This Past Weekend in Indianapolis: A Wormhole to 1980

From 1977 to 1983 I spent most of every summer at a camp in Zionsville, Indiana - my first 3 as a camper, my last 3 as a counselor, and the year in-between (1980) as a member of the work/study program called Avodah. That was 35 years ago, and this last weekend some of us reunited to commemorate that milestone. (Note: 35 isn't much of a milestone, but we missed 25 and 30, and waiting until 50 when we're all 65+ might not have been a good idea.)

The Avodah program was a brilliant concept, introduced into the camp program in 1979 as a way to stop paying a small work force to do camp dirty work (serving food, washing dishes, cleaning toilets, and so on), and to replace them with eager young people who would happily pay (or have their parents pay) the camp for the privilege to do those very same tasks.

The program also added a one-year buffer between junior counselors and final-year campers, greatly limiting the number of sordid camper/counselor relationships that had - until then - been a time-honored camp tradition. So not only did the Avodah program kill 2 birds with one stone (3 if you count the new source of revenue), it even took care of the need to have someone around to dispose of the 2 dead birds and re-rake the other stones after the one stone had been cast.    

But back to the reunion...

The idea of a reunion sounded great when the organizer and catalyst (who I won't name because I try to avoid naming names in my blog as a general rule, unless it's Rob Ford, former Mayor of Toronto) first sent out the invitation that I immediately accepted. But as the day drew nigh, I started getting a little nervous about the whole thing. What would it be like to see old people who I last saw as teenagers? Would I recognize them? Would they remember me? Who would I hang out with? Would my stunning youthfulness and overall dashingness inhibit our reconnection?

Furthermore, going back to the camp itself was daunting. Yes, it held great memories for me, but also some not-so-great memories: Wolf spiders lurking under boxes awaiting the opportunity to pounce on 15-year old David who had paid for the opportunity to move those boxes so that someone else wouldn't have to; a boys' bathroom complex that has been, for well over 35 years now, the setting for the climactic scenes in many of my nightmares (I wish I was kidding); the bunk onto which my ex-counselor now brother-in-law had thrown me, overhand I believe, in order to demonstrate his alpha-ness to my cabin-mates; and so on.

The travel-day came, I met up with my Toronto pals at the airport, flew to Indy (a direct flight now, not so back then), picked up rental cars, checked into the hotel, and then headed over to camp.

The experience that began the moment we drove through the gates and lasted through the weekend was an odd one for me. I think I'm a move forward person. I don't like to dwell on things. I look ahead, not back. I know who I am and where I'm going, and I don't spend much time reflecting on how I got here. But here I was re-entering my youth; re-acquainting myself with people who, when last I saw them, looked very, very different; and re-tracing steps I had last taken two-thirds of my lifetime ago.

Upon arrival, I discovered a clump of middle-agers clustered together in the throes of hugs and greetings and reminiscences. I youthfully strolled over to ask them where the people attending the reunion were supposed to go, only to discover that they were those people. With each individual I met, I had a moment's confusion as the clerical staff in my head searched old cabinets in cobwebby rooms to find the right paperwork...but then came a flooding-in of the memories - the voice, the facial expressions, the face, the shared events - all there undamaged and undiminished despite the years in storage.

The place had a similar effect. Dinner in the dining hall brought back the protocols ("you kill it, you fill it"), the horrid, horrid (horrid) food, the noise, the chaos, and the times we had there. Walking the paths here and there through the camp triggered site-specific memories and a general reminder of just how much I was able to sweat on muggy and hot Indianapolis summer days. The campfire offered the local mosquitoes the opportunity to re-inject me with the venom of their love. And each time, the same internal reaction..."Oh yes. Now I remember...".

It was the people, though, above all else, who made the weekend so momentous for me. I had been worried on the way down because I could not remember beforehand who I had been close friends with amongst these people I would be meeting again. By the end of the first night, I knew why I couldn't recall that seemingly important detail: I had been friends with everyone. We had been united in servitude all those years ago. We had sweated together, worked together, played together, moaned and complained together, sought sanctuary off-camp or in the (air conditioned) library together, ... and had become a community and a family and a gang and a circle of friends that, as it turns out, still held fast. Some friends weren't there with us on this weekend for all sorts of very good reasons (I can only assume), but we had them with us too as it all came rushing back.

I can't believe I forgot that...how it had been amongst all of us. I won't forget it again, having instantly renewed with so many what had been too long set aside.

In the dining hall, decades ago, a camp visitor taught us a song with three words: "everything is connected" (there could have been more words than that, but I can't be Shur). Those words became a bit of a password for people who had been there that night. And this weekend made clear why those words were so resonant. We were connected. We are connected. To each other. To the place. To the time. Over time and over distance.

The weekend was as close as I'll ever come to crossing through a wormhole. I was back there, flesh and blood, in 1980 (and '77 and '78 and '79 and '81 and '82 and '83) with people I love. They're doctors and lawyers and rabbis and other equally important things now, but they are also my friends.

My advice to 17 year-old David: stay connected. There's a lot of you in these people and you're not completely you without being with them from time to time. (More advice: Dress better. Girls like that.)

Sappily yours...David

Verse for the Intensely Sensitive

Upon a Banana Slug I Stepped

 

Surrounded by ancient West Coast giants,
Tops swaying in the salt-steeped air,
I walk, sandals in hand, on a whim,
Borne of the moment and an urge to touch the land with my sole.

One moment, one step, the cool and gritty soil;
The next, a fleshy pulsing warmth;
A warm and slick sensation;
There beneath my foot.

Paradise lost just then, dreams dashed of uprooting my eastern life;
To thrive forever here on this island amidst the trees.
For here there are banana slugs awaiting any step;
And thus here I cannot be.




Gateway to an Encounter

You spin your web in places dark and cool;
And in the sun where it is bright and warm.
In corners, amongst the trees, and across furniture unused too long.
And there you stake your claim.

But trails guarded by pairs of yellow poles are for me;
Raised to keep cars out and people between.
They're not for you, small spider, those twin gateways;
Not your place to cast your threads.

For when I do come whisking through;
And feel your silky sticky strands across my arm;
I cringe, but cannot stop.
And you and I are momentarily locked in a losers' tangle.

Keep to the corners and amongst the trees and across furniture unused too long;
And behind and under boxes in cellars and attics.
Those places I will cede to you.
But the trail is mine and you intrude here at your own peril.

It Is Frowned Upon in Public Places to Do That

The sensation comes unbidden;
A need that needs fulfillment.
Its source no longer matters;
It was yesterday and who remembers now.

But it is frowned upon to meet this need;
In public places where people gather;
And raise their judgmental eyebrows;
At people being natural and self-gratifying.

So I try to hold it in;
Clenching hard with muscles no one sees.
And I fail, because those muscles are weaker now than years ago.
And people take note and turn away.



Polite society doesn't think it is okay
For those alone, in a crowd
To spontaneously release
A laugh.