Did you ever have a summer camp experience?

Several years ago, an artist friend of ours invited us to an art show of his work.  It was in Bandera, Texas. Off the highway through the woods we followed a winding road where gnarled mesquite trees leaned over the road. The thought occurred to me about how difficult it would be to find our way back to the highway if we left after dark.  Around a sharp turn, a long ago familiar cattle guard with a gate…..a For Sale sign hung by only one corner.  It had been for sale for a long time. Nailed neatly on the other side of the gate was a painted sign, now barely legible through the peeling paint, “K---- ----- Ca-- --- -irls.

My childhood friend, whose house was behind mine always got to go to a fancy camp, King  Ranch Camp for Girls, each summer.  She would come back, after 5 weeks, telling me of all her adventures.  She too, was an only child.  For those of us who were “only,” the chance at adventure meant getting away from our parents.  I wanted to go to that camp so badly.  Finally when I was in 6^th grade my parents agreed that I could go, provided I had all B’s or better in Arithmetic.  It was my most dreaded subject.  Mrs. Barnhill had scared me into “Arithmetic block” in 4^th grade.  Every time I thought about the subject my brain literally froze. So having B or better all year long was a big challenge.

When Christmas rolled around one of the boxes was wrapped up with a note, it said, “$200 credit towards camp”.  When my birthday came in January I got another present like that.  Finally by May all my holidays had been “infected” by camp credits I had “earned”, and the needed $500 for camp along with good grades in arithmetic.  I look back and think about how much money that was in 1962…it had to have been a whole month of my mother’s pay.

King’s Ranch Camp for Girls sent us a patch when they confirmed my registration. It was to be sewn on my white shirt. I was going for sure now.  I had my patch.  When school was out Mom and I went shopping for all the gear I had to have. A white shirt and white shorts, white Keds, riding boots, a cowboy hat, jeans (I had never owned a pair of jeans in my life), a .22 rifle, a bow as in “and arrow”, swimsuits, towels, sheets, pillow cases, a pillow, a trunk, a sleeping bag for camp outs, bug spray and a myriad of other stuff all with my name on the inside.   It was more stuff than I would take when I went off to college 6 years later. 

I had to memorize all the rules and routines so I would know where to be when.  I wasn’t really too concerned about all that because Susie would be there and she had gone for the past two summers. As I was packing to go, Susie came by to tell that she would not be going to the first session after all, her parents had planned a vacation.   I was in shock….I was going off to this God forsaken place in the wild and I would know no one.

As we left, I sat in the back of the Buick frozen with fear.  Susie waved as we passed her house.  I didn’t wave back, she was the one who had convinced me to go and what is an adventure without a friend?? I would be all alone.

Arriving on  Sunday all campers were wearing their bright white shorts, white shirts with the patch sewn on and perfectly clean white Keds.  Our parents signed us in, as the campers were herded into a big circle around the flag pole.  We were taught several camp songs and by the time we finished, there were no parents…or Buicks in sight.  I felt sick.  Everyone seemed to know each other from previous years.  Then came the time to be assigned to our “Tribe”.   Before long my name was called, I was a Tejas.  I had only met one person, and she was in the other tribe.

Next was our cabin assignments.  Our parents it seemed had snuck off while we were singing camp songs and dumped all our stuff in the cabin by the bunk we were assigned to.  The cabins were stark.  The building was closed in only where the bathrooms were.  The bunks were around the outside of the closed in part, which was a large screened in porch.  You could see out into the woods during the day but at night it was a large, dark and made lots of scary sounds.  There was only one small light inside, on each side of the cabin.  I flopped down on my bunk trying not to cry.  There above me scribbled on the bunk above my head was written, “HILLARY WAS HERE”.   Who was Hillary anyway?  I asked…but no one knew.  The light on our side was directly over the top bunk where the girl above me was assigned.  To turn it off, she pulled the string at “Lights out.”.  I buried my head in my pillow, this was a nightmare not an adventure! I finally fell asleep, wondering what horror the morning would bring.

It seemed like I had only fallen asleep when some idiot started clanging this bell on the outside of our cabin.  Our first activity was swimming.  So while everyone excitedly got ready, I was once again filled with dread.  I had never learned to swim.

I was blind as a bat and tried to avoid anything that required me doing without my glasses.  As I headed out the cabin door with my swimsuit and towel, the counselor swiped the glasses off my face, “No glasses at the pool!”  I was the last one to leave and being blind I could see people moving around but finding my cabin mates was almost impossible.  I ended up at the shooting range and had to be directed toward the pool.  The girls last comment was, “What’s wrong with you, can’t you see the pool?”  No as a matter of fact….ugh just no.  The only thing I hated worse than arithmetic…swimming…and being without my glasses.

We ate our meals in a big log cabin with a high ceiling.  The food was always good, the homemade rolls were the best.  The smell seemed to reach me long before it was time to eat.  We were so busy that I seemed to be hungry all the time. After we ate, the camp border collie, Ruby was always waiting on the porch to greet everyone.  She was black and white.  She thought all of us had come to see her.  Sometimes when we left she would follow us to our cabin.  I loved having her come, I felt so homesick and somehow she seemed to understand.  I was thrilled on the nights she decided to sleep outside by my bunk. From my lower bunk I could see the light that shown on the front of the horse barn down the hill, occasionally flickering  due to the tree limbs swaying in front of the light in the breeze.

There was also an old barn cat, named Cat that hung out with the horses.  She was really fat. One of the girls in another cabin told me Cat was about to have kittens.  I asked the girl, “Where will she have them.”  She said,

“Oh you never know, it won’t be in the barn for sure though…she likes to fool everyone.”

My favorite day was the day we had horseback riding.  I had ridden horses all my life.  Most of the horses were best described as nags.  The one I liked the best was General. Despite her name she was a mare and loved to run.  Most avoided her but I loved riding her.  Riding horses, I didn’t have to talk to anyone, I could just ride and enjoy the scenery.  After all, I was used to being alone and all this togetherness got to me after awhile.  I hoped Susie was as miserable on her vacation as I was at camp. Nothing was as wonderful as she had described it…. I just wanted to go home and have my privacy back.  That day we had been required to write a post card to our parents.  I wrote simply, “I am mizzerble come and get me.”

I awoke about 3 AM one night to Ruby’s fierce barking.  Before long everyone was up, faces pressed against the screen.  All we could see was Ruby’s flash of white on her face and another flash of white on something she was chasing.  Finally she started yelping and came running back to the cabin. Before anyone saw her in though….we smelled her.  There was no longer any doubt about what she had been chasing. She insisted on sleeping right outside our cabin, we all slept with wet washcloths over our noses.  By the time we got up Ruby had been hauled off to the main building for a bath.  She had killed the skunk but what we found out later was that she had killed a mother skunk…and the babies were under our cabin, two tiny little skunks whose eyes were yet to open.  We laid on our stomachs on the ground with a flashlight, peering under the cabin, but no one could get far enough under to reach the tiny creatures.

After all our activities and dinner that night we all ran as hard as we could back to the cabin to see if the baby skunks were still alive.  I knew exactly where they were, but when I looked no skunks.  Then another girl said she knew exactly where they were but no one could find them.  We lay in bed that night trying to figure out what had happened to them. One speculated a coyote ate them while we were gone, then someone else said coyotes slept all day.  Everyone suggested another kind of animal but the fact was they were gone and probably dead.  We were all heartbroken.  The next day when Ruby was standing by the door at lunch we all had decided not to pet her or even talk to her anymore.  She put her ears down and gave us such a sad look.  The fact was though, she had killed those babies’ mother.

After two weeks our parents all came to see us.  Mom and Dad took me out to dinner in Bandera.  I was so busy telling them about all the things that had happened that I forgot to tell them how miserable I was and that I wanted to go home.  When I remembered, I was waving as the Buick drove down the road toward the cattle guard.

Our cabins were inspected every day.  The cabin that had the most #1 inspections for the week got to go on a camp out on the weekend. I secretly hoped we never managed that award, but in the 4^th week of camp we had the most #1 inspections.  The one good thing was I would get to use my new sleeping bag.  Saturday we loaded up all our camping out stuff.  The cook had a little wagon full of hot dogs and delicacies for us to eat.  I never knew popcorn could be cooked on an open fire, or that marshmallows roasted black could taste so good.  My mother never bought hot dogs so I discovered another delicacy of childhood. We had a long day hiking to the river, eating and playing, so when it got dark I was exhausted.  Laying my glasses just inside my sleeping bag, I drifted off to sleep amid the talking and giggling of all the other girls.

I woke up rolling and rolling, I tried to grab something but all I got was my sleeping bag and it was rolling too. I finally found the zipper pull and as I ripped it down and rolled out I felt the pain of the rock I rolled over  as I slipped out of the bag, I heard a splash and then another and another, water was everywhere. I sat up sitting in the edge of the creek along with 3 other girls.  Everyone was screaming, it was dark, not just dark but so dark I couldn’t see anything. I could just hear people.  Finally one of the counselors turned on a flashlight. A herd of something had run right though our camp….someone said it was pigs and someone else said it was dogs. I was furious because not only was my sleeping bag a wet soggy mess… I had no idea where my glasses had ended up.  Everyone thought that was hilarious.  “You can’t see anyway since it is pitch dark Jan.”  Linda opened her sleeping bag up and laid it out flat, so I could have something soft to lay on.  After everyone had calmed down I lay there looking at the sky.  Tears rolling down my cheeks and into my ears, they did not know how serious it was that I had lost my glasses.  I really couldn’t see anything without them.  They laughed at me anyway. I decided I would just stay in the cabin for the last week of camp.  I couldn’t see to do anything anyway.

After what seemed like an eternity, the group finally started to stir.  Everyone was gathering their stuff that had been strewn around by the nights attack.  They, had  found all their stuff, but my glasses were nowhere to be found.  The counselor gave me my soggy sleeping bag to carry back to the cabin.  I fought back tears as I trudged back, being sure to stay really close to the person in front of me.  That didn’t keep me from stumbling and falling over rocks and holes I couldn’t see. 

The counselor tried to comfort me and assured me that the laundry could clean my sleeping bag as good as new.   She had forgotten about my lost glasses. Later as we headed for the pool, she said, “Oh I didn’t even have to remind you about your glasses today.”

I could see things up close so I could still do the things on our schedule.  We had leather tooling, which was close work.  We also had riflery.  It was the one thing I could do very well.   My dad had taught me how to use a .22 at my grandparents, shooting cans off the fence. I was on my way to earning a patch for the best shooting record.  But not today…I couldn’t even see the entire target!  

That night was laundry delivery.  My sleeping bag was clean and fluffy like new again.  Laundry was handed out to everyone and as the lady walked out of the cabin, I asked her if there had been glasses in that sleeping bag.  She said she didn’t know, she just delivered the laundry.

When we went to lunch the next day, everyone was talking about Cat. She had given birth to the kittens.  She had gone to the tack shed behind the barn to have the babies.  She had two orange kittens, two calicoes and…..two baby skunks.   They were several weeks old because they all had their eyes open.   We were so excited to learn they baby skunks hadn’t died after all.  Ruby must have killed their mother about the time Cat had her babies.  It was a long way from our cabin to the tack shed…but she had gotten them there somehow.  She must have thought they were kittens.  And then at the end of lunch, an announcement.  “A pair of glasses had been found by the laundry.  If anyone was missing their glasses……”

And then it was the last Sunday .  We all stood around the flag pole, in our dingy white shorts, shirts and muddy Keds, with the “King Ranch Camp for Girls” patches on our shirts. Tejas and Comanches, holding hands, some crying that the final day had come.  The Buicks, Oldsmobiles and Chevy station wagons were driving over the cattle guard to pick up their daughters.  We all filed in for one last lunch in the dining hall.  Ruby sat faithfully by the door, Cat was laying on the porch with a couple of unruly kittens.  This time we all sat with our cabin mates and friends who had become like sisters.  Our parents, sat at other tables wondering if we had forgotten them. As I got into the Buick I told my parents how much fun I had…and that I wanted to go back every summer.

There was only one girl from camp I wrote letters to after that summer.  It wasn’t long though until the camp memories faded and what we had in common was gone.  By the next summer I was on to other things and actually never thought about going back to King’s Ranch Camp for Girls. Susie’s parents had sent her off to boarding school so I had never saw her again. I didn’t realize until many years later what a huge sacrifice it had been for my parents to send me there that summer.  I never did find anyone who knew that “Hillary had been there”.