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Summer Camp Blues

A True Story

By Savannah McCainPublished 6 years ago 13 min read
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The Chicago Park District is where I learned everything I needed to learn. I learned I had allergies. I learned I hate sunshine and fresh air. And I learned I love to play kickball. I had my first real pre-teen kiss in the park. I cannot remember the person, but I remember I was shocked and it was very awkward. We all have our experiences with childhood hilarity and drama. Mostly drama.

The first time I went to some form of day camp in the park district, I was seven years old. My babysitter, Wanda, had decided to leave me at the park with her children. Being the mid-nineties, the people at the park were ok with random children being left in their care. Plus, the field house was small and it was only ten children there at the most. The first park I went to was Kiwanis Park, on Howard and Greenview. The park had been long torn-down to make more room for the Gale school. There is a community center and playgrounds in the spot now.

I had two best friends at the time. We had went to the same day care, and were in the same class until I transferred from Gale to Kilmer. Melissa and Demarcus were the two people I spent my time with, because our mothers were kind of friends, and we just happened to be in the same neighborhoods. After leaving that part of Rogers park, I never saw them again.

I was not the biggest person in my classes, but I was the one who cried. So, when people would calls me fat names, I would always cry about it. Demarcus and Melissa were around to an extent. Being children, everyone wants to find a group to fit in with. Melissa chose a group that was far away from me. After school we went to some program that was in a little field house a block away from the school. Until this day I have no idea why I was there, who brought me there, and why I had to be there. I know that I was in a room with Melissa and four other girls: Lawanda, Brittney, and the other one whose name I forgot. Lawanda is the daughter of my babysitter Wanda. We hated each other. No, I mean we really hated each other. Our relationship was the kind where we appeared to be friends, but really if the other were on fire, we would throw gasoline on each other. That’s how serious it was. That day in the random field house, Lawanda talked the other girls into ignoring me. “Hey Melissa, do you want to draw with me? I’m don’t know how to jump double Dutch,” I said to her.

She looked at me, then back at Lawanda, then back to me again. “No, I rather… Stay over here with them,” she said before turning from me. So I sat in a corner and ate peanut butter crackers. I could hear Lawanda talking about me to the other girls. I chose to ignore it. When they started to talk to me, that’s when I started to cry. Every time the person would come by me, I’d pretend nothing was wrong. I didn’t want her pity. I just wanted to go home and go on about my life. This was not the first, or last time Lawanda turned people away from me. My last few months with Lawanda were very violent. Years, or maybe a year, of pent-up frustration led me to stop being shy and timid. I stopped caring about what could possibly happen to me if I stood up for myself. The week before I snapped, I was punched in the face by a sixth grader because I tried to stand up for my friend. Not only had that happened, but I had to spend morning, noon, and night with this girl. Lawanda was around me more than anyone else I knew at the time, because her mother was my baby sitter. She had two sisters, and a cousin who was always around the apartment. Lawanda’s cousin would talk me into playing games under the covers. It became weird when he would play with Lawanda too. I did not want to play with anyone who would want to play with someone I did not like. Lawanda started going around telling everyone I gave her cousin head under the sheets. Being in second grade, I had no clue what head was. I was pretty sure my head had not gone anywhere. It was his head that was going places. I retaliated by telling people about her having sex with her cousin. My second grade class was prime example why you should not leave kids alone in houses, and why people should search better for babysitters. Lawanda poked at my nerves for that entire year. Then, one day, we started fighting. According to Wanda, I had pulled out her daughter’s hair and I was fighting dirty. I wouldn’t have fought her if I had been outside of school. When I was at their house, she told Lawanda to hit me. After some time, Wanda pulled us apart. “Vicky you daughter is crazy. She just beat up my daughter,” Wanda shouted to my mom.

My mom gave her a look that said she did not believe I attacked anybody. “Lawanda must’ve been fuckin’ with her and finally beat her ass. Good. I’m glad she did,” said my mom. They began to argue. I inched away towards the door, hoping to go home and play in my new room. We had moved to the other side of Morse months before. I was only going to Gale and this woman’s house until school was over, and I could go to Kilmer the next year. My mom told her she will never have to worry about me hurting her daughter anymore. School was out the next month, and my granddaddy started picking me up from school. I didn’t get in trouble for fighting Lawanda. My mom praised me for fighting. “I know you don’t like it, but you will have to fight in this world. I had to fight, and your daddy had to fight. We don’t want you to have to. We want you to be happy and know you will never have to fight unless someone like Lawanda makes you,” she said to me one day she was doing my hair.

I was the annoying child who cried when people looked at her too long. The people who worked at Kiwanis made sure I knew I pissed them off every time I would show up. “Oh what is she crying about now?” one would say. I refused to tell them why I was crying. Eventually, I learned to turn away and hide my hurt. By the time I was nine, I got really good at it. Now, I’m a pro. One day I had fallen out of a chair while I was sitting in the corner for something I had done. In the process I had sliced my thumb, and was bleeding everywhere. As soon as my eyes started to water I got yelled at. It was obviously my fault, I fell because I was sitting in the chair wrong. I just went into the bathroom and washed my thumb. The cut was deep, and I should’ve asked for help, but I chose not to. I wrapped a towel around my hand and sat on the floor. Sometime later, someone noticed the bloody paper towel in my hand and, once again, I was yelled at. “Girl what is wrong with you? Are you trying to get infected? Yo’ mama needs to hurry up and get yo ass,” she said. I believed it would have made everyone happy if she had just let me bleed in the corner by myself.

When Kiwanis closed down, I ended up going to Touhy Park, on Clark and Jarvis. Touhy Park was the place I grew up in. There were more children, and more room. Melissa and Demarcus were no longer in my life at this point. Once I had left Gale, I had lost all contact with them. My mom and I were living on Farwell and Glenwood with her boyfriend at the time. Her boyfriend had convinced my mom to move from Howard, and into the new place on Farwell. It was a great decision because too many people were being killed in front of our apartment building. Everything in that year changed for me.

I was scared to go to Touhy Park. It was not walking distance, and I did not know I knew people who went there. “I didn’t know you were going to come here with me,” said my “boyfriend.” I smiled the biggest smile I could create. He took my hand in his and introduced me to his friends. “It’s funny. Every time we see each other, we have a crush on each other,” he said that day. I believed it to be true. We were in the same preschool class. When children made fun of me, he made sure I was ok. He was a cute Italian boy with curly hair. We stated off as the same height, but by the time we were eleven, I was shorter than him. But then again, I’m still shorter than everyone.

Fall of 1998, I hid under the slide with my “boyfriend.” We were playing house. He was the father, and I was the mom. “We have to get practice for when we get older,” he said. I giggled. He leaned over and kissed me. It was quick, but effective. I’m pretty sure I turned red at that. He took my embarrassment as a clue to give me a longer kiss. After that day, we shared kisses around the park.

Summer of 1999 was life changing. “Did you hear about Angelica,” asked one of my day camp friends.

“What? Is she dead?” I asked.

“No, she’s pregnant.”

“Wait… She’s what? How did that happen? I mean… Wow. I know her mom is angry,” I said. My boyfriend tried to teach me how to catch before my mom came and picked me up. My hand eye coordination was completely off. The old girls were sitting on the benches talking to some high school boys. These girls were tall, and/or had almost woman parts. I was growing some sort of boobage, but it was not something I showed everyone. I was more proud of my legs. My boyfriend loved my legs, so that made me want to show them off all summer.

One day my stomach felt like crap. I was cramping and I did not want to be bothered by anyone. I was mean and wanted to go home really bad. When I went into the bathroom, my pants and underwear were covered in red. Instead of freaking out, I sighed annoyed, and then stuffed paper towels into my pants. I had begged one of the camp counselors to call my mom so she could come get me. I did not tell them why. I just said I was sick. My mom and I were driving back to our house. “Ma, we have to go to family dollar,” I said.

“Why? Are you hungry,” she asked.

“No, I’m on my period.” She almost ran into another car.

“Wait, what? Is that why they called me? You should have told someone.”

“I didn’t want to. It’s gross.” She shook her head and took me to buy pads. After some awkward pad placing tutorials, I was left alone. Believe it or not, at the age of 23, I still don’t understand pads. My mom was not having a good summer. She tried to tell me about sex, that was weird. She had to teach me about periods, that was even more weird. Then she saw my clothes were becoming tighter, and she became weird. She refused to have a pregnant preteen in her house. I was ok with her insanity. I found it to be funny. My mom did not like the fact I hung around all the boys in the park. This was not a planned thing, the boys were nicer and the girls acted like they hated me.

This is a very true statement, to a preteen girl. Some of the girls would either laugh at me, or just say nothing to me. I chose to let them ignore me. It was better for everyone. The only reason some of the girls spoke to me was because of my aunt. She was popular with everyone, because she had the fake personality that appealed to everyone. I chose to not be fake. Being fake got me in trouble before with Lawanda, and I was not planning on doing that again. That was what made people turn away from me in camp. My grandma had always told me not to say anything if I didn’t have anything nice to say. I chose to be silent.

The next summer, everyone had finally reached the age of almost puberty. I had been going through this already last summer, but now some of the other girls my age understood what I was going through the summer before. Nicole had grown a lot more, and almost all of the girls in my age group were starting to become curvy. My boyfriend had begun to notice. It did not bother me because I noticed too. “I like Nicole,” he said to me one day during lunch. I laughed.

“I know you do,” I replied.

“No, I like her like her. Like, I want her to be my girlfriend.”

“Oh… Um, ok?”

“I don’t want you to be my girlfriend anymore. We can still be friends.”

“Um… Ok.” Nicole did not like him in any form. She found him dirty and had a crush on his older brother. The rest of the summer was awkward. We still hung around each other, but I was uncomfortable. I hadn’t stopped liking him yet. He acted like everything was normal, but I could not.

On a very hot day, the camp counselors came up with the idea to turn the slide in the playground into a water slide. They took some water hoes and some cardboard boxes, and made a waterslide. They placed the hoes at the top of the slide. Then, they broke open the boxes and used them as makeshift mats on the bottom of the slide. I’m sure all of our parents were angry when they came to pick us up. The camp was separated into two times. The first group would come at eight in the morning, then leave at four. The second group would stay from four to six to either play baseball or practice cheerleading. During the second half of day-camp, they made the waterslide. My ex-boyfriend was there as well. I did not know I was jealous until I saw him trying to sexually harass Nicole. She was obviously disgusted, but I was still jealous. That made me not want to play on the makeshift waterslide anymore.

The summer of 2000, I arrived back on the camp almost a new person. I was a big sister, and I was content. I had found someone else that went to my elementary school to be “in love” with, so when I saw my ex-boyfriend, I did not think anything about it. That summer felt like the last summer that I was there. I felt like this because in 2002, I had moved to the westside. That last summer, was the one that was the most uneventful. I had found out I had asthma and allergies (that explained a lot). The fact these things were going on with me, and my mom was having money problems, I started to spend my summers with various family members. I haven’t seen these summer camp friends since those days, but sometimes I wished I knew what they are like now.

friendship
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About the Creator

Savannah McCain

I'm just a potato trying to become the best vodka I can be. My writing has no purpose. When I write, I write what is on my mind at the time. Some days I can write something funny and sweet, and others I would write something dark.

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