Finishing out the Summer

I have read books by Navy Seals, and they all dedicate at least a chapter to surviving Hell Week during training.  They seem to think that that short period of time had a significant enough effect on who they are, to dedicate an entire chapter to those five days.  The same is true for me of Mega-Week.  Once my campers where all picked up on Friday night, a huge load had been lifted off my shoulders.  We went on a staff trip that weekend, to go off-roading up in the Sierras.  It was an interesting new experience for me, never having done that before, but with the number of vehicles we broke, it didn’t seem worth it.  I had hiked that same trail in less time than it took us to drive it.  But that was some people’s idea of fun.  And I used to think backpacking was an expensive hobby.

The next week was another all-girl week, and I had been slated to transfer to Buckhorn as a counselor for the younger campers.  But after my adventure with Brandon the previous week, the powers that be had mercy on me, and deeming that I needed a break, sent FX instead.  The week was relatively uneventful, but I got to sit at the “big kid’s table” at meals, and developed closer relationships with other people on the staff.  It is amusing to look back on how much my perception of some of them had changed over the preceding two months.  And now, six years later, most of my close friends are all people who were there with me that summer.

The following week was another new experiment for that summer, Whitewater Camp.  We had a full camp for that new option, and had to once again create a plan from scratch.  We managed to pack a sampling of most of the regular Wild Oak activities into the first two days, before we all got on a bus and headed to the American River.  The sense of responsibility you feel when driving away with 40 kids in a bus, with only 5 other staff members to supervise them, is totally different from the similar situation on camp property.  It was a much less controlled environment, with so many more unknowns.  We did eventually manage to get everyone safely into a boat and onto the river.  This was my first time whitewater rafting as well, so I was as much a participant as an authority.  Luckily we had professional guides in each boat to keep us headed the right direction.  The guides took much of the responsibility for leading the group, allowing the counselors to back off a bit.  But my heart was still in my throat when one of my twelve year old campers fell out of the raft in the first rapids, and went through the rocks on his own.  Not every rough stretch of water was quite that exciting, but we did get more used to it.

One significant thing I learned, was the benefit of camp’s “No Sarcasm” rule.  I was never a big proponent of that idea, as someone who has his own share of sarcasm to dish out.  But there are various forms of sarcasm, one of which (that I don’t use) is basically lying, which doesn’t build trust.  The guides were the most sarcastic people I have every met, and with rafts full of gullible Jr. High aged kids, they had the perfect marks for their “stories” about the river.  I was very conscious of the fact that most everything they said was complete BS, but there was one story that I fell for, about “fish counters,” until the guide the next week told a different story about the same objects (dredges).  It was one of those lightning flash moments, where I realize: of course they were lying, they’re always lying.  How could I have fallen for that story?  But no one besides me even knew, so it didn’t really matter.  But it was an interesting illustration of the effect things like sarcasm can have on the level of trust in a new relationship.  I can now see why camp did not want that to be a factor in the relationships developing between staff and their campers, since the whole objective of the week was for the campers to trust the staff when they made some objectively ridiculous claims about spiritual things.

Anyhow, we spent one night at the edge of the river, and rafted the next day as well.  The counselors got a few hours off that morning, so the five of us went into Placerville, and did what most all staff members do during any time off, eat real food.  The kids played some pretty violent and aggressive games while we were gone, which were NOT repeated the next week, and then we were back in the water for the second day on the river.  I had managed to avoid actually getting in the water the whole trip, until the last hour, when we were in a calm spot, and half of the campers jumped out to swim.  A number of individuals, who will remain unnamed, snuck up underneath my raft, came up behind me, and pulled me in.  I was not amused, not only because it was cold, but because I had a variety of items in my pack that I was trying to keep dry.  Amazingly, my digital camera continued to work after I poured the water out of it and let it dry.  But that was the same camera that had gotten run over by a truck during staff training, and while smashed up, and at least a millimeter thinner, it still took good pictures all summer.  It did not survive another water incident the next week, finally giving up the ghost one day before camp ended for the summer.  It had been through a lot and served me well.  Chris, my kid who tried to get sent home Week3 was back in my cabin that week, with his older brother as well.  His attitude was quite a bit different after his first week with me, and he came back again the following summers as well.

That weekend was the Staff Banquet, as the season drew to a close.  I am not a big fan of fancy events, but I had some good conversations with people, and some of them were already starting to head back to school.  The high adventure was finished, but we had another week of Whitewater Camp, this time running concurrent with usual horse program.  With only one cabin of guys that week, I was looking forward to another DA week, especially since I hadn’t particularly been as excited about whitewater rafting as most of the other staff.  There was one male camper for the horse program that week, and I anticipated supervising him for the two days that the rest of his cabin was on the river.  It seemed like that could be a pretty cool scenario, a cabin of one camper.

Unfortunately, between people leaving, and other issues arising, I found myself with another full cabin of campers, and heading back out onto the river.  BullsEye, the only staff member who didn’t really want to do whitewater, was the only one who ended up going twice.  They even sent some staff members up for a day to do it so they wouldn’t be ‘left out’ since they hadn’t been whitewater counselors either week.  (Life can be rough;)  The one horse camper I left behind was a bit young and immature, so that ‘cabin of one’ might not have been as enjoyable as I had hoped it would be anyway.  Between gospel in the stars on Monday night, Tin Cup Tuesday night, sleeping outside because of the one-on-one ratio Wednesday night, and cabin sleep-out on Thursday night, he hardly spent any time in a cabin.  And he totally hated sleeping outside, so it was a tough week for him, even with all the attention while we were gone.  For me on the river, the trip was pretty similar to the week before, just as cold, but without the novelty of trying something new.  It was kind of a strange way to end the summer, but as soon as it was over, and with the requisite trip to Mongolian BBQ with the staff on Friday night, I was headed down to LA the next morning, back to ‘real-life.’