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how to bridle a horse or serve a volleyball, the campers teach the junior leaders tolerance and acceptance.
“The older campers are always giving out hugs and kisses to the little ones,” said Tommy. “Can you imagine a 14-year-old boy doing that? I’m real active in 4-H, I’ve been to lots of other camps. Kids tease each other all the time and pick on each other. The kids at Camp Fantastic aren’t mean like other kids. There’s hardly any bickering, even among the little kids. They’re the most caring bunch of kids I’ve been around my whole life. ”
“They help each other. Each one knows exactly what the others are going through,” added Jim.
There is no prejudice, neither racial prejudice nor prejudice directed at the boys and girls whose physical appearance has been changed by cancer treatment. And after the first few hours, the teen counselors stop noticing the differences.
“A bald head doesn’t look any more unusual than curly hair or red
hair,” said Jim.
Souls bared
Jim was assigned full time again this year to Stormin’ Norman, a camp favorite, a remarkable 24year-old with a brain tumor who is confined to a wheelchair, who lives alone and supplements his Social Security income by selling Amway products on Washington’s mean streets.
The two shared a room with a second teen leader and three campers: 20-year-old Lucian, who lost one leg and a lung to cancer; 20-year-old Ross, whose arm had been amputated below the elbow, and 18-yearold Jeff, a sophomore at Duke University, whose leg had been removed.
At night after the lights went out, the teenleaders listened to stories of operations and chemotherapy, stories of living with cancer.
“They told us about phantom limbs,” said Jim. “Ross described how it feels to wiggle the fingers on
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