The Rest of Camp and Jackson

Going back to camp was torture, just like I expected it to be. My mistake with my counselors had been to distance myself and as my emotions took a nose dive coming back from Findlay, my counselors started to notice. I didn't find out about it until well after the fact though. My counslors were not terribly good at presenting themselves in my hour of need; unless they thought they could get something out of it.
At one of the pre-camper meetings I made a comment about some behaviors from the staff that made putting the campers to bed at night more challenging. Later I heard back from the lead counselors that one of my girls had been deeply offended by the comment I had directed at them in a group meeting. Once I figured out what comment that was, and convinced the lead counselors that it hadn't been directed at the offended party (for that matter the offended party had never entered my mind when I made the comment), I moved on. I thought that would be the end of the conflicts but days later the counselors got together to sit down with me and tell me that they felt I wasn't being honest with them. I asked them what it was they thought I was lying about. They told me that when I was hurting I should have come to them with my problems.
The response in my head was, "You're far too immature, unintelligent and ill-prepared to even begin to fathom my problems. I wouldn't go to a dentist to diagnose a heart condition, just as I won't go to you to diagnose what most psychiatric counselors dare not touch!"
I didn't say that. I should have. But I was aware of the fact that not having my counselors behind me would create problems. Apparently my subsequent groveling wasn't enough.
One week out of the summer the camp is graced by the presence of teenagers in the place of the usual kindergarten to middle school kids. We had the thirteen to fourteen-year-old girls.
It all came to a head when I was supposed to be off duty one evening, and all the girls in one of the rooms had busted open glow stick necklaces and splattered the glowing stuff all over the walls. Screams and hollering followed and, already on the rough end of a long and tiring day, I stormed in to correct the situation only to have my youngest counselor tell the girls, "Never mind her. She's not in charge."
I stood for a few minutes, passionately dispelling the urge to slap my counselor then threw my hands in the air and said, "Fine. You want to be in charge. You're in charge. Have at it."
I stomped out of the cabin, marched down to the bottom of the wood stair case that led to the road and sat for a very long time caught between running off into the woods to fell every tree with my bare hands, and marching up to the temporary home of the captain of the camp to tell him that I was quitting at that very moment.
I was angry, tired and worn. I had just recently discovered that the university had sent me a notice of my discontinuation as a student on an academic basis. They had expected me to receive the letter in early June but it hadn't arrived until mid-August. Since I wasn't home to do it myself, my father was in the habit of opening all of my mail and forwarding me information on what I received. He knew for a fact that the letter had not arrived until mid-August, and I was informed of its contents the day he opened it. Inside, the letter stated that I would need to send my own letter asking for re-admittance before mid-July or I would not be able to apply until the following semester.
Despite my protestations and long, costly phone calls to the administration and student affairs offices on campus I was not given a reprieve.
I was officially a college drop out for at least a semester, I was stuck in a hell hole of a summer job that was getting worse by the minute and what I most wanted to do was scream, or cry, or beat someone to a pulp. In my mind there were no longer such things as consequences.
Thankfully the lead counselors walked by before I could act. They didn't see me but I could see, and hear, them and their discussion was immediately more pressing, important and distressing than my own thoughts. Seeing another group of people with huge problems that needed solving helped lift my mood immediately.
Don't get me wrong, I don't enjoy watching others suffer. I am however very aware that it is easy to forget that you are holding a pity party when someone else's real problems are presented. My temptation is to forget my own woes in favor of doing something good, or selfless, or loving to make someone else's day far better. It's a 'change in perspective' thing that actually helped me with what was once a life-long struggle.
Before the end of Teen week I did get an audience with the head of the camp and after explaining where most of the problems in my life were coming from I left camp a week early and headed home.
I felt bad, and an awful lot like a loser who couldn't finish anything she started. But by going home early I had the opportunity to attend an event I didn't think I would get to.
In Jackson, Michigan there is a park that covers several acres of land including a large hill, at the top of which is a series of fountains.

An interesting post-card I found. Gives a good view of what the 'falls' look like inside the fence.

At night the chain link fence is opened to anyone that will pay and lovers and children alike can walk up and down the ornate paths, listen to psychedelic music and watch the lights make the fountains change colors. The park also hosts a large reenactment every year.
After a few days at home I was all set and ready to head up, thinking that I would be riding with my the Captain and several others, and that it would be a group event.
But when I arrived I discovered that I was wrong. That all the others had backed out and the only one driving up would be my relationship and I. We were still at that awkward, flirting stage; exacerbated by the fact that I do not know how to flirt and I was fully aware of my relationship's marital status. But it was an event. We were soldiers. No flirting. Right?
We headed up, enjoying each other's constant ribbing and teasing. He yelled at me for getting us lost, I yelled at him for having crappy directions. We found the place.
Our first duty, however, was to find a company to fall in with. We were both dressed in civilian clothes as we walked down the first row of tents. We got to an A-wall and asked who the unit was and if we could join them for the weekend.
The men gathered around an unlit pile of sticks looked over my cohort, seeming pleased with the prospect, then took one look at me and said, "We aren't sure about having fresh fish join our unit. Does she wear a uniform?"
I raised a brow but said nothing and my co-hort vouched for my soldierly valor. The jean-wearing soldier at the fire said, "We'll have to ask our captain. She's not here right now."
My friend and I quickly caught on to the problem that so troubled our Confederate brother and we moved on, both of us grumbling under our breaths about duplicitous reenactors and...what?! A female captain? And they have a problem with a female private joining the ranks?!
The next group was far more hospitable, especially after one of the fellows turned out to be someone we had allowed into our unit previously. The only proviso was that I had to put on a borrowed frock coat, as this was a Kentucky unit and all of them wore frock coats.
The coat was the only uniform thing about them. A few soldiers had full beards and fine locks of hair and gleaming buttons. Those were the officers. The rest...a more convincing group of scoundrels and scallywags I have yet to see. Rotting and missing teeth; flapping, holey or just plain missing brogans; patchy beards and side burns; jewelry made from animal hair or teeth; most of them with a chaw of tobacco tucked betwixt there gums and every one of them had either a pipe, an Arkansas toothpick or a harmonica.

Taken in 2009, three years after my first time in Jackson. Some of the boys from our battalion.

I had THE MOST FUN with this group! First of all, these boys were the men that birthed my alter-ego Wyatt. With my own unit I hadn't been required to come up with a man's name, and I suppose most of the guys figured I would go with the male equivalent of my given name. But I liked Wyatt, no not Wyatt E., and shortly after I donned my first frock coat; I gave myself my reenacting name. The rest of the men in the unit didn't know me as anything else so they called me that regularly. I LOVED IT! I had a new name and with it a whole new personality to explore.
Once, while marching off for some drill, some of the men around me decided to have a spitting contest. Most were chewing something and started pointing out targets to hit and expectorating at them, some more messily than others. The worst of the group was the poor private that was told to aim for a certain branch on a tall bush and miscalculated so badly that his 'charge' ended up decorating the First Sergeant's uniform.
Friday evening at the event those in the unit that were musically talented gathered around the fire with harmonica and guitar in hand, voices primed, and started singing various songs from the period. Some fast, some rowdy, some slow. To this background music my friend and I, and two others, played a long game of Euchre under the flickering light of a lantern. Toward the end of the evening a final request was made for the boys to sing Amazing Grace.
With only a guitar and a single voice on the choruses, and the company on the refrain, and the silence of the evening as an audience, I lay back on my blankets under the yawning branches of a tree, closed my eyes and thought; this I could do for the rest of my life. This is the one thing that I would never quit without finishing.
The song ended, the camp quiet as the men prepared for bed.
Then minutes later the serenity was broken by an irate mother who came storming into camp to inform the singers that their "Amazing Grace" had apparently woken and scared her child so much that he peed the bed.
It was hard not to laugh. I turned on my side, fully prepared to sleep, when I felt something poking my back. Then my shoulders, then at my cap. I turned over, saw my relationship apparently sleeping, and turned back. Once again, poke poke poke. Jab, jab, jab. I grabbed a nearby fallen stick and swung it over my shoulder, giving him a solid whack before trying once again to sleep.
The poking turned into a mini-battle, then we settled, talking, joking quietly, laughing. Before we fell asleep again his hand had found it's way to the crest of my hip. I thought long and hard about his hand being there. And about how much I liked it being there. And about how wrong it still was.

Most of the venues were in the permanent structures or temporary canvas buildings like these. Under the trees, they looked really good.

The next day we fought hard, and spent the rest of the day wandering around the large venue visiting some of the vendors that he knew, getting a free cup of soup at the Soldiers Relief Fund tent, and thanks to my magnificent frock coat, getting mistaken for a guy when I went in to use the women's restroom.
Saturday night we got some dinner and headed up the hill to the chain link fence, standing outside it to watch the 'mystical waters' and talk about how stupid we thought it was that people would pay money to go inside when you could see and even feel the spray from outside the fence. I talked a little about my past and before long we were laying down in the grass, staring at the stars.

The mystical waters.

Unfortunately, or in my confused brain, fortunately, the silence was broken by the voice of two very drunk sounding privates. We couldn't tell where they came from, or whose unit they were a part of. They stumbled about half way up the hill and sat down, drinking from flasks and talking loudly to one another. Then the more sober of the two stood up, presumably to go after more beverage and keep the party going. As he started down the hill his buddy tried to join him and took a header down the hill, spilling end over end until he landed badly in the grass at the base. For a long time he didn't move down there at the bottom of the hill and both my relationship and I were beginning to be seriously concerned about his health. Then along came one of the gators that provided emergency transportation around the park, to pick up the sorry soldier.
We found out later that he may or may not have broken his leg.
Rule #930 - If you are going to partake in mass amounts of beverage do not do so whilst sitting on a hill, cliff or staircase.
The rest of the event went well and by the time I had returned my beloved frock coat and we had loaded the vehicle and were heading home, our relationship had been significantly altered. I felt loved, and part of me hated that. I went home, did my best to forget about it, and started to concentrate on the problem of finding a job.