Camp Swampy Trailer Park

Camp Swampy Trailer Park – Fort Polk, LA

October 2011

From late June to early September 2011, I lived in a trailer park at Tigerland, North Fort Polk, LA, aka Camp Swampy. Why the Army named it Tigerland is beyond me but I think it has something to do with the Viet Nam war days when soldiers trained at Polk before shipping out. Today, Tigerland is a base for military personnel going through Combat Advisor training prior to deployment to Afghanistan and Iraq; it is overseen by the 162^nd Infantry Brigade. Why the soldiers renamed it Camp Swampy is far easier to understand than the Tigerland name especially to those of us who trained there in July and August, the months with the most oppressive and swampy Louisiana weather. I never did see alligators at Camp Swampy but I can vouch for the snakes, black widow spiders, and some larger critters such as wild pigs and ponies so I’m willing to bet 

the alligators actually were in the mix in some swamp or another; we just didn’t cross paths.

I arrived at Camp Swampy after completing 77 days of school house training and 2 weeks of pre-mobilization at The Landing, Fort Leavenworth, KS. Each member of our class was housed in their own hotel suite in near-by Kansas City, which incidentally, is a great town. Our rooms had kitchens with full sized refrigerators and dishwashers; housekeepers came in regularly to vacuum, dust, and change the linens. The hotel also served free breakfast and an evening “happy hour” snack bar. Additionally, each of us was given a rental car for which our gas payments were reimbursed, plus we received a daily per diem for meals. We lived close to many, many (chain) restaurants and bars, Zona Rosa Mall, every big box store you can think of, and several nice grocery stores. At the time, most of us thought we were sort of hard done by, being away from our families and our usual routines, but hell, in retrospect we were living large!

Of 29 people in the Human Terrain System (HTS) March class, I think 18 of us hung on until graduation. Along the way the other students either bailed or did not make the cut at some point or another when we had to reach a certain goal in order to stay in the program. At any rate, on the last weekend of June those of us who had successfully graduated and sworn in as Department of the Army Civilians (DACS) flew to Alexandria, LA about an hour from Fort Polk where we were picked up by our liaison officer and toted off to Camp Swampy.

We arrived mid Sunday afternoon and Tigerland was surprisingly quiet. We were assigned our barracks and had a quick look around after dumping off our heaps of luggage in our rooms. While we were not actually housed in trailers, Tigerland was highly reminiscent of a trailer park the way the barracks were laid out in rows on little gravel roads just wide enough for, say, a half ton truck with giant wheels and a shotgun rack in the back window to race through. The barracks were medium sized modular buildings with 8 bedrooms and two latrines at the end of the hall. Thank god they were air conditioned and we had plenty of hot water but we shared rooms and there were only 6 showers and 4 toilets for as many as 20+ people in each building. (Now I don’t know about you, but if I’m in charge of a situation like that where a bunch of women are sharing a bathroom, I am not giving them weapons … just saying.) This being the army, males and females lived in separate barracks although I have extremely reliable intel confirming there was some very shady and clandestine fraternizing going on behind the scenes in the laundry room, team rooms, and other shadowy places. As it turns out, Swamp People can be very creative…

Historically the Camp Swampy trailer park has a shifting dynamic that more or less reflects the character of each class. Still, the overall vibe is constant and some things don’t change much from class to class like damp uniforms hanging from improvised clothes lines strung between buildings, stinky army boots dangling from metal handrails of barracks steps in order to air them out before the next morning, people hanging-out smoking and (often) drinking late into the night, or playing poker on top of Styrofoam beer coolers while sitting on Wal-Mart camping chairs strategically stationed on what passes for the lawn in order to catch the best view of who was coming and going. I do, however, think that Class 128 – my class – was maybe more “lively” or “spirited” than some other classes that had come through Tigerland. We adopted the trailer park – hell, we embraced the trailer park and all of its funky red neck culture. Its attributes were our attributes and we were A-OK with that. After all, as it turns out, Combat Advisor training actually prepared us for life in a real deal trailer park, although somehow I don’t think that was the Army’s intention.

Moreover, the trailer park was the great equalizer in a lot of ways. Our class of 46 people was made up of the HTS DACs, an Ohio National Guard OMLT (Operations, Mentoring, and Liaison Team), a selection of Air Force reservists, plus one lone Navy helicopter pilot - all of differing ranks and ages. From the Puppies to the Mullah, and from the advocate of genocide to the small town paramedic, we covered a lot of bases. We were not one of those nicely coordinated classes all from the same service branch, sharing a similar culture, and wearing identical uniforms. Oh, not even close; we looked like a bunch of mutts in our various get-ups and man-oh-man, did we bring a range of cultures and experiences to the table. But right off the bat we had one thing in common - the trailer park – and we enthusiastically took it on and made it our own.

Our section of the trailer park was across the street from the DFAC (mess hall), gym, and MWR (sort of like the community center). Just down the street was a little Shopette that carried some essentials like mini shampoos and conditioner, soap, razors, magazines, and things like that but mostly it was where you went for snacks and booze. It didn’t have a huge stock of alcohol but it had a pretty good selection of beer and besides, if you were in need of a whole keg of beer, for example, you could always hitch a ride to the Class 6 Military Liquor Store at the PX. Next to the Shoppette was a small Pizza Hut. Bottom line: we had booze, chips, and pizza almost within spitting distance of home. You could walk to the Shopette, buy a Styrofoam cooler, fill it with Bud Light and ice, snag some Doritos and teriyaki beef jerky, then slap the whole kit and caboodle on your shoulder, pop in a plug of dip, and be home in 10 minutes. Not a bad set up. And just think, the army actually prepared us to handle this critical mission with finesse by making us run around in the sun for days on end wearing full battle rattle. Once you took all that army weight off of your body, throwing a cooler of beer on one shoulder seemed like a reward.

The lifecycle of the trailer park was ten weeks – the length of the Combat Advisor course – and I do believe that in our ten weeks Class 128 set some type of record for most “visits” to the Company or Battalion Commander’s office to discuss some allegation or another. Seriously though, most of it was made up bullshit started by crazy people with an axe to grind, but think about it – don’t you imagine that every trailer park needs a good gossip mill to keep the world turning? Some of the rumours that took flight actually were pretty damn inspired. I would have to say the winner was the one about a male officer regularly having 3-ways with two female class members in a team room located in a male barracks. It didn’t matter that no one ever saw this go down (bad pun!) or offered any proof of this ménage a trois, the idea was so off the wall that no one cared that it was in no way, shape, or form true. It was great theatre if nothing else and it helped to pass the time talking about how this could possibly be going on right under our noses and none of us had been lucky enough to have seen it!

There also were charges made that students were threatening other students, sexually harassing folks they had never even acknowledged, and this being a trailer park, there just had to be reports of fighting. “Allegedly” there were one or two end-of-the-night locals vs. military fights in Leeseville that “maybe” spiraled into a few punches later being thrown in the trailer park but who knew for sure. Then again, what else is a guy to do when he’s had the better part of a case of Bud chased with enough Jack and Coke to float a small navy and nothing better to do with himself than get all riled up? As one of my esteemed colleagues noted, “the only real way to end a trailer park party is with a fight.” So that is what might or might not have happened, maybe kinda sorta, once or twice …

Combat Advisor training – the real reason we were at Tigerland – is intense, especially for those of us without a military background. Our days started with formation and PT at 06:00, that is unless it was one of those days when we drew weapons at o’dark thirty, staged our vehicles, had breakfast at the DFAC, and were on the road with our convoy by 06:30 enroute to one of the many Tigerland ranges for weapons training. We worked hard six days a week often for 12-16 hours a day, but come Saturday night we were ready to play even harder. And that is exactly what happened. Surprisingly the local constabulary never made a house call (trailer park call?) in our entire ten weeks.

Saturday night parties in the trailer park were customary but we had a few that were real doozies. More often than not, there would be a group of folks who in the early evening would set up shop on the little gravel road between the female barracks and the first male barracks. They would hold down the fort until everyone else came home. People returned from Leeseville in waves – some right after dinner at the Wagon Wheel Steak House, Hana Japanese, or one of the many Mexican joints; others came back after a few post-dinner Monkey Wrenches or Octane 93s at the Daiquiri Station; and the rest would wander in all wound up after the Leeseville nite clubs closed. By 02:00 there would be critical mass on the trailer park road. 20 or 30+ lawn chairs would be scattered around with folks smoking, drinking, and even belly dancing (no, not kidding). Most times there was music - usually someone’s IPod shuffle - but towards the end of our stay there was a guy from one of the new classes who brought out his guitar and played while we sang old songs that we thought we knew all the words to but as it turned out really only knew the chorus and flubbed the rest.

In the course of one particularly active Saturday night some of the guys got tattoos (with interesting artwork – “titties and a moustache” on one guy’s butt, a happy face on another’s toe where the nail was missing) and one of the gals took off her shirt on the dance floor at a Foam Party at a Leeseville nite club and traded it with a local guy for his shirt because she liked it better than hers. (She later explained that at the time she thought it was OK to take off her shirt in a bar because she was wearing a fancy bra...) Belly dancing lessons were given in the trailer park after much beer and Jack Daniels was consumed, and of course, clandestine romance simmered. Later that night, or rather early the next morning, somewhere in the neighbourhood of 04:00, one of the gals decided she needed a shower after the party wound down. Needless to say she was more than a little toasted. After showering and wrapping herself in a towel, she walked back to her room only to discover the door was locked. Now here’s the thing: we were not given keys for our rooms so we put duct tape over the latch to keep our doors from locking. Well, maybe not all of us did it because this gal was definitely locked out of her room, in the middle of the night, wearing nothing but a short towel. As she described it the next day, she decided the solution was to try and break in through her bedroom window. She pulled a chair outside and put it under her window, climbed up, and attempted to reach the pane but oops ... the window was too high. Back inside she went and stood in the hallway for quite some time staring at the wall trying to make herself focus so she could figure out what to do. After a bit, it registered that she was looking directly at a phone so she picked up the receiver and dialed the number for emergency services. Some guy with a master key came over and let her back into her room. Apparently he was not prepared for her to be standing there in just a little towel because that seemed to make his job all the more difficult for him. Bottom line is she got into her room without losing her towel and the next day it made for an excellent story. Sadly there was no 

photographic evidence …

As romance blossomed in the trailer park, one couple actually took the plunge and legally were married. We joked that it was our trailer park shot gun wedding – the one thing that was missing from our portfolio – but in fact there was no shotgun needed. Colleagues of mine from the HTS program had been dating quietly while we were in Kansas and by the time we got to Polk they were crazy in love. It didn’t take long for the rest of us to spot this and once the cat was out of the bag we began lobbying for a wedding. As it turned out they were thinking the same thing and on the weekend before we graduated, they were married in the little wooden chapel at South Polk. The chaplain was a laid back dude in cowboy boots who performed a very touching ceremony. He told us there had been many weddings in that chapel over the years but this would be the last one because the army in all of its wisdom was tearing down the little wooden chapels and replacing them with modern structures. What a shame. The reception was held, of course, back at the trailer park. We had a big BBQ with two kegs of beer, loads of hamburgers and hotdogs, and cupcakes with Care Bears on them (it was what the Wallyworld bakery had fresh that morning). After the bride and groom left for their 36 hour honeymoon in beautiful downtown Leeseville, the party continued way into the night as we shared our kegs with just about anyone who walked by. That was the night I got my tattoo but that is a whole other story.

Our final week at Polk was crazy as we wrapped up our training with the three day capstone exercise in “the field.” Thursday afternoon was graduation and immediately after people began to split for vacation. We’d been together for ten weeks, night and day, and had become like family with all of the same drama, bickering, and jealousy you would expect of the Louisiana Swamp People we’d become. However, we also had a lot of great times, forged a lot of bonds that will last lifetimes, and shared some truly remarkable experiences that no one outside of our trailer park and Class 128 will ever understand. And that is the real reason the trailer park worked for us. We had our own little universe, inside the Tigerland universe, inside the wider Army universe. It was our Camp Swampy trailer park/Combat Advisor bubble and it worked. And as ridiculous and frustrating as it was, some days I really miss it.

The Daiquiri Station - Leesville, LA

Week 1 at Camp Swampy was over and it definitely was time to blow off a little steam -- OK a lot of steam -- because god knows it had been a crazy week. And since it also was the Thursday night before a 4 day weekend, we were primed for action and a little strategic investigation of the cultural overlays in Leesville, the town just outside of the Fort Polk main gate.

Our primary mission, aligning with the Commander’s CCIRs and PIRs was to check out the local wildlife and observe them in their native habitat. Our secondary mission was to get stupid, something we knew we could handle. A warno was issued and the mission restated and defined as a recon detail to The Daiquiri Station in booming downtown Leesville. Transport was secured, GPS locked in, and a designated driver in place along with Navy helo support for backup in case we needed immediate air evac (assuming we just happened upon a helicopter…) Contingency plans were formulated and relevant personnel were alerted and standing by. We were confident that our mission was solid and on track.

The Daiquiri Station is one of several places in Leesville that features a wide selection of flavoured daiquiris. It is located on the main road that goes through town where most of the “action” takes place: Burger King, McDonalds, the Wagon Wheel Steak House, and numerous nail salons, gas stations, night clubs, strip joints, and sundry other shops and service centers. The Daiquiri Station is at the far end of town from Fort Polk which really doesn’t say much because Leesville isn’t that big so a few more blocks in any direction really doesn’t make a hell of a lot of difference.
It was not early/not yet late when 4 of us rolled into The Daiquiri Station. Truly, it is one of the coolest places you will ever visit. Once upon a time it was a gas station so there is a fairly large parking lot surrounding the building with designated parking spots for motorcycles and a special lane marked out with stanchions and chains that leads to the drive-through pick-up window. Honest to god, you can get take-out daiquiris and yes, it is fully legal. The only trick is that you can’t have an unwrapped straw sticking out of the plastic lid that covers the Styrofoam cup containing your daiquiri. Apparently no one is concerned that people might take the lid off and drink straight from the cup while driving but they are concerned that people will put the straw in the daiquiri and somehow end up with a DUI. Logically this seems senseless to most folks but here in the depths of Louisiana it makes perfect sense: who in their right mind would drink a daiquiri without a straw? No straw = no daiquiri. It is just that simple. Life does not need to be so complicated, as it turns out.

We parked the car at the back of the lot by the swampy little pond and looked for alligator eyes peering back at us. Nothing seemed to be moving so we determined that the car was safe and unlikely to be pulled into the swamp by an overzealous alligator looking for a new set of wheels to park in his alligator garage. We walked around to the entrance at the front and crossed the deck that extends out from the building where the big service bay door used to be. Actually the garage door is more or less still there because it can be opened exposing the whole inside of the bar or closed as it was on a subsequent visit when we saw a bunch of serious looking old guys sitting inside at a substantial round table playing cards. The Daiquiri Station is not a big place; it’s really only the dimensions of the former gas station’s shop/office area. There are a few high-tops, a couple of regular tables, two TV screens (one was playing a polo match, of all things), an old jukebox, and behind the bar, a wall of daiquiri-slushies with cool names like monkey wrench (banana), lemonator, and 93 octane (orange). Robin was tending bar. We like Robin. She is 40ish, friendly yet reserved, and attractive in a home-grown sort of way. While I was waiting for her to prep my drink (the el grando monkey wrench), I started talking to a local guy who was nursing a beer at bar. I asked him if he’d had a good day and he proceeded to tell me he’d been at the DMV trying to get his driver’s license back. He did not offer an explanation of why he’d lost it in the first place so I decided it was not good form for me to inquire. Apparently, he got into a “discussion” with the DMV clerk and instead of letting the clerk have his way in order for our guy to collect his driver’s license and escape without incident, our guy decided he needed to take a stand against the injustice of it all (I know. I wasn’t following either.) He said something of consequence to the clerk and then stormed out … without his driver’s license. He and I pondered this situation for a moment because he was going to have to go back at some point to try again to get his license. In the end, however, he didn’t think it would be a problem and we left it at that. All of this led to me asking what I thought was the obvious question of “so how did you get here tonight if you aren’t driving?” and him responding with the not quite so obvious reply of “through the woods.” I might have known.

Robin gave me my daiquiri and I joined my fellow warriors/recon scouts at the table. We noted that as a field research project there were few places in this world as culturally rich as The Daiquiri Bar. Just then, another guy – a short, skinny dude about 50 years old with long hair pulled back in a ponytail wearing a black T shirt, and jeans-- came over and asked us if we would like to buy raffle tickets on a gun which was a fundraiser for some local family. I’d seen him pull in to the parking lot a while earlier on a motorcycle as big as he was. He only had three tickets left at $1 each so I said I would buy them because this was all so highly amusing to me. I said I didn’t want the gun if I won and told him to put his name or the bartender’s name on the tickets instead. This caused no end of consternation; here’s dude yelling across the bar to his girlfriend about how to handle this, whose name to use, how to spell it correctly. It was a riot! In the end I believe he wrote his girlfriend’s name on the tickets and everyone was happy.

The Daiquiri Station not only has slushies with cool names, there’s also a menu of shots with exotic names that one needs to try. The list is posted on a blackboard that hangs beside the wall of slushie machines. First up for us was the Chicken Fucker. Yup. That is the name. It is a lemony sort of thing if I remember correctly (but I would not swear to that). Next time we will test the Alien Secretions. A couple of those shots and a daiquiri or two and I guarantee you are going to appreciate Louisiana like you never did before.

A few hours later we wrapped up our field research. We’d “interviewed” several locals, did a little participant observation, and tested some of the local customs and foodways. We’d also had a lot of weird liquor, admired acres of body art (aka tattoos), and talked to guys with odd teeth and interesting hair, and women with really tight shirts and jeans.  All in all, even though we had gathered loads of data to analyze, we decided that some follow up research was going to be necessary and it was highly likely we would need a return mission to The Daiquiri Station. Soon. Very soon.

On the way back to mission headquarters we made a brief provisioning stop at a gas station. We needed beer and Doritos to bring as an offering to our KLE meeting with the Ohio National Guard OMLT. One last piece of data was collected at the gas station that we found useful and encouraging: as you enter the door to the convenience store, right where the register is located, there was a big tub of single beers on ice. Yes, on ice. We determined this was damn fine planning on the gas station owner’s part. Not only can you get your take-out daiquiri in this state, you also can get an ice cold single beer as a chaser without having to buy a whole 6 pack. If that isn’t strategic planning, I don’t know what is. Throw in a bag of Doritos and some salt and pepper kettle chips and suddenly life is looking pretty darned civilized in the backwoods of Louisiana!

End result: it was a successful and well executed mission. Several follow-ons subsequently were completed and additional data was gathered. We expect to brief the Battalion Commander in the near future but are secretly hoping he will ask for a more in-depth study …

Kansas City, MO June 17, 2011


I have been in class with a guy from South Carolina for the past 10 or so weeks who has the perfect response to almost any situation that goes haywire, is totally ridiculous, or completely unnecessary. It also perfectly describes the idiots of the world who, for example clearly just do not get “it” (whatever “it” may be), steal your parking spot while you are waiting right there with your signal lite on, or simply are taking up valuable real estate on this earth for no good god damn reason. And that phrase is... Clown Shoes. I have no idea where this came from or for how long he has been using it, but I am adopting it. I think it is succinct and has great clarity; it is expressive and visual all in one phrase. It is the English language at its best.

Let me explain: currently we are sitting in a classroom in Leavenworth, KS with not a frigging thing to do. We have completed all of our paperwork, handed in our packets, and finished any and all assignments. We are bored out of our skulls. People are killing zombies, crushing castles, and shopping online. One of our classmates is reading out loud from the benefits manual; that is how bad this situation is. Another one of our classmates walked down to the bakery down the block and bought a huge box of cookies with piles of really rich icing on top of them. So now we are not only bored to tears, we also are all strung out on sugar. It the same as being all dressed up with nowhere to go.

This is Clown Shoes. For sure, totally Clown Shoes.

And all of this cuz we are waiting for some Clown to come and give us a briefing about something we don't give a hoot about.

Oh, and by the way, it is Friday afternoon and this has been going on all week.

Clown Shoes. You get it.

Grade 7 Class Trip

February 8, 2011

I live in the city that is the primo destination for almost every class trip in America. Each spring and fall thousands upon thousands of students, teachers, and parent chaperones descend on Washington, DC from Middle America. All of the kids look insanely bored as they trudge from museum to historic site to yet another monument. I’m sure every single one of them is thinking, “I could Google all of this stuff in two minutes on my I Phone so why not just do that so we can go to the Hard Rock Café already?” A handful of adults with clipboards and whistles shepherd the students around the sites while trying to maintain some semblance of control. They too are deep in their own thoughts but their internal conversation trends more towards, “Why in hell did I let my wife/husband volunteer me for this gig?” and “there isn’t nearly enough booze in this whole city to make this right.”


Back in the Dark Ages when I was a kid in Saskatoon, the class trip was to the provincial capital of Regina. We went in Grade 7 which would have made us about 13 years old. I remember 13 well, and trust me, visiting Regina was not at the top of my “To Do” list. In fact I vividly remember thinking Regina was a dump. Now whether that was true or not is not relevant; it was just one of those city rivalries that are deeply rooted in the past. In this case it went back to the formation of the province in 1905 when Regina was made the provincial capital and Saskatoon was awarded the province’s university. From that time on, the two cities competed for everything and residents bickered constantly over the worth and value of their fair city as compared to the other which clearly was substandard. Moreover, a big chunk of Regina started out life as a slough, and masses of mosquitoes and god knows what other critters populated the city, so people in Saskatoon easily wrote off Regina as a Nowhereville dive. After all, Saskatoon had the university so clearly we had the intellectual wherewithal to articulate such a well thought out yet concise analysis of the Regina landscape…

At any rate, Regina was the destination for the Grade 7 class trip for all kids in the province. Our class, Miss Mills’ Grade 7 students from Hugh Cairns VC School, took our grand tour on March 31, 1970. There were 25 kids in our class – 14 boys and 11 girls and most had been in the same class since Grade 1. You can well imagine that by Grade 7 we pretty much knew everything about everyone which made school and school activities – even field trips --exceedingly boring from a social point of view. We were 13 and restless although we really didn’t know why. Energy ran high but our interests were firmly grounded in the present. No one was dying to see the provincial Legislature or visit historic sites except maybe Walter Orr, our class nerd. The past was, well … past and the future was incomprehensible. Still, going to Regina was better that sitting in Miss Mills’ class doing math or social studies so I do remember looking forward to the trip. The real hook though, was that we were going on the train!

I’m willing to bet that at that point very few kids in my class had been on a train so most of us were a lot more interested in the trip once we learned we would ride the rails. This gave the whole exercise a bit of glam or even drama that was appealing. BUT THEN WE GOT TOTALLY SCREWED. Every Grade 7 class in our school that had gone on this trip before us had taken the train to Regina but at the last minute there was a change of plans we got stuck on a bus. Not kidding. It was a regular old everyday bus with no redeeming qualities. What a come down. We were some kind of pissed.

But here’s the thing, in my diary that day I wrote across the top of the page in capital letters: MY LUCKY, LUCKY DAY!!! Obviously it had not been a total write off, so what happened? It’s elementary: we met boys from another Saskatoon school who also were on the Grade 7 Regina class tour. And they were cute. Me and my group of friends immediately were in love. I mean seriously, boys we did not know from another school who were really cute looked in our direction and smiled. We were hooked.

Here’s how it all went down: between Saskatoon and Regina is Davidson, a small town that is more or less the half way point between the two cities. Most people stop there to get gas, have a snack, and use the facilities. The trip to Regina was unremarkable other than we got off the bus in Davidson for a few minutes and then kept right on driving to Regina. The whole trip would have taken about two and a half hours. In my mind I remember it as a typical grey, wintery Saskatchewan March day. I don’t recall any sunshine or blue sky which often means it is goddamn cold, so lets assume it was cold but not more than about 10 below, snow all over the ground, and we were all bundled up in parkas, boots, and gloves, kind of like we were every other day but our “outfits” under our jackets would have been a little nicer than on a regular school day because we were going on a “TRIP.”

We arrived at the Royal Saskatchewan Museum (was it called that in 1970? I think it had a different name) and began our tour. There was a lot of archeological history, plants, stuffed animals etc. and I found it all rather unnecessary. Until, as I noted in my diary, “we saw some cute boys” from Greystone Heights School. Now this was interesting. We didn’t know any of these boys; Greystone was just far enough away from where we lived that we would not have interacted with them. Forget the dioramas, teepees, and stuffed buffalo; we were hunting cute boys from Greystone.

The Greystone kids were on tour behind our class so if we hung back just long enough from our group, we could watch them and “flirt” in our giggly 13 year old girl fashion. One of the Greystone boys had a camera and started taking pictures of us. WE LOVED it! I mean WE REALLY LOVED it! We each picked out the boy we liked and began to spin stories in our head (“I bet he is probably my soul mate for life!”) and then assured each other we were definitely perfect for the boy we had targeted. We were just on the front end of puberty and were entirely clueless as to what romance and love was all about, but we knew for sure that it was what we wanted. This trip occurred at the height of my major crush on the Monkees and the Cowsills so I was looking for a boy who fit that mold –cute, great hair, big smile, nice teeth, and by definition was sweet, fun, and very popular. Hey, I read 16 Magazine all the time and was very familiar with how sweet and nice all the boy stars were in real life! I wanted someone just like that. And on that day, in that moment, it was Dean Houston of Greystone Heights School.

At any rate, as the day went on we crossed paths with them several more times: at the RCMP Barracks, the Legislature, and finally in Davidson when the bus made the requisite half way home stop. No one exchanged phone numbers or suggested plans to meet again – we never did get that close --but it was clear as a bell to the girls from Hugh Cairns that the world was way bigger than we’d thought and there were cute boys at Greystone who thought we were cute too. There was life outside of South Nutana where we lived and we were now determined to find out how to make that work for us.

And so the games began. As it turned out, Kim Davidson’s grandparents lived in Greystone and Kim frequently stayed with them while her troubled parents did whatever they were doing. We visited Kim’s grandparents and had sleepovers in their basement and snuck out at night to walk past the homes of the Greystone boys in case they would suddenly come out. But that’s a whole other story.