Morning Meditation

Good morning.

I'm going to tell you a story.

I'm not going to tell you what happened; I'm going to tell you the way I remember it.

I went to Leaside High School with Gary Hood, Dave Lindsay and Walt Angell.

In the fall of 1957 David arrived at school with a story about the best summer he'd ever had, working at a camp, and spent the year trying to talk the rest of us into applying.

At the time I was spending my summers as a labourer for Pigott Construction working for Charlie and Bill's uncle Jock, the Toronto side of the family, and was making lots of money, so I passed on going that year.

However, Gary did go up that summer and when he returned back to school, I never heard the end of what I had missed. He went on and on and finally convinced me to apply.

Dave Lindsay set me up a meeting with Ghent Carroll and after bluffing my way through the interview, I was headed to TSC that summer as a CIT.

True to Dave and Gary's word, it proved to be an unbelievable summer and residence in CIT City merits another story unto itself.

The following summer I arrived back as a Voyageur counselor and moved into the House of Hamburg, made famous of course by the residency of Rod Ranta, oh yeah and Pierre Trudeau.

Remembering that I had been to camp for only one year, and the boys in my cabin had probably grown up there, I knew that they had a lot more experience that I did, so I decided to get on their good side and told them that they could plan their own canoe trip. They could choose the length of the trip, the route, and whatever food they wanted, within reason.

So I picked a meeting time in the dining room for the next day and arrive to meet them with a map of the park and the "canoe trip menu and supply forms" to discuss what they had in mind.

When we got together, we were one camper short, and when I asked where Billy was, they told me he was back at the cabin, under the bed crying.

Great! Just the beginning I was hoping for! So when I asked if anyone knew why, they told me that he couldn't swim so couldn't go on the canoe trip.

OK. Meeting postponed, and off I go back to the Voyageur Section.

Now, not only did I have the best cabin for myself, but I also had the best camper cabin which was Voyageur 1, now the Mountaineer "Hotel Ahmek".

The reason the cabin was so good is that the one large window is actually below you as you go back and forth on the path and you can look in from above and keep an eye on the whole cabin.

When I looked in, I could see no one, but when I entered and looked under the bed, lo and behold, there was Billy.

Now even with only one year of camp experience and being not the dullest knife in the drawer, I cleverly deduced that this was not a happy camper.

After we got the tears in check, I told that I was going to ask him only one question and then I would solve his problem. I asked him, if he could swim, would he want to go on this canoe trip, and through a few sobs, his answer was basically, more than life itself.

Now I was lucky kid, and even though I didn't go to camp, my family had a cottage in Bobcaygeon, and I attended all the swimming lessons at the town beach and after I got my Senior Swimmer, continued each year with the Red Cross lifeguard courses in the canal beside the lock. After getting my Bronze Cross and then my Silver Award of Merit, I wanted to keep going each year because that's where we met our girlfriends for the summer, so I took my Instructors and was working on my Gold (probably why Ghent hired me in the first place.)

Anyway I knew that I could teach this kid to swim, even though we only had a week before the trip, if he agreed to work on it night and day, and after boring him with this story as well, I told him so and he enthusiastically agreed.

That night I woke up and went out the door for a pit stop and there in the pitch black on the little deck of the House of Hamburg in a bathing suit and towel sat Billy. It was about 5:30 a.m. and to this day I don't know whether or not he sat there all night.

"Good morning Billy", said I, "Are you ready? Let's go", and after slipping into my wet bathing suit, and flashlights in hand, off we went to the Wigwam Bay Inky beach.

Billy was right, he could not swim and he was scared to death, but when he walked shivering into the water that first dark morning, determined to go on his first canoe trip, he was the bravest kid I ever met.

We sat in the water for a while talking, and then started with the dead man's float and learning to breathe, and away we went.

I swear that for the next week that kid was in the water about 10 hours a day. With the other kids in the cabin and the other counselors' approval, I passed off all my other duties and we swam.

We swam every morning before breakfast, we swam from breakfast to lunch, we swam from lunch to dinner, and if I'd let him, he would have tried to swim all night.

We also swam in every quiet, shallow place we could find in camp. We swam at Inky beach, we swam in the Pioneer section, we swam at CIT City, we swam in front of the tennis courts, we swam in the Senior section and we swam at the dining hall beach during class.

As we progressed, I told Billy that when he could swim the distance of the required lengths, I would pass him and remove the bandana no matter where or when he did it. He could try in a class in the pool if he wanted, but if he didn't make it there and achieved it somewhere else, I guaranteed him he was tripping.

I've never seen anyone try harder for something, and the morning of the day before we left on trip, he swam the 300 yards we had marked out in shallow water without putting his feet down and I told him, as his instructor, that he'd passed.

But again this shy quiet boy amazed me and said that he'd like to try it in the pool at a class with his cabin mates and the other kids.

That afternoon with most of the Voyageur Section in attendance, Billy slipped into his first deep water and started on his journey, in front of an audience who, including myself, had only a modicum of confidence in his success.

To dog paddle that distance is the toughest stroke in the world and I swear I thought he was going under at least half a dozen times and had to stop more than one person from diving in after him, but each time he'd stop into a dead man's float to rest and catch his breath and continue.

As he got past the half way point, and he seemed as if he'd been in the water for hours, his cabin mates went ballistic, screaming and yelling and cheering him on. I knew he could hear as he struggled to finish because the now the entire waterfront was going nuts. Damned if he didn't make it and off we all went tripping the next day.

Now around the first of December I received a letter from Billy's parents. It started out stating that before camp Billy had been a shy reclusive boy with little confidence or success in school. They went on to say he'd always had poor grades, didn't like sports, was afraid to participate in school activities and kept pretty much to himself.

They asked who this new kid was that returned from camp. During the fall term of school he was close to the top of his class, he was playing football and basketball, and he'd joined the camera club, school orchestra and the choir.

Then they wrote another full page praising and thanking me for changing their son's life, most of which was difficult to read because of the smudging of the ink due to suspected teardrops. Also folded in the letter was a cheque for $100.

I was completely embarrassed by this whole thing because in my mind all I did was have fun doing my job and something I enjoyed and knew well.

I wrote them back a letter to this effect, thanking them for their praise but stating that it wasn't me who had changed their son's life, IT WAS CAMP.

I also sent back the cheque for $100.

Just before Christmas I received a Christmas card from them expressing their understanding and love for the camp, but thanks to me again anyway and included the cheque.

I cashed the cheque.

It was from then on that I realized that if you can get any kid to any camp you will change his or her life for the better.

I was never a camper and was staff for only two years, but it was that experience that brings me back today.