Left and Right, by Ray S

He is fourteen going on fifteen. Fresh from eighth grade graduation and thinking with wonder what will freshman year at RBHS be like? Everything is really going right in this springtime of adolescence.

Soon, a couple of days, he and his best buddies will be bussed north to Muskegon and eventually to YMCA Camp Douglas.

Swimming, canoe lessons, a trip to the sand dunes, and terrorizing bouts of “King of the Hill.” He soon learned it was no fun always being pushed down when it seemed like he could make it halfway up. Another learning experience. Probably the most memorable learning experience besides lanyard weaving was right in our cabin. Double deck bunks, two on the left and two on the right with a single cot in rear for the councilor. Always a wholesome, eager sixteen or seventeen year old who kept pretty much to himself—the boys didn’t bother him and the same could be said of him. Later it was learned that nightly a number of these wholesome young Christians would take off across the lake to tryst with the young virgins councilors at the nearby girls camp.

At his age our graduate knew little about birds and bees and sex, but our need for enlightenment was handsomely accommodated by one of the cabin’s more fortunately advanced and endowed occupants. Two of the boys had returned to get some craft supplies when they encountered sitting on a top bunk, legs hanging over the edge and no shorts or skivvies on, just plain bare assed. “Hey look at this,” he said, not the least bit shy. And they did. If they had been old or savvy enough, they might have uttered an appropriate expletive, probably the OMG or just “I’ll be an SOB” in wonderment.

That nerdy little guy had been busy taking inventory of his genitalia—and there it was swinging from left to right.

That summer at Y Camp was memorable not only for the repeat of the usual expected agenda of activities but also the added Nature Study curriculum foretelling what happens to boys when they find that certain anatomical equipment is good for more than standing with your buddies in a Pee Circle.

It sure seemed that a lot of the right knowledge became very evident and important even if some of the roommates wondered why they might have been left out when the necessary parts were distributed. Remember, it isn’t always size that counts, it is what the left side and the right side of your brain processes that bodes success.

© 31 August 2015 

About the Author