As youth director, I think it was expected that I would participate in the summer camps, especially being a member of the mother church. The camp was held in the San Jacinto mountains at Idyllwild. I’m sure the camp had a name, but we all just called it Idlewild. It was a sort of rustic campground, similar to the campgrounds we had in Central Ohio. What I remember about that is from the end of camp photo taken with the whole camp seated in the ranked amphitheater. Seeing all those people brought back a lot of memories.
The first week was Junior High camp. I had a cabin of eight, maybe 10 prepubescent boys. We had bunk beds, slept in sleeping bags. This was when my feet first started getting too hot and I had to sleep with them outside the sleeping bag—that’s still the case to this day. Though I rarely sleep in a bag anymore.
The one thing I remember most about that week was coming back to our cabin and one of my boys was on his bunk sobbing. I got him calmed down and asked him what was going on. He explained that his third dad had just left his mom. And he had to be man of the house now. How do you comfort that?
Second week was the high school kids.
Many of the staff were from 1st Naz. I made so many new friends. Steve and his brother, Ricky. Debbie and her sisters, Cathy and Mindy. Rodney and his beautiful younger sister, Robin. Cute little Jimmy, and many others that I recognize from the camp photo, but don’t remember names.
Aside from Keith in Marion, OH—whom I realize now I had a crush on—Steve was the first guy I fell in love with. I ended up living with his family for a while—sharing a bed. With Steve, not his family. Debbie and I became BFFs. She fell in love with me. Robin and I dated. She was 16, I was 20—I had her parent’s approval. A perk of being a church youth director, maybe. Jimmy—I later roomed with on a Caribbean cruise.
That week would change my life.
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