Bullard made a sudden and dramatic appearance, his face lit by the flames.
“This is the stuff, eh, boys? Cooking your own food under the heavens! Living the clean outdoor life! I am reminded of my own youth, spent in the clean air of God’s own prairies. Now, all together, boys, let’s sing our beloved ‘Nobba-WaWa-Nockee Loyalty Song.’ ”
With the fervor of a Methodist choirmaster, he led us in a droning, endless performance, punctuated by the obbligato of slapping and scratching at the fringes of the circle. Schwartz’s tongue was so thick by now that you couldn’t understand what he was singing. I looked up at the deep ebony arch of Michigan sky, luminous with millions of stars, and all the travails of the day were forgotten. What fools we mortals be.
After the weenie roast, we trooped up to the rec hall. It was letter-writing night. Every three days, it was compulsory to write home. We hunched over the pool table and every other writing surface in the place, racking our brains for something to say to the home folks. I struggled over the blue-lined tablet my mother had bought for me. It had a cover with a red Indian head on it.
Dear Mom & Dad & Randy
,
I am at camp
.
I pondered long and hard, trying to think of something else to say. But nothing came, so I printed my name at the bottom and put it in the envelope. Just as I was about to seal it, I remembered something else. I took the letter out and wrote under my signature:
P.S. Schwartz burned his tonge. It is really fat. There is a funny thing in the lake that has suckers on it
.
I ran out of gas again. Cliffie, who was in charge of letter writing, swooped from kid to kid, making sure they were saying good things about the camp. He glanced at my letter.
“My, my. This is very good.” His eyes narrowed a bit at my reference to the thing with suckers, but he let it pass.
Kissel licked the stub of a pencil and started on the third page of his meticulous description of the shoulder holster he was making in leathercraft. Flick hid what he was writing.
As I lay in bed that night, my stomach rumbling ominously with fermented weenies, Schwartz sprawled above me, whimpering over his bulging tongue. Flick, who had gotten a half-dozenstrategic hornet stings, writhed in his sack. The kid who had the bunk above the fat Chipmunk had been picked up during the day by a gleaming Cadillac and swept out of our lives forever. For the time he was with us, he had said nothing, but he cried a lot at night. Mole Lodge was shaking down into a tight unit. Little did we realize, however, that there was a hero among us.
“The canoe paddle is held thusly. It’s all in the wrist. Y’gotta have a steady, even stroke, like this.”
At last! All my
Boy’s Life
fantasies were about to come true. They just didn’t have canoes on the south side of Chicago. A canoe was something you read about that Indians paddled around on Lake Gitchee-Goomie. We converged on seven or eight or so canoes that were pulled up on shore–long, imperially slim, forest green, each emblazoned with the proud yellow arrowhead of Nobba-WaWa-Nockee. Canoes are so beautiful that even the dullest clod of a Chipmunk got excited at the sight of them. Like most things of beauty, they are also highly dangerous.
An unfamiliar counselor, who wore a black cowboy hat, green swimming trunks, and an orange life jacket over his camp T-shirt, neatly flicked the canoe paddle, demonstrating the stroke.
“Y’gotta have a beat. One … two … three … DIG. One … two … three … DIG. Steady. Even. Got that, gang?”
We had it, or thought we had.
“The bow paddle gives you the power, while the stern paddle gives you power and steers.”
Schwartz whispered to Beakie Humbert, another kid from Troop 41. “Which one’s the bow?”
“The one in the back, jerk. Boy, you don’t know nothin’.” Beakie was famous in the troop for his knot tying and for his merit badge for wood carving, which he got
“This is the stuff, eh, boys? Cooking your own food under the heavens! Living the clean outdoor life! I am reminded of my own youth, spent in the clean air of God’s own prairies. Now, all together, boys, let’s sing our beloved ‘Nobba-WaWa-Nockee Loyalty Song.’ ”
With the fervor of a Methodist choirmaster, he led us in a droning, endless performance, punctuated by the obbligato of slapping and scratching at the fringes of the circle. Schwartz’s tongue was so thick by now that you couldn’t understand what he was singing. I looked up at the deep ebony arch of Michigan sky, luminous with millions of stars, and all the travails of the day were forgotten. What fools we mortals be.
After the weenie roast, we trooped up to the rec hall. It was letter-writing night. Every three days, it was compulsory to write home. We hunched over the pool table and every other writing surface in the place, racking our brains for something to say to the home folks. I struggled over the blue-lined tablet my mother had bought for me. It had a cover with a red Indian head on it.
Dear Mom & Dad & Randy
,
I am at camp
.
I pondered long and hard, trying to think of something else to say. But nothing came, so I printed my name at the bottom and put it in the envelope. Just as I was about to seal it, I remembered something else. I took the letter out and wrote under my signature:
P.S. Schwartz burned his tonge. It is really fat. There is a funny thing in the lake that has suckers on it
.
I ran out of gas again. Cliffie, who was in charge of letter writing, swooped from kid to kid, making sure they were saying good things about the camp. He glanced at my letter.
“My, my. This is very good.” His eyes narrowed a bit at my reference to the thing with suckers, but he let it pass.
Kissel licked the stub of a pencil and started on the third page of his meticulous description of the shoulder holster he was making in leathercraft. Flick hid what he was writing.
As I lay in bed that night, my stomach rumbling ominously with fermented weenies, Schwartz sprawled above me, whimpering over his bulging tongue. Flick, who had gotten a half-dozenstrategic hornet stings, writhed in his sack. The kid who had the bunk above the fat Chipmunk had been picked up during the day by a gleaming Cadillac and swept out of our lives forever. For the time he was with us, he had said nothing, but he cried a lot at night. Mole Lodge was shaking down into a tight unit. Little did we realize, however, that there was a hero among us.
“The canoe paddle is held thusly. It’s all in the wrist. Y’gotta have a steady, even stroke, like this.”
At last! All my
Boy’s Life
fantasies were about to come true. They just didn’t have canoes on the south side of Chicago. A canoe was something you read about that Indians paddled around on Lake Gitchee-Goomie. We converged on seven or eight or so canoes that were pulled up on shore–long, imperially slim, forest green, each emblazoned with the proud yellow arrowhead of Nobba-WaWa-Nockee. Canoes are so beautiful that even the dullest clod of a Chipmunk got excited at the sight of them. Like most things of beauty, they are also highly dangerous.
An unfamiliar counselor, who wore a black cowboy hat, green swimming trunks, and an orange life jacket over his camp T-shirt, neatly flicked the canoe paddle, demonstrating the stroke.
“Y’gotta have a beat. One … two … three … DIG. One … two … three … DIG. Steady. Even. Got that, gang?”
We had it, or thought we had.
“The bow paddle gives you the power, while the stern paddle gives you power and steers.”
Schwartz whispered to Beakie Humbert, another kid from Troop 41. “Which one’s the bow?”
“The one in the back, jerk. Boy, you don’t know nothin’.” Beakie was famous in the troop for his knot tying and for his merit badge for wood carving, which he got
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