Consequences and relationships

Friends and relationships

I have sort-of avoided talking too much about people except as they have created the place and personality of ERN. In particularly, Irv and Edna created the place, but by the time I came along, even as a camper and more as a staff member, the personality of camp was much more Judy and Hall, Colbert and Cheryl. As I reflect on their policy and philosophy I’m sure I don’t understand how this all got played out—I know there were conversations, maybe forma\l planning, but even as an adult involved some of it wasn’t transparent, and therefore, it’s a little difficult to write about. But it created camp, it created the environment whose elements I wish to explore and perhaps, in a variety of venues, create.
One window certainly came to me as I got kicked out at the age of 14, I think. It was really a stupid series of the kinds of events that played out over the next few years of my life. I was both a follower as well as the instigator of the events, but much like to experience of falling down, you often see it but have little control as it happens.
And the events really don’t matter, except for the fact that there were few rules at camp but if you violated them you were gone. I have to admit I don’t know of very many people violating the major rules but suffice to say, I did.
And the piece of the puzzle was the process and outcomes of the event. The day after I was pretty much isolated from the other campers but it was pretty much known that I was heading home—I had my one and only heart to heart contact with Nancy behind the A and C but little other conversations.
At eh end of the long day, late that night I was called into the programming office off the dining hall and Colbert, Cheryl, Irv and Edna were all there. I remember of sort of calm resignation to the whole experience—I know what had happened, I new the consequences, what I wasn’t prepared for the reaction of the adults in the room.
I guess I hadn’t had very many people care about me at that point in my life. I lived in an emotionally isolated world for the most part and wasn’t connected to many adults, few relatives, few role models, and no mentors. And they were more torn up about the events and the consequences than I was. I have this whole exchange, till after 34 years, emblazoned on my brain.
Of course Irv simply stated that they couldn’t trust me any more than therefore I had to go home. And I knew this, no surprise. But Edna had tears in her eyes, and Colbert was standing quickly. The fact that they cared, well beyond the business of running a camp, cared about me should not have been shocking but it was. And then Irv said, if you can prove to us you are trustworthy, then you will be welcomed back. And In the summer of 1976 I met with Irv and was welcomed back as a maintenance assistant working with Reynaldo at camp. And it was like I’d never left.