The same high school homeroom teacher that set me on the path toward college and away from enlisting in the armed services surprised me with a quiet conversation during the spring of my senior year. He said that he owned a girls’ camp in Vermont and that he was offering me a job working there. I had already worked in a large Boy Scout camp and enjoyed it. The prospect of a train ride to Vermont was appealing. The thought of kitchen work and painting buildings and whatnot appealed, too.
It was a different sort of camp from what I had experienced up to then. For one thing, the campers ranged from about 6 years old to about 16 years old. For another, they stayed in one place for the whole 8 week season. And they were all females. Only the owner, the aged handyman, my young handyman partner and kitchen aide named Jon and I were male. Many of the girls were quite beautiful but most of those had that air that I read as “pampered rich kid who is already spoiled, egotistical and poisonous”. I tended to stay away from them. There was one attractive and sensible member of the staff I liked. We walked and flirted a bit but never saw each other after that first summer.
Some of the campers had come to the same camp for many consecutive years and of course, had developed a tender spot for the place. It was near Hanover, New Hampshire which was a wonderful place to visit and tour the campus of Dartmouth College, a beautiful and historic place, both from early in the days of America and more recently.
I had lots of time to read and I enjoyed doing so as much than as I do now. I read Margaret Mead’s “Sex and Identity” and had time to think about being male and differences between the thoughts of a mother of a boy and of a girl. I didn’t realize then as clearly as I do now that men and boys have places in them for tenderness and affection but those places are more guarded and protected. I did get an exposure to the social sensitivity of young women at that camp. One day I was walking along behind the owner, a gruff-appearing man with a very bass voice. He passed a trio of girls walking toward him and said,” Good morning, girls”. After he had passed a few steps, one said to the others with some concern,” I wonder what he meant by that.” I wanted to yell at them to come off it, that he meant to greet them and that was all.
I was invited back for the next year and accepted. I managed to get my girlfriend a job there, too. We enjoyed the trip and being away together but were not invited back.
