Topic 45: Some False Impressions of Childhood.

Carol:

Hello Muddah, Hello Faddah

 Discounting the  bomb drills, Los Angeles was a great place to be a kid in the 1950’s.  Organized playtime revolved around Scouts, or in my case Camp Fire Girls.  Our particular group in Brentwood, “the Sunshine Bluebirds” took field trips to Marineland Palos Verdes, opened in 1954, and Disney’ Magic Kingdom, opened in 1955.

When we weren’t taking field trips we were memorizing “The Blue Bird Wish,” perfecting macaroni art, and learning a vast repertoire of campfire songs. We knew from the older girls that  summer camp was even better than the field trips. Still, I hesitated about going  until I heard  that Vickie—the most popular girl in the group—was going. My mother made sure I was signed up for the same session as Vickie. So, in mid-August 1957, I boarded the bus for the two-hour trip to Camp Yallani in the San Bernardino Mountains near Big Bear.

The bus ride from west Los Angeles to Seven Oaks  was noisy as we practiced our camp songs and yelled back and forth to friends.  When we piled out of the bus, I stayed close to Vickie. She  would be my special friend; with her by my side, I could be outgoing and popular, too. My smile disappeared when I heard our names called…assigned to different cabins in different areas of the camp. Vickie marched off with six other laughing girls, never to be seen again except for the occasional nod across the dining hall.

If I knew then what foreshadowing is, I would have felt the dark cloud of doom descend over me as I trudged off to my cabin in the dimming light. None of the  older Bluebirds, not even my own mother, had warned me about the critters. No, not the bears, the spiders...  And, there they were hanging in the corners of the  tiny , smelly, scary-in-the-dark outhouse next to our cabin.  From that point on, much of my 9-year-old brain would be  focused on whether I could “hold it in” until I could get to the big, clean restroom next to the dining hall.

My obsession with clean bathrooms was soon overshadowed by the increasing awareness that all was not right at Camp Yallani.  Although my one postcard home began with a little white lie (“I’m having a wonderful time”), the next couple of sentences told it all: “Our Counselor Miss Carol got sick so we are staying with Black Oak cabin. We started out with seven kids. Now we have 3 because 4 got the flue and went home.” I’m sure my mother was relieved when she got the call the next day that Camp Yallani was closing down early because of the flu epidemic. But not nearly as relieved as I was.

I probably did have a wonderful time somewhere between the loss of Vickie, the infestation of spiders, the constipation, and the onslaught of a flu pandemic, but I don’t recollect. I googled “Camp Fire Girls in the 50’s” and it’s amazing how many women who grew up in LA during the 50’s and 60’s have blogs and how many of them write about the most wonderful and amazing, best of all possible experiences they had at Camp Yallani.

But, they never never talk about the spiders.

Megan:

While preparing for this essay,  I had a hard time thinking of any impressions of childhood, let alone false ones. After a little brainstorming, I came up with this: Childhood is a carefree, gullible, emotional and short period of every one’s lives. Some of those descriptions are true (emotional and short), but the others, at least in my experience, are false.

I’m not sure how much my parents were aware of it, but I was not a carefree child. I worried, almost all of the time, about the end of the world and going to Hell (mostly that other people would go to Hell). In addition to attending a Catholic elementary school, I also went to a local AWANA youth group with a neighbor. There I memorized bible verses I can still recite today. One night the leaders told us a story about a young man in India who never went to church. He was a good man, but he didn’t know about Jesus. He met a missionary who invited him to go to a service in the church across the lake. So, the Indian man climbed into his canoe paddled towards the church, eager to learn about Jesus. That’s when his canoe was hit by a rogue wave, it capsized and he drowned. And then the man burned in Hell for all eternity.

That story almost ruined my life. I was devastated, too upset to go back to the youth group, almost too frightened to sleep. Finally, I had a conference with my teacher at the Catholic school. We lay down on the nap-time carpet and I told her why I was upset. And she explained to me the concept of “Purgatory.” Not Heaven, but not Hell --- a chance for the Indian man to work his way up. But this didn’t satisfy me. He was a good man, most people are – so why couldn’t he get into Heaven on his first try? I was filled with doubt.  At 7 years old, I had had my first religious crisis, another one when I was 12, and then when I was 17, I left the church completely. I could not handle the stress.  
                           
My childhood was not carefree, nor was I gullible – but I was definitely melodramatic. The night before my 15th birthday I cried myself to sleep because “life was going too fast.” I wrote that in my journal. Nearly 15 years later, which has passed in a second, I sort of laugh at my teenage self. I wish I could tell her to calm down and take a deep breath. I  don't feel any nostalgia for my childhood or teenage years (except maybe for the magic of Christmas) and I'm probably more carefree now than I've ever been. I still think the world is going to end any second now, but that doesn't scare me.