I told myself that as soon as I set foot on camp property that summer for my final year in the Junior Counselor Training Program, all of the trauma of the last nine months would fall away and I would be magically restored. The illusion lasted until my friends came up to me to say how sorry they were about my father. Because I wanted it to stop—I was not going to have my summer defined in that way—I shrugged it off. “That’s OK. He was a drunk.” His death set me apart when I most needed to belong, and every time somebody mentioned it I was reminded that I no longer did.
From the time I was six or seven, I looked up to the JCs. Set apart from the rest of us by their all-white uniforms, they were what I aspired to be. The JC unit song was an anthem of their strength, their dedication, and their attitude.
Every summer since I became a JC I, my schedule had become more regimented, and the focus had shifted from learning to achievement and responsibility. This suited me perfectly, and having made it all the way to be an assistant counselor felt like a tremendous achievement. At that point, the only real difference between us and full counselors was the fact that we didn’t get paid.
Since I had been the only JC III in the entire camp the previous summer, I expected to be the only JC IV this year. Instead, there were now two of us. Joan Henry, whom I barely knew, had started at the camp only the summer before, which meant while I was done with almost all of my requirements in sailing, archery, riflery, swimming, and land sports, Joan was starting from scratch. Even though we were the same age, I didn’t consider us peers, but she was able to participate in the program because the brass had drastically modified the requirements for her.
The lack of ACs meant the camp didn’t have enough coverage. Instead of living with the junior counselors during the half of the summer we worked at the day camp, as we normally would have done, we spent the entire summer in the unit we’d been assigned to as counselors while we worked at the day camp, effectively doubling the normal workload, eliminating most of our downtime, and making it almost impossible to spend time with the other JCs.
I was still allowed to participate in sailing races on the weekends, but I rarely got to shoot archery. When I got a chance to practice one day, shooting left-handed just to challenge myself, Judy, the JC head counselor, pulled me aside to remind me that I was an assistant counselor. “You need to focus on your unit and your campers.” I’d been spending the bulk of whatever free time I had with my friends over at the JC unit, but she said that needed to stop as well.
As the summer ground on, they kept putting limits on me. I tried, and mostly failed, to focus on the work of being a counselor, but the truth was, I just wanted to be a camper again.