My positive program experience:
The day I successfully split.
Splitting may have been my best program experience, though unsuccessful. I spent a few days as a hitchhiker/bushman, some of it was fun, but it was kind of terrifying b/c I could not go home. All of my friends had been hounded at home and work so I was just going where I could get rides to until I gave up. It wasn’t very glamorous, but it was a brief and memorable adventure before ending up at Ascent, wilderness bootcamp. I already knew better than to fight the escorts so I was complacent. All I remember thinking was, at least I’ll get to smoke cigarettes on the way. All the students who had been to Ascent would tell tales of being able to smoke on the way, so I figured I would get to.
Well I don’t remember all the details, but soon after we left I asked if we could get some cigarettes. He told me ‘no’ because I had already been in the program and he usually only did it for those heading in for the first time. I was pissed, but not much I could do. I was going to do what he said either way.
Anyways, after a good 24hrs of traveling we were about half hour from Ascent and he says, this is the last place to stop for cigarettes if I want any. Of motherfuckin COURSE I want some smokes! so we get some, and let me tell you that first cigarette was amazing, unforgettable, you don't forget something like that. There may have been times where I’ve really enjoyed one , but nothing that stands out nearly as much as in this final moment of impending doom where this little bit of relief was offered.
So I get to smoke for a little while, we get to Ascent, first words I hear are ‘welcome to hell’ and strip search. It was pretty hellish, 6 weeks, lots of exercise and labor, I hated ‘taking a stump’ where they made you sit and keep your balance on a ‘stump’, which was really a thin stick, in the center of camp. The counselors would comment on your discomfort. I remember they would say ‘don’t fart’ b/c the stick might go up your ass. There was plenty bad about the place, 5 min to eat, sleeping shoulder to shoulder on wood floor, physical labor all day every day, made to run in boots without laces, verbal berating. I knew all this before I got there but all in all it was a vacation compared to the kind of manipulation that went on a Cedu. At least I knew I was being berated, and I wasn’t supposed to pretend I wasn’t. I actually thought about pulling some crazy stunt to keep me at Ascent longer, and not back to Cedu, because I knew I was going to have to berate MYSELF in front of everyone else very convincingly after I got back, which I did apparently.
The point is, the escort knew I was about to go to a rough place, and I don’t know if it was because he was feeling sympathetic or just wanted me to behave for the rest of the trip, but he offered me something he knew would mean a lot less in another situation, something I was thankful for, 30 min and a pack of smokes. I don’t feel as grateful to him now as I was then, but that was some satisfying cig. I tell you, these are the times you don’t take what you have for granted, you suck the marrow out of life, which is just what I did with those smokes.
I don’t smoke those things anymore though…. bad for you.
