Night Hikes are Always an Adventure

When campfire was over, Paladin and I collected my cabin members, and we headed off down the trail on our night hike.  I usually take the lead, since I have exceptionally good night vision, but I asked Paladin to take the lead, since I wanted to keep an eye on Brandon, who I had in the back with me.  Now my night hikes are events where I try to teach kids how to adjust to the darkness, develop night vision, look at the stars, etc.  They are definitely not allowed to use flashlights without good reason, and on a few occasions we confiscate them from campers who can’t resist the urge to turn them on.  Within the first two minutes, Brandon has flickered his on once or twice, so I made clear to him and everyone else that we didn’t want that happening.  As we crossed the canal, and turned down Blackberry pass, I saw a few more flickers, and my brain was in overdrive I tried to figure out the best way to deal with the situation, in such a way as to solve the problem, while minimizing the chances of sparking a major confrontation.  While I was trying to figure this out, Paladin had begun to notice the occasional flashes, but since they were coming from behind him, he couldn’t tell who they were coming from.  He implemented his solution much more quickly, by walking back up the line and demanding all of the flashlights.  Brandon was the last one he came to since I had put him in the back of the line, and I had not intervened, since I figured there was a chance that Brandon would cooperate, and the situation would be resolved.  That of course did not happen, and Brandon made a rather clear refusal.  Understandably not ready to accept any direct disrespect from a camper, especially in front of the rest of my cabin, Paladin pursued the issue.  Not wanting to push Brandon into a situation where he would respond violently, I stepped in.

“Hand me your flashlight,” Paladin demanded.  “We told you this would happen.”

“It is my flashlight, and I will do whatever I want with it.”

“Paladin, I will take care of it.  Brandon, we don’t want to see anyone shining a flashlight during this event.  That means I don’t want to see your light on, at all!  Understood?”  “…Okay.”

Paladin was not a fan of letting something like that slip by, but went with me on it.  So we continued onward.  Now it had occurred to me earlier that the usual route that I took my cabin on during a night hike, was very similar to the route Brandon had taken during his little escape attempt a few hours earlier, including the drive back.  Not wanting to create a sort of Deja-Vu situation, since he was the type of guy who would read into that, before we left I had described to Paladin a different path that I wanted to take since he was in the lead.

Eventually we reached the paved road that leads up the hill from the ropes course, and we regrouped to begin the next part of the hike, where each of the kids hikes the stretch of path by themselves, to build confidence about being alone in the dark.  One staff member takes the lead and the other waits with the rest of the group in the back, releasing them one at a time every few minutes to follow.  I wanted to keep a close eye on Brandon, for reasons that should be obvious, so I sent Paladin up the hill first.  I sent everyone else up one at a time over the next few minutes, keeping Brandon there until the end.  Once I sent him up, I waited until he was near the range of my vision before starting after him, but I kept him in sight the entire way up the hill, and found Paladin and the rest of the group sitting at the edge of the road by the archery range.  It was at this point that Brandon decided that it was a good time to get a drink from the vending machine next to the Canteen.  “Hey, I am going to go buy a Powerade.”

My first response was fairly cautious, “Brandon, how about we not do that right now.”

“I am thirsty.  I will be back in a minute.”

Paladin had heard about enough talking back from this kid, and stepped in, “Hey, get back here, where do you think you are going?”

“I will take care of it Paladin.”  I stepped towards Brandon as he headed past me to the Canteen, and accompanied him in that direction while I talked with him, trying to regain some semblance of control over the situation.  Campers are not allowed to have cash on them at camp, for reasons including but not limited to: we don’t want to have a camper leaving the rest of the group to go buy a drink in the middle of the night.  I am sure this is one of many things that was bothering Paladin about the situation, but once again he backed off and let me handle it.

I was also very aware that the steps I would have to take to enforce a denial of his request to go buy a drink would not be worth the likely result.  Recalling Mr. Hassler’s advice from earlier in the evening, and observing that Brandon was becoming more irritable and less cooperative, I figured it wouldn’t really be such a bad idea get something in his stomach.  I told him, “that’s fine go ahead on get a drink down there, but hurry up, we need to be heading back.”

Paladin approached me as soon as Brandon headed down towards the Canteen, and we had a quick chat in hushed tones.  “What is going on?  He can’t DO that!”

“Don’t worry, I have things under control.”

“But he…You can’t-“

“-I’ve got it.  We have been instructed to show patience with him.” (That and I didn’t want a violent confrontation)

“Instructions from who?”

“Kevin…and Mr. Hassler,” which was a technically correct, but somewhat misleading statement, which I feel was justified at the time, but ultimately was used in other contexts later in the week.

“Alright, but I don’t like what is happening,” he replied.

“I know.”  At this point, I was totally overlooking the fact that Paladin hadn’t heard the story of what had happened earlier, and while he must have heard that something happened, he never would have guessed the magnitude of the incident.  As part of what became one of the largest communication breakdowns at camp that summer, I didn’t realize that he was totally in the dark about this for the entire rest of the week.

With that, went back and collected the rest of the cabin and started heading up the hill, picking up Brandon by the Canteen on the way.  It was a straight hike up the road, to the open field at the crest of the hill above Wild Oak, by the hay barn.  At that point we all took a seat in a circle on the ground, and had a talk about the stars, the universe, creation, God, and a few other things.  Brandon kept his inappropriate insights to a minimum, and the discussion carried on as it usually does.  Right as we were finishing, I saw Rocky drive by, returning to camp after his class, so I was anticipating a conversation with him upon our return.  We hiked down the last stretch of road into camp, and headed into the cabin.