12/21/22
Newsletter #195
The Crack of Dawn
Today is the winter solstice, the shortest day of the year. In the summer of 1978 I hitchhiked to Alaska and happened to be there for the summer solstice. The sun went around the sky in an oval for 23 and three-quarters hours, then dropped below the horizon. It became gray for about fifteen minutes, then alas, the sun rose and it was a brand new day.
Back at Agree Outpost summer camp in Wawa, Ontario, in the summer of 1973. The big hit songs that summer were Drift Away by Dobie Gray and Take Me Home, Country Roads by John Denver. One of the required activities was the “survival trip,” which I suspect that they no longer offer. The lake where the camp was located was dotted with little tiny islands. Each camper was placed on an island by themself with only: three stick matches, a piece of string, and a nail; no food, no shelter, no water. The idea was that you somehow bend the nail into a hook, tie it to the string, catch a fish, then start a fire with your three matches, cook the fish and eat it. What kind of fish would bite a bent nail? I gathered kindling and some sticks and tried to start a fire.
All three matches blew out immediately. Oh well. So much for that plan. We were not allowed to bring a book, but I had crotched a small paperback of Great American Short Stories (which I still have) and smuggled it onto the island. I finished the book by noon of day #2.
I could see another island and a person on it. It was too far to be heard, but we could wave our arms at each other. Finally, in desperation, I climbed up on a big rock and decided that I would swim over to the other island. I performed a perfect swan dive only to come to the harsh realization that there was only six inches of water hiding jagged rocks. I landed on my chest and shredded it (I still have a scar). Crawling out of the freezing water, I lay on my side on the rocky beach whimpering for the next day and a half. Given my survival abilities I would certainly have died within about 48 hours. Luckily, they came and got us before that. Waiting back at camp was all-you-can-eat French toast. I ate until I was bloated, saw the medic, got Neosporin and band-aids all over my chest, then slept for about 20 hours.
Luckily for me, I spent the next month at luxurious Camp Tamakwa. We got three meals a day, there were a bevy of pretty girls, and I co-starred in the camp play, Hello, Dolly! I even got to sing the song Hello, Dolly, while doing my Louis Armstrong impression, to great acclaim. After two summers of Agree Outpost I concluded that I liked Tamakwa a lot better.
Wait! Here’s a stupid, useless fact: the first person to get a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1961 was Stanley Kramer, producer-director of Judgement at Nuremburg and It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World. Why him?
This is the first day of the best day of the shortest day of the rest of my life, I think.