Hello again, mis amiguitos, and welcome on this jam-packed day. "Jam-packed" is awfully strange, don't you think? Does it really mean "packed with jam?" If so, how do you think jam got the nod over jelly, preserves, or any other fruity spread? I can only really think of one thing that could literally be referred to a jam-packed, and that's a jelly doughnut (not a jam doughnut, mind you). I guess a packet of jam would count as well. Ok, I've spent way too long on this already. I need a new paragraph to right the ship.
Why is today so packed with jam? It's my Grandma Zelda's birthday, my loyal reader Aunt Lynn's birthday, and my oft-mentioned friend Dave's birthday as well. Crazy shit going on here, friends. Happy birthday to you all, and to all...a happy birthday, I suppose.
Ok, it's story time. So far in this space, I have talked at length about the sleepaway camp I attended in my youth. I also attended a regular summer camp with friends, in which we did the standard camp things. Those times were fun and fairly typical components of the American youth experience. I attended another camp though, and this is one that I don't always tell people about because of the inherent nerdiness. Yes, I attended Yearbook Camp.
I'm going to skip over lots of stuff here so I can get to the camp part instead of all of the inner workings of the staff and my jobs therein. More time passed, other stuff happened, and at the end of the year, I was named one of the Co-Editors in Chief. Do I know how to build suspense or what?
The summer in between my junior and senior year, a group of us in Yearbook and our teacher signed up to go to the annual camp. It was held on the campus of UC Irvine, and I was super excited about it for a few reasons. First, it was camp. Second, I was 17 and hadn't been to any camp for a while, let alone a sleepaway one with friends of mine. Third, as one of the Editors, I was somewhat representing our entire school and found that to be a pretty cool responsibility. Fourth, I was excited to be on a college campus and preview what my life would be like not too long after that. And yes, I know how nerdy all of that sounds.
We drove down to Irvine, and I almost immediately had a new reason to be excited about this adventure: girls. I'm not sure why, but the ratio was heavily in my favor and I wasn't complaining. Who knew Yearbook was so dominated by the females? Oh, all of you already knew that? I'm just slow I guess.
And so it was very early on at camp that my friend Jason and I started hanging out with a group of five or six girls. They were from some school in Middle of Nowhere, California. Seriously, it was some city that I've still never heard of. I know California is all ocean and tofu to the rest of the country, but I can assure you that that's certainly not the case. My first clue of that was when one of the girls asked, "So are you all a part of FFA at your school?" "What's that?" I asked. "Future Farmers of America," she rattled off. "It's the biggest club at our school." That was news to me: not only that a club like that existed, but also that anyone would want to be in it. Up to that point, I always thought that people were born into farming, much like blacksmithing or Republicanism.
The summer in between my junior and senior year, a group of us in Yearbook and our teacher signed up to go to the annual camp. It was held on the campus of UC Irvine, and I was super excited about it for a few reasons. First, it was camp. Second, I was 17 and hadn't been to any camp for a while, let alone a sleepaway one with friends of mine. Third, as one of the Editors, I was somewhat representing our entire school and found that to be a pretty cool responsibility. Fourth, I was excited to be on a college campus and preview what my life would be like not too long after that. And yes, I know how nerdy all of that sounds.
We drove down to Irvine, and I almost immediately had a new reason to be excited about this adventure: girls. I'm not sure why, but the ratio was heavily in my favor and I wasn't complaining. Who knew Yearbook was so dominated by the females? Oh, all of you already knew that? I'm just slow I guess.
And so it was very early on at camp that my friend Jason and I started hanging out with a group of five or six girls. They were from some school in Middle of Nowhere, California. Seriously, it was some city that I've still never heard of. I know California is all ocean and tofu to the rest of the country, but I can assure you that that's certainly not the case. My first clue of that was when one of the girls asked, "So are you all a part of FFA at your school?" "What's that?" I asked. "Future Farmers of America," she rattled off. "It's the biggest club at our school." That was news to me: not only that a club like that existed, but also that anyone would want to be in it. Up to that point, I always thought that people were born into farming, much like blacksmithing or Republicanism.
In any case, we hung out with those girls for a couple of hours that first night. Neither Jason nor I were interested in any of them, but it was still fun to be the coolest kids in a group for once. That certainly wasn't the case in other circles, so we soaked it up. Their idea of fun was to play a game called, "Honey I Wuv You." It was fucking ridiculous. Here are the directions: people sit in chairs, and one person is "it." That person has to sit on someone's lap and then make the sat-on one smile. The catch: the sittee could only say, "Honey, I Wuv You." Sounds great, if you're into sexually tense imbecilic Duck Duck Goose knock-offs. One of the young ladies, Jeannie, clearly took a liking to me. She couldn't wait to hop on my lap, make a pouty face and repeat the name of the game several times. I just shook my head as if to say, "Sorry Toots, but this cat ain't cracking." (Yes, that's how cool I was compared to that lot.) It was a thrilling time, I assure you.
At the end of the camp, Jeannie asked if we could exchange phone numbers. I didn't see why not, so I acquiesced. She called me the next day and asked for my address so she could send me her school picture. Then she asked me an odd question with an even odder follow-up. "Are you Hispanic?" she asked. "Um, not that I know of," I answered. "Oh good," she said, "because you spoke Spanish at the camp and I wasn't sure. That's really good though, because my parents don't want me to be in an interracial relationship." I was speechless, but I couldn't decide if I was more taken aback by the overt racism or the statement that we were in a relationship. Sadly, I think it was the latter.
Two days later, a picture and letter came from Jeannie. On the back, she wrote something about her black eye in the picture and saying it was from sports. I looked again, and sure enough, there was a shade of a dark circle under one of her eyes. It was classtastic. We only spoke one or two times again after that, and then we just lost touch. More accurately, she stopped calling me and I had never started. She probably told her parents that we "broke up," which was remarkably painless on my end.
That's it for now, folks. Tomorrow, I'll actually write about the yearbook side of Yearbook Camp. Just like in high school, girls distracted me. Have a good day today, and we'll meet back up here tomorrow. As always, ptklein@gmail.com is just a click away.
Two days later, a picture and letter came from Jeannie. On the back, she wrote something about her black eye in the picture and saying it was from sports. I looked again, and sure enough, there was a shade of a dark circle under one of her eyes. It was classtastic. We only spoke one or two times again after that, and then we just lost touch. More accurately, she stopped calling me and I had never started. She probably told her parents that we "broke up," which was remarkably painless on my end.
That's it for now, folks. Tomorrow, I'll actually write about the yearbook side of Yearbook Camp. Just like in high school, girls distracted me. Have a good day today, and we'll meet back up here tomorrow. As always, ptklein@gmail.com is just a click away.
4 comments:
Here's one for your next license plate discussion - ONE MSM -- my husband and I can come up with a bunch of funny answers but nothing that would be remotely close?
hope all is well!
You shouldn't think back to those days as nerdy. You were smart, creative, and a good kid. Those are attributes to be proud of.(Sorry BKS, another dangling particple.)
I'd like to see you say "Sorry Toots, but this cat ain't cracking" without smiling.
I think that would be a far better test of your cool.
Wow, three comments already! I'm pretty sure that's a pre-8am PST record. Mom, thank you, but it's hard to categorize Yearbook Camp (and being excited about it) as anything but nerdy. And Melissa, when I get into "I'm not smiling" mode for comedic effect, I think I could say almost anything without cracking. That one would be tough though since I'd feel like such an imposter. But hey, you can't spell "the imposter" without Peter.
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