Excerpt:
It all began, I guess you might say, back in January when Pastor Bockhaus gave me the bad news, telling me that I was not only going to have to run his church's camp that summer but also to supervise construction work on a new, satellite campsite a few miles farther into the Weenockee Mountains. I'd protested that running one camp was quite enough work for any one person but he had shown me that it wasn't feasible to hire someone else just to supervise the work at Lone Falls, the proposed new campsite. Besides, he added, I would only have to drop in one or two days a week to check on the progress of the work, which was very simple; they wanted Lone Falls to be a primitive camp and that meant that nothing very sophisticated would have to be built.
I'd felt like crying when I went back to my little cubbyhole of an office in Eastwood's United Community Church. Bockhaus had talked me into it and now I faced the prospect of all that work. The plaque on my desk read "Ann Gooden, Camp Counselor," and I thought of taking it back to him and showing him that it said nothing about construction supervisor. It wouldn't have done any good, though; he need only have patted my hand and soft-soaped me a little and I'd have agreed to it all over again.
Another reason for my reluctance to take on the task, and to go over to Lone Falls that day, was that the pastor's own son, Terry, was part of the work crew. The church had hired Terry, along with Chuck Norden, son of a member of the church's board of trustees, and Mark Cokes, son of one of the most prominent parishioners, to do the work. Chuck and Terry were eighteen and Mark a year older but I didn't have much confidence in them. Terry had absorbed virtually none of his father's pious goodness, and that part only to rebel against it, and the others were cut to about the same pattern. I hadn't liked the way they had looked at me when I'd gone there before-as if I'd forgotten my clothes-and I especially didn't like the way they had pumped me to find out exactly how far it was to Camp Lenatchee, a girls' camp a few miles to the south.
It all began, I guess you might say, back in January when Pastor Bockhaus gave me the bad news, telling me that I was not only going to have to run his church's camp that summer but also to supervise construction work on a new, satellite campsite a few miles farther into the Weenockee Mountains. I'd protested that running one camp was quite enough work for any one person but he had shown me that it wasn't feasible to hire someone else just to supervise the work at Lone Falls, the proposed new campsite. Besides, he added, I would only have to drop in one or two days a week to check on the progress of the work, which was very simple; they wanted Lone Falls to be a primitive camp and that meant that nothing very sophisticated would have to be built.
I'd felt like crying when I went back to my little cubbyhole of an office in Eastwood's United Community Church. Bockhaus had talked me into it and now I faced the prospect of all that work. The plaque on my desk read "Ann Gooden, Camp Counselor," and I thought of taking it back to him and showing him that it said nothing about construction supervisor. It wouldn't have done any good, though; he need only have patted my hand and soft-soaped me a little and I'd have agreed to it all over again.
Another reason for my reluctance to take on the task, and to go over to Lone Falls that day, was that the pastor's own son, Terry, was part of the work crew. The church had hired Terry, along with Chuck Norden, son of a member of the church's board of trustees, and Mark Cokes, son of one of the most prominent parishioners, to do the work. Chuck and Terry were eighteen and Mark a year older but I didn't have much confidence in them. Terry had absorbed virtually none of his father's pious goodness, and that part only to rebel against it, and the others were cut to about the same pattern. I hadn't liked the way they had looked at me when I'd gone there before-as if I'd forgotten my clothes-and I especially didn't like the way they had pumped me to find out exactly how far it was to Camp Lenatchee, a girls' camp a few miles to the south.