Ch 26

A camp story

Most kids spend their summers running through sprinklers, watching TV, and playing with kids in the neighborhood. I wasn't like most kids. My dad has been Tecumseh's director my whole life, and my house behind Shawnee Cabin is the only house I've ever lived in. From June to August I didn't see friends from school, but played with the campers and counselors that filled Main Field. Most people asked me, "Do you get to do everything you want?" as soon as they found out that Camp T was my home. No, I couldn't do everything, but I was certainly never bored. I loved every second of it and dreaded going back to school after week nine.

Wednesday nights the Warrior Unit played Capture the Flag in Main Field. Slamming my front door I would yell, "Bye Mom, I'm going to play with the Warriors!" over my shoulder. It only took about twenty seconds to run across my backyard to where all of the campers were waiting. I would stand with the counselors as they explained the most important rules, "You have to tag the flagpole to get everyone out of jail. If you get tagged while you have the flag you can't throw it or pass it. Don't hide the flag up high or tie it to anything." The girl campers played on the same team as the guy counselors and we usually won. I didn't know most of the campers, but it was easy for me to blend in to the group of screaming, running kids. The counselors were at camp for three months straight so I knew each one of them by name; they were my big brothers and sisters for the summer.

...

There is a large group of children that have parents that work full time at Tecumseh and live on property. The camp kids eat our meals in the dining hall, ride our bikes around the main loop, sneak in the back of all camp pictures, and go to chapel and campfires with our parents. Camp kids love and understand camp in a different way than anyone else does. At one point there were 23 camp kids. One morning I was at basket clinic with Andy, a counselor I had gotten to know for the past couple summers. He always had big ideas, like a nationwide game of tag, that he wanted to start. "Sarah, here's what you need to do," he told me, "You should start a Camp Kid political party. Instead of Republicans and Democrats, the Camp Kids could run America. There must be camp kids all over the country, you've just got to get them all together." I never got into politics, but the idea that there is something special about camp kids stuck with me.

...

Arielle and her family moved back to Tecumseh when she was in Kindergarten and our dads worked together. Three years apart, a mix of being pseudo-sisters and best friends, we grew up together and stuck to each other's side all summer long. Sometimes we would participate in camp like the rest of the campers; going to lake time or signing up for country-line dancing clinic all summer long. When we got tired of the regular routine we started up our own businesses--the Camp Cookie Company, Chores and More, and a detective agency were the best.

...

Gold Rush is an all camp game in which gold rocks are distributed through out camp. Then campers try to collect the pieces without getting caught by the bad guys. Arielle and I got to help distribute the gold each week and sometimes the counselors would let us hide the giant Honker piece that was worth the most points. For the last part of the game the counselors dressed up like characters hide and wait for cabin groups to find them. Arielle and I watched the counselors hide and we were particularly impressed one week when Eric hid in the float trip canoe rack. This giant trailer holds eight canoes on metal bars. He climbed under the lowest canoe so he was resting on the metal bar just above the tires but was hidden inside a canoe. No one ever found him and he eventually just climbed back out.

The next day, Arielle and I finished up our sloppy joes and fritos at the staff table during lunch before running outside to play. We wanted to try out the hiding spot that Eric used yesterday during Gold Rush. Arielle crawled under the left canoe and I climbed under the right. You have to crouch down and then slide up into the space without touching the hot metal. It was like an oven inside the silver canoe, baking under the noon sun. We were just about to climb back out when we heard a stampede of campers leaving the dining hall in the distance. "Sarah, we can't get out now," Arielle whispered, "they'll see us."

We weren't doing anything wrong but in our nine and twelve-year-old minds it seemed like it would be incredibly embarrassing if anyone found us inside the canoes. "Ok," I whispered back, "Just don't move, they're going to rest hour, they won't notice us." I tried to make my breathing slow down, afraid to move. I could see flip-flops and tennis shoes walking by and hear snippets of conversations as counselors and campers passed. I tucked my t-shirt into my shorts so the fabric wouldn't hang down. Then I heard Arielle's canoe slide on the metal bar and a thud. Someone had stopped to talk and was leaning up against the canoe Arielle was lying inside of. I held my breath and waited for what seemed like an hour. Would Arielle stay still? Would someone find us in here?

I waited until I couldn't hear anyone around anymore, hoping they were all inside their cabins by now. "Arielle?" I called. "Yeah?" she said back, still whispering. "I think we can come out now," I told her. "Ok."  My legs were cramped from staying tense for so long, but I swung them down and wiggled back out. I walked around to the other side of the canoe rack. I was miserable, we were both covered in dirt from the canoes and dripping with sweat from hiding in the canoe sauna for so long, but the situation was ridiculously funny. "I'm never doing that again," Arielle told me.

...

Getting dirty was a daily routine for camp kids. In all of our money schemes, the most profitable was top secret and extremely filthy. The Trading Post, our camp store, has a wrap-around porch. There are pop machines on the corners and when people are putting in their quarters to get a nice refreshing Diet Coke they occasionally drop their change. Nickels, quarters, and dimes fall between the cracks of the porch. We realized that there must be tons of change under the porch just waiting for someone to find it.

Arielle and I figured out that it was easy to get under the porch from the back of the Trading Post. Then we could crawl side by side around the whole perimeter. Waving sticks in front of our faces, we took down cobwebs and then used a flashlight to help us dig out coins. We army crawled through the damp dirt and dry leaves. About halfway through we always wanted to give up, but there was no turning back. We would come out the other side covered head to toe in dirt, our hair frosted with cobwebs, our fingernails black from picking in the mud, but with at least five dollars in our handfuls of change. We always split whatever we found fifty-fifty between us. Arielle and I would brush the dirt from each other's backs, wash our faces and arms in the sinks in the lodge and shake our hair out before putting it back in a ponytail. No one ever knew what we had been up to.

...

Every morning campers take three clinics of their choice. Arielle and I could do clinics too but we got to pick once all the campers had chosen. On Mondays you have to do a lot of introductions. When we had to name our cabin Arielle and I would say we're from the Tan House instead of, "Uh...we're not in a cabin, we live here," which led to strange looks and dozens of questions. Eventually kids figured out we weren't regular campers and their questions were always predictable. One summer we made camp kid t-shirts that had answers to all of theses questions on the back.

Yes, it is really fun.
My dad works here, not me.
I live in a real house- not a cabin or a tepee.
No, I can't do whatever I want.
Yes, sometimes I'm a regular camper just like you.
I eat in the dining hall.
I got to a public school that's fifteen minutes away.

...
For the last couple summers before I became a counselor, I was the official overhead girl at chapel every morning. I would leave breakfast early and meet the counselors out at the Green Cathedral. I got a front row seat for every skit, bible verse and song. I grew up going to church every Sunday, but it was mornings on those wooden benches that most significantly shaped my faith. Hundreds of counselors that I admired shared their faith from that stage. I can't even tell you most of those people's names now, but I remember what they taught me. They showed me that life works better when you live following Christ.

...

It's hard for me to put into words how instrumental growing up at camp was for me. For hundreds of kids, a one week experience is a highpoint of their entire year, but I got to live there my whole life. I was inspired by counselors' creativity, motivated to be a leader, and experienced more fun on a daily basis then most kids my age knew was possible.