That next week was my fourth week counseling in a row. We had three cabins of guys, and a new male counselor on staff. I ended up with a group of younger kids, four of whom knew each other, which is always a recipe for trouble. They did fine at activities, but the nights were tough. They were always wired, and had figured out some way to fart on command. (Worst smelling cabin ever) Yes, Jr. High kids can be very immature. At one point, I actually hiked them to the top of the hill around midnight, and had them stand in formation until they could be quiet for five continuous minutes. The nine of them had to stand in a square, far enough apart that they couldn’t touch each other, until they could make it five minutes without someone talking. It took them about an hour to accomplish that, which should illustrate how hyperactive they were, in the middle of the night. Eventually the somewhat mature ones, who want to go to bed, get the rest of them to settle down. And we may have had to do that more than once.
On the ropes course, FX had a climber on the Leap who refused to jump, so eventually he gave the belay line a hard tug. The kid leapt for the trapeze as he got pulled off the platform, and managed to catch it to keep from falling. Once he caught it, he refused to let go. FX wanted to know what to do about that, and I prescribed a little slack and a couple of minutes. Gravity is pretty dependable, and pretty soon the kid was freaking out that his hands were slipping off the bar. Meanwhile we are down there, calmly telling him that we had him, that he could let go anytime, and that the rope will catch him. When he finally lost his grip, he screamed as he free fell…about a foot or two before the rope arrested his fall, as expected.
We had another climber on the same element get tangled up in the extra haul cord from the MVP. By the time I was called over, we was so tangled up, he couldn’t climb any higher, and down would have strangled him, since is was wrapped around has neck somehow. So if he slipped off the staple he was currently standing on, that would have been bad news. I disassembled a couple harnesses, and borrowed some carabineers from other elements to build a makeshift set of lobster claws, and climbed up o rescue him ASAP. It was such a tangled mess that I had to cut the haul cord into pieces to untangle him, but once he was free, he finished the element. And I made sure the MVP cords were tied to the other tree from then onward.
Meanwhile, by Friday night, I had kids pulling down their pants during the serious, introspective, Illuminaria time, and making strange inappropriate jokes that made no sense. There were also constantly little pieces of pinecone getting thrown around at everyone in the dark while we were talking. Lots of accusations flew back and forth, but I never saw anyone doing it, so I figured they must be pretty sneaky, since I was facing everyone. Based on observations a couple days later, I realized there must have been a squirrel up in the tree we were under, probably pulling nuts out of the pinecones, and dropping the leftover fragments on us. Regardless of who was doing it, it was a huge distraction to the conversation.
They were the one cabin I had in all my years at Wild Oak, that I was just not cut out to handle. I have had much bigger issues to deal with, but not ones with which I had less success in overcoming. It was also the only time I had to deal with the issue of drug use while I was counseling, not directly, but talking about it. One of my younger kids had an older brother who didn’t exactly sound like a good influence. It was difficult to ascertain how far down that path my camper had headed, but I advised him as best I could, not being able to relate to that temptation at all. The other counselors talked about dealing with those conversations more frequently, but that is the only serious one I ever had.
I was definitely relieved when that week was over, and we finally got a break during the next all-girls week at Wild Oak. We still had to run activities, but we got to eat with the “big kids” on the deck, and sleep in relative peace. (Or actually sleep at all) It went fairly smoothly, and after we dismissed campfire that Friday evening, I sat around it with Rocky and Kodak, discussing the summer. Suddenly Rocky piped up with: “By the way, it doesn’t matter now, but Kevin got some calls early this week from the parents of the kids in your last cabin. They complained that you were too ‘militant’ and strict, but I talked with Kevin about it, and we think you are doing fine. I just thought you should know.” Not going to deny that one. But it did change my perspective a bit as I prepared to counsel the next week. With only seven kids in my cabin, as opposed to the usual nine that summer, it should be relatively easy, right?
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