“Okay.” Tully shifted in the upholstered chair to a position of greater comfort. “Fire away.”
After a moment’s thought, Koesler asked, “When you were a kid, did you ever go to camp … I mean far enough away from home so you were stuck there for a week or two?”
Tully smiled. “You’re kidding. Summer was spent on the streets of Baltimore-literally. Street ball and cement hockey were our games. The only thing I had going for me was that I could pass. And I wasn’t telling any of the white kids I played with that I was black.”
“Gotcha. But if you had been from a poor-or relatively poor-family in Detroit and your Catholic parish had a unit of the St. Vincent de Paul Society, you might have qualified for Camp Ozanam-or Camp Stapleton if you were a girl.
“The minimum age for O-Z was twelve … or so the regulations said. But S.V.deP. councils sent much younger kids; some of our campers were only seven or eight. Their extreme youth, plus the fact that some kids simply missed home, inevitably caused an epidemic of homesickness, especially in the early days of the two-week stay.
“Each counselor had his own way of handling homesick kids-increasingly mechanical, as the season wore on. Like: ‘Shut up and do what you should be doing now!’
“At this point, I must tell you, in all the summers I was there, I don’t think a single kid made it home before the scheduled bus return. Oh, it wasn’t that hard getting started: The camp was right on U.S. 25. And many’s the kid who tried it. But we had lots of checks through the day. And if someone did make a break for it, a bunch of counselors would hop in Old Betsy, the camp Model-A, and sure enough we’d find a kid with his thumb out. And after a brief chase, we’d catch him and drag him back to camp so he could enjoy his vacation.”
Father Tully was smiling, but the look in his eyes said, When do we get to Delvecchio?
“You’re probably wondering when I’m going to get to Vince …”
Still smiling, Tully nodded vigorously.
1953
There wasn’t a cloud in the sky. The heat was crushingly intense. It was early August. A fresh batch of campers had descended on Ozanam just two days before. Time enough for them to discover that Lake Huron was still formidably frigid, there was plenty of discipline, the air was friendlier to lungs than Detroit’s smog, in most cases camp food was not like home, and with all these complaints there was no momma to wipe away a tear.
At the same time, the staff was stagnating. This was the beginning of the fourth trip of the season. So far, over six hundred boys had spent their two weeks at camp. And there was still a fifth trip to come.
Each summer, this period was known as the Fourth Trip Jitters.
Among those suffering from homesickness was one lad determined to do something about it. But what? He had heard from boys who had been at this camp in previous seasons that there was no escape.
The truth was that the overwhelming majority of campers were having the time of their lives. But this fact served only to intensify the misery of those who pined for home. Tommy had to get out of here!
He wiped away his tears with the back of his hand, sat on his bunk — it was early afternoon rest period-and pondered.
Among the more impressive aspects of this camp was how very Catholic it was. This fascinated Tommy. The campers attended Mass daily. Daily! At home, Tommy’s family did well if they went to Mass a single day other than Christmas and Easter.
Then there was the grotto.
Just across the long footbridge over a deep ravine, tucked away in the woods, was an idyllic grove. Statues of Mary, the Blessed Mother, and of Ste. Bernadette Soubirous made claim that this was a sacred spot. It was Camp Ozanam’s extremely humble response to the famed and miraculous grotto in Lourdes, France.
O-Z’s grotto boasted no crutches, braces, or wheelchairs discarded by cured clients. Its statues lacked here a nose, there some toes and fingers. But the grotto was a place where campers and counselors gathered periodically to pray.
Tommy thought long about that poor grotto until a plan formed.
He approached the bed where counselor Vincent Delvecchio, having found a rare moment of quiet, was trying to nap.
“Counselor …” Tommy stage-whispered.
Delvecchio forced one eyelid up. “Go back to bed.”
“But, Counselor, I gotta talk to you.”
“Talk to me when we aren’t sleeping.”
“It’s an emergency.”
“You gotta go to the bathroom? Go ahead. Just get outta my dream.”
“No, it ain’t that. I gotta talk to you … outside.”
Delvecchio groaned and eased himself off the bed. He led little Tommy out of the tent and tried to stay in the shade. If Vince could not nap, he would at least try to stay as cool as possible. “Okay, what’s the emergency?”
“Well …”
“Come on! Come on!”
“Well …” Tommy’s lower lip was trembling. “… after lunch I went over to the grotto-”
“After lunch?! Why in the world would you do that?”
“I wanted to pray.”
“Nice. But why the grotto? We’re trying to tell you you can pray anywhere. Besides, if you want to pray, we’ve got the chapel right here on our side of the ravine. Why go to the grotto-no, never mind! Maybe we can salvage some of this rest period. Forget why you went to the grotto. Say you just felt you were called to the grotto … okay?”
“Yeah … I was called to the grotto. A voice inside me told me to go to the grotto.”
Kid’s got a pretty good imagination, thought Delvecchio.
“Anyway, I went to the grotto and’ I was just standin’ there … you know, lookin’ at the Blessed Mother … when, all of a sudden, I saw her!”
“Saw her? You mean you saw her statue? What’s so odd about that?”
“No,” Tommy insisted, “it wasn’t the statue. It was like she stepped out of the statue. I had … a vision!” He spoke in a reverential whisper.
“A vision,” Vincent repeated. “You sure?”
“Oh yes. A vision. A vision of the Blessed Mother!”
Not knowing exactly how to react, Delvecchio postponed reaction. “Okay, then what?”
“She spoke to me.”
“Uh-huh. What did she say?”
“She told me to go home!”
It was all Delvecchio could manage to keep from erupting in laughter. He relished the prospect of telling the other counselors all about Tommy’s “vision.” But what to do now? “She told you to go home, eh?”
“Yes. That’s right.” Tommy was very proud of himself. He had carried this off better than he could have hoped.
“Tell you what: Let’s go back there … just you and me.”
“What for?” There was uncertainty in Tommy’s voice.
“Let’s just do it. Trust me.” In reality, Delvecchio had no idea what should happen next.
The two-the long and short of it-walked hand in hand across the bridge and into the grotto. The other campers and counselors were all in their cabins or tents. Only Tommy and Vincent were out and about.
Wordlessly, counselor and camper stood before the statue of Mary. They remained motionless for a couple of minutes that seemed like hours to the young lad.
Finally, Vincent spoke. “I think I see her.”
“You do?” Wonderment in Tommy’s voice.
“Yes … yes … I see her. She’s saying something. She says … she says you gotta stay here!”
Tears trickled down Tommy’s cheeks.
What could he do? It was his vision against the counselor’s.
Tommy would never forget the day the Blessed Mother failed him.
The Present
Father Tully grinned. “Pretty inventive-on both parts. You think that excuse for going home was unique?”
“As far as my experience and everything I’ve heard-yes. Coming right out of the blue like that, I’d say Delvecchio’s reaction was … maybe inspired. And funny,” Koesler added.