Learning

CAMP IWANNAH

 

What a wonderful mother and father I have! Although they call me their 'little' Ritchie, I'm the tallest kid in my class and have the best report card. They reward me for my 15th birthday with the entire summer at camp. I am going to be a counselor in waiting. If I do a good job, my parents get a hundred dollars back from the five hundred they laid out.

 

There are so many things to take care of that I have little time with my neighborhood friends. Carl and Jake must be jealous because they haven't come around for weeks. I had to have 3 typhoid shots and boy did my arm swell and hurt for a long time. Then I had to get a chest x-ray. Mom spent many hours and a lot of money to make things good for me. Together we selected a big trunk, so big it barely fit in our car. Mom had name tags made and she sewed a tape on everything, even in my socks, bought stationary with our home address already printed on the envelope so I'd have no excuse for not writing. Dad put stamps on every one. Where Mom couldn't sew I.D., she wrote my name with a magic marker including my tooth brush handle.

 

June 16th Dad drives us non-stop to PA where Camp Iwannah is. He gets kind of lost and it takes us an extra hour to find the camp. It doesn't look as good as it had sounded. There seems to be no order. Little kids are running around crying they want to go home. Parents are searching for the instructors, the right cabin number their children had been given by mail. There is a large parking area near what must be the office building. Dad parks and we walk, take our own little tour. The cabins are rustic, have too many steps for small children and my getting my trunk up without a hoist may cause trouble.

 

With Mom and Dad behind me, I get to about step four and am almost knocked over but a kid who can't be more than nine. I grab hold of him, ask his name and tell him I'm Larry, his councilor. He kicks me in the shins and disappears. In less than thirty minutes, my parents and I hug, they get in their car and disappear too.

 

The ten kids under my care get along pretty well. I overlook their meals, make sure they eat healthy foods as well as desserts, take care of their small cuts and bruises, tell them bed time stories in the dark, insist on rest periods after swimming. Between water fights they sit on the side of the pool and just kick water at each other. We've become friends with most of the kids in the bunk next to ours and I set up sport tournaments between us. We win a few, lose more than a few.

 

From the camp horse riding teacher I take a few lessons before my group stirs in the morning. In a few days I am able to enjoy walking beside the ponies while the little ones hold the reins to guide us. The first day of that experiment, Josh, a big 11 year old, didn't mean to, but lead us to the busy road outside of camp instead of towards the tennis courts. Turning the horses around wasn't too difficult, keeping the children off the road where two of them wanted to go and ride their horses back to Philadelphia, took a lot out of me.  We had Monopoly tournaments, under the moonlight I told scary ghost stories, did a few magic tricks. I kept everyone occupied almost all of the time.

 

It came like a bolt of lightning. Shaking hands like the gentlemen they would some day be, in less than a moment, my counseling came to an end. Glen and Morris, two other counselors helped me get my trunk down from my bunk and I helped them with theirs.

 

My parents were to pick me up at 2 p.m. but didn't show. My Uncle Bill did instead. 'Where are they?' I asked. 'You'll see when we get to your house,' was his answer. My camp experiences filled the entire trip home, regaling Uncle Bill with my accomplishments, disappointments, longing to be in my comfortable bed again, see my parents.

 

My parents' car is not at the curb waiting for me when we drive up to our house. I am nervous, picturing them both dead. I open the front door and see a basket on the floor, overflowing with my letters to them. Fear surely turned me white. Uncle Bill explains, my father, his brother, took my mother on a long tour of Europe and they have been away for an entire month.'

 

'But they called me on their cell twice a week.' My disappointment, hurt was so bad all I could do was mumble, 'I almost wrote my arm off. Uncle Bill, why did they give me all the stamped and addressed letters if they didn't want to know how I was?'

 

Uncle Bill had no answer either.