“Great green globs of greasy, grimy gopher-guts!”

The summers of 1959, 1960, and 1961, aged 15 through 17, Yrs Trly was on the staff of a religious boys camp in northeastern MD.
The camp’s name was “Sandy Hill.” In ’59 I did the first five weeks (one week of prep and four of camp), ’60 I did the final five weeks, and in ’61 I did the full 10 weeks.
Google “Sandy Hill” and you get the camp there now. Same location, but not my original Sandy Hill. The original Sandy Hill was sold to pay off debt.
What I, an agnostic, was doing on a religious camp staff is debatable.
But perhaps only one-fourth of staff were “burdened” with “saving” the souls of campers. The rest of us were more concerned with camp operations, and not losing campers. (It happened once, a runaway.)
I was a CIT (Counselor-In-Training). I lived in a cabin of 10 campers with their regular counselor. I filled in when regular counselors had the day off.
I was supposed to be religious myself, but wasn’t.
I set up Bible verses so I could lead late-night cabin devotions under kerosene lantern-light — no electricity in the cabins.
I’d quickly read the verse, then “sleep tight, campers; reveille and calisthenics at 6:45 a.m.” Most campers, sick of religious brow-beating, loved it.
More fun was Edgar Allen Poe, chin atop yer flashlight for eerie lighting. “Cask of Amontillado.” Terrorize yer campers. “Great green globs of greasy, grimy gopher-guts!”
One could wonder how I encountered this religious boys camp. It was my hyper-religious father wishing to “straighten me out.” I began there in 1954 (age-10) as a camper, two weeks.
Dreadfully homesick at first, avoiding participation — I’d hide on my bunk.
Two weeks per summer through 1957, then four in 1958. By then I became interested in horseback riding, the macho pursuit at camp. Be a cowboy! Yet our horses were nags.
My goal was horsemanship staff — pursuit of machoness — despite inability to ride and control a horse.
The camp was for boys 5-6 through 13-14. It overlooked Chesapeake Bay, so had canoeing, swimming, and also horseback riding.
I always feel the reason I made the staff was because I could sling a pretty-good story. I still do it. Yer reading an example, if I haven’t bored you already.
Religious zealotry ran the gamut = overly judgmental to bleeding-heart liberal.
The horsey-guys quickly surmised I was little of a rider. Yet I was expert at -a) mucking stalls, and -b) teaching horsemanship to campers. Those horsey-guys could thereby return to their macho pursuits = desire to be a cowboy.
As one of the horsemanship staff I was assigned a horse. His name was “Barney,” a very placid gelding (a fixed stallion).

Me and Barney (me probably 80 pounds less than now). (Photo by J.D. Jenkins, horsemanship director at that time.)

“Barney” was so dumb he was little threat to me. I could pretend to be somewhat confident.
Three others were on horsemanship staff. None had a cabin. There was a fourth, also a cabin-CIT like me, but he was the other weeks.
He was also far more confident. The horsemanship director was cutting me slack because I mucked stalls, and taught the classes.
My greatest leap that year was leading trail-rides, which happened only occasionally. Our campers were scared of horseback riding, yet the camp rule was every camper should have the opportunity to ride a horse.
“Don’t hold the horn, Johnny. That’s why yer bouncing!”
Plus the horses automatically followed the trail, especially when back toward the stables.
By 1960 my horseback riding got better. The number-two in horsemanship, who also counseled a cabin, got fired for (allegedly) tossing a knife at a camper. He had a horse named “Rebel,” big and very spunky, part Tennessee Walking Horse, so very classy and pretty.
Tennessee Walkers kick up there feet when walking, and Rebel was 16&1/2 hands, our tallest horse.
When that guy was fired, the horsemanship director suggested I take over Rebel. I was dumbfounded. Rebel was a head-tosser; we used a restraint.
But Rebel and I became fast friends. Rebel seemed to know me, and came when called. Unlike the fired guy, I was not abusive and difficult. Rebel seemed to like that.
I led trail-rides often with Rebel, and even rode Rebel alone far from camp.
For 1961 the previous horsemanship director quit and was replaced by a horse-savvy farmboy. That guy was also a cabin counselor. I was now number-two, but in effect I was the de facto horsemanship director. But only in the sense I pretty much arranged everything (feeding, etc). Farmboy was still head honcho.
By 1961 I was so experienced my cabin-counselor let me run our cabin. Everyone wanted in my cabin. I was eminently fair, but demanded order. I showed my campers how to win the weekly cabin inspection award. We often did, and were treated at an off-camp ice-cream stand (the “Wayside” on Route 272, sibs).
I called it “benevolent dictatorship.” Nice idea, but it only worked at camp. Not in marriage, for example.
Campers wanted my benevolent dictatorship, since so many other cabins were rife with madness. Zealots cutting deals with blowhards, or posturing.
As a bleeding-heart liberal I gained the confidence of a trouble-making camper from the slums of urban Philadelphia. That kid, who was put in my cabin as a challenge, asked me to quit punishing him all the time, and do something special for him.
Since I was horsemanship I suggested he learn to jump a horse, “but let me run it by my other campers first. They need to know I’m making a special effort in your case.”
It worked; my other campers agreed. I taught that slum-kid to jump a horse. 56 years later, if he survived ‘Nam, he probably still remembers me.
I inadvertently turned that kid around; I cut him a break. Zealots on the staff wrung their hands I was so successful, yet I didn’t “save” him.
’61 was my last summer at Sandy Hill. ’62 I had to do college summer-school to prove I could do college-level work.
I was lined up to be camp horsemanship director in ’63, after my Freshman year at college, but my father intervened. My wages would have been $50 per week. No way was $500 gonna offset the cost of college.
My father lined up a job with an independent painting contractor at his oil-refinery in northern DE. With that I might earn $1,800 — about half the cost of college at that time.
So much for “faith.”
Sandy Hill prompts many fond memories. Perhaps most memorable is drifting serenely in a canoe on the glass-smooth bay, watching a far-away thunderhead cast cloud-side lightning bolts.
Sandy Hill was previously a summer estate for the duPonts. It was surrounded by pastures. Go up to the corner in one, and you could see my father’s oil-refinery 20-25 miles away.

• The “Wayside” (click the link, dudes) didn’t look anything like that 56 years ago.