Photo by Vicko Mozara on Unsplash
Sadly, we did not have a pink flamingo to accompany us to the beach. The summer of ’76 was notable not only for the Bicentennial, but also for being the first of three summers that Alicia and I co-led the church’s day camp program. I have no idea how this happened or how we survived. Alicia is a cheerful morning person, so she took opening shift, requiring her to arrive by 7 a.m. and leave at 4 p.m. I am most surely not a morning person; I came in at 9 and stayed to close at 6. We had dozens and dozens of kids, ages 4 to sixth grade, grouped by age for handicrafts, but together a lot of the time. We hired two of high school students, a boy and a girl, who served as lifeguards and general helpers. My strength was in food prep; some of the kids paid extra for lunch, and I was the one who put together sandwiches, fruit, and chips. (I called the kitchen Johnson's Deli.) I shopped for these items and for snacks. One of my favorite memories is of buying candy bars in bulk, going into a cooler at a distributor’s place on Australian Avenue down from the church. The chilly air smelled of chocolate, one of the scents of paradise. Every day it wasn’t storming, we swam. At first we used a nearby pool, which made no sense to me, given the proximity of the ocean. We later took our church bus to several beaches that didn’t require us to pay for parking. Once, the bus broke down on the way home from Juno Beach. We waited by the roadside in a little park providentially nearby. I knew the kids needed to be kept amused before horseplay broke out, so I told stories. The stories I knew best were those I’d had to teach, so I told them (edited) stories from Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. After swim and lunch, we might view a film acceptable to the church. Threading the film was another job for the student worker, though I was the one who went to the public library to check out nature films or story films. My favorite part of the day was nap time. The campers stretched out on towels on the air-conditioned classroom’s floor. One of us read to them for a while, encouraging sleep, which never arrived for some of them. No matter—everyone at least rested before it was time for crafts. Friday was field trip day, which often involved animals, usually viewed from a distance: Parrot Jungle, Monkey Jungle, Lion Country Safari, the zoo. One of the reasons for not accepting kids younger than four was personified by a staff member’s daughter. She was not quite four, but we were told to bend the rules. She was a fair-skinned redhead, a prima donna. The first time we went to Juno Beach, she decided the stairs down to the shore were too dreadful for her. Alicia and I told her she was capable of walking down the stairs, but she stood on the top step, flinging out a small white hand and crying for one of the teen counselors, “Rosby, save me!” He did not, and she eventually managed to get to the beach, since no one rescued her. And we lasted three summers.
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Baptist GirlI was a conservative Baptist girl who grew up to become a career Christian, working first in a Baptist school and then in a Baptist college. For about three decades, it was very good until it wasn’t, and I had to leave. But the Baptists formed me. This is my homage to the good times and good people of the world I left, finally, at forty-three, when I became an Episcopalian. These are my memories; others might disagree with my recollections. So be it. Archives
January 2024
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