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14. Casowasco – Building Community

~ toddgoddard ~ 1 Comment

When the end of June arrived, the four of us guys migrated to the Staff House, now known as Wesley Lodge. Goodbye disgusting shower and the flea infested chemical toilet! We got indoor plumbing! The rest of the staff arrived and moved in. The ratio went from 4:0 to 6:25, men to women. Life was improving.

The prior seven weeks were devoted to getting the property in shape for summer camp. Most evenings, after a long workday and sailing / water skiing, we, few set about the task of building the long anticipated Fourth of July campfire.

Each year boats from around Owasco Lake would gather offshore to gather around our campfire, strategically located where the creek poured into the lake. It appeared to be safely positioned far enough away to keep embers from catching Galilee on fire, our signature Lodge, yet, close enough to the water that we could easily shove it into the lake if things got out of hand.

Dave, lifelong friend and best man at my wedding, was the chain saw guy. I was on the International tractor, using the front loader as an elevated platform and the hitch to drag logs. Clint, another dear friend, drove the dump truck, and climbed to the top of the stack to help Dave place the logs. We might have had one or two helpers, but mostly, it was the three of us.

We seldom found logs suitable for our efforts laying on the ground, so we went about the extensive woods searching for trees to fell and add to our stack. Dave would drop the tree and cut to length the largest logs to fit into the Dodge Power wagon dump bed. Clint would chain me up, first, to skid the logs, then, to attach them to my front loader so I could place them in the truck. The woods we worked could be anywhere between flat level to near vertical. Chains, cables, and winches, Oh my!

We’d take a load to the campfire site down by the lake, dump the load, and begin to lift each log onto the pile. We built a four-sided fire log cabin style, wide at the bottom, tapered to the top. We’d fill the interior with old firewood that had turned punky and couldn’t be used in any of the fireplaces. Our first year, the fire was built to 17 and a half feet tall. My final year, the campfire was built to 35 feet. Galilee was beginning to appear uncomfortably close.

It was not unusual for the coals to be a couple of feet deep and the fire to burn for four or more days afterward. Yes. It was a big campfire. And it got bigger every summer.

Dave, Clint, and I were a team. We worked well together, enjoyed each other’s company, and shared a humorous trait for pulling practical jokes. We pilfered another male staff member’s underwear, put them in zip lock bags, soaked them in beer, and froze them in the staff house freezer! We commandeered a younger clergyman’s canoe one night, hulled it up the dinning hall bell tower, and skewered it five stories high, for him to find the next morning as he came for breakfast. Alan, I’m looking at you. Priceless!

We hauled a sailboat to the reservoir at the camp entrance, placed the lifeguard tower over top the mailbox, and greeted Captain John and his family when they drove in from Ohio to spend the summer on staff. Yes, we were wearing life jackets. The mailman was also duly amused. NY State DOT had the audacity to place a stop sign at the entrance to our road. It made a very nice card table.  

These were but a tiny fraction of the high jinks we took part in while on the summer staff.

One June evening, as the last light of the day was fading and the three of us were dead tired, I was lifting the last of the logs to the top of the stack. Clint and Dave swung a log onto the pile and Dave commenced to cutting the notches to keep it from rolling and solidly in place.

In an absent-minded moment, Dave rested the idling chain saw on his thigh. Yikes! Blood went everywhere. I lowered him with the front loader, Clint threw him into the cab of the truck, and off they raced to the Emergency Room at Auburn Memorial Hospital. Forty plus stitches later, Dave returned a wounded soldier to the sympathy of the female staff. Clint and I just rolled our eyes.

Dave and Clint were joined with other male friends over the years; Rick, Dale, Scott, Larry, Bob, Mark, Carter, and others. Casowasco gave us a connection. Experience gave us strength. God wove us into a tapestry of grace that continues to hold me over four decades later.

Guys will be guys; for which I am thankful.

…

The pool this morning was calling me by name, gave me my own lane, and provided me with the necessary buoyancy of grace to swim my 15 laps. Other than to count the laps ticking by, it was hard to meditate, to focus my thoughts.

Thoughts of the recent Homeowners Association board meeting were interrupted by yesterday’s FLACRA’s all staff meeting. As the chair of the board, they insisted I be photographed presenting numerous awards to their respected recipients. I’m not that photogenic!

Breaking news, interrupted thoughts, thinking about my recent introduction to members of two small country churches where I agreed to serve part time in retirement. Did they like me? They seemed really nice. Would we come to love each other as a pastor loves their flock? Please, Lord; I hope so.

Most trips to the pool bring calm, clarity, focus. Today, not so much. Yet, I’m thankful and the laps give my muscles a good work out.

…

Bob called staff meetings each week on Sunday evening. Campers had moved in, parents left (either smiling or crying), and our staff needed to coordinate requests and activities. The craft room needed more supplies. The store was running low on Maple Walnut ice cream. Three campers were allergic to bees and had Epi pens in case they got stung.

Most staff meetings were in Bob and Ruth’s living room. We piled in laying on the floor or draped over the chairs, giving each other back rubs (my, oh, my). We laughed a lot and shared common misery, like tales of Saturday cabin cleaning. A toilet needed unplugged, additional sailboats needed to be brought out of storage, and the dock needed to be leveled (especially on hot days).

The schedule was posted such that a staff member was in attendance at every campfire each evening. We led the singing, guided the devotions, and closed with prayers. Rules were spoken, such as, “no put down phrases,” and “since everyone is new, you have the opportunity to be yourself and create the reputation you want to live with.” Good stuff, right there.

The rest of the staff and I learned how to live in community. How to express our needs. How to listen and respond with empathy. How to communicate, especially with members of the opposite sex. Yes, romances came and went, ebbed and flowed. We support each other and when there was a need, we all pitched in. When there was grief, we all responded with words of comfort and acts of kindness.

Christian community, I learned, is a beautiful thing. It can be found in a local church or an AA meeting just as it can be created and found at summer camp among the staff.

And then, there was Mary Jo.

She was new to the Staff and by this time, I was one of the veterans. My dad was an ordained pastor, appointed by Mary Jo’s father, the resident bishop. A resident bishop in the United Methodist Church has a lot of power, especially over who is sent where to serve which church. Compensation and steeple size matters. Politics and pride were in constant tension with the good-old-boys network. Yeah, back in the day, the bishop and his superintendents were all back-room cigar chomping white male  deal makers.

There are a lot of skeletons in them there closets.

They didn’t get a long. My dad was stubborn, a Don Quixote charging windmills of injustice, destined to short-term pastorates in small rural churches with tiny little steeples. Bishop Yeakel exuded power and authority, looked like he stepped right off a movie set, and was loved by all; except for those who crossed him. He was right at home in the bishop’s chair in are largest cathedrals, wearing his pointy hat and flowing robes.

To say it was chilly between Mary Jo and me would be an understatement.

After so many weeks of the silent treatment, following one Sunday evening staff meeting, Mary Jo pulled me aside, got right into my comfort zone and said, “Look. Your dad doesn’t like my dad. My dad doesn’t like your dad. But. That doesn’t mean we can’t be friends.”

I was stunned by Mary Jo’s stark honesty, her willingness to take risks for the sake of building a social network and our staff community, and her humility to swallow a healthy dose of pride. Yeah. Wow. “You’re right,” I said when the Spirit gave me a shove to break the deafening silence. “I’m willing to give it a try, if you are, too.”

The following day, Don has me using the backhoe to dig the footer for the staff house addition. It had to be straight, squared at the corners, and forty-eight inches deep to get the footer below the frost line. To this day, I still think a backhoe is a thing of beauty. In experienced hands, watching a backhoe work is like watching a maestro conducting an orchestra.

I wasn’t alone. Slightly behind me, my peripheral vision got a glimpse of Mary Jo standing, watching me dig. I turned, smiled, and shut down. “Good morning,” I said as I jumped down. I figured there was no better time like the present to start trying to be a friend. “Whatcha upto?” I asked.

“I always wanted to give that a try,” Mary Jo confessed. “It looks so cool.”

What an opportunity, I thought. “Hop up and let me show you how.” She sat in front of me. My arms wrapped around her and my hands guided her movement on the control levers. It was a little like that movie with the pottery wheel and music, but not really. It was more like two people who God had brought together to become friends.

Later, I was seeking a seminary to attend after I completed college. Mary Jo invited me to visit her in Dayton OH. She was going to be starting her second year at United Theological Seminary. Though accepted and tempted with generous financial packages, I didn’t want to attend where my dad attended (Drew in Madison NJ) or nearby Colgate (Rochester NY). I stayed with Mary Jo and slept on her apartment floor. She gave me the grand tour and introduced me to as many professors as she could find.

I was sold. If it hadn’t been for God working through Mary Jo, my life and call would have gone in entirely different directions.

Thank you, Lord, for the gift of Casowasco, for the people who became such important influences in my life, for lifelong friends, for community, for grace and love, for your call to be an ordained pastor.

11. The Smell of Hoppes

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Tom’s kitchen table had been cleared after the evening meal. It was now set, with a base linen towel. Scattered on top were various rifle bits and pieces, displayed as if jewels under glass.

Tom had gone blind from macular degeneration. Yet, he insisted on cleaning guns when I returned from the field. Rifles for woodchucks or coy dogs, shotguns for fowl, rabbit or deer, pistol or revolvers for just plain fun.

Hoppes patches and oil were rubbed over every part, barrel, receiver, magazine before each was reassembled and gently returned to its case.

Residue from gunpowder and dirt from the Chemung River Valley spotted our oily rags. He and I sat at his table, rubbing and wiping, Tom listened to my most recent adventures, me listening to his tales from long ago. Into the evening we’d celebrate mass. Cleaning the guns Tom lent me was like the sacramental completion of the circle of life, from generation to generation.

Tom grew up in northeast Pennsylvania, depression poor, mining anthracite coal from the state’s deepest vanes. Dark, dangerous, unforgiving work could reduce a man to a gelatinous dark spot crushed into the floor of the mine, or, into a rasping, wheezing cancerous mesothelioma plaintiff in the blink of the eye.

During the great depression, Tom and his siblings worked two and three jobs to keep the household afloat. When the great war and shortages came, Tom was paid to run ration stamps out the back alley for complicit  store owners one step ahead of the federal agents. After the war, he settled into New York’s southern tier, bought and operated a gas station and repair shop in Elmira, filling tanks, replacing engine rings, and swapping out brake drums well into his seventies when his eyes began to fail.

A member of my father’s parish, Tom was a father figure my own dad couldn’t be. For my dad, guns were weapons of war that maimed with explosive violence, not tools for game or pleasure plinking. To think that a gun could bring together generations was beyond his experience and imagination. He’d prepared for burial too many of his generation, corpses violated by the unforgiving laws of chemistry and physics, flung without compassion by the brutality of war. But for Tom and me, Hoppes was the smell of our bread and wine.

“Lap Pool Closed” greeted me early the other morning, causing me to seethe. “I didn’t pay good money for a membership only to be denied at the door,” my sick brain whined and complained like a spoiled first world privileged brat.

“When the chemicals adjust to proper levels, they’ll call up and let us know the pool is open,” the blameless messenger smiled as she delivered up my bad news. Disrupt my routine and I tend to become more distempered than usual. Gnarly. Pessimistic, I’ve been described. Everyone who is surprised, raise your hand.

I’m working on it. I don’t want to be known as that ornery old man. I want to create the reputation I want to live with. You know what I’m talking about: kind, gracious, loving. Someone like Tom.

Rusty lived down the street from the parsonage. He and I were in the same grade, rode the same bus to school, and were often hunting partners. He was from a poor family, but he certainly knew just about everything when it came to the outdoors, hunting and fishing. What Tom didn’t teach me, Rusty often would show me. Game was plentiful behind town, down by the mainline Erie Lackawanna, where the muddy Chemung River wandered.

We liked to hunt pigeons from the railroad trestle, a three-span double-track bridge that paralleled the new highway bridge just a half mile upstream. Rusty and I would walk in single file with our 12 gage pumps at port arms down the center between track one on the north side and track two on the south, my right thumb resting on top the safety in the off position. Slow we’d stalk the filthy, good-for-nothing pigeons that roosted in the truss.

We’d usually make it center span before they’d spook and the whole mass would depart for the safety of any place other than there. Timing and a smooth pull were necessary for a safe and accurate shot. One in the chamber and four in the magazine would quickly be pumped out. If the lead was corrected for flight below and away, and, if by skill we successfully shot between the steel truss, we could bring down fifteen or twenty. Hit a girder and duck! Once the flock departed, we’d find cover in the steel and wait for first, their scout, then second, the flock to slowly but surely return to the roost. Wash, rinse, repeat. A good outing might bring two or three iterations of this killing cycle, littering the river, turning the water red.

A hot, summer afternoon found Rusty and I stalking Chemung’s filthy pigeons. Cicadas buzzed. Skeeter skimmed stagnant pools. The river flowed. The moaning of Jake brakes from eighteen wheelers further down the valley echoed into the hills and gulches so characteristic of the Southern Tier. The sun high in the sky bore down. Sweat stained our tee shirts and wet the brow. Safety off. Slow. Lift, advance, gently, step, one railroad tie to the next. Watching. Listen. Waiting for the first sign of a pigeon to stir.

What? Was? That? Head on a slow swivel, rotating from Rusty’s back to the horizon around behind us. There. A mile and half behind barely visible whiffs of soot ascended above the tree line, followed by six thousand horsepower of Erie Lackawanna muscle leaning into the corner, lining itself up for the bridge we were on. Thirty feet above the water. Dead center. Inches from the rails. Loaded shotguns un-safed.

Shit.

We just about did. “Run!” we both yelled simultaneously. Safe on, and I ran like the devil was licking at my ass. West we ran, feeling the bridge rumble when the groaning engines gained the distant bank. Can’t slow. Can’t slip. Can not, for God sake, put an ankle between ties. Snap, scream, and pink mist. Rusty, don’t you fall. As we gained the west shore, we angled across track two and flung our bodies and guns down the embankment, just as the lead engine, horn blaring, roared past. Tumbled and slid in a cloud of dust, soot, and railroad ash, guns protected by the roll.

Stunned, we righted ourselves. Sat silent as the caboose above glided past. Soon, the train disappeared down the straight, enveloped by the valley. I exhaled about the same time as Rusty and we burst out laughing.

How close. How incredibly lucky. How incredibly stupid we were, but we survived. The walk back to town was quiet. Pensive. He veered off to his house, and me to Tom’s.

The table was soon set. The smell of Hoppes appeared, drifted, enveloped two guys, one blind and old, the other young and not quite so full of spit and vinegar as before. The quiet was broken only when necessary. The table was so rich and full. Oh, how the memory warms my heart. God’s grace whispered as my shotgun was cleaned, reassembled, and returned to its fitting and proper place.    

10. Becoming a Wolverine

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Don’t know why; all I know is that we had to pack up the house and move to another parsonage. Dad had a change of parishes, starting his third of four years of seminary. Hello! Chemung, here we come. Nestled in New York’s southern tier, Chemung is a small village on a ridge overlooking the Chemung River, which flowed west to east towards the Susquehanna. Annual flooding lends to dikes and dams, in a futile attempt to tame its brown moving effluent.

This would be the third high school in three years. My new identity was a Waverly Wolverine. I wasn’t looking forward to the change. New friends are hard to come by. Good friends are rare. Lifelong friends, linked by youth-filled common experiences and shared values, are like finding diamonds in the rough; diamonds that God planted for me to discover.

First day of school. Assigned homeroom. Mr. Allen took roll call. Everyone looked when my name was called. New guy! I was all alone.

Except.

Except Gary and Chuck reached out to me. They didn’t have to. But they did. They worked at the local hospital and nursing home in the kitchen washing pots and pans. They got me a job, and I fit right in, earning $2.20 an hour. Gary’s aunt ran the local American Legion. We got paid five bucks every Friday night to clean up after Bingo and set up for Saturday’s wedding. I’ve cleaned up enough dirty ashtrays for a lifetime. Sometimes the Legion bartender would put a case of beer on the back steps for us when we finished up. Life was good.

Gary and Chuck had known each other since before Kindergarten. They weren’t jocks, nerds, or potheads. They were middle average, often overlooked, underappreciated, under the radar flying, clean cut type of ordinary nice guys who welcomed me into their inner circle of acceptance.

They were awkward around girls, uncomfortable in their adolescent acne scarred skin, and always looking for a reason to sneak into or out of school. I fit right in. Gary drove a Ford LTD that was herded down the road, and Chuck drove a Ford Pinto, a stick shift on which we all learned. I got my senior license and often sported my dad’s dark green Plymouth Satellite. Gas was under a buck a gallon.

Gary, Chuck, and I hung out together. Worked on completing homework and lab assignments together (usually at Pudgie’s Pizza across the border in Athens, PA). We went to rock-n-roll concerts together. We saw some great bands. The late 1970s were some very good years! We experimented with alcohol together, swapped car stereos into and out of each other’s cars, and talked about dream girls together. All three of us had a poster of Farrah Fawcett on our bedroom wall.

Chuck and Gary were God’s gift to me. It has only taken me a lifetime to recognize the enormous impact this grace has had upon my life. Thank you, Chuck. Thank you, Gary. You guys mean more to me than you know.

Thank you, God, for Chuck and Gary.

…

The pool yesterday morning limbered me up and wore my ass out. Crawl, breast, elementary back. Down and back five times each, for a total of 15 laps. Doesn’t sound like much, but it is just right for me. Discipline is everything. Don’t try to increase time or distance. Faster is a false idol. Further is asking for trouble. Repetition is where the sweet spot it. The nice thing about falling into a rut is that you always know where you are going.

Yesterday, sunlight penetrated the dark grey winter sky and illuminated the lane I was swimming in. What a blessing! To roll my head and breath with each stroke, to bathe my face in the sunlight of God’s grace. Humbling.

…

The day was much like today. It was December, the Christmas time of year. Chuck, Gary, and I would rotate work schedules. However, whenever a tray girl called in sick, which was often, we would call in one other to cover their afterschool shift. We also elbowed our way into cooking on the weekends. The net result was that all three of us were often working the kitchen at the same time.

Saturday inventory was always an opportunity for us to express our creativity. The daytime (older) pots and pans guy frequently stole food out of the walk in. Every evening after sweeping and mopping the whole place, we’d put on some rock and roll music, throw a few pounds of steak into a frying pan with butter, break out the medicinal beer (for patient’s use only) and party on. Completing the monthly inventory sheets was an exercise in creativity. If Frank, our boss, ever caught on to our Tom foolery, he never let on.

Being festive, I wore a red Santa hat in the kitchen and sung Christmas carols. It was great delivering and picking up trays from patients, especially those unfortunates on the psych ward and the nursing home residents. Thoughts and fears brought my imagination to life as I entered and exited the locked units. What happens if someone jumped me? The movies Halloween and the Exorcist had just come out. Cue the slasher music. What if I went into a patient’s room to deliver a food tray and I found them dead? You know; not alive? Singing Christmas carols brought smiles to staff and patients alike. I had a talent to make people happy. Life was good.

I learned one of the nursing home floors wasn’t going to have a staff Christmas party. The direct care staff was bummed. I knew they worked hard, cleaning up the nasty, not making a dime more than minimum wage. They were pretty. I was looking for acceptance. They needed a party and I knew how to make people happy.

Frank kept a few bottles of hard liquor in his desk drawer locked in his office. Undoubtedly, it was a violation of hospital policy and he could be fired if caught. Hey? He was the director of dietary services. Who were we to care?

Gary, Chuck, and I just had a way about learning everything there was to learn about the people and the hospital / nursing home. It didn’t matter if they worked in dietary or laundry or administration, we always got the skinny.

One evening (doesn’t every good tale start out this way?), the three of us were done for the day and locking up. A knock on the kitchen door caused us to stop, look, turn down the volume, and wonder what we were being caught doing this time. A young aide shared her tale of woe. The three of us looked at each other, knew what had to be done, and sprung into action.

We raided Franks desk drawers and liberated his liquor cabinet. We mixed in a splash of eggnog, just enough to color and season the punch. We carefully wheeled the bowl of spiked merriment to the unfortunate staff working a distant floor. “Merry Christmas” we proclaimed, and parked our gift in their lounge.

It didn’t take long before everyone was singing, dancing, and telling us how wonderful we were. A great time was had by all. Thankfully, no one was harmed and the only casualties were those who suffered the hangover consequences the next morning. Frank never said nothing. How could he?   

Life carried on. I had found my place. I had found my home.