I was dropped off at the timberline leadership camp by my mom up a
canyon not far from my house and I was a lot a bit nervous. I had
always been the outsider in school and sports so I was wary about
meeting new people because I felt like it would be more of the same.
I was wrong. When I got to my assigned camp with a group of ten boys
I did not know they were all really cool and we clicked right away.
We got everything set up and were having a great time as I showed
them how to play various games with a knife when the last camper in
our group came over to introduce himself. He was wearing expensive
clothes and sun glasses which was a pretty rare sight for a kid in
in those days. He swaggered over and asked us what was up and we
introduced ourselves and pointed out which tent was going to be his.
He put his stuff up and then came over and talked with us, more like
talked at us, as he explained that he was one of the most popular and
athletic kids at his school. I have found, with rare exception, that
a kid who is eager to tell you how popular and cool he is, is most
often a liar. He said his name was Kevin but everyone who knew him
and knew how good he was at basketball just called him 'Jam'. I have a mental block about calling someone by their self made nicknames and reject them whenever possible. Therefore I, of
smart-ass pedigree, could not help but poke fun at the absurdity of
his, I assumed self chosen, nick name. I made some peanut butter and
jelly and toe jam jokes and he, missing the jokes, tried to straiten
me out by telling me it was a reference to how he could dunk a basketball.
I said, “No its not Kevin.”
There are very few if any twelve-year-olds capable of dunking a ten
foot rim and I was absolutely convinced that Kevin was not one of
them. He was extremely defensive of his claim so we marked out a ten
foot high mark on a tree and I told him if he could jump up and touch
it I would apologize and call him 'Jam'. He jumped from flat feet
first and came up about two feet short. He got a run at it and came
up two feet short. He blamed his shoes and the ground and his sore
leg and whatever else he could come up with and every time I would
remind him of the discrepancy using his christen as apposed to his
street name. He finally quit and decided that being called Kevin
would have to do until he could prove to us once and for all that on
a real basketball court a ten foot rim was no trouble. I never got to
see that. I hit it off so well with the rest of the boys that they
elected me to be their troop leader which turned out to be a poor
decision in terms of law and order as you shall see.
