The time I ended up at Bible Camp . . .

When I was in high school I belonged to the drama club - a club that lived up to it's named. One of the girl's in the drama club had a family cabin in the mountains. To unify the group we all took a trip up to this mountain retreat for a weekend of frolicking fun. Our chaperone's were two nuns and a male teacher who was the director of the drama club. The cast of characters included students from all grade levels and assorted levels of maturity.

I drove up to the mountains in a cool little maroon Corvair with a couple of the seniors. They had no idea I was there or they would have kicked me out. I hid in the back seat on the floor until we were well on our way and it was too late to get rid of me. The look on the driver's face when I popped up in her rear view mirror was priceless. She almost drove right off the side of a cliff. They spent the rest of the ride asking me what I had heard them talking about and made me pinkie swear not to tell any of their secrets. I didn't feel like walking 90 miles in the snow so I told them their secrets were safe with me.

We got to the cabin. Jumped out of our cars screaming with excitement. Had a snowball fight. Toasted marshmallows over the open flame on the kitchen stove with rusted wire coat hangers snatched from the musty hall closet. Burned 3 Jiffy Pop pans in the fireplace, told a couple ghost stories and then looked at the clock. Ten minutes had passed. We still had 935 hours to go.

The nuns turned in for the night. The poor male teacher pitched a tent in the cabin garage with a hibachi stove for his sole heating source and turned in for the night. The nuns would not allow a man to sleep in the house with all the girls. They had to protect our virtue. In a protective frenzy they locked him out and hid the key until morning when we all begged to see whether he had frozen solid in the night or survived. The odds of finding him frozen were 10 to 1. He was kind of a pansy. The nuns said a quick prayer as we unlocked the door.

He had survived the night wearing all of his clothes and burning a set of oars and some old wooden fishing poles. I collected a hundred dollars from all the naysayers who bet against him and slapped him some skin. It cracked the ice surrounding him. He thanked me and then asked if he could borrow some of the money to go into town and get a room at the local Inn. I told him we could double down if he could hang in there for one more night. He moaned and staggered to the fireplace to warm his frostbitten fingers dripping a trail of melting ice as he walked. His teeth chattered so loud we thought someone was knocking on the door. We quickly lost interest after we realized he was not such a pansy after all and looked at the clock. Only 852 hours to go.

to be continued . . .