Virulent, Like a Virus.

If you went across the street from the house I grew up in and then hiked about a quarter of a mile into the woods, you came across a pretty big lake. From the 1930s-60s, a boys camp operated on the lake for inner-city under-privileged youth-types from NYC.

When the place was closed in the late-sixties, nobody bothered to clean it up and so in the '80s the place had a wonderfully creepy, mysterious atmosphere. Just to be clear, my mother had prohibited my sister and I from going there but we were neither particularly obedient nor good children and so we spent many hours climbing over crumbling foundations, scrambling over rusty wire fences to get to the weedy tennis courts, exploring the dining hall and offices (the most complete building, although it was missing a roof) or trying to jump over the remains of the bathroom (The building had rotted into nothing but in it's wake had left a pit a few feet deep and maybe five feet wide that was filled with crushed porcelain and plumbing pipes that hovered above the pit by two feet. The challenge was to get a running leap, jump over the pipes, and try to clear the pit completely-if you didn't, you had better land on your feet because porcelain is going to cut up your knees if you fall forward.)

The point? The idea of getting NYC kids out of the city for the summer by sending them to the country still exists. The Fresh Air Fund is responsible for a lot of the placements nowadays and recently dropped some kids off in Westport. One of the children was Ibrahim Ib-Hamida who was questioned about his baseball affiliation upon arrival: "Red Sox," Ibrahim replied without hesitation.

And so the infiltration begins.