Summer Camp Memories: The Last Week

During the five years I worked for the Boy Scout program, I spent three summers in scout camps. In this story I tell about my last week of directing at scout camp. A few years later, when I was in graduate school, I ran a small camp in Idaho for two summers. But that camp was a breeze and had about as many campers as this camp had staff. This all took place in the summer of ’84. Photos are copies of slides.
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Things were running smoothly. All my staff had reported back on time and most of the troops were already checked in. A little after four that afternoon, I headed over to the dining hall to check on dinner. At six, they’d be serving nearly 500 scouts, leaders and staff. Sunday night was always a good meal: baked chicken, whipped mashed potatoes, vegetables, yeast rolls and dessert. I could smell the foot as I walked down toward the dining hall. I went around back, to come into the kitchen entrance, passing by the dumpster. I never saw it; but something bumped into right eyebrow and immediately I felt the sting. I slapped my forehead, killing a wasp. They say bad things come in threes. I should have gone out right then and found a rock to hide under and wait out the Apocalypse.

Up until my encounter with a wasp, it had been a great summer at Camp Bud Schiele. The camp, in only its second year of operation, looked like a country club. The rolling grassy hills surrounded a lake that offered swimming, canoeing and sailing, fishing and waterskiing. I had a terrific staff, some sixty strong. The first seven weeks had gone off without a hitch. After this week, we’d store away tents and gear and in another week I’d be in Damascus, Virginia, ready for a two week hike along the Appalachian Trail. The cooks assured me that dinner would be on time. I got a piece of ice to put on my bite and headed back to the camp office. By the time of our staff meeting that night, my right eye had swollen shut and there sat my staff, every one of them looking at me with their right eye shut. I wish I could say it was out of sympathy, but I know mockery when I see it.

After Sunday, things slipped back into a regular routine and by mid-week, the swelling was down and I’d forgotten about the wasp. The council camp had a tradition going back generations where the camp staff produced a pageant for campers and their staff on Wednesday night. It was convenient to do this middle of the week; visiting parents always recharged the campers’ wallets which helped our trading post make a good profit. The pageant itself was quite a feat, as the staff dressed up as Native Americans and told some legendary story about natives in Western North Carolina. No one seemed to be bothered that the staff dressed like Plain’s Indians, right off of a Hollywood movie set. As camp director, I’d spent the evening greeting parents and talking up the scouting program.
A few minutes before the program was to start for the final time that week, my business manager ran up to me and said there was someone in the office wanting to see me. I walked over and met the man who ran a small country store and gas station a few miles away. He wasn’t too happy. He showed me a check written by one of my staff members. The check had been written on a closed account. The staff member, who had been in uniform, had told the man the check belonged to his mother and she had given it to him, pre-signed, so he could get gas and some snacks. He accepted it (he did, however, put the guy’s name and driver’s license number on it), and as country stores often do, he counter-signed the check over to the bread delivery man. The only problem was, the check didn’t belong to the guy’s mom, but to another woman, the sister of a friend. When the check was denied for payment, the bread company had charged the store an extra fine. The store owner had called the woman whose checks they were and learned that he’d written quite a few checks across a three country area and there were a half-dozen warrants out for the guy’s arrest.

Todd had just gotten out of the Marine Corp that Spring. He came with good references and an honorable discharge. Being in his early 20s made him more desirable as there are a number of positions in camp that require someone over 21. Todd was the assistant on the rifle range and also served as our provisional scoutmaster, working with those scouts who came to camp without a troop. Up to this point, I’d been pleased with his work. Unlike a lot of my staff, he always had clean uniforms, which I later learned was because he’d brought four sets of them with a check “that his mother had given him so he could buy uniforms.” As it turned out, even his uniforms were stolen, having been purchased through forgery. Although I didn’t particular want a sheriff cruiser to come into camp with their lights flashing to arrest a staff member, I also felt I needed to get Todd out of camp. Although I didn’t think he’d do anything, I felt it was a liability to have a staff member working with kids with that many felony warrants out on. I asked the local sheriff if they could wait till ten that evening. Because he had so much land to oversee, our camp ranger had been deputized. The two of us would detain Todd in my office and by ten, all the parents would be gone and the scouts would be back in their campsite and we could hand Todd over to the local sheriff.

I made arrangement for my program director to take over the staff meeting we always held on Wednesday night and asked him to keep the staff together until I came back to talk to them. With Tony, the camp ranger by my side, I asked Todd to come with me to my office. It was a long walk through the night. Once inside, I told him what was up. Todd was a big guy, probably 6’3” with broad shoulders, about the size of Tony and I put together. I was afraid of what he might do, and was surprised when he sat down in a chair and cried. Tony offered him a cigarette and I decided it was best that I not insist they not smoke in my office. He took one (I’d never seen him smoke) and with tears in his eyes asked what was going to happen to him. I told him didn’t know, but I knew there were a number of warrants out for his arrest and that forgery was serious business.

The deputy arrived right at ten and arrested Todd. I felt sorry for him, as he was handcuffed and read his rights. I told him we’d pack up his stuff and keep it safe and then went over to the dining hall where the staff was sitting around waiting. They knew something was up and were visibly shaken, for Todd had been a likable guy. The next day, Tony and I went through Todd’s stuff, inventorying it all and boxing it up and storing it in his car. A few days later, his parents came down and picked up his car and drove it home.

I’d had enough excitement for one summer. But the week wasn’t over. On Friday, as I was trying to finish up paperwork in my office, the mother of a camper who’d been at the camp a few weeks earlier came by. Like the store owner, she too wasn’t happy. She dropped an X-rated photograph on my desk, one that had come from her son’s camera. I could have gone all summer without seeing that. Her son swore to her that he had no idea where the picture came from, but looking at it, I knew right away. It was taken on the waterfront and one particular staff member who had a very unique bathing suit was the subject. I also figured out fairly quickly what had happened.

On the waterfront (sounds like a good title for a movie), there was a place where campers could ‘check” valuables, things that couldn’t get wet, like wallets and cameras. I sent for the waterfront director and for the staff member in question. The waterfront director suggested who he thought would have taken the photo (the guy who was in charge of checking in and out personal items). I had him bring the other guy up as I confronted the one young man with the bright red stripped baggies which clung to his knees in the photo. Showing him the photo, he confessed. So did the photographer. Although I knew it was just a childish prank, the Scouts have strict rules on such behavior and I found myself having the privilege of firing two more staff members. Like Todd, these were both well-liked and hard workers. The rest of the staff was mad at my decision, especially since it there was only one more day of camp left. At least one model in the photographer must not have been too mad with me, for the next year when he graduated from college, he called to ask me to be one of his references.

It had been such a nice summer. I had enjoyed everything the camp had to offer: swimming, water skiing, sailing, canoeing, and fishing. But after that last week, I was never so glad to go home.

For another story about Sage's adventures during the summer of '84, click here.

Personal Thoughts on the Ultimate Punishment

This photo has nothing to do with this post. It's just an old photo of me cross-country skiing in the Sierras (and eating snow). The photo was taken in Jaunary 1989 on Kodachrome and is a digital copy of the slide.

I saw them just a few times that summer. They’d be walking to the mailbox or in their car turning into our shared driveway. I’d smile and wave and generally they’d wave back; I don’t think we ever spoke. They seemed sad, just a remnant of a family who lived in an old farmhouse behind me. They all seemed older than their years and probably were. I remember an older girl or more correctly, a young woman. She might have been attractive, had it not been for the gloom on her face, slumped shoulders and downcast eyes. I wondered if she was the one.

In the summer of 1984, I was director at Camp Bud Schiele, a Boy Scout camp located in the foothills of the Appalachians. The land that made up the reservation had originally been several dairy farms. They hadn’t yet built the director’s cabin, so I lived in a small house that had originally housed one of the dairy families. Behind me, in what had once been a farmhand’s house lived this family in a house they rented from the scout council. The summer camp area was about a mile and a half away, across a broad valley dissected by the tracks of the Clinchfield Railroad.

Right before I moved to camp for the summer, I had a conversation about the family with Tony, the camp ranger. We were in the former milk bar which had been converted to the camp’s shop and tool storage shed. A ranger from another camp that was a few miles from us was also present. He was either borrowing or returning some equipment.

“They need their privacy,” Tony said. “But keep your eye out for them and call me and the sheriff if anyone bothers them.” He then told me the story. The father of the family had recently been executed at Central Prison in Raleigh. If I remember correctly, his was the first execution in North Carolina following the reinstatement of the death penalty. A few years earlier, his daughter had come home late from a date. He’s taken shots at her boyfriend and when the law showed up to find out what was going on, he shot and killed two officers.

I made some quip about how his death wasn't going to solve anything. This was interpreted as a liberal cliché by the other ranger, who immediately challenged my statement. We entered into a rather heated argument over the necessity of capital punishment. As in most such arguments, neither one of us changed our minds. If I remember correctly, Tony didn't say much, just listened and shook his head.

I became an opponent of capital punishment fairly early in my life. At some point, I remember watching a movie about an innocent man being executed and it seemed that the only way to make sure that doesn’t happen is to end such punishments. Although I was only 11, I was relieved in the late 60s when the Supreme Court instituted a moratorium on the practice. My first political arguments with my dad were on this topic; he felt the Supreme Court’s decision to be foolish. But what sealed my position on capital punishment came when I was in the eighth grade. I was a student at Roland Grice Junior High School and my girlfriend attended Sunset Park Junior High. We knew each other through church. During the week, we’d talk by phone. We both had spies at the other school, snitches more than willing to tell tales. One day I confronted her about a guy she’d been seen frequently hanging around with and she snapped back, “What are you going to do, put me in the electric chair?” Ever a smart-ass, I responded, “Lucky for you, I don’t believe in capital punishment.” Then we forgot all about the allegations of her unfaithfulness and began to argue about the merits of the death penalty. She was in favor of it and I was against it.

In time, the reasons for my position against capital punishment changed. I began to base my arguments on moral and theological grounds, centering mostly on the need for society to set the example about the value of life. For the same reason, I have also been against abortion even though I’m horrified at the possibility of being identified with the pro-life camp, most of whom aren’t really pro-life, just anti-abortion. But that’s another topic.

Throughout my life I have had many encounters with those dealing with capital cases. When working with the Scouts, one of my district chairmen was an attorney. The country didn’t have a public defender, so the task was rotated among those who practiced criminal law. By the luck of the draw he was assigned to defend a young man who’d been charged with a double murder, the deaths of his girlfriend’s two children. There was little doubt of the defendant’s guilt as the bodies were discovered in his trunk. It was anguish to have to defend such a man and a year or two later, he quit practicing law.

Years later, when living in Utah, there was a horrible murder. A young man brutally attacked his ex-mother-in-law in front of his children. The victim was a respectful member of the community, a Paiute social worker who was seen by many within the tribe as a leader and nurturer. Again, I was friends with the attorney who had the public defendant contract for the county. It was his first capital case and we talked several times about it (enough so that when the case did come to trial and I was one of the 120 people in the jury pool, I was quickly dismissed!). Again, there was little doubt of his guilt and the defendant was found guilty and sentenced to death. When his attorney accepted the case, he confided to me that he had no problems with capital punishment. He admitted he’d never really given it much thought, but during the trial, as he got to know the defendant, he struggled with his beliefs. Although the defendant was guilty, he was still a human being.

I attended the final arguments for the sentencing phase. Outside the courthouse, a circus was on-going. The victim had been a member of the local band of Paiutes and many members of the tribe were out with signs asking that the defendant “fry.” The defendant was also a Native American, but a Hopi. Far from his native land, he had no supporters. I was sickened as I cleared security at the courthouse, wondering if those picketing would feel better once they obtained the revenge they sought. “Vengeance is mine,” say the Lord, but many people things the Lord can use a helping hand. The defendant, in what was an agonizing decision for the judge, was sentenced to death.

I saw that ranger from the neighboring camp, the one I’d argued with over capital punishment, once or twice more that summer, but the topic never came up again. A year or so later, two young men turned up missing and the fingers all pointed to him. Their bodies were found buried near his home. He was tried and found guilty and sentenced to death. I have no idea what ever came of the case, as I left the area shortly afterwards. But I’ve wondered about him as well as I’ve wondered whatever became of that family that lived in the house behind me. And yes, I’ve also wonder what happened to the mother of the two children, the wives and children of the law officers, the parents of the two young men and the daughter and grandchildren of the Paiute social worker. Did these additional deaths bring any peace?