Young, Beautiful and Stupid

Back in high school and even into college, I spent my summers at Camp Timber-lee serving in various capacities. Those were formative years for me, and I met friends there who are friends for life. A few years back I put together a set of CDs containing music from the era that more or less served as the soundtrack for those summers -- at least for myself. As the era of Facebook has brought me back into contact with many dear friends from my Timber-lee days, I thought I'd share the "liner notes" (ha!) I wrote for that set of CDs. And here they are:

Picture if you will a bright summer Saturday. It is hot — 90 degrees or so — and there is a stiff breeze blowing from the west. It is nearly noon, and the last of your kids has hugged you and walked off into his future and your past. You have 24 hours before the next crew rolls into camp. Depending on your disposition, you have a choice ahead of you: grab lunch at the lodge and go immediately to bed to catch up on some much-needed sleep; load up the car with a change of clothes and your favorite tapes and head off to spend the night at a friend’s house a couple hours away; cash your check at the office and head into Whitewater or Elkhorn with a load of laundry; or, if you’re lucky, take yet another shower and begin preparing for your big date in Lake Geneva tonight.

Or maybe it’s your night off. A tense wait at the dinner line leaves you fearful that your relief counselor is going to beg off for the night, but to your relief he arrives and leaves you free to explore the Wisconsin countryside as you see fit. Sneak into the Lodge long enough to grab a pear or an apple for the road, and make your way to your trusty LTD, Caprice, or Chevette for a few hours of automotive abuse on Phantom Lake Road. After sundown, you and a few friends will head to Lauber’s for ice cream and general hanging around. Later, you’ll take command of your cabin once more. When you’re sure your kids are asleep, you’ll spend a few hours talking, laughing, and eating cheese and summer sausage in the village center chalet with some fellow counselors and your village leaders. If you’re in Oak Ridge, you’ll laugh at Rat Patrol when you take the back trail to family camp for a load of Coke, Sprite, or Barq’s root beer from the pop machine to replenish your supply.

Whether it’s the weekend, your night off, an hour or two stolen while your co-counselor watches your cabin for you so you can spend some time by yourself, it’s likely that you’re accompanied by music that will come to mark these days as some of the best you will ever know. There isn’t a soundtrack to those days, but I hope these disks come close. Some of these songs may cause you to flinch in embarrassment; others may yet be living healthy, active lives in your CD player or car stereo; still others are very specific reminders indeed of certain moments you will never forget. (U2’s Spanish Eyes will forever bring back to me a car ride shared with Paul Robinson, Jim Fritzsche, and Jim Perry back from Lauber’s late one night.)

We were young and stupid: why didn’t we ever pause to consider whether we were really equipped to do what it was we were doing at Timber-lee those summers? Now that we’re all so much older, we know that this is precisely why we were so perfectly equipped.