Gabe Durham - Fun Camp

I think we’re just stuck in this arrangement with the bees. Look: They’re the only pollinators who’ll let us cart them around, they show flower fidelity, and we need them to live. Besides, if we swat them all down as you suggest, there will be some sad folksy men out there, moving slow through ex-apiary sites for old times’ sake. “What good is a beard without bees?” is one line of thought. Not mine. I’m allergic. But as in any relationship, we’ll have to forgive a checkered past. Just as we once had slavery legalized, bees used to be carnivorous wasps. One theory has the wasps eating insects with pollen on them, acquiring a taste, then cutting out the middleman. Like the Raisinettes fan who eventually discovered she just liked the chocolate. Best to keep the bees at a distance like the sun and the ocean and trees and the sweatshops and my family and all the other things I’m told I need but don’t need close.

Kids, there are two kinds of people: Those who naturally love sports and those who learn to love sports. And if there is a third kind of person, nobody worth chatting up wants to hear about it. A man’s perfect spiral is a sort of follow-up to his firm handshake. Your generation— the future —is responsible for making sure this stays true. The worst thing about the age we live in? Any slovenly Howard can crawl out of his chive-chip hovel to meet his female algorithmic dopple for neutral non-threatening coffee to laugh over season two episode six of some bullshit, the one where everyone at the space station gets a free case of Sprite and poor deaf Ronnie finds a dollar. And to each other they say, “How’d people even meet before the blessed holy internet?” Well Nintendo Power, I’ll tell you. They locked beery eyes from across the bar, palpitated wildly, jostled their way past flying darts and poking cues until one stood only a couple feet from the other, close enough for smell to factor in, and then — without even knowing what the other thought of Woody Allen — they sacked up, leaned in, and said, simultaneously: “Hi.”

A bunch of us were dangling our legs off the Girls Cabin 1 porch in Gap teen tableaux. On one end, Tad chatted with Becca and Sheree, demonstrating an advanced backrub technique or cataloguing his world travels on the map of Sheree’s back, or both. On the other end, Devon and Brian made up a funny guitar song about girls’ butts and loving them big while the rest of us spectated, glancing occasionally at Tad, wishing he’d laugh with us. The song culminated in a full-voice Hey Jude-style sing-along that ended just shy of the eleven-minute mark, and in the wake of cheers, Phillip Burger — who knew Phillip was even there? — made some easy little Family Guy reference and Tad impossibly began to laugh. At first we assumed the laugh was at Phillip, but then Tad said, “I love that line.”

Devon, the brains behind the butt song, couldn’t believe it. “Tad,” he said. “You don’t so much as crack a smile at our song, yet home-schooled Phillip’s little reference warrants both a laugh and a comment?” I kind of agreed, but would never have said so.

Tad continued rubbing Sheree’s shoulders for a moment, then faced Devon, keeping a hand on the small of Sheree’s back as he spoke. “Two comedians audition to open for Bill Cosby,” Tad said. “The first is attractive and charming, but his jokes are overdone and he messes up a lot. The second is squat and nervous, but his jokes are sharp and original, his act tightly rehearsed. Which comedian should open for Cosby?”

“The second, I guess,” Devon said quietly.

“You’ve got talent, Devon,” Tad said, “but songs about big butts are done to death. Phillip’s Stewie voice is the best I’ve ever heard. You can tell he practiced. And at least Phillip knows when his material’s borrowed.” Tad told Phillip to say the line again, and he recited it perfectly. Tad nodded at Devon and said, “Go in peace.” A few of us had to laugh a little at Tad’s stilted bossiness, but we did depart, one by one, and I did — I must admit — feel a sort of peace.

You know what the Big Dipper is, Britney? See, I knew you were going to say constellation but the word for it is asterism because it hasn’t been authorized by those bores with perfect circles permanently indented around their eyes who hand out crooked “name a star” certificates to grand gesture types. An astronomer would tell you that the dipper’s officially part of the Ursa Major constellation, the big supposed bear, the astronomer not getting that we all love the dipper because it’s one of the few star patterns that actually looks like what it claims to be: a ladle ready for Marimba to scoop deep into a big pot and come up with a goldmine of steak and noodles and carrots and onions, and hey, what’s up with the lack of a nighttime snack around here? We have dinner at six and don’t eat our next meal for another fourteen and a half hours ? It’s unlawful. If camp was an employer, our union would have Dave n’ Holly’s co-ass. Sometimes I think they want our defenses down so they can — Wow, your skin looks great in starlight. What was I …? Yeah, constellations are for astronomers, and you know what? Dudes can have them. The asterism belongs to the people: an evolving language that gets re-jolted every time a young man looks into the eyes of his sweetie, points up at the night sky, and begins to speak before he knows what he’ll say.

I worry I’ve begun to regard you with a knee-jerk irony. Each time I lock my truths away in the interest of keeping the hive humming, I forget a crucial something and Holly tells me what I can do with that smirk I’m wearing. When words fail, I ask my record to intercede. The sacrifices made, as a camper, to achieve the six-time cabin inspection award while fostering a then-rare brand of fun. The solemnity with which I took my charge as an eight-time Boys Counselor, modeling and molding as your ordinances saw fit: streakings, prankings, water balloon raids, bra-stealing bonanzas. And now, with Holly at my side, the revisions made to the handbook that reflect each promise I ever made to myself. I never loved playing Steal the Bacon with ten-pound sacks of flour. I never loved Greased Watermelon Relay. Oh Fun Camp, when did my brain invert my face? When I at last remember how to lower the edges of my mouth, it’s already bedtime.

I read a gorgeous review in the Daily Camper of yesterday’s morning scramble. Not without complaints, but there’s a bit in there about consistency— poetry . These are savory times, Grogg! This summer is sure to go down in history as the one in which Grogg learned to differentiate between pepper and cumin. As you know, Dave and I don’t like to come down hard on the kids — it’s not Discipline Camp after all. We’re more into the punishment that works its way in through the skin and coats the heart anonymously. This here is a list of all campers, for you and Puddy and Marimba to share. Beside each camper’s name is a number. 100 is 100 percent, meaning they get a full portion at dinner. A few campers have earned 110’s or even 115’s, but more important are the dips: some 90’s — those who lost the tug-o-war — some 80’s — the Cabin 2 girls who’ve been whoring their lips out to lonely tots for Canteen Bucks — and even a few 75’s — the boring, the homesick. God, they irk. I’m like: It’s a week, kids. You didn’t sign a lease . Any lower than 75 and the campers would catch on. Our portion shifts are just dynamic enough that the punished will feel guilty without understanding why. We break them down only to rebuild them in our own image — hilarious, kooky, deferential.