Like many American teenagers, I spent the summers of my youth going to summer camp. The very phrase “summer camp” evokes images of campfires, s’mores, ropes courses, and wood cabins. And for those of us who actually attended summer camp, memories of bug bites, poison ivy, and heat exhaustion.
Summer camp is a quintessential American experience. Every year, thousands of parents across the United States realize that they are sick of their kids and decide to get rid of them for a couple of weeks. It’s a beautiful tradition.
As a kid, my favorite part of summer camp was always the lake. The lake was lined with tall pine trees, and the water was so clear that even in the deeper parts you could see the pebbles at the bottom. My camp was lucky enough to have a large sandy waterfront, where we were free to splash about and play all summer long. From the scalding hot days of June, through the sultry days of August, we swam, fished, sailed, canoed, kayaked, and peed in the lake.
After attending summer camp for many years, I was eventually hired as a camp counselor and I was given the job of teaching the canoeing class. I had no great passion for canoeing, but I did enjoy being out on the water. Every afternoon, the kids and I would pile into canoes and paddle out onto the vast, open waters of the lake. With the sun shining down, and a cool breeze drifting over the water, there were few better ways to spend the summer.
That’s how it was supposed to be, at least. In reality, the canoeing class was a stressful, hair-raising nightmare. No matter how many times I went over the strokes, the kids would get out to the middle of the lake, completely forget how to paddle, and then have to be towed in. How does one forget how to paddle a canoe? It’s a fairly intuitive motion. Given a flat paddle and a large expanse of water, even a feral child could pick it up in an afternoon.
So why did these pouty kids from the suburbs struggle so much? If you have ever paddled a canoe yourself, you can imagine how exhausting it was for me to paddle my own canoe back to shore while dragging another canoe with three pudgy children in it behind me. Looking back, it is very possible that the kids were just tired and so pretended to be in distress so that I would tow them back in. Those scoundrels! How did this not occur to me at the time? Hindsight truly is 20/20.
Worse than the abominable laziness of the kids in my canoeing class, however, was their clumsiness. Every couple of minutes, a portly child with an uneven center of gravity would tip one of the canoes, and all of the kids would go tumbling into the lake. I would be drifting along in my canoe, daydreaming about lunch, when from behind me I would hear a colossal splash and the squeals of wet campers. I would turn around, and there they would be, my kids, bobbing in their orange life jackets and crying into the lake.
Once a child has fallen out of their canoe, it is physically impossible for them to be pulled back into it again. They are far too slippery, far too round, and far too uncooperative for this to be realistic. Instead, it is best to leave them there, and have them swim back to shore alongside the other canoes when class is over.
As one can see, the presence of children completely ruined the activity of canoeing. Still, I quite enjoyed being out on the lake. Some days, there would be no wind, and the surface of the lake would look like an endless sheet of glass. We would all stop paddling and watch the water bugs skate across the water. It was a peaceful existence.
My canoeing class took a very dark turn, however, one Wednesday afternoon in the middle of July. July 12th, I believe it was. I will never forget it. It was a lovely day, not too hot, and there was a slight breeze wafting over the lake. The sky was full of big fluffy clouds, the type you would see in a Renaissance painting. My class had been very good that day, everyone was paddling their canoes, and none of the kids were bickering about who got to steer.
I decided to watch them a little less than usual, to let them paddle around and enjoy themselves. I remembered learning during staff training that autonomy was good for a kid’s brain development. Instead of nagging, instead of criticizing their every move, I decided to sit back, and relax a little. To let kids be kids.
The sun was so warm, the sound of waves against my canoe was so soothing, that I must have drifted off to sleep. I was awakened by the sound of a whistle being blown three times, from the shores of the camp. I awoke with a start. Oh my God! Three whistle blows? What did that mean? My mind raced through my staff training.
One whistle meant swimming time was over, two whistles meant, “Hey you kids! Stop roughhousing.” Three whistles meant – oh my God! – a thunderstorm was moving in! I looked up. The sky had grown dark, and the big, puffy white clouds had turned into menacing thunderheads. The warm sun was hidden behind the clouds, and I shivered in my wet bathing suit. The wind had picked up during my little nap, and our canoes were drifting farther and farther away from the camp.
I looked around and was relieved to see that all of my kids were nearby. “Kids! Kids! Start paddling your canoes towards camp!” I told them.
At the sound of my voice, I saw Hattie, the clumsiest of my fifteen clumsy canoeing students, turn to listen to my instructions. It seemed to happen in slow motion; as Hattie swiveled her little body to listen, the canoe tipped, she wobbled, and then rolled out into the lake!
The two other kids in her canoe screamed as Hattie toppled into the water. The wind was creating little waves, and Hattie bobbed up and down. “Linnea! Linnea! I’m drowning!” she shrieked.
“It’s okay!” I yelled towards her. “You have a life jacket on! That’s why we wear life jackets! Also, your head is completely above water! Also, you were in my level five swim class last year, and you definitely know how to swim!”
But my comforting words were to no avail.
“I’M DROWNING” Hattie hollered.
What happened next haunts me to this day. History has recounted several instances of “mass hysteria,” incidents where panic, real or imaginary, spreads like wildfire through a group, causing all of the group’s members to join in and act in an uncharacteristically stupid manner. The most famous case of mass hysteria is “The Dancing Plague of 1518” when hundreds of French peasants were struck with a sudden and hysterical urge to dance. There are several other notable examples of mass hysteria throughout history, but I recommend that this incident, during my canoeing class on July 12th, be added to the list.
It was Rudy, one of the oldest girls in my class, who started the madness. It had begun to rain, and large raindrops were falling from the sky and puddling in our shoes. Looking down at Hattie, bobbing harmlessly in the water, sixteen-year-old Rudy decided that she had to act. She must have fancied herself some sort of hero. A martyr of canoeing class.
“I will save you!” screamed Rudy. And she dived out of her canoe, into the lake.
“No! Rudy! She isn’t drowning! She’s fine!” I screamed. But it was too late. Rudy’s desperate act awoke something primal in my campers. In a foolish attempt to save their decidedly not drowning peer, all of the remaining thirteen campers leaped out of their canoes, and into the lake.
“Kids! No!” I screamed. But there was nothing I could do. To my horror, every single one of the kids in my canoeing class was in the water. The wind was picking up with the approaching thunderstorm, and their empty canoes, suddenly free of their heavy loads, immediately began drifting towards the other side of the lake.
“Forget the canoes!” I screamed. “Just swim for the shore!”
And they did. With feeble doggy paddles, my fifteen campers, who had all passed level four of American Red Cross Swimming Lessons in order to be eligible for canoeing class, swam slowly towards the shore.
Ten minutes later, when all of my kids, sopping wet and sobbing loudly, finally crawled onto the beach of the camp, I was met by the head lifeguard.
She was shaking with anger, and I knew that I was in for it big time. She was still in her lifeguarding swimsuit, but she had her sweatshirt tied around her waist so tightly it must have been cutting off her circulation from the waist down. She waited until the kids had moved up the hill, and then she pulled me towards the lifeguarding chair, the epicenter of her power.
“Linnea. When I blow three times on this whistle, do you know what it means?” she hissed, shoving her little plastic whistle into my face. Her hands were trembling with rage.
“Uh… it means that there is a weather-related emergency and I need to bring my canoe class into the land as fast as possible…” I answered.
“Yes!” The head lifeguard snatched her whistle away from my face. “Very good, Linnea. The whistle is to indicate lightning. Lightning. Which could strike the water. So tell me, why, when I looked out at the lake, and blew the whistle, did I see all of your kids, happily paddling in their canoes, and why, not even five minutes later, when I looked out at the lake again, those kids were not back at shore where it was safe? Oh no. Instead, every single one of the kids in your class was in the water.”
I looked down at my feet. I didn’t know what to say. I looked back up at the head lifeguard. Her nostrils were flaring, and spit was congealing on the corner of her mouth.
“Are you familiar with the Dancing Plague of 1518?” I asked.