How I Became Lip

By Randy Haglund

Did you ever go through something in your life that seemed bad, but turned out to be good?

Fifty-six years ago that happened to me. And it involved a grape Life Saver and a honey bee.

I had just finished third grade when my parents sent me off to a one-week summer church camp at Pinelow on Deer Lake.  It was intimidating. I had never gone to anything like it, or been away from my parents for that long. Worst of all, none of my friends would be there.

“It’s okay,” mom said. “You’ll make new friends.”

I found that hard to believe. When I got there I realized I was the youngest camper there. Most people were nice enough, but I didn’t fit in. A square kid in a round troop.

On the second day of camp, we were all down at the lake for swim time. My previous swimming experience consisted primarily of dinking and dunking in the shallow end of Shadle Pool, our neighborhood public swimming hole. But here at Deer Lake, I wasn’t fond of the muck and seaweed squeezing between my toes. Spending most of my time alone dog paddling near the shore, I shunned the floating dock where the bigger kids played with rowdy abandon.

I was miserable and wanted to go home.

Long before swimming session ended, I made my way back to the cabin furnished with ten bunks and nothing else. One of my cabin mates was lying on his top bunk reading a joke book. Lance couldn’t swim, and so he hung out in the cabin during waterfront time, something I considered doing. He offered me a grape Life Saver from a roll he had purchased at the Canteen.

While I sucked on the candy and dried off, Lance read me some jokes from his book. Which is a good thing, because I could really use a laugh.

And Lance delivered.

My eight-year-old mind found one of the jokes to be particularly funny.  I wish I could remember the joke now, because it struck me as being such a knee slapper that I let out one of those belly laughs where your mouth is wide open and your eyes are squeezed shut. Lance also cracked up, but for a different reason.

He watched a bee fly into my gaping mouth while I was laughing and it landed on my Life Saver for a taste of grapey sweetness. Lance nearly fell out of his bunk howling at the sight of a bee nestled comfortably in my expansive facial cavity.

His laughter caused me to laugh even more.

Eventually, I paused in my laughter to take a breath. The candy felt kinda funny….

Before I could spit the bee out, he stung his way to freedom.

 What happened after that is a bit of a blur, but I was no longer in good humor. My counselor, Larry, showed up about then and took me to the camp nurse. She applied some sort of ointment to my lower lip, which by now had swollen to grotesque proportions. Looking in the mirror, I was convinced that I was about to go from anonymous to becoming the laughingstock of the camp. How could I face anyone?

Larry, seeing I was upset, stooped down and looked me in the face. He was smiling.

“What?” I asked, feeling perturbed that he got a kick out of my misery.

“I like it,” he said.  

“Huh?”

“It looks good on you.”

Have you gone mad? I stared back at him in confusion. Outside we heard the coach whistle blow, which meant that swim time had come to an end.

“C’mon,” he said. “Let’s head back to the cabin.”

I followed him with trepidation. We got there at the same time as the rest of my cabin mates.

“Hey, everyone.” Larry put his hand on my shoulder. “Meet Lip.”

Now it was their turn to laugh. But it wasn’t derisive snickers. They just thought the nickname was funny. Instead, they all gathered around to inspect my new facial feature.

“Wow, what happened?”

When I told them the story they laughed some more but continued to marvel at the sight.

“That is so cool!”

“I wish that had happened to me.”

They didn’t make fun of me. They envied me.

Soon after, we lined up at the mess hall. Everyone in camp was talking about my new look. I was suddenly a rock star. Some girls even screamed at the sight of it. When you are an eight-year-old boy, that’s pretty much what you’re going for.

Everything changed after that. Even though the swelling went down by the next day, my notoriety had not diminished. We even altered the lyrics to a popular camp song in honor of me.

                John Jacob Jingleheimer Lip,

                That’s my name too.

                Whenever I go out,

                The people always shout,

                There goes John Jacob Jingleheimer Lip.

                La, la, la, la, la, la, la….

That night, the older boys invited me to go along with one of their shenanigans, sneaking out of the cabin at night and raiding the Canteen. I remember getting away with a bottle of orange pop. It was warm, but because of the thrill of swiping it, it tasted good.

The next day at the lake I didn’t mind the muck and the seaweed anymore. I got right in there with the rest of them, frolicking on the floating dock, doing cannon balls, and pushing girls off.

Mom was right. I made new friends, thanks to a honey bee that had a hankering for a grape Life Saver. I remain in contact with many of those same friends today.

They still call me “Lip.”

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Have you ever had something happen to you that turned out t be good, even though you thought would be bad?

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