Ahh Camp Yawgoog. What a time. What a damn good time. It’s funny, this story has been saved as a draft for quite some time (a work in progress), but apparently last night (edit: this was way back in April) I was talking to Angela on the bus to the bar about being an Eagle Scout and stuff (I don’t really recall this, but I was also pretty hosed at that point), so I figured, now’s a good time to get this one out there.
Camp Yawgoog (YAH-goo) is a big Boy Scout camp in Rockville, Rhode Island. There are three different “sub-camps” within Yawgoog: Three Point (the oldest), Medicine Bow (the middle one), and Sandy Beach (the youngest). Within these camps were campsites. I was at Camp Sandy Beach, and we stayed at the Kit Carson campsite every year. It was a great place to be because it was close to the waterfront and the mess hall. Terrific! We usually had a good time, but the best time had to be the last year I went to Yawgoog - it really was something else.
That year, I had just gotten relieved from duty as the Senior Patrol Leader, the guy who runs the meetings and makes sure everyone is in line. My successor was none other than Dan Dewitte, a guy I went to high school with who was pretty ridiculous. Read about Dan by clicking his name above. It’s seriously ridiculous.
One more thing I have to add to set this up: we all stayed in bunks in what were essentially big tents with raised wooden floors. There were two bunks per tent, and two beds per bunk, meaning four people per tent. In my tent was Jon H., Chris G., and Dan. Let me explain these guys (Jon and Chris) to you. Jon and Chris were potheads. They loved their pot. But they weren’t your typical potheads. Jon was a boisterous young man who loved to laugh and make jokes. Chris was a loud crude awesome human being. Chris absolutely loved giving Dan a hard time. By the end of the week, he managed to get 100% of the younger scouts to disrespect Dan. It was a job well done.
There were a lot of events that happened that week at camp that have stayed with me for all these years. Events that when I reflect upon them I feel an intense amount of nostalgia. It really was the best week I think I’ve ever had. On top of that, I grew just by being there that week.
That year, I only had a few merit badge classes I had to take. I think one was Lifesaving, and another was Shotgun Shooting. That was a good one. Anyway, so because I had only a few classes, I found myself with a lot of free time. I did my fair share of relaxing in the beautiful weather, lying down listening to the breeze ruffle the leaves. I can still remember the smell of the air.
At the beginning of the week, Chris and I decided to take out a canoe and paddle around for awhile. Well, that didn’t last too long, as we went out on the water and less than 20 minutes later, we had capsized. Whoops! We heard the airhorn, and the Charlie Brown, the camp’s rescue boat, came to help us. We were the first rescue of the week. It certainly was entertaining.
On a couple of occasions when it would get dark, Chris and Jon would fashion an odor absorber out of a 20 ounce Coke bottle and a whole lotta paper towels, walk down the trail by our tent, and smoke a whole bunch of weed. I was always too scared to go, but they would hang out with every one else afterwards with no one the wiser.
Early in the week, my cousin Jeremy who happens to work at the camp made us tags so we didn’t have to do training to pilot kayaks. This came in handy and saved us from doing any actual work. One day we took out a couple kayaks, met up with a mess of other kids in kayaks, and teamed up and capsized people in canoes. We didn’t really get in any trouble.
After we brought the kayaks back in, Chris thought it’d be a great idea to drain his bladder right there on the beach. Now, I took it upon myself to piss myself while in the kayak, making my seat super-warm and comfortable. However, I didn’t want to miss this spectacle. Chris stood right on the beach and let it rip. The urine dribbled down his leg and squirted onto the ground (mind you, he had his swim trunks on still). Jon joined him. I shrugged my shoulders and evacuated what was left in my bladder. No one even noticed.
As I said earlier, Jon and I took a merit badge class in which we were able to shoot shotguns. We were able to both do really well in it the first time we went, but we didn’t actually complete the requirements, but we still got the badge (we would have done it if there were more time). Only reason I bring it up is because my counselor for that badge was fucking crazy. He was always being weird, and at one point he said he was “buggin’ out” when someone came and talked to him. Weird dude.
Jon and I shared a couple other things, one of them being some moments with Boris. Boris was a chipmunk we had essentially adopted that week. He lived behind our tent in the woods. Boris would always hang out and eat, so we would toss him food and such so that he’d stay. He ended up staying most of the week.
Another thing Jon and I shared were the profound talks. We talked about a whole boatload of stuff, from our lives to girls. I think that’s where my disorder began. I remember telling him that I wanted to get the whole girlfriend situation out of the way so I could focus on improving myself. That means that I wanted to find my wife ASAP and marry her so I wouldn’t have to worry about it. How naive I was. I know now that until one loves oneself, one can not love another. Furthermore, to quote an Uncle Tupelo lyric, “There’s no sense in lovin’ anyone that hates themself.” How true. Nonetheless, these talks gave me an outlet, as well as some knowledge from someone I deemed more worldly than I (he had been with a few girls in his day, so he knew what he was talking about). They totally influenced who I am today.
There were a couple of really funny moments that I remember from the week as well. One of them happened one night at a campfire. We were all sitting around, shooting the shit, when one of the Scoutmasters invited us to play a game called “I’m Going To The Store”. Basically, the game starts with someone saying, “I’m going to the store and I’m going to get…” and then they name an item. The next person in the circle has to say the previous item, and then an item of their own. It continues like this around the circle. Well, the dude right before me said that he was going to the store to get peanuts. Except he said it like, “Peenits,” and so it sounded like “Penis.” I lost it. Thinking it the funniest thing in the world, I tried to one-up him, and so when I went to the store, I got “some Canned Feces”. As the next person in the circle was going, the same Scoutmaster interjects, pretty upset: “Okay, hold up a minute, if you guys aren’t gonna play this seriously, we’re not gonna play it. ‘Canned Feces.’ Real items!” I laughed really hard and left the game.
Each week at camp had a specific theme that ran the week. That week was “Superheroes”. On one of the nights, we would all go to dinner dressed up as a superhero. The best one from the campsite would go on stage, and the best one of all the campsites won points or something. Jon had gone to Yawgoog earlier that summer for a week for a thing called “Eagle Camp” where they basically knock off all the Eagle-required badges in one fell swoop. He said one of the guys dressed up like a total asshole and went on stage. When they asked him his name, he said, “Choada Fett”. He then proceeded to swing something over his head. The whole dining hall was banging on the tables and chanting “Choada Fett! Choada Fett!” The counselors had to settle everyone down, and I think he was disqualified. Needless to say, I had some big shoes to fill. I figured out my idea, and I decided to go as Captain Colostomy. I painted a “C” in chocolate pudding on a white undershirt, then wore boxers over my pants with a garbage bag or a pillowcase hanging out of the back. It was a great costume. I was pretty disappointed when no one really even cheered.
At the end of the week, there was always a parade. At the parade, all of the troops line up and report to the head their camp one by one. The Senior Patrol Leader is the one who reports. Now, a day or two prior, our SPL, Dan, had “broken” his ankle. I put it in quotes because he most certainly did not- many sources saw him limping on it one minute and walking on it the next. Regardless, he went home, so there was no one to report to the head of Camp Sandy Beach. So I got enlisted to be the acting SPL for the rest of the week. I wish I could remember the exact way I told the head of camp that all of our scouts were present - it’s always a challenge every year to try to be amusing to all of the people watching. I do remember that directly before that trip, our head Scoutmaster had gotten a hip replacement, so I claimed that our troop was the only one with a “Go-Go-Gadget Hip”. He yelled at me about it later, and I laughed like a bastard.
One final thing that came out of this trip. As I mentioned before, this trip was so relaxing to me. I had very few obligations and plenty of time to sit and enjoy the perfect weather. It was my week off from my first real job: Jiffy Lube. The job was absolutely piss-poor. One of the guys hated me, I was getting burns all over my hands, I was getting exhausted, and I was getting filthy. I could never wash the dirt and grease out from under my fingernails the whole time I worked there. But that week off gave my nails a chance to clean themselves. By the end of the week, they were pristine. It was then that I decided that I was done with that god damn job. I remember going home and calling in to quit, and my boss telling me, “Ya gotta do what ya gotta do.” Very true words from a grease monkey.
Today I saw some guy wearing a Camp Yawgoog shirt at the DC. I almost asked him about it, but I realized that I didn’t really give a shit anymore. But I would give many things just to experience that week again. Possibly my first daughter’s ovary.
