I was 16 when my father unequivocally decided that he would send me to wilderness camp for several months. He had threatened many times before, but my mother had always managed to persuade him from actually packing me up and shipping me off.

My latest transgression was viewed as the last straw. In a fit of unbridled rage, I had shoved my math teacher down a flight of steps at school. He broke his arm in two places and severely dislocated his shoulder. The man hadn’t done a thing to me. I am hard pressed to remember why I was so irritated at him.

Anyway, Mr. Ford, my math teacher, had agreed not to press charges as favor to my dad. He was a friend of my dad’s from way back. Mr. Ford knew what was at stake. We all did.

Dad was in the middle of a tight race for sheriff in our town. This latest “Danny Thing,” as all of my reckless behavior was now called, had all my dad’s closest advisors talking.

“John, he’s your son and he’s a kid, but he is dragging you down,” I heard Jake Hutch tell my dad through his closed office door the night after I pushed Mr. Ford. “If it appears you can’t set the course for enforcement in your own home, how can you set the course for this town?”

So, off to the Pisgah National Forest I went. I knew in my heart that “Wilderness Camp” was surely just a euphemism for “Torture Center.” I imagined hours of untold abuse at the hands of some lumberjack-sized drill sergeant. I resolved not to be broken and to emerge from the program unchanged. I was who I was.

Nearly every day for six months, a small group of other troubled teens and I lugged our 30-pound backpacks on a trek that covered about 10 miles. We hiked in a rugged wilderness that seemed untouched by civilization. The  grandeur of the sky, rock and wilderness made me reverent.

Our counselors, were firm, but gentle, not the ogres I had imagined. We learned how to make a fire without matches and create a shelter with twigs, branches and grass. We learned which plants were safe to eat out in the wild. Late into the night, we talked about our fears and hopes.

We were devoid of radios, televisions and cell phones. I felt myself change. I was calm and often reflective. My old, impulsive self was gone.

One morning, six months later, my dad came to pick me up. I ran to hug him and saw relief and love in his eyes.

“So what’s it like being sheriff?” I asked on the ride home.

“I lost the race, Danny,” he said.

“I’m sorry, Dad.” I knew my behavior probably had a lot to do with his defeat.

Dad squeezed my shoulder and brought me close. “As long as I don’t ever lose you, I’m okay.”