The Midnight Caller!

The Midnight Caller!

Something woke me up.

Assessing my situation, I knew I was in the middle of the woods, sleeping in a sleeping bag on the ground, no tent, surrounded by close to one hundred sleeping girls. I kept my eyes closed and listened.

The night air was filled with the call and response cacophony of tree frogs. The pulsating nature of the sound, or noise, was overwhelming and drowned out every other sound in the woods. It is a comforting sound once you get used to it. I was born listening to it. My ears were not going to help me determine what had awakened me.

I cracked my eyelids and lifted my head very slowly. It was very dark, we were sleeping under dense tree cover, but the moon cast enough light for me to look around the clearing we occupied. In the middle of the sleeping girls was a fox, no, a couple of foxes. They were sniffing the sleeping bodies and looking intently into the girls’ faces.

My first thought was of the possible danger, what if a fox bit one of the campers. The foxes could be rabid. As I watched the silent fox slowly examining one kid then another, I realized they were just curious. “What the heck are all these humans doing in my woods?” I could imagine them thinking.

It was camp-out, cook-out night for a girl's session at Camp Cheerio. Three cabins had invited me along for the evening. I was a dishwasher in the camp kitchen. My friend Brandon Uttley, called the event camp-out, cook-out, make-out night.

The camp director, Ron Austin, first explained the evening program during a training session, “We need to give the dining hall cooks a night off.” “We don't have any tents?” I inquired.

“Nope, if it rains you go back to your cabin,” Ron replied unphased.

The boy from rainy Florida was incredulous. Camp Cheerio YMCA camp sat high on a mountain bluff overlooking Stone Mountain, North Carolina. It rained a lot, but rarely on camp-out cook-out nights and the boys and girls loved it.  

The cabin counselors on this night decided we would hike to the old schoolhouse. The old schoolhouse, now deserted, operated as a one room schoolhouse until 1973. Let that sink in. So, while Charlotte International Airport was only two hours away, kids rode horses to a one-room schoolhouse into the 1970s. It's hard to fathom kids riding horses to school in the age of the space shuttle.

On the way to the schoolhouse, we stopped to play in several creeks and waterfalls. I helped carry the dinner meal; everyone carried their own sleeping bag or blanket. We made a fire and cooked hot dogs, the standard camp-out cook-out night fair. Then we played games, sang, told stories and jokes, and then had vespers.

The girls arranged themselves and passed out in their sleeping bags. The counselors and I talked a while and then went to sleep ourselves. No making out for me tonight, bummer.

The fox jumped over a sleeping camper, bent his nose down, sniffed; then jumped to another camper. I was enjoying the aerobatic performance of the creatures when one fox’s eyes caught mine. We locked gazes. He froze; I stayed motionless.

The other fox picked up immediately that something had changed and found my eyes as well. Their noses twitched; their tails straightened. After a minute, they decided I wasn’t a threat and went about their business. They circled the group of campers a few more times, gave me a quick look and disappeared into the forest.

I rolled over and went back to sleep. The midnight callers turned out friendly. 

Epilogue

In 1989, Hurricane Hugo destroyed the old schoolhouse. It’s just a pile of boards and bricks today. 

Photos: 

1. Allen at Camp Cheerio on Alumni weekend in 1999.