Wednesday, January 1, 2014

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Camp -- 24C -- NOT OFTEN



            In the early 70’s during the Viet Nam War especially, we had many instances of having to deal with those who were smoking marijuana and taking dope.  Sometimes this meant having to deal with the issue with staffers as well as campers. 
One year there was a rumor that came to my attention that several staffers were smoking pot.   I called an emergency meeting with those who I thought might be potentially involved.   I went down to Sherwood to pick up one or two of them.   They wanted to know what this was all about.   After I had the group together I appealed to their good judgment that this was not acceptable at camp and especially by staffers.   We discovered that all of the ones we had at this gathering were not necessarily involved themselves but knew who were.   There was also a rumor that someone was growing the marijuana weed up at Nelder Grove which was the hill up and behind Calvin Crest about a mile.  I wanted to bring these to light so that we could deal with them as positively as we could. 
We had one young man on staff who had some experience with those on drugs.   One night there was a camper who evidently had over dosed on some drug.   The staffer held the teenage boy in his arms and kept whispering in his ears and repeating over and over again,   “Let it come out.”    He stroked the arms and legs as though he was pulling something out of the camper’s system.    It helped calm the young man while we had him transported to a hospital in Fresno.   Grateful outcome. 

Happy New Year!  I had a great New Year’s eve day with Mark, Jenny, Nancy and surprise visit from Paul and Debbie from Houston!  Awesome and wonderful!

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