Last night, as I do every evening, I made my way from bunk to bunk to say goodnight to the boys. When I walked into Winnebago, my eyes drifted to the old bunk plaques hanging on the wall. One name immediately caught my attention: Andy Levine. It took me back to the summer of 1971, my second summer at Takajo.
That was the year Morty Goldman decided to switch around my bunk. Andy and several of my closest friends and bunkmates from the previous summer ended up together in Winnebago. I ended up in Oneida. There was no explanation, no meeting, no conversation about why. Morty simply made the change, and that was that. At ten years old, I was crushed.
Like most boys that age, I couldn’t imagine camp without my closest friends. I was convinced the summer had been ruined before it even began. Of course, it wasn’t. I made more friends, stayed close with my old friends, and I had a terrific summer. The following summer and for the remainder of our camping years, we were all back together in the same bunk again.
Standing in Winnebago with those boys last night, fifty-five years later, recounting to these boys my time as a camper, I decided to call Andy. The boys gathered around my phone as it rang. Andy answered immediately, and before long we were laughing, telling stories, and, as often happens with old friends, finishing each other’s sentences. The boys got a kick out of it. Here were two grown men talking as though no time had passed since we were campers ourselves. When we hung up, it struck me that the boys standing around me were watching something much bigger than a phone call. They were watching what camp friendships can become.
I often say camp friendships are different from friendships made anywhere else. I think it’s because camp compresses so much life into such a short period of time. You don’t just see your friends for an hour after school or on a weekend. You wake up together, eat together, compete together, laugh together, solve problems together, celebrate together, and fall asleep just a few feet apart every night.
The boys in Winnebago today probably didn’t think much about the plaque hanging on their wall before last night. To them, it’s simply a list of names from long ago. Before I hung up with Andy, I looked around the bunk and asked the boys to imagine something that probably seemed impossible.
“Fast-forward fifty-five years,” I said. “Can you even think of calling one of the boys sitting beside you today and laughing about this summer?” They were captivated by the thought.
At their age, fifty-five years might as well be forever. Yet here I am, still talking with Andy more than half a century later. We’ve remained close through the years, and this August we’ll be together again for Camp Takajo’s 80th Anniversary Weekend. But one day, many years from now, one of those boys may walk back into that same bunk. He’ll look at the plaque, remember the summer he spent there, and maybe he’ll decide to call one of the names beside his own.
My guess is they’ll still be finishing each other’s sentences.
