Mooselookmeguntic

            by Amelia Starr

 

“IT’S NINE O’CLOCK ON A SATURDAY, THE REGULAR CROWD SHUFFLES IN, THERE’S AN OLD MAN SITTIN’ NEXT TO ME MAKIN’ LOVE TO HIS TONIC AND GIN.” Contrary to the words we were bellowing, it was about 7:00 pm on a Friday and we were at the end-of-camp dance, not a bar. It was still light out, but the typically hot and humid New Hampshire air had cooled to a temperature perfect for an outdoor dance: warm enough to wear a tank top, but not so hot that dancing was unpleasant.  The ten of us had been together for three weeks, including a week canoeing on Mooselookmeguntic Lake in southern Maine.

I went to Sargent camp because of my best friend, Sara. She was born in Boston but moved to Berkeley as a baby. We went to preschool together and were inseparable from the age of two until she moved back to Boston when we were eight. The summer before 9^th grade, we decided to go to camp.  She had been to Sargent Camp on a trip with school and loved it. After several days of debates (Sara wanted to go on a four week ocean kayaking trip, I was advocating a one week session with an overnight) we agreed upon the three-week session with a one-week canoe trip.  My family was understandably surprised-I’m not really a nature person. Don’t get me wrong, nature is great…from a distance, but I always associated nature with dirt and I just don’t like being dirty.

I didn’t really realize what I was getting myself into. “It’s only three weeks,” I thought. “I’ll just hang out by the lake, and they can’t make me go hiking.” I was expecting an experience similar to that of Lindsay Lohan’s characters in “The Parent Trap.” I knew that the chances of me meeting my long lost identical twin sister were slim. However, I was hoping that, like Lindsay, my cute forest green polo and khaki shorts would remain clean regardless of my outdoor activities and that we would have late night poker tournaments and sneak out to the lake to go skinny dipping at night. Maybe we would even develop a rivalry with another cabin and get to play tricks on them. I was dying to try the tub of molasses over the door. Alas, my experience at camp was decidedly different from Lindsay Lohan’s.

The packing list came in the mail a few weeks later and my dad and I trekked to REI to get the rain gear, long underwear and other extreme weather gear required by the camp. My dad, an avid outdoorsman, quickly located and picked out everything I needed, and it was not until we headed to the raincoat section that the problems started. I was looking through racks of nondescript black and navy raincoats when my dad held up a hideous bright banana yellow raincoat.

“I’m not wearing that. It’s yellow.”

“Amelia, don’t be ridiculous. There’s nothing wrong with it. Yellow is great, and it even comes with matching rain pants.”

“Are you kidding? Who wears yellow pants?  Whatever, it’s not like I’m even going to need a raincoat in July.”

“We’ll see about that.” My dad said with a smile as he walked towards the register.

 

I flew to Boston and spent a few days with Sara and her family before we went to camp. On the way up to camp, we met up with Sara’s friend Anna. We quickly bonded, and by the time we actually got to camp, it seemed like we had been friends for years.

Sara’s parents dropped us off at North Lodge, the main building at camp and where we got our room assignments. We would all be staying in Bethune. All the cabins at Sergeant camp are named after famous authors: Cather, Carson, Emerson, Thoreau, Twain, etc.

 We hauled our massive duffel bags along the path that ran from the lodge around the side of the meadow and down along the row of small dark brown cabins. Once we had located our cabin, we set down our bags on the bench just outside the door and said goodbye to Sara’s parents. As soon as they had disappeared, we rushed into our cabin eager to meet the five other girls who would be accompanying us on our canoe trip.  No sooner had we entered the cabin and found our bunks than we were instructed to go back out to the meadow where all the groups were getting to know each other.

            “We’ll go around the circle, and everybody say your name, your favorite animal and where you’re from,” instructed our counselor with a charming British accent. She was quick to smile and had brown hair just long enough to tuck behind her ears. “ I’ll start. I’m Nicola. Call me Nicky. My favorite animal is my dog, I’m from London, but now I live in that house,” she said pointing to a large Victorian on the far edge of the grass. 

When it was my turn, I said shyly, “ Hi, I’m Amelia, my favorite animal is a hippo. I’m from California” I was met with complete silence and then,

“California! Wow, do you live in Hollywood?”

“Do you live on an island?”

“How many movies have you been in?”

“Can you surf to school?”

“Oh, no. I live in Berkeley.” I responded, shocked “That’s in Northern California.”

“ So you’re a hippie?”

            Dinner that night was an interesting affair. Many of my group mates were still curious about California (none of them, with the exception of Sara, had ever been) and Nicky and our other counselor, Fuller, a lanky frat boy, showed up wearing life jackets. When we inquired about their new accessories, Fuller explained that they had picked them up from the supply room and put them on while they were walking to the staff meeting. Another counselor had asked mockingly if they planned on wearing the life jackets for the whole camp session, and Nicky had responded “yeah!” without really thinking about it. They informed us that we too would be wearing like jackets when in the presence of other campers and that we would get them after dinner. For the rest of that week, we wore our life jackets (we called them personal flotation devices or PFDs) everywhere we went. After all, your body is 70% water; you could drown. We even made up songs about PFDs to the tune of The Beatle’s “Let It Be” and The Jackson 5’s “ABC, 123.”  Needless to say, the rest of the camp thought we were crazy.

On the second day of camp, we went to the lake for some team building (Sergeant Camp is big on team building) and canoeing lessons. After we had all passed the swim test and done some trust falls, we learned how to tip a canoe.

“Ok. Everyone lean to the right,” shouted Fuller from the canoe he was sharing with Nicky.

“No!” screamed another girl “ We’ll fall in!”

“That’s the point!” roared Fuller, laughing. “Watch us.” He and Nicky both leaned far to one side and the canoe tipped over spilling them both into the water. 

“Okay,” said Nicky, bobbing a few feet away from the still upturned canoe. “What’s the first thing to do after you flip?” 

“Find your paddle!” I shouted, remembering the lesson we had on shore.

“Then?” asked Fuller.

 “Flip the canoe back over,” yelled Anna. Fuller and Nicky swam, paddles in hand, to their canoe and flipped it over.

            “Now watch this!” bellowed Nicky. She threw her paddle into the canoe and then turned her back to it. Grabbing onto the gunwale, she pushed her body under the water and then popped back up, swinging her legs over her head and landing her body in the canoe.  We all applauded and were finally inspired to try to tip our own canoes.

            “One. Two. Three!” Sara and I leaned out over the side of the canoe. I could feel the canoe starting to tip, so I leaned out farther and plunged head first into the icy water. I camp up laughing and spluttering and attempted to flip myself back into the canoe the way Nicky had. After several unsuccessful attempts I resigned myself to the fact that due to my complete lack of upper body strength, I would never get myself into the canoe this way. Sara, on the other hand, a gymnast since the age of three, flipped herself in on her second try. I was forced to clamber ungracefully into the canoe so we could keep flipping.  I lost track of how many times I fell into the water. After my third or forth dip in the lake, I began to get fed up with this activity. The water felt as cold as the Pacific Ocean in November, I was never going to look good getting back into the canoe and I was getting nervous about being so far away from civilization when we went canoeing. Why are we flipping so many times? We won’t actually flip, will we? What if we flip and I can’t get back in. What if someone gets hurt we are miles from help? What if we get attacked by a bear! My panicked thoughts were interrupted by yet another dip in the frigid lake and when we finally stopped I felt the first seeds of doubt begin to creep into my mind. Maybe this canoe trip wasn’t such a good idea after all.

            A few days later we went mountain biking. I was neither an experienced biker nor an athlete. We set off into the woods in a tight clump, and, as the path narrowed, we formed a single file line. The first ten minutes or so were fine, maybe almost bordering on pleasant. But then the path grew more rugged. There were roots and rocks in the way and several sharp turns. By this time, I was most definitely not a happy camper, it was about 95 degrees, humid and buggy and I was bumping along the path, slowly getting farther and farther behind Anna who was riding in front of me. Half an hour later I was convinced that it was only a matter of time before I had a heart attack. I was exhausted, drenched in sweat, and struggling to keep us with Anna and not get run over by Sara, who was riding behind me.  When we finally got back to our cabin, I flopped down on my bunk, legs shaking and vowed never to get on a mountain bike ever again.

The night before we left for the canoe trip Nicky came to our cabin to help us pack. Because we were canoeing, all our belongings had to be packed in waterproof bag and space was limited. Nicky read off the list of things that we needed for the canoe trip: “warm coat, water bottles, hiking boots, sunscreen, rain gear” I shuddered, nothing, not even a monsoon was going to get me into that hideous yellow monstrosity. While I was distracted by thoughts of my heinous raincoat, Nicky finished reading the list. When she came to check my bag, she pulled out my Herbal Essences shampoo, conditioner and body wash and informed me that they would not be needed for the trip.  A week without washing my hair! They had to be joking. And I even bought biodegradable shampoo.  Unfortunately, none of my complaints had any effect whatsoever on Nicky and so it was with a heavy heart and low expectations that I finished packing and went to sleep.

The ride up to Maine was cramped. There were exactly 12 seats in the van, so we were all sitting rather closer together than we normally would have and as we had a lot of gear and the trunk space was limited, everyone had to hold their backpacks on their laps for the entire trip. After a few hours of driving, we were beginning to get restless, so Fuller turned on the radio. Since we were on a two-lane highway in the middle of nowhere, we only got one station. To the disappointment of most of the group, it was not a rap station, if I recall correctly it was something along the lines of KOIT (light rock, less talk.) I was staring out the window thinking about how different the foliage of the East Coast is from that of the West Coast when I heard a voice behind me.

“It’s nine o’clock on a Saturday, the regular crowd shuffles in, there’s an old man sittin’ next to me makin’ love to his tonic and gin…” I turned around to see Michael, one of only two boys on the trip singing along with Billy Joel. He grinned sheepishly and explained to the group that his parents liked Billy Joel and he heard it at home all the time.  The station didn’t have a large variety of songs and by the time we got to the lake we had heard “Piano Man” a half dozen times and it had become out theme song.

We unloaded the canoes from their trailer and packed up all our gear. Our campsite was only a few miles away, but we were in a hurry to get there before nightfall.  Paddling across the lake I had an upsurge of hope. Maybe this wouldn’t be so bad after all, I mean not bathing for a week is gonna suck, but at least its pretty.  And it was pretty; the sky was streaked with flamingo pink and peach, which contrasted nicely with the enormous pine tress that ringed the lake. We got to the campsite just as the sky was becoming dusky and hurried to set up camp. The boys set up their tent without any major problems, and went off with Nicky to collect firewood. The rest of us remained at the campsite, struggling to set up the enormous 8-person tent for all the girls. It had been a dry summer so fat, so it was nearly impossible to drive the tent stakes into the ground. Coincidentally, just as we finished pitching the tent, a strong wind began to whip through the trees and within a few minutes it was raining, not hard, but enough to make sitting outside unpleasant. My tiny flame of hope for the trip was extinguished as I donned my appallingly bright raincoat (I couldn’t bring myself to put on the matching elastic cuffed pants).  After dinner, several of us had to use the little girl’s room. This was one of the fancier campsites that we would be staying at, it had a toilet seat duct taped to a board nailed between two trees over a hole in the ground. For privacy purposes, it was located a few minutes away from the main campsite, however the effects of this were lost as no one was allowed to leave the campsite alone. We were encouraged to wipe with leaves because we had to keep all our used toilet paper in plastic bag that stayed with us for the whole trip. That night, exhausted by the long drive, I fell asleep quickly. Several hours later, I woke up to hollowing of the wind and the pounding of rain. Still groggy, I realized that the rain was coming through an open flap in the side of the tent and that the last two feet of my sleeping bag was soaking wet. I was too tired and disoriented to do much about it, so I just curled up in the top of my sleeping bag and tried to fall back asleep, thinking longingly of sunny California.

The next morning we wandered the campsite surveying the damage. All the firewood we had gathered was soaking. The toilet seat had blown away and was nowhere to be found.  The ground was thick and squelchy with dark brown mud. All of our sleeping bags were wet. Luckily, someone had brought a rope and we strung it between two trees and hung our sleeping bags on it to dry.  We were starving, but had to wait a good 45 minutes before Fuller was able to coax any flames out the wet wood. We had decided that oatmeal was the ideal breakfast because it sticks to your ribs and is hard to mess up. Fuller however managed to burn some of it while leaving the rest uncooked. Sara, Morgan and I sat on a log overlooking the water and forced down the disgusting oatmeal.

“I hope the whole trip doesn’t end up like this.” said Anna, voicing the words we were all thinking.

“Well it can’t get much worse” I responded. Unfortunately, I was wrong.

The biggest problem with our trip was that the counselors and kitchen staff underestimated how much 12 people canoeing upwards of 10 miles per day need to eat. We had a food for every meal, just not enough. The job of dishwasher was a coveted one because the lucky person got to lick the pan.  We only had desert twice, the first time it was smores, which were tasty if not all that exciting. Our second desert, however, was an incredible concoction called scrambled brownies. You take a box of brownie mix and add some water and scramble it in a frying pan over the campfire. The end result is a warm chocolate blob with a texture somewhere between mousse and cake. Despite this delicious treat, we went to sleep hungry every night and woke up starving each morning. By the middle of the trip, I was completely convinced that I was slowly dying of starvation. Every night Sara and I would lie awake discussing what we would be eating if we were not at camp.

“Mashed potatoes.”

“Pie.”

“A cheeseburger.”

“Oh my god! I’m so hungry I might die!”

One day we went on a hike up an enormous, densely forested yet rocky and boiling hot mountain, in reality, it was only about 4 miles each direction, but it felt like climbing Mt. Everest.  The mountain had several small peaks that were below the actual summit. We would get to the top of one of these and celebrate making it all the way up only to fine that we had another couple miles to go. Once we finally reached the summit, we were each given a bagel and some peanut butter for protein.

“This is it?” Sara exclaimed after receiving her bagel. “What are you trying to do? Starve us?”

Although it was by far the best bagel I have ever eaten, it didn’t do much to satisfy my appetite. I think it just made me hungrier. On the way up, they told us to conserve our water, which wasn’t hard because not only does iodine water taste worse than what I imagine pee would taste like, but it is also a muddy brown color so reminiscent of pond scum that I had to close my eyes when drinking it in order not to gag.  When we got to the top, Nicky realized that we all had at least a nalgene and a half left so she decided that we had to drink all the water before we got back to the campsite. We all spent the hike down chugging iodine water.  Consuming copious amounts of this dreadful beverage coupled with a strenuous hike and a lack of sufficient nutrition was more that my stomach could handle and as we neared the end of the hike, I threw up.

The day had finally arrived. We were going back to civilization!  I was sweaty, smelly and exhausted. I hadn’t had a square meal in a week. My hair was greasy. I had more bug bites than I could count. For the whole ride back to camp, all I could think about was bathing.

Near the end of the canoe trip, we had to paddle a fourteen-mile stretch to get back across the lake. As we shoved off, I tried to shake the sense of foreboding that had settled in my mind. The sky, which had been a clear robin’s egg blue ever since the storm, was steely gray. The wind was picking up. Three miles in, I knew it was over. I was going to die on Mooselookmeguntic Lake. After five miles, we traded seats. Thankfully I got to paddle in the front of the canoe for this leg of the trip. When I was in the back steering we had paddled about a half-mile extra because I couldn’t keep a straight course. Struggling against the vicious wind, we were all beginning to lose morale, when Anna spontaneously burst into song. “OOPS I DID IT AGAIN. I PLAYED WITH YOUR HEART. GOT LOST IN THE GAME. OH BABY BABY. OOPS YOU THINK I’M IN LOVE. THAT I’M SENT FROM ABOOOOOVEEE. I’M NOT THAT INNOCENT.” The rest of us joined in and after we had sung every Britney Spears, Backstreet Boys, and Disney song we could think of we reverted to our old standard. “IT’S NINE O’CLOCK ON A SATURDAY…” Before I knew it we were back at our first campsite. I was out of breath from singing and paddling, and still starving, but my pessimistic attitude was gone. I still wasn’t thrilled about being smelly and hungry, but for the first time in a week, I was having fun.

On our drive up to the lake, we had passed an old-fashioned ice cream parlor by the side of the road and Nicky promised to take us on the way back to camp. After the second or third day on the trip, we had all become used to how bad we smelled and stopped noticing the odor. We walked in to the ice cream parlor and the other patrons reacted with mutters of “what is that smell?” and “ew.” A man sitting in the corner looked up, gagged and quickly exited the building. In addition to our odious aroma, we all looked crazy. Our clothes were dirty, our hair was tangled and greasy and we were eying the ice cream with looks of awe and desperation. The ice cream scooper took our orders and served us with her head turned towards the wall rather that bring her nose close to us.

The first night back at the main camp was shipwreck night. It was ironically appropriate because although we hadn’t ever flipped, we did look as bedraggled as the crew of a ship that had been stranded on a deserted island for several years. We arrived too late to shower before dinner, so we treated the rest of camp to an evening of our lovely stench. We also won the contest for the best shipwrecked costume. None of us had changed since we left the lake.

On the last night of camp, finally feeling full, we eagerly got ready for the dance. After each member of our group had requested “Piano Man” at least three times, the counselor in charge of the music had no choice but to play it. Standing in a big clump, we all sang along at the top of our voices. After the dance was over, as Sara and I walked down the path back to our cabin. I couldn’t help but feel a pang of sadness at the thought of leaving camp the next morning. It hadn’t exactly been a fun trip but I was glad that I had experienced it.