White Cherries on a Hot Day

It's the kind of steamy day where cold white cherries and a glass of Paul Newman Lemonade fill the bill. I'll eat anything Paul Newman makes, except for the Fig Newmans. His spaghetti sauce is good too. Newman has been quietly giving kids a big dose of Summertime fun at his "Hole in the Wall" camps for a long time now. He could be, but he's not a horn-tooter.

Paul Newman is one very cool dude.

Summer camp can open a kid up to nature for the first time. Catching fireflies, sitting around a fire burning marshmallows, fishing in rivers and lakes. It's all good.

I was one of those kids where, when the summer came, I was sent off to Camp Greenkill, a YMCA camp near Port Jervis, New York. I say "sent off" because I did not agree to go. And once I got there, I began to wander again. A certain camp counselor kept finding me. I'd be walking down the long dirt road to the highway, and Roger would come along in his '57 Chevy that he called "The Grey Ghost." He knew what to say, and he always brought me back each time I ran away, which was about two. Finally I stayed.

Anyway, I didn't want any more "Missing Boy" stories. I think I wore out my welcome in that department a few years earlier.

It didn't help matters that this place was infested with Rattlesnakes and Copperheads. Captured vipers would be displayed on the hood of Roger's Chevy in a big glass jar, all coiled up and dead. He'd make sure their mouths were open so we could see their fangs. I'd stand five feet back from the Chevy's fender and stare wide-eyed at them.

As I stood there one day, it finally began to sink in . . . my parents were trying to assassinate me. They had sent me here to Camp Greenkill to kill me. How ironic is that name, by the way?

I could hear them plotting: "Honey, what would be the most gruesome way for our oldest son to die?" "I know!" one or the other of them would say. "Let's have him attacked by snakes!"

I could picture them clinking their cocktail glasses.

I decided to confront my mother when she arrived in her station wagon for visitor's day.

"Mom, are you and Dad trying to kill me?"

"That," she said dismissively, "is all in the past."

"No Mom, seriously, I have to know."

"Well," she said. "I'd heard it worked for a couple of the neighbors and I thought I'd try it out on you."

I immediately demanded more money on my "candy card." If they were trying to kill me, the least they could do was buy me a decent last meal. And my card was getting pretty punched

I no longer questioned their motives, until the next day, that is, when I went to the camp store to buy a Clark Bar. When the lady behind the counter returned my candy card, it had a balance of $500 on it.