The Camp Story

In the middle fifth grade year, I was given a chance to attend a four-day camp alongside approximately 80% of my classmates. We took a fleet of buses to the middle of nowhere (Oklahoma), and the 100 or so of us stayed in cabins with volunteer parents or teachers that had come on the trip with us.

The cabins were large, rustic-looking buildings with four sets of bunk beds in them, meant to house one parent and seven kids. Our "parent" was the father of one of those seven, Kyle, and was a nice man that let us stay up past our allowed bedtimes and play card games with each other.

Aside #1: I specifically remember thinking it was really, really cool that he let us play "Bullshit," even though we had to shorten it to "BS." Even saying the abbreviation made all feel awesome.

I was lucky enough to be one of the kids given a top bunk, for reasons I can't remember (I'm sure we had to draw straws or something), a treat that was sought after in the mindset of my grade.

Anyways, the day after our first night of settling in, the real fun began. Over the next two days, we would play with snakes, practice archery, look at constellations in the sky, and did plenty of other camp-related activities that seemed incredibly exciting at the time.

Aside #2: I'd probably still get excited over archery and snakes, I won't lie to you.

Then, on the third day, we went on our first nature hike. The teachers, camp counselors and parents told us that they were combining our cabins into three large groups, and that we would each be cycling through the three trails the camp had to offer.

So our groups headed off in different directions, counselors leading the pack and telling the first two-thirds of the kids that could hear them all about how neat the wilderness was. I couldn't hear anything, because I was the last person in the massive line, but I enjoyed the walk all the same.

That was, until I felt the all-too familiar sensation of needing to urinate. Badly. Waddling towards the middle of the line where a teacher was stationed, I pulled her aside and explained my issue. She told me to follow the trail that we were on back to the cabins, go to the bathroom, and wait there to join up with them.

Following a trail backwards is simple enough, right? Apparently not. It didn't take five minutes before a combination of my overt curiosity with nature and direction-less being found me lost in the middle of the woods with no one around and nowhere to pee.

I started freaking out, which is exactly what you don't want to do when you have to urinate so bad your stomach hurts. Then I began running aimlessly towards what I thought was the camp, which is the absolute worst thing you can do in the same case.

My panicking plus the jarring motions of running equaled one thing: emptying my entire bladder into my pants with no control over the situation at all.

Aside #3: You might ask why I didn't just zip my fly down and pee out. Well, I was in the fifth grade. I'd just got over my fear of peeing while standing up next to a toilet, I wasn't about to do it in the middle of the woods where someone might see my teeny-tiny junk.

I had no idea what to do with myself. So I kept walking (not running) in the direction I thought camp was in, hoping to get back and change before my hiking group had returned.

A few minutes later, I arrived. The grounds were completely deserted, so I made my way to our cabin and walked in. Stripping my urine-soaked pants, underwear and socks off, I stepped into the bathroom and washed my legs off as much as I could using the sink.

Aside #4: Our cabins only had a sink and toilet, the showers were elsewhere.

Once I felt I had done well enough, I put clean clothes on and looked at my pile of soaked clothes that sat in front of me. Rather than wash them in the sink like a normal person would, I instead opted to hang them all from the rafters above my bed, hoping that they would dry out before we'd return that night.

I stepped outside just as the three groups were arriving at the central campgrounds to swap trails. Re-joining my group, I continued throughout the day as if nothing had happened, with thoughts of my pee-soaked pants lingering in the back of my mind.

When my cabin-mates, our "parent" and I all arrived at the cabin that night, everyone stepped into the room only to have their nostrils assaulted with the smell of putrid, stale urine. Immediately, Kyle's dad called a camp counselor and discreetly told him that "one of the kids must have wet the bed last night" and that the cabin smelled absolutely vile. I didn't tell him what had really happened.

The counselor then told us all to pack up our things, and said that we'd be moving to a different cabin since this one was clearly uninhabitable. As I packed, I thought quickly and stuffed the offensive-smelling clothes into the very bottom of my bag, where the smell no longer affected the air outside of it.

Soon after, rumors started circulating around the camp about who in our cabin had committed the heinous act of peeing the bed, and one of the seven that wasn't me was eventually singled out as the offender. He was alienated for the rest of the trip, and made fun of relentlessly for something he didn't do. Again, I never said a word suggesting that I had anything to do with it.

So I write this as an admission. An admission that I, Tyler Walters, pissed my pants at camp in the fifth grade and let another boy take the fall for it. I'm sorry, boy whose name I forgot, for all of the pain I may have caused you. It wasn't my intention, and I sure hope you didn't end up shooting a bunch of people years later because of it.

My First Erection

I've been on a few school-sponsored field trips in my life, but my first one stands out as being the most memorable. It was spring, and my second-grade class was going to the local ice-skating rink to be taught how to skate. This was a huge deal, since most of us had never been on a school bus before, as it was a method of transportation commonly reserved for "big kids." Something about their big, bolted-on sides of sheet metal and revving diesel engine fascinated us as kids, and the class as a whole couldn't be more excited. It didn't even matter where we were going at this point, just that we were going as a class, and that blew our minds.

Walking single-file to the bus lanes behind my school, my friends and I couldn't stop chattering to one another. We wondered if it had seatbelts, or if our teacher would be driving, or maybe even the principal. We wondered if it could go through mud, or what would happen if a car hit it. We stretched our imaginations far as an eight year-old's mind could.

Finally our teacher, Ms. McClure, arrived at the bus' folding doors. The driver opened them with a hiss, and she stepped inside. After exchanging a few words with him, she stepped back outside and told us that we could get on after finding a "bus buddy" to sit with.

Aside #1: Remember the part in the first Toy Story movie where Woody tells everyone that they need to get a moving buddy to keep track of, so that no one gets lost when Andy moves? Same concept.

After pairing up with my best friend, a freckled boy named Blake, we stepped inside and took a seat towards the middle. Ms. McClure stood at the front of the bus and quieted us down in a way only patient grade-school teachers can. She told us that we needed to show the bus driver how well-behaved we could be, and that we should talk quietly to our "bus buddy" while en route. She sat down, and the bus pulled away from the school.

We drove for a short time, most of us enjoying the moving scenery flying by outside. Soon we arrived at the rink, with a small group of people milling about in dark blue windbreaker track suits standing outside. These people, we would come to find out, were our instructors.

Stepping off of the bus, the two dozen or so students were split into five groups and dispersed amongst the trainers. Blake and I stayed together, being put into a group lead by an overzealous 50-something woman that appeared to have far too many teeth for her mouth. The other three kids were named Chase, Michael and Veronica (the rail-thin tomboy of the class). I hadn't really spoken to any of them before this point, so Blake and I milled about apart from the group before being ushered inside.

Aside #2: In the fourth grade, Chase was sent to the principal's office for dumping Elmer's glue on his desk on a Friday before coming back on Monday to pick it off and eat it during class. True story.

As our instructors were sizing us for our skates and telling us a condensed history of ice skating, I noticed that Michael had broken away from our group and was talking to Ms. McClure a short distance away. She handed him a small duffel bag that had been laying at her feet, and he unzipped it quickly. As he was pulling a pair of brand new skates from it, my mind started connecting dots. It was obvious to me that Ms. McClure had bought Michael these skates, and I felt a weird surge of jealousy hit me. I was a single child at this point, so I was not used to this feeling. I didn't know how to react. So like most jealous people, I stood there and seethed until it was time for me to put my skates on.

After a lot of fussing around, some of the more confident skaters started to trickle onto the ice next to the sizing station. Michael was amongst them, fluidly stepping from the solid ground into the rink like he had done it a million times before. Easily gliding around the other students, he was the only one out of the entire class not using a training bar for support.

Aside #3: For those of you that have no idea what I'm talking about, I'm referring to the device that looks like a walker without wheels, meant to be leaned on for help with balance while skating.

Despite my inability to stand while wearing the heavy skates, I was actually enjoying myself, laughing as Blake and I slipped and fell onto our knees and bottoms, drenching our jeans and making us shiver. Eventually, we became bored with failure and decided to leave the rink and turn in our skates. It was nearing the time when we were scheduled to leave, and we wanted to dry off in the bathroom like most of the other students had gone to do.

Slowly making our way towards one of the doors to the rink, we heard a thud and felt the ground shake. It sounded like someone had hit the ice with a hammer. I turned around and saw Michael on the other side of the rink, with his face on the ice. A geyser of blood was erupting from the lower half of his face, and he was sobbing uncontrollably. One of the instructors quickly skated out and picked him up, bringing him around to the door that I had just gone through. As he was carried by like a sort of giant, bleeding baby, I managed to get an up-close look at his injuries. His front teeth were completely missing, leaving two angry red holes where they once had been.

Aside #4: Not knowing if they were his baby or adult teeth, the instructor had also managed to pull them out of the ice to possibly be re-inserted. Luckily, they were not his permanent teeth.

Ms. McClure quickly called Michael's mother, and she arrived within ten minutes. After they left, the entire class was left buzzing about what had just happened. The instructor that had picked Michael up off the ice was now skating out to the red spot where he had fallen with an armful of plastic safety cones, setting them up in a triangle around it. We lined up to leave, with each of us pairing up with our "bus buddy" again.

Just as we were walking out, my eye caught sight of Michael's black duffel bag sitting empty where he had left it. I told Ms. McClure, and she asked me to go get it for her. Reminded of my anger at her for playing favorites, I glumly walked over to the bag and picked it up. By the time I had shuffled outside, everyone was on the bus and ready to go. Blake had been forced to partner up with Michael's abandoned "buddy," so Ms. McClure had me sit next to her in the seat behind the driver. This gesture slightly soothed my jealousy, and we rode in silence as she graded papers next to me.

After steaming for a few minutes, I couldn't take it anymore. I had to know why she had bought Michael those skates. So I asked her, while making eye contact with the back of the driver's head. To my surprise, my inquiry was met with a giggle that made my heart leap, followed by her explaining that Michael had brought the skates from home and that she was just holding them for him on the bus ride to the rink. She winked, and slyly told me that Michael was definitely not her favorite in the class. I wasn't and still am not sure if she was implying that I was her favorite.

But regardless, that's how I took it, and swelled with pride. Literally. Before I knew it, something was happening in my still-wet jeans that had never happened before. I didn't know what to do, and was beginning to panic.

Anatomy class tells you that the male sexual organ isn't exactly fully developed at this point, so the front of my jeans only rose a tiny bit before stopping. At that age, anything moving down there without you touching it is reason for worry, so I covered up my lap with Michael's bag. The rest of the bus ride was torture. Between sweating and trying to feel out exactly what was going on underneath my clothes, I was a wreck. I stealthily tried everything I could think of to try to get it to go away. I pushed on it, pulled on it, pinched it and punched it, finally giving up as we were pulling up to the school.

Quickly, I formulated a plan that involved sitting on the bus until everyone had left it, thinking it might be gone if I waited a few minutes. This plan was foiled by Ms. McClure, however, as she asked me to stand up so she could get out before anyone else had. Still holding the bag to my crotch, I stood up and faced the front of the bus. After she had left the seat, I sat down again immediately and pretended to listen to her address the class. When she was finished, she looked down at me and smiled.

"Thanks for getting this for Michael, it was really nice of you," she said, taking the bag from my grip.

Once it left my lap, she gasped as she saw the tiny tent I had pitched underneath. Before I had a chance to react, one of the other kids, named Nick, poked his head around the corner of the seat and grinned like an idiot.

"Ty-ler has a bo-ner!" he announced to the rest of the bus in a singsong voice.

The bus erupted into laughter as the blood emptied out of my erection and made its way to my face.

Aside #5: Looking back, I'm sort of curious as to how so many second graders knew what a boner was. Nick was one of those kids who "knew everything" at a young age, and would later tell me that sex was when a guy peed in a girl's vagina. I'll bet most of the others were just laughing at the inflection that he said it in. I hope.

Clearly trying not to make a bad situation worse, Ms. McClure dropped the bag back onto my lap. I had my head down as she calmed the class down and started to lead them off of the bus, every last one of them passing by my seat and laughing at me. After climbing off of the bus, I joined the end of the already-formed line back to class in shame. For the next few weeks, the field trip wasn't referred to as "when we went to the ice rink," it was "the time Tyler got a boner on the bus." It was brutal.

I did receive some form of solace, however. When Michael had returned to class a couple of days later, he brought a card he'd made at home, thanking me for remembering his duffel bag for him. I don't know if anyone told him about the incident on the bus, but his handcrafted note unknowingly made the fallout feel a little less awful.