Camp Anedotes: The Spam Run
By Eric Cole

[This story is edited from a 1998 recording.]

Either the first or second week, staff night out [1989]. Now, you know, I started late at camp, so that first year, I was 17, so that was the only year that I just went out on Tuesday nights or couldn’t drive myself. And so, it was the first time I’d ever gone out. Well, we did a Spam hunt.

Now, I don’t think another one’s ever been since then. At least, not that I’ve known about. I guess you know how it goes, but in case you don’t, I’ll tell you.

Of course, I’m from Gallatin, which is right across the river, so I was pretty much in my home town, you know, at camp. Well, we’d gone into Gallatin on our way to Rivergate. Now, this was before the by-pass was built, of course, so you had to go down, and cut through and kind of come out on the main road there. You went down pass the Wal-Mart and the Rivergate and that stuff. Well, not the Rivergate, but Kroger and all that stuff.

Well, we did a Spam hunt in Kroger. Now what we did was, we’re all, you know, this big pile of people, we’re all come in. Of course, people notice a bunch of teenage guys comin’ in, first off. And, so we start, far right side of the store. And we just walkin’ through. Kind of like creepin’ through the store. And we’re going “Spam, spam, spam.” And we just walk like that, just walk like that, all through the store, up and down each aisle. And the more we walked, the louder we get. You know, “spam. Spam. SPAM. SPAM.” You know, we’d just keep going, keep going, until we finally find the Spam. Then, we find the Spam, it was like “Yeah, we found the Spam. Spam, yeah! Spam! SPAM! SPAM! SPAM!” Okay? So, big great thing.

‘Course by this time, you know, by the time we’d got to the Spam, there’s people all over the store going “What the heck? What is going on?” You know, some people laughed, some people kind of scared. You know, maybe we were a gang or something.

So, we get the Spam and we all go rushing up to the cash register, you know. Just a can of spam. So, you get there, you’re finally in line. And they ring it up. Now, you know, I don’t talk this way or whatever, but I’ll use the words that were used, but I didn’t say it. But, they get to the cash register and they ring it up and they tell ’em how much it is. And then all, everybody looks at each other like “Too Damn Much! Too Damn Much!” And then they go runnin’ out of the, just leave the Spam can there, and go runnin’ out, take off.

So, anyway, it was really funny. But, you know, halfway through the chanting of “Spam” I was like “I can’t do this with these guys. I said I’m going go see somebody I know in here.” You know, “Just in case we get in trouble, I don’t want to get in trouble with them, you know.” Cause it’s my home town. SO, I had liked pulled off the side and actually seen somebody I knew. And, so the whole time after the found the Spam and went to the cash register, I wasn’t with them. SO, I kind of, like, met them outside. That was really funny. Funny thing to do.