The Bulgarian
In the Shadow of Thomas Wolfe
In the mid-1990s, as a student, I had the opportunity to work in the United States on a J1 Visa at a children’s summer camp in the beautiful mountains of western North Carolina. The camp, situated about 40 miles south of Asheville, was a for privileged kids but I nonetheless enjoyed my time there very much. Literary luminary Thomas Wolfe, who wrote Look Homeward Angel, was born close by, while poet Carl Sandburg lived his later life in Flat Rock, a few miles from the actual camp. I spent four seasons at the camp. Not wanting to work with children, I got a job in maintenance. The job itself was very physically demanding, but you were generally finished by six and then had the rest of the evening free, unlike the camp counselors — who were with the bratty kids 24/7 except for one day off in the week. As far as I was concerned, I had it easy in comparison.
Road Trip
Most of the time we were moving beds to different cabins or fixing leaks in bathrooms or helping the resident nature guy to remove hornets’ nests. Not too taxing, if I have to say so myself. I can honestly say I enjoyed the work. There was one caveat, however: the pay was abysmal: I’m guessing, though it’s quite misty in my memory these days as it was nigh on two decades ago, I earned around $1500 for the three months I was there in my first year. That was from late May to late August. Calculate it: fifteen hundred divided by twelve equals a measly $125 a week. Now, I was only in my early twenties and food and board were included, but I had road trips planned for after the camp and money was precious. Okay, so every year the salary increments went up slightly but not by any significant amount. I remember in the first year, in 1996, I went across the continent with two Czech guys, Tomas and Martin. We left North Carolina in a flaming orange 83’ Nissan Altima station wagon we had bought for $300 in Hendersonville, NC, and headed up to NYC to meet up with Tomas’ Czech university pals (who also happened to be in a camp in New York state that summer) We met them somewhere near Central Park, if I remember rightly (there were three of them and they had bought a second-hand car, too). We discussed where we were going to go. The plan was simple: We were headed for Niagara Falls, and would go together. We started off. However, after ten minutes…
