Page 178 - WhyAsInY

Why (as in yaverbaum)
Kee-Wah was enormous, at least twice the size of Anawana or Star- light, in both population and acreage. Kee-Wah-Ke alone had well over twenty-five bunks, each containing eight campers if the camp was full. (It always was, at least when I was there.) In addition, there were approx- imately thirty camper-waiters, who were known as “co-ops” for reasons that are far from clear. Kee-Wah-We was of comparable size. The camps ran like well-oiled machines: If, in April of any given year, you were to inquire as to the expected whereabouts of the junior boys during the third period on a Thursday in the fifth week of camp during the upcom- ing summer, those counselors who had been there for years could tell you that the juniors would be on the outdoor basketball court—unless it would be raining. Campers too had been there for years, and it was said that they would know where to report during each period, even if their counselors were not immediately in sight.
Well, what was I doing at a new camp? My problem was that I would not have turned sixteen by the summer of 1960, and sixteen was the age that Starlight required if you wished to return as a junior counselor. I had already gone as far I could go as a camper at Starlight and did not want to return in that capacity. Kee-Wah would take me in the hybrid capacity of a co-op, which meant that I would both wait on tables and have organized sports (softball, basketball, tennis, soccer, and flag foot- ball) during the rest of the day (leisure time aside). I could also use the waterfront facilities. There would be counselors whose job it was to supervise the co-ops, who were fifteen (me) and sixteen years of age (by far the majority). The counselors were all, of necessity, big. (The post- puberty co-op group was likely to be hormonally driven and quite unruly.) The counselors all were or had been college athletes. One had pitched in the minors. Another was a football player who had a reputa- tion of being a little bit of a bully and a big bit of a dumb lug. He did not enhance his reputation when, while showing off by chinning on a rafter, he managed to break one of his two front teeth in half. About thirty-five years later, when I faced him in a complicated real estate negotiation (he was an attorney, not a principal), he showed himself to be bright, but he
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