I am 20 years old, a freshly minted college graduate, working at Camp Sacajawea, the
Duchess County Girl Scout Camp. I’ve never been a Girl Scout. I’ve never camped. My
sole qualification: I am dating Bill, the guy who maintains the buildings and grounds. He is my first, and only, college boyfriend. His idea that I work at camp sounded good in April, but reality is sinking in.
“Where are their jackknives? This is a class on knife skills. You brought these girls over here and you didn’t think to tell them to bring their knives?” The tanned, athletic, ridiculously capable instructor of everything essential, like knife skills, fire-building, knot-tying and campfire cooking, burns holes in me with her scorn. She can barely contain her disgust. I deserve it. “Look, at the last minute, my staff didn’t show up; she scheduled this group,” I tell her. “I’m supposed to be off right now. I didn’t even have time to look at the schedule.” The excuse lands like a dull knife on a cutting board. The girl scout motto is “be prepared.” Yeah, right.
My list of deficits grows daily in my head: not a Girl Scout, not from Duchess County,
“new girl” in a place where everyone grew up together, Bill’s girlfriend which ruffles the feathers of some staff who may have their eyes on him, non-smoker of any burnable substances, and most of all, the team leader position is way over my head. Plus, I’m a slow learner: There’s a sign in the office that says “A good girl scout never dries out.” I puzzle over that for weeks. It takes a stretch of heavy rain for me to understand. Maybe another deficit is a missing sense of humor. Staff joke about the Saki wave and I’m thinking there’s some secret handshake. Well, no. We have to walk around waving a hand in front of our faces to keep from inhaling the hovering clouds of gnats.
The days start at sunrise. We line up for a flag ceremony on the wet grass. The gnats
gather. We march into the dining hall and sing grace, conducted each day by a different group of girls. When it’s my group’s turn, I let the dominant camper (and there’s one in every group, believe me) run the show while I hide behind the mantra of girl empowerment.
Summer is a blur of chores, classes, swimming, hiking, eating, cleaning up, and sleep
deprivation. Staff all get a 24 hour leave once a week, but I’m not included in much.
Some of the counselors seem like the girls I used to avoid in the high school bathroom. At the end of each day, the flag is taken down and there’s a campfire. Someone makes S’mores. Someone plays a guitar, and there’s the requisite sing-along. Girls sit on pieces of plastic shower curtain as hordes of mosquitoes feast on their bare legs. In the dark, each group of campers is dismissed with a song. My group carries the tune with us as we head off into the darkness where our platform tents wait, damp and chilly.
I settle the girls, calm their fears, and then fight my own in the clammy sleeping bag,
dreading another day of this summer. I wonder if a staff person ever ran away from
camp. The idea thrills me. But I’m expected at knife skills class tomorrow. And this time I’ll be sure every camper has her knife.