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  • Writer's pictureScott Johnson

"Manonnah Bah"

In the summer of 1979 I worked for my Aunt Connie Stubbs at Camp DesChamps, a week-long summer camp for mentally handicapped kids and young adults. It was held at Camp Bob Cooper, a 4-H camp on Wyboo Creek near Summerton, SC. Aunt Connie was the director of the camp and she employed me to take the campers on overnight "primitive" camping excursions thanks to my being a Boy Scout, and having a working knowledge of starting fires (thank you, Harry Hollis!), erecting tents and outdoor cooking. I was excited to operate in this position, and I was also excited to be able to spend a week with Aunt Connie! It was quite an honor to be 14 years old with such a great responsibility.


My brother Wallace had his driver's license and a 1967 Chevrolet Chevelle, and offered to deliver me to Aunt Connie and Uncle Marion's house on 117 Mood Avenue in Sumter, SC on the Saturday before the camp started. Wallace was a notorious "lead-footed" driver and we set out on the journey purposely late so Wallace would have an excuse to drive like a maniac! We sped down Highway 15 towards Sumter at 90 mph, the dual exhausts of the anemic 307 V8 in that Chevelle singing a song that belied the true performance of the engine. Wallace thought he had the fastest car in Bennettsville at the time and was constantly manipulating the "Horseshoe" shifter of the goofy two-speed Powerglide transmission in that fraudulent hotrod Chevrolet. I hung on for dear life as I listened to Wallace tell "whoppers" the entire way, boasting of imagined race victories and prowess with teenaged girls. I kept quiet and let him enjoy his moment in the sun!


We finally arrives at 117 Mood Avenue and were warmly greeted by Aunt Connie and Uncle Marion, Harold, Jim, Judy, and Ruth Ann. The Stubbs clan were a wild bunch and we had a great little reunion before Wallace made his return to Bennettsville, as he worked at Pizza Hut and was scheduled to work that evening. He needed all the hours he could get to keep gas in that Chevelle, considering that his driving style was binary.....wide open or full stop! We bid our farewells and watched Wallace disappear down Mood Street as the tone of the dual exhausts faded quietly away.


After dinner we all settled in and watched "The Exorcist" on HBO, a new offering on Sumter's highly advanced cable television service. It was more fun watching Jim grow nervous and jumpy as the movie progressed! About halfway through the movie, Jim excused himself to go visit the bathroom and Uncle Marion seized the opportunity to prank Jim. He crouched behind the partition that divided the den from the dining room, and leaped out upon Jim's return while letting out a big old "Yaaaah"! I've never in my life seen 260 pounds of human move so fast! We all had a huge laugh at his reaction, and nervously finished the movie. Such behavior was typical of any gathering at the Stubb's house....always filled with jokes and pranks!


Sunday morning arrived with a beautiful, sunny sky and we proceeded to load up our bags and set out for Summerton. Aunt Connie had my cousin Judy and two others riding with her, and I rode down with my cousin Mims Cave in her little Ford Pinto. Mims kept me entertained the entire trip, and I thought I was grown because I was by far the youngest of the group. Mims was a senior at the University of South Carolina and I thought she was the most worldly, most educated coed in the world. She talked to me like I was an adult and I ate up the attention with a spoon!


We arrived at Camp Bob Cooper at noon, and immediately busied ourselves for the arrival of the campers. I inventoried my backpack to double check that my camping gear was in order, and was assigned to a "bunk house" and met my room mate, a sketchy character named "Bob". He was also working as a counselor but it became obvious that he was suffering from schizophrenia and was somewhat delusional. "Bob" was in his early twenties and regaled me with tales of riding a Honda Express moped to Myrtle Beach from Sumter and of his experiences with drugs, including smoking something he called "Black African Ganja". I had no clue what he was talking about, and spent the rest of the night in a fitful sleep. This cat was weird and I was taking no chances with him!

Monday morning, after breakfast in the dining hall I went out to the primitive camping site that was situated down a trail through the pine trees behind the horse stables and erected the tents, cleared off a nice fire ring and gathered up some fire wood. After a few hours of labor I had a beautiful campsite set up, six tents in a circle around a fire ring with a dining fly set up off to the side. I marveled at my handiwork, then walked back to the dining hall for lunch and to retrieve my first group of primitive campers.


One of the campers stands out in my memory. I have long forgotten his name but all he ever said was "Mama get me a Manonnah Bah.....Mama get me a Manonnah Bah". All week long he repeated the phrase, and it was a mystery to me what he was saying! "Manonnah Bah! Manonna Bah!" I was frightened yet curious by the phrase he repeated non-stop.


Well, we had but one primitive camping session. Monday night was a good one, with around ten campers in attendance. We roasted hot dogs over a campfire, I told ghost stories and we sang campfire songs like "Ravioli" and "Get Out of the Way of Old Dan Tucker". We toasted marshmallows and had a grand time. Tuesday night started out pretty good, but a bad thunderstorm blew in about 7pm and I had to evacuate ten extremely agitated and frightened mentally-handicapped folks out of there. That was quite a task for a fourteen-year old kid!


Heavy rains moved in and washed out the possibility of any further camping adventures, and the rest of the week was spent assisting the camp staff in any possible way that I could, including teaching campers how to make "God's Eyes", making macaroni pictures on paper plates and helping them write letters to their parents. One of the highlights of each day was the "Disco" that was held every afternoon in the dining hall. There was a jukebox in there that was rigged so that no money was needed, and the campers would be assisted by myself in selecting songs to dance to. I'll never forget selection "C4".....it was the Anita Ward song "Ring My Bell" and it seems that C4 was stuck on a loop. For the rest of the week, that dining hall indeed rung like a bell as the refrain "You can ring my be-eh-ell, ring my bell....ding dong ding, ding-a-ling-a-ling" rung out, over and over and over! It was a lot of fun watching the various invented dance moves taking place, and the campers were having the time of their lives, jerking and swaying to the latest disco hit of 1979. All the while, one particular man kept repeating "Manonnah Bah! Manonna Bah! Mamma get a Manonna Bah!"


Friday finally arrived, and the campers were loading up to return to their homes. A group of them were from the Babcock Center in Columbia and a few vans were sent to transport them home, and some others were picked up by their parents. I witnessed an elderly couple arrive, and they emerged from an old Pontiac. The elderly woman had a McDonald's "Happy Meal" in her hands and proceeded towards the assembled group of campers. One guy started running towards her, and yes! It was my new friend and he was excitedly shouting "Manonnah Bah! Manonnah Bah!" The mystery had been solved, and I figured out that he was excited to be getting a "McDonald's Box" at the end of the week. I learned a valuable lesson that week. Outward appearances may be strange to us, but no matter who you are, the joy of excitement is one to be cherished, and shared. That young man was exhibiting something we should all revel in, that the simplest things in life are worth getting excited over and hope is one of the greatest gifts from God. Have a rice day, y'all!

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