fivecats | The Two Weeks of Unmitigated Hell Every Summer Known as Camp Cavalier Day Camp

Dan's Backyard: The Fountain
July 2005 Chapel Thrill, NC
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When I was a kid summer vacation meant weeks and weeks of freedom and bliss. Throughout May, June and early July I'd spend long, happy days glued to the television absorbing as much Game Show trivia as I possibly could. My days started off with the "better" shows of the early and mid-morning, continuing through the lower-rung "desperation" shows that were the only alternatives to the ever-encroaching dirge of afternoon soap operas. Depending on how old I was, those no-good-TV afternoons would be spent either playing downstairs in our cooler basement, reading in my bedroom or being kicked out of the house to "get some fresh air" or whatever my mother called her time without any kids underfoot.

Those were the days when I could tell you the prime time television schedule for each of the three major networks for any day of the week. I was a happy kid, content with the simple things life had to offer.

Then came the middle of July.

The middle of July always meant one thing: The Two Weeks of Unmitigated Hell Known as Camp Cavalier Day Camp.

I understand the importance of being open at all times to the lessons life has to teach us. It is through such receptiveness that we can be shown wondrous things, things we might never have had the chance to experience otherwise -- our emotions can be moved, our vision captivated, our spirits brought into attunement with the mysteries of the cosmos.

Camp Cavalier Day Camp, however, did none of these things for me. For instance, before ever going to Camp Cavalier Day Camp I already knew that I was "different" from most kids, that I was lacking in physical coordination and that the word popular was not going to be attached to my name anytime soon.

I did not need to have these concepts beaten into my head through hours of torture in the hot, humid, worst-of-the-summer-days unforgiving afternoon sun. And yet, that is exactly what Camp Cavalier Day Camp afforded me.

Camp Cavalier Day Camp was run by a man named Al Birch. A former Marine, Al Birch ran his camp as if it was a small military operation. Campers were divided by sex and age into groups that did not mix. A strict schedule was rigidly ahered to: girls were to stay inside in air conditioned classrooms and make pot holders with colorful elastic bands while boys of all ages were to go outside, play sports, sweat, build character and Learn How to Become Men.

Or something like that.

Actually, both of those points were true. It's also true that Camp Cavalier Day Camp had it's own Fight Song. It was sung every Friday afternoon when we stood around and saluted as the American flag was lowered for the weekend.

"From the Halls of Montazuma
To the shores of Tripoli
We will fight our Day Camp's battles
Whether near or far away"

No, seriously.

Now my point of contention with this was that I did not sign up to go out on any "Day Camp Battles". First of all, part of not being physically coordinated included the notion that I was a lousy fighter. Secondly, I was not about to give them any more of my time than I had to so I could care less about travelling to wherever the heck Montazuma or Tripoli were and, besides, chances are it was going to take more than a Day Camp day to get there and don't even think about asking for any of my time on a Cartoon Saturday morning.

Al Birch was also a fine and upstanding member of the Holy Family Catholic Church community and, I think, was the school's gym coach during the school year. As a result, he was able to talk the church into leasing him the church grounds and several of the parochial school classrooms for his summer Day Camp. The hallways between these classrooms led to the back of the building where the nuns -- nuns in full habit -- were known to still be rummaging around in their classrooms making things ready for the coming school year. Absolute silence was expected in those hallways. If the staff caught kids making excessive noise there was hell to pay. If the nuns came in to complain about someone making noise that kid could only wish that there was only hell to pay.

In general, transgressions against nuns, nature and fellow campers were collected and hoarded away until Friday mid-afternoon. Every Friday afternoon there was a special event of some sort -- a movie or a field trip -- that was inevitably followed up by Court. Court would begin with all of us seated on the cold lanoleum floor, chanting "Here Comes the Judge! Here Comes the Judge!" as Al Birch walked towards the front of the hall, carrying his Thick Wooden Paddle of Justice.

Ah, yes. I'm sure some of you remember those carefree days of corporeal punishment. Days where the swing of a thick slab of hardwood landing on a small impressionable child's small impressionable rear end really meant something. It was a way of saying "I care about you and your future. Oh, and don't do that whatever-it-is-that-you-did again!"

It was an impressive system, one that discouraged any sort of immediate problem resolution and allowed anyone the possibility of terrorizing any other camper with the week-long threat of being "brought up in Court" for sins either real or imaginary. It also cemented in everyone's mind the idea that Al Birch was The Be All and End All Authority around the camp.

Providing his wife or the nuns weren't around, of course.

Camp Cavalier Day Camp offered two week sessions, full month sessions, and all-summer sessions. As I've said, I was committed, yearly, to a two-week sentence. I'd arrive on a Monday morning, clearly a stranger, and with the other newbies, try, unsuccessfully, to "fit in" with the majority of the kids there who were in for the entire summer. (Or "Lifers" as I like to think of them) The Lifers were a pretty tight-knit community, most of them either knowing each other already from (parochial) school or from having already spent two months together. We two-weekers were little more than transient homeless drifters ripe for some abuse or simply to be ignored until we went away again.

It was a club I really didn't mind belonging to. I could either not fit in for two weeks or not fit in for an entire summer.

At least twice a week the entire Camp went swimming. On those days we would all have to go into the bathrooms and change into our bathing suits en masse. Always being something of a private person (not to mention being overweight as a kid) these were always embarrasing, awkward times. Al Birch knew how to get everyone relaxed and laughing, however. One typical day he serinaded us with a song about his young, small-for-his-age son that started off

"Camper Birch is a friend of mine
He resembles Frankenstein
When he goes out in the street
You can smell his stinky feet...

Camper Birch, for his part, knew he was supposed to Take This Like a Man, but he still hated being made fun of by his father in front of a roomful of half-naked older boys.

My own nearly lifelong fear and loathing of swimming was born at Camp Cavalier Day Camp.

Once at the pool, everyone was divided into groups based on their swimming abilities. Older, more proficient kids at the deep end of the pool, Intermediates over here, Beginners over there. And then there was my group, the Stragglers. We were the ones who not only couldn't swim, but couldn't float. Nothing like being overweight, uncoordinated, unpopular and in the lowest group in the swimming pool.

Camp Cavalier Day Camp was staffed by teenagers, all earning minimum wage. As a result, they were not the most well-qualified bunch to work with kids, especially those of us who didn't fit into the easy-to-assemble molds. The males, especially, were mostly angry, repressed jocks who saw in some of us the chance to terrorize and humiliate without fear of reprocussion. (They're probably all Republicans today -- but that's beside the point)

At the swimming pool, the councillors all wanted to work with the older, more experienced kids. They were the "fun" ones, while my group was the one that inevitably went to whoever drew the short straw.

One year, the neanderthal who drew the short straw actually screamed at five of us in the shallowest end of the pool, telling us we were all a bunch of complete losers and he was finished working with us. He didn't care what we did for the rest of the summer in the pool. This all because we couldn't follow his example and float.

I believe that those that can teach, teach. Those that can't teach scream themselves red with rage and carry on about how stupid you are, how it all so much common sense and you're not being able to "get it" obviously must come from some deep-seeded moral character flaw that is beyond their otherwise brilliant abilites to exorcise out of you, you poor pathetic piece of trash.

Or something like that.

To end on a positive note, those of you who have managed to make your way through The Heavily Annotated Autobiographical Sketch (I can't say I recommend it, personally) will be familar with the old friend of the family, Don Brown. Don gets full credit for planting the seeds that grew into my sense of humor -- a sense of humor radically different from my parents' senses of humor, thank goodness. The day after the aforementioned Shallowest End of the Pool Screaming Incident, my mother took me over to Don's apartment after camp. He and I were going to spend some time in the apartment's pool and he would work with me on floating and swimming.

To someone overweight with low self-confidence and who knew that he didn't fit in, the idea of floating on the water was about as real a possibility as walking on the water. What Shallow Screamer didn't get was that some kids have fears that need to be overcome with trust. Screaming how easy it is to float if I'll just do it doesn't inspire a lot in the way of trust. (Instead it inspires lj entries like this 35 years later) Don understood the trust issue. Even with having known him for most of my life it still took a while to trust him and then to trust me to be able to do it. He also understood patience and along with trust, that did the trick.

By the end of the evening, I'd learned how to float. The next day I taught the rest of the Shallow Enders how to float within a few minutes of all of us getting into the pool. We all just needed to have someone believe in us, believe that we could do it and then teach us how and not give up.

"First to fight for right and freedom,
And to keep our honor clean,
We are proud to claim the title
of the Mighty Cavaliers!"

...

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Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

drood.livejournal.com

I love your long entries. You should write more of them.

From:

ladyamybug.livejournal.com

hmmmmm, i had similar swimming experiences as a kid which lead me to be the champion dog paddler that i am today.

what a great entry.
xoxxo

From:

basefinder.livejournal.com

Sounds horrifying. I was lucky enough to never go to camp. My own trauma stemmed from starting new at different schools every year or two, with years of Mandatory Sunday School thrown in for good measure. And I wasn't the overweight kid, I was the skinny kid.

We survived, eh? :-)

And I think a survey of your friends and acquaintances (LJ and RL both) would indeed find the word popular associated with your name.

Scott

From:

hartleyhare.livejournal.com

Wonderful post! But what a vile place. I'd have hated it too.

The one thing that seems to link all my friends (both LJ and RL) is a violent aversion to any kind of 'organised fun', especially the kind that makes people feel awkward and uncomfortable.

From:

new-brunette.livejournal.com

Oh my god. It sounds like a precursor to Fight Club.

From:

zhenzhi.livejournal.com

oh my! that sounds horrible.

From:

ishtar.livejournal.com

am I glad camps like that don't exist (yet) in the Netherlands! I would have been a kid exactly like you...just not overweight thèn. But I was physically very uncoordinated and very impopular, however much I tried. Always the odd one out! I would have died in a situation like you described and having finished reading, I've really got a headache. Glad there was someone to help you. Doesn't that make the worse memories bearable and dear in the end? It must give a sense of victory in hindsight.

From:

Photographs and Ramblings of a Drunken Irish Thug

The Two Weeks of Unmitigated Hell Every Summer Known as Camp Cavalier Day Camp

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