Confessions of a Serial Interviewer by Steven Ra Ga

I love my parents. Without them I would never had had the experience of summer camps. Without them I would have never gone in the first place.

I spent every year as a kid either in Thunder Bay with my grandparents or away at summer camp. I got to travel which was great, escape my siblings and meet new people.

One year I went to BC that was a rougher year away, the summer camps were mostly Jewish ones, except for 2. That time I felt my true empathy powers like a superhero feeling his for the first time. While there I got beat up by a boxer from Brooklyn, and found out I talked in my sleep.

Also during that adventure I walked through a portal, you know when two trees grow out of one…

Another time I went to summer camp in Alberta and got really sick from their local flu, I was Layed out for a week. This camping experience was unique because we got to ride horses, because I am tall they gave me a packing horse called Geronimo, he was a jerk. I couldn’t ride him well, with zero confidence, we ended up going on a 5day trip into the mountains, this horse did nothing but step on my feet (which made them swell) and would be stubborn the rest of the time.

It got so cold on our trip, it was the summer and -5 in the mountains. We had to the lite the fire with gasoline, that’s when one of the guys said the best way to warm your hands was to put them between a horses legs near his ass. “Nope, not for me thank you.”

Then I had to take the horse to get some water, when we got to the creek, he started to react, toss a tantrum and ran off. I literally couldn’t get a horse to drink after leading him to water.

When I walked back up the hill I went to grab the rains the horse used its head to smack me way, I flew backward into a tree and on to the ground, as soon as I got up the horse did this 4 more times. By the end I just got up and left, “fuck this horse” I mumbled to myself.

A time after I went to camp with my cousins as a teenager and had several run-ins with drunk camp councillors and abuse people, yay…

Another time was in Ontario in place called Perry Sound well just outside of it. There was a new Jewish camp getting set up but this time I was just turning 18 and I needed a job, the gig paid okay, it was 7weeks in Ontario, and I was in over my head.

It started off like most camps do, meet and greet, paper work, etc. Then we got assigned, I had kids 8-10 to watch over along with other councillors. We slept in the cabins with the kids to watch over them. We got basic fist aid training and the like.

Everything went well for a while, though because of my age I struggled with getting the kids to listen to me, they were very defiant. Couldn’t blame them, the kids came from all over Canada and America, all Jewish all from different house holds.

I recall being told not to bride the children with money to be quiet, I did bride a kid with a quarter when he was on my last nerve just to shut up, he would never stop talking during our grand hall assembly meetings. This landed me in trouble, another councillor told on me, I got yelled at them demoted to taking care of the 5-7 yr old kids.

This wasn’t so bad, the kids often listened well, and I had little responsibility. Except this one kid.

I think he might have been a psychopath, he hated everything, to the point where the other councillors would talk about cement shoes and a canoe if they had the chance.

This one time we were all going sailing and I really wanted to go, but this kid was having a tantrums so he and I sat on the dock while everyone went to play. I recall not being in control of my emotions only freshly 18, I snapped and like a tiger I tore his face off with obscenities, he didn’t even cry, just looked at me stone cold, afterwards I just told the other guys I didn’t want to watch over him anymore. I just couldn’t handle it.

I later got a chance to go sailing and hated it, I kept getting hit with the mast and getting knocked off the boat.

As time trekked on, things got better, because the kids were so young we could make them go to sleep early so we could go out and have a couple of drinks. Back then I didn’t care much about girls, I was more interested in hanging with the boys. I recall having long hair and was able to keep it the whole summer, I wore a bandanna most days as there was a crazy lice outbreak. That’s when I learned “nits” are yellow, the eggs of the lice. So when you comb your hair and see something yellow pull it out.

The camp was so new the water tasted like blood, a heavy Iron taste, we just got used to it, the camp director said it was something to do with the pipes.

Another time we took a day trip to a near by island with the kids, we councillors were setting up for a lunch when there was a commotion, the kids had said on the of kids ran off, I went to find him, he told me he had to have a poo, and used his finger to dig it out… yah… that’s what I thought. We didn’t have soap with us so I made him wash his hands with moss and water, until we could get some soap.

My grater achievement at that camp was teaching a kid to swim, such a powerful experience.

One day we got to have a night off, some the guys and I took a bus to Perry Sound and got a hotel. We spent the evening walking around, drinking, and even went to a movie, which movie I couldn’t recall but the theatre was so old it smelt like “pee” and the walls wear a stained yellow…

Another time it was the kids exchange, when kids stay only a period of time then go home and a fresh batch of kids come.

I went on the bus out to take the kids home. On the way back to camp we hitched a ride with the local grounds lady, she drove this large white passenger van. I was so tired I recall passing out in the back, seatbelt on (like when your parents took you on a road trip and you were so bored in the hot sun you just fell asleep) my head rested against the window, drool on the side of my mouth.

BANG!!!

I woke up fractions of seconds before we got in a car crash, my body went full rage doll, luckily my seatbelt kept me in place.

CRUNCH!!

The Van backs up and pulls over.

The woman driving the Van had over shot the turn off and slammed into the driver side door of a small pickup truck, the guy in the pickup looked slightly injured, more shocked then anything bloody. His door was completely caved in and the window shattered, the Van had a small dent.

When we had all realized what happened, the lady pulled over got out to check in the man.

I recall two of the other camp councillors getting out of the van and running away towards a gas station I figured they ran off to call the police. As they ran they high fives, this seemed odd. when they returned, the guys both were eating ice cream cones, I had inquired if they had call the police, they had not.

Another time a Bear came into came and had to be scared off.

Another time a few of us walked out to this big field, and stood on hay bails in a triangle, with flash lights trying to summon a UFO in the nights sky, no the ever happened but it was a bit of fun in the dark.

That pretty much summed up my tour, 7 hard weeks in small town Ontario.

When I had gone to summer camp with my cousins we were just teenagers, I was maybe 14 at the time, my younger brother came too but we had different experiences. During my time, this one time, I was on a dock with my cousin and this older kids came and rushed towards us, I was scared and pulled a knife from my pocket to scare them off, they didn’t seem frightened, they just walked up to me and slowly removed the knife from my hand, then picked me up and tossed me in the water. It was something the older kids did, when I came back up the surface my cousin was also in the water with me.

That was the end of my camping adventures. After that I only went camping in the summers with friends and family.