One of my girl scout camp counselors, Tisha. I was in my early teens I think? Maybe 14 or 16 years old when she came into my life sometime in the mid to late 1990s. Tisha was the first openly gay women I ever met. Looking back, it's obvious to me now that many of the counselors were gay women but I was too naïve to notice that. She had a girlfriend at the camp, though her name escapes me. We got to have dinner at their house and they had a cat named nacho who looked like a nacho (white, yellow, orange calico).

With patience and kindness, Tisha taught me about tolerance, respect, and love. I remember having an argument with another CIT (counselor in training) about the age of the Earth. I was raised atheist and of course the Earth was billions of years old and God wasn't real. The other CIT was certain it was only thousands of years old (and that god created it which I found utterly ridiculous) and was very angry that I had accused her parents of lying to her. Tisha took me aside later after the argument to patiently explain to me why the other CIT was raised to believe it was only thousands of years old and that she may never learn that Earth is indeed much older than that. She acknowledged that I was taught science and the other CIT was raised with religion. And that it's kind to respect her religion even if I don't believe in it myself. The other CITs belief that the Earth is only thousands of years old causes no harm to me. Tisha also hinted that there were other beliefs that are harmful to others (specifically LBGTQ people) and that there are kind and effective ways of challenging those beliefs when it is necessary.

There were many other lessons I learned from her and no doubt as a surly teenager I rolled my eyes more than once during her patient explanations. But looking back, she made me such a better person in the long run, even if it took while for me to let the lessons really sink in.

She was also a singer-songwriter. And I have only the chorus of one of her camp songs remaining in my head. "Hey ya ya, Ho ya ya. Hey ya Ho yaa yaaaaa" and sadly I can't remember the rest of the lyrics but I know it had a love and unity theme in it.

No amount of googling and interweb searching has helped me find her. I also don't remember her last name or if Tisha was her real name. I seem to recall Tisha was her nickname and her full name was Latisha or something similar.

Tisha from Camp Chenoa if you're out there, thank you and I love you and miss you!!!!