CSotD: Its own reward
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Pearls Before Swine triggers some PTSD from my years at Camp Lord O' The Flies.
Every year, at the end of the summer camping season, we'd have a big banquet and hand out ribbons and trophies.
Not every kid got one, but almost everyone got something. One year, Jose Garcia's folks flew in from Puerto Rico to attend the banquet and he was shut out, which we all realized, even as youngsters in a fiercely competitive world where schadenfreude was rampant, sucked.
Upon further reflection, I've realized that Jose's parents did not come all that way to attend the banquet. No doubt they simply showed up a day early to pick up their kid.
Parents were not supposed to be there and they sat on the periphery of the dininghall watching 200 kids walk up to get something and I'm sure they didn't notice that there were actually a dozen kids who were shut out, and not just one.
Jose wasn't much of an athlete, and he could be difficult, but I don't think a lot of people actively disliked him, though his resemblence to Henry the Chickenhawk was frequently pointed out. And we were keenly aware that the only thing worse than sitting through the banquet without having your name called at least once was having it happen with your parents there.
Particularly when so many of the ribbons and trophies were for "most improved," a category intended to reward the hapless kid who wasn't going to get anything else. Jose simply wasn't hapless enough to qualify for "most improved" or good enough to actually achieve a whole lot, either.
The year before I went to college, I started the summer as the wrestling coach. Any high school friends reading this just fell over in fits of laughter, but you didn't have to be good, you just had to know the basic moves.
On the other hand, when, at the end of July, the state 165-lb champion finished summer school and joined the staff, I became the boxing coach.
The camp director turned a blind eye to bullying, apparently on the Victorian theory that it makes kids tougher, but the lynchpin of his theory was the extremely Victorian vision of the bullied kid learning to defend himself and overcome bullies.
He often spoke, in fact, of his sincere hope that a kid from Camp Lord O' The Flies would go home and sock the schoolyard bully and triumph. If you haven't read "Tom Brown's Schooldays" or "Lord of the Flies," perhaps you've seen "Spartacus: Blood and Sand."
Same deal, but camp only lasted eight weeks, so they had to kind of up the intensity a little.
In any case, part of his somewhat-divorced-from-the-real-world theory was that someone who could teach wrestling could also teach boxing, an idea he either got from reading too much Homer or possibly from simply not knowing a damn thing about either sport.
Boxing at summer camp was a sport in which you put on the gloves and then hit each other until somebody started crying, or, if they started crying right away (which was not unusual), until even the meanest counselors felt it had gone far enough.
The other interesting part was that my ineptitude at competitive wrestling had a lot to do with being 5'10" tall and weighing only 135 pounds. During the actual season, this meant I went against these 5'6" guys who could bench-press a Buick, but at camp all I was doing was demonstrating holds. The kids did the actual wrestling.
Boxing was different. For one thing, a lot of the 13-15 year olds were my size and some were a little bigger. For another, even demonstrating technique involved throwing a punch or two. And, while I can take a beating on the mat as well as anyone, I possess a jaw that would be the wonder of Waterford, Ireland.
I gave the under-12 trophy to a kid who was, well, kind of a sissy, and had ditched boxing class. I found him and brought him back to the ring, by which time he was so pissed off that, when I made him spar with another kid, he beat the crap out of him, sobbing all the time, and, when I pulled him off, refused to leave the ring.
So I put in a second kid and he beat the crap out of him, and then he beat the crap out of the third guy, leaving only one more kid who absolutely refused the opportunity.
I thought the little fellow had more than earned his trophy and I knew there were at least four people in the dininghall who would not dispute it.
The over-12 trophy went to Jorge, a kid from Mexico. Most of the Puerto Rican kids spoke some English when they arrived, but kids from Mexico and South America often did not.
So I brought Jorge — who was about my size and a superb athlete — into the ring and said to the Puerto Rican kid in his activity group, "Tell him to just throw a couple of punches, and I'll demonstrate how to block them."
Since it was August and he was tired of translating for Jorge, Carlos shortened it to "Start hitting him."
If you are a Jerry Lewis fan, you would have enjoyed watching Jorge earn his trophy. Probably not as much as the kids did.
The next summer, I was off at summer school, but, by then, the camp had been sold and was no longer in the "Send me a boy and I'll send you a man" business.
Quite the opposite, in fact. I dropped in about 15 years later and found the new owners had ended the color war and made competitive sports optional, so that nobody would be in a position to get their feelings hurt.
In fact, everything was now optional, and, instead of being scheduled, you simply chose your own activities. This meant that you might have 30 kids turn out for tennis (three courts) and one kid show up at the baseball diamond.
It also allowed kids to only take part in things they already knew how to do.
Or they could choose to do nothing at all.
I was as appalled by this eight-week babysitting service as I had been by the Camp Lord O' The Flies experience.
Camp Lord O' The Flies at least taught me cynicism, and an appreciation for what Kid Shelleen said: "At first you don't think you can stand to get hit, then you realize you
can take it 'cause the blood don't matter, and you know you're gonna
live. It's a great gift I'm goin' to give you — to know it don't hurt to
fight!"
Then again, life had turned Kid Shelleen into an alcoholic.
But then again again, you don't learn a single goddam thing without somebody making you stretch outside your comfort zone at least a little.
I honestly don't know which is less helpful for a kid, here's what I am absolutely sure of: A choice between abuse and neglect surely leaves a whole lot of possibilities unexplored.
(I expect to receive an award for this insight.)
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