Compiled by Louis Levin
Mailgabber features writing and other media by members of the Camp Family. This month’s Mailgabber comes from excited college applicant, and former camper and counselor, Dylan Fox (St. Louis, 2012-’17, 19). For one of Dylan’s college applications, in response to a prompt asking about something meaningful in only 250 words, Dylan turned his thoughts to Camp. You can read his piece, entitled “Slowing a Landside,” below. Interested in submitting for the Mailgabber? Send submissions to Louis.
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“Journal” hardly describes the loose paper pile originally bummed off Ari Krupnick. Its soft pages fold into each other perfectly, fringes from Ari’s spiral notebook still lining the left edge.
I unfurl it and begin reading the smudged black ink waiting for me: “DYLAN’S QUET JOURNAL: 7/27/17 – 8/9/17.”
The meticulously recorded narrative immediately transports me back to the Canadian Quetico. To my astonishment, sights, sounds, and smells of meals and campsites, waterfalls and rapids, still reside deep in my mind, like samples of an ecosystem collected by an ecologist for later analysis. Moments replay as if I’m experiencing them for the first time: a small, unassuming snapping turtle makes short work of a tough fish carcass, the remains of dinner; the sun, just peeking over the horizon, puts on a stunning display over Lake Argo’s luminescent ripples.
A wise woman once told me that preserving memories such as these is like stopping dirt in a landslide.
I feel again the camaraderie among our group, the permanent bond of brothers embarked on this journey together. I thank Tommy for the walleye he caught and masterfully prepared for us on the WhisperLite stove; I hone my canoe-frisbee skills with Oliver; I challenge Jonah to an epic match of rummy for a mere dab of our dwindling Arizona Heat mustard.
Flipping through my journal, I realize that I’ve slowed the landslide.
Dylan (4th from right) comes off the trail as a 9th grader