the darkness. Keewaydin is made for coming, not for leaving, and the two boys from Orange County, a million miles from home, slipped away. I wonder if, on Route 70 on the way back to Middlebury, Pepe and Q suddenly feel like home is three thousand miles away from Keewaydin—rather than the opposite. Their beds are empty, the camp-issued linens still neatly placed on top of the cots, undisturbed from this morning’s cleanup.

  Out on Waramaug ball field, the sky is full of stars. A few staffmen lie down on the ground, eyes pinned upward. Meanwhile, Russ MacDonald pulls his recorder out of a pouch, and Carolyn Sotir, a former soprano in college, joins him as she does each night now for the second Waramaug good-night song.

  Good night, Keewaydin, good night to you . . .

  Sleep tight, Keewaydin, the whole night through . . .

  The stars are shining with light so bright . . .

  So good night, Keewaydin, good night . . .

  About twenty feet away, Laurie Hare walks with Waboos carefully around the trees and onto the ball field. He’s got one of his sweaters on, bundled to stay warm as the breeze cools the night.

  Sweet dreams, Keewaydin, sweet dreams to you . . .

  Sweet dreams, Keewaydin, that take you the whole night through . . .

  Pepe and Q are probably getting close to Middlebury Inn by now, passing the darkened A&W where they had their first Vermont meal. They’ve had this song sung to them nearly every night for the past four weeks. But camp is over. The song is probably out of their heads, their minds now on an exciting night with their moms in a hotel.

  You’ll wake afresh with the morning light . . .

  In the morning, they won’t be at Keewaydin, but perhaps Keewaydin will be with them as they board their planes headed back west. Perhaps Keewaydin will remain with them all year. Perhaps, as it does with me, for the rest of their lives.

  So good night, Keewaydin, good night . . .

  On this July night in 2002, at 9:43 P.M., one month and seventeen days before his eighty-eighth birthday, Waboos stands at the heart of the camp, on Waramaug ball field. Today, like all days for him as he approaches the completion of his ninth decade of life, he couldn’t see in the light, but right now, in a dark night under a layer of stars, he can see all right. He can sense exactly what’s going on in front of him, what’s going on behind him; what went on today at his camp, and what will go on tomorrow; how he got here, and, I hope, how he’ll always be here, in some form or another, forever.

  Good night, good night.

  The song ends. There are a few quiet moments of contemplation, and then life goes on. Tomorrow there will be airport check-ins for the kids going home. Tomorrow is also the first day of camp for one hundred new campers, replacing the ones who have left. They will begin the process of learning and growing, laughing and playing, at Keewaydin again.

  Epilogue

  Skills Forever

  Everybody paddles through pleasures in their lives: marriage, success, and children. And everybody paddles through storms as well, facing economic difficulties, fighting off adversaries, stumbling through unpleasant relationships, struggling with disease, moving on from a death in the family. How one deals with such disruptions in life, how one finds the strength to get through those times, how one perseveres is a mark of who that person is. And a person finds his oars—his tools to get through—early on, during early childhood development, in the formative days of life. Early education—and early play—is important. Summer camp is where the tools to fend off the hard times are acquired. They are tools that have worked for generations of campers, and they will work forever.

  Camp grabs hold of you when you’re young, the kind of home you at once claim as your own but also share, share with the kid in the cot next to you and share with the venerable staffman who’s been there longer than you’ve been alive. It’s one of America’s ultimate communal dwellings, a shared experience and anchor of stories that campers young and old exchange far from our camps, long after we’ve spent our last night in a tent or cabin. Camp is a laboratory for safe danger, and the science practiced in this lab will never be outdated. It’s God and humans teaming up to provide nature’s ultimate playground, where survival in the woods becomes an exercise in training for life’s real-world, man-made challenges; where young people can develop their physical and natural skills while also maturing and growing socially.

  Over the past few summers, like me, my father, and my sons, Pepe and Q have acquired their tools for life at Keewaydin. This summer, the summer of 2005, will be their fourth summer as campers. At Keewaydin, the fourth summer is a real milestone, as campers who’ve been at camp this long are inducted as Papoosiwogs, or old-timers. It’s an honor meant to single out those who have spent time learning at camp, but really it’s also an honor society that Keewaydin would eagerly brag of. It is out of the ranks of the Papoosiwogs that the finest of Keewaydin emerge to face the world. They’ve spent the most time there, been on the most trips, experienced the most adversity, had the most initiative, shown the most commitment.

  Pepe has done all this without physically growing much—he’s still seriously undersized for a young teenager. He’s just as excitable, but if you look at his eyes closely, you can tell he’s grown a bit inside. He’s seen more of the world, not only at Keewaydin, where he’s been a part of some classic canoe trips, but also back home in Anaheim, where some of his peers have begun a descent into gangs and drugs. When it’s the older kids, it’s easy to just say no; when it’s the kids you’ve played with after school in the street for years, it’s more complicated. Even in winters, when I’ve seen him during California Keewaydin reunions, his enthusiasm for Keewaydin is potent, his command of the camp’s language as fresh as it would be in Vermont in the middle of July. Camp, his mother tells a Spanish-speaking translator, is where Pepe has found the individuality and initiative to steer clear of trouble so far in his neighborhood.

  Q remains the distant, easygoing youngster he was in his first summer at Keewaydin, but his focus on organized sports has waned a bit outside camp. Maybe it’s because the sports are too easy for such a natural young athlete, or, conversely, because the commitment to practice is too great for a kid whose focus wanders easily; his latest interests are motor scooters and motorbikes. He starred in football and hockey for school and neighborhood teams a few years ago, but has lost the drive to commit for now. Keewaydin, then, has become a place of stability for Q, where he returns to the basketball court, the climbing rocks, and the canoe.

  It’s incredibly striking to see Pepe and Q in their native Orange County, amid the threats from drugs and gangs. They, like all kids there, appear very vulnerable, at one moment puffing out their chests to assert themselves in a threatening environment, and then, in the middle of ordering fast food, reminding a visitor how small, vulnerable, and young they are as they debate the merits of get
ting vanilla or strawberry shakes. At Keewaydin, there are no such contradictions; here, they are boys among boys, in the laboratory that has produced so many great men.

  And at camp, the man who’s melded so many Pepes and Qs over decades and decades is still in his cottage. Waboos is ninety years old now. He carefully moves through camp with the aid of a rolling walker; perhaps a wooden cane would be more romantic, but this is safer amid the roots and stones of the campus. It’s his latest way to deal with old age, his latest trick to keep himself mobile, his latest tool for life. His vision hasn’t improved, but somehow he still looks you in the eye when he makes a point. And inside, his mind’s eye, the one that really counts, is still virile and strong, still the source of pointed questions about my work and my book, in a genial tone that still commands respect and a straight answer.

  His wife has now passed away, at the nursing home in Philadelphia. There was a quiet service at the end of summer, and, appropriately, a flower bed at Keewaydin had been dedicated to her memory. Waboos’s life is now fully anchored at the camp, his calendar solely oriented toward those two magical months when the place he has kept afloat for so many years gives him renewed energy, increased vigor, the world beginning anew.

  I’ve been up to camp each of the three summers since my son and I dropped off Pepe and Q that first day, nervous about whether the two wide-eyed boys from Orange County could adapt to the northeastern wilderness, and wondering whether the camp could help these street savvy pre-teens. Well, I think I’ll find my answer this summer, when we drop off the sixteen kids from Southern California who now go to Keewaydin and Songadeewin on combined scholarship from our family’s foundation and the General Breed scholarship program. Pepe and Q and Noelle and Veronica are the leaders of the pack, talking up the A&W on the plane ride east, and taking the youngest kids—this summer, nine-year-olds headed to Annwi—to their wigwams the first day.