CHAPTER I
I grew up in western North Carolina across the mountains, very much a rural area, but within a short ride to modern 21st Century environments. The biggest draw of the area is the great vistas, quiet wonderful landscapes and sweet wholesome and welcoming people.
There are many craft shops, handmade industries, handicraft instruction and training centers, including cooking, quilting, cooking, weaving. Even more industrial endeavors such as blacksmiths, woodworking or furniture making, etc...
This is where I grew up, with a long family history of several hundred years of ancestors coming from Ireland and England or today's United Kingdom. But I was trying to get out, by extending my education at the Appalachian State University making myself more employable in today's world. I afford school with a small grant for the educational expenses, but still have to pay for food and housing, myself.
To achieve that goal I work at a fancy country campground for children and young friends of high-class people, Government and State Officials or Foreign Representatives, mostly from Washington DC. Besides being a real USA or American experience, the remote location provides a high level of security for the very important guests.
Work was not too bad, mostly leading our "guests" around the camp, for many different events or during field trips to the many local programs or artist enclaves to see examples of the many handicrafts. Many of the guests were nice, fine and friendly generally, a few expected more comfort or luxury, but after 24-hours in the woods they were quickly re-educated understanding that was NOT on the menu.
Being a co-ed campground, except for the single-sex sleeping cabins, every season a few of the younger female guests "fell in love" or wanted a bit of romance, much more than was allowed, permitted or what I wanted to get involved with. My fellow female Campground Agents got the same effort, maybe worse with the male camping guests. Besides this is all temporary, we all knew that there was NO WAY there could or would be a happily ever after. My female agents may have had it worse with grabbing and inappropriate touching, but we all had to deal with it. To STOP the day-dreaming, posturing, touching and planning to get us alone it took some serious discussions that NO MEANS NO, during the first few days.
Security was not too bad, mostly morning and night-time bed counts and confirmations that every guest was where she or he were supposed to be.
I was assigned to several cabin groups, typically just 2 or about 12 guests, but during busy seasons it could be 3 cabins or 18 guests. This season field trips were scheduled every other or second day and took up the whole day or most of the afternoons.
During these trips off the campground security got a bit more serious and the body-guards kick'ed their efforts to a higher level, getting in the way and troublesome, but all the locations had been pre-selected and already checked out for security, so should not have been any problem.
Different groups went to different field trip locations on different days, this kept the locations from being overloaded with our guests. Our schedule was not published and only one person exactly knew who was going where on any one day. Unknown to many: most selections were drawn from a hat, by the camp manager, making it even more random - and secure????????
About mid-program there was an incident with my group, after visiting a blacksmith site one of my girls, Eve, was missing. The call for security went out and some the Men in Black (MIB) suites with mirrored sunglasses came out of the woodwork, woods and behind buildings like ghosts. It took just half an hour to find Eve, sitting in the front office talking to the site manager, as she hated the smell and noise from the Blacksmith shops. All great, but I had a "talking to" of not performing my duties or taking proper measures to ensure the necessary level of security - Oh Boy I hate that, the MIB are no joke, but the guests are adults and can't be baby'ed, sometimes my job sucks!!
After returning to the camp the head female counselor and I took Eve into the office and had a "Go to Jesus" meeting, with the necessary questions of why, and commands to never do it again. I did not think that Eve was very repentant or sorry for all the trouble, but finally promised to never do that again. We let her return to her cabin, as the counselor and I discussed Eve and her attitude, which we both thought it lacked to proper level of understanding of the serious nature of the situation. We both agreed that I had to step up my efforts to protect Eve despite her feelings.
That opened a real "Can of Worms" trouble with Eve, so a second Camp Agent, female, was called in to assist with my groups... We both had trouble being too close or cramping her fun and I was getting crap from the other female guests of spending too much time with Eve. A "no win" situation, that no matter what I did or did not do caused more troubles. This caused me stress for several days, until many of my guests gave up and forgot the troubles then everything returned somewhat to normal, almost.
CHAPTER II
Several days later on another field trip, I watched as Eve walked away from my group, of course I had to follow her and get her back... That is when all my lights went out - BANG!!
Being woken up surrounded by the MIB was a real shock, along with the headache as I tried to sit up. Next started the 1,000,000,000,000 questions, what, why, who and how - the problem was I knew nothing, just seen Eve walking away and then nothing. Of course no one believed me, I had to be part of the gang, kidnapper or worse. Just short of water boarding I endured all their questions, comments and concerns, finally after forever it seemed I was released and allowed to return to the camp.
Eve was lost all night, but luckily was found early the next morning walking along in the woods. Her story was simple, much like mine, walking along then lights out, but she just got a bag over her head. She was left in a shack in the woods, but luckily she could pry open a back door, that was just too rotten, and got out. A bit of my woods-craft and star guiding at night got her to a road, to be found by the MIB.
All the trouble and by the insistence of Eve I was upgraded to a private and only guide to just the the lady, NOT that I wanted the job, but had no choice. Eve and I were also relocated from the group cabins to two separate rooms behind the main office, not exactly restful spaces, being storage rooms, but they got quickly refurbished toward comfort. So Eve became my "ball-a-chain", a pretty ball, but still a lot of trouble. It was an easier job, dealing with just one guest, and could have been worse.
The MIB insisted that Eve and I, stay in the camp for several days, great so what was I to do with her? She took the first few days to rest, and talk with her parents, a UK Foreign Minster and State Secretary, some important persons from Scotland. We just stayed around the Camp, found out Eve loved to fish and was pretty good at it, enough to get us a few fish dinners. I even got into the art and crafts supplies so one afternoon was spent with childish coloring with crayons, colored papers and making pretty things, but that was still fun with her. Eve surprised me again and again.
During this time we got to know each other to a great degree, her being an only child, as her parents got too busy to expand their family or make a real home life for her. I found out she was just a few years younger than me, at 21 and even though she traveled around the world, had not really been or seen anywhere, except maybe airports, hotel rooms and through windows. She was enjoying her stay at our campground and country very much.
After several days, the MIB had found no suspects, reasons for the possible kidnapping, except from some locals maybe having fun trying to party with a girl - not that I believed it???? But their report did release the camp arrest over Eve and myself, so we could go places, except with one unique restriction, I had to take over as Eve's chauffeur and as her chaperone as well. Not at the top of my list of things I really dreamed about doing, but it was not rough duty. The only issue was the MIB had me promise I would not use the same roads as the camp busses, or use the same routes going and coming from any event. That is difficult as there are not many roads anyway, and few that end up at the same places, as most are paved Indian tracks or cow paths through and around the mountains.
Next day Eve got to pick which event she wanted to see, or if she wanted to do anything else. Being a sheltered girl, her pick was to go see the city, which in the mountains means a trip to a big city, Asheville, Boone or Johnston City, but we had to keep the MIB in on our plans. We had fun, Eve was a real girl, and what do girls love? SHOPPING - trying on clothes, make-up, shoes, buying several items within every store, to the point I was worried about getting everything into the vehicle and back to the camp.
Next we stopped by a local diner for some great fresh food, which Eve enjoyed. I called it quits and insisted that we get back to camp, as it would take longer to drive back a different way, and it gets very dark behind the mountains early, way before official sunset.
Next day was a camp day, Eve and the other female campers held a quick fashion show, but that got me into trouble as many of the other girls wanted to go shopping as well. I was very surprised later in the day as Eve came into my room, sat down and thanked me very much for a wonderful day. We started talking and started really learning about each other... Being an old pro I knew better than mess with any camper, but I started falling for her, but kept telling myself she was just being nice. That night I knew I was in trouble when I had a dream about her - Oh NO, I am in trouble... waking up from that dream I could not go back to sleep.
