At Lennox Hill Camp there were a few Camp Counselors who seemed to transcend their genre of expertise. Not just famous around Lennox Hill Camp were these individuals but infamous.

There was Scooby. Scooby was the complexion of a Hershey's chocolate bar with skin as smooth to boot. Scooby would ask us if we wanted to see the dark side of the moon and then sure enough he would turn around, walk away, and drop his pants for all to see. Scooby's famous saying was "And you can get it for a dollar ninety-nine." He would say this in a carnival barker/W.C. Fields voice.

There was Carlos. Carlos was insane. Benevolently so but definitely insane. On my very first trip to Lennox Hill camp I was sat down in Carlos's group. "Hi, I'm Carlos", he said to me as he introduced himself. "Fuck to the East, Fuck to the West, Fuck with me and you're fucking with the best." Talk about an icebreaker. I remember one night when dressed as a pirate for our annual costume party Carlos could be seen in our bunk chasing a bee out with his sword. You didn't mess with Carlos. The kids in his care gave him nooooooo problems.

There was Fran. Fran was a very obese and kind hearted man. He also had a quick temper. I was told by my brother one summer that Fran was gay. I'm not sure if this was just rumor or not but given how I was raised it was easy to accept as reality. Fran took the brunt of all the fat jokes the camp kids had to offer.

There was our resident naturalist named Dan. Dan the Nature Man. "Dan, Dan, the nature man, can put gorillas in garbage cans." Dan had a fascinating knowledge. I was taken with the different types of bug and reptile life in Connecticut when I was at Lennox Hill. There wasn't an animal or insect that Dan couldn't identify or tell you about. I remember one summer being taken on a blind nature tour where we had to make our way through the woods guided by him but tethered together by rope and blind folded. At the end of the tour we were given a mystery leaf to hold which we were all told was poison oak. Boy were we all pissed. He assured us that as long as we didn't touch our faces we would be fine. Ugh. I'm still pissed. That was the only negative feeling I ever had towards Dan.

Finally when I was in Boys 3 I had two counselors who's names I can't remember anymore (I think it might have been Jim and Johan). Every summer we got to go of into the woods and have a camp out for a day or two. These were always adventurous and felt like the real out doors experience. One this one outing we were deep into the woods. Every once in awhile we could hear the sounds of the outside world. I distinctly remember hearing a motorcycle in the distance making it's chainsaw like noise. One of our counselors told us that they had to get something and that he would be right back. After 5 or so minutes we were starting to wonder what had happened to him. Suddenly we heard a loud crack and a yell.

"Ahhhhhhhh!!!!! Johan!!!! Help me!!!!!!"

*crack* *crack* *crack*

Johan stood up and ran into the woods after Jim.

"Jim!! I'm coming!!! Hold on!!!"

*crack* *crack* *crack*

"AAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!", we then heard Jim yell.

We were scared white. Kids were clining to each other some crying for their mothers. There was total pandemonium amongst the ranks. My response was to delve into temporary insanity and start acting like a mental patient.

"OK. I am now going crazy!", I said to myself. I kept up some type of cuckoo's Nest monologue up until we realized that it had gotten very quiet. We all shut up. You could hear a pin drop. In the distance we saw two figures emerging out of the mist. The one street kid who was with us, Jaime, jumped down to him stomach and crawled GI Joe style over to the figures.

Of course it was Jim and Johan. When we all saw their faces we broke into tears. We were fucking furious at them. We honestly though they had been killed and that we were next.

We swore that we were going to tell Walter (the camp director) what had happened when we got back. Somehow that never happened.