A Visit to Heart's Bend

In 1990 I took a job at a summer camp in Southern Vermont called "Heart's Bend." Over the years I have asked myself why, and, to the best of my recollection, I think the answer is this. First, I couldn't stand the idea of working for my father at his Harley dealership for one more year. I was never cut out to be a Harley man. No matter how much I appreciated how much he did for me, I knew that I could never, ever, follow in his footsteps...The second reason was that my girlfriend at the time, whose opinion meant everything to me, told me that working at a camp was one of the most important and formative jobs she had ever had. Third, I was lost...I didn't know what I wanted to do with my life, and the camp seemed as good a place as any for me to be....What it all amounts to is an accident, a very happy accident….I had no idea how much it would change my life, but, to be honest, it changed everything.

Flash forward to this past weekend...the camp has been closed since around 1995 and a few of us decided to trek to Vermont from various parts of the country to reunite, celebrate, recollect and commemorate that which we had all loved and lost and to share what and who we are today....

As we sat around the fire tonight singing all the old favorites accompanied by myself and the wonderful Miss Harriet on guitar, as we laughed and cried through a screening of "Up the Bungus", and as we shared the company of friends whose paths had diverged in the woods—only to return again, at least temporarily, to this wonderful moment in time—I felt a powerful sense of gratitude. Gratitude to Nina for her incredible vision and passion to create such a beautiful refuge for the human spirit all those many years ago...gratitude for the friends I made here almost twenty years ago (who still hold such an important place in my heart)...and gratitude that I was given this chance to experience it all one last time...Seeing my children’s smiles as they too are swept up into the infectious joy which is, as my daughter Lilac has come to call “Camp Magic Land”, I can only thank god (or whoever) that I have had this moment, however brief, to share it with them.
So, I am sitting here in my rustic little room at the River's Bend Motel in Newfane, VT while three of my five kids are snoozing away peacefully beside me...thoughts, images and recollections of a perfect day dance through my mind...and, as happy as I am to have spent time with lost friends and forgotten places, I am saddened by the thought that there is no Heart's Bend for my own children. Perhaps, some day, they too will have the same kind of happy accident that I did nearly twenty years ago…