Summer Camp, Part Three: Geronimo junior staff- Chapter Five

Today, we reach the thrilling conclusion of my latest summer camp remembrance. For those just coming in, I highly recommend reading the last four posts in advance. Yesterday, I had just finished telling about the weekend and downtime activities.

As I said, Sunday morning was also off-time, and work responsibilities only began with the campwide fire-drill. Staff and campers would assemble as a test of fire-preparedness, then there would be an interminable series of announcements given to the campers after most of the staff had gone to lunch. Following lunch, we would open up our areas. At the Nature Lodge, we did two things in the afternoon: supervise the campers as they looked at and handled the animals, and lead the nature hike. The latter was something each troop had to do to win some award. It was a half-hour hike during which one of us stopped to point out a variety of plants and give a little speech about them. Most treacherous were the blackberries (by a creek with a too-inviting log bridge) and the poison ivy. Every day, we would be assigned to scheduled troops, and seldom escaped it except on our off-days.

Monday morning began the merit badge classes. They each ran an hour long and took place between 8am and noon, with the exception of Astronomy, which of course required a number of night classes. At first, they were all five days long, but some were later shortened. There were lectures, discussions, activities and videos to watch. I learned a lot from the struggles I had teaching those classes. One had to keep the kids in line, and fill the time with substantial lesson plans. Even harder was keeping track of attendance and student achievements. Failing to stay on top of that meant a really hard time finishing the paperwork on Friday. Friday was the worst day in that regard.

It often took the entire afternoon, including most of lunch. I liked to do it outside, since our back room would be too crowded with the entire staff. What was tough was that for much of this time, we were supposed to be running a game for the camp Olympics. Whenever we finished the paperwork, we would file in in our box, and then lead a triumphal procession to the camp headquarters with the box held up high in front, all the while singing "We Are The Champions". Inevitably we would be angrily shushed once inside, as the HQ direct would be on some phone call or doing something else important. In any case, this was a great relief.

The work week finished with the closing campfire. Much of it was tedious and boring, mainly because it consisted largely of the awarding of a lot of prizes and ribbons to campers. Some was interesting, such as shooting range high scores and such, but what was really interesting were the skits and songs the campers themselves came up with. Often they conceived of things much more interesting than us, and we were only too glad to steal what we liked, secure in the knowledge that the outgoing boys would never known and had no recourse in any case. At the conclusion of the campfire, we would hit the camp store for some food- perhaps ice cream or nachos- and then cut loose on Staff Hill to the extent that rules and curfew would allow.

That's how it was until the end of the season. Only when the last troops were gone did we pack things up so they would be secure for the intervening nine or so months. The camp store would give away non-durable foods, we would set our animals free, and a general sadness would wash over the camp as we said goodbye to the place and each other until next time. It occurs to me that I've left out much, but I expect I'll fill in the gaps in time.

When I take up the series again, I'll relate what it was like as I became a more senior member of the staff. As that will likely be as lengthy as this, you can expect that to wait a little while. Tomorrow: Something else!