Former youth camp ‘client’ found his worth, got off path to abyss

Dino Serventi read a recent column on an incident at Spring Mountain Youth Camp and found himself lost in his own 45-year-old memories of the facility.

Serventi wasn't an officer at the camp, which houses juvenile male offenders. He was what officials nowadays call a "client."

"They did not call us clients back then," the 61-year-old Serventi says, laughing a little. "They called us yard birds." That was back in 1963, when the camp was located in Lovell Canyon.

The youth camp's mission, then as now, was to provide a lifeline and last chance for young male lawbreakers to turn around their lives before being shipped off to the more restrictive confines in Elko or one of the state's adult penitentiaries.

There were no bars on the windows, no guard towers, no prison bulls. There were rules to follow, classes to attend, chores to perform. There were discipline and order, but there was an opportunity to avoid the long, nightmarish descent into the hard end of the prison system.

Serventi classifies himself as "a throwaway kid," a teen who no longer was wanted at home. The courts referred to his kind as "incorrigible." He was no Dillinger, just a kid with crappy parents who bounced around from one foster home to the next until he wound up at the youth camp following a suicide attempt.

"If these kids are up at that camp, if they can find one counselor who cares, they can make it," the semi-retired salesman says. "If I could, anyone can. But they have to learn that they're worth something. They have to realize, 'You are better than that. You can rise above that.' But there's not enough of that going on because our society is quick to throw them away."

After a short stay at the tougher Elko juvenile facility, Serventi turned 18 and was released from custody. He was kicked loose with $20 and a one-way Greyhound ticket. He picked Seattle as his destination. His family, when he had one, had lived there.

With zero prospects, he lived on the street until he found a job washing dishes at the Woolworth's counter downtown. He didn't know what he wanted to be, but he knew what he didn't want to be: incarcerated.

After more than a year and a variety of jobs, he met Rose, the love of his life, and got married. Gradually, his life changed. He became a successful clothing salesman, and eventually moved back to Las Vegas, where he lives with his wife of 40 years.

"The irony is, I almost didn't make it," he says. "Now I'm not ashamed to admit it, but I tried to commit suicide. I would have thrown away 46 years of a life that most people would give anything to have.

"My advice? Self-esteem is everything. They have to learn to believe in themselves. The important thing at that time in your life is not to follow the leader. The leader always gets you into trouble."

Not that Serventi avoided trouble while at the youth camp. One night, he and a pal decided to escape to Las Vegas.

They made it to the highway and hitchhiked down the mountain to the edge of the Strip, where they were promptly spotted and returned to the facility. They weren't sent back to their bunks.

"I was chained to that flagpole, me and my friend, for running away," Serventi says.

The punishment might sound cruel in 2008, but Serventi got the message. His friend left the youth camp, ended up in federal prison and later died of a drug overdose.

More than 40 years later, Serventi is overcome by the memory. He knows how close he came to that abyss. The way he sees it, hard work, a good woman, and something else saved him.

"I always wonder, 'Why me? What saved me?'" he asks. "I believe God was an angel on my shoulder. We all get gifts. I have the gift of intestinal fortitude.

"Those kids have got to know they are somebody. God doesn't make junk. Never let those adults in your life ever make you believe you're not valuable. You are valuable. You are something."

By believing in himself, one throwaway kid found a way to live happily ever after.

John L. Smith's column appears Sunday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday. E-mail him at Smith@reviewjournal.com or call (702) 383-0295.