Campfyre Stories

I volunteered to be a member of the board of directors for the National Coalition of Alternative Community Schools (NCACS) and what a year I chose to do it.  There was a major issue of a long-standing and beloved member of the NCACS having done…  something…  and people were debating whether or not to throw him out of the coalition.  Part of me wants to say that if I had known how much of my time would be spent in board meetings, I might not have done it, but the reality is that I had a personal relationship with this person and had known him since I was 8.  He visited our school regularly, had taught and many schools and had been influential on more kids than I could possibly count.  I would have still done it, even if I had known in advance.

Thirteen of us went to Oregon from my school, including teachers/chaperones.  We took the train from upstate New York to Portland, Oregon, taking the northern route there and the southern route back.  On the way, in Chicago, we met up with some kids we knew from The Farm and traveled together.  We slept in the observation car, having convinced the conductors that we were well behaved enough for them to allow us to set up our sleeping bags along the sides and to keep out of trouble.

We arrived in Oregon after 3 days on the train.  I always have memories of just how green it is out there and I wasn’t let down by the reality of it.  We had dinner in a restaurant and, while the adults were paying the bill, I went outside and just lay down in the grass.  My friends were horrified that I would be lying barefoot in the yard of a restaurant, but none of the passers by seemed to mind, just as I knew they woudln’t.  This was the mindset where my fundamental personality had formed.  If I couldn’t do it here, I couldn’t do it anywhere.  It didn’t take long before I was joined by some of my friends, teachers and chaperones.

I felt completely at home there.  Something I hadn’t felt in a really long time.  Something I actually struggle with quite often, even now.

So on we went, to the conference itself.  Since it was a Girl Scout camp, we were all able to stay in cabins located various places around the woods.

There were events and workshops constantly, but I wasn’t able to attend much, if any of them because of my duties on the board.  We were in meetings most of the time we were there, with a few breaks.  My school often used those breaks to head offsite to do things like visit the hot springs (with other schools/students/teachers).  It was a lot of meetings, and heated meetings, so my opportunities to meet new people were few and far between.

One group of students had caught my eye, though.  They were surly and seemed to resent everyone else there.  They were all metal heads in their jean or leather jackets and band tees.  I was fascinated and wanted to reach out to them, but I found that I never had the chance…  at least not right away.

One evening, after an especially trying day of highly emotional meetings, I found myself wandering through the large bowl field in the center of the camp.  I heard the strains of Guns N’ Roses Appetite for Destruction playing and saw a group of kids sitting around a boom box.  Being a budding young metalhead myself, I headed over toward them, only to find the intimidating kids that  had been wanting to meet for days.

They introduced themselves to me by the names they had adopted for the conference - Buddy Weiser, Jack Daniels, Kahlua, and Scotty (who had wanted to be Mr. Brownstone until he learned that it meant herion, and wasn’t actually some kind of alcohol.)  We hit it off right away, having music and alternative education in common, and they became my new friends.  I spent as much time at the conference as I could with them and we were fast friends by the end.  I can safely admit to having formed quite a large crush on "Jack Daniels" right from the start and even made a point to stand next to him in the grand circle the entire attendance of the conference put together while we sang farewell songs, and *sigh* held hands.

We all exchanged addresses before we left, with them whispering their real names to me, since thier parents wouldn’t know who in the world letters addressed to "Jack Daniels", "Buddy Weiser", Kahlua" and "Scotty" were addressed to.

I was so infatuated, I wrote my first letter to "Jack" on the train home.  It wasn’t for nothing, either, since he and "Scotty" had both written to me on their way home, too.  Scotty had written me a long letter professing his deep love for me.  He had also sent me all of the words to Sweet Child O’ Mine, including all the "oh oh oh oh"s and every inflection that Axl sang.  He had also changed all the "she"s to "you"s and "her"s to "your"s.  It was…  disturbing, to say the least…  and I?  Wasn’t interested.  AT.  ALL.

And they had warned him.  It was a terrible letter.  I couldn’t listen to that song for many, many years because of just how bad that was.

The letter from "Jack" was much more mundane.  Sweet, but nothing to indicate that there was anything more than a good friendship starting, but it was happy-making that his letter came so very quickly…  and wasn’t desperate and creepy.  That was a big plus in his favor.

Scotty got written off pretty quickly, which didn’t really surprise most of that crew, who didn’t particularly like him anyway.  The rest of them got written TO.  Often and for pages at a time.  By far, though, the one I wrote to most often, and whose replies I anticipated the most were Jack’s.  We wrote for the better part of a year, but once the next conference started approaching, I realized that if I was ever going to express to him the feelings that were budding, it would have to be before that conference, and probably would determine whether or not I even went.  I was in public high school by that point and didn’t have any real *need* to attend.

So I wrote a heartfelt, empassioned letter, baring my soul.  "I don’t really know what love is, but I think this might be it."  Yeah, well, what do you want, I was 13 and thought of myself as a writer.  I mailed the letter and proceeded to spend the longest week of my life living in the mailbox.  Heh.

Of course, this wouldn’t be much of a story if he didn’t return the feelings, so it’s a little anti-climactic to say that he did, and in a lovely letter.  We made plans to meet up at the next conference.

All I really remember about that conference is making out.

And then we went back to letters.  Lots of letters, sporadic phone calls (since this was before cell phones and long-distance was expensive) and periodic visits.  We were as much in love as teenagers could be, and because we were so far apart, I don’t think that either one of us learned how to date or much about boy-girl interaction until much, MUCH later on.

We saw each other as often as we could, spending weeks at a time during the summers and a week or long weekend during school breaks.  We saw each other through tough times in both of our families and, essentially, grew up together.  I was madly in love and, as a romantic teenager could see myself spending the rest of my life with him.

We broke up for less than 24 hours, in a cliche, immediately after my junior prom, but he changed his mind, or I changed his mind, I’m really not sure what happened.  We discussed it, I was heartbroken and the next morning we reconciled.

When, eventually, I had finished as much high school as I could bear in New York (more on that later), I decided to leave everything behind to be with my True Love.  In November of 1992, I packed all my things into the back of their family’s minivan and moved out to Ann Arbor.  Once again, to a complete change of life.