Summer of 1981, Fishkill, New York.

This summer is the 40th anniversary of my move to New York. I don’t remember the exact date, but it was August. I had planned to spend the summer before I moved here in Bloomington, Indiana, living with a high school friend and working to save what money I could, but after pounding the pavement for a week or so, and still no job, discouraged and sweaty, I went into the Indiana University library to cool off, picked up the New York Times to read, reflexively flipped to the “want ads,” and saw a tiny listing reading something like, “Counselors Wanted at boys’ camp in Upstate New York, Call the Fresh Air Fund, etc.” So I called.

They were looking to fill the position of “Nature Counselor” at the camp for boys ages 13-15. At that time, in addition to sending underprivileged (do they still use that word?) New York City kids to live for a week or two with rural families, the Fresh Air Fun also ran four summer camps near Fishkill, New York: one for disabled kids, one for girls, and two for boys (divided into ages 10-12 and 13-15, as I remember). Either they were desperate to fill the position (it was all very last-minute) or I bluffed well, but they offered me the job on the phone, on the spot. My minimal qualifications (I don’t know, an 8th grade leaf collection, a nature merit badge in Boy Scouts, just being from Indiana?) were more than enough. These kids had never seen a tree that wasn’t in a park.

Needless to say the experience was life-changing, not just the part about spending a summer in the woods with very poor, very street-savvy teenage boys who were not afraid of much but they were afraid of the dark, and the forest, and any noise they couldn’t identify, which there are a lot of in the dark in the forest. It was physically and emotionally exhausting work and the perfect preparation for my new life in New York.

Nearly every time I pass Port Authority to this day, I remember arriving there alone with a huge duffel bag and my dulcimer (because of course poor Black city boys are dying to learn “Go Tell Aunt Rhody” on a dulcimer). I’d been up all night, arrived on a Greyhound bus in the morning, and had to walk from there to an office somewhere in the far west of Hell’s Kitchen with all my stuff. When I stopped at a crosswalk about halfway there, my hand, the one that was carrying my dulcimer, went completely limp and I dropped the case. I had to wait for about 15 minutes till I got my grip back.

Pretty much everything about New York was terrifying and hard at first, and I was in heaven, knowing I had finally arrived home.

The cabins where we slept, one counselor with about 8 or 10 boys in each cablin. But since I was one of the specialty counselors, I got to sleep in a cabin with all adults.

The staff. I regret having no photos of the kids. They were insanely challenging boys but smart and hilarious, very observant, often insightful and affectionate.