by Keoni Lewis

Created on: May 26, 2008

"Okay class, we're going to write in our journals today about what we did over the summer. I'm going to give you 10 minutes on my cue." Mr. Flores then turned on his radio and contemporary adult music began to settle in to our ears. I sat there while everyone wrote. I should have as much to write as everyone else. But I wasn't one of the fortunate high school children in this class. My summers were not spent on family trips abroad or sun soaking at the beach. I had only one memory that I will always be fond of when I think of my childhood summers. Summer Camp.

In the summer before I started the second term of my 8th grade year at King Intermediate School, my aunty started to attend a little church a short walking distance from our neighborhood. My summers before were usually spent in the same manner as a Cinderella story. This particular summer I was invited to a church youth camp that ran for about a week on the Waianae coast of Oahu. At first my aunty was reluctant to send me because this would mean that for a week she would have no one to help her around the house cooking and cleaning. But the director of youth camp as well as a few members of the church urged my aunty to allow me to attend. She finally gave in and that June, I was loaded into a white passenger van and on my way to my first year at youth camp.

Paul Ruddell was my sponsor. He was the person responsible for me. It took what seemed to be an eternity before we pulled into a remote dirt and gravel road that led through a basketball court that appeared to be aging like most of the landscape and buildings in this area. Paul led me to our cabins so that I could store my luggage and claim my bed. There were bunk beds in each cabin room with a parlor area between rooms. More children arrived and everyone knew each other as kids ran about screaming and laughing. I quietly observed their behavior wondering if I would fit in to this new social group. Church was one thing. Camp a totally different experience. Paul shuffled me through the campgrounds introducing me to other kids and showing me where we would be having chow. As we walked near the make shift volleyball area, some kid ran by and bumped into me. He didn't stop to apologize or look back to see if he should render one. I impulsively got angry and exclaimed "I'm going to kick that f*ckin' kids ass if he ever bumps into me again!" Paul swiftly corrected me that this was church camp and that "we don't use that kind of language here." I was raw

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