DAYS OFF and such
Others posted above and below.
One final memory of camp, for now. We were on the Island with maybe 100 campers and were only able to get off the island on power boats. This was by design to “keep the more adventurous campers home.” It was a bit inconvenient, because we got one day off each week, but had to go to the mainland to do anything.
In fact, they urged us not to stay on the island. First we needed to be apart from the kids for a while, and they needed a respite from us. The second reason was that this was the only time we could do laundry. There were no facilities on the island. I do not believe that the cabins even had electricity. There may have been lights, but no electrical outlets. The campers were instructed not to bring radios or record players or anything that needed electricity.
Once there, I discovered the wisdom on the “Counselors’ instructions: Bring enough underwear to last a week.” And no days off were on Saturday or Sunday. Those were the times we met new campers and kicked off the “festivities.” At the end of the week, we were bundling them up to ship back home.
On one of our days off, a group decided to go to Montreal. The Expo 67, a world’s fair was winding down in Montreal, Canada. That was interesting. The memorable thing was that on this trip a new face appeared. Evidently one of the “regulars” on our day off had something to do, and traded with her co-counselor.
I had noticed this girl, female counselor, occasionally over the summer, but had not even gotten acquainted. (NOTE: Boys and girls’ cabins did not fraternize in the normal course of events. That was by camp design.) So I got acquainted with a girl named DeeDee.
“Just by happenstance,” she traded the next week also and the group went on an outing to Whiteface Mountain. FYI: Counselors were not allowed to “date,” meaning go to events in pairs consisting of mixed couples. But on the ski lift, each gondola only held two, and guess who Jimmy boy paired with? You got it. DeeDee was not unwilling. We had struck up a friendship, and were able to legitimately spend some time together. No harm, no foul, no guilt.
This did not ever progress beyond “friendship,” but this lady made a major impact on my life. My roommate at LeTourneau and I went to Shelbyville, Tennessee, over Christmas of ‘68 and visited with DeeDee and her family. Incidentally our visit triggered her brother’s interest in LeTourneau which he subsequently attended and later even served on the staff or faculty.
In return, DeeDee suggested that I check out the University of Iowa for graduate school. She had studied piano (and maybe organ) there, gotten a Master’s degree, and was going to teach at a college in Virginia. For graduate school, I was planning to go to the University of Nebraska or Missouri. Neither of those worked out, and I ended up at Iowa. (Lucky break?)
From there, after getting a MS in Chemistry, I taught chemistry in East Peoria, Illinois, and met the girl (woman) who would become my wife and the mother of my three kids. God works in mysterious ways. (No luck involved. Theology is straight now.) From Schroon Lake, to Montreal, to Whiteface Mountain, to Shelbyville, to Iowa City, to East Peoria was the route that He took me.
I went to camp in grade school and early high school and dedicated my life to do whatever God wanted me to do. I thought it would be to the mission field. Word of Life camp was a mission field, and then He took me to the chemistry classroom and lab. We are currently in Smyrna, Tennessee, ironically, only a few miles from Shelbyville. But DeeDee does not live there. She actually never came back, as far as I know. She taught and married in Virginia and now has retired somewhere here in Tennessee.
LeTourneau was a wonderful training ground and I wil have a few more “tales from the crypt of my faltering memory.” Or maybe I should say, “my conflating memory.” I “remember” a lot of stuff that didn’t happen–to me anyway. Oh well, we can all learn.
Write it down. Then you do not have to depend upon “lightening” gray matter. Have a blessed day. Watch God work and lead.
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