"But what if you're making bread?!" Indy Girl Tecumseh Staff Alumni

When a kid asks, "Can I cut open the balloon and suck out all the helium?" at the end of the day, you say yes. Libby Grace immediately started talking with that high pitched squeaky voice and it was amazing. School is the coolest. Do you know what else is the coolest? Happy Mail by A Beautiful Mess. I need to up my writing letter game to keep up with all the cards I have to send out to friends. I love finding this envelope in my mailbox every month.

I've had a dream, a dream that alumni counselors across Indianapolis would gather together. I remember when I first started out on staff we all said that someday we should all move to the same place when we grew up and graduated college and create Camp Tecumseh Town. A whole lot of us ended up doing that, but we don't take advantage of our proximity nearly enough.

Our friends in Chicago have been doing a great job of meeting up in the last year and I've been a little jealous...

So I finally got together with Emily and Rachel, created a list of friend's names and said, "We've got to make this happen." Tonight was finally the night. Emily offered up her home, 14 friends gathered together and we feasted on Diet Coke, Italian goodness and carbs that could feed all of River Village. It was glorious.

Ellyn broke out her raccoon socks (Target men's department) and told everyone to buy a pair for the Running With Raccoons 5k at Tecumseh. I brought friendship bracelets as party favors because you never really grow out of camp jewelry.

We gathered around a gigantic table-- there were multiple stories going on at once, updates about life and reminiscing about our summers together.

After we kept asking, "So when were you at camp?" I made a timeline to figure out when we spent our summers at Tecumseh to see if we overlapped. 2008-2011 were definitely the most densely staffed years for this group.

We ate at least five types of bread, then desserts, then some cookies and fruit and veggies. Emily handed out a few Tecumseh Alumni mugs as party favors too.

 

There were so many moments in the night when I would just look around the room and think, "I can't believe all these people are here in one room." I've known Arie since I was in kindergarten and we spent three summers as CILT counselors together. Mary, Molly, Kristyn and Kelly started out as my campers but quickly became great friends and counselors that I looked up to and admired. Finney Baby and Shelby both got a run in the Longhouse and I laughed till the point of tears with both of them. Colleen and I lived the dream in Teton and later became roommates for two years. Katherine and Amy are two of the sweetest and most patient women you'll ever meet. Emily and Rachel both became my friends quickly on staff and those friendships have lasted years after they stopped wearing those blue staff polos. These are my kind of people.

The dream really is that we'd stay friends for years and years to come. Tecumseh was such a formative part of our past and there's no doubt that it affects what each of us are doing today and where we'll go in the future. Hopefully we'll get to keep on having regular reunions like this in Indy too since Camp Tecumseh Town actually happened.