How I Spent My Summer Vacation

 

DISCLAIMER: This story is fictional. It contains elements of voyeurism (and the possible consequences thereof). It is presented not to promote such activity, but to present the reality behind such activity if carried out in real life. I personally do not condone such activities.

 

            When I was 21, I took a summer job as a maintenance man at a boy’s camp in western Pennsylvania, just outside Pittsburgh. It was called Camp Randolph. I was going to school in eastern Ohio at the time and the camp was only 40 miles away from where I was living. I was looking for something to do when classes let out for the summer and needed money for the next semester when an acquaintance of mine, Ted Mason, told me about the place. Even though it really didn’t pay an awful lot, I applied for a seasonal position there anyhow and was accepted. I found out a number of unexpected fringe benefits came along with the job.

            I reported for work 3 days before they were due to open for the year to help get the place ready. There were 4 of us maintenance guys, Bob Kenley, Rick Howell, Ted and myself. Bob was the manager of maintenance and operations and was in his late twenties and married. Rick was also a college student around my age and I knew Ted from school. Bob said that after the kids began arriving, at least one of us would be required to be on site at all times, so we took turns staying overnight, sometimes trading off shifts with each other. The camp had 25 counselors and almost 100 boys at a time from ages 8 through 15 would come for 2 week sessions. The camp ran 5 sessions throughout the summer and could be a busy place. Things were constantly in need of repair and upkeep and that’s where we came in.

            We had our own cabin situated 500 feet from where the rest of the campers stayed. It was actually quite nice and since we were employees, it was furnished with comfortable beds, an air conditioner, a stove, refrigerator and phone. Although we were on call 24/7, if the daily cleanup was done and nothing was broken right at that moment, we were free to do whatever we wanted, like go swimming in the lake. We also got free food. Our job was to take care of anything that was wasn’t working correctly (including in the dining hall) and empty the trash from the cabins each morning. They had other people to cook, make up the beds and take care of laundry along with a full time nurse.

            There were 12 cabins which would house 8 kids each along with a counselor who was required to spend the night with his group, but cabin #6 was the strangest and I soon found out why. It was the last cabin in the row and the only one that could be locked from both inside and out. I had just hired on and didn’t know much about the place, but the day before we were due to open for the year, Bob, Rick and I were over in the dining hall. Bob and Rick were talking and I was standing nearby. Bob said to Rick “So Rick, you got cabin #6 set up yet?” and Rick replied “Yeah, it’s ready now”. Bob turned to me and said “Hey Joey, there’s something you need to know about cabin #6”. He said for me to come along with him and Rick, and we all went over there. As we walked in, he told me “The kids who stay in here are all bedwetters and there’s quite a few of them”. I just couldn’t believe what I was hearing as we went on. “They require special attention. Rick and Ted just put their mattresses down”. Rick said “Yeah, it’s just like a nursery in here. All the mattresses are covered in waterproof plastic”. Bob went on “The parents are supposed to tell us when they register if their kids wet the bed, but some of them do and some don’t. If they do, they’re automatically put in here. We find out about the rest of them soon enough though. If they wet the bed just one night, they get moved here to cabin #6”. The beds were already made up, but Bob lifted one of the sheets to show me and I could see that the mattress was completely sealed in plastic. Bob also said “We usually start out with 3 or 4 kids, but there’s always that many more who wet their beds, usually in the first 2 or 3 nights. It’s always an embarrassment for them when it happens and we try to get them away from the other kids who will taunt them to death if we don’t”. Rick added, almost laughing “Yeah, after a kid pees his bed once and the others find out, he’ll do ANYTHING to get out of there!”. Bob continued “We usually have just one trash barrel per cabin, but there’s 2 in here”. He pointed to the gray one in the corner of the bathroom and told me “That one’s for their underwear. If you’re doing the morning cleanup in here, make sure it gets emptied daily. It’s always filled with wet pants”. Rick added “Right, in July and August, they get rotten in a hurry!” Bob went on “We also keep the other kids out of here to avoid them snooping, so during the day, the place is locked if it’s unoccupied. You’ll have a key. Most of them wear GoodNites disposable underpants, but sometimes 1 or 2 of them might require cloth diapers. If the kids can’t get into them by themselves, the counselors have to help put them on. The GoodNites are kept in the closet which is usually locked” and he pointed over there. “Their counselor also has a key and will open it at bedtime. Be sure to check the supply every day. If it starts getting low, there’s more in the storage cabin. We have plenty”. He then gave me a key for the diaper closet and front door and we left to take care of the last of the items before tomorrow’s opening. I was utterly astounded by this whole situation!

            Before the start of each session, the camp mailed out information booklets to the parents of each kid who would be attending, explaining the rules. The parents were actually supposed to disclose in advance if their children were prone to wetting accidents (and the camp wouldn’t take them at all if they were still dirty in any way), but the booklet plainly stated that for obvious health reasons, any kid who wet the bed would be required to wear diapers at night while they were here. I guess some of the parents didn’t really want to think about that and never revealed that their children were frequent bedwetters. The counselors were also informed during their pre-season briefing that any kid who bedwet just once would be sent to cabin #6 immediately. The camp went through mattresses and bedding at a very high rate anyhow and kids urinating in them certainly didn’t help things. Unfortunately by then, the mattress had probably already been trashed, but once a kid was exposed as a bedwetter, he would be teased and sometimes bullied unmercifully and it could result in the summer camp experience turning into a living nightmare. Yet there were always some who did it.

            The next morning, two fully loaded buses arrived at 10 AM and as the kids started getting out, some of them (mostly the younger ones) looked scared and confused. I’ll bet for many, this was their first time away from home. As I was looking them over, I couldn’t help but wonder which ones were the bedwetters, but found out soon enough. We then unloaded their belongings from the buses and moved the stuff to the cabins before letting the kids in. There was an afternoon orientation briefing and welcoming party and then after dinner, everyone went down for a hike around the lake.

            About 8:30, it was beginning to get dark. All the kids were made to go indoors for the night and start getting ready for bed. My last chore of the day was bringing around towels, washcloths and bath items to each of the cabins. When I passed by #6, the back door was open and I walked in. The counselor, a guy named Vic saw me and said “Hi” as I entered the bathroom with an armload of towels and started putting them onto the shelves. While I was working, he closed and locked the front door and called all the kids to the middle of the room. I was busy putting up the bath items and towels, but could still see into the room--and hear everything. He asked everyone’s name and checked them on his attendance roster. The oldest boy was named Robert and was around 13. There was an 11 year old with light blond hair, Mikey, two 10 year olds, a fair haired boy named Jerry and lighter haired kid, Josh, and Larry, a 9 year old. Vic was 28 and a junior high school teacher who was off for the summer and you could tell he had been through all of this before. The 5 boys stood there staring at him as he began speaking. “All right” he said as he looked around at each of them, “All 5 of you are in this cabin for 1 reason, ALL OF YOU WET YOUR BEDS”. The place suddenly got so quiet, you could hear a pin drop as the 5 boys just nervously stood there with guilty, embarrassed expressions on their faces, none of them looking at each other or even saying a word. Josh and Mikey both turned beet red. Vic went on “There’s no secrets about that here, so I don’t want to hear anyone laughing at anybody else, ALL OF YOU DO IT!” After quickly leveling the playing field, he continued. “Your parents have also told us that all of you wear diapers at night. We use GoodNites pants here, you guys know what those are?” and they started waving their hands and saying “Yeah” and “I do”. You could tell they were thoroughly familiar with them. Vic added “I have a 7 year old and he does it too, so I’m used to this stuff”. He then went over to the diaper closet, unlocked it and told them “This is where we keep the GoodNites” as he opened the door to show them. “It’s usually closed and locked so nosy kids can’t come in here. We also keep this cabin locked up during the day, but the closet’s always open at night and if you wake up wet and need to change, you can take whatever you need”. Vic pointed to the second shelf where there were a dozen pairs of larger white waterproof pants and he said “It sounds like you guys know all about GoodNites. You ever have leaks with them?” and 4 of the boys answered “Me” and “Yeah”. Vic said “Well, so does my kid”. He held up a pair of the plastic pants and said “If you ever have leaks with them, you ought to wear these too” and then put them back in the closet. He continued “When you get up in the morning, put your GoodNites in the gray barrel in the bathroom and leave your plastic pants next to it on the floor. And make sure to put the cover back on the barrel. If you have an accident and the sheets get wet or you need help changing, let me know. If there’s no questions, then lets get ready for bed.”

            The boys started undressing and I did everything I could to stall before leaving. I eagerly watched as they began removing their clothes and then their underpants and put on the GoodNites as Vic kept a watchful eye on the situation. 4 of them also donned the waterproof pants (Josh was the only one who didn’t) before getting into their pajamas and you could hear the rustling sound of their pants and the plastic mattress covers as they jumped into bed. Vic was almost ready to turn out the lights when I finally decided it was time to leave. I sardonically said to him “Well, I see you have the fun job” and he replied “I guarantee you, there will be more coming”.

            The next morning after the campers were gone for the day, I went around to each of the cabins to empty the trash. When I got to cabin #6, I opened the gray barrel and sure enough, there were 5 pairs of wet GoodNites pants in it. All 5 boys had peed during the night. The barrel had a plastic bag liner and I just lifted it out and replaced it. I then looked around the bathroom, but the laundry people (2 Mexican women, Carla and Juanita) had already been there and removed the used towels and bath items along with the plastic pants. They were responsible for washing and returning them. I opened the diaper closet to see if it needed to be replenished, but there were 4 packages of GoodNites in there, 2 of them still unopened. Before closing and re-locking the door, I noticed a stack of 8 thicker cloth diapers and a number of safety pins on the third shelf and wondered how often those were needed. I was just about ready to leave when Vic returned. He came in and asked how I was doing and I said I was just finishing the morning cleanup. While we were talking, the counselor from cabin #9, Jack Orich entered with a 9 year old boy who was almost in tears. Jack told Vic “This is Billy and I’m afraid he had a wetting accident last night”. Vic asked what happened and Jack said he was just about ready to start waking the kids for the day when one of them knocked on his door and said they needed his help. When he went into the dormitory area, Billy was standing there in soaked pajamas next to his bed with an embarrassed look on his face, trying to remove the wet sheets. Kevin, the kid who had summoned Jack and was bunking next to Billy said “Wow, I think he just peed the bed” and Billy started crying. The other kids there couldn’t help but notice what was going on. After calming Billy down, he sent the others off to breakfast, got him cleaned up and finished removing the wet bedding. He then told him that he would have to move over to cabin #6. Jack was carrying Billy’s stuff and set it down on the floor and Vic told him he would take it from here and then Jack left. Vic said “Well, I’m sorry this happened to you Billy, but we have a rule here at Camp Randolph, if you wet the bed once, you’ll have to stay in cabin #6 for the rest of your time here”. Billy just stood there red faced and totally ashamed, looking down at the floor while Vic continued speaking. He asked “Do you wet your bed at home?” and Billy just shook his head yes. Vic replied “Well, It would have been better if your parents had told us about it first”. Vic took Billy over to one of the unoccupied beds and said he could sleep there. He pointed out the waterproof mattress cover and said all the kids in cabin #6 are also bedwetters and everyone knows about everyone else, so don’t worry about it. He also told Billy that he would have to wear diapers at night and showed him the closet where the stuff was kept. Billy then went back over to his bed and sat down with a humiliated and displeased look on his face. Before I left, Vic said to me “Well, I told ya’. And I bet we get 1 or 2 more.”

            I later found out after overhearing a conversation between Vic and Becky Holmes who was in charge of registrations, apparently Billy’s parents knew he frequently wet his bed, but wouldn’t disclose it when they signed him up during the previous winter, even though the question was explicitly asked on the application form. Becky phoned the parents after the bedwetting incident and found out they usually made him wear diapers at night. It was incredibly thoughtless and inconsiderate of them to send their son off to camp, knowing he was a bedwetter and then not telling anyone about it.

            The following morning, I was back in cabin #6 doing the daily cleanup when another one of the counselors, Les Barry from cabin #10 walked in and asked to see Vic. I told him he was in the back room, but just then, Vic heard us talking and came out. Les had 2 kids with him, an 11 year old, Kenny Roth and his 9 year old brother Charlie. Les said that Charlie had bedwet last night, but Kenny wouldn’t leave his brother and wanted to stay here with him. Vic said he could take in Charlie, but Kenny wouldn’t be allowed as the cabin was for bedwetting kids only and they were beginning to run out of space. Kenny didn’t want to leave and the only way they could get him to return to his cabin was with a promise that he would be allowed to see his brother during the day and before bedtime. Before Kenny left, Vic asked Charlie what happened, but he was still in a highly irritated mood right at that moment and just stood there, arms folded with a scowling look on his face. Kenny told Vic that Charlie woke up wet and while he was helping him get cleaned up, some of the other kids saw what happened and began making fun of him. Charlie finally started talking and said “I don’t want to go back there. They were laughing at me”. Vic asked him if he usually wore diapers at night, but it was Kenny who answered by saying that his mom made Charlie have a rubber sheet and sometimes he had to wear diaper pull-ups if he drank pop or water before bed. Vic took Charlie over to an unoccupied bunk and gave him the usual lecture and then told him that he would have to wear GoodNites for the rest of the time he was here. After finally settling the problem, Les and Kenny departed.

            There now was only 1 empty bed left and I remarked to Vic that I was beginning to wonder if there was something wrong with the water here. He laughed and replied that actually this was about par for the course. I asked him what they do if more than 8 kids get brought in and he said that happened last year when they had 9 bedwetters to deal with at 1 time. They had to set up a spare bed near the bathroom and put one of the waterproof mattresses on it.

            Later back in cabin #10 after Kenny Ross’ bedwetting brother Charlie had been packed up and sent off to “Diaper Alley”, there was suddenly an empty bed which didn’t stay empty for long. Since I was on duty that morning, (or “doody” as it may be) I was sent over there to help out. When I arrived, Les had already stripped the bed and showed me what Charlie had just done. I looked at Charlie’s wet mess and said “Boy, for just a pint-size 9 year old, he really flooded the place”. The drenched sheets, mattress pad and blanket were laying on the floor waiting for Carla and Juanita to come by and pick them up. Although they were soaked and discolored and smelled of urine, they probably still could be cleaned, but the mattress itself was a different story as it was heavily pee-stained, so we picked it up, carted it over to the storage cabin and set it outside to dry, but as it went with most of them, it probably couldn’t be salvaged and soon would be thrown out. This was not an uncommon event and the place was prepared for it by having a half dozen spares on hand. The camp went through a dozen or more of them this way each year. Les and I went into the storage cabin and got a new mattress and we brought it back to cabin #10 just as Carla and Juanita were arriving. Carla asked what happened and Les told her that one of the kids had wet his bed, so she loaded the damp laundry into a large plastic bag as Les and I put the new mattress into place. While we were working, one of the other counselors, Lou Harrison brought in another 9 year old named David and took him back to where we were. Kenny was present and said “Hi” along with some of the other kids who were there and asked him why he was being put here and David said that the kid he had to bunk next to in cabin #3 snored so loudly, it was waking him up. David asked how come there was an empty bed here and Kenny replied “My brother was using it but he wet it last night” and David quickly got a disagreeable look on his face. Les who was standing there, laughed but quickly reassured David that all the effected items had been replaced. David asked “What happened to your brother?” and Kenny said “He got sent to cabin #6”. David said “What’s in there?” and one of the other kids replied “That’s where they put the ones who wet their beds”. David asked “Wow, what did they do to him?” and Kenny said “Now he has to wear diapers at night and sleep in a bed with rubber sheets on it until we leave”. David then inquired “Does he do that a lot?” and Kenny replied “Sometimes. My mom makes him have plastic sheets at home anyhow and if he drinks pop or lots of water before bed, she makes him wear pull-ups”.

            The reputation of cabin #6 was well known by everyone throughout the camp, including all the counselors and especially by the kids. Word got around fast. The occupants often had to put up with the taunts and ridicule of the other campers who knew why they had been put there in the first place. Once, I was in the dining hall during lunch break and overheard several of the kids talking. One said “Man, that must really suck having to be in cabin #6. I heard all of them still wet their beds and have to wear diapers at night”. A friend of his added “Yeah, my little brother still does that and my parents won’t let him come here until he quits doing it for good”. One of the others said “I would never want to go to summer camp and have other kids find out something like that”. And several times while I was working around the cabin, other kids walked by and yelled out barbs like “Hey, what’s going on in the playpen?”, “Look at the babies” and “It’s the diaper kids”.

            After the first few days, things quickly began to settle down to a daily routine. One evening, I was back in my cabin reading. I was taking computer courses at school and had brought along a few of my text books. I also had several “techie” electronics catalogs with me and was leafing through them. One offered some extremely sophisticated surveillance items--and they really weren’t expensive. The one that caught my eye was a battery powered micro-sized wireless television camera. It was as thin as a ball point pen and only 2½” long. The battery was actually bigger than the camera. It was fairly high resolution and could transmit TV images up to 1,000’.

            After reading for a while, I just couldn’t get the idea of cabin #6 out of my head. Seeing all those kids in diapers was having strange effects on my brain. While I was doing cleanup there that morning, I looked around and noticed the place was quite rustic. The ceiling area was open and there was a smoke detector up in the rafters. I was suddenly hit with a wild idea.

            I had the second weekend off and went back home to my place in Ohio for a few days. Before returning though, I went into the storage cabin and borrowed one of the spare smoke detectors and brought it home with me. I had ordered one of the surveillance cameras and it was waiting at my place when I got there. After opening the box, I just couldn’t believe how tiny it was. I read the instructions and hooked it up to the battery. I then turned on my TV and set it on channel 3 and couldn’t believe my eyes. The camera image was coming through crystal-clear as I pointed it around the room. I then took the smoke detector apart and without disturbing it’s normal operation, saw that there was more than enough space to install the surveillance camera. There was a small opening in the front and it fit perfectly with almost no modification. The battery supposedly would last 3 to 4 days.

            Tuesday, I returned to camp. I had the modified smoke detector/camera with me and also brought along a portable TV set. Right after I arrived, my big chance came. Bob told me that he wanted to take the next 2 days off. He said Ted and Rick were also gone until then and asked if I minded covering for all of us. I told him it was no problem, so he departed late that afternoon, leaving me a golden opportunity to do some serious snooping. Wednesday morning, I completed my rounds and then went over to cabin #6 with a tall step ladder and some tools. By then, Vic had rousted the campers for the day and after breakfast, all the kids went off on a long hike with a group from another cabin, but he was in the rear room where he normally slept when I came in. I went back there and told him I needed to check the battery in the smoke detector, but he was engrossed in a book right at that moment and seemed almost oblivious to my presence. I went back to the middle of the cabin, set up the ladder and climbed up to where the smoke detector was. I quickly switched out the old one with my concealed camera contraption and then left. No one noticed anything. Back at my cabin, I was almost overcome with excitement as I hooked up the TV and set it on the same channel as the camera. When I turned it on, there was suddenly a clear image coming from cabin #6 showing 6 of the 8 beds along with almost the entire floor area.

            That evening, I went back to my cabin and again turned on the TV just as the kids were coming in for the night. The picture was somewhat dim, but when they entered, one of them turned on the lights and the scene rapidly brightened. I only wished it was possible to hear what was going on. Within 10 minutes, the last boy came in and I could see all of them playing around inside the cabin. Vic briefly entered the picture and chased out Charlie Roth’s older brother, Kenny. Then he disappeared as I think he was closing and locking the front door. He came into view again and then said something to all of them, probably to get ready for bed.

            Right in the middle of the picture, the 9 year old, Larry began taking off his clothes and placed them on his bed. 3 of the other boys began doing the same. Larry then took off his underpants and I could easily see him as he scurried around the floor almost naked, wearing nothing but a T-shirt. He disappeared from view for a minute, but then returned holding a pair of the GoodNites and in full view of the camera, put them on while I continued watching the show. Jerry, the 10 year old  kid was next. He turned around and the camera caught a great shot of his rear end while he was stepping into his night pants. He was also a “rubber pants kid” and he put a pair of them on over his GoodNites. Mikey, the blond haired kid then appeared and looked like he was yelling something and a minute later, Vic came back in the room. In the upper right corner of the image was Billy, the 9 year old who wet his bed in cabin #9 on the first night. I could see him sitting there on the edge of his bunk wearing just underpants while Vic went over to the closet and returned with a large cloth diaper. He folded it to size and then made Billy take off his underpants and lay down on the diaper while several of the other boys just stood by and watched. Billy pulled the diaper up between his legs and Vic pinned it into place. Apparently, he was a heavy nighttime wetter. As Vic handed him a pair of the plastic pants, Billy quickly hopped off the bed and stepped into them before putting on his pajamas. 9 year old Charlie Roth was next. He had finally gotten over the ridicule he had received for drenching his sheets and I caught a good view of him as he went over to the diaper closet and removed his clothes, took out one of the GoodNites and put them on along with a pair of the waterproof panties before getting into his pajamas.

            None of the kids ever gave Vic a hard time about having to be dressed in baby underwear. I think all of them regularly bedwet at home anyhow and were used to wearing diapers and the fact that there were as many as 8 of them in the cabin made it a lot easier to accept that they weren’t being singled out. And none of them seemed to be embarrassed about having to wear diapers at night or being around others kids who did too--all of them bedwet!

            The following morning, I arose at 7 AM and went over to the dining hall for breakfast. The counselors usually rousted the campers at 8 and they all went to breakfast at 8:30. Afterwards, they briefly returning to their cabins and then left again around 9 for the morning’s activities. Once they departed, my day’s work would begin, but when I got back to my place after breakfast, it was only 7:30 and I decided to turn the TV on once more. It was still dark in the room and I couldn’t make out much of anything, but at 8, the lights suddenly came on and I saw Vic waking the kids. When the last one finally woke up, he went back to his room.

            The 9 year old, Larry was the first out of bed as he quickly removed his PJ bottoms and tossed them on the floor. I could see him standing there while he took off his plastic pants, removed his GoodNite and then toddled out of sight after giving me a grand view of his buck-naked rear end. Mikey and Billy were bunking next to each other and Mikey got up and started undressing while the still drowsy-looking Billy sat in bed watching him. Mikey disappeared from the screen for a few minutes during which time Billy finally arose and started removing his pajamas. When Mikey reappeared in the image, he took off his rubber pants to put on his regular underwear. Billy then seemed to ask him something (like maybe “Did you pee last night?”). He took 2 steps towards the bathroom area, but then stopped and turned around as Mikey handed him his probably wet plastic panty. Billy then moved out of the view of the camera, perhaps to get Vic to help him unpin his diapers. I couldn’t see Jerry or Josh undressing, but caught the back view of one of them as they were walking across the room while holding what appeared to be 2 wet GoodNites pants. Whoever it was, he most likely was on his way to the gray barrel with them. I think Robert’s and Charlie’s beds were directly underneath the camera, so I couldn’t get a view of either one of them, but Vic soon re-entered the picture and it looked like he was telling all of them to get their night clothes off the floor. When they finally finished dressing, he chased them out of the cabin and they were gone for the day. I then turned off the TV set and placed it in the trunk of my car since Ted and Rick were coming back this afternoon and Bob was due to return either tonight or tomorrow morning and I certainly didn’t want any of them finding out about my extracurricular activities. I had also wondered about someone else unintentionally turning on another TV to the same channel as the camera, but fortunately that never happened. After 3 or 4 days, the battery ran down anyhow and it would stop transmitting.

            Later as I began my daily rounds and got to cabin #6, I looked at the pants in the gray barrel to see how many of them were actually wet. On some days, all of them were and occasionally, there were more wet pants than there were kids, indicating that at least 1 of them had drenched his drawers during the night and then had to change himself. But today, the only one which didn’t appear to be soaked was an Xtra Large panty that I believe was worn by Robert as he was the biggest of the kids and the only one wearing that size. All the rest of them wore Medium as that was the one which was being used up the fastest and I would know, I was usually the one who had to restock the diaper closet.

            That Friday, the first session was over and all the campers went home. We had the remainder of the day to put everything back in order before the next session began. Vic was also gone that day, so I was able to get into cabin #6 and change out the camera battery without being noticed. The next morning, 3 more buses rolled in and it was the same scene all over again. The bedwetters were once again taken immediately to cabin #6 and within 3 days, it was filled with 8 of them.

            Throughout the summer, I saw dozens of kids from cabin #6 as they got in and out of their night pants, to the point that I had become complacent about it. Then one day, it abruptly came to an end. The final session of the year had only 55 kids in attendance and when they arrived, I was suddenly let go. No one was angry with me, but Bob explained that they didn’t need 4 maintenance people with a group that small and were going to shut down in 2 weeks anyhow. I was the junior guy and had to leave immediately before I could retrieve my hidden camera. But if I made any kind of fuss over it, they might get suspicious or not ask me back next year, so I quickly packed, picked up my final paycheck and then returned to Ohio. 2 weeks after they closed down for the season, I sneaked back, but there was a large chain link fence with barbed wire at the top completely surrounding the entire camp and the gate was locked up tight. I could see the cabins a few hundred feet on the other side of the fence, but they were all boarded up for the year and it was obvious I would have to do some real damage to the place to get the camera back--and then risk getting caught. It wasn’t worth it. It was only a $100 item, so I wrote it off.

            Then one day in October, I suddenly had a big problem. There was a knock at my door and when I opened it, 2 policemen were standing there. They told me that the owners of Camp Randolph had filed a complaint with Pennsylvania authorities and they were here to get information. The cops disclosed that while the end of season maintenance was being performed there, a possible criminal act had been detected. Bob Kenley was removing all the smoke detectors from the cabins to take out the batteries when a suspicious item was found. They said that someone had apparently hidden a miniature TV camera in one of them. By that time, Rick and Ted were also gone for the year, but the cops wanted to talk with them too. I tried to play it cool, but in fact was as nervous as hell and told them that I didn’t know anything about it and didn’t know where Rick or Ted were. I don’t think Rick even lived in the area. Over the next several weeks, I became worried beyond words about the whole situation, but then one day, I bumped into Ted Mason at school and asked him if anyone had been around to talk with him. I didn’t realize it until then, but just 2 days after I departed, Ted had gotten into a nasty fight with the camp management and was abruptly fired. He said the cops were around asking him questions too, but he was still fuming mad at Bob and refused even to talk with them. He told me “Too friggin’ bad for Kenley, it’s his problem. He can go screw himself!”

            About a month later, I saw Ted again. He told me that the cops had come back to see if he knew where Rick was. When he told them he didn’t know--or even care, they had to admit that none of Bob Kenley’s allegations could ever be proven and the matter was being closed. I breathed a deep sigh of relief, but since the mystery was never officially resolved and the people from Camp Randolph couldn’t determine exactly who did it, they probably decided to just drop all of us (Ted was gone for good anyhow) and I never heard from them again.