Personal Statement

A New Perspective on Camp Food

          Lukewarm, mass-produced, rubbery human fodder.  Following my first meal at BSA Camp Turrell, I immediately ran up the gravel path to the outhouse and threw up.  I didn’t eat much that week; instead I sat silently in the mess hall, feeling bad for both myself and the staff who had to spend their entire summer ingesting the unpalatable creations that made their way out of the kitchen.  I felt I was too good for the food they served, confident that even I could cook better.

For the next three years, I returned to Camp Turrell, each time more mature, with more responsibility as I neared the upper ranks of scouting.  I was still too stubborn though, to even try some of the food.  I had one perspective of the kitchen and I was not going to change it, no matter how hard Head Chef Squeaker worked to accomplish his borderline impossible task. The seemingly insignificant action of eating daily meals had forever put a smudge on my four years of camp, which had become the highlight of my summers.  I cherished everything else about my time there: the raw beauty of the wooded haven, the personal freedom entrusted on me, and the camaraderie that comes only from unplugged mutual isolation.

After my first four summers at camp, I didn’t return for another three, as my summer scouting experiences transitioned into more intensive camping excursions. In my heart, however, remained a slight desire to return one last time, to leave a lasting legacy.  This past summer was my first in seven years without any significant scouting event planned.  Instead I challenged myself take full advantage of my local course’s one-dollar student rate and play golf every weekday.  I quickly came to the conclusion that there was a monetary flaw in my plan.  I needed some semblance of an income to support my retired CEO lifestyle, so I began to look for a caddy job at the local country club.  Using my personal connections, I quickly found a job.

Within five hours of making my first call, I found myself driving up a dusty road shrouded in a thick fog. I retired to my spacious canvas tent as the youngest assistant chef in the history of Camp Turrell.  With no commercial kitchen experience and no idea exactly what my job entailed, I fell asleep on that rainy night without any idea that the next four weeks would change me more than 28 rounds of golf ever could.  The next morning at 5 a.m. I stood face to chest with Squeaker, an imposing man with a calm intensity that allowed him to stay sane throughout his many years as head chef.

The difficult and monotonous labor tested my ability to take instructions, problem solve and manage time at every meal. It was through this trial and tribulation that I realized all of my previous opinions about camp food were ignorant and unfair.  I quickly adapted to the fast-paced and pressure-filled work of staffing an understaffed kitchen, but there were still times when a completed meal was not merely food, but a simple miracle.  That is why the most disheartening part of my job was not the 16 hour days or sweltering kitchen heat, but the scouts who strutted into the kitchen demanding a PB&J sandwich because they “didn’t like” what we just spent six hours cooking.  My personal epiphany occurred when I realized I was that scout just seven years earlier.  The role change forced me to alter my outlook on the world in a simple but impactful way.  I no longer focus on the doldrums of daily life; instead I focus on the positives.  It has not only made me a happier person, but a better friend, scout, brother and human.