It was the Summer of 1980 that Allen Rowe and I decided to get jobs at Camp Coker as Counselors In Training. It meant four weeks of Boy Scout camp and all the merit badges we could earn, all of the good cooking Flora Bull could serve and we could make our names better known in the Pee Dee Area Council, all for the princely wage of $5.15 per week. Yes, that is correct, five dollars and change for a week's labor! We didn't care, as we were about to become the newest stars at Camp Coker. They would love us! We filled out our applications that were obtained from the Council office on Coit Street in Florence, gathered the required references and submitted our applications for review by the camp staff, and waited while dreaming of all the opportunity that awaited.
A couple of weeks passed and we both got our letters of acceptance. We were two fifteen year old kids with no idea of life, work or responsibility yet none of it mattered.......we were Coker Staff, right up there with John Rhodes, Jody Clark and Jamie Gerald! We would soon be the toast of Coker and bright shining stars with our wit, intelligence and charm! There had been a few 625 members on Staff before...Harry Easterling, Eddie Miller and Purvis Bedenbaugh had been staff in the past yet Allen and I were the first from "our" generation to serve in this most esteemed position.
The big Saturday arrived, "Staff Day" which was the day before opening day of the 1980 camp season. We unloaded our gear at Belk Lodge, signed the waivers, release forms and wrote down our emergency contact information. We listened attentively as we were briefed on the pertinent information of camp life, then set out to find our home for the next two weeks. There was a campsite set aside for staff and we chose the nicest tent we could find, one situated on top of a rise and with nice, new canvas. Man, we were kings of the world and soon had our tent decked out with our 625 livery, a Rebel Flag and a Lynyrd Skynyrd poster. We carefully ran a drop cord to the nearest bathhouse, concealing it neatly beneath the pinestraw and had 120 volts AC current established to the "Taj Mahal" so that the box fan and stereo could be utilized and enjoyed.
About thirty minutes after setting up "Taj Mahal" and with Lynyrd Skynyrd rocking on the 8-track Jody Clark and Jamie Gerald showed up and instead of warmly greeting us or offering to take us under their wings they pitched a fit......that was "their" tent we had commandeered! They pointed to a sad affair about 75 feet downwind and informed us that it was the lodging for the CITs. We tried arguing our point about being the first to arrive and lay claim to prime real estate, but our elders that outranked us won out, so we broke it down and moved on along.
Now, the "CIT" lodging was far from desirable! The wooden platform that the tent was pitched on was mostly rotted, the canvas was faded and had several big patches on it, the cots weren't level and had rusty springs that squeaked with the slightest movement. On top of that, it was in a low swampy spot and had an odor to it best described as a "green funk"! It wasn't much and we begrudgingly abided their command.
Once we got "Taj Mahal II" set up it wasn't too bad. We found wood scraps to shim the cots to a less shaky foundation, located a tin of "3 in 1" oil to lubricate the rusty cot springs, chased about thirty lizards out of the interior and Allen came up with an ingenious idea to deal with the "green funk"; Right Guard aerosol deodorant. He soaked every available surface with the can and Taj Mahal II smelled slightly better, kind of like moldy canvas smothered in Right Guard! We were once again set and soon had a nice breeze blowing through the damp canvas and Ronnie Van Zant was yet again wailing that Tuesday, along with his baby, had gone with the wind. Look out Coker, y'all ain't seen nothing yet!
We fell in at the flagpole at 6pm for our first Staff meeting and Mess which was a wonderful bounty of fried chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy, green beans, macaroni and cheese, and those wonderful yeast roll "Moon Rocks" that Flora Bull was famous for. We chowed down on some good grub and were presented with our first assignment detail......the mess hall! Purvis H Bedenbaugh was home from Farragut Naval Academy and had accepted a summer position at Coker as the Mess Hall Steward. He immediately latched onto the two of us and right after the assembly was over Purvis had Allen and I hang back so he could lay out his job expectations. While all the other guys wandered off to have some social time and renew old acquaintances Allen and I were sweating it, sweeping and mopping the mess hall along with the kitchen, washing dishes in the curious old Blodgett commercial washer, inventorying the pantry and stacking the now cleaned and dried dishes in perfectly plumb columns. Yes, Purvis H Bedenbaugh was an odd sort of fellow, strangely sadistic with his military-issue horn-rimmed glasses, crew cut and pear-shaped physique.
It was long past midnight when we finally were relieved of duty at the mess hall. We swung by the vending machines down at the "Trading Post" where we got Sundrop sodas and Milky Way candy bars and trudged back to the Taj Mahal II, and found sleep pretty quickly after a brief bit of late-night conversation. We both decided that Purvis H Bedenbaugh was indeed a sadistic monster that was intent on making our lives as miserable as he possibly could for the next two weeks. After polishing off our sodas and Milky Way bars, sleep found us surprisingly quickly.
We were fully expecting to be roused by Reveille at 7am but instead were greeted by an unusually chipper Purvis H Bedenbaugh at 5am and ushered back to the mess hall to prepare for opening day of camp. We reenacted the same ritual from the night before of sweeping and mopping the entire mess hall, checking and double checking the pantry inventory and getting the dishes organized into even tighter tolerances than the previous night. Flora showed up at 6am to begin preparing the evening meal as well as preparing breakfast for the staff, and we were somewhat relieved to have a slightly less sadistic human in our presence.
After our morning repast, our fellow counselors once again hurried off to get prepared for the influx of campers that would begin arriving around three pm while we were retained to repeat the whole performance over again.....sweep, mop, wash and organize. "Surely this fella has to get tired soon" we mumbled while pushing brooms, swabbing mops and stacking huge cans of "PYA-Monarch" pears, green beans and apple sauce. "This can't last forever" we thought as we shoved stacks of dirty dishes through the Blodgett washer, the steam permeating us to a level of humidity quickly approaching that of a Vietnam jungle.
This went on for an entire week, 14 to 16 hour days slaving in the mess hall for Sergeant Slaughter, whom we were convinced enjoyed beating up puppies in his spare time. In at five am, work until 10 am and take an hour off. Return at 11 am, repeat the entire process for lunch and leave the mess hall at three pm, return at 5pm to prepare for dinner then work until midnight. We were convinced that we had made someone mad and were possibly being punished for staking a claim on "The Golden Boys" tent. We were not happy campers....or actually, "CIT"s.
Fortunately we were pardoned of our sentence at the end of week one. We were transferred to the Quartermaster's Hut in the charge of our hero, the one and only John "JR" Rhodes of Hartsville, SC! JR was a rock and roll wildman, and played bass guitar in a college band somewhere far away. We thought he was the example of coolness and were tickled that our next week would be one of leisure. Our dreams of leisure were short-lived as we were set out on wild errands such as retrieving the "Left-Handed Windshifter" from the Archery Range or going to the Obstacle Course to see if Sam Richey still had possession of the "Bolt Stretcher".
Now, Troop 625 came through for one of the weeks Coker was open, and it proved to be unforgettable. Although we were tickled that our gang was there, it caused a bit of tension among our fellow staff members, as 625 had a bit of a reputation. We loved pulling pranks and not taking any shine from anyone, and that attitude typically resulted in adolescent skirmishes amongst the visiting troops. Be it Tommy Edwards creating a tongue of fire with diesel starting fluid and a Zippo or Mark Bunch jumping off the bridge on the causeway, 625 found a way to be feared. One morning as camp fell in at the flagpole before breakfast, the colorguard had to remove a pair of JB's underwear that we snuck up the pole the previous night before continuing the ceremony of raising Old Glory, much to the delight of everyone, JB included.
The absolute worst moment came mid-week when an announcement came over the loudspeakers atop the mess hall that a fire had been reported in Copenhaver campsite. Allen and I were to don five-gallon firefighting backpacks and "doubletime" it across the lake to put the fire out. Five gallons of water and the backpack weighed close to 55 lbs, and we set out on the approximately one-mile run to the campsite. We arrived with shaky legs, washed in sweat and that odd buttermilk taste in our throats to find a small pile of pinestraw smoldering in an obviously raked spot in the campsite while the elder counselors roared in laughter. Knowing we had been duped, we unscrewed the tops of the backpacks and doused the fire into oblivion. We trudged back to the quartermaster hut where JR gave his nod of approval over our fire response training and gave us the rest of the day off.
We finished out the week having a grand old time and although I only earned two merit badges I wouldn't have traded those two weeks for anything. We liked to sing a song that went "Old folks, young folks, everybody come......come to Coker where you'll have a lot of fun. Ladies, leave your razors and your guns at the door and you'll hear some Bible stories that you never heard before!" There were several stanzas to that great song and Allen and I left our indelible mark on Coker as a new stanza was added...."We've got Scott and Allen on our staff; they are the kind of guys that will make you laugh. They are legends in their own neighborhood as they sleep in tents where Jody and Jamie should!" Continue on in the Brotherhood of Cheerful Service, fellas......our bonds are strong and until we meet again, may the Great Spirit watch over you and keep you from harm. WWW.