I was definitely in the running for the all-around athlete award, at least I thought so. I had been in almost every event, and though I didn't win any, I was second in one, third in another, and my team had won the volleyball championship. But when they gave out the award for all-around athlete, it was this other guy. Suddenly it seemed like the week I had spent at the Pine Lake Bible Camp was going to pass without any notice, any accomplishments on my part. But I had accomplished some things. I had managed to not spend any of the five dollars that my father had given me. All campers had to turn in their cash to the commissary and spend money out of an account. But I somehow felt it a virtue to spend nothing, and so I did without. Probably the early signs of a future martyr, but I was strangely proud of the accomplishment. Mostly because it was so different from the rest of the crowd.
Pine Lake, Eldora, Iowa. About 41 miles from my home in Cedar Falls. But if you asked me then, Eldora was somewhere way off in Southeast Iowa. A long way away, certainly. Now it looks like a nothin' drive. Especially with the 75 mile an hour highways back then. But every summer some of the kids in my family would go off to the Pine Lake Bible Camp. Which is the good reason to go to Eldora.
The bad reason to go to Eldora was to be sent to Eldora, i.e., to be sent to the Boy's Reform School. That constituted one of the standing fears of my childhood, and of every other kid I knew. Everyone knew that "if you were bad," you could be sent to the reform school in Eldora. No one really knew how bad you had to be, or what being bad meant. No one knew anything bad enough to do in order to get sent to Eldora. Except, I suppose, stealing or something. All we knew was that if you had "three counts against you," you could be sent to Eldora.
The closest I ever got to getting a count against me was the time Chip Mahon, my sister Jan and I decided to climb down into every one of the window wells in front of Malcolm Price Laboratory School. This is back in Cedar Falls, not Eldora (we're having a flashback). At the time, of course, everyone called the school "the Lab School." The kids in the school universally hated the full name, probably because nobody could stand the name Malcolm. It seemed kind of like a wimp name. This was before Malcolm X was famous. This was before even Malcolm X was Malcolm X. Some ambitious high schooler pulled out the cement-footed sign that was stuck in the schoolyard announcing the new name. The sign gave way, but the name stuck. It's really no fun doing all kinds of good things, helping thousands of people, as former university president Malcolm Price must have done, and then to have the ingrate kids in the school named after you hate your name.
But so what, back down into those window wells. The front of the Lab School is built across a long, gentle, grassy incline. The windows of the bottom floor at the south end are fully visible, but as you go north, they are only open to the world due to the window wells that were dug down, concreted, and covered with metal grates.
One day the three of us started climbing down into the window wells, one by one. Since they kept getting deeper and we at ages ten, eleven and nine were not getting any taller, each well was a bigger and bigger challenge. We would open up the metal gate that led down into the well, climb down into the thing, and then climb back out. Of course, while we were busily engaged in this brainless passtime, it was getting darker, and to some neighbor across the street, we must have looked like a group of skinny midgets preparing to break into the school kitchen to steal all of that dry roast beef.
In any case, we had only managed to climb into and out of about two thirds of the window wells when a big person showed up with a flashlight and asked us what we were doing. This was not just any big person, either, it was one of the basketball officials who used to work at my father's basketball games. My dad was the high school coach. It's strange how adults show up in new contexts all of the time. Just when you think that you have them pegged as doctor, lawyer or indian chief, they turn up as some kind of truant officer.
It's amazing how difficult it is to explain the logic of play to an adult. You start to explain it, but since the importance of what you're doing is imaginary, it doesn't come out sounding right, at least not to an adult. He had a completely different frame of reference. His frame had something to do with a possible break-in by a group of kids, and our frame was the challenge of could we climb in and out of all of those window wells or not. We never did find out. But since he knew us, at least indirectly, he must have decided that we were just playing, and sent us home. We also never found out if we got one strike against us. I hope not, since I still don't want to go the the Boys Training School, if only because the beds are probably too short by now.
I did go to visit the place once. I don't remember why, maybe on a church outing. But normally I just went to the bible camp. (Now we're back in Eldora). The camp was built right next to Pine Lake. The swimming area at the lake had an enormous long floating rubber thing shaped like the biggest black hot dog you can imagine, and everyone tried unsuccessfully to climb on top of the thing before sliding off. If anyone had done so, they would still be famous. Most of us just focussed on not getting killed.
Lake water in Iowa is a green, or brown, or greenish brown thing. It does look blue sometimes, but only if you look at it at a certain angle and see the reflected sky. In the summer it can be refreshing, and even somewhat warm. But if you get below ten or twelve feet, the temperature drops off quite a bit. Plus it gets dark. And the requirement that you grab a bit of mud from the bottom to try to win the deep diving contest starts to sound like a really minor concern compared to survival issues. I did pretty good, though, ending up in second place. But the cold dive deep into pitch black cold unknown waters is still with me as a good example of the mind overriding every other impulse in a dive to win. I was happy with secondin that contest. I certainly didn't want to dive any deeper. But who got all around athlete? The number one diver.
But I didn't end up too bad off, because just after he got the award, they started describing this guy who had been active in athletics, participated in chapel activities, kept his bed made, and whatever else it's good to do in a bible camp, and just as I began to realize that the guy they were describing might be me, they called out my name, and gave me the "All-around camper" ribbon, which was the highest award of all. It was an unexpected moment of glory, and that day I proudly carried my blue ribbon and the athletic ribbons home to show to everybody in my family. The only problem was that when I got home, no one was there. I guess I expected a ticker tape parade. It wasn't just that I didn't get recognition for my ribbons, I couldn't even find anybody to tell that I was home. But ain't it the same old story: no man is a prophet in his own land. But for a few moments there in Eldora, I was somethin.'
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Next Chapter, #4. LaPorte City,
Maybe