He was unlike my father in most ways, too, but the two shared a love of folk dancing, and a life-long bond due to time as campers and later counselors at a boy's camp on an island in Lake Winnipesaukee. My world-class punster dad, if I have this right, resigned his time as counselor by offering the Camp Director a single bristle from a broom, declaring it "the last straw." I don't know what George was like as a teenager, if he was different before Vietnam, but as a dad-aged character, examined closely by this sheltered New England girl, he was the kind of guy who said he had to "water a tree" before peeing up against its roots, and gleefully pointed out chipmunks on the woodpile, doing what they do in the spring.
We LOVED visiting.
The camp had been closed for long enough for everything to be musty, but not long enough that you couldn't still find shell casings at the firing range, or sleep in a long-silent campers cabin, on dubious cots, in your very own L.L. Bean sleeping bag!
There was a big central activities hall by the main dock, which boasted a cabinet full of dusty board games, and a piano you could pretend to play, especially if you didn't know the meaning of being "in tune."
That main dock received the mail boat, and had an actual, full-sized diving board, which you could use if you were willing to penetrate the top few feet of sun-warmed water and descend into the freezing New Hampshire lake temperatures. We were. We did. That dock witnessed life and death moments, and the hall made me dream of rowdy nights of fun with imagined friends, laced with the heady freedom of summertime away from your regular life.
Best of all, if you knew the way, there was a tiny beach on the back side of the island, called Big Sandy. And if you knew even more than that, you could use two beach boulders as reference points, and swim out into the lake to form an isosceles triangle with them, and your thrilled toes would eventually find the huge submerged rock, where you could rest, in triumph, and then launch off again on the rest of your swim toward the floating wooden dock, which everyone knew about. Not like you kids, who also knew about the rock.
On one trip, there were enough "summer-only" residents - George was the island's full-time caretaker by that point, and had strong opinions about the recurring fair-weather denizens - that a friendly soccer game was arranged one day. Tween Devon did not find such a prospect "friendly" at all. Despite my dad and Jason's excellence and enjoyment of the sport, it was still... a sport. Which excluded it categorically from Things I Could Do Without Dying. I guess I was talked into going to the field. I know I was wearing a prized green and white striped polo shirt. I was in despair.
But then, something truly awful must have happened. Like, the enthusiastic dad who was organizing the game officially assigned me a position, or some such horror. I claimed I was suddenly "so tired" and ran away to a nearby cabin to lie right on the guano-covered floor. I might have even convinced myself I was tired, or pretended to sleep. But of course, my parents saw right through my charade, and came to... rescue me, you might hope? Promise I would never again have to endure such an indignity? Nope. They had met me, after all. And with what I now enjoy imagining as Magical Parenting Patience, they talked me down (I am certain there was an ocean of tears, but that was par for the course - Look! A sports metaphor!) until I agreed to emerge from the shadowy four-bunker into the terrifying light of day, where every single person had just witnessed me run away.
I don't remember actually playing. It's possible, if unlikely, that I even avoided "whiffing" if I ever had to kick the ball. I don't remember, but I might possibly have had some fun. I don't remember anything but wobbling my way out of that cabin onto the field, chin up, if quivering, and the Enthusiastic Dad not missing a single beat. He just brightened, and said, "Green Stripes is playing?" And, albeit with a watery voice, I said, "Green Stripes is playing."
I will never, ever forget his kindness.
I have been striving to give people that much respect and acceptance ever since.
So here we are, kids. The last of my self-promised "writing projects" for the year. I've had the most ease (and if I'm honest, enjoyment) writing these memoir-type things, but I still really want to try my hand at fiction. I'm a bit mortified by writing about myself, and then asking people to read it. But the fact that a year ago, I hadn't really created anything all on my own, and now... I have, brings me a quiet, embarrassed pride. So, in 2023, I am going to take a writing course, and I am going to try writing fiction. And even worse, I'll need people to read it. Paid people, though - not you! Don't worry! Oh, man. Putting myself out there is hard.
Honestly, as I forge my way through this world, my chin is still often wobbling, even if it looks like it's held high, even to this day. But, my friends...
Green Stripes is playing.
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