“I dunno… I just, like, wanna help people, you know?” she said, clasping her hands after crossing her arms and fluttering her blonde eyelashes as she had several times during our conversation. “It’s always been, like, a thing with me. I just, like, like helping others!”

Her name was Rebekah, and I was completely in love with her - and had been for the entire 20 minutes that I knew her. Ever since she asked me what the “Can’t sleep, Can’t Shut Up” meant on my shirt while we waited in line at the Subway on campus, I knew fate had brought us together. She had extremely tightly-curled blonde hair, a beautifully dark complexion and glassy blue eyes that literally sucked your soul out of your body and held it captive. She wasn’t exactly bright, but she was here, and that’s all that really mattered at that point.

We were sitting across from one another, each enjoying a half of the foot long veggie delight sub that we decided to split after our discussion on the benefits of being vegetarian (and I wasn’t, up until that point - which seemed like as good a time as any to stop eating meat, I guess… especially if it would get me a phone number). I had turned into a complete moron.

“Yeah, I really like helping others, too. It’s… way cool.”

She grinned brightly. “You do? That’s, like, SOOO cool! You should go with me to the Volunteer Fair! They are holding it up in the Quad!”

“Alright… yeah, sure! Let’s go!” It was like the Pied Piper.

We wadded up our wrappers and discarded our waste into the proper barrels – sandwich wraps went in the container marked ‘paper’, the soda cans went in the ‘aluminum’ bin – and made our way up to the Quad.

The Quad, as any college student or former college student knows, is the nexus of all that is happening on campus. There were students everywhere, some congregated into a corner clumsily chain-smoking their Marlboro Lights and discussing poetry, while a gaggle of boys in knit caps and cargo shorts had taken up the center of the courtyard to play a little hackey-sack.

The Quad was always buzzing with some sort of concert or demonstration or gathering. Today, it was the annual Summer Volunteer Fair. Booths from groups as diverse as the American Cancer Society to the American Humane Society to the American Council for Marijuana Legalization had set up camp in various areas of the Quad. Each booth was manned with an enthusiastic group of young adults whose charge was to convince anyone interested to donate their time to the cause they represented.

Rebekah had seized my hand and was leading me through the various lines of people at each booth, directing me to one marked “Camp Shady Woods”.

“I was a counselor there last year, and it was, like, SOOO fun. You will, like, TOTALLY dig it!”

“Alright… yeah, sure.”

We didn’t have to fight very hard to get to the front of this booth, as the weed-legalization booth shared a wall with it. Given a choice of interests, it was sufficed to say that most college kids wouldn’t want to spend the summer helping children identify various types of plants, preferring instead to roll them up and sample them.

I thumbed through bits of the literature, reading about the lake where the kids could canoe and the 4 mile hiking trails. The only canoeing I had ever done was attempting to cross the river in “Oregon Trail” on the old Apple IIc in elementary school, so I was beginning to doubt my ability to effectively counsel children in the ways of the outdoors when I looked up at Rebekah and, having found her doting eyes staring directly into mine, immediately signed the “interest sheet” - agreeing to every single date slot that she had just signed up for.

Which turned out to be the entire summer.

“This is going to be, like, SOOO cool!” she said, writing her phone number on the sliver of paper I just ripped off of the “Pottery and Knitting” section of the events catalogue for the camp. “We will be, like, the COOLEST counselors there! I can’t WAIT to work with you! Be sure to call me and we can, like, ride up together!”

You would have had to look up from cloud 9 to see me, I was floating so high. She Liked Me! I had her number! Man, it was flawless. What could possibly go wrong?

“YOU DID WHAT???” Exclaimed my red-faced behemoth of a father after I explained how Rebekah enlightened me to the needs of the youth at Camp Shady Woods. “You already agreed to work the summer with me! How could you do that to me? I NEED YOU!”

“But Dad, I just want to help children! I want to relate to these kids and encourage them to grow!”

”Don’t give me that Mickey Mouse bullshit! You were chasing tail!”

A few hours later, my father finally agreed to let me out of my verbal contract to work for him after I agreed that I would find him someone to take my spot. A few phone calls and a promise of a few dinners later and the slot was filled. I was ready to spend the entire summer with Rebekah in a co-ed tent in the woods, rubbing Deet on her back and legs and letting her hand-feed me roasted marshmallows.

I called Rebekah to arrange a time to meet to drive up to the camp. “Oh, my friend Amy is going to drive me, isn’t that, like, great??? It will save me SO much money on gas. But we can meet up once you get there on the bus! So, like, I’ll see ya, buhbyeeeee!”

Humph. OH well, her friend Amy could have her for the ride up. I had the entire summer to spend with her.

The bus for Camp Shady Woods left at 4:00 AM. I was exhausted, having stayed up until 2 that morning packing my stuff. I tried to get a little sleep on the bus - it was impossible. For the entire 14-and-a-half hour ride into Virginia, I dreamed of lazy summer evenings spent braiding wildflowers into Rebekah’s springy locks and reading her the lame poetry that I had penned in-between rest stops on our little bus ride to the camp. We would make up cute little nicknames for one another – She would be ‘Bekah-boo’ and I would be ‘Sparky’ – and we would accidentally find one another alone in the woods during our many hikes with the kids, stealing kisses and sharing knowing grins from one another all summer long. Perhaps I would pick up playing the guitar from one of the other counselors there and would serenade her in the evenings with spongy ballads about stars and streams.

The bus pulled into the camp around 7:00 PM, and we all filed out of the bus and into line for our camp assignments. I looked around for Rebekah – she was in the Lower Camp line. I rushed up to her and greeted her with a huge smile.

”Oh, HI! It is, like, SO good to see you!” She introduced me to Amy, who used twice as many ‘like’-s as Rebekah and drug her ‘so’-s out twice as long. We made general banter as the line progressed, and when we finally got up to the table, I followed Rebekah’s lead and signed up for “Pioneer 1” – the tent-and-bag camp. This would require us to find a camping buddy and share a tent – I knew exactly who mine was going to be. We smiled at one another, and just as I was imagining what her hair was going to look like with small purple violets in it, I heard someone beckoning for “That large fellah over there! You! Yes YOU!”

Her name was Madge. She was a blue-haired woman in her late 50’s and she apparently ran another camp on site. She spoke as if her breakfast every day for the past 40 years consisted of a cigarette and a Diet Pepsi – and smelled that way as well.

“You, young fellah… We really need you for one of our other camps – Camp Sparrowwood. One of the male counselors just backed out and we need someone capable of lifting and moving things fairly well… you look like you can handle it! The kids of Sparrowwood have ‘special needs’ and really need your help… Whadda ya’ say?”

I looked at Rebekah. She returned a look that let me know under no uncertain terms that the whole goal of volunteering here was to, like, help other people. I knew that if I refused, absolutely any favor I had won by volunteering here would fly right out of the window. So, I did what any horny 20 year old in my position would do – I buckled.

“Oh, you have just MADE my day!” Madge exclaimed. The words sounded like they were drug across gravel as they made their way out of her cancer-ridden throat. At that moment, I wanted to teach her a few other uses for crochet needles and wood-burning irons. However, I knew that that probably wouldn’t win any points with the lovely Rebekah, who was now gripping my waist like I was about to be sucked away by a tornado.

”You are, like, the greatest guy! I am so glad I met you! Ok, see ya! Buh-byeeee!”

I followed Madge to her very weathered cabin to get my name tag and directions to the campsite. “I would hike up there with ya, but these old hips are liable to break just walking up that first hill!”

Bitch.

I made the two-and-a-half mile uphill trot over to the main Sparrowwood building with my backpack on my back and my duffel in tow, swapped between my left and right hands whenever one would seize up from holding it too long. Just as I arrived at the building, I saw Madge drive up in her beat up Plymouth Duster. I just stared at her as she exited the vehicle, coughing and hocking up phlegm all the while. “Oh, honey,” she said raspily, “I would have given you a ride, but you need to know how to get back to the other camp in case of an emergency.”

”Wouldn’t we just take your car in the event of an emergency?”

”Hmm.. I guess we would. Still, you needed to know. Besides, you’re young! You need the exercise! HA!”

I ground my teeth in an attempt to keep from lobbing my 50-lb duffle bag at her head. ‘This will make me a better person… This will make me a better person…’

I made my way to the front entrance to Sparrowwood and opened the main doors. I was greeted with the most vicious shriek I had ever heard in my life as a young girl with Down’s Syndrome raced past me holding one end of a roll of toilet paper and a female counselor trotted along after her, collecting the white stream of cottony softness as it was led out of the main doors and through the driveway.

“Could you help me, PLEASE?” came a cry from the frantic counselor.

I dropped my bag and ran behind the young girl, beckoning her to stop. “Natalie!” I heard from behind me.

”What??”

”Natalie. Her name is Natalie.”

I chased after Natalie, begging her to stop so I could take her back indoors. All I could hear in return were giggles and the word “NO!” shouted only as an exited little girl can shout it.

This went on for about 2 minutes, until I got a brilliant idea.

”Natalie, do you like OREOS?”

Natalie froze in her tracks and turned around.

”Yah, I like Oreos! They are yummy!”

”Well, if you will follow me inside, I will give you an Oreo! How does that sound?”

She trotted right up to me and grinned. “Ok, Mister! Let’s go get my cookies!”

I followed Natalie inside, stopping to pick up my bags. I saw the female counselor from earlier standing there, smiling.

“Brilliantly played, Mister…”

”Peacock… I’m Joe Peacock” I said, extending the duffel bag for a handshake. Realizing I couldn’t get the proper height needed to meet her hand, I dropped the bag once again and proceeded with the general pleasantries.

“I’m Clara. Come on in, you look exhausted.”

Clara showed me where I would be staying for the next 2 weeks. It was a dormitory room with 4 beds crammed in it, each one filled with a different counselor.

I learned that I would be sharing the tiny room with 2 Mike’s and a Dick. The novelty of this fact was not lost on me, as I proceeded to completely lose my composure and crack up laughing when they introduced themselves in this manner. Either they didn’t get it or were so polite as to not show how pissed it made them, because they just kind of looked at me and let it pass.

The building had a constant buzz going through it that was a mix of electric wheelchairs and screaming children, infused with a smattering of “No’s” and pleas to behave from the various counselors assigned to this camp. Sparrowwood’s purpose was to provide children with ‘special needs’ with a place that they could go and enjoy the wonders of nature from the comfort of their wheelchairs and walkers. It was amazing the extent the founders had gone to make this possible – wheelchair paths and walkways were cut for several miles in any direction through the woods for hikes, special ramps with tie-ins for harnesses were installed at the lake so that the children could make their way close to the water without risk of falling in. This place truly made ‘roughing it’ as easy as possible for people who otherwise wouldn’t have the opportunity.

And I thought it was the most horrible place on earth.

It wasn’t the fact that this was a camp for the disadvantaged - any place on the planet that wasn’t a two-person sleeping bag with Rebekah would have ended up with that honorary distinction. I was miserable and cursed myself for ever having wanted to impress her.

I had apparently missed dinner during my 2.5 mile hike and ensuing 100 meter child chase, and I was STARVING. I opened my bag to dig out the snacks I had packed. I was just about to eat one of my Oreo’s when I heard that same shrill scream echo out of the foyer across from my room.

”HEY! That is my cookie! You said you would give it to me!”

It was Natalie, and she was PISSED.

”No, Natalie, it’s almost bed time,” Said Jesse, the counselor who was tending to her.

”That man said I could have an OREO, and I want it!”

“NO. It’s time to go to sleep. You can have it in the morning.”

”I WANT IT NOW!!”

“Natalie, NO. You can’t –“

Natalie unleashed a devastating backhand across Jesse’s left cheek, leaving a gigantic red mark and a welt that would persist until the morning.

“NO! We do NOT hit other people! Come with me, You won’t be getting a cookie!”

”Dude!” I called out, “It’s ok, she can have –“

”NO. She cannot. She is going to bed NOW.” Jesse’s word was final. Kicking and screaming, Natalie was dragged to her bed across the building.

”We aren’t to give into the children’s’ demands,” said one of the Mikes from behind me. I turned to face him. “They need to learn discipline just like everyone else.”

”Yeah, but I DID promise her the cookie…”

”Man, it doesn’t matter,” said Dick, who’s name fit him like a glove. “The little shit doesn’t need a cookie, she needs a spanking. Did you see her slap Jesse?”

The two Mikes groaned. Apparently, this group had worked with one another before. In fact, I was one of two newcomers to the camp – and the other one, Jill, went home the following morning with stomach cramps, which left me as the sole rookie of the entire bunch.

“Dick, you are SUCH a dick” said Mike. “Dude, can’t you be a little more compassionate?”

”Bah, fuck compassion. I’m here for my education credits, man. In two weeks, I won’t ever have to do this shit again.”

”Nice,” said the other Mike, “Just nice. Well, can’t you just be decent for the next two weeks? We don’t need you going around calling these kids ‘shits’ and ‘fucks’ like last year. Remember what happened with Rollie? He almost bit your hand off.”

”Yeah, I remember that little fuck. I still have the scar. Hey, take a look at it.” He beckoned me to come near. It was indeed a nasty, mouth-shaped scar situated on the blade of his hand between his wrist and his left pinky finger.

“Wow, man. That looks pretty harsh.” I said. I didn’t really care, at that point I just wanted some food and some sleep.

”Yeah. You gotta be careful, these little fucks will get ya. What’s your name, anyway?”

”Joe.”

”Nice to meet you, Joe. I’m Dick.”

”I gathered.”

We chatted a bit more about various stuff which I barely remember due to extreme fatigue. I tore through the remaining Oreos and trail mix I had packed, laid out on my bunk, and quickly fell asleep.

I awoke about 2 am to extremely loud laughter and foot steps scampering down and back up the hall right outside our room. No one else woke up, so I looked out to investigate. One of the boys, Billie Sathers, decided – as he would every single night for the next 2 weeks – that 2 AM was “Fun Run” time, during which he would streak across the building completely naked with the notable exception of his socks – which he wore on his hands - and his underwear - which he wore on his head.

”Hey, guys… GUYS! Hey, Someone wake up!”

One of the Mikes stirred. ”Muhhh… Wha… What is it?”

”This kid… he’s running around naked out here.”

“Ok, so get him back into the bed.”

This was a task better left to someone who was not me. I signed up to help out around a camp that needed a replacement counselor – no one said a word about wrestling down and tucking into bed naked retarded children in the middle of the night.

“Um… I can’t.”

”Why not?”

”Umm… I don’t know how.”

“Don’t know how? It’s simple. Stop him, get the underwear off his head and back on his body, and get him into bed. Don’t be a coward – they won’t hurt you.” And with that, Mike dropped back to sleep, secure in the idea that I would fulfill this task.

I stepped out into the hall and very clumsily asked the kid to stop running. “NO! It’s FUN RUN!” he replied, over and over. He repeated this phrase at least 12 times before I just plain grew sick of seeing his naked ass fly by my face while he chanted the phrase. I snatched him around the waist and hoisted him into the air. He fell silent and cooperated fully.

“Where is your room?” I asked. I had no idea.

“Up there, around the corner.”

We marched to his room. I persuaded him to get dressed and get back into bed. The whole process took about 30 minutes and woke approximately half of the children staying at the camp. The general level of noise was a little higher than a small buzz, but it was plenty enough to keep me from sleeping for the next hour. Finally, I dropped off. After what felt like 5 minutes transpired, Dick’s 5:30 alarm rang and he and the 2 Mikes awoke. One of the Mikes tried to rouse me out of bed.

”Joe, come on. It’s 5:30… time to make breakfast.”

”Muaahhh… Noh. Fuhh Youhhh. I’m aslephhh… zzzz…”

“JOE. The kids get up in an hour. Let’s go.”

Fuck. Even if Rebekah herself were standing in front of me completely naked holding a crisp new fifty dollar bill, I wouldn’t have wanted to get up. It was damn early and I hadn’t slept well in 2 days. Lazily, I roused myself out of bed and made my way to the kitchen to make eggs, toast and grits for 50 mentally or otherwise handicapped children.

Breakfast was a complete joy. The children that didn’t need assistance eating took it upon themselves to smear food on any flat surface within their immediate vicinity. Fortunately, since we had breakfast duty another team would have clean-up detail. This was little reprieve, because following breakfast was the first of 5 baths a lot of these kids would take each day.

This is where my being a “someone capable of lifting and moving things fairly well” came into play: I was on bath duty for the entire 2 weeks. It was my job to lift the kids out of their chairs or assist them from their walkers, undress them, and lift them into the bath. Fortunately, someone else was there to do the actual bathing, because I don’t think I could handle having to bathe, well, anyone. I would have probably submerged my head in the bathwater and breathed deeply from my nose. After the kids were all fresh and clean, I would have to lift them back out of the tub and help towel them off, then after they were dressed I would lift them back into their chairs.

Please note that during the course of this little interaction, there was no braiding of hair or singing of ballads.

When we would go out on our hikes, we would have to rub bug repellant on every child (except one – Tommy, who had a disorder with his sweat glands. He would carry a water bottle everywhere he went to spray himself since he couldn’t sweat. This kid would come back from every single hike covered in red welts which would get doubly irritated from the light touch of the mist hitting his skin. He was miserable the entire 2 weeks and made sure to let us know about it every 5 minutes). Somehow, rubbing Deet on these kids was MUCH less pleasurable than I had imagined it would be with Rebekah.

Getting to know everyone there was next to impossible. None of the counselors really had time to get to know one another except the ones that were on a team together. Having determined rather quickly that Dick was rather two-dimensional, I didn’t bother to even exchange pleasantries with him. I did talk to the 2 Mikes, however. I learned that the two of them and Dick went to high school and then college together. They had played soccer and swam together, and were all rooming together at the dorm where they went to school. They all liked the same bands and wore approximately the same size clothing. If it weren’t for the fact that they had completely different facial features and hair color, I would have sworn that someone spilled water on a ‘Mikegwai’ and from it spawned 3 clones – one of which was fed after midnight and aptly named for the phallus he was.

The most interesting and fulfilling relationship I made while I was there was with Clara – the very first counselor I met. She wasn’t a college student, and as such didn’t really feel like she fit in with the other counselors. She volunteered with the mentally and physically handicapped regularly in her hometown and found out about Camp Sparrowwood through a friend of her mother’s. She was a die-hard Rollins Band fan and really enjoyed hockey. Naturally, we got along swimmingly.

She showed me the ropes of changing diapers and affixing pulse monitors, as well as identifying which seemingly innocuous foods actually contained peanuts or were made in factories that produced peanut products (a lot of these kids had peanut allergies – if they so much as walked in the same room as a peanut, they would swell like that one guy in Big Trouble In Little China and asphyxiate – and that’s not really a camp-sanctioned activity).

She also showed me ways to improve my painting by putting in a strong back-coat on the canvas to set the tone for the overlay and how to cook an entire meal at a campfire using only aluminum foil. If it weren’t for her, there is no way I would have made it through the whole camp experience. I told her all about Rebekah and how I got into this situation to begin with.

”Yeah, we girls certainly can do it to you, huh?”

”That is the understatement of the year.”

”Bah, this is more fun than hanging out with that silly tart anyway. Besides, look at what fun you would miss out on! Washing cloth diapers, cleaning ketchup off of ceiling fans, retrieving thrown helmets – You really made out!” she grinned a toothy grin, as was customary after she made her sarcastic remarks.

Things fell into a solid rhythm over the following two weeks. Meals went just as smoothly as I described earlier, with hot dogs or macaroni and cheese ending up on the ceiling fan and the windows every single day. The kids would only color half of the pictures they were given for arts and crafts since they had eaten their crayons before they could finish the work. Of course, naked sprints across the building were rather commonplace, as were random howls and caterwauls anytime the sun was not out.

Finally, my two week tour at the camp drew to a close. I spoke with Clara at length about options for the camp once this session was finished. She expressed hope that I might stay on at Sparrowwood – I was really catching on and would do a world of good around there. Alas, it was not really my calling to be a counselor for disadvantaged children, and I explained that to her. To say that she completely understood would be exactly true – because she knew I was full of shit when I said it.

“Hey, you wouldn’t want to keep your tart waiting, would ya?”

”Oh, come on, it’s not like that…”

”Sure, sure… Do me a favor, will ya? Ask her about her thoughts on Monet and Van Gough and if she thinks ol’ Vincent got the raw end of the deal.”

”Heh… You certainly are a trip, Clara.”

“Whatever. See ya around.”

I returned to Camp Shady Woods that evening to get myself assigned to Pioneer 1 and rejoin Rebekah. She came running up to me and gave me a quick hug, before turning and introducing me to “Ben, another counselor at Pioneer 1! He’s, like, my new boyfriend and I just KNOW you two will get along!”

The fantasy dried up and withered away. So long, roasted marshmallows and stargazing and cold nights cuddled with my curly-headed goddess.

Hello, hot dogs in the nose.

I fulfilled the rest of my commitment that summer with the Sparrowwood kids. Clara ended up on my team for 5 out of 6 sessions, and I can honestly tell you that the one session that she wasn’t on my team was the most brutal and horrible 2 weeks I think I have ever spent doing anything – including the time my father thought it would be fun to vacation at the Cherokee Indian Reservation in North Carolina where they chain bears against the wall and make them do tricks, all the while trying to sell you moccasins made in China or arrowheads made in Sri Lanka.

When the time came for us to go home, Clara and I exchanged pertinent info and swore to keep in contact – which we have, until this day. I will absolutely swear up and down on a stack of bibles to anyone listening that the Sparrowwood experience was a fulfilling one, enriching my soul and fulfilling me spiritually – but only because I don’t want to sound like a total jackass. In all honesty, I hated it and wouldn’t voluntarily do it again – not because I hate mentally or physically handicapped people, but because I sincerely believe I am not hardwired to sufficiently meet their needs. But I did make one of the best friends I’ve got in my arsenal, so I have that going for me.

I also know how to survive in the wilderness – provided someone supplies me with carrots, potatoes, steak, pepper and aluminum foil.