Nothing More American » Random Recollections

Random Recollections—A messy first

Jim Gibbons — Sun, 10 May 2009 23:16:18 +0000

I’ll kick things off with this little comic strip illustrating this memory and then delve into the story behind it…

"Aw, poop." (Click comic strip to enlarge it)

When your 11 years old, the brain doesn’t foresee a number of things, especially when it comes to events that will later make for embarrassing stories. In this case, my noggin didn’t really work when it came to my first “number two” in the great outdoors.

At Camp Shewahmegon, every cabin went on a few trips each summer. These were overnight outings that usually lasted two nights where a cabin group would head off to some remote campsite or on a journey down a river, sleeping out in tents and cooking over fires instead of sleeping in our cabins back at camp and eating in the dining hall. My first summer at camp was back in ’95 and that summer my cabin’s first trip was to an island on Lake Owen (the lake camp was located on) named Carter’s Island. We packed up a few days worth of clothes while our tripper (an extra staff member whose main job is to get things in order for trips and, to a degree, to act as a second counselor while the cabin group is away from camp) secured us tents and food for the duration, and we canoed the few miles down the lake to our home for the next couple of days.

Once we got to the island, it wasn’t long before I had to make a bathroom run of less liquid and more solid variety: poop. I’d never gone in the woods before and really had no idea as to how it would be done. Sure, it seems simple when you’re old enough to have seen enough poop-humor comedies and Discovery channel programs, but I honestly don’t remember having the slightest clue as to how I could drop a log outdoors—save that it must involve some sort of squatting and the pulling down of my pants. So, I asked for a little advice from my counselor, heard leaning up against a tree would be a good move and ventured into the woods with a roll of TP (toilet paper) and a shovel.

After walking clear of the campsite and finding a sturdy tree, I dug a small hole at its base, plunged the shovel in the ground out of the way and propped up against the tree. I pulled my teal Nike swim trunks down to my ankles, tried to relax and focus on doing my thing. I few pushes and grit teeth later, and I had a swimsuit full of brown matter.

I leaned against the tree, but hadn’t squat enough to get my legs and ankle-level shorts far enough away from the drop zone.

Bad, right?! Well, it gets better…or, rather, worse. In my embarrassed haste to clean up the mess, I dropped the roll of TP into my messy shorts—which is extra bad as camping trip supplies normally only have a limited amount of bathroom tissue.

So, not sure what to do, I hobbled back to the campsite with my filthy pants at my ankles. My calls for help and advice were met with exasperated yells from my counselor to get into the lake (which we were completely surrounded by on our island campground) and clean myself off. I made my way to the lake, stumbling down a muddy hill in the process and dirtying myself even more before finally getting in the water and soaping off myself and my shorts.

That was a mistake I only made once in my days at camp, because a surprise like that in your shorts is a pretty good motivator to get it right next time.

Confession time: Though I cleaned myself up, there was no way to salvage the TP and I knew ruining half our stock—especially with over half the trip left to go—would be a little harder to forgive than my personal mess. So, I removed as much stained TP as I could, and brought the dirty roll back to the campsite. It wasn’t until my counselor had to poo that the messy paper was found. However, Brian Swan had gone in between my incident and my counselor’s potty trip so he caught the brief verbal assault as I looked on, not fessing up to my part in the TP mess. Now, 13 years later I confess: It was me.

Man, it feels good to come clean!Similar Posts:

How a chubby, young asthmatic ended up deciding to go to camp.

Jim Gibbons — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 03:38:09 +0000

Camp is a tradition, of sorts, for most people who end up spending weeks upon weeks in the middle of the woods. Very few just up and think one day, “Hmm…wouldn’t life be grand without most basic luxuries like electricity and a comfy bed for a few months?” And, admittedly, camp didn’t seem like a bright idea to an 11-year-old Jim Gibbons.

Before my first summer at Camp Shewahmegon (’95), I was a husky, asthmatic without an abundance of confidence—though I did have a healthy helping of awkwardness and cheek chubbiness—who would have rather spent his summer at the occasional swim meet, watching cartoons and playing Sega Genesis. The summer before, my cousin Tim (who’s a few months older than I am) and my cousin Ryan (who’s years older than me, and as I’m the oldest in my immediate family, like a big brother to me as well) both sent letters to my younger brother Dan and I from camp. Dan, who was much more energetic, outgoing, confident and adventurous than me at the time (and only nine years old), was ready to grab a sleeping bag and head North immediately. I wasn’t. I had a hard time making it through sleepovers, and the idea of being sent off into the forest for a minimum of four weeks was terrifying. Obviously, I ended up deciding to go, and here’s why I think I did…

Though camp was never described as a tradition in my family, it was one. Both of my uncles (Ryan and Tim’s dads) went to camp for a number of years, starting as campers and then going on to fill a number of different staff positions between the two of them—from counselor to tripper and even on to maintenance man at one point for my uncle Jim. Their sons later followed in their footsteps and went to Shewahmegon. Also, my grandparents on the same side of the family (my mom’s, for the record) were friends with Bill and Gerry Will, who founded Camp Shewahmegon in 1947 and ran it for 54 years until it closed in 2001. Heck, my mom even spent some time up at the “Private Camp For Boys” because she was friends with one of the Will daughters! There was never any pressure to go and continue the legacy, aside from some healthy ribbing in Ryan and Tim’s letters, but it was a family tradition to head up to the Northwoods of Wisconsin, even if it was never referred to with that exact language—the word “tradition.”

Secondly, I owe a great deal to my brother Dan for all my years of summer camp enjoyment. I won’t deny I was a bit of a “baby” at the age when I should have been ready and rearing to get up into the woods and play some capture the flag, and the fact that my younger brother was more apt to do so than I was…well, safe to say that struck a chord. Camp helped tremendously to bring my inner courage to the forefront of my character, but at the time, I would have been happy to cuddle up in a corner with some comics all summer. When I was 10, Mom said she wouldn’t send Dan to camp the year before unless I went. I didn’t. The next year, Dan was set to go, and I certainly wasn’t going to have my little brother show me up. And so, I went too. I’m sure Dan, in his infinite 10-year-old wisdom, knew that by doing this I’d owe him an eternal debt of gratitude, or—at the time—the use of numerous Ninja Turtle toys, so Dan played a major part in convincing me to go as well. Not just because he was going and I felt I should, but because the kid made some pretty compelling arguments about how great it would be. I listened, and it turns out he was very right.

While I would love to say that the Camp Shewahmegon video sent to our house also helped, I’d be lying if I did. However, it was well worth watching for the memories alone, and because it stands as testament to the fact that Camp Shewahmegon was one of the most beautifully “stuck in time” places ever. The video, which I saw in 1995, was ripped straight from the mid-‘80s and featured all the male short-shorts to prove it! Based on the video, 11-year-old Jim would have assumed camp literally was the movie “Meatballs”—if I’d seen it at that age—or at least had the same dress code. Oddly enough, during my years at camp it became fashionable for the staff to visit a thrift store called the Bargain Hut in Ashland, WI, which—oddly enough—led the style of dress during my time at camp to be shockingly similar to what I saw in that extremely dated video.

An example of the fine, old school summer fashion worn by the Shewahmegon staff in 2000, shown here at the nearby Hayward Mini Golf.

Either way, aside from the video convincing me you arrived at camp via time machine, it did make things up at Shewahmegon look like a ton of fun.

Lastly, I think there was some inborn call of the wild that led me to go to camp. I know that sounds incredibly cheesy, but there was an element of adventure that roused even a lump of dough like my near-teen self off the couch. Also, I am sure there were quite a few convincing talks with my mom and dad about how it’d all be a lot of fun and a real good thing. Either way, every encouragement fueled that innate sense of adventure and I listened.

So, the summer of 1995 saw my mom, my brother, my sister and me driving in my mom’s suburban up from our house in Georgia to the O’Hare Oasis in Chicago, where the bus picked up most of the campers heading to Shewahmegon. To say I was still scared after all that deliberation and convincing would be a gross understatement, but to say it was one of the best decisions of my life would be as well.Similar Posts:

Random Recollections—Orange Cappuccino

Jim Gibbons — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 01:28:32 +0000

In my last year as a camper at Camp Shewahmegon, during which I would have been 14 years old, I went on my second Border Trip—a 10-day canoeing excursion in the remote Canadian wilderness, usually in a waterway reached only by floatplanes or miles upon miles of driving to a secluded boat landing. I was in Cabin Bunkhouse at the time—the oldest cabin at camp during my seven years, though it had been used for younger campers in the past—and was wearing the same black-and-gray plaid, long-sleeved button-down shirt I’d worn the whole trip during our hours on the water canoeing each day, just like I had on Border the year before. It was the last morning we’d awaken in our tents on some secluded, make-shift camp site, as we would reach the put-in point by day’s end where the vans the brought us this far north were parked, thus completing the circular journey of that year’s Canada trip. We had camped on a small island, which on two sides was comprised mostly of large boulders, and had pitched our tents in the wooded area toward the island’s center. The kitchen and campfire of our site was located on the rocky side that faced the direction we’d be heading out towards when we got in our canoes later that morning. As had been the case at every breakfast on the trip, there was hot water for cocoa, to make instant oatmeal or, in this case of my brother’s Australian counselor Miles Bence, to make some General Foods International Orange Cappuccino.

At some point earlier in the trip, Miles had discovered that the tin housing the cappuccino mix had one of those goofy little descriptions oft-times found on coffees. Though I can’t be sure General Foods International hasn’t changed it since then, it would have read something like, “A wonderfully full-bodied coffee with the enticing flavors of orange and spices, inspired by the cafe’s of Europe.” Each morning afterward, including the final one of the trip, Miles would riff on other possible coffee tin epithets, switching into a rich, TV commercial-like voice, probably placing one foot on a rock and leaning on his raised knee with a steaming mug in hand.

“There’s nothing like the warm aroma of General Foods Orange Cappuccino to thaw the chill of a crisp Fall evening from your quivering lips.”

Or…

“Just like the snow falls on a barren meadow, blanketing in white the homes of the forest denizens, General Foods Orange Cappuccino is a fresh, clean start to your day—whether you’re waking up to the peace of a thatched cottage or to the hustle and bustle of the big city.”

Years later, I actually saw a skit on “Late Night with Conan O’Brien” where two rival writers of these coffee tin vignettes had a poetry slam-esque face-off before deciding the victor in a brutal cage match. After seeing that, I couldn’t help but be reminded of those mornings and think, “Man, camp certainly was ahead of its time in the comedy department!” As, so very clearly, we were.Similar Posts:

Random Recollections

Jim Gibbons — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 00:31:00 +0000

Though I’m as big a fan of linear narrative and chronological storytelling as the next guy, one of the perks of doing this memoir on a blog is that I can easily take as many detours and have as many interludes as I see fit. In that vein, and because my camp memories have unsurprisingly never paid me the courtesy of cropping up in sequential order, I bring you Nothing More American’s first regular feature: Random Recollections.

Hopefully, by posting chance camp thoughts that creep into my cranium on NMA as they randomly occur, I can deliver some of the spontaneous joy I receive from my headspace’s incidents of unplanned nostalgia. Also, this will potentially help me to tell many more stories while leaving plenty of tidbits out there that will one day get hashed out—little bread crumbs to lead you folks along, while acting as tasty morsels to some who might have more intimate knowledge of these vignettes. For now, enjoy them as they are and know that these scenes are part of a larger tapestry of tales.Similar Posts: