I Left My Wings on a Chair

Obsolete Career Camp

19 o B s o L e t e C a r e e r C a m P I picked sampler week. of course, the first day I went out on the whaling ship. I couldn’t believe how bad it smelled. The fake whale was real enough. I thought it would make some noise when we heaved it up, and maybe it did but we couldn’t hear it in the air. I decided to stick with the historic hunters series, and shot at a few fake buffalo from a train. we tracked tasmanian wolves and even woolly mammoths. on Chemistry Day, we made DDt and gassed aquariums full of mosquitoes. we learned how so many chemists lost their jobs, the ones who made thalidomide, medicinal arsenic, mustard gas, agent orange, and lots of others. It was kind of sad. you hate to see people outof work. we gotuniformsfor transportationDay, and rodearound yelling “mark twain!” and “Pony express!” I fell off my chariot. I rode to medicine Camp in a carriage. The driver, my friend Derek, snapped the horses and they ran fast. The bloodletter was off. I saw some campers operating iron lungs, their fake patients’ pale heads poking out the ends. on Civil war times Day, we didn’t bother with blacksmiths and coopers, we saw those at the fair, although cutting soldiers’ legs off with saws was nothing we’d seen close. at the end of the week, the camp counselors asked us who we thought might be at the obsolete Career Camp of the future. Coal miners, someone said. I could see myself going down into the pit, getting cold and shining that skinny light off my helmet. maybe nuclear weapon builders, someone else said, or the people who make high-fructose corn syrup. we nodded. we had heard about that stuff. or spam, said Derek. you’re crazy, said Justin. I love spam. ...