Saved by an Omelette

Saved by an Omelette

a personal essay
by Lisa J. Lehr

In a twist on the theme "when life gives you lemons, make lemonade," a summer made miserable by a host of plagues was saved by the special delivery of an omelette.

The summer that I was twenty, I saw the sun rise over the ocean for the first time. I saw fireflies, and I saw buildings older than any of the people I knew. I found out that there is no legal limit to the number of alligator-logo polo shirts one girl can own, and I learned more about the fragile, fickle nature of friendships than I ever learned in Sociology class.

That summer, I traveled back East to work at a camp for the daughters of wealthy families of Boston, New York, and Philadelphia. My freshman year in college, I'd completed a family history project (for that Sociology class) and, in the course of gathering genealogy information, discovered an impressive list of Mayflower passengers and other notable northeasterners in my lineage. And I yearned to go to New England.

I'd never been farther east than Colorado.

So here I was in Maine, where my forebears had conquered the wilderness, and where I would conquer whatever 125 overprivileged young girls could throw my way.

The thirty-six of us counselors, all ambitious college students, arrived a few days before the official start of camp for orientations, swimming tests, and, not least, the opportunity to acclimate to Maine. I had to remember, for instance, that "toward the ocean" meant east, not west. As thrilled as I was to be there, though, it was soon painfully clear that I was a misfit.

The first strike against me was that I was a Californian-and not only that, but the sole West Coaster. (The westernmost states any of the other staffers had come from were Utah, the Dakotas, and Texas.) I talked like a Californian, dressed like a Californian, ate like a Californian. My total lack of suntan notwithstanding, I simply was a Californian. My impressive genealogy impressed no one.

A happy discovery in those first days was the drinking age in Maine: twenty. The night before the campers arrived, I made this entry in my journal: "My first time in a bar." It was easy to pretend that this was what the summer would be about: a bunch of college girls going out together, drinking, disco dancing, meeting guys. We joked about how great it would be if the campers never came, as we sang along to a BeeGees song, changing the words to "twelve more hours and our lives will be through."

Although somewhat prepared for dealing with the socio-political dynamics of a handful of junior high girls sharing a small cabin for eight weeks (after all, I'd been to junior high, and I'd even been to summer camp), I found their cliquey-ness and outright cruelty disheartening. Yet more disheartening would be the realization that people don't necessarily change much after junior high.

In truth, I never anticipated how difficult it would be to make friends among the other counselors. I quickly discovered I didn't like staying out late at bars and discos, drinking too much and dancing with total strangers. (Once, a couple of guys followed us back to camp, where they were not welcomed by Mr. Camp Director, but that didn't seem to concern anyone else very much.)

I tried to fit in, but found this late partying made it too difficult to get up at reveille and perform my duties enthusiastically all day long. I learned a trick: grab the first ride back to camp, regardless of whom I'd come with. Then, I stopped going out altogether, preferring to spend my evenings off staying in camp, writing letters home and to my college friends, or in the craft room making gifts. Alas, this did not make me more popular...just more different. And this was the second strike against me.

My bunk had three counselors-Joanie, who had an inflated opinion of herself because she'd been chosen as one of the four Unit Leaders in camp; Pearl from England, who always had a headache because (she said) American kids were so much noisier than English kids; and me.

Our camper count fluctuated throughout the summer as one girl was sent home early, another left voluntarily, a third changed bunks because of a personality conflict, a new girl joined us after returning from a cruise with her parents, and a group of international campers came. Typically, we had about ten.

Many of the other counselors were friendly to me on a one-on-one basis. I especially liked Randi, who had once lived-incredible coincidence-in my own northern California town, although she now called Wisconsin home. We both played guitar, which gave us another thing in common. Yet even she said I was "too quiet."

Five of us had Saturdays off-Betsy, who was local and had a car; Michelle, who was a friend of Randi's and pretty friendly by association; Liz from Pennsylvania; Lynn from England; and me. The counselors from overseas were generally nice; they too were "from away." But, ironically, the "foreign" counselors were not even as alone as I, for there were more of them-two from Sweden and seven from England. Lynn observed that I had journeyed just as far from California as she had from England, and marveled at how big America is.

Days off were important, as a time not just for relaxing and sightseeing, but for bonding with one another without interference from liquor, loud music, and meeting guys under sketchy circumstances. If Betsy was busy (she had a boyfriend nearby), Liz could often borrow a car from Cindy, a counselor with a different day off. Lynn and I sometimes walked to one of the nearby towns, the two nearest being three and five miles away. Once, when Mrs. Camp Director dropped off Lynn and me in town, Liz drove by later and gave us a ride back. Usually, it wasn't difficult to get away for a day.

Still, I struggled daily to adjust. "Today was not a good day," I noted in my journal partway through the summer. "Bobbie from Boston quit early. Too bad-she was nice."

For one Bunk Night activity, we took our girls on the long walk to town for pizza. A convertible went by; the driver was recognized as a guy somebody met in a disco; the girls yelled for him to stop. He turned around and offered us a ride.

Now, this turn of events presented me with a terrible dilemma. If I voiced my hesitation, I would be booed, called a party-pooper, and otherwise maligned; and if the others heeded my warning, no one would ever know what could have gone wrong. If I went along with the crowd, who all thought this was a great idea, not only would I be betraying my better judgment, I would be giving up a chance to shine...if there was any way to prove I had been right.

I chose to shut up.

We all piled in, on, and around the car and continued on our way to town-all fourteen of us. As luck would have it (bad luck), Mr. and Mrs. Camp Director's son passed us in his car on his way back to camp. No one was surprised when Ms. Assistant Director drove up in her car as the girls were taking turns calling their parents on the pay phone outside a market, with instructions to report to Mr. and Mrs. Camp Director's cabin with an explanation immediately upon our return to camp.

Of course, we had no explanation. Mr. Camp Director told us that the driver was intoxicated and probably had a suspended license. (I have no idea where he got this information.)

"I knew that was a bad idea," I said as we trudged shamefaced back to our bunk.

"You should have said something," Joanie and Pearl agreed.

Right.

One counselor I hadn't intended to try to befriend was Liz. No, she wasn't stuck-up or bossy like some of the others. But when Liz wore a baseball cap, she looked exactly like a boy. Now, I had a pretty outdoorsy upbringing, having counted tree climbing, fort building, and frog catching among my favorite pastimes over the years. But none of the girls in my family sat backwards in a chair, cowboy-style.

As the season wore on, the camp menu deteriorated-an almost unbearable addition to my list of woes. Whereas at first, we enjoyed pasta dishes and fresh salads, now we were regularly facing cold cuts, white bread, and canned vegetables. I don't know whether our affable Italian New Yorker camp chef simply got tired, whether the grocery budget ran out, or what. But California cuisine had spoiled me; even dorm food was better than this. Some days, I confided in my journal, I was truly miserable.

Occasionally, there was an oasis of good food. Tuesday was Dairy Day, which some despised, but which I looked forward to in earnest. On Dairy Day, lunch consisted entirely of fresh fruit and dairy products-real food. Every Saturday at dinner, we had pizza and ice cream, which counts as good food even if it's mediocre pizza and ice cream. Most of the time, I looked forward to the next getaway.

One afternoon during snack time, a group of us counselors were gathered in the dining hall. Liz was slumped in a chair, looking ill, while the rest of us looked on curiously. It turned out she had ventured into the kitchen and stumbled upon the disturbing sight of a pig carcass in some stage of preparation. She announced that at that moment she had become a vegetarian. Suddenly, I had a soul sister.

One Saturday, about 21/2 weeks before the end of the season, even my weekly escape seemed destined not to happen. All the other Saturday-off counselors had other plans. Betsy was away visiting her boyfriend; even Lynn, who could usually be counted upon for companionship, was nowhere to be found. I slouched against a pine tree, escaping into a book.

"You look bummed," somebody said. I looked up. It was Liz. "Want to go into town? I have Cindy's car for the day."In a twist on the theme "when life gives you lemons, make lemonade," a summer made miserable by a host of plagues was saved by the special delivery of an omelette.

I snapped my book shut and jumped up.

We hung out at the lakeshore for a while, then went to Pizza Hut for lunch. We slipped back into camp for dinner (pizza and ice cream), then went back to town to do Liz's laundry and eat ice cream. Liz had explained earlier in the summer that she didn't trust the camp laundry service with her clothes, an idiosyncrasy that still amused me. Even I didn't particularly care who messed with my t-shirts and cutoffs. Yes, watching Liz's clothes spin and tumble was a treat compared to languishing in camp.

A few days later, I wrote in my journal, "I almost quit today." I made a plan: a college friend who lived on the East Coast would pick me up and take me away from the loneliness and the bad food until it was time to return to the comfort and familiarity of school. Somehow, I sucked it up and decided to stay.

Eventually, it was the last week of the season. Heads bowed, we were saying grace at breakfast, and I was trying to muster some genuine thankfulness for what I was about to eat-the usual array of packaged pastries and canned fruit. When I opened my eyes, there before me was...not packaged pastries and canned fruit, but, incredibly...an omelette.

This was not just any omelette. It was bursting with melted cheese and grilled vegetables, spilling over the edges of the paper plate.

It didn't disappear; it was not a hallucination. It was a real omelette. Now, I'm not saying I don't believe in miracles, but I was pretty sure there'd be a logical explanation. I turned around and there was Liz, grinning.

"My bunk is cooking breakfast on the campfire this morning," she said. "I thought you'd like it."

Indeed.

I never saw Liz or any of the other counselors again after that summer. But for years, whenever I got into one of those negative mindsets: nobody cares about me; I never get any lucky breaks; life never has any happy surprises, only unhappy ones... I'd remember an omelette, delivered hot off the grill as the most unexpected and welcome surprise of a summer, by someone I never thought I'd consider a friend.

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