When we become parents, we have one ultimate fear: that our kids grow up to be turds. We dream of them accepting noble peace prizes and giving State of The Unions. We dream of them living happy, calm and productive lives. So it is with that thought in mind that I understand my father’s desire to make me a confident and cultured man at the young age of 8.

To him, I was exhibiting signs of becoming a recluse who would be shunned by the world. It could have been the time I told him my dream was to own plastic cutlery in every color of the rainbow. It could have been when I spent an entire Saturday eating rotten crab apples I found on the ground. I thought I was simply being a typical 8 year old boy, but, apparently, I was monster who wasn’t supposed to threaten to pee their pants every time my parents forced me to leave the house.

At first, his solution to make me a more normal and cultured person was to casually give me books he’d gotten from the library. The books were placed on the ground and remained un-opened so he decide to aggressively give me books he’d gotten from the library. The books remained aggressively un-opened.

Acknowledging that I had won the battle, my father decided to take on a new tactic, one that played right into my strength – TV. His general thought was that if he could trick me into watching movies he deemed significant, I would start to evolve into a kid who had hire aspirations than one day owning a skunk as a pet. With just a few simple movies, he thought, my life would change to one of supreme elegance.

Unfortunately, my father decided to jump, “Right into the good stuff,” by starting with the genre of horror movies. I think the idea was that I needed to be ‘scared straight’ but no matter the reasoning behind his recklessness, on consecutive nights, I was forced to watch A Clockwork Orange, Tremors, Deliverance, and The Exorcist.

While my father was concerned I didn’t act like a normal eight year old, I certainly reacted in a way quite typical for eight year olds when watching those four movies…back to back to back to back. My parents’ desire to have me be well-adjusted and cultured quickly took a back seat to wanting me to begin blinking again. Fearing he’d done permanent damage, my father decided to pull the old, “not my problem” and sent me to a summer camp where I could be around kids my own age. Normally, a summer camp would be a good idea, but, to me, the thought of spending three weeks in the woods only a few days after I watched the horrors of Deliverance wasn’t anything less than punishment. But my kicking and complaining didn’t deter my parents, and they loaded me up in the mini-van, drove me deep into the woods of Sharon, Vermont, and dropped me off at a camp with a name that sounded like it was more about lithium than summer fun. What do you expect when you name a camp Camp Downer.

If I were to come up with a list of the worst summer camp names they would be:
- Camp Bad Touch
- Camp Infection
- Camp Manson, and
- Camp Downer

Most camps are named after a Native American word (Camp Tantanaski, Camp Wikipedia) or something that sounds fun (Camp Sunburst, Camp Taxbreak). Camp Downer, however, decided to forgo this convention and gave itself a name that sounded like it was for depressed kids who want to spend their summers carrying cinder blocks.

When my parents dropped me off, I was greeted by a councilor named Stewey. I half expected him to welcome me to Camp Downer by handing me a picture of two graves, one labeled “Mom,” the other “Dad.”

Instead, Stewey exaggerated his friendliness and welcomed me to a camp that, by the looks of the other campers, was primarily for weird kids who weren’t functional enough to make friends in their home town. As soon as I said goodbye to my parents, Stewey told me not to worry, they’d come back for me and called me “Big Man, ” – which was equally effective at proving he’d forgotten my name and making me feel self-conscious for being small.

“You’re not allowed to come within ten feet of the pond if you don’t pass a swimming test,” Stewey told me as he walked me by the pond.

I looked at the pond and noticed the four feet of green slime and brown muck I’d have to wade through in order to get to clearer, but by no means clean, water. In the middle of the pond was a dinky raft that a group of kids had swam out to and were systematically beating each other senseless, trying to knock each other off. The water looked too much like the stuff the girl puked out in The Exorcist, the raft activity too much like A Clockwork Orange for my tastes.

I told Stewey that my real parents had drowned and I wouldn’t swim during my three week sentence. He began to talk to me about the virtues of swimming and how a “tall fella” like myself would be a good swimmer when I decided to just turn and walk away. I left the pond behind and went to my bunk to unpack and mope.

After a few minutes of some really solid moping, I decided to check out the grounds for an escape route or a family of bears who might take me in as their own. Instead I came across a ball attached to a pole by a piece of string. I’d never seen this contraption, and I looked around for a basketball hoop, thinking this was simply their way of making sure people wouldn’t run off with the ball. After a few minutes, I began to poke the ball.

“Do you want to play?” said a voice behind me.

I turned around to see a kid wearing a gray foam mesh hat that said “Mookie Wilson Baseball Academy.” Each of his teeth appeared to be going in opposite directions and his glasses were strung around his neck with a purple strap that said “Wycked” on it.

“Play what?” I said as I poked at the ball again.

“It’s a tether ball,” the kid said, emphasizing the word ball as if that is what had confused me.

Over the course of the next few minutes I learned the dental freak’s name was Teddy, he’d been here for two weeks already, and that tether ball is a game where you try and slap the ball in the opposite direction of your opponent until it wraps completely around the pole. Teddy assured me it was more fun than it sounded. Not seeing a family of bears around, I decided to give it a shot and play against him.

I beat him in roughly four seconds. We played again and this time I beat him even quicker. Teddy wasn’t the poster child for athleticism, but he liked playing and I liked beating him mercilessly. After a couple more instantly-won games a few kids started coming out of their bunks and assembling at the tether ball court. Soon people who wanted to play formed a line. One after another I dispatched my flat-footed and plump-bellied opponents. After a few solid hours I remained unbeaten and was running out of kids to humiliate.

Every day for the next three weeks was completely devoted to tether ball. I skipped all group activities and spent every minute of sunlight slapping the ball around and around the pole. I became unbeatable. None of the other campers were coordinated enough to brush their teeth let alone pose a serious threat to my dominance.

Near the end of my three week stay, the camp newspaper did a feature article on me and my incredible win streak. It was titled “Will He Ever Lose?” The entire camp had been polled and  100% of the kids said they didn’t think I could be beaten.

All the winning had gone to my head, and I decided my success should not be contained to the tether ball court. I wanted to do something brash, daring, and grand to show that my greatness wasn’t limited to a pole with a ball on it. I decided I would do the unthinkable. I would ask one of the female councilors to dance at the End of Summer dance the night before my parents came to pick me up. Breaking the barrier between campers and councilors would be my greatest accomplishment.

Over the next few days I watched the councilors intently, trying to figure out which of the ladies would bring me the greatest sense of accomplishment. I selected Cindy Meensky simply because she seemed to be the right height (I didn’t know anything about women and figured this was an appropriate measure of attractiveness).

About an hour before the dance I set up shop at the tether ball court for a few ego-boosting  ass whoopings.  As the sun set we could hear the music from the mess hall and knew it was time to head over and face destiny.

Teddy couldn’t believe I was bold enough to ask a councilor to dance. “You mean you’re just going to ask her?”

“Yup,” I said. “I’m sure she read the article and I think I saw her watch us play a few times.”

“I don’t know, Patrick. I mean, she’s a councilor. I don’t think this has been done before.”

I didn’t expect Teddy to understand. I wouldn’t have been able to understand when I first arrived either, but as we walked to the mess hall, I felt as if I could pick up the entire building and throw it a thousand miles.

When we arrived I quickly took up a spot near the food, thinking it would be the best place to get noticed. I watched Cindy the entire time. After a few songs I decided now was the time and delaying my victory would be pointless. I marched across the dance floor right into a circle of councilors. I could feel the eyes of the other campers locked on me. I tapped Cindy on the back and watched as she, and every other councilor, turned to look at me.

With a strong voice and direct eye contact I said, “Would you like to dance with me, Cindy?” A few of the councilors behind her began to chuckle. Some turned and laughed. Cindy smiled. Only later in life would I be able to fully recognize her smile, as a classic, “How do I get out of this?” smile. I held out my hand to lead her to the dance floor.

She stuttered and mumbled for a few seconds about how she was busy or tired. I reached my hand closer to her, thinking her reluctance was because my hand was too far away. She continued to stutter and the other councilors behind her held their hands over their mouths to conceal their laughter.

She started to talk about councilor conduct before she stopped abruptly. She wrinkled her nose in disgust. She looked around, sniffing each time she shifted her head. Finally, she looked back at me and discovered that the odd smell was me. “Have you taken a shower today?” she asked.

“No,” I said with pride. “I haven’t showered the entire time I’ve been here.”

“Why haven’t you showered?”

“I don’t like showering,” I said, as my hand narrowed the distance between us.

“When’s the last time you went swimming?”

“I haven’t gone swimming,” I said.  ”I played tether ball instead.”

“You mean to tell me that in the entire time you’ve been here you haven’t been near water, let alone soap?” Cindy said in disbelief.

“I’m undefeated,” I said. “You probably read the art—”

“Go take a shower!!” she yelled.

People were looking at me, too embarrassed to even laugh. I brought my hand back down to my side, looked around the room, and walked briskly toward the exit. I was confused—to an eight year old kid showering made as much sense as salad forks and French kissing.

I went back to my bunk and wallowed in the shower. There wasn’t any hot water, but it didn’t matter. The cold water stung my back and I held my head under the water so I couldn’t hear the music from the mess hall.

The next day Teddy met me by the reception area and waited with me while I waited for my parents. We were both afraid that any conversation would lead to the previous night, we didn’t say much to each other.

As my parents’ mini-van pulled up, Teddy took off his hat and offered it to me. “To remember the good times,” he said.

I told him I didn’t want it because it didn’t fit my head, but I think we both knew I was too busy sulking to even consider the good times. I had just found out the smallest form of rejection can outweigh the largest moments of success.

As I slid into the back of my parents’ mini-van, my mother said, “Oh good! I see you made friends. This camp advertises its campers will make friends that will last a lifetime.”

“Yup,” I said. “Camp Downer proved to be everything it said it would be.”

The car drove away, and I watched as Teddy waved his hands frantically in front of his dysfunctional, wide smile. I realized that tomorrow and forever he would remember his time at Camp Downer for the good, and he’d tell his friends and family what a happy time he’d had, equally exaggerating how good I’d been at tetherball and how embarrassing my moment of rejection was. Thinking that I’d played a part in Teddy’s summer forced a smile onto my face. I unrolled the camp newspaper and gave it to my mom. I had a record I needed to get busy bragging about.