A day to remember

Today is a national holiday. Oh, not here in the good ol' Aux Etats-Unis. I mean in my former stomping grounds.

It's Canada Day - their version of Independence Day. To my old Canadian comrades, have a good day, eh?

I always remember this day with fondness for another reason. In another life, I worked at a wonderful place called Columbus Boys' Camp. It was located in Orillia, a small hamlet about 100 miles north of Toronto better known as the birthplace of Gordon Lightfoot. I worked as a counselor there for three years before moving to the Senior Staff as Evening Entertainment Director.

I have said this to other people but I need to do it again: Although the most money I ever made there was $500, it was the best job I have ever had.

July 1 was always the start of the first session. You would get to camp a week or two in advance to get the place ready. We would put the dock in Lake Simcoe (amazing how cold the lake could be at that time of year.) Then you painted the cabins (if they needed them) and cleaned up everything. There would be a day or two of prep and getting to know your new co-workers. There was usually a night in town where you would discovered there were two places a fellow could get a drink. One was the local Chinese restaurant (you had to order some food to do it) and the other was a small bar down the street. They often had music there.

(For some reason, the only band I can remember is Jeremiah Peabody and His Funky Little Three-Piece Band. They had a blond chanteuse who was ... well ... hot. But I digress.)

Back to today, though. There was always an extra air of excitement and nervousness as the first group of campers came. (It was often said that the first group dictated how the summer would go. I have no idea if that proved out to be true. Sounded good, though.) You would stand there with new guys you barely knew, getting ready to greet kids who were, for the most part, cutting loose for the only vacation they would have all summer. The first group would arrive and it was like opening the doors to a Justin Bieber concert. Kids poured out from buses everywhere. Getting them to go sit under the big tree where the camp director (Leo Campbell and Don McLeod) would start to give them the drill for their 10 days there was difficult. The pent-up energy of the kids was exciting but nervewracking to watch.

Somehow, the kids would get shephered into their cabins and we were off and running. For whatever reason, I was assigned a lot of Papoose cabins. Most of the kids were seven or eight. They were squirrelly because they wanted to take off and investigate the whole camp in, say, 10 minutes. Getting them to put their stuff away, find a bunck bed to their liking and then listen to us counselors go through our routine was exhausting.

Dinner couldn't come fast enough. Later that first night, there would be another entire camp meeting for a Campfire. There was the usual sorts of entertainment and storytelling. July 1 in Orillia is often a bit brisk. There was something special about a fire set against the backdrop of Lake Simcoe on a chilly night. By the time we headed back, the lads were ready for sleep.

But there was one more task left for counselors and staff. Often, we had a late first night meeting (sometimes at what was left of the fire) to give first impressions of our new cabins. We would trade names of past campers we had been with for the benefit of others. Truth be told, we were probably more tired than the campers. But there was such an adrenalin rush that sleep was still impossible.

The next day, we were hit the ground running for the 10-day adventure.

I think of CBC often. Although it has been nearly 40 years since I was there, I remember the wonderful nights there. I remember sitting with other Americans listening to George McGovern's acceptance speech at the 1972 Dem convention on a transistor radio ... at 3 in the morning. We sat by the flag pole in the middle of the camp to get the best reception.

I remember a few kids' names here and there ... and some of the adventures we had with them. I remember fellow counselors and the great priests and novices that taught me so much about life.

But what I always will remember the most about CBC was an intangible - a feeling that the world could really be a peaceful, simple place at times. We were far enough away from civilization that all the nastiness that was out there really did seem to be in another world. I understand this type of Xanadu can't last. We only get one childhood per customer. On every July 1, however, it is nice to sit back and remember a time when about the biggest care in the world you really had was making sure the kids in your cabin know where City Hall was (you went there to pay your taxes).