“Shiver me timbers!”
Stepping out of a summer cottage at the Assemblies of God “Living Waters Campground” in Cherry Tree, Pennsylvania, this rising freshman’s eyes locked on the flagpole behind the gargantuan tabernacle, where his urine-soaked bikini briefs rippled in the wind like a humiliating banner.
Lightning shot through my temple, followed by a slow, merciless pounding at the base of my skull — a cruel souvenir from the chaos that led to my unmentionables fluttering for the entire camp to see.
But it only took one wisecracking bunkmate hurling lewd catcalls in my direction for me to realize I was standing on the front porch in my birthday suit.
Upon covering my nakedness, I carefully retreated into the simple wooden structure, swiftly closing the door behind me.
“Smooth move, Ex-lax!” James “Jim” Shreve guffawed, hopping down from the top bunk after tying his sneakers. “You just flashed three hundred elementary school-aged campers.”
“How was I supposed to know I was buck naked?” I asked.
“Excusez-moi?” Michael “Mike” Burkey snickered, pulling a polo shirt down over his muscular upper body. “That should’ve been the first thing you noticed after crawling out of bed.”
“Don’t you remember what happened last night?” Bruno Shaffer teased, threading his belt through the loops on his blue jeans before walking out the door.
“You better hurry up and get dressed — breakfast awaits,” he added.
A month before returning to the place where I became intimate friends with Christopher “Chris” Honneffer over the course of two summers as a youngster, my parents announced we’d be making a triumphant return to Kid’s Camp — my mother a cook, my father a counselor, and my little sisters and me campers.
“I’m not in elementary school!” I exclaimed.
“We’re well aware of that,” Dad acknowledged. “Since leaving you at home is not an option, you’ll be bunking with me and my rising seventh graders in ‘Peanut Heaven.’”
“What about my big brother?” I quipped.
“I’ll be living the life of a bachelor for a week,” John announced.
“Why can’t I stay home too?” I huffed.
“Need I remind you,” the blond-haired minister stated, pointing an accusing finger from the opposite end of the dinner table. “You were the criminal mastermind behind the theft up the street a couple months ago.”
“You’re coming with us,” he added, “and that’s final.”
On the last Saturday in July, I begrudgingly packed a suitcase for the two-hour trip and spent most of my time sulking like a bratty toddler in the back seat of the station wagon, dreading the week ahead.
After spending one miserable night in the highest bunkhouse in the whole camp, I was presented with an opportunity to escape my current predicament and spend the remainder of the week with peers my own age.
When one of the eight teenage boys failed to show up to perform his KP duties as part of the kitchen crew, I was asked to bridge the gap.
“Sign me up!” I practically shouted.
Although I had to serve meals to scores of little munchkins — including my own sisters — three times a day and tackle dishwashing or pots-and-pans duty, I was free to roam the fifty-acre campground with the other teenagers, completely unsupervised.
That freedom made the subjugated servitude worthwhile.
Between leading “Father Abraham” at evening chapel and stepping in as would-be counselors while the real ones indulged in a late-night sundae social, the true highlight of the week came when we stayed up until the wee hours, reveling in an array of shenanigans under the cover of darkness.
Among our many acts of tomfoolery were classic pranks — Saran wrap on toilet seats, Lifesavers in showerheads, and a bucket of water rigged atop a door for an unwitting victim — but nothing topped raiding the walk-in cooler in the kitchen.
With a couple of gallons of milk and leftover homemade chocolate chip cookies from the campers’ bedtime snack, we indulged in a feast fit for a king. On the way out of the chilly icebox, I snagged a gallon of chocolate milk for myself — only to discover it was actually refrigerated hot chocolate.
When I began chugging it straight from the container, my crafty cohorts swore up and down that Granny Clampett — The Beverly Hillbillies matriarch — spiked it with her spring tonic, because I was acting awfully silly after consuming every single drop of the homemade remedy.
By the time everyone had retreated to their sleeping quarters, I staggered toward my bed like an inebriated Otis Campbell from The Andy Griffith Show, wobbling his way into the jail cell.
“Looks like Bruno was the first to fall under the Sandman’s spell,” I blurted out, clamping a hand over my mouth after a loud, unexpected hiccup. “So, what kind of practical jokes are we pulling on him?”
“Why don’t you take a front-row seat and let Jim and me do all the work?” Mike mentioned.
After placing a dollop of shaving cream in the stout young man’s hand, Jimbo gently tickled his nose with a feather. Instinctively, he sleepyhead swatted at the imaginary fly — smearing white foam all over his face.
With a few stifled laughs, the rising college freshman draped toilet paper around the open side of the bottom bunk as his 15-year-old accomplice grabbed a cup of warm water for their unsuspecting victim’s fingers.
Once the room finally stopped spinning, I staggered to my feet only to drop to the floor in a fit of uncontrollable laughter — and promptly sprung a leak in my faded blue jeans.
Finding a new target for their underhanded pranks, the pair of tricksters stripped me naked and put me in bed before taking my urine-soaked undies outside.
As Michelangelo hoisted my colorful briefs up the flagpole, his partner-in-crime stood at attention, saluting the undergarments as they flapped triumphantly in the wind above their heads.
“That’s what happened last night,” I declared with a quick finger snap, jolting myself from the foggy memory and back into the present. Without wasting another second, I threw on my threads and rushed outside to join my bunkmates.
As soon as the leader of the pack lowered my skivvies — stiff from the elements — from the flagpole, I quickly ducked as he hurled them in my direction.
With a dramatic grimace, I pinched them between my thumb and index finger, holding them at arm’s length before tossing them into the nearest trash receptacle.
“Make sure you wash that hand when we get to the kitchen,” Jim cautioned, throwing an arm around my shoulder as we made our way to the dining hall. “I don’t think the campers would appreciate you serving them a side of pee with their breakfast.”