Lower school.

[blownawaytheidahoway]

Like it or not, I was enrolled and I was a student with a classification and a schedule I was demanded to adhere to. We rose without fail at 6:30 in the morning. A short (less than five minute) shower became part of my ritual. One of the older students of the dorm, either the dorm head or dorm support waited for me to walk up to the main House for breakfast. As usual, the dorm support would not always be younger than the dorm head, however without fail, they were younger in the programs eyes. No matter where I was, there was no being alone with another younger student. Very seldom was a grouping of younger students permitted to interact without staff or older students present. There was no staff in the dorms. Sure, there were staff living adjacent in their own quarters, but on the whole, (outside of the weekly dorm checks) we students almost never had the staff visit our rooms. Now, at first I thought this was going to be an advantage?I mean these kids wouldn?t be demanding that I follow all the agreements in the dorms right? No, I was wrong on that score too. Every time I took longer than a five minute shower, or stayed up a little later than lights off, or didn?t make my bed tight enough for my incredibly anal dorm head, I would hear about it from staff before the sun had even risen above 4032.
   4032 was the name of the mountain directly east of the campus. It was a number designation by the forest service, in all liklehood, but for me it was the gateway to any and all points east. I have such a perfect memory of the situation of 4032 from my perpetual viewing and longing focused in that direction. It was a long, not huge, not steep, rolling, sweeping set of hills. It separated our campus from the beginning of very steep Rockies to the east, and the majestic Selkirk Mountain ranges to the west and north. I feel, for some reason that it needs further description: 4032 looked like it had been placed there by a bored god. It was unnatural how out of place it looked to me. It was like something underneath had had a sign there that said ?mountain?. Topography by number- for the gods or something. It was just stuck there. I think this little baby mountain, surrounded by montsters on all sides, and Clifty towering above just next door- seemingly unattached, longed to be with it?s maker as bad as I wanted to be home.

[blownawaytheidahoway]

By 7am the kids were heading up to the main lodge dressed for work. Every morning I would emerge from the shower amazed that no one was resisting being up at such a blasphemous hour. I would pull on the cardboard-stiff jeans that I had worn the day before back on and lace up my work boots. Those boots were so heavy and good that if a falling anvil had been dropped on a foot encased version, the occupant would hardly notice more than a little pressure. I felt indestructible in these boots. It was a few months later that my dormhead had me holding them up with arms out straight for as long as possible as some sort of punishment. Some non logo tee-shirt would adorn my young torso, usually a blue or a red. It must stay tucked in as long as I was inside any building. I remember that there were some kids that would take their shirts out of their pants first thing when walking out doors. It was as casual a motion as if they loosening a tie at the end of a workday. Image was everything at RMA, and at RMA the program worked to destroy any image that you may have already had of yourself. We had matching flannels. All of us.