A Simple Exchange Of Joy -- Special Campers And Special Counselors Revel In An August Week Playing And Learning Together

These people remember camp.

They remember it because they feel safe. They remember it because they have a fundamental purpose at Camp Burton Adult New Horizons on Vashon Island. This is true for the campers and the counselors.

Some of them don't remember much in their lives outside of camp. Others remember the minutest details, but lose sight of life's bigger picture. And still others see it all, but are slower to understand it.

These lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer camp are the ones to remember. Camp is a slow, safe time, an honest and jubilant time. Camp is joy secured in routine. This joy, given and gotten, is the fundamental purpose.

This is what John Holliday likes the most about camp. This is why he donates his time to coax the 27 volunteer counselors and organize the 60 campers. This is why he has spent one August week for 16 years as director of this camp for adults with developmental disabilities.

The campers are between 18 and 59 years old; the counselors about the same. They sleep five to seven campers and two counselors to a cabin. About a third of the campers have Down syndrome, a few more are autistic, some have had brain injuries. Many require daily medication. To attend, they must feed and toilet themselves, however slowly. Occasionally, behavior dictates an early departure, but not often.

"My favorite thing about camp is watching the counselors work with the campers and seeing how their relationship grows - especially new counselors," Holliday said. "At registration they will see the campers and say, `Oh, no, I am not going to make it through the week.' Then I see them midweek and they say, `I can do this,' and do it well."

Holliday joined the camp two years after it began at the 20-acre Baptist-owned Camp Burton. Back then, it was for 10 disabled adults who had outgrown camps for children. It offered them a chance to feel independent, creative, challenged, parts of a whole. It now fills at 60 and has a waiting list of 60 more. The week of camp costs $180 apiece, and many of the campers save money they earn from washing dishes, busing tables, doing yard or janitorial work to pay for it.

In 1982 it was called "Handi-Kamp." It was a less enlightened time. Public schools were finally opening their classrooms to developmentally disabled children - yielding to a 1975 law assuring education for all. As adults, they would have more options outside of institutions than their predecessors did.

Holliday had just entered the realm of special education, volunteering in a Shoreline School District program for deaf, blind and profoundly retarded students taught by Nancy Trenbeth. Holliday, an Indianapolis native, had recently and impulsively moved to Seattle, leaving his New York apartment and high-pressure book publishing job. He saw an ad for a Vashon Island beach house, asked a bus driver where Vashon Island was, rode the ferry, walked to the house and rented it.

What he saw and did in Trenbeth's class forever altered his life. He earned a master's degree in severely profound disabled education from the University of Washington and taught for 10 years, mostly in the Highline School District, where he earned a teacher of the year award in 1989.

"I watched her work with those students and realized how much fun it could be," Holliday said. "How cool it would be to teach them how to use a cane and how to feed themselves."

It was also exhausting work. Holliday quit four years ago, studied for a massage therapy license and now splits his practice between Vashon and Seattle. But he held on to the camp.

Why?

Why was the question of the hour at camp one day this week as guest Jacqui Fisher unloaded a quarterhorse from a trailer in the camp parking lot. She led the bridled and saddled Gambler to the center of a field surrounded by cabins peeking through trees.

As Fisher prepared to give rides, she explained to the campers that Gambler was a "pony" horse at Emerald Downs racetrack, which means his gentle nature suits him to lead the jumpy race horses to the gate. "Every once in a while he gets to go outside the racetrack," said Fisher, who is an exercise rider at Emerald Downs.

"Why?" camper Molly Herndon asked.

"So he doesn't get tired," Fisher replied.

"Why?" Herndon responded. Fisher laughed, realizing the whys would be endless.

"Good question," Holliday said with television game show enthusiasm, deftly shifting focus to who wanted the first ride on Gambler. Herndon did.

Holliday is adept at deflecting the question why, especially when querying his dedication to the camp. He surmises none, including himself, does it out of social goodness. Holliday says his interest could have sprung from having a sister who died at 14 from a brain tumor. He does know that despite the daily exhaustion, the simple exchange of joy brings campers and counselors back:

"It gives you a whole different perspective for the rest of the year. I think part of it is you are giving so much of yourself it pulls you out of yourself. It kind of feeds the soul."

Age is not relevant here; what matters is what each person does well. Camper Kathleen Burns rode Gambler with the biggest smile; counselor Kyle Simms has the patience of a saint. When counselor Sheila Sweeney asked camper Julian Teske to sing a song from the "Sound of Music" while canoeing, he sang the entire soundtrack in tune and in order.

David Primm has an engaging ebullience. A 10-year camper, Primm has become one of Holliday's best friends. Holliday frequently visits Primm at the group home where he lives.

Steve Silha has a reassuring manner and knows just what to say to keep calm in the routine. Silha, a 10-year counselor, is a Vashon freelance writer and consultant. His younger brother Mark, a charming conversationalist, comes from Minneapolis to attend: "It's been a great way for us to spend time together," Steve said.

You must look and listen closely sometimes to tell who are the campers and who are the counselors. All are at camp because they want to be.

"It's funny, I was nervous the first year, but once you do it you come back," said Maurice "Mo" Hampel, a Vashon contractor and eight-year counselor. "You miss them."

Today is the last day of camp. By now, Holliday has talked with each of the counselors to cajole a commitment for next August. He can't afford to lose any. He needs at least a three-to-one ratio to keep camp safe and fun for everyone. If he could rustle up another 25 counselors, he'd fill a second camp with the waiting list.

Life cycled around. Trenbeth, who has taught in Shoreline's special education program for 25 years now, joined Holliday as camp co-director several years ago. Adult New Horizons is changing names to Camp Parkview next summer, to reflect the greater financial and administrative role the Capitol Hill adult group home is assuming. Holliday and Trenbeth used to cover expenses, out of their own pockets, for horseback rides, the band (reggae band Tiny Giants this year) and storyteller Merna Hecht. Parkview pays now.

Camp is over. But Holliday continues year round to seek people who want to slow down their lives for a week, remember camp and smile.

"I think camp is the slowest week in the world," Holliday said with a wry smile. "You can almost hear the clock tick, and that's kind of nice."

Call Camp Burton at 206-463-2512 for information.