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!!