There was no internet. There was no email. I obtained a list of camps and started writing letters in the early spring. Three responded to set up phone interviews. I was hired by “Camp Onaway” which sits on Newfound Lake in Hebron, NH.
The campers arrived the last week of June. Counselors were to report a few days prior for orientation. I packed up my Hyundai Excel and headed north. After nearly seven hours in the car, I made a left turn on a winding, tree lined road and continued down a gravel path. The view opened up and the lake was in clear sight. I was greeted by the camp director and shown the “cabin” where I would be spending the summer.
She introduced me to the other counselors, all of whom had been campers at Onaway for several summers during their childhood. It was then I discovered that I was the first counselor hired that had not been a camper at Onaway. That’s when it started to get awkward. They were being reunited with their summer family and I felt like an outsider.
The first day of meetings came to a close and we retired to our cabins. I spent the night awake, wondering if the animal I heard clawing from an unknown location would somehow find it’s way into my bunk. At sunrise, I got in my car and headed back home.
I spent that summer working with my mom at a mail order company in town. A friend of mine who lost her mother that spring found out her father had cancer. She was 15 years old. That was the summer I learned how to run.
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