Nat Duncan Memorial Archery Tournament

This Thursday is the 6^th annual Nat Duncan Memorial Archery Tournament. Hard to believe this thing’s been going on for that long. I’ve had a few good ears shooting in it! A few top-10 finishes, a couple top-5, and now, two years of running it without shooting.

We come together – Junior Counselors, former Junior Counselors, administration, and portions of Nat’s family, remembering Nat at his happiest: at camp.

Nat was a camper and spent two years in the Junior Counselor program at camp. In late 2000/early 2001, he was diagnosed with a brain tumor and all he wanted was to spend one more summer at camp. He died September 16, 2001.

The tournament is always an interesting day for me because I always feel guilty in some ways because, well, I never really liked Nat until his last summer. I can honestly say that I never actually was mean to him, though, unlike most. And also unlike most, I’ve never denied my feelings. I’ve always been up-front and open about how I used to feel about him.

But more importantly than anything, I’ve learned a lot from Nat’s memory. And while I have always said that I’ve learned a lot from Nat, lately, I’ve learned more from how people remember Nat and how people react to Nat’s memory.

He is memorialized as someone who embodied everything camp stood for and the greatness that youth can be.

It’s gotten me thinking a lot about how I’ll be remembered. Not in the sense of how I’ll be remembered when I ultimately check out, because I plan on having a good 60-80 years left in me. But how will I be remembered when, say, I’m not at camp anymore. Or how do ex-girlfriends or ex-friends think about me?

The funny thing about memories, is they always belong to someone else. You really cannot share a memory. It is yours. You always remember things your way, and someone else remembers things his way, and the truth is probably somewhere else altogether.

On the one hand, it’s really nice to know that people remember, but on the other, it’s depressing to think that you can do so much and it’s completely out of your hands, and unless someone I dated becomes famous and writes a memoir, I may never know what people truly think of me, because nobody’s ever honest to your face. (And sometimes, even afterwards. Like with Nat, the first tournament, we made a scrapbook to give to his parents with little notes that everyone wrote. Most people wrote about how Nat changed them and how much they loved Nat. I wrote the truth: that I had moments of wanting nothing to do with him, but in his last summer, he changed me. I don’t regret how I felt about him once, but I know that things change and people change and I changed. And that made it worth it.)

On a related note: The most honest obituary I’ve ever read was for a man named Izzy Gold. It was in the Boston Globe in 2003. I intend to find it and post it the next time I have nothing to say.

And back to what I was saying – I kind of hope that someone I know does write a memoir and I’m in it – for good or bad – because I’m convinced that I’d rather know the truth than have this complete avoidance that exists right now. (Although, perhaps if I know the truth, I’d think differently.)

Until then, I guess I’ll have to be okay knowing that there are people out there who like me and people out there who don’t. And I’ll have to be okay with that. And for now, I am.