I originally wrote this to be posted on RichmondOutside.com.
I almost let it go up but I pulled it at the last minute. It’s too personal for
that so I put it on Facebook - for two hours. I didn’t like that either. It’s been filed away for months. Anyway, I’ve been wondering what to do with
this piece so I just decided to put it on my own site…
Chubby kids do not
look good in stretchy, synthetic fabrics, especially the brightly colored
kinds. This was a reality I had to face during my formative years in the late
70s and early 80s. I am one of four children and our parents did our best to
stretch the specie by buying gender-neutral clothes and reusing them as we
grew. Being the youngest, that meant I got to wear hand-me-downs that had been
washed and worn many times before. They were not shabby – we took care of our
clothes. They had just shrunk a little. At least that is what I was told (but I
didn’t really believe it) as I as tried to pull the clingy polyester away from
the corpulent contours of my mid-section.
Off to school I went – painfully aware that I was different
from most kids. That difference was noted by many of my classmates and they
took pains to point it out. I was teased, as probably every kid was, but I was
one of their favorite targets. Kids were not coddled in those years like they
are today. I had to find ways to cope. I sort of withdrew during the school
day. I just tried to keep my head down and not draw any more attention to
myself while I waited for the dismissal bell.
When I got home it was a lot better. Like I said, in those
days kids were not coddled. We were allowed to stay out unsupervised way after
sunset. One of my favorite pastimes was riding my bike in the woods at the end
our street. There were lots of trails to explore and a deep creek to play in
and I would spend hours there - often alone. Other times I would hang out with
friends who were just as awkward as I was. But in the woods it didn’t
matter. There was freedom and acceptance outside.
So that was life during the school year - days of
embarrassment in the classroom followed by afternoons of fantasy play and
dirt-ramp building in the woods. As therapeutic as time in the woods was, it
was not quite enough to make me feel just right. I missed the feeling of
confidence I got outdoors when I went back to school. It wasn’t healthy. I need something
more.
Summer came. Thank God.
Days of classroom anguish gave way to full-time outdoor rambling. My
heavy-set friends and I were free from the caviling of our perceived betters
and we were the rulers of the wooded
kingdom at the end of the cul-de-sac. I
did not have to deal with the politicking and judging that happen when large
groups of kids are herded together. Then
came summer camp. I was nervous.
All of my brothers and sisters and most my cousins went to
camp at Shrine Mont in Orkney Springs, VA on the edge of the George Washington
National Forest. Shrine Mont
is a conference and retreat center run by the Episcopal Diocese of
Virginia. There are a number of camps
there. My brother went to Saint
George’s Camp. My sisters went to Choir Camp (now
called Music and Drama, or simply, MAD Camp).
They loved it. Of course, my brother and sisters were not afflicted with
childhood chunkiness and did not have to weather the storm of fat jokes as I
did. That is what I expected when I went to camp.
It did not happen.
Imagine summer camp in the Allegheny Mountains in the early
1980s: the cabins with only screens on
the windows so you could hear every animal in the forest at night and feel
every breeze at rest time, the creaky old metal bunks (I think they were army
surplus), and the long-haired, impossibly happy counselors who carried acoustic
guitars and banjos wherever they strolled. I was not teased – not even by the
cool kids. It was a community. It might sound like an idealized vision of
Haight-Ashbury but that is my memory of Saint
George’s. Here we were told (and we all believed it)
that we are part of the Body of Christ and that all of us are crucial pieces of
the spiritual machine that keeps the world moving - even chubby, eight-year-old
me (my girth was never even mentioned). It was Heaven.
So that was life during the summer. Every year for more than
a decade I returned. When I was too old to be a camper, I went back as a
counselor. My formative years were spent just “getting through” school so I
could go back to the Mountain. That is where I developed my sense of community,
my love of nature and that is where I found my purpose.
I never took a job just for the money (okay, I did in
college). I could have studied law or medicine or engineering (okay, my grades
were not good enough for that) but I followed the path that was set for me when
I was a kid. I made a few wrong turns along the way - the path is not clearly
marked. I will never be rich, at least not in the monetary sense, but I have no
hesitation getting out of bed every morning to serve God by protecting his
creation. I am deeply grateful for the
experience I had at Shrine Mont and my career is my way of paying it
forward. Lord knows I don’t go to church on Sundays.
Side note: I might be successful in my modest-paying field
and I might run trail races now, but if I come across as socially clumsy it is
because inside me there is a pudgy kid in a Dukes of Hazard t-shirt still
trying to come out.
So, with all that
in mind, here are some of my favorite places where I can still hear the Voice
in the Wilderness. Don’t try to build a
shopping center on them - not while I’m on the job.
Mushrooms on the
Buttermilk Trail, Richmond
Remains
of a Native American fish weir on the James River, Richmond
Swift Creek in Pocahontas State Park,
Chesterfield
Salt Peter Run, Orkney
Springs
Pony Pasture, Richmond
Great North
Mountain, Orkney Springs
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