The Retreat

This time of year always seems to re-kindle a memory from my youth. It was 23 years ago this fall when my posse and I all went on a retreat to Michigan.

It was 1986 and I was hanging around with Zar, Doyle and Chris Dusza for most of the summer. They all belonged to the St. Fabian’s Teen Club and urged me to join as well. Now, I had no desire to be involved with anything to do with the Catholic Church but Zar and Doyle assured me that there was nothing religious about it. (For the most part they were right.)

The Teen Club meetings usually consisted of us gathering around and playing cards and trying lamely to hit on the girls that also were members. We usually had one meeting a week. Mike Price (a really good guy) was one of the adult counselors along with Roberta who was the leader of the whole group. (I think that was her real name but we all called her the chameleon because she had absolutely no pigmentation to her skin.) Then there was Brenda (who Dell nicknamed the bitch on a stick.) And lastly was Jerry, who we all loved because he was a Viet Nam vet and would need very little prodding to re-tell some of his old war stories.

We played softball in the summer and went sledding the in winter. For the most part it was a place to have some safe, clean, suburban fun weeknights during the school year. At some point, the idea of a retreat to Michigan was brought up by the chameleon. It seemed there was this campsite-cottage in Michigan that hosted teens that was somehow tied into the Catholic’s.

The only problem is that we would need ten people to sign up in order to go. I think it was $25 bucks a person or something like that. We had a solid nine but had trouble coming up with the tenth. Fate must have played a part because that is how we all became friends with Mike Dell.

Dell had at some point made it to one of the teen club softball games. Dusza didn’t want to go on the retreat as that would take him away from his new girlfriend. (In retrospect, how could you really blame him?) We had 5 girls singed up, and 4 guys. We needed one more or the whole trip would be off.

Zar, Doyle and I started to brainstorm. We started rattling off people that had come to meetings or that we knew who might be coaxed into going. At some point Zar mentioned that he had that “Dell guy” in his Chemistry class. So, we stuck Zar on him. Dell asked if there would be fishing on the trip. Zar, who at this point would have told him there would be PCP, stripers and ice cream if he had asked, assured him there would be. There wasn’t.

But, we really needed that tenth so, with the promise of a two day fishing retreat Dell paid his $25 and agreed to tag along. If memory serves me right, the ten were me, Zar, Doyle, Dell and Jim Lave for the guys. The girls were Nancy, Margaret, Debbie, Sherry Daniels, and Michele Langlois.

We all met at the church on a Friday and were to take off from there. I believe Jerry, Brenda and the chameleon had all volunteered to drive. We crammed like 5 in Jerry’s old Ford Mustang. (The car I was in.) Then we crammed a bunch in Brenda’s van. Like the ass bags we were we stuck Dell all alone on the 2 ½ hour ride with the chameleon.

We got there and separated into our cabins. There was one for the boys and one for the girls. The first thing Doyle and I decided to do was break into the girl’s cabin. Doyle using his Argo ID was able to pick the lock to the door on the cabin just as I believe Langlois dressed only in a towel was getting out of the shower. This would the first of the many shenanigans we would get into.

Since booze was out of the question, we needed to get our fix on something. So, we opted for Jolt cola. For those that don’t know or can’t remember Jolt cola was a soda that had all the sugar with twice the caffeine. It was an 80’s version of Red Bull and tasted like pure gasoline. We all brought some with us and we were wired on it the whole weekend.

We got there kind of late so, there wasn’t much going on the first night. The caretakers stayed in the main building that housed the kitchen and a small recreation room. After our foray into the girl’s cabin our next mission was to break into the main building. We did so, and found a spare dorm room sized fridge that we carried over to our cabin. I mean we needed something to keep all that Jolt cold.

For our next trick we broke into the kitchen. We raided the large fridge of whatever food was in there. After scoring some grub and killing some time in the rec room it had gotten pretty late. But we were not in the least bit tired. Dell had decided at some point to head back to the cabin to crash. Since we were bored and hoped up on sugar we decided it would be a good time to “mummify” Dell.

We took the toilet paper from the cabin bathroom and started to wrap it around him as quietly as we could. I forget how far we got before he woke up to find himself somewhat wrapped in the T.P. There were other adventures that evening but my memory is a little hazy.

Eventually we all hit the wall and passed out for the evening. Day two began with us being awoken by Marty Buchkowski and Paul Kolinek who drove up to “surprise” us. The fact that Paul’s 1970s model Plymouth Volare, with about 10% of his brakes working made it up there is in and of itself a minor miracle.

However, I believe at this point Marty was dating Margaret and I guess the thought of being without her for two days was more then he could bear. Lave, pretty much echoed what we were all thinking by stating, “If they eat one fuckin grape then I am asking them for $25.”

Jerry was also pretty pissed about it, and pretty much told them to get back in the shitbox and drive back home. We then spent the rest of that day fooling around, building a fire and stealing more food out of the caretaker’s kitchen. Eventually night fell on us again. The counselors were all by the fire when a couple of us decided what the campsite really needed was for the trees to all be TP’ed.

We went and found every roll of toilet paper that place had and used it to really decorate the large maple trees at the entrance of the camp site. We eventually ran out and since we were on day two of the Jolt high we didn’t want to come down. So, it was decided that we would walk to the bar down the road and steal some more toilet paper out of the bathroom there.

How we got away from the campsite fire to do this I have no idea. We walked down an unlit two lane road to this seedy ass bar that made the Grove look like Cheers. That was when the debate began about who should go in to grab the Charmin.

In my defense I had just turned 17 and had a huge crush on Nancy. So, when she egged me on to go into the bar I didn’t want to look like a pussy in front of her. I was scared shitless to walk into that bar, but I mustered all the courage I could and made the walk to the entrance and opened the door.

Inside were a couple of bar flies and the local female trailer park talent. Every head turned toward me as I opened the door. I nervously asked if I could use the bathroom and was directed to the back where it was located. In there I found about three rolls of toilet paper. I at this point somehow was able to stuff them under my shirt and down my pants. I was sweating bullets that the bartender would not notice the bulge in my shirt that I didn’t have when I entered. (In hindsight what was the worst he would have done? But, I was 17, it was the 80’s and I grew up the suburbs hence I was nervous.)

I somehow made it out of there with the goods. We then used the tree additional rolls to put a nice finishing touch on the trees at the front of the campsite. Most of us were coming off of our artificial buzz and at long last faced exhaustion as we had not slept a wink that weekend. That is except for Dell. On night two he was ready to paint the town but, the rest of us had hit the wall. How Dell ever talked to any of us again after that weekend is beyond me.

Sunday morning came and we hit a breakfast the caretakers prepared for us and loaded up in the cars. Again, Dell was stuck by himself with the chameleon. In our caffeinated hangover the next morning we forgot about the artistic display we left the night before. As we exited you couldn’t help but see our TP job in all its glory. I wasn’t there but Dell tells the story fondly. The chameleon upon seeing it hit the brakes and brought her car to a complete stop. She looked up and muttered to no one in particular, “And they invited us back.” And promptly drove off.

That weekend was so much fun and brings back a flood of great memories. It also afforded us the opportunity to find out that not only did Dell have his driver’s license but he also had access to his Mom’s 1980 Chevy Impala every night. For the rest of 1986 Dell became our personal chauffer. It began one of the best autumns of my life.