I just had a really strange flashback:
I just had a really strange flashback: Scout camp. For no apparent
reason (maybe the sudden heat wave?) my mind filled with the smell of
wet basket reeds and the sound of inane songs about maiming
schoolteachers set to the tune of the Battle Hymn of the Republic.
I swear, I hated scout camp. Oddly, I really liked the idea of
camp, and even found myself enjoying most of the outdoor aspects of it:
campfires, sudden torrential rain, sleeping bags, mosquito nets. What I
hated were the people, the bizarre pseudomilitary
activities, and the competition.
An example. I love water, and in the abstract that feeling extends to
swimming and canoeing. The concrete version of these activities,
however, was perverted and twisted around a boot-camp-like attitude and
a competitive atmosphere. I didn’t just get to swim in a lake; I had to
swim a certain distance, in a certain time, with sufficient
clarity of form that I would get my little white cardboard
swimming token colored red and blue — this would signify that I was
not a pathetic, prepubescent piece of bullet-absorbing flab.
Of course, that’s exactly what I was. The drill instructor
— I suppose they were counselors or something, but let’s
call a spade a spade— stood over me, shouting “encouragement”.
The lakewater seemed half as dense as it should have been, and it was
all I could do to avoid gulping it down as I sank. I ended up only
getting red added to my token, which means, “MUST HAVE HIS HAND HELD
WHEN SWIMMING; ALSO, IS PANTYWAIST”. The other kids reminded me of this
thoroughly shameful display of skill (and many others).
I have more anecdotes (remind me to tell you about target practice, or
burning and torturing bugs, or blowing shit up), but the important point
here is that there was something in that experience that I
desperately wanted more of but knew I couldn’t get from the Boy Scouts.
I wanted to be away from home, spending logs of time with people my age
(and NOT my age). I desperately wanted some chance to discover some
tiny bit of independence and identity. What I needed was
camp-without-the-assholes, roughing-it-without-the-competition. I
needed Life Camp.
The closest thing I got to Life Camp (before college, that is, which is
of course a four year Life Camp to end all Life Camps) was the short
stayover trips my sixth (and seventh?) grade classes made to a local MCPS Outdoor Ed
facility called the Smith Center [2],
and the weeklong adventure taken by my high school program in tenth
grade to an army-base-cum-educational-center at Wallops
Island, VA.
Most of what I learned, and certainly all of what I
remember, on those trips was definitely social. (No, there’s no
nudge and wink there — at least not pertaining directly to
me — as I seem to have been coated in some kind of
girl-repellant until approximately 1996.)
I did not waste any time learning how to shoot
anything.