jmidworth

The summer of 1967 I was newly 16, a licensed driver, free of summer camp, ready to face the unknown. Again, unbeknownst to me, my mother had been working behind the scenes to create something that would ‘enrich’ my questionably inadequate cultural milieu, and she, also once more, worked her magic. There was a young curate at St Pauls, Fred Brown, who was a familiar face and a known commodity, had been to seminary in or around San Francisco, and was making a trip that summer to visit his friends and fellow seminarians (?). He was driving west, staying to visit then driving back over a period of about three weeks. He was going in his new canary yellow, black leather interior Camaro convertible stick shift, and (as it was presented to me) would like a passenger for company and to help with the driving…! Hmmm…. errrr…. ohhhh… well YESOHYESAREYOUKIDDINGYESESESESESE! What a jolly good idea, Chauncey…

So, for the month of June, we took the Northern route out, stopping in Glacier Natl Park, Banff in Canada, down through Montana, across the Sierra Nevada to San Francisco. At this terminus Fred was staying/visiting in Berkeley, and I was spending the week at old family friends the Wards (Herb and … Marge?). Their son Jim was gracious enough to take me around town for a day, and we walked up and down the Haight-Ashbury area, which as it turned out was a precursor of my cultural choices for the next umpteen years. On the other days I would walk or take the streetcars around town to explore; on one excursion I went to my old primary school West Portal, and walked the grounds (a misnomer: the three ‘playing fields’ were large terraced concrete flats, with a few basketball hoops and some faded soccer-grid lines painted on). Entering the main school building, I was approached by an official, probably teacher-status woman, who slowed on her approach and said “Excuse me… are you John Midworth?”. I admitted the fact and we had a nice chat for a few minutes. She remembered me because of the repercussive drama of my father’s sudden death and had not forgotten that spring event (and I suspect that she may have met him on more than one occasion when one’s parents would be called in to discuss “young Johnny’s overly active imagination and/or behavior”…

One aspect of exploring the city on my own at 16 made me realize how extraordinary the earlier years had been. When we lived there in the first 60’s, I had a very good neighborhood friend, Mathew Callahan, whose Mother was Jewish, whose resident grandmother was orthodox Jewish, whose absent father was decidedly not Jewish but extremely absent, and Mathew had, in addition to a longshoreman’s vocabulary, an unlimited repertoire of stories about what his father did and where he was: the absent Mr Callahan was “a lawyer in London”, “an inventor of brilliant new machines”, “an astronaut”, “an engineer who designed a bridge between New York and London”, “a ship’s Captain”… One thing I did know to be true was his mother or grandmother had a little dance studio downtown, which Mathew attended on weeknights, and I used to occasionally go with him to class as an observer. We would, (8 years old (!)) at probably 6pm, take the streetcar into the city, walk to the studio (third floor of an old Victorian apartment house), stay for the dance lesson, walk to catch the streetcar back to our neighborhood, the ten minute walk home… after dark. A different world… I’ll tell you about the NY Worlds Fair trip in 1964 with Tony Morrill subsequently.

The trip home with Fred I have no standout memories, maybe Glacier/Banff happened then? Regardless, I returned home the end of June and decided to look for a job. Through some government agency I found a live-in job as a ‘kitchen-hand’ at the “Grand Motor Inn” in Stowe, which sounded exotic (Stowe, right?). I got room and board, started as a dishwasher for a motel that had a large kitchen servicing a well-frequented dining room. After the first week the second cook quit, and I became the “breakfast cook”. I had to cook eggs-over-easy, omelets, hashbrowns, butter 8 slices of toast with a basting brush, all in reasonable time upon ordering… give me a sink load of greasy pots and pans anyday, that’s what I say… After a short while the main chef (whose gig was to run the big grille out in the dining room, turning steaks on a flaming grille) started prepping me on how to cook the steaks. Evidently you could test how well (or not) they were cooked by poking them with your finger, then poking different places on your arm for the relevant ‘firmness’: forearm below the crook is rare, shoulder above bicep is medium, wrist just this side of your hand well done. Hmmm…. Not that it’s relevant but we had a grease fire in the main chimney one night that was very exciting. The fire department showed up, the automatic foam-dispensing sprinkler system did it’s glorious thing, we spent two days cleaning up after the fact, during which time at the portable steam-cleaner boiler thing outside, I needed to check something underneath, rested my weight on my hand on the boiler, and got x-degree burns on my entire palm that blistered and hurt for days. I was relieved of kitchen duties for a bit, and got to drive the open-top Army Jeep into town to the storage room where the aforementioned steaks, still on the ‘side’, were hanging and “curing”. This definition was more of a “they were allowed to go slightly green and pungent (which made them tender and flavorful) at which time we will market them as “prime beef’ “.

The remainder of that tenure is underwhelming; I was introduced to Henry Miller novels by the departing chef, I was visited by my girlfriend Janet, whose mum had a house in Stowe, I drove the old Army Jeep around whenever possible, I goed with the floe…

Summer camp… at this time, mid-1960s, a rather American tradition I think, more so for boys than girls but than, what wasn’t? I had made it through two seasons of Abnaki and one of Rock Point, but my mother was still concerned (cautioned by well-meaning male friends?) about the male-lean influence on a boy whose father had died and he was now in a household of mother and three sisters (for Heaven’s sake, Anne, the lad needs some male guidance, some manly influence, some muscle and gristle, blah blah…). It occurred to me later in life that Mom made very good decisions when they were forced upon her- strong, thoughtful, sometimes daring but always considered. My next summer influence was a change of venue: Camp Dudley in Westport NY.

This was like going from a VW to a BMW. Dudley, a YMCA affiliate, had amenities galore: two or three playing fields with baseball diamonds, actual cabins with mattressed bunks, multi-day canoe and hiking trips, an audition position big band which rehearsed with the resident conductor (during my stay a Broadway-frequent arranger/composer) and was the basis for the end-of-season musical we all put on. My first year we performed “Oliver”, and I was a singing street urchin… typecast, I know.

I was at Dudley as a camper (#10179) for, I recall, two years (four weeks, then eight weeks), during which I signed up for a couple 3-day hikes (Mt Marcy and ?), and a 5-day canoe trip which took us on the Adirondack finger lakes, paddling in perfect wilderness, setting up camp at night, cooking meals on an open fire, helping feed the burgeoning mosquito/black fly population… to this day one of my ‘dream dates’… Back in port there were all sorts of choice diversions for the summer: organized sports (baseball, soccer, tennis- me with my prized “Jack Kramer”), music happenings, swimming and water-play, and honestly good food.

At 15 I returned for a term as a junior counselor, which meant having a bit more freedom, a lot more responsibility, and probably less fun for someone who was uncomfortable with decision-making and discipline-wielding. That was my last summer at Dudley, and would launch me into the unexplored experience of a freelancer during those months. That, unavoidedly, would mean actual summer jobs, and a taste of what life was really all about.

The second summer of our return to Burlington, Mom thought I would benefit from the socialization of summer camp, and off I went to Camp Abnaki in North Hero for two weeks. Not that memorable; I learned to swim, passed my ‘minnow’, ‘flying fish’ and ‘shark’ distinctions (a fast study, blub), did typical summer camp stuff ie: ran around a lot, played soccer and baseball, swam, ate camp/institutional meals, passed the time…

Upon my return home Sunday afternoon, I was driven immediately to Rock Point, the Episcopal church’s conference/youth/religio-social property on Burlington’s north shore on Lake Champlain, where the church (for us, St Paul’s) held week-long co-ed summer camp sessions at ‘the Institute’, a large grey stone edifice that had rooms galore and may have once been a convent, or conference/ institutional/ wayward home affair. I, however, was beset by homesickness, and after a few hours of blubbering and sobbing was rescued by Mom and allowed home. At least until next year…

Fast forward: the next summer, Abnaki again for FOUR weeks (! I may have over-embellished the fun I’d had !). The saving grace of this tour of duty was that my sister Chloe had a job at the camp, I think as a nanny/au pere to the kids of our director Norman van Gulden. AND… she had our dog with her (Cinder, I think, black lab…), so the sometimes tedious duration was lessened by familiar and familial distraction.

This time returning home I was more prepared to go directly to Rock Point, which at this time I realized was CO-ED in stark contrast to Abnaki which was … reflecting my mood… neanderthalian. I could last another week of friend-making, especially since half the campers were the ‘better’ half (my longheld opinion). I only remember a few highlights of that week, one being the end-of-week dance, oh yeah…

and the other is a longer anecdote: the building had a tall bell tower, and from morning to night we were called to our tasks- meals, gatherings, prayer-y things (!), etc, by the tolling of this mammoth church bell in the tower. One particular evening we were advised that in the morning- very early in the morning- we would be woken by the usual bell, have a quick breakfast and head out to… something church-related, I imagine. For some decidedly teenage reason I made a plan with a co-conspirator to… errr… disrupt the plan. Well after lights out, we met at the maintenance room to the bell tower, and armed with our necessary gear climbed up the ladder to the bell itself, and using our belts, tied a couple pillows around the big clapper. Needless to say, in the morning we were brusquely woken by the appearance of councilors, rather stridently urging us to wake up, we had a schedule to keep.

I don’t recall having a return experience at Camp Rock Point, but that could have been coincidental…