I was only 17 and Dave Davenport was taking a big risk in hiring me as the archery instructor for the summer. My interview was horrible and the only reason I can think that Dave hired me was because he was desperate.

It all started back in 1976 when I was 8 years old. I was living in Virginia Beach and Charlie Hughes had come to our Church and showed a slide show for a summer camp on the James River. My parents sent me, kicking and screaming, that very summer. I can still remember sitting on my Father’s old camp trunk crying as my family drove away. Don’t feel too bad, I was hooked by the time dinner was served. My favorite part of camp was the Archery. Ok, I will be truthful it was the Archery instructor. I used to be able to remember her name but getting old and not telling this story has taken that away. (I think I just remembered….Terry?) I had the biggest crush and would try to sit by her at every meal and every evening program. (This will be important to remember later.)

It was Terry who made me want to work at camp as the archery instructor. So I went home and my parents bought me a bow and I practiced until I was a pretty good shot. Dave offered me the job but only if I took an ACA archery workshop in the mountains of West Virginia. So the summer I graduated from high school, at the very mature age of 17, I arrived at Chanco to teach children how to shoot an arrow from a bow. Now this archery workshop I had to attend did a great job at giving me ideas on teaching archery but it didn’t teach me a thing about camp.

Staff week was an eye opening experience. We learned about what to do with bed wetters, home sick, shy, loud, mean, silly and every other kind of kid. The one kind of kid we learned about that I really didn’t pay much attention to was the cling-on. I was probably goofing off with Pat I mean Eileen, Krissy, Danny and Greg. Maybe not Greg, he was the one running the show with Dave. The point is that I didn’t get the message.

First session, wow the kids are so small. They follow your every command and worship the ground you walk on. Back in the old days there were Cons (Counselors) and Non-Cons (the waterfront, archery, arts & crafts, nature instructors) The NCs taught during the day and helped with evening program at night but had the rest of the evenings to them selves. So my contact with the kids was mostly archery class, free swim and evening program.

It was somewhere around the 3rd or 4th day that Dave came up to me and wanted to talk about some concerns he had with my Klingon. For those of you who have worked with Dave you know he has a very unique way of sharing his concerns. I had no idea what he was talking about. I told him that I would take care of it even though I was clueless. The next day I had another talk with Dave about my Klingon. This time Dave explained to me what a Klingon was and I assured him that I did not have a Klingon problem. Just then my Klingon came running up to me and jumped on my back and rapped her arms and legs around me. Dave just looked at me and said that I needed to take care of my Klingon. I became very aware at that moment that this girl was always following me around, sitting next to me at meals and was always by my side at evening program. I don't remember how I took care of the problem but by the next day I didn’t have a Klingon any more.

I will never forget my first Klingon. I had several others over the years at camp but I took care of them right away.

It wasn’t until I was telling my archery crush story to the new staff the summer that I was program director that I realized that I was a former Klingon. Maybe I should start a Klingon help group.