Welcome to Camp Valley Hi!

Today, July 16, 1996, is my best friend Mahogany’s fourteenth birthday. It is a special day for me, too. I will be going to a week-long summer camp called Camp Valley Hi, a Christian church camp in the west Texas Episcopal church diocese. I feel so happy and lucky inside. And guess what? I am going with my sister and my friends from St. Alban’s Episcopal Church. YAY! Excited isn’t just the right word for it. Elated, maybe? I wonder what we are going to do there. I have never been to any camp, let alone a Christian camp.

The timing is perfect. I just had my braces off. I can eat anything I want without worrying about breaking off my brackets. I just graduated from Hidden Path Middle School near the top of my class. I was looking forward to entering Highland Point High School as a freshman. Camp Valley Hi was a treat for a job well done.

My mind flashes back to June 1995, when I was supposed to go to Girl Scouts camp with my younger sister, Lottie and our friend, Nori. I officially became a teenager in October. Everything we needed for a two-week camping trip in the woods was neatly packed and ready for Sunday, our departure day. I have never been camping before. Nonnie had packed everything we needed: eating utensils, sleeping bags, and all the camping supplies you can think of. Mama had taken some time off from work to come to Santa Mariana to spend time with us and accompany Nonnie to the meeting place.

But then family drama got in the way. As usual, my family was putting the “dysfunction” in dysfunctional family. Nonnie constantly kept up drama, especially in the family between her own children. She likes to play the “we are the perfect happy family” game. She likes to control everything. I got so angry with her once that I called her a control freak in front of the whole family. I got in trouble for saying what everyone else was too afraid to say.

It was a quiet Friday evening at Nonnie and Pawpaw’s house. Annie, who lived next door, was in a bad mood because she was not going to get her way about where we were going to go for a family outing. Even though she was an adult, she still had childish temper tantrums.

Annie came over and tried to hit Mama. I don’t remember why, but I remember Nonnie had a part in it. She weighed more than Mama, but she underestimated the strength Mama had in her hands. Mama managed to grab Annie’s wrists as she tried to punch her. Annie could not move her arms. An argument started between them. Nonnie was in the bathroom crying. I ran outside in a panic, screaming and crying. Things went from bad to worse. A neighbor heard me screaming and came outside. I saw him and ran back in the house.

Suddenly, Pawpaw shouted, “Get your things together, you are going home!”

His anger was palpable. My shock made me swallow my scream and silence my crying. I tearfully walked to my bedroom to do as I was told.

Pawpaw was a very introspective man of few words. When he speaks, everyone listens. No one, not even Nonnie, said a word against him.

He didn’t care that we were supposed to report to camp next week, nor did he care that there was not enough room in the cramped car for everyone’s luggage. Anger settled in as reason went out the window. Our summer vacation is over.

It was a silent three-hour car ride from Santa Mariana to Hidden Path. I held on to Mama and Lottie. I felt very depressed. I really wanted to experience what it was like to sleep in a tent and eat by a fire, but this was not to be. This meant that Nonnie wasted her money. My fragile heart broke into a thousand pieces.

Pawpaw was hands-off when it came to Lottie and me and how we spent our time there. It was Nonnie’s job to keep us entertained. As far as he was concerned, we were not his responsibility. Besides, he had his own life to live. During the week, he was a social worker and chaplain at Northwest Baptist Hospital and the respected minister at St. Alban’s on Sundays.

One hour into the trip, I dried my tears against the back of my hand.

“What’s the use?” I asked myself, “Crying doesn’t solve anything; it just makes things worse.”

I began to get angry instead. It occurred to me that Nonnie caused the fight between Annie and Mama by inserting herself where she didn’t belong.

Our hasty departure was a blessing in disguise for me. The following week, my period came with a vengeance. Nothing relieved the severe nausea or crushing pain I felt in my abdomen. I often wondered what would have happened if I had attended camp that week. I was very, very ill that week. Eventually, the pain lessened and I recovered.

One year later, on the evening of July 15, Lottie and I are packing our last-minute items. We just returned from a family reunion out of town two days ago. Everyone is on edge. I knew what everyone was thinking:

“Was there going to be a repeat performance of last year’s drama?”

I hope everything goes according to plan. Please God, let it go to plan.

Mama is back home working. She could not afford to take a vacation this year. Nonnie is constantly moving and darting about, making me and Lottie very nervous. Pawpaw is in the den, smoking, eating vanilla ice cream, drinking his evening coffee, and watching television, a nightly routine that has not changed since the beginning of their marriage in 1953.

She makes little comments under her breath, as if the events of last summer was our fault, not hers. Her soft threats unnerved us. Lottie grabs the phone and makes an anxious long-distance call to Mama.

“Mama, Nonnie is blaming us for what happened last year,” says Lottie, “Please make her stop.”

I knew Mama wanted Lottie to put Nonnie on the phone to tell her off. I could hear her unspoken anger through the phone. Instead, Mama reassured Lottie that everything would be fine; that we were going to make it to camp. Nonnie stopped her hateful behavior and calmed down.

As I finished packing and started preparing for bed, I looked up at the ceiling and whispered a prayer:

“God, please let this happen for us. I really want to go this time.”

Back to 1996.

After a dream-filled night, I woke up at 9 a.m., our normal time. Nonnie was already in the kitchen preparing breakfast and Pawpaw’s coffee. She has been up since 5 a.m. doing her morning devotional studies. Lottie and I are bubbling with excitement. I was smiling, something I rarely do. In my life, I had very little to smile about. I forced the little sausage links and toasted frozen waffles in my anxious stomach.

Thank God my unpredictable period came and went the week before, while we were at the family reunion. Nothing was going to stop me from having fun. Having a menstrual cycle would have been very awkward and embarrassing for me, even though I knew it was a normal teenage girl thing, but still...

I went to the bathroom, washed the sleep off my face, and brushed my braces-free teeth. Brushing is a lot easier when braces aren’t in the way. I got dressed in the outfit I had planned to wear for this special day: a pair of blue shorts, a collared white shirt, white crew socks, and white tennis shoes. I styled my straightened brown hair by curling it under. I put on my signature white headband. I left the bathroom and curled up with a book, listening to the clock tick down to 11 a.m., our departure time.

After packing several cars with our bins and luggage, we started driving towards a rugged part of Texas called the Hill Country. The stretch of highway lived up to its name. My anxious stomach flipped around as I remembered how much teasing I had endured when I first entered Hidden Path. The other students often teased me for just being myself. I’ll be the first to admit that my speech, way of dressing, and interests were very different.

“What if the other campers tease me because I sound and look weird?” I thought to myself.

Then I remembered how Daddy showed me how to calm my nerves by listening to jazz music. It took me to another world with its ethereal, calm, and dreamlike tunes. Reaching for the backpack between my feet, I pulled out my tape player, insert the Simply Red cassette that I borrowed from Daddy, and pressed the fast forward button until I heard my favorite song, “Love Lays Its Tune.” My thoughts and stomach began to calm down as the tranquil sounds flowed through my ears.

As we drove through the rural area, I looked at the cliffs that towered over the highway. My imagination runs wild as I see myself climbing them. Daddy told stories of people building their houses on top and how trucks hauled loads of massive boulders down the craggy rocks.

After an hour to two-hour drive, we approached a tree-lined four-lane road. I started daydreaming about what would happen next. Various scenarios rolled around in my head. Would I make new friends? Would I be able to sleep in a strange bed? Will I have fun?

After what seemed to be an eternity, we pulled into a circular driveway. “Welcome to Camp Valley Hi,” said the colorfully polished wooden sign. As we pulled in, I noticed two sets of eight stone cabins on either side of the drive, a distance away. Cars crowded the driveway with numerous kids, their families, and enough luggage to sink a ship; trunks, plastic bins, and suitcases lined either side of the road.

My first impression of the camp was that it looked nice. There were various buildings and landmarks. I see an open-air chapel with wooden benches. A pool glistened near the basketball court. I guess there would be no swimming in a lake, like in the movies. I can hear water rushing nearby, but I couldn’t figure out where it was coming from. I later learned that there was a river near the camp.

As I looked around, my mind flashed back to Nonnie drilling the Lord’s Prayer into my head in King James English the week before. I could hear myself beginning to recite the first line: “Our Father who art in Heaven…”

She looked ashamed because Lottie and I didn’t know it or the Twenty-Third Psalm. Usually, these verses, along with the Nicene and Apostles’ Creeds, are taught during first communion classes and are supposed to be fully memorized by age twelve. As a minister’s granddaughter, I felt that I was held to a higher standard than the other kids in our conservative church, especially since I was the oldest in our church’s group of campers. Unfortunately, my parents, sister, and I had stopped attending church regularly by the time Lottie was twelve. I used rote memory to make the verses stay in my memory.

My mind snapped back to the present as I followed the other campers to the registration area under the covered basketball court. The registration staff was nice to me. Nonnie handed over all required deposits and forms. The crowd made my heart race in a staccato fashion because large crowds feel like walls closing in. Something piqued my curiosity about the crowd, but I decided not to put a lot of thought into it. I was given a name tag and a packet titled:

Welcome to Junior High Camp B

July 16-23, 1996

I looked around. There was a total of sixteen identical cabins divided into two groups of eight. Each group was surrounded by a manicured grass field, with a clothesline to the side. I would learn that the driveway was the gender boundary; girls were not allowed on the boys' side and vice versa.

I was assigned to Cabin Nine. I was the last camper to arrive. My counselor, Carrie, was tall, blonde, tanned, and blue-eyed. As I was shown to a top bunk, it occurred to me what piqued my curiosity when we entered the camp: I was the only Black girl in the cabin. This didn’t really bother me; to be honest, I was relieved.

I thought of my friend who lived down the street from me. Marnie was a sweet girl whom the Black kids in the neighborhood tortured and ridiculed for being White and highly intelligent. Because of this, and the fact that she rarely came outside, the Black kids on our street had the opinion that she thought she was better than us. Lottie and I often took up for her. We became friends the year before. and sat together on the bus. I would style her hair into a braid because she often didn’t have time to do it. We would talk and laugh about various things, especially the sixth-grade teachers we had in common. We became close in my final year at Hidden Path.

There were six of them of varying looks and sizes. Their names were Stephanie, Maria, Jill, Violet, Anne, and Roberta. They were all fourteen like me. I thought of Marnie as I shyly introduced myself to them. I really miss her.

I looked around the stately cabin. The high ceiling consisted of wooden beams and rafters. It was like the inside of a wooden cabin, even though the outside was stone. There were four sets of wooden bunks on a concrete floor. The bottom beds of the bunk were perpendicular to those on the top and had more floor space. I wanted a bottom bunk because I hate climbing ladders, but I had to take what I got. The attached bathroom had two shower stalls, two toilets, and two sinks for eight people. I wondered how that was going to work.

I moved to my assigned bed and unpacked. I noticed everyone else had comforters or quilts. I wish I had known. Nonnie just followed the basic rules. This indicated to me that these girls had been to Valley Hi before and that there were customs that I was not aware of.

After unpacking, I lay down on my bed and listened to some music. I was feeling very anxious. I am a very shy person who doesn’t always know how to reach out. I don’t say much because I am more of a listener and observer.

A few hours later, it was dinner time. I was very curious about this. I watched enough camp movies to know this could be a good or bad thing. I followed the other campers to a stone building with screened windows. This was the dining hall. The mingling smells of food wafted past my nose. Everything smelled welcomingly delicious. I sat at the table with my counselor and cabin mates. My sister and friends sat at their cabins’ tables. It looked like we would all be separated for the week as our cabins ate family-style.

The meal consisted of a side salad, green beans, corn, and ravioli and a choice of different drinks. I took a little bit of everything and poured myself some cranberry juice to drink. The food smelled so good that I wanted to start eating, but I knew that I had to wait until after prayer.

After the prayer, I took a tentative bite of the ravioli. I never had ravioli that wasn’t canned. It was delicious. I ate all of it and wanted more.

I looked around at the other campers. Everyone was chattering as if they had known each other for years. I felt lonely, left out, and a little sad. I looked down at my folded hands in my lap, trying to keep my tears at bay.

After dinner, we went to the chapel for orientation. We crossed the lane that ran in front in reverent silence. I took a seat with my cab. The staff introduced themselves. Little did I know that, for a week, they would become the family I always wished for.

When the orientation concluded, Carrie kept us behind. She smiled as she led us to the side of the chapel, where there was a drop-off. She explained that we were going to learn a lesson in trust by doing a trust fall. I became extremely anxious. My stomach started to hurt and the delicious meal I had just eaten threatened to come back up.

“Oh no,” I thought to myself, “Can I really trust these girls?”

I learned early on not to trust anyone, not even my own family. In my mind, trusting someone meant opening yourself to being hurt. But something in me decided otherwise.

I tentatively raised my hand. I was the second to last camper to go. Carrie spoke encouragingly. I feared that they would let me crash to the ground for fun.

“If you can’t do it, please step aside,” Carrie said, her tone serious.

I decided to take the plunge. I leaned back and let go. That night, all my preconceived notions about trusting others began to crack. I breathed a sigh of relief as the girls caught me in their arms.

Later, as we walked back as a cohesive unit, I smiled a genuine smile. I decided to let go and let God do His Work in me this week. My heart finally arrived at Camp Valley Hi.

And all it took was confronting a deeply rooted fear of trusting others. For one week, I have new friends and a new home.