A Short Story: The Campout. Sammy moved into our town a couple of years ago and we had quickly become good friends. He was unlike anyone else I knew, unlike anyone else that my other friends knew, and unlike anyone in our little town. He was the only person we knew who could hear a song on the radio and immediately play it on his guitar. Actually, he was the only one we knew who even had a guitar. It was Saturday night and we had just finished five days of grueling two-a-day football practices and a Saturday morning workout. Now it was time to kick back, and the Stroh’s beer was going down really easy. Bad Moon Rising was the song of the night and after a few beers we actually believed we could sing along and keep in tune with Sammy.
None of us were the legal age to drink but Bobby always took care of us at the local carry out. In the summer we always camped out on an old slab of concrete foundation down on Sycamore Street that at one time had a house on top of it. We never knew what happened to the house and no one ever bought the property, so it had become our place on summer nights. Sammy, Ryan, Daniel, Willie and I built a small fire and began to sing, drink, talk, and tease each other. We talked about Neil Armstrong walking on the moon last month, how hot Traci had looked in her bikini at the pool this summer, how we were going to win our opening game, and how we dreaded the return to school after Labor Day. Willie was upset because he had to take a Spanish class in the fall. "It's not like I'm going to Spain or Cuba anytime soon," he noted.
Sammy looked at him thoughtfully, "You know you may need it someday. There are a lot of Hispanics moving into this country. I've been in Miami, almost everyone speaks Spanish."
"Well, not me." Willie retorted. We all laughed.
The neighbors never bothered us as long as we weren’t too loud, and they actually kept an eye out for us. We knew all the local police. They knew us and they knew all of our parents. The police really didn’t care about a few high school kids drinking beer and the most they would ever do is call our parents. We feared our parents more than the local police. We loved summertime in our small town.
Sammy was the only one of us who didn’t play football. In fact, there were just a few guys in our little town who didn’t play football. Football was a religion; it was part of the culture; it was in our blood; it was who we were. You grew up wanting to wear the green and white and play in front of a sold-out stadium every Friday night in the fall. Winning championships was expected and anything less than that was unacceptable. Saturday morning quarterbacks in every business, barbershop, supermarket, and home in the town would replay the game from the previous night. Every play was analyzed and reanalyzed.
August conditioning and practices were dreaded by all of us. It was hot and humid. We practiced early in the morning and again that evening. We had to run wind sprints up the slope to the top of the floodwall after the morning and evening workouts. Water breaks were a reward for a well-run play, and we swallowed salt pills by the handful. On some days, we had to come in at lunchtime and watch game film. August practices were a necessity. It was those practices that made us play as a team, conditioned us for a tough, ten-game schedule, and allowed us to focus on winning a championship. We came to believe that the only reason we could lose a game was because of our own mistakes. Losing had nothing to do with our opponents.
Over the past 2 years I had learned that I could always look to Sammy for a different perspective, a different opinion, or a different answer to any question. He annoyed some of the teachers at the high school because of, what Mr. Smith called, his unorthodox opinions. He was a non-conformist and a free spirit to say the least. While some of my friends didn’t care for this, I liked him. He was the first person to make me think, to ask real questions, and to challenge my own beliefs. It was difficult for those of us who grew up in our little town to think differently, to ask questions, to challenge the beliefs of others or our parents. It was not often encouraged at home or at school.
After we had completed the thousandth rendition of Bad Moon Rising, Sammy told us that he was leaving the next day. He was going to take his guitar, hitch rides, and thumb all the way to Bethel, New York. We were all clueless as to why he would want to go anywhere in New York, and we certainly had never heard of the town of Bethel. He said there was going to be a huge concert next weekend with Jimi Hendrix, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Joe Cocker, the Who, and other great bands. He wanted us to go with him; he really wanted me to go with him; he didn’t want to go alone. But we couldn’t; I couldn’t. It was almost the middle of August, the middle of preparing for the upcoming football season. We simply couldn’t. I simply couldn’t.
That was the last time any of us ever heard from Sammy. A few weeks later, when he didn’t show up in school and none of us had seen him at our campouts, his mom told my mom that he was living with some new friends and playing guitar in some place she called the Village in New York City. While we couldn’t imagine living anywhere but our little town, I had become both envious of and thankful for Sammy. I began to see the world through a different lens, and he had awakened a restlessness in me that I could not put back to sleep.
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