"Summer Job"

To appreciate my summer job, you need some history.

Married in 1941, my parents proceeded to do what many couples of their generation did - have children - lots of them. I was the first.

My father saw summer differently than many of his contemporaries. A summer cottage was not for him. Better to ship the kids to Camp and enjoy golf with my mother, their friends and my dad's golf cronies.

In our home, "Bringing Up Baby" was both the name of a movie and my mother's way of life. In time, there were seven of us and all were exported to Camp in the summer.

As number one child, I was the first to go - at the age of eight. Initially, I saw my ticket to camp as exile - homesick exile. Very soon, it dawned on me that a month at Camp was a gift - of independence and opportunity.

Over the years, I attended three different camps. The last of these was Camp Ahmek on Canoe Lake, in Algonquin Park. My Camp career summitted in a series of summer jobs at Ahmek.

As I approached my sixteenth birthday, I recognized a crossroad. I would soon be old enough to work construction in the family business. But, Ahmek needed staff and I needed Ahmek. For the next six summers, spirited negotiations with my father produced detente. July, I worked construction (it paid); August, I could take a job at Ahmek (it paid little). All winter long, I dreamt of August.

The lure of Ahmek was siren: friendships: independence: the Park: the mystery of Tom Thompson: the joy and punishment of canoe tripping. And, there was Wapomeo.

Late to appreciate it as an attraction, Wapomeo was the sister camp to Ahmek -mostly other people's sisters.

The most successful negotiation I ever had with my father involved the summer of 1963. Ahmek had offered me a senior position. It required my presence for the entire summer. My father granted me that summer. But, on the condition that it was my last at Camp.

That summer was my "Summer of '42" - coincidentally, the year of my birth. I had responsibility for forty-two (another coincidence) counsellors-in-training. Not much older than my charges, that job brought challenges that enhanced my maturity only slightly more often than it overran it. You see, the CIT's satisfied many of Ahmek's labour needs. They also contributed enormously to its spirit - and to its mischief. And, don't forget, Wapomeo.

If life is a mountain range, the summer of 1963 was one of my life's great climbs. Out of that summer job - and the five that preceded it - I gained a sense of self, life long friends, an unquenchable attachment to the Park - and to Ahmek - and a vibrant palette of memories.

"When oft upon a winter's night my spirit northward turns, I fill a cup and drink it up to Ahmek our northern home...". And, to the summer job of a lifetime.