Green Oak Ranch

The summer after I was made a deacon, my mother sent my brother Gene and me to Green Oak Ranch, located in the rolling hills of scrub oak and Manzanita trees, about 20 miles from our home.

When we arrived at camp, we learned one thing vey quickly: There would be fun—horses, the ocean,  horseshoes, tag, kick-the-can at night. There would also be Bible study—a lot of Bible, taught by heavily muscled athletes from Biola College , UCLA and the famous Bob Jones University, a Christian College for those interested in Christian ministry.

Gene and I met some of the nicest, kindest, accomplished Bible teachers we would ever meet outside our own LDS religion. The memories and the songs live on, which means that at times we have while walking around the BYU-I campus,  broken into a healthy outburst of “Do Lord, Oh Do Lord,” or “Gone, Gone, Gone, Yes, My Sins are Gone,” songs we learned at night around the campfire or on the bus on the way to the ocean.

Clyde Cook would stand tall at the front of the bus and swing his gorilla-like arms in  large circles, pitching the left side of us happy campers against the right side. We all sang loud but not pretty.

At lunch we were always on the look-out for an elbow-leaner. “Get your elbows off the table, Clyde Cook,” And on it would go.

The teaching came straight from the Bible—stories told with vigor and imagination. Paul Denton, who had calves like Steve Reeves and had played football at UCLA, pulled us bodily into the world of Daniel, along with his three friends, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, living  on “tossed salad and raw vegetables, defying the king’s orders to munch on prime gazelle rib, pork chops, and chasing  all that rich red meat with plenty of heavy wine.”

And when Paul got to the lions and Daniel, we felt like we were inside the San Diego Zoo or even better, running wild and free on the open Serengeti.  But there was one more thing even better than the raw cucumbers and the cowering lions:  Grace Jenkins.

I had no words as a 13-year old to describe her beauty.  My allusions  will be a hoot for my grandchildren and ancient history for older folks.  What about, say, Hedy Lamar [Delila], Rita Hayworth [Bogie’s Babe] or a budding black-haired starlet who had turned the world upside down as a child in National Velvet.  A year later, after the “Grace” shock, I would fall hopelessly in love with Elizabeth Taylor, pursued as hopelessly by a poor underdog named Monty Cliff in A Place in the Sun.

The heavenly vision of Grace Jenkins, dimmed, however, when three days before camp’s conclusion she married the heavily-muscled golden-voiced Paul Denton.  Broken hearts everywhere, betrayal and pain.  Ralph Waldo Emerson promises us “compensation,” however, and my brother and I were more than repaid by knowing our tent leader, Mr. Peepers.

Short [which is a good thing], dark-haired and bespectacled, he entered our tent and told us his real name.  Too late.  I was already naming people and this guy was definitely an instant replay [a phrase which did not even exist in the 50s] of a show called, yes, Mr. Peepers.

He graciously accepted the accolade and responded in a soft southern drawl saying, “you all want to love each other and get along and never forget each other or Christ.” And that was his mission statement.  His humility and patience amidst pillow fights and contraband candy crunching taught us more than all the words we heard each day.

The last night before leaving, we all had to say something about our commitment to Christ, then we threw a pinecone in the fire.  I mumbled something about “being a new Larry Thompson” and then tossed my token of penitence into the fire.  However, the flames consumed the cone in about the same amount of time it took me to be a forget that “new” person I said I was.

My brother, Gene, as he has continued so, stuck to his pinecone vow and held on to his little green Gideon Bible much longer.  He even read it and endured [if my painful memory serves me] a short period of persecution—from me.

My recollection of that moment was of the two of us walking the tracks across old Highway 78.  “How long can you hold on to this Christian stuff?” I said.  I spoke with much authority.  After all, I was his older brother—and a deacon.