10.20pm, August 10th, 1997,
I’m writing this section while keeping Nicky from Surrey, who’s on duty in the canteen, company. You can be sure of one thing here; you can always get access to sugar in one form or another. You can’t get a drink of water at 10:45 at night, but you can a selection of about 68 different candy bars and ice cream. Hmmmm…. Same thing goes for breakfast..
“More syrup with your fried lard?” Thanks. “Or how about a chocolate glazed, chocolate filled chocolate donut this morning?”. That’s alright, I’ll just stick to a bowl of turkey grease with my hot chocolate that stays in the cup when you turn it upside down.

There’s about 30 brits here, all told. Of the ones I know, there is, in the
Office: Belinda from Zimbabwe, Nicki Lucia and Amy from the UK, and Lee from New Zealand. On the maintenance side, there are Kate, Maja, Tom, Mark and Robert from Poland, Patrick from Ireland, Mark from Scotland, Marcus from England, Uri from Russia, Milan from somewhere, and various others of unknown origin.

My parents were expecting me to have a bit of a twang to my accent on my arrival back in England, they’ll probably be a bit disappointed. John Ryall, British Camp Driver for many years, has been living in the US, married to an American girl, for about 5 years now. He’s just at the phase of sounding Australian that all immigrants from Britain seem to got through before becoming totally Americanized. Although I do find myself using phrases like “parking lot” with alarming regularity. One that I didn’t catch onto quickly was “yawall set” (you’re all set), which means “done, finished, you can go now”. When I first encountered “yawall set”, I stood there, momentarily puzzled, wondering, perhaps, if I had turned into a jelly.

Assimilation into “the American Way” came quickly and easily. I experienced no “culture shock”. I was just somewhere a bit warmer. New York City is a bad way to start America, although to be precise, I was in Manhattan, right near Brooklyn. Nuff to make you lose a marble or two, and most of them had. One thing that did surprise me was the appalling lack of social niceties in the service. People there were unnecessarily terse. Here in the Berkshires, they at least attempt some courtesy, but most shop workers are too dull to be of much use.

Post continues below

One example of this is the American phone system. I’d been led to believe it was one of the best in the world. Yeah, the Third World! Anything more than a local call is an expensive nightmare. Want to call the UK from a payphone? “Please deposit $7 for the first 3 minutes”. So, bearing in mind that a quarter is the largest coin denomination, that’s 28 coins. So a calling card is the only way to go. Which means pressing a minimum of 38 digits. For example, to call a typical number in the UK requires:
1-800-423-8129-29430-52317-1-1-011-44-118-921-6840. Bad news if the number’s engaged!
And if something goes wrong, which it frequently does, the operator is usually Hispanic or Mexican, dimmer than a switched off lightbulb, and rude if the question involves any thought process. And if they don’t know the answer, they just hang up. Alternatively, if, as is likely, you get through to a menu driven system, you usually have the following options:
“If you’d like to hold for 20 minutes and then be disconnected, press 1. If you’d like to be disconnected now, press 2. Please make your choice now”. Bah!

One thing they have got right is the cars. It’s not surprising that public transport is not so popular, especially in the more rural areas, although of course land layouts and demographics account largely for this. The cars are so big and comfortable. Armrests, cup holders, coin holders, pen holders, air-conditioning, ABS brakes, cruise control power windows, power mirrors, auto gearbox…just about everything to keep you from staying awake at 65 mph, which seems to be the speed limit. (Except in Montana, where they just don’t have a speed limit. But no-one lives there anyway).

The weather is quite spectacular here. Being in the mountains, the temperature difference can be as much as 40 degrees F between night and day. We’ve had days as high as 102, and nights as low as 60. Some days can be ridiculously humid as well, which plays a large part in the misery factor. 102 degrees in dry heat is fine, but with 90% percent humidity is just unbearable. To give an indication of the humidity, the de-humidifier on the car air conditioning probably extracts at least a pint of water in ten minutes. You can usually guarantee a spectacular storm every week. The roads flow like rivers, and the sky lights up as if on fire. The first big storm we had produced a cloud which flickered orange for nearly 25 minutes continuously. It was like the sky was on fire. People stood and watched, but no-one can explain it. I assume it was just a continuous electrical discharge within the cloud. We also had a tornado touch down about a mile from camp too, bringing about some small-
scale damage. Last weeks storm was the biggest and best yet, with the storm right overhead, and lightning striking just yards away. The weather can change from bright sun to flash flood in just 15 minutes, but can also bring with it some spectacular sunsets.

The police farce [sic] is a law unto itself. If a citizen wishes to cut his hedge, you can usually guarantee at least 15 cop cars and a pack of sniffer dogs to wave the traffic by. It’s not unusual to see 5 or 6 speed traps a day on travels around this part of New England. Which means that a radar detector is almost mandatory, and at $29 dollars, I invested too. They have “catch you out” speed limits, where a wide open road will have a limit change from 55 to 25 for a few hundred yards, and you can bet there’s a speed trap just around the corner. The police developed a radar detector detector. So the radar detector manufactures developed an anti-radar detector detector. But the police now use pulse radar, where they only zap a car they think is speeding. I myself have been caught out, but I was let off, because I work for Greylock, and so do most of the chiefs of police for this area! Incidentally, speeding tickets are the main source of revenue for the police, if that helps you comprehend.

Camp philosophy is something of an anathema. It seems to be all about dollars and false altruism. I caught a kid late on night trying to untie a boat, cos he really wanted to run away. The next day, I heard the camp director on the phone; “Your son is just loving it here, Mrs Weinbergersteinman…..” There is a very obvious hierarchy and division between the American and English staff. “They” can be so cliquey at times, as if we were poisoning “their” camp and country. Nope, it’s just that the contract would break minimum wage laws for Americans. That’s why we’re here! Great advantage is taken of the fact that there is virtually no contract in camps, and they over-hire, and then fire at will, leaving many foreign staff broke, and having to go back home feeling bitter. The kids themselves seem to enjoy it, and so they should…it’s cost their parents nearly a thousand dollars a week! There are many activities, and this is primarily a sports camp.

One reason the counsellors who DO return each year do so is because of the wonderful feeling of appreciation and respect you get from the campers. If you can make them play baseball just that little bit better, or to water-ski for the first time, it really does seem worth it. This really is a “rich-kids camp”, and as such, I was concerned that it was just going to be 400 spoilt brats. But I was wrong. There are some very interesting and intelligent kids here. Some of them know perhaps a little too much for their age as we might think, but it doesn’t seem to have done them any harm! Yesterday, I gave Zachary and Charlie a lift to Logan Airport in Boston. They are both ten years old, and look like sweet innocent little angels. They were heading back to LA, and we were discussing the riots of 4 years ago. Not only were they fully aware of the whole situation, but came out with little gems like…

“I think the police think they can get away with it. I mean, King didn’t deserve that beating. But they don’t give a flying fuck what happens. They suck like a cheap whore…badly!” That was quoted verbatim. Bearing in mind these were pre-pubescents with un-broken voices, it was a moment that I wish I could have captured on tape. But they said I was “real neat! The best!”, and so, with happy heart and full fuel tank, I turned around, and proceeded to sit in the Boston traffic for 2 and a half hours…..

The camp is in quite a good location. The nearest towns, Pittsfield and Lee, are 20 miles away, although there are village shops and post offices nearby. Boston is about 150 miles North, and New York City about 250 miles south. The campers get to go on four day trips to places like cape cod and Canada, or a night on the town in Boston.

American mechanical engineering seems to be built big, ugly, and purely functional. Which is also how they seem to build their middle aged women. But impressive as well. I sat at a railroad crossing, and decided to count the goods wagons on the passing train. 97 wagons pulled by four locomotives took 2 minutes and 35 seconds to pass. Oh dear…I hope I’m not turning into a trainspotter!

Well, I guess I’m down to making random observations now, like “why do they pronounce Nissan knee-son, or Honda Honday?”. Also have anomalies like being able to do a right turn against a red light, except in New York City, where pedestrians get a “Walk” sign, at the same time as the crossing traffic gets a green signal.

It may be that I’m sounding ungrateful to be here in the USA. That’s not the case. I’m in a position many would envy. I have many many more places to go, and things to see and do. But I leave you for this time with the thoughts of some maintenance staff of previous years, which, along with the “Welcome to Hell” signs, weave a rich tapestry of indelible ink on the bunk walls……

Tags: america,massachusetts,summer camp,travelogue,usa
Categories: america, camp greylock, massachusetts, travelogue