They didn't even ask.

When my parents chose to buy a house in Door County Wisconsin, they knew that they would spend all summer up with their friends, having fun. Being a 13 year old boy who had few summer commitments, this meant I would spend all summer up without all of my friends. All I had was my family, the playthings I brought, and the great outdoors to pass my time. For a summer.

It was boring. I didn’t know anyone; I didn’t know what to do. To be honest, it is difficult to remember as a result of the few memorable experiences. After a few weeks of lying around, my parents told me I was signed up for sailing camp at the Ephraim Yacht Club. I had never heard of it. I didn't know what a sailboat looked like. I didn't even know they still had Yacht Clubs in the U.S.; I had reason to be skeptical. My parents had told me it would be fun. Knowing their ideas of fun were obscure to the rest of my family, I was prepared for the bore of a lifetime.

What I did not expect was to be shamed into a comatose state of withdrawal from the rest of the EYC members.

Let me rewind to keep to a consistent timeline.

When I first got to the Yacht Club, my hopes rose a bit. There were attractive girls, some cool looking teachers, and some potential friend-looking kids. They were all hanging out in a white shack of a "Clubhouse" they called the EYC; everyone war in line for a game on an old, crappy ping-pong table. Its warped wood and bubbled surface made the Club seem even more.

As accepting as they tried to seem, most of the kids cast sly looks at me. I was not a member of the established group. A face without a name to them, and therefore an outsider.

As the kids were cordoned away from the parents and taken to the end of the dock, I waved goodbye to my mom; she was the only person I knew.

The end of the dock seemed like a mile away from the clubhouse, which I had finally gotten used to. Once there, “Instructors” with brightly colored shirts introduced themselves and told us that we would play a game to do the same. We told our name, age, favorite animal, and where we were from. As I listened, I got a good idea of what kind of people would be in my class. Grouped by age, I would have three to five other kids in my class; three guys, two girls. Finally, as I was figuring out my group they started to call up groups.

The first group was called Sail Camp. They were put with a friendly Instructor woman who looked to be about twenty at the most. As I saw them walking away, I thought to myself, “Sail Camp, what a fitting name for a group of kids. They are all so young, about six years old.”

Next was Level One. This was taught by a happy looking nineteen year old boy, apparently named Smitty. As others were called up, I saw one of the possible friends, twelve years old from Evanston if I remembered from the game, called up. I thought nothing of it and reduced my possible class size to four.

They were now calling up a new class, but another Level One. Seems reasonable, I thought, a lot of young kids here. In fact, I was probably the oldest or second oldest in the entire camp. Anyway, names are called and I try to recall the age of those traveling up to the new Level One Instructor, Isak. Six, seven, seven, eight, seven. Eric Richter. The first thing I thought about was that they had mispronounced my last name. I walked up to meet my classmates.

Then I really understood. These really were my classmates and I really was in an echelon called “Level One”, only one full number above zero. I was barely above meaningless, in my head.

The levels after the two level one classes were two level twos, two level threes, one level four, and a class called ART. I later found out that members of this class were in “Advanced Racing Tactics”; an intense camp for the protégés of the Club. As soon as I heard them called up, I knew that was where I belonged. Teenaged kids in a tightly woven fellowship, the one I had been left out of. I felt like I deserved to be in their group; I hadn’t done anything wrong.

My thoughts were interrupted by my Instructor telling me to come and learn about the boat and its parts. I knew nothing. He could have been speaking Russian or Chinese most of the day. What is this called? My answer would be sail. It obviously was a sail, I knew that much. However, when the young kids responded, they called it the “jib”. I never even denied them, they had me beat.

What ever we learned, I could only learn as much as I had experienced. Since I was new, this was little.

Over the next week I focused intensely. Not on sailing studies, but on how I looked to others at the Yacht Club. I saw how people looked at me and would look down. I was so embarrassed; I didn’t even attend any of the activities at the EYC geared at making friends with everyone. My hours there were hours wasted and the more time I spent sailing, the less I knew.

Finally I thought I had enough. The sailing session had expired after two weeks and I was ready to contently sit in the woods alone. My parents hit me with the news as soon as I escaped the Club into the car.

“We signed you up for another session!”

I never even objected. I accepted that I would have to treasure the school year and hate the summer. I accepted that by the time I was moderately skilled at sailing, I would have graduated college. I accepted that the “potential friends” I had scoped out would never be friends at all.

This repeated constantly. I hate sailing, my parents think I’m making friends, they sign me up again. Four sessions, two weeks each, and summer was over. It was almost bittersweet. I had made it my life’s purpose to advance and end my suffering. Through my hard work and “dedication to sailing”, I had earned the privilege of moving on to Level Three. Now I was among ten-year-olds.
Every day I was out on the water, racing seven year olds and losing. Racing everyone and losing. Most of the time it wasn’t even my fault; I am heavier in the boat than other kids and therefore, lose. In my mind, I knew I could win, but in practice, all I could think to myself after each race was, every damn time.
Sailing was like a chore. It had to be done to get on with my day. I really didn’t like sailing, but I knew the only way to get out of a stupid cycle was to try and change my attitude. Soon enough I started winning. While most kids had their first trophy at seven or eight years old I had mine at fourteen. The difference between mine and theirs was, my trophy count increased exponentially as I got older.

By the next summer I had graduated Level Four and ART and the summer after that, I had become an Instructor at the EYC myself. I loved sailing and sailed fall, spring, and summer. I had used the embarrassment and turned that into anger, anger into motivation and motivation to drive my thirst for experience. Constant sailing meant constant improvement.
Finally, I looked forward to summer.

I was simply more able and more ready to remember. I finally used my embarrassment as fuel to start a passion instead of to criticize my summer.