Grilled Cheese Sandwiches and Tomato Soup

Forest Home, CA – 1976

After getting laid off with all the other Forest Service seasonal employees in August 1975, the “what would I do now” turned out not to be so bad.

Immediately, I took a temporary two-week job as a sawyer cutting hazard trees on the shore of Twin Lakes, on the east side of Independence Pass. Following that, I was offered a job with the Forest Service in the Cleveland National Forest in Southern California. I would be a member of a fire tanker crew at the Dripping Springs Station near Temecula. I would make good money for two and a half months plus have a bunk to sleep in.

A couple of weeks later I found out how I had come by my job. A vacancy had occurred when one of the crew walked away from the station depressed over a relationship. They found him hanging from a tree.

When we weren’t fighting the occasional small grass fire, we had a lot of mindless “busy work” around the station. We’d rake leaves to one end of the compound. The next day we’d rake them back.

I was temporarily detailed to the Palomar Hot Shot Crew for a couple of weeks. We were sent to a large 180,000-plus acre fire on the Angeles National Forest. At fire camp, after a good long 16-hour day cutting fire line, we’d eat (usually two steaks and potatoes), then climb into our paper sleeping bags. It felt like I’d only slept ten minutes when our foreman would be waking us up to head back to work. Actually, we’d slept six or seven hours.

The fire season ended in early December when we got a good dumping of rain and snow on the mountains. So with a good paycheck from fighting fires, I needed something to kill time before I went back to being a wilderness ranger come summer.

I was getting unemployment benefits, but I was bored. I took a job as a camp counselor for 6th graders at Forest Home in the San Bernardino Mountains. The representative at the unemployment office told me I didn’t need to take the job as it paid less than my unemployment benefits. I told him I wanted to do something rather than just get paid to do nothing. So I took the job that paid $1.30 an hour, minus my food and lodging. What a deal! But it was a fulfilling job.

As a camp counselor, I shared a cabin with a dozen twelve-year-old boys.  I would have a new group of kids starting every Monday for five days, weekends off. I was told you could never threaten or strike a child. My first week was hell.

One large room of the cabin was full of bunk beds for the kids. I had my own room with bed and bathroom, with a door separating the two rooms. As soon as I shut off the lights and closed the door to my room, the voices would start. I was up most the night trying to get them to be quiet and go to sleep.

During a break, I told my problem to the other counselors. One of the male counselors told me I needed to threaten bodily harm in a way they would believe it.

“But I was told not to hit or threaten a child,” I explained.

The counselor replied, “Jon. Do you want to survive and to sleep? Or do you want to go through the same thing every week?”

That night I started my new approach. I told the kids goodnight and not to make a sound. I turned off the lights. I closed my door between the two rooms. I waited with my ear to the door and listened.

A whisper, “Bob, are you awake?”

“Yes,” answered Bob.

Suddenly more whispering and laughter.

BAM! I smashed open the door and turned on the lights.

“Bob!” I yelled.

I reached up on the top bunk and grabbed and tucked him under my arm. I opened up the front door of the cabin and carried him outside.

Then I whispered to him, “I am going to make it sound like I am hitting you.” I said. ” You are going to cry out as if it hurts. I guarantee that if you don’t cry out than I will really hit you and make you cry. Do you understand me?”

Of course I would never do that, but I hoped he didn’t know that.

He nodded yes and I proceeded to slap my hands together and Bob expertly cried out in pain. I then carried him inside, again under my arm, and set him on his bunk.

“Who’s next?” I angrily asked.

There was not one peep. I told them I didn’t want one more sound. Again I shut off the light, closed the door, then listened. No whispers or voices. I had won.

I learned new techniques with each class of sixth graders I counseled. Once, I took my group on a short nature walk after lunch. I brought along an orange. I wanted to impress upon them the need to stay in single file and not “horse around”. I gathered them around a yucca plant and dropped the orange onto one of its pointed leaves.

The spiked leaf went completely through the orange like a sword. The kids were awed. I was awed too. I had no idea it would penetrate clear through. I vowed silently to myself to never “horse around” yuccas.

One night I told the kids that I enjoyed my morning sleep. I told them that if they woke up before I got up, just to lie quietly in their bunks. Of course I was setting them up. I knew they wouldn’t be able to keep quiet.

That next morning I was already awake, up, and dressed; but I didn’t open up the door between the two rooms. I waited. Then I heard a whisper or two, then giggles. That was my cue. Like before, I suddenly pushed open the door and literally jumped into their room.

“Okay. Everyone out of their beds,” I roared.

I gathered them together, opened the front door, and had them all stand outside on the covered porch. I then told them they were to remain outside and be quiet. After I finished my morning chores, and if they’d stayed quiet, I said I would bring them back inside.

What helped was situated next door. The adjacent cabin was an all-girls’ cabin. So my crew were in their pajamas and underwear shivering together on the porch while the girls all stood outside “cat calling” to them from their porch. Meanwhile, I sat on my bed and read a book and smiled.

After lunch the principal called me to his office. Uh oh.

He said he’d heard about what I’d done that morning with my sixth graders. I was ready for a chewing out or my termination.

“That was a great idea,” he said taking me totally by surprise. “Good job.”

I never had any problems with noise after that.  I told the story to new groups and none wanted to either be embarrassed or to try me out.

Ninety-nine times out of a hundred I had fun with the kids. It was great to have them in an outdoor experience and to feel you were teaching them to respect the land. I also had fun surprising parents too.

One couple, when they dropped off their son for the bus ride to Forest Home, took me aside.

“Our son can’t sleep unless he has his transistor radio turned on under his pillow,” the mother said.

“I hope it doesn’t bother the other kids, but he has to have it,” said the dad.

I thanked them for telling me and then we loaded up all the kids. When we got to Forest Home I took my group of twelve to our cabin. I told them to take about ten minutes to unpack their belongings and then meet outside so we could go get lunch. I watched to see which bunk belonged to “transistor boy”.

As we gathered outside on the front porch, I told them to stay there; that I needed to get something out of the cabin. Quickly, I went to his bunk and lifted up the pillow. There sat the transistor radio. I opened the back and reversed the batteries. Then I closed it and placed it under the pillow.

We headed up to the cafeteria with all the kids and counselors for lunch. The meal was grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup. It was all the kids’ favorite lunchtime meal. Mine too. Today, when ever I have a grilled cheese sandwich and tomato soup I still think of Forest Home.

That night I told my “quiet” story to the kids, said goodnight, and turned off the lights. The next morning was a bright, sunshiny day. I checked on all the kids and specifically asked “transistor boy” if he slept well.

“I sure did,” he answered.

When he went into the bathroom I quickly lifted up his pillow. I clicked on and off his radio. It didn’t work.

When he came back out I had them make up their beds. He picked up his radio and carried it over to his locker and put it away and then made up his bed.

Thursdays was a visiting day for parents. The parents of “transitor boy” came and once again pulled me aside.

“I hope he hasn’t been too much trouble,” said his father.

“Yes, I hope his radio wasn’t a distraction to the other kids,” added his mom.

“He’s never had the radio on at night,” I replied. “And he slept the whole time.”

The parents looked at me like I was crazy.

Then I told them what I’d done and that I watched him put away his radio like it was nothing after that first morning.

Just then the boy came running up to his parents all excited, “Mom, Dad, this is my counselor Jon. I’m having a great time! Stay for lunch. We’re having grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup!”

I just smiled and walked away as their son dragged them off to the cafeteria.

There was one other lesson in life I learned as a camp counselor. Lying. Not me. But how young kids can lie.

Some construction work was taking place at Forest Home so I told my group as we walked to the cafeteria, “Stay in single file and do NOT walk off the sidewalk.”

I walked at the back of the line.  Suddenly, one of my sixth graders broke from the line and ran up onto a pile of sand.

I walked right up the sand pile to him and placed my hand on his shoulder.

“I told you to stay on the sidewalk,” I said.

“I did.” he replied.

“No you didn’t. You’re right here on the sand hill.”

“No I’m not. I didn’t do it.”

“Look what you’re standing on.”

“I didn’t do it.”

I was trying not to laugh. There he was standing next to me on a sand hill completely denying he was there. I looked forward to my break to share the “latest” story with the other counselors.

On my last day as a camp counselor, the principal had a close-out session with me in his office. He tried to talk me into staying. He said they were getting approval to waive the food and lodging deductions. But he said they’d still be paying $1.30 an hour.

I thanked him but told him I had a job as a wilderness ranger starting in May. I’d received an offer in the Wheeler Peak Wilderness Area of northern New Mexico. It was in the Carson National Forest out of the Questa Ranger Station about forty-five minutes from Taos.  I was not returning to Aspen.