As someone who was only ever a camper at Chanco, I have a much different perspective on the Chanco experience than do those who were counselors, especially those who were counselors for years and years, longer than they were ever campers. A lot of the in-jokes that might make sense to any counselor who ever encountered this website seem fuzzy at best to me. Instead, I have the perspective of one who was always a camper, and never quite knew what was going on when we campers were in bed or otherwise not around. Sometimes, though, the counselors would make veiled references to these things, and we campers would pick up on half of a story even as the rest of the story was forever hidden from us. This is a story like that, and therefore, it's not complete. I can only offer my incomplete perspective as a camper who was around for it, but never quite knew what was going on.

One thing about the camper/counselor relationship that I definitely remember from my days as a camper, especially in my younger years, is that the counselors were like rock stars to us. Their status as authority figures elevated them above us in our minds, as did the fact that they were all adults, and we were still kids. But they were also much younger adults than our parents, and they were less restrictive, much more willing to have fun, and generally just way cooler than our parents. A lot of us campers really looked up to the counselors, especially those counselors who seemed even cooler than the average counselor. I remember in 1988, when I was 12 and Led Zeppelin were my favorite band, that there was a counselor named Jono who wore Led Zeppelin shirts a lot. I thought he was THE MAN, and would occasionally talk to him about music. I tried to keep up with him in those conversations, even though he obviously knew a lot more than I did, and was just thankful that I never embarrassed myself.

A year earlier, in 1987, I was 11, and to my tentmate, a kid named Jonathan, it was Boomer who was THE MAN. I thought Boomer was pretty damn cool too. That was the year that the Beastie Boys were at the height of their early-career popularity, with their album "License To Ill", and it was also the year that Boomer and Jim Camp took every opportunity to turn into an impromptu hip-hop duo, with Jim beatboxing as Boomer made up raps about whatever was happening at that particular moment. By combining the already-extant rock star mystique around being a counselor with actual musical endeavors--no matter how silly those musical endeavors seem in hindsight--Boomer and Jim were fascinating to us 11 year olds. So there was already a pretty big aura of cool built up around them by the time of Kangaroo Court, which was an evening program activity about halfway through second session that year.

[Brief aside: I'm sure those of you who were counselors around this era are laughing your asses off at all this stuff about Boomer and Jim being rock stars, but bear with me. I promise that I am not gilding the lily and this is really how it seemed to us at the time.]

That year, 1987, the camp nurse was an older guy whose name, I think, was Bert. There were lots of male-nurse jokes made, as you might expect, but more importantly to this story, he served as judge for this particular Kangaroo Court event. Now, at age 11, I had no idea what the term "kangaroo court" actually meant, so the name seemed meaningless and very random, but the explanation given made sense. Various counselors were to be brought up on charges for whatever shenanigans they'd gotten up to thus far that summer, and Bert would judge and sentence them. There'd be defense lawyers, prosecution lawyers, the whole nine yards. I remember something like a dozen different counselors or groups of counselors being brought up on charges--and this was only a week into 2nd session! You counselors must have gotten up to a lot of craziness in any given year. Anyway, Boomer and Jim were the defendants in one case. This is the part that I don't know too much about, so if anyone who was actually around for all of this wants to fill me in on what happened, that'd be awesome, but as best as I remember the charges as they were presented to us campers, what had happened was this: Rob Jones had given Boomer and Jim Camp a ride to the nearest McDonalds, somewhere I assume was miles and miles from camp (though really, who knows? The geography around both camp sites is, to this day, a complete mystery to me. Except that I know where the ferry is). Rob had gone to do some other things, Boomer and Jim had gone into McDonalds, and there had proceeded to act like total nutcases and get thrown out. Or something to that effect. I'm thinking that it had something to do with them doing their rap-duo routine, as much of the Kangaroo Court trial focused on this. During the cross-examination, the prosecution lawyer (I wish I remember who this was) referred to them as "Run DMC", and Boomer indignantly responded that they were called The Butter Cookies, for some reason having to do with his shoes (don't ask me, I don't EVEN have a clue). The entire testimony was basically a fiasco, but it was a hilarious fiasco, and Boomer's having given their duo a name was a big hit with the campers. Ultimately, Bert's sentence was that Boomer and Jim had to write a song apologizing for their unprofessional behavior, and perform it in the dining hall during lunch the next day, in front of the entire camp.

This is where my tentmate, Jonathan, comes into the story. After the apology song was performed, Jonathan managed to get Boomer to give him the original copy of the lyrics he'd written for the song, scrawled onto a couple of sheets of notepad paper. These lyrics were kicking around our tent for the rest of the session, and I read over them a bunch of times. Therefore, I can still remember scattered pieces of them. It probably helps that, along with "Paul Revere" by the Beastie Boys, Jonathan would sometimes sit around rapping the portions of this song that he knew best. But what helps most of all is that the entire performance was hilarious.

Boomer and Jim got up in the front of the dining hall and started into their bit: "We are not the Fat Boys, we are not Run-DMC, it's just me and Jim, the Butter Cookies." That was the beginning. I don't remember much else word for word, but I can tell you that the majority of the song was their side of the story about what had happened at McDonalds. I feel like it involved a table getting tipped over and someone rolling down the middle of an aisle, but I could be wrong about all of that, which is why it'd be really great if someone filled me in on the portions I missed. Anyway, at the end, they finally got around to the point: apologizing for their conduct. The last few lines hinted at such a thing, set you up to think it was coming, then ended with Jim stopping his beatboxing and both of them shouting out the last line in unison: "We're not sorry for a THING!" "Ohhh, man, Boomer and Jim are in big trouble now," I thought, but of course nothing else ever happened, and they ran around rapping, beatboxing and causing trouble to their heart's content for the rest of the session.

At least, that's how it looked from the perspective of a camper.