————

Bruce Ballantine, who was at Shewahmegon from 1966 to 1984 as camper, JC, counselor and tripper, sent along a few photos of Bill through the years. Thanks very much for your contribution, Bruce!

The Wills in 1956.

The Wills ten years later in 1966.

Gerry, Bill and Bruce's wife Linda.

The Wills and the Ballantines in 2008.

B. Dub on the water in 2008.

————

Bill with his group after completing the 1999 Border Trip. Photo by Dan Gibbons.

Bill Will at the center of the 2001 Staff Photo.

A close-up of the above staff pick. (Click to enlarge)

Bill overseeing some Northshore Dippers on a particularly warm year. From 2000's Border Trip.

Bill Will giving instructions on how to properly play croquet. Taken in the year 2000.

Bill shooting hoops on The Waterfront. Taken in the year 1997.

————

More to come…
Similar Posts:

• You’ll be missed, Bill.
• Some song sheets: Johnny Verbeck, Frozen North and more!
• Let’s get visual!

There aren’t enough words to describe Bill Will and what he did for me, let alone every camper who spent a summer a Shewahmegon, and yet, at the same time, there are no words to describe what he meant to so many of us. He was larger than life, yet had an effect on so many lives. He was a living legend and a tall tale, but extraordinarily human. He was a superlative man, but not a single superlative thing I can think to write seems to do him justice.

Bill Will in The Lodge. Lifted from Michael Rubin's uploads to the Shewahmegon Facebook group.

I think that’s part of the reason that posting something here about Bill’s death has been a challenge. There was so much to say that it was too much to say and I couldn’t figure out what to say at all.

Thankfully, David Will—my friend and Bill’s grandson—nudged me about doing a post. Just the suggestion made me realize my inability to write something was neglecting one of the things I’ve always intended this site to be about: Community. Put simply, I can’t do the memory of Bill Will justice on my own. I need your help. All of your help, and I’m humbly asking for that help so we can celebrate a truly remarkable individual.

So, here’s how you can help…
Please send any pictures you have of Bill Will at Camp Shewahmegon to me at jimgibbons1[at]gmail[dot]com (Please substitute “@” for “[at]” and “.” for “[dot]“, of course), along with any info you’d like to run alongside the photo: the year it was taken, what’s going on, any memories you associate with it, etc. I’m happy to post text-based memories as well, but I’d really love to show Bill in his element at camp—and a whole lot of it—for us all to remember.

Send along as many photos as you like as often as you like and I’ll post them all up as soon as I can. The man deserves statues and epic poems, but I think if we all band together, we can get close to doing him justice. Thanks in advance for your help!Similar Posts:

• In memoriam: William T. “Bill” Will
• An interview with Dan Gibbons: Part 1
• Round the blazing…

David was in Dan’s cabin—a year younger than mine—for the entirety of D. Gibb’s run at camp, and we were all Junior Counselors together during the final year of camp in 2001.

As was the case before, I’ve edited for grammar and added some brief explanatory bits.

Now, without further ado, here’s the first installment of my interview with David Will!

David Will in the North Woods. 2001.

Being a member of the Will family, you—essentially and possibly literally—started attending camp as soon as you popped out of the womb. Let’s skip the pre-camper years. What were your first summers as a camper like? What sticks out i your memory from those early years?

DAVID WILL: My first few summers as a camper were a transition period for me, where being a Will family member came second to my role as a camper.  As a “day camper,” the structure of my day was significantly different from that of a normal camper, where I had different freedoms and constraints. My schedule was also more subject to my whims (as a day camper). I would attend instructional swim or lodge when I felt like it. If I didn’t want to go to activities that day, I could play in the trailer with my toys or watch television. I interacted with campers at that time, and though the older cabins would play around with me, it was more difficult to interact with the younger campers. Since I wasn’t one of their cabin mates, the time I spent bonding was limited.  

So, when I became a camper, there was a sharp learning curve that I had to quickly adjust to. I quickly realized that my preferences came secondary to the schedule and to the cabin. If it was instructional swim, I had to swim. If it was time for rest, I needed to lay on my bunk. I had to attend activities, I had to stay with the cabin. The primary boss was the counselor, not my mom or dad. This shift, which was initially difficult to adjust to, became very liberating and rewarding.  By having to go to activities or swim, I learned to make choices and learned to grow under the constraints. I learned to swim, to play team games, to canoe, to camp, to work hard. None of these skills would have been accessible (to me) as a day camper. The constraint of camp’s structure also allowed me to develop life long friendships. I was no longer peripheral, rather (I was) a deeply involved member of the cabin unit. I learned to play and work, eat and sleep, win and lose as a group.  

In terms of specific memories that stick out from these years, the ones I remember most are the random and silly moments with the cabin: telling scary stories of “Green Feather” on Red Rock and hardly being able to sleep at night, playing countless hours of the finger game (“enter the store”) at the dining hall table, paddling our hardest and still falling behind in the camper canoe, playing complicated versions of tag on the cabin porch, listening to the music the counselor would have on his CD player, etc.  

David Will in 1995 at the now infamous Cabin 10 Twin Lakes campout.

Tag on the porch? Damn… sounds like a game for solely intended for daredevils based on the height of some of those porches.

You mentioned the skills you learned at camp. I always think its crazy how often these weird facts about me come up in random conversation. “Oh yeah, I took Red Cross sailing for three years and instructed it for a while.” “Oddly enough, I was actually an accomplished target shooting archer.” I don’t use either of those skills anymore (Which is a shame), but I think camp taught me a lot of skills, be it the more official skills from boating courses or just how to make a campfire. As far as the education of camp goes, what do you remember? With your time at camp, I imagine you had a chance to take rowing on through power boating before you became a staffer.
 
DAVID WILL: Yeah, tag on the porch required some creative thinking and clever restrictions on the tagger, i.e. the tagger had to close his eyes and couldn’t move from one spot. But that was the fun of rest period. You had only so many objects and so much square footage of cabin space. You had to rely on creativity or sleeping to get through it.
 
It’s funny that you mention the subtle ways the learning done at camp gets incorporated into your life. I know that I am constantly reminded in odd cases of my formal and not so formal teachings in the northern woods. As you guessed it, I believe I have done every single instructional course at Shewahmegon from power boating and rowing to conditioning and basketball. I also had the privilege of helping with sailing (alongside the mighty Jim Gibbons) and taught rowing as well.  The time in these courses was well spent, not only for the learning experience, but also the explicit pleasure of doing the activity. As you well know, there are few thrills in life like sailing in the Cub on windy day, trying to tip her over or practicing real man over board drills when a shipmate (Danny Aronson) slipped off the deck. SCUBA diving was another of my favorites. It was a very surreal experience—somewhat intimidating and always exciting. My dad (Tim Will)always put the fear of “air embolisms” into us on the first day. And even though we were not in any real danger, the perceived risk added to thrill. And of course, the canoeing course has been invaluable to me over the years, helping me tackle the Border Trip or helping me feel comfortable mucking about on Lake Owen in the evenings. 
 
Like you mentioned with your example of building a fire, a lot of the learning done at camp was informal. Without being forced to learn, a lot of what I picked up became fun. Unfortunately, there is simply no way I could recall all the skills I have learned at camp. I believe that Shewahmegon is largely responsible for the person I am today, and as such, I couldn’t do justice attempting to list all the skills I developed there. However, some of the practical and unpractical skills have served me well over the years, and I can share a few quick stories.
 
There is an art to blowing on a fire. It requires timing, endurance and patience. I would like to think that I am master fireblower and as such am willing to loan my services to those in need.  While in Bunkhouse, on a trip down the Brule River, we came across a gaggle of teenage girls who were camping adjacent to us. Being 14-year-old boys, we wanted their company, but were hard pressed to find a way to approach them. That’s when I noticed their fire was a bit low and offered to blow on it for them. Was it awkward? Sure. Did they think I was a dork? Absolutely! Did we spend the entire night hanging out with them in front of a roaring fire? You better believe it!
 
I think a more practical skill I learned at camp was being able to get along with different sorts of people in close proximity. I can’t say that I always got along with every guy in my cabin, but I like to believe that I learned to handle tough situations in a reasonable way. For instance, if your suitemate in college had been rat-tailing you the night before, a very mature approach is to pour freezing water on him while he showers. Or if your roommate is harassing you, you can always find something valuable of theirs to throw in the laundry (Sorry, Axel.). While I am kidding (although I did do these things), the truth is I really learned how to get along with folks.
 
I think it is funny that skills you learn surrounded only by boys can help you get a girlfriend. Surprisingly, some women find it very sexy (or hilarious) that I am an amateur turtle hunter. With over 30 feet of snapping turtles caught at Camp Shewahmegon, I am a master of leaping out of a canoe and grabbing turtles. I use these excellent truths as an ice breaker in new crowds with much success as most people are willing to chat with a turtle hunter. One such person who was interested in these stories became my girlfriend, and inevitably became my wife. She is now on her way to becoming an expert turtle hunter.

Once again, 1995 at Twin Lakes, I believe. Mere seconds before David first bludgeoned someone with a blunt object.

• Crossed Paths: Part 2 of both An Interview with Dan Gibbons and An Interview with David Will
• How a chubby, young asthmatic ended up deciding to go to camp.
• An interview with Dan Gibbons: Part 1

I recently started an email dialogue with my brother Dan about camp. We hit on a number of topics. Dan’s 20 months younger than I am and we both went to camp at Shewahmegon for seven years. Dan was always in the cabin just below mine, age-wise.

Some quick explanation of the interview that follows: My bits of the conversation are in bold. The rest is all Dan. I’ve cleaned up the grammar throughout for readability. I’ve also added some explanatory notes in parentheses where Dan and I had just been using nickname’s or short hand. Dan’s parenthetical asides should be obvious in comparison.

Now, enough introduction—here’s Part 1 of our discussion.

On the right, Dan Gibbons on the A-Field at Camp Shewahmegon. The year: 2000. Also featured, Ted Marino.

What’s your earliest memory of wanting to go to camp and what did you think the experience would be like before spending a summer at Shewahmegon?

DAN GIBBONS: I can’t particularly recall a single moment where I wanted to be at camp. As I first thought about, I thought I recalled a moment at some family reunion… However, after thinking about it, I remembered we visited camp while on vacation at Eagle Nob. I remember thinking the place seemed so cool—very happening! So much happening in the eyes of a young kid… I have slight memories of walking around on the dirt path from the waterfront to the a-field.  

One major thing that led me (and I am sure you) to want to go there is I recall knowing my two older cousins went (to Shewahmegon). The way they kind of talked about it, or just their attitude about it, made it seem like it was really awesome. Knowing that our cousins liked it so much and that our uncles went—it seemed kinda like family tradition. So, I knew I wanted to go, because if they liked it, well, I would probably like it.

Of course, I was much more nervous when it came time to (actually) go. But then I decided I was just excited. Almost like a kid before college… just so ready to go and experience a new adventure.

Our cousin Ryan Bergstrom in 1997. One of the reasons we went to camp.

If memory serves, I fell and skinned my knee around Cabin 15 (Our cousin Ryan’s cabin the year we visited… I think.) and had to go to the nurse during that visit.

When you got to camp that first year, what are your best memories? I know you have a great story about peeing in a tent at Two Lakes Campground…

DAN GIBBONS: Man, first memories of camp… I feel like I have a lot of distinct memories from the first year of camp. Probably because it was the first year, I can clearly identify those memories as (being from the) first year. Other memories can kind of blend in to just camp and then you have to think about what year that really was.
 
I can remember being on the bus riding up (to Shewahmegon). It seemed like such a long ride that first time with a combination of uncertainty, not knowing many people and scary older kids on the back of the bus.
 
Weird note: I remember waking up in the early morning It was light out and we were still on the bus. I had this weird boogery shit all over me. It was a super weird consistency. I still, to this day, don’t know if some prank was played on me in my sleep or if I just sneezed all over myself.
 
I remember getting to camp and having the staff there. Everything seemed very new. I remember thinking it was kind of a big moment when they were assigning us counselors—knowing you were going to be given to that person who would look out for your group for the whole summer.
 
The things I remember the most from the first year were the camping trips, goofing in the cabin and the fireworks at the Johnson residence. I still remember those as being one of the coolest shows because it was so dark out on the lake. Oh, I also remember the first counsel fires and trying to learn songs! David (Will) was in my cabin, so he basically came out of the womb signing Johnny Verbeck (Weird visual there!) and I felt left out not knowing them.
 
Within the first years we were at camp, I really remember the evening and weekend games! I think the camp’s population (attendance) was higher in our younger years, so the games were fun. As the years went on, I felt we played the games less and less. Especially in my last year as JC (Junior Counselor).

Dan as a Junior Counselor on a day off in 2001. We're at the mini golf course in Hayward, WI.

Also, thinking back, what do a 20-year-old college kid and 35ish Swedish giant talk about? 

…Oh boy, do I have to pee. But as Thor is a monster of a man and I think he will crush me if I bother him, I am scared to ask. I don’t know why I was so scared to ask, maybe it was that whole mentality of “do you have to go now” and then feeling guilty when you gotta go two exits later on a road trip. Or the whole I was “supposed to be in bed” thing.
 
Anyway, I managed to fall back a sleep. While sleeping, I peed all over myself—my sleeping bag and my mattress pad. I also managed to do the same to David’s gear. When we first woke up, there was your normal morning confusion. That morning also had the confusion of trying to figure out what that smell was and where it came from (Pee and me). There is a quick moment of denial and disbelief and then you just accept it.
 
One of my vivid memories was the last morning when we were getting picked up by (Camp co-owner and co-founder) Bill (Will) to because it was raining really bad. We ate cereal in the rain and then the counselors, along with a couple JCs, had to paddle the canoes back by themselves. I remember Thor getting in the back of a canoe (with nothing else in it) and seeing how monstrous he truly was—the whole front of the canoe was out of the water!
 
I also remember riding back to camp in the old (Old!) maroon and white van from Twin Lakes to camp.  Being in that van was a good summary of camp in general, because camp was basically like going back in time. Whether it was going back in time because of the lack of technology or just the fact that the style and feeling of camp was stuck in the ’60s and ’70s, it was like a little time capsule up in Drummond, Wisconsin!

Dan as Cyclops on the A-Field in 2000.

It’s funny to look back on those summers when we were younger. I can never tell if everything was bigger (The games, the camp population, etc.) or if we were just smaller. Back then camp was such an unknown that, even after the first year, there was still such an exciting air of mystery and discovery about it as you learned more about the Shewahmegon Way (a.k.a. the Law of the Jungle) each year.

Speaking of The Law of The Jungle—which became a term synonymous for the weird but fun rules of camp after hearing that phrase uttered numerous times during BIll Will’s Rudyard Kipling readings—camp was full of inside jokes, running jokes, camp-wide slang and gags. Out of the many camp conversational aspects and turns of phrase, which ones do you reminisce about most?

DAN GIBBONS: I honestly do not remember the “law of the jungle” phrase being mentioned all that much at camp, but it sounds vaguely familiar. I think you’re being a year older and having a cooler cabin helped you to be more “in the know” at camp than I.

Running jokes… I mean I can remember a lot of phrases that I still go through from time to time…

-”NOW BOYS!”
-”Cool beans”: While used all the time, I still am holding onto the dream that Lee Graves came up with this phrase!
-”Hey buddy!”
-”You kill it you fill it.”
-”Spring Chicken” (As in “Bobby is no spring chicken…”)

More than just phrases, things that really define camp language and always make me think of camp are certain words that we used there. When I hear them I almost always have a different definition in my mind from other people since I first heard these words at camp. Now, both their meaning and visual representation mean something very distinct in my mind.

-Latrine
-Waterfront
-Woodshop
-Cookout
-Council fire
-GORP
-Supper
-Bunkhouse

While I rarely hear some of these words, they make me think of camp. They are a representation of camp, these words that are so distinct to camp.

The Gibbons Bros in 2000.

You know what just came to mind? Bucket golf. What a ridiculous activity! I loved it, though!  There were a lot of really silly activities at camp. You needed a lot of activities because you could easily get tired of even the best activities. You know what came up the other day in conversation with someone? I don’t even remember how… the activity Turtle Hunt.

That sounds like the silliest activity. It was so distinct to camp… going out just looking for turtles! The only thing I didn’t enjoy was putting them in the reptile pit. So sad!

Speaking of the reptile pit, wasn’t that a big area of Bill Will’s “erosion?” I felt like there was always a joke about erosion due to campers running down the hills.

How a bout “raking the beach?” That was a duty that was pretty distinct to camp in my mind.  
Ha! Oh man, you are dredging up some great memories!

I remember the erosion thing too, but can’t remember why. Maybe it was like Bill’s croquet etiquette demonstration. I have a photo of him shooting hook shots on the basketball court. I should dig that up!

Ok, ok... It's not a hook shot, nor is it a very good photo, but that's Bill Will shooting hoops. Found it!

Part 2 coming soon! Stay tuned!Similar Posts:

• Crossed Paths: Part 2 of both An Interview with Dan Gibbons and An Interview with David Will
• Cyclops on the A-Field: A Comic-Con mini-hiatus post.
• Where there’s a Will there’s a way: An interview with David Will: Part 1

Owen Aronson on Owen Avenue.

This photo was taken when Owen and I were first year JCs. (Junior Counselors, both 15 years old at the time, I believe.) We were both on a day off, but being 15, neither of us could drive. So we ended up being dropped off in the closest town to camp: the tiny town of Drummond, Wis. During this afternoon visit with no ride to go anywhere more interesting, I remember that Owen and I (plus another party… I forget now who that was. Fernando Gasca?) went to the Drummond Public Library (Two elementary school-style trailers pushed together during, my time on staff at least. Like this, but more rustic looking.) to check our email and watch VHS tapes. During this occasion, Owen popped in “The Shining” and we watched about two thirds of it—the most I’ve ever seen of the film. Anywho, that’s what us young staffers did on days off without a car to hop in.

Also… a bit of description I omitted, Owen Avenue was in Drummond, and so I had to coax Owen into a quick photo.

Now for some additional info…
Owen is wearing a campaign hat featuring an advertisement for the aforementioned Gary Sherman. Also, Owen’s jean shorts with a racing stripe are yet another example of the ridiculous clothes often worn at camp—whether thrift or older garments relegated to the backwoods, we were an oddly garbed group.

That’s all for now, folks! Thanks for checking in! Also, please forgive the overly wordy nature of this post. HBO’s “John Adams” was on in the background, so the eloquent acting of Paul Giamatti may have informed the writing featured here. Similar Posts:

• Pressy!
• Chipmunk Chatter: Vol. 53, No. 6
• Random Recollections—A messy first

Getting ready for the Canoe Relay.

One of the things I always enjoyed about camp and, to a degree, Northern Wisconsin was how timeless those places always felt to me. Or maybe “stuck in time” is a better way to put it. While the modern era came to camp in the form of CDs, Discmans and sleek Maglite flashlights, you could look around and see bits of the ’50s, ’60s, ’70s and ’80s intermingled with the new faces and newfangled technology.

This photo, which features a fairly common and genuinely timeless tableau of Shewahmegon life, has representation from each decade of camp’s operation. The brown boathouse in the background received numerous touch-ups over the years, but I believe (If memory serves…) it was one of camp’s oldest buildings. I’ll give that one to the ’50s, and parts of it to the ’60s as well. The red and white speedboat next to the boathouse, cleverly named The 70 (Right, Shewahmegonites?) due to the horsepower of its engine, is coincidentally pure ’70s. For the ’80s, I’ll allow Tim Will’s pink shorts to wave proudly (though Tim’s steadfast beard might date back to the ’70s), as well as the other speedboat. Known as The Lund, camp’s faster speedboat was an ’80s model that I believe came to camp in the ’90s. Then you’ve got the fiberglass canoes (’80s?), aluminum paddles (’90s), white and black camo t-shirt (Sported by, I believe, Danny Trevor… so, ’90s.) and any one of the docks pictured here was probably made up of bits from the ’50s through to the year this photo was taken. It’s like traveling through time while standing still.

All these camp contants make this photo a bit hard to date, but I’m fairly certain it’s from 2001. The fiberglass canoes were only pulled out for rare occasions, one of them being a game day called The Olympiad (Or did the Olympiad feature the Swim Relay while Shewahmegon Games Day had the Canoe Relay?), which means this photo was taken on a Saturday in the afternoon.

The event everyone’s preparing for in this picture was the aforementioned Canoe Relay, the first of the day’s team events. Each of the four teams, whose names were self-chosen at the beginning of the day, had to take every single member of their team around a buoy about a quarter of a mile away on the lake. The fastest team to have each member complete this task won the race.

Complicating matters was the fact that the fiberglass canoes were notoriously wobbly and the vigorous paddling this competitive event encouraged didn’t help matters. Most strategies for this relay put three people in each heat of canoe. (As opposed to loading more in each to lesson the number of trips. That almost never panned out.) An older camper would take the stern to provide power and experienced navigation, one of the younger and tiniest campers would ride deadweight after being given plenty of encouragement to sit still and not rock the boat, and a camper somewhere in between would take the bow to add paddling power.

Essentially, the Canoe Relay was a lesson in patience. Focus on long, powerful paddle strokes and careful maneuvering and your canoe would make good time without capsizing. Let the screaming, cheering masses on the shore speed up your paddling to frantic levels and you’d flip your ship, likely after losing your cool. In the end, like so many things at camp, the experience had value outside the Northwoods—it was a practical team building exercise with a camp twist. Similar Posts:

• Where there’s a Will there’s a way: An interview with David Will: Part 1
• The Archery Box
• Crossed Paths: Part 2 of both An Interview with Dan Gibbons and An Interview with David Will

Welcome back to Nothing More American, a summer camp memoir blog of an archival nature posting at regular intervals with a photoblog vibe!

So, why was this blog left oh so neglected for such a long time? Well, last year when I vowed to get this puppy back on track, I had a box full of photos and scanner. I was fully ready to populate this web space with some atrocious teenage photography from Kodak one-time-use cameras with diligence. I had decided to abandon the “maybe one day I can compile this into a novel” memoir approach I originally wanted this blog to take and moved over to a yearbook style scan-a-thon.

Clearly, I say again, that didn’t happen. But… BUT… I have a pretty decent excuse…

In early September of 2009, I was let go from my job. I woke up late. I let my beard from long. I showered infrequently at best…

2009: Hairy.

Jessi and I the day after my birthday (four days after being let go) in a park where we saw Peter Dinklage walking his dogs. We were eating egg sandwiches!

Long story short, I got a job at Dark Horse Comics in Portland, Ore., and Jessi and I moved across the country in November. It’s been great so far, but finding time to get this ol’ bitch of a blog up and running again just hadn’t come along. Now, Jessi’s rocking the Rose City as a professional ballroom dancer and ballroom dance instructor working crazy hours and that leaves me with a good four hour block each evening to spend on hobbies. Hobbies like this blog! So, I’ve got my box of pictures. I’ve got the scanner out. And, I’ve got a librarian-esque drive to archive every single one of those photos on this blog.

Before I get started, here are a few quick notes…

• Nothing More American will now be primarily organized by year—the seven years I went to Camp Shewahmegon to be more precise. The main categories will be the summer of 1995 through the summer of 2001.
• Blog posts will lead with a picture and be followed by as much explanation of said photo as I can muster after that. The info may be descriptive or it may just reminisce about something slightly related. Either way, I hope to squeeze a ton of camp memories out of my brain by just rolling with the pictures. If you’re a camp friend with more insight into the images, please comment and add to the story.
• Most of these photos were taken by my brother Dan, me or someone we handed one of our cameras to. Presuming I know who took the shot, I’ll give them credit.

That’s pretty much it. Basically, this blog is taking its lead from photoblogs. I’ll show a photo and then scribble down a story of some length to explain it—pretty much like some old fart taking you through the slides from his vacation only much more fun. (I hope!)

Let’s get started…Similar Posts:

• Let’s get visual!
• Round the blazing…
• The Archery Box

"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:

• Random Recollections—Orange Cappuccino
• All Day Hikes
• Second generation Shewahmegonites