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Light as a feather, stiff as a board

For some reason I’ve been thinking about childhood recently. I’ve had a very stressful week and I suppose I’m regressing. I also heard the Queen of England was coming to Jamestown in 2007. It reminded me of the countless times my family and I camped in Jamestown.

My parents had a single mother for a friend and I hung out with her son, Bobby. At the campground was a row of about 8 phones (heaven knows why…). Anyhow, I’d stand at the last phone and tell Bobby the number. He’d get the operator on the line and make a collect call to that number. The phone I was standing in front of would ring. “Will you accept a collect call from Bobby?” the operator said. “Yes I will”. Obviously, this is in the days before they could verify that the number being called wasn’t a pay phone.

Another time, a group of us had gotten Bobby to lay down on a picnic table near the back of the campground (in the ‘spooky’ part of the place) with only flashlights to illuminate our faces. We got him to believe we could make him float with the old standard “light as a feather, stiff as a board”. He was probably 10 at the time and got very spooked by the whole ordeal.

He was the first kid I knew that was the child of a single parent. If I ever knew whatever happened with his father I’m sure I don’t recall it now. Having to remember so many computer passwords pretty much wiped all that out – along with so many other details, but I digress.

On yet another trip my mother suggested I go visit one of her friends, Ann. She had enough energy to travel to the campground but was not up to being social around the campfire. So I went to visit her trailer. I was around 12 or 13 and she was probably in her late 50’s or early 60’s.

I remember seeing her wrapped up in an afghan and one of those knitted turbans even though it was around 70 degrees outside. We talked for a long time. Of course, for a kid, an hour seems like a lifetime so I don’t actually remember how long it was. I remember her hands touching mine and she had that soft skin that is often found in a woman of her age. She ended the evening by telling me she was tired and wanted to go to bed and so I left.

I learned later that she had cancer. She had gone through chemo and had lost most of her hair (hence the turban). The medicine she was on made her cold and very tired (hence the blanket and the lack of energy). By the next visit to Jamestown she had died.

I felt very empty but Bobby was there. He was the kind of kid who had learned to be very nice to the ladies. It probably came from having to deal with his mother. He would say very flowery things to women because he knew that’s what they wanted to hear – and they ate it up like a bee to pollen. The thing is: he was very genuine about it… the perfect gentleman. He’d hold her chair, or help her put on the sweater… stuff like that.

We were camping at Jamestown when my parents heard they were going to be grandparents for the first time. It was very early in the morning when there was a knock on the trailer door. The breathless woman told my mother all the information about my oldest nephew. My mother then proceeded to wake everyone else with the good news. Picture a bunch of people standing around talking about the birth of children while wearing robes and pajamas. Quite a sight to see.

I can’t wrap this up in a nice little bow. No tidy ending. Just know that the whole “light as a feather, stiff as a board” trick does NOT work – even on a 10 year old.

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