And the slide into second… Safe!  

But he feels something in his knee – a foreboding twinge. It’s fine. He’ll just slap a knee brace on it and push on through summer baseball. 

Then it buckles 

And tears. 

In the blink of an eye, junior Eli Thorne is recovering from meniscus surgery. 

In the near future, the Pecos trip looms with its daunting six-mile hikes and 40-pound backpacks – something a weak meniscus can’t handle. 

What does this mean?  

Thorne can’t go on the Pecos trip with his classmates. 

He can’t make memories with his real friends. 

Thorne has to wait a year and go with rising freshmen, something not many juniors would look forward to. 

“At first I couldn’t imagine anything I wanted to do less at the time,” Thorne said. “Then a day or two passes and I get to know the kids better… I took on more of a sherpa role as the week went on.” 

In a way, the Pecos trip is an initiation into high school as a rising freshman – a seven-day camping trip where classmates bond, memories are made and boys think about the upcoming years during their solo. Although Thorne had to wait two years to go – due to forest fires and his meniscus injury– he made the most out of it, acting as a mentor to the younger boys. 

“Every single hike uphill that we had – it was just harder for the other kids,” Thorne said. “Since I’m bigger and more developed I would just tell them to just go on.” 

Being a model marksman and encouraging the younger boys, Thorne made the most out of his trip. Even though he didn’t want to, he played Mafia – a group game – with them before bed, adding to the fun of their trip. They began calling him ‘Unc’ and looking up to him. 

The memories may not be what he wanted, but he will remember them for the rest of his life. 

“Because I set my expectations low for this trip, I was really surprised when I ended up having fun,” Thorne said. “I think that overall, I may have gotten more out of it just because of that.”