Viking Boys Camp

A lesson that my father often uses with my sister and I is; ‘When I was at Camp Thoroe,’ and then either continues on to share some morality lesson or a humorous story of what one of his friends did in the lunch hall. This was a normal occurrence of my childhood, but I never expected to live the same things.

My father and his mother, who lives in Vermont where she raised him and his older brother, first proposed the idea of me going to a summer camp sometime in the winter of 2015. They brought it to my mother, I assume, and I also assume that she turned down the idea enough times that they decided to bring it to me and see what I thought. At first I was heavily opposed. Opposed to going to a losers summer camp, opposed to being gone from Buffalo for so long, opposed to being in a completely new environment with completely new people, and completely shut off from everyone else except the occasional letter. After much arguing and disagreement, I was told that I didn’t have a choice in the matter anyway, and would be going to a boys camp in Vermont called Lanakila, which was directed by a good friend of my grandmothers. It had a general Viking theme, with a Hawaiian name, and a strong sailing department, as it was on a lake. That’s all I knew.

So in June of 2016, I packed a trunk from my grandmothers house in Vermont for a three and a half week stay, and I was dropped off with pride in my father's eyes, to see his son following the same steps as him, and tears in my mother’s, because she had to leave her poor little baby boy. I, however was generally discontented with the whole situation, as I was not looking forward to any of the coming month. I was classified, by age, as a ‘Hillsider’, and being completely new, I spent most of my time alone, reading and getting adjusted to the strange cult-like atmosphere of this new Viking Boys Camp.

In fact I was so absorbed in becoming acclimated, I barely remember enough to write an essay on that summer. What I do remember, and what I often contribute the person I am today largely to, was the following summer, my last available summer as a camper at Lanakila. Once again I was hesitant about committing so much of my summer to one thing, but the confidence I had built from the summer before, and the thought of missing an opportunity that so many people praised so highly made me go back. This time as a last year Lakesider, the oldest group of boys, and the most respected. Given, a year had passed since I was last on the banks of that Lake Morey, but that summer was almost a completely different camp to me.

Instead of being in a tent with two other boys and a counselor like the summer before, I was in LC1, the first cabin of four in Lakeside. There were two distinct sides with three boys each, and I grew closer to Ruben and Elvis than I think I have anyone else, before or since. Every morning, all seven of us in LC1, including Ben our counselor, would wake up in order, from Elvis at four to swim around the lake, to Aden, who would almost always wake up just in time to be putting his socks on as we were called to breakfast. After returning from the meal, we would all set to cleaning the cabin. Like clockwork (but with each piece having its own idea of the time of day) we would all make sure everything was done, usually while singing Bohemian Rhapsody as loud as we dared, which was of considerable volume. The long summer days passed quickly from there, always rigidly scheduled by never two the same. Late in the evenings, after we were limited to our cabins and tents, every man had his part to fill. Ben was usually gone doing paperwork and the like, as he was higher up in the camp order, and so we would either watch ourselves, or often Fraser Boyd came from the counselor tent nearby to talk and play card games as boys do. It was at these times when I felt the most at home that I had ever felt. They would all be doing their parts, one was the smart aleck, one was the actual smarts, one played softly on a guitar or a ukulele, and occasionally we would all play a card game. I would sit back on a bed and draw the scene, or just observe, quietly making the occasional smart remark that, if heard, might send anyone into laughter.

It was at these times, when the single battery powered lantern shone from the two-by-four rafters and the sound of someone strumming and singing softly drifted across the close knit circle of tents and cabins, when I learned who I wanted to be. I wanted to be the quiet kid, but the one that when he did say something, it was either deeply meaningful or brilliantly funny. I did not want to be a jack of all trades, master of none, I wanted to be known for something. A master of one. Not a work of art though, or a skill, or my name. I wanted to be known as memorable. Someone different. Someone who knows what he is here for.

Still, more than a year after I left Lakeside with a ceremony that can be described as nothing less than otherworldly, I think about those nights with those people under that battery powered lantern. I am fully aware of how cliché this whole thing sounds, but still I mean it when I say that they changed me. If I ever have doubts, or want to rethink where I’m going, I think to the rainy last night at Viking Boys Camp, with the fog settling in around the small and frail boathouse, with forty some young men all crowded inside, hushed by the awe they all shared. Awe for a feeling, one of some ancient power. But it wasn’t an ancient power of some Pagan gods or unknown magic, it was a realization. A realization that varied from person to person, but they were all equally deep and meaningful. Mine was that I knew the person I wanted to be, and how to act to be him. I knew what I thought of myself, and I knew that some changes are irreversible. Viking Boys Camp was one of those changes.