Tag: camp

It was the summer of 1987, before the rise of the internet and 9/11, before the music of Nirvana and Dave Matthews, even before the popularity of the taco bell dog and Beverly Hills, 90210. In fact, my family had just gotten an Apple 2-C computer, on which we could play such illustrious games as Agent U.S.A., The Oregon Trail, and Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? I was supposed to be selling magazines that summer, but that job was cut short when I proved to be an awful salesman. So, my mom shipped me off to Laurel Lake Camp for two weeks.

The camp itself was a marvel, on a large-sized property in mid-western Pennsylvania. It was a Christian enterprise, so the activities were geared towards not only having fun but also all about including room for Jesus to shine through. We stayed in cabins that seemed as if they had been on the property since Taft was president, the boys on one side of the property and the girls on the other. While we were all pretty young, it was still at that age when we were first beginning to notice girls as more than just bothersome.

Each cabin was instructed on the first evening at camp to come up with a name in time for the bonfire, to be shared with the rest of the camp. It would be our official cabin name for the duration of the two weeks, so they gave us half an hour to spitball and come up with pure gold. Well, we did the spitballing, but it was near impossible to agree on a name.

There were 8 guys in our cabin, and it was the second one from the end of the row, so we threw around names like 8 Dudes, Cabin 2, and No Name Cabin. Honestly, those were our choices. It didn’t help that we had just met each other that day, so no one was really willing to step out and be the leader during the process. Our counselor was probably about 8 years older than we were, but he seemed ancient to us at the time, and his name was Jay. Just before we had to leave to head to the bonfire this kid named Tony spoke up.

“Um, you guys like the Lakers?”

“Sure. Magic Johnson is amazing.”

“So, why can’t we just be Jay’s Lakers?”

“Uh, because our counselor’s name is Jay?”

“Why not?”

“Sure.” Continue reading “Jay’s Lakers”