The Terrible Catsafterme

Okay, the picture at left may not be the most flattering photo ever taken of Kim Littlejohn - after all we had just spent the entire afternoon crawling around on our guts and butts inside of a cave, hence the mud-caked shirt she is wearing – but it does illustrate one thing: muddy or not, I made sure I had my hand on her shoulder for whatever photo opportunity arose. You can see more of this adolescent activity illustrated in my coverage of the two separate weeks that we spent together at Eco Adventures camp at Woodland Altars in 1985 and 1986.

The hand on her shoulder was obviously indicative of the crush that I had on her. Had my campmates Darin or Eric been behind her, they surely would have had their hand on her as well. Yes, all three of us were smitten by not only her looks and charm, but by her sharp and infectious sense of humor that we all played off of for the entire week of camp.

Kim exhibits her illuminating laugh while I took as many photos of her at camp as I reasonalby could

Kim, along with fellow campmates Amy Angle, Mandy Angle, Dorinda Dohner, and Wendy Johnston – all gals from the Troy Church of the Brethren – became a close-knit group with me and my friends Darin Anderson and Eric Hubble. So much so in fact that a month after camp that Summer, we all got back together for a visit in Troy, where the now-classic (and often seen) ‘swingset’ photo was taken in the back of Kim’s yard. Kim tells me that her parents still have that very swingset. It would certainly be nice to recreate the pose over twenty years later.

Eric, Amy Angle, Me, Kim Littlejohn, Mandy Angle, Darin (hidden), Wendy Johnston, Dorinda Dohner

But on this occasion on Sunday, February 8, 2009, I was only meeting up with one of these former campmates, Kim Littlejohn. We had been in touch for quite some time, off and on for nearly a year in fact. But it was only recently after she joined Facebook that we really began to renew a friendship through the Facebook instant messaging, chatting often about anything and everything.

Naturally I was anxious to see her in person, and although it took a bit of coaxing, she finally succumbed to my intense pressure…despite her general desire to stay ‘under the wire’ and off of old stalker friends’ websites. I can’t say for sure how rewarding it was for her, but I for one was ecstatic to sit down for over two hours and just chat away at the Olive Garden. Of course we reminisced a bit about the things that we could remember from over 22 years earlier when we last saw one another, but we also took the opportunity to joke, philosophize, and simply catch-up on all of our life events.

I brought along the letters that she had written in 1986 and I had saved. The inscription next to the sticker read “That’s you turkey!”

She’s now a successful kindergarten teacher at Troy Christian, raising two lovely teenage daughters of her own, ever-close with her family, and exhibiting all the morals and scruples that one would expect to find in someone they went to church camp with. But it came as no surprise that she still had her sharp wit and sense of humor as well.

It seemed to make no difference whatsoever that we had more than doubled our lifetime between meetings. I am very glad to be back in touch with Kim and very pleased to have her as a friend again.

Continue to the next reunion…

Return to the late January/early February posting…

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 10th, 2009 at 6:36 am and is filed under 1980's - Late, 2000's - Late, Reunions. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.